KECKSBURG.

Local volunteer firefighter James Romansky and other residents who reached the woods before authorities arrived described an object roughly the size of a small car, acorn or bell-shaped, made of bronze-coloured metal, with a band of hieroglyphic-like markings near its base. Within hours, US Army personnel arrived in force, sealed the woods, and — according to multiple local accounts including those of WHJB radio reporter John Murphy — recovered an object on a flatbed truck.

Murphy collected witness statements and photographs at the scene. He produced a radio documentary, "Object in the Woods," whose master tapes were later confiscated by men he described as government officials; the broadcast version aired in heavily edited form. Murphy was killed in a hit-and-run in California in 1969 under circumstances researchers have flagged as unusual.

In 2003, the Sci-Fi Channel funded a NASA Freedom of Information Act lawsuit pursued by journalist Leslie Kean, which compelled NASA to search for documentation. NASA eventually claimed the relevant boxes had gone missing. A federal judge in 2009 ordered NASA to perform additional searches but no records confirming or denying a recovery have been produced. Kecksburg is sometimes called "Pennsylvania's Roswell" — a comparison strengthened by both the persistence of witness accounts and the documented record of unsuccessful FOIA pursuits.