In the early morning hours of January 24, 2009 Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Service was awakened from a sound sleep by a telephone call on the UFO reporting hotline. On the other end was Tim Brandt of the Dixon Weather Service, Dixon, Missouri.   According to Brandt he and two other people saw a bright light land in a field between Brinktown and Dixon.  Peter Davenport contacted me and Ted Phillips the next day to see if we could investigate this sighting.

I immediately contacted the MIG investigator for Maries County. He stated that he knew the witness and the family and expressed reservations about the report from the beginning.  He said Tim had a “reputation” in Dixon. I told him to treat Tim like any other witness and not let anything he knew about Tim in the past influence how he handled the investigation. I convinced him to take the case even though he really didn’t want to. 

Tim didn’t know exactly where he had first seen the UFO or where it had landed. You would think that living in the area and being a “storm chaser” he would be intimately familiar with the area and be able to spot the “landing site” immediately.  I emailed Tim repeatedly asking for a map of the area, I told him how to use Google Maps, everything I could do to get an idea of the area but he would never comply.  

On January 29, Tim mentioned that four other people had reported seeing lights that night but he would not give me contact info. It was also at this time that our investigator began distancing himself from Tim. Our investigator said he was having a hard time meeting with Tim; that Tim had been standing him up. He would call Tim and Tim would not call back. On January 31, I received an email telling me, “The investigation is now yours.  I wash my hands of the whole affair“.  On February 4, our investigator told Tim he was dropping the investigation and he would need to contact me in the future.

I understand the psychology of the hoaxer now.  When it seems to him/her that they are loosing their audience they create corroborating witnesses

On February 8, we received a report on the MIG website Event Report Form from VS with the IP address: 174.131.236.128. Then on February 13, we received another report on the website from RY with the IP address: 174.131.236.128.  On February 15, Tim Brandt filed his own January 24, report using our MIG website report form, the IP address was: 174.131.236.128. Unfortunately I did not notice that the IP addresses were the same and had come from Brandt's computer or this investigation would have come to a screeching halt.  Then on February 20, I received an email from Brandt claiming to have personally spoken with a witness, DT, regarding seeing a bright light at his home; it was quite a detailed report. Brandt told me he gave DT our website address and asked him to file a report. The IP address on this email from Brandt’s computer was 174.131.231.111. (This IP address shows up on 2/26 as a final fake report from Brandt.) 

At this point I still believed Brandt and with three additional reports, one purporting to include the observation of a creature, on February 21, I contacted Gary Hart, who made the long trip from Illinois to Dixon, Missouri to investigate what seemed to be a mini-flap. I decided to write letters to the other witnesses (VS, RY and DT) who had made reports.  I was hoping to get some kind of correlation on the sightings and more people for Gary Hart to talk to when he got to Dixon.  If this all worked out, we would then notify Ted Phillips and get a joint effort going with our two groups.

END Pt. 1   

Part 2: Hart Report