Encounter Atlas
Around 11 a.m. on April 18, 1961, Joe Simonton, a plumber in Eagle River, Wisconsin, said a silvery saucer landed near his house. Three short, dark-haired men dressed in black were aboard, he said, and one held out a jug, which he took as a request for water. He filled it, and in return was handed some small cakes, about three inches across, which he said tasted like cardboard. He said the craft hummed like a generator and took off after about five minutes, its blast bending nearby pine trees.
Simonton gave the cakes to local judge Frank Carter, a member of the civilian UFO group NICAP. The story went out on the wire services on April 23, and the local district attorney and newspaper editor described Simonton as reputable and straightforward. The US Air Force sent its consultant, astronomer J. Allen Hynek, who concluded that Simonton had experienced a hallucination followed by a delusion. A government laboratory analysis reported that a pancake was made of ordinary flour, sugar, salt and oil.
The case split UFO believers. NICAP declined to get involved, fearing ridicule, while writer Jacques Vallée later compared Simonton's story to folklore of fairies offering food and used it to argue against a simple space-visitor explanation. Hynek later said he had come to take Simonton more seriously. Others have suggested Simonton dreamt the encounter or was the butt of a prank.
Simonton, who said he would not report it again if it happened twice, died in 1971. A piece of one of the pancakes is reported to be held by the National Museum of the United States Air Force, and the case is still described as Wisconsin's most famous alien encounter claim.