TRIBUNE-REVIEW, Greensburg, PA-Sept. 15, 1990
By Sharon Santus
Tribune Review
A Derry man who maintains he saw an unidentified flying
object after it allegedly landed in Kecksburg 25 years ago
said he is fed up with those who scoff at his account.
James Romansky, 44, of Derry, publicly came forward a
few weeks ago to tell his story.
Since then, a group of Kecksburg property owners have
accused Romansky and another alleged witness of perpetrating
a hoax.
A re-creation of the alleged landing will appear on
NBC's "Unsolved Mysteries" Wednesday at 8 p.m., and the
property owners say their community could owners say their
community could be deluged with hoards of sightseers.
Just before sundown on Dec. 9, 1965, witnesses reported
seeing a fiery orange object streak across the sky over
Michigan, the tip of Ontario and western Lake Erie. The
fireball continued its descent and was spotted over
Westmoreland County skies. Some witnesses said it landed in
a wooded area near Kecksburg.
Romansky, who was an 18-year-old Lloydsville firemen at
the time of the incident, said he and four other volunteers
drove to Kecksburg late that afternoon after hearing a report
about a downed plane.
Romansky, a machinist with Latrobe Die Casting Co., said
firemen were organized into search parties and began
patrolling the Kecksburg countryside.
He said his group was notified that another search party
found the downed aircraft, and, when his crew arrived at the
scene, they discovered a bizarre sight.
"We couldn't believe what we saw," Romansky said. "It
was no plane. There were no wings, no tail section, no
portholes or doors."
Romansky described the object as 8 feet in diameter, 12
feet long and acorn-shaped. He said it had a copper/bronze
finish and was wrapped with a band of strange letters that
looked like hieroglyphics.
He said he and other firemen stood about four feet from
the object for about a half-hour until two men who appeared
to be from the military ordered them away.
Other witnesses said an empty, military transport truck
drove to the scene and left some time later with a tarpaulin-
covered object on the back.
But the Kecksburg property owners say Romansky and
another man who said he saw the alleged object are
fabricating the incident.
They say an object may have passed over the area that
night but never landed anywhere near Kecksburg.
"These people are letting themselves wide open for a
slander suit," Romansky said. "They're making out I'm some
kind of liar, faker or idiot."
While his account may differ from that of the property
owners, Romansky said, he doesn't feel he should be subjected
to ridicule.
"They don't have to run me into the ground," he said.
"I don't do that to them."
Romansky said he had never met the other witness to the
alleged landing until a few weeks ago, but their accounts to
investigators over the years were strikingly similar.
"We described the exact location where this thing came
down, the color, shape, markings, everything was similar,"
Romansky said. "I saw what I saw, and no one can tell me
different."
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