Brenda Maria's encounter with a UFO was almost too close for comfort. It happened in the grounds of the local high school in Beverly, Massachusetts.
At 9 pm on Friday, April 22, 1966, her neighbour's daughter, 11-year-old Nancy Modugno, burst into the room where her father was watching television, claiming that an oval, football- shaped object, the size of a big car, had just flown past her bedroom window, flashing green, blue, white and red lights.
When Brenda and another neighbour, Barbara Smith, arrived, Nancy was almost hysterical. Lights could still be seen flashing form the direction of the nearby school fields, but the two women, now joined by the girls' mother, Claire, suggested walking down there to put the child's mind at rest and prove that what she had seen was an aircraft.
On reaching the fields, however, they saw three brilliantly lit, oval, plate-like objects flying in circles around the sky. One hovered over the school building, the others were farther away. Suddenly, the nearest UFO began to move towards them. Claire and Barbara turned tail and ran, failing at first to realize that Brenda was not with them. Eventually, at the top of a rise, they turned to witness a terrifying sight. Brenda was screaming and covering her head with her hands, and the object was hovering only 20 feet above her.
'All I could see was a blurry atmosphere and bright lights flashing slowly round above my head,' she recalled later. 'I was very, very excited - not scared - very curious. But I was afraid it might crash on my head.'
When the UFO soared back towards the school , the three women raced back to their homes to alert neighbours, several of whom also saw the objects. One called the police. Two officers arrived in a patrol car, and drove into the school grounds while HQ alerted the Air Force.
At the sound of two approaching planes and a helicopter, the three UFOs flew away. The neighbours were certain, from the lights and engine noises of the investigating planes, that the objects they had seen were no ordinary aircraft. For they had been completely silent - even when hovering right above Brenda Maria's head.
