The Fatal Close Encounter of George Wheeler

Summary

In April 1976, veteran relief police officer and WWII pilot George Wheeler reported a huge glowing craft hovering over Tuttle Hill in Elmwood, Wisconsin, then radioed that he had been 'hit' by a blue flash that killed his car's radio, lights, and engine. He spent weeks in the hospital with headaches and nightmares that doctors could not explain, soon forgot most details of the event, and died within six months of an unknown cause. Host Ryan Sprague places the case within a wider mid-1970s Wisconsin UFO wave involving car stops, possible missing time, and even reports of green humanoids.

Key takeaways

• 1The Wheeler incident happened around 11 p.m. on April 22, 1976, near Tuttle Hill in Elmwood, Wisconsin, and was published in the April 1976 APRO newsletter.
• 2Wheeler described a silver craft the size of a two-story house, with six bluish-white lights, portholes, moving shadows inside, a turbine-like revolving part, landing legs, and a black hose-like appendage reaching into the trees.
• 3A blue flash knocked out his police radio, car lights, and engine. Neighbor Mr. O'Brien reported his TV reception dropping at the same moment, and Wheeler told farmer David Mutz he had been 'hit by one of those UFOs.'
• 4Wheeler was hospitalized for 3 days, then again for 11 days with headaches and nightmares. Doctors found no cause, he forgot the incident within weeks, and he died within six months of an unknown cause.
• 5Other Wisconsin reports: Paul Fredrickson's October 1975 sighting of a huge gray plate-shaped craft over Tuttle Hill; Mrs. Forster's March 1975 encounter with a landed double-saucer craft (Elmwood Argus); the April 1975 Wausau case of Rod Seagraves and Mike Lewandowski involving apparent missing time; the July 1976 Ziegelbauer farm sighting of green figures in Malone; and Officer Mark Coltrane's 1978 Polaroid photos of a disc near Colfax.
• 6The episode was co-researched from an article by Marcus Lowth at UFO Insight.

Glossary terms

Source

Transcript excerpt

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Excerpt from Somewhere in the Skies, Aug 17, 2026. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.