A UFO sighting by the crew of an Army Reserve helicopter (including Captain Lawrence Coyne) occurred during the night of 18th-19th October 1973 over the Mansfield, Ohio area whilst on route from Columbus to Cleveland. (Commonly referred to as “the Coyne helicopter sighting” or “the
This incident is Case 25 in Isaac Koi's "Top 100" article, since it was referred to in 73 of the books covered by that article.
The National Enquirer reported on 23 June 1974 that it was awarding the relevant helicopter crew $5,000 for supplying the most scientifically valuable UFO evidence in 1973, following the recommendations of the members of its “blue ribbon” panel of UFO experts.
This incident featured in a list of the ten “best” case published by Ronald Story in his book “UFOs and the Limits of Science” (1981).
Web Resources
For links to various relevant documents and articles online see:
http://www.nicap.org/coynedir.htmThis incident is discussed on the AboveTopSecret.com (“ATS”) internet discussion forums in Thread 171879.
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Book References
For discussion of the Coyne, Mansfield helicopter encounter see the following:
Year |
Discussion by:
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No. of Pages |
Baker, Alan in his “Sci-Fi Channel: True Life Encounters: UFO Sightings” (1997) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 192-193 (in Chapter 7) of the Orion softcover edition. |
2 |
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Berliner, Don with Galbraith, Marie and Huneeus, Antonio in their “UFO Briefing Document : The Best Available Evidence“ (1995) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 158-159 (in Part 3:Quotations, section entitled “Governments”) of the Dell paperback edition. |
2 |
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Birnes, William in his “The UFO Magazine UFO Encyclopedia” (2004) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 200-201 (in an entry entitled “Mansfield, Ohio, Army Helicopter Case”) of the Pocket Books softcover edition. |
2 |
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Blum, Ralph and Blum, Judy in their “Beyond Earth: Man’s Contact with UFOs” (1974) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 193-194 (in Chapter 16), 197, 200, 203-204 (in Chapter 17) of the Bantam paperback edition (with the same page numbering in the Corgi paperback edition). |
6 |
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Blundell, Nigel and Boar, Roger in “The World’s Greatest Alien Abduction Mysteries” (2001) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 430 (in the chapter entitled “Encounters of the Aerial Kind”) of the Chancellor Press softcover edition. |
1 |
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Blundell, Nigel and Boar, Roger in their “The World’s Greatest UFO Mysteries” (1986) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 169-170 (in the chapter entitled “Encounters of the Aerial Kind”) of the Octopus hardback edition (with the same page numbering in the Hamlyn softcover edition). |
2 |
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Brookesmith, Peter in his “UFO: The Complete Sightings Catalogue” (1995) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 107 (in Chapter 5) of the BCA hardback edition (with the same page numbering in the Blitz hardback edition, and in the Barnes & Noble hardback edition published under the title “UFO: The Complete Sightings”). |
1 |
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Brookesmith, Peter in his “UFO: The Government Files” (1996) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 74-75 (in Chapter 4) of the Parragon hardback edition. |
2 |
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Clark, Jerome in his “Strange Skies: Pilot Encounters with UFOs” (2003) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 197-201 (in Chapter 8) of the Citadel softcover edition. |
5 |
|
Clark, Jerome in his “The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial” (1998) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 114-119 (in an entry entitled “Coyne CE2”) of the Visible Ink Press softcover edition. |
6 |
|
Clark, Jerome in his “The UFO Encyclopedia: 1st edition: Volume 3 – High Strangeness” (1996) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 121-126 (in an entry entitled “Coyne CE2”) also briefly discussed at page 78 (in an entry entitled “Close Encounters of the Second Kind”) of the Omnigraphics hardback edition.. |
7 |
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Clark, Jerome in his “The UFO Encyclopedia: The Phenomenon from the Beginning - 2nd edition” (1998) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) in Volume 1:A-K at pages 254-257 (in an entry entitled “Coyne CE2”) of the Omnigraphics hardback edition. |
4 |
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Dash, Mike in his “Borderlands” (1997) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 136-138 (in Chapter 4) of the Arrow paperback edition. |
3 |
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Davenport, Marc in his “Visitors from Time” (1992) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 166, 167 (in Chapter 12) of the 1994 revised Greenleaf softcover edition. |
2 |
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Devereux, Paul and Brookesmith, Peter in their “UFOs and Ufology – the first 50 years” (1997) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 51 (in Chapter 4) of the Blandford softcover edition. |
1 |
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Dolan, Richard M in his “UFOs and the National Security State: Volume 1: 1941-1973” (2000) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 482-483 (in Chapter 9) of the Keyhole softcover edition, at pages 383-384 of the 2002 revised Hampton Road softcover edition. |
2 |
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Emenegger, Robert in his “UFOs Past, Present and Future” (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 116-123 (in Chapter 17 generally) of the silver covered Ballantine paperback edition first printing, at pages 135-142 of the blue covered Ballantine paperback edition eighth printing. |
8 |
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Fawcett, George and Greenwood, Barry in their “Clear Intent” (1984) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 239 (in Appendix A) of the Spectrum softcover edition (with the same page numbering in the Fireside softcover edition published under the title “The UFO Cover-Up”). |
1 |
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Flammonde, Paris in his “Ufo Exist!” (1976) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 380-382 (in Chapter 19) of the Ballantine Books paperback edition. |
3 |
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Fowler, Raymond E in his “Casebook of a UFO Investigator” (1981) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 83-84 (in Chapter 8) of the Prentice-Hall hardback edition. |
2 |
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Fowler, Raymond E in his “The Watchers“ (1990) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 188-190 (in Chapter 9) of the Bantam paperback edition. |
2 |
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Fowler, Raymond E in his “UFOs: Interplanetary Visitors” (1974) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 319-320 (in Chapter 16) of the Exposition Banner hardback edition, at pages 309-310 of the Bantam paperback edition. |
2 |
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Garrett, Richard in his “Aliens From Outer Space” (1983) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 58-59 (in Chapter 4) of the Piccolo paperback edition. |
2 |
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Gelman, Rita and Seligson, Marcia in their “UFO Encounters” (1978) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 20-21 (in Chapter 4) of the Scholastic softcover edition. |
2 |
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Good, Timothy in his “Above Top Secret” (1987) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 295-296 (in Chapter 12) of the Sidgwick & Jackson hardback edition (with the same page numbering in the Guild Publishing hardback edition and the Grafton paperback edition). |
2 |
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Good, Timothy in his “Beyond Top Secret” (1996) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 375-378, 379 (in Chapter 15) of the Sidgwick & Jackson hardback edition (with the same page numbering in the Pan paperback edition). |
5 |
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Hall, Michael David in his “UFOs : A Century of Sightings” (1999) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 310-311 (in Chapter 8) of the Galde Press softcover edition. |
2 |
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Hall, Richard in his “Uninvited Guests” (1988) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 35-36 (in Chapter 1), 271-272 (in Appenix A) of the Aurora Press paperback edition. |
4 |
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Hansen, Kim in “UFO: 1947-1987” (1987) (edited by Hilary Evans with John Spencer) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 82-85 (in Chapter 2.3.2, entitled “UFO Casebook”) of the Fortean Tomes softcover edition. |
4 |
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Hickson, Charles and Mendez, William in their “UFO Contact at Pascagoula” (1983) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 158-160 (in Chapter 5) of the Stevens hardback edition. |
3 |
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Holroyd, Stuart in his “Alien Intelligence” (1979) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 195-196 (in Chapter 7) of the David & Charles hardback edition. |
2 |
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Hynek, J Allen in Jean-Claude Bourret’s “The Crack in the Universe” (1977) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 193-194 (in Part 4) of the Neville Spearman hardback edition. |
2 |
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Klass, Philip J in “UFOs – The Public Deceived” (1983) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 135-146, 147-160 (Chapter 16 generally, “Army Helicopter Encounter I”, Chapter 17 generally, “Army Helicopter Encounter II”) of the Prometheus softback edition. |
26 |
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Klass, Philip J in “Science and the Paranormal” (1981) (edited by Abell, George O and Singer, Barry) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 319-326 (in Chapter 18) of the Junction Books hardback edition. |
8 |
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Klass, Philip J in his “UFOs Explained” (1974) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 333-346 (Chapter 29 generally, “Army Helicopter Incident: Best Case of 1973”) of the Random House hardback edition, at pages 395-411 of Random House paperback edition. |
14 |
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Knight, David C in his “UFOs: A pictorial history from antiquity to the present” (1979) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 176-177 (in Part 4) of the McGraw Hill hardback edition. |
2 |
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Koerner, David & LeVay, Simon in their “Here Be Dragons” (2000) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 190-192 (in Chapter 8) of the Oxford softcover edition. |
3 |
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Macvey, John W in his “Interstellar Travel” (1977) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 270 (in Chapter 15) of the Avon paperback edition. |
1 |
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McWane, Glenn & Graham, Davis in their “The New UFO Sightings” (1974) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 17-18 (in Chapter 1) of the Warner paperback edition. |
2 |
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Moseley, James and Pflock, Karl in their “Shockingly Close to the Truth!” (2002) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 228 (in Chapter 10) of the Prometheus hardback edition. |
1 |
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Oberg, James in his “UFOs and Outer Space Mysteries” (1982) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 7 (in the Introduction) of the Donning paperback edition. |
1 |
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Randles, Jenny and Fuller, Paul in their “Crop Circles : A Mystery Solved” (1990) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 193 (in Chapter 11) of the Hale softcover edition. |
1 |
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Randles, Jenny in “The UFO Conspiracy” (1987) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 102-105 (in Chapter 17) of the Barnes & Noble hardback edition. |
4 |
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Randles, Jenny in her “The Little Giant Encyclopedia of UFOs” (2000) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 81 (in Part 1, “A UFO Timeline”), 402 (in Part 3, “UFOs Worldwide”) of the Sterling softcover edition. |
2 |
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Rehn, K Gosta in his “UFOs Here and Now” (1974) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 132-134 (in the unnumbered chapter entitled “Recent Observations”) of the Abelard-Schuman hardback edition. |
3 |
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Ross, Daniel in his “UFOs and the Complete Evidence from Space: The Truth About Venus, Mars and the Moon” (1987) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 37-38 (in Chapter 2) of the Pintado softcover edition. |
2 |
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Ross, Hugh in “Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men” (2002) (edited by Ross, Hugh and Samples, Kenneth and Clark, Mark) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 69 (in Chapter 6) of the Navpress softcover edition. |
1 |
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Rux, Bruce in his “Architects of the Underworld” (1996) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 74 (in Chapter 3) of the Frog softcover edition. |
1 |
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Sachs, Margaret and Jahn, Ernest in their “Celestial Passengers – UFOs & Space Travel” (1977) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 154-155 (Chapter 26 generally) of the Penguin paperback edition. |
2 |
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Sachs, Margaret in her “The UFO Encyclopedia“ (1980 (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 187-188 (in an entry entitled “Mansfield, Ohio”), ix (included in a list entitled “Chronological list of UFO sightings”) of the Corgi softback edition. |
3 |
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Salisbury, Frank in his “The Utah UFO Display: A Biologist’s Report” (1974) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 275-277 (in Appendix E) of the Devin Adair hardback edition. |
3 |
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Smith, Marcia S in her “The UFO Enigma: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, UG 633, 76-52 SP” (1976) at pages 96-97 (in Chapter 6) of the Congressional Research Service stapled edition. |
2 |
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Smith, Susy in her “Strangers from Space” (1977) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 117-118 (in Chapter 14) of the Manor paperback edition. |
2 |
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Spencer, John and Spencer, Anne in their “Fifty Years of UFOs” (1997) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 87-88 (in the unnumbered chapter entitled “1967-1977”) of the Boxtree hardback edition. |
2 |
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Spencer, John in his “The UFO Encyclopedia” (1991) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 84-85 (in an entry entitled “Coyne, Captain Lawrence J”) of the Guild hardback edition (with the same page numbering in the Avon softcover edition) at page 97 of the Headline paperback edition. |
2 |
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Spencer, John in his “UFOs: The Definitive Casebook” (1991) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 60-61 (in the unnumbered section entitled “North America”, in the chapter entitled “Database”) of the Hamlyn hardback edition. |
2 |
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Spencer, John Wallace in his “No Earthly Explanation” (1974) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 102-105 (in Chapter 5) of the Corgi paperback edition. |
4 |
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Stoneley, Jack and Lawton, A T in their “CETI: Communication with Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence” (1976) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 203-204 (in Chapter 26) of the Star Books paperback edition. |
2 |
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Story, Ronald in his “UFOs and the Limits of Science” (1981) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 163-167 (in Chapter 12 generally), 21-22 (included in a list of ten “best” cases) of the NEL Hardback edition. |
7 |
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Strickland, Joshua in his “Extra-terrestrials on Earth” (1977) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 39-40 (in Chapter 3) of the Granada softcover edition. |
2 |
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Stringfield, Leonard H in his “Situation Red: The UFO Siege” (1977) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 217-220, 224, 225 (in Chapter 10) of the Fawcett paperback edition. |
6 |
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Sturrock, Peter in his “The UFO Enigma“ (1999) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 90-92 (in Chapter 12) of the Warner Aspect hardback edition. The relevant chapter is available online at: http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/articles/ufo_reports/sturrock/3.html#9 |
3 |
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Thompson, Keith in his “Angels and Aliens: UFOs and the Mythic Imagination” (1991) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 103-106 (in Chapter 9) of the Fawcett softcover edition. |
4 |
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Thompson, Richard in his “Alien Identities: Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Pheonemena” (1993) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 129 (in Chapter 4), 354-355 (in Chapter 10) of the GHP revised softcover edition. |
3 |
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Time-Life (Editors of) in “The UFO phenomenon: Mysteries of the Unknown” (1987) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 126-127 (in Chapter 5) of the Time-Life Book hardback edition. |
2 |
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Trench, Brinsley Le Poer in his “Secret of the Ages: UFOs from Inside the Earth” (1974) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 176 (in Chapter 31) of the Panther paperback edition. |
1 |
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Vallee, Jacques in his “Forbidden Science : Volume 2 (Journals 1970-1979)” (2008) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 448 of the Documatica Research hardback edition. |
1 |
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Weldon, John and Levitt, Zola in their “Encounters With UFOs“ (1975) (formerly “UFOs, What on Earth is Happening?”) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 54 (in Chapter 3) of the Harvest House paperback edition. |
1 |
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Zeidman, Jennie in “The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters” (2001) (edited by Ronald Story) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 143-145 (in an entry entitled “Coyne (Mansfield, Ohio) helicopter case”) of the New American Library softcover edition, at pages 140-143 of the pdf edition (with the same page numbering in the Microsoft Word edition). |
3 |
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Zeidman, Jennie in “The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters” (2001) (edited by Ronald Story) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 173-175 (in an entry entitled “Coyne (Mansfield, Ohio) helicopter case”) of the Robinson softcover edition. |
3 |
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Zeidman, Jennie in “The UFO Evidence: Volume 2 – A Thirty Year Report” (2001) (edited by Richard Hall) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 17 (in the unnumbered chapter entitled “Master Chronology”), 81-86 (in Section 2, “Military Witnesses”) of the Scarecrow Press hardback edition. |
7 |
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Zeidman, Jennie in her “A Helicopter-UFO Encounter over Ohio” (1979) generally, particularly at pages ix-xii, 1-122 of the CUFOS paperbound edition. |
126 |
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Zeidman, Jennie in Peter Sturrock’s “The UFO Enigma“ (1999) (with images of various documents and reports ) at pages 298-372 (in Chapter 29 generally, “The Mansfield, Ohio, Case”) of the Warner Aspect hardback edition. (The relevant chapter is based on Jennie Zeidman’s “A Helicopter-UFO Experience over Ohio”, CUFOS Report.) |
75 |
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Ziedman, Jennie in “The Encyclopedia of UFOs” (1980) (edited by Ronald Story) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 93-95 (in an entry entitled “Coyne (Mansfield, Ohio) helicopter incident”) of the NEL hardback edition. |
3 |
Other Material