The Elmwood Roadside Landing

Carol Forster said the light she had taken for a low star dropped like a shot to the height of her windscreen. It was a white disc about the size of a car, ringed with lights, and it had flat landing gear like stick legs. It tried to settle on the road in front of her while her children screamed. She reversed to find help, and it darted towards the car and flashed like a giant light bulb. It happened on a rural road near Elmwood in Pierce County, Wisconsin. The published record dates it to about eight in the evening on 2 March 1975.

What is on the record

One telling on one channel carries the case. Its two claimant entries are Forster and her three children, who are counted together. The children were minors and are not named here. Our transcript spells her surname Forrester. Contemporary reports give it as Forster, and this page uses that spelling. Our telling also says she was eight months pregnant. The public record does not mention a pregnancy and this page does not rely on it.

The published record adds a witness our telling leaves out. Roger Weber, a farmer, saw the object and guided the family home. The case was carried in the local papers of the time: the Pierce County Herald, the Elmwood Argus and the Leader-Telegram. Elmwood's library later gathered those reports, and the case appears in Jay Rath's book The W-Files. NICAP lists the event under 8 March, so the exact day is uncertain by six days. There was no official inquiry that anyone has recorded, and no explanation has been put forward.

Why it sits where it does

The case grades L3 on two claimant entries, a mother and her children in the same car. The farmer outside it gives the file a second vantage point, though he is known only from the published record. The event also reached the local press at the time. What tried to land on the road outside Elmwood is not resolved here.