On January 6, 1976, Mona Stafford celebrated her 36th birthday with friends Louise Smith and Elaine Thomas. The three women drove the thirty-five miles from their home in Liberty, Kentucky, to have dinner at the Redwoods Restaurant near Lancaster, Kentucky. At dinner, none of them drank any alcoholic, something that will later prove crucial to their story. At about 11:15, the trio headed back home but at Stanford, Kentucky, nine miles from Lancaster, a bright red object appeared in the sky, which Mona Stafford at first thought was an airplane on fire. As the object descended from the right side of the road to a point ahead of them, they could see that it was not an airplane, but a huge object bigger than "two houses." The object stopped about a hundred yards ahead of them, stretching across the road on both sides. It rocked back and forth for a couple of seconds, and then moved off to the left.
The women kept driving but after they had been about a quarter
of a mile, a blue light appeared through the rear window of the car. At first
they thought it was a highway patrol car with its lights flashing, but soon
they realized that the flying object had circled around and had come up behind
them.
Something wrested control of the car away from Louise Smith. The
car accelerated to 85 mph. Mona Stafford, in the front passenger seat, tried to
help Louise regain control of the car, but it was not possible. The women began
to feel a burning sensation in their eyes. The ignition lights lit up on the
instrument panel, an indication that the car's engine was stalled, but they
were still speeding along. They saw a wide, brightly lit road ahead of them,
and then, seconds later, the scene became Highway 78 and they recognized they
were on the outskirts of Hustonville, a full eight miles from where they had
just been. Checking the time, they found that, incredibly, an hour and twenty
minutes had passed.
They arrived at Louise Smith's trailer in Liberty at 1:25 am,
almost an hour and a half late. They went inside to collect themselves and
found that they each had a red mark like a burn on the backs of their necks,
and they all had burning, irritated eyes. Louise Smith went into the bathroom
and removed her watch to wash her face. She saw that the hands of her watch
were spinning at a much higher than normal speed. When she splashed water on
her face, she found that contact with water caused pain in her hands and face.
They went next door, to the home of Mr. Lowell Lee, and told him
what had happened. He had them separately sketch the object they had seen. The
sketches were extremely similar, if not identical. They called the police and
the local navy office, but neither showed any interest in their story.
In the days that followed, Mona Stafford had more problems with
her eyes than did the other two women, and she sought medical help for severe
conjunctivitis. Louise Smith's pet parakeet was now inexplicably terrified of
her. Smith's car also began to develop mysterious electrical problems.
The navy office reportedly gave information about the story to
the news media and from there, MUFON set up an interview with the three women.
The investigators found that other individuals had independently reported
sightings of a UFO in the Casey and Lincoln counties that same night. Dr. R.
Leo Sprinkle of the University of Wyoming heard of the case and flew in, and on
March 7, 1976, he performed a preliminary hypnotic regression of the women.
In July of 1976, Lexington Police Department detective James
Young separately gave the three women lie detector tests regarding their
experience. They all passed with no problems. Later that evening and continuing
into the next day, extensive hypnotic regression of the women was performed by
R. Leo Sprinkle. These sessions were similar to the story of Betty and Barney
Hill in that they revealed that during the period of missing time the three women
were taken on board the object they had seen. While there they were medically
examined by shadowy beings that they later identified as being similar to
depictions of aliens.