Lakeland, FL being encounter — October 1968

The fuller Medulla account places the sighting on 18 October 1968 around 7:30 p.m., south of Lakeland. Buck McMullen and his wife were preparing for dinner after noticing television interference. Their dog became agitated, broke loose and rushed through the screen door to hide inside. The couple went out with their son’s fiancée, identified in HUMCAT as Sharon Thompson. They reportedly saw a transparent globe over a palm tree roughly fifty yards from the house, glowing purplish red. Two standing, human-looking men were visible inside, wearing fitted white uniforms and close-fitting hoods. Each operated one side of a horizontal bar pivoted to a central metallic column. As they moved it, the object rocked and gradually climbed. After about twenty minutes it accelerated away with an apparent burst of fire and sparks. An ammonia-like smell reportedly irritated the witnesses. Lee Butcher’s reporting and the HUMCAT entry preserve the detailed sequence. The imported record instead gives month-only dating, an earlier time, five witnesses and a disc with a transparent dome. Those differences should remain visible rather than producing an invented hybrid vehicle. The account includes no communication or boarding by the family, and the smell is a sensory description, not a chemical analysis. The plate follows the transparent-globe version and its three core observers, with the two hooded operators visibly working the unusual bar.