Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

You’d think flames coming from the sky would be a big deal. You’d think this would be a huge story, with everyone talking about it and rushing to witness it.

But then, YOU have a wild imagination.

This actually happened fifty-five years ago, and barely made a ripple. I thought about it recently when I was giving a talk on strange weather phenomenon at the Community Center. (If you haven’t come to any of my lunch talks there, you ought to consider it.) I re-read the newspaper article, and it was a small piece buried on page four. The lack of attention paid to this thing is almost stranger than the fireballs coming from the sky.

It happened just after midnight on April 4, 1968. It was down on the east end of Lock Haven. (I am now going to get a TON of hate mail for my calling it the “East End” instead of “First Ward.” This happens every time I use that phrase. Some of you people are oddly obsessed with the first ward, you know that?) It was near the airport, on land owned by farmer Guy Haines.

Lewis DeHaas of Castanea was working a night shift at Pipe Aircraft. At about twelve-thirty in the morning, he happened to be looking through the glass doors of his office when he saw something strange. He described it as “About a dozen balls of fire darting from the sky like the shots from a Roman candle.”

The fireballs were of several different colors, as if this wasn’t weird enough already, and somewhere around the size of grapefruits. DeHaas noted that there was no storm, and not even any rain that night. “It was just clouding over,” he said later.

The fireballs hit the ground, scattering around a large, “partially dead” tree that sat on the farmland near the Penn Central Railroad tracks. After a pause of about two minutes, the fireballs set the tree on fire, and it began to burn.

DeHaas watched it for a moment, and then calmly went back to work.

The newspaper noted that DeHaas watched for a little while before deciding it wasn’t particularly necessary to call in a fire alarm, or even let anyone know that fireballs had ignited a nearby tree. I think I’d have probably mentioned it to someone, but then I’ve been known to panic over these things.

DeHaas got sprung from work at five-thirty in the morning. On his way home, he drove past the tree in his car, and saw that the tree was still on fire, and the grass surrounding it had been burned. And then he went home, with only a short pause to call the local newspaper and report the incident.

And the newspaper buried it in a small article on page four.

That’s the part that completely short-circuits my mind: How little anyone cared about colorful fireballs shooting from the sky to burn the trees. Personally, I think I’d be running for my camera, and then a phone, ready to report and document the hell out of this thing. Fireballs from the sky would get me ten kinds of excited, but nobody seemed to really be all that concerned with it in 1968.

At any rate, the fireballs did no damage except for the tree. And there was never any explanation found for them, that I could find, and no real follow-up from anyone involved. The whole thing remains one of Clinton County’s persistent mysteries. Not that anyone cares.