The John F. Reeves "Robot" Landing, Brooksville

Spring 1965. The United States was in the middle of a wave of UFO reports that would also produce the 1966 Michigan "swamp gas" sightings. John F. Reeves, 66, was a retired longshoreman. He lived on acreage between Brooksville and Weeki Wachee in Hernando County, Florida, next to a service-station grocery run by John "Red" Wells.

March 2, 1965. Mid-afternoon. Reeves was hunting snakes in the scrub near his home. In front of him stood a flying saucer on four legs. It was bluish green and reddish purple, about 30 ft across, with a spiral staircase and "a lot of little blades around the rim."

A figure approached, to within about 15 ft. Reeves called it robot-like. It was about 5 ft tall, in a silver-grey suit of "canvas material," thin white gloves and metallic-looking boots, with a cylinder on its back and a glass dome over its head. The face was human enough. Darkly tanned. Wide-set eyes. A pointed chin.

It raised a black sphere and set off a blinding flash. Then another. Reeves turned to run, stumbled and fell. His glasses dropped. The robot picked them up and handed them back.

It went back aboard. The little blades moved like the slats of a Venetian blind. The rim turned counterclockwise. With a whooshing, rumbling sound the stilts retracted and the saucer rose straight up into a cloudless sky. It was gone in less than ten seconds.

Reeves walked into the Wells store and said he had just seen a saucer land. The next day he told the story on St. Petersburg radio WFFB. Wells later said three different people claimed to have witnessed it too. None was named. At the site were footprints about 10 inches long and four holes in a square. There were also two folded sheets of thin, tissue-like paper covered in symbols that looked like Chinese letters.

1st Lt. Edward R. Goettl came from MacDill AFB with three enlisted men. He said the paper "looks similar to silk span paper used to construct model aeroplanes" and rated Reeves's reliability "doubtful." Document examiner Elizabeth McCarthy traced the symbols to an ordinary No 4 pencil. C. W. Bemiss, a civilian scientist at Patrick AFB, found no radiation. NICAP sent its own investigators. Two polygraphs disagreed. E. J. Edwards said Reeves "truthfully answered all questions." Tampa operator David Allison concluded he was lying.

Project Blue Book ruled the case a hoax. The landing holes looked "scooped or dug." The symbols were a simple substitution code in English, addressed to "Planet Mars" and asking "Why did you stay away too long?" NICAP, under Richard Hall, also concluded it was a hoax. Reeves replied that the Air Force had swapped his papers for fakes before returning them.

Reeves reported a second landing in December 1966. In 1968 he claimed a trip to the far side of the Moon, then a journey to "Moniheya," which he identified as Venus. He built a full-size spaceship in his yard and became known as "the Brooksville spaceman." He lived to 102. Jerome Clark covered the case in The UFO Encyclopedia. Marker 48 Brewing in Weeki Wachee now brews "The John Reeves Incident," and a 2023 short film retells the encounter.