It was a warm December night in 1965. I was 14 years old and my cousin John was 12 years old as we left my house to sneak a few cigarettes down the alley. We lived in the suburban community of Bridgeville; 12 miles southwest of downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We came to this lithographic building which had a loading dock in the back. It was the perfect place to sit and smoke in secret. We knew we had to leave soon. The time was getting late into the evening. But, before we made our way back to my house: 
 
Something pierced the night’s sky over my left shoulder. Our heads turned to the left and our eyes could not help but notice a bright ball of light! Both John and I were stunned. Our mouths dropped. The object was about the size of a full moon and it trailed sparks or little bits of light. The odd thing about it was the thing did not fall straight down. The UFO went laterally; sideways; almost up! Whatever this was...it could not have been a meteor. A shooting star (or space debris) falls down. A natural object does not move horizontally. Meteors do not go up. 
 
There was no sound. We could not tell its distance from us since the object appeared just like a big dot of light. This was no saucer with lights or any kind of features. The entire sighting lasted for approximately 5 seconds. Then, the object passed over the southern hill; behind the trees of what was called Cook School hill. 
 
John and I immediately reacted. We ran to my house very excited. My father, an old skeptic, thought we were crazy. UFOs were not a part of his belief-system. Nevertheless, I convinced him to drive us up to the top of the hill and check to see if anything came down there. At the time, my cousin and I thought the thing could have hit somewhere around Cook School. My father humored us and drove us around. We saw nothing strange. This convinced my dad that there was nothing to this UFO business. ’Ah, UFOs’ he said in disbelief and had a good laugh at my expense. 
 
Thirty-eight years had passed. I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore. I had seen a number of UFOs in my life. When looking back at the past, I almost did not put this experience in with those other unexplainables. Probably, the reason was it did resemble a close meteor fall. I assumed this was merely a natural event and was nothing extraterrestrial. 
 
Very recently, on television’s Sci-Fi Channel, they showed previews of ’Kecksberg Exposed.’ This was a 2-hour special hosted by Bryan Gumbel. I looked forward to this because they were calling it the ’new Roswell’ and it happened in the Pittsburgh area; my home town. Minutes into the show, my mouth dropped (as it did 38 years ago) and I said ’Oh, my freaking God.’ I saw the Kecksberg UFO! 
 
I certainly should have heard of this event and I’m a little ashamed that I’m not that up on UFO history. Actually, I’m glad that I didn’t put 2 and 2 together before this point because that would have lessened the revelation that occurred during the documentary. The most compelling factors in the show that led me to conclude I saw it was: 1) This was the time I had my sighting; late one warm December night in 1965. 2) Kecksberg is 25 miles southwest of Pittsburgh; Bridgeville is 12 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. The object moved south and it appeared to us to pass over the southern hill. 3) The UFO, according to all reports, did look similar to a meteor. 
 
In an old newsreel film, an interviewer asked a very young Kecksberg resident: ’What did it look like?’ The boy answered: ’A star on fire.’ A street in the small farming town of Kecksberg was named METEOR Street because of this encounter with the object. People who were able to get a good look at it said that it was acorn-shaped. An acorn monument was erected in the town and stands to this day.  
 
The first reports came out of Canada and the thing in the night’s sky continued southward. The UFO buzzed the Pittsburgh area and turned...which, of course, indicates that it was not a natural phenomena. Thousands of reports flooded into news agencies. KDKA received hundreds of calls alone. If I was only mature enough, I would have searched through newspapers the next day. This would have told me that my cousin and I were not alone in our observation. 
 
Kecksberg was another Roswell because the military was dispatched. Oncemore...government agents, soldiers, Men in Black converged on a small American town. Guns were pointed at citizens; people’s lives were threatened; there were ’radiation’ scares; and authorities told people to lie. People witnessed that federal ’suits’ seemed to give orders to the military.  
 
This convergence of government officials does not happen when a meteor falls to Earth. Of course, there are those that will say the Kecksberg UFO was a piece of Soviet intelligence...and that was the reason for military intervention. The same was said about Roswell.  
 
A large, flatbed truck was seen entering the wooded area where the thing seemed to come to a soft landing. The truck was empty when it went in and covered when it left. To this day, the Kecksberg controversy rages on as townspeople are divided as to what really occurred. Some deny the fallen object and that feds made any appearance at all. Others claim to have had been in direct contact with government intimidation.  
 
This writer is very pleased that something did happen at Kecksberg. I wish my father was alive so I could tell him that I was not crazy. Or...look dad; there are many others that are just as crazy as I am.