A UFO in Wardensville, W. Va. (September 1951)

Mike Garrett / December 11, 2024

It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon as the girls left Wardensville High.  Eighteen-year-old Bethel Liggett and seventeen-year-old Grace Fishel (Garrett) walked up the back road together.   They were best friends who had first met in eighth grade.  Although they didn’t live up the back road, they had a destination to get to.  Another girl, Nancy Stewart, had a textbook she had used the previous year, and Grace was planning to borrow it for her class.  Grace was studious, loved school and would go on to be the Valedictorian of her graduating class.  Nancy only lived a few houses up the road from town and it was an easy, five-minute walk.

The back road at that time (Trout Run Rd.) had a paved surface close to town.  Once you traveled down the road a half mile it was unpaved.  After that point, there were not as many houses and the property beside the road turned more into open fields for farming or pasture.   But even close to town there were only a few houses.  On the porch of one of them, Mrs. Rae Orndorff and Mrs. Margaret Orndorff were outside talking.  In a small town everybody seems to know everybody else.  Mrs. Margaret Orndorff had been Grace’s Sunday School teacher for several years.  The girls stopped and said hello to the women as they passed by.

Grace was talking and was looking down at her feet as she did.  Talking and kicking at pebbles as she walked.   She felt a pull on her sleeve.  She turned her head to look at Bethel and see why she had grabbed her sleeve.  Bethel wasn’t looking at her.  Her mouth hung open; her eyes wide with a look of astonishment.  Her right arm was extended, pointing but she was speechless. 

Grace instinctively turned her head to see what Bethel was staring and pointing at.  There was an object in the air.  As she saw it, her books dropped from her arm with astonishment and fear.  The object was only a short distance away and was suspended or appeared to float in the air.  It was hovering above a small tree on the side of the road.  Perhaps seventy-five yards away.  A silver-grey disc.  It was a flying saucer.  

They were frozen in place for a few seconds.  Then Bethel in a quavering voice said, “What is that?”

Grace was just as scared.  “I don’t know,” she said.  They stood, rooted in place as the UFO hovered motionless above the tree.  They had moved closer together in their fear and were leaning against each other for support.  They had even clasped their hands as they stood shoulder to shoulder.  Their hearts pounded as they stared.   Finally, after standing and staring at it for at least thirty seconds, the saucer began to move.  Slowly moving back from the road toward the nearby Anderson’s Ridge.   It dipped down slightly closer to the ground as it moved and even tipped a little bit to the side for a few seconds.   It moved across the fields and began to gain altitude as it neared the ridge.  It moved higher, gained speed and crossed over the ridge and disappeared.     

The girls were frozen in place for a few seconds and then Grace picked up her books and the two of them ran as quickly as they could back down the back road to Mrs. Orndorff’s house.  The two older women had still been on the porch talking and had seen the UFO also.  They stopped and talked to them.  They were all excited about seeing the phenomenon.   They chatted for a few minutes.  “How big was it?”  They guessed it was forty to fifty feet in diameter.  It looked metal.  Clearly it was not a cloud, smoke, or anything like that.  It was an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO), a flying saucer, of that, they were sure.     

In 1951 Wardensville, W. Va. there wasn’t a lot of talk about UFO’s.  The girls had heard of them of course, but it was not regular news or talked about as it would be decades later.  But, just four years before this sighting, in 1947 the famous Roswell Incident occurred.   You can learn more about that on the internet including here: 

https://www.history.com/news/roswell-ufo-aliens-what-happened

Grace passed away in 2023.  She had been asked to re-tell this story many times over the years.  First to her kids, then to tell it again to her grandkids.  Did it make any sound?  No, not they could hear.  Did it have any markings on it?  They didn’t notice any, at least on the part of the UFO that they could see.  Did you tell other people about it?  Yes.  Some believed them when they told them, were interested, and had many questions.  Of course, others laughed at the idea of a flying saucer near Wardensville.  The school paper even mentioned it.  She and Bethel talked about it many times after that. 

UFOs and flying saucers are in the news today more than ever.  Also referred to as UAP’s, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon.  After decades of skeptics questioning all sightings, the US Government has begun to release official files on UFO’s.  In the summer of 2022, the Pentagon also now formed an office to officially trace UFO sightings.  A recent navy pilot reported an incident where he not just witnessed, but videotaped a UFO apparently disappearing into the water, which may explain the new office’s focus on “trans-medium objects,” that move in multiple environments.  As in between space, the air, and even under water.  The Pentagon confirmed this report as authentic and has even raised concerns about National Security and these “aircraft.” 

What was it they saw all those years ago up the back road near Wardensville?  What could it have been?  Four people saw this UFO at the same time.  On a clear day and from two different vantage points.  Back in 1951 technology, military capability and even aircraft propulsion were nothing like what is common today.  Finding a logical non “flying saucer” explanation for what Bethel, Grace and the Orndorff ladies all saw that day is very difficult to do.  

Unless it was in fact, a real object of some kind.