# March 21, 1966 — Hillsdale, MI — Hillsdale College / Van Horn Sighting

**URL:** https://uapdiscovery.discourse.group/t/march-21-1966-hillsdale-mi-hillsdale-college-van-horn-sighting/521
**Category:** Blue Book Unknowns
**Created:** [March 20, 2026, 11:47pm UTC](https://uapdiscovery.discourse.group/t/march-21-1966-hillsdale-mi-hillsdale-college-van-horn-sighting/521 "2026-03-20T23:47:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
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### Author: ![jeffknox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e47c2d/32.png) [@jeffknox](https://uapdiscovery.discourse.group/u/jeffknox)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2026, 11:47pm UTC](https://uapdiscovery.discourse.group/t/march-21-1966-hillsdale-mi-hillsdale-college-van-horn-sighting/521/1 "2026-03-20T23:47:29Z")

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March 21, 1966 — Hillsdale, MI  
10:32 p.m. Cynthia “Pinky” Poffenberger and 16 other Hillsdale (Michigan) College students see a football-shaped object with red, green, and white pulsating lights descend from the sky and pass close to their dorm. It settles in a hollow in the Slayton Arboretum about 1,500 feet away. Some 87 students collect to watch the UFO, then they notify Civil Defense Director William Van Horn, who arrives with police. From the dormitory, the landed lights appear yellowish-white, dimming and intensifying. Only student Barbara Kohn stays most of the night, watching the lights vanish, reappear, and recede. Around 5:10 a.m., Kohn sees a lighted object move away and disappear from sight. Radiation is later detected at the landing area of about 330–600 microroentgens/hr, roughly 10–20 times the background level. [Eberhart]

Sources:  
“UFO hard to find but not snakes or girls’ dorm,” The Windsor (Ontario) Star, March 23, 1966, p. 60;

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-The_Windsor_Star_1966_03_23_60](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/3/3bbffe4aebd0c0b4f856eceb434f500a58e9c826.jpeg)

[https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-windsor-star-thewindsorstar19660/193830410/](https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-windsor-star-thewindsorstar19660/193830410/)

Jacques Vallée, Forbidden Science, North Atlantic, 1992, pp. 173–176;

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-ValleeFS1-p173](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/7/752496099378e3b8cb3b50bcadd4846d03bbab07.jpeg)

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-ValleeFS1-p174](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/f/f79c354ba7212e588772de90a69e17c2769a0251.jpeg)

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-ValleeFS1-p175](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/0/0210494300caf6c70bb5c1167e39333db0b1735d.jpeg)

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-ValleeFS1-p176](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/f/f2af8334e528464971bc48542d01bdc0e708f724.jpeg)

Brad Sparks, Blue Book Unknown Files, Case 350, p. 311;

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-Sparks-Case1654-p311](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/2/2aedf4d7085d1282cddf89a845181f3ac120cec4.png)

Mark O’Connell, The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs, 2017, pp. 177–180, 185–188;

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-OConnell-1](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/6/6946665549af5bf41d1193e152a14b5da3efbbe6.jpeg)

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-OConnell-2](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/c/cb06fed1d2fb050ab12b578d35668988dd10bd1a.png)

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-OConnell-3](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/c/c3bf70c693fe21fc074b966bc8d92be16c5b3095.png)

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-OConnell-4](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/c/cd0ba07216593d96b0bfbcf5da87a4f9980df233.png)

Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 3rd Ed., p. 950;  
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 4th Ed., p. 1064;

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-ClarkIII-p950](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/a/acbb9b42af2b894530dc013fcc8dd73b853135a3.png)

Graff, Garrett M. UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government’s Search ffor Alien Life Here—and Out There. Avid Reader Press, 2023, pp. 204–206;

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-Graff-p204](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/9/95559f02ad36a6792eead8f40f2befb119365330.jpeg)

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-Graff-p205](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/a/a502af3df4b0e8da68dd6e874b109b2f113ee73d.jpeg)

 ![03211966-HillsdaleMI-Graff-p206](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/f/f4eb4e9fb2c688f07c35c9dd42527099b89ba916.jpeg)

Center for UFO Studies, [case documents];

> **[1966\_03\_20-21\_US\_MI\_Dexter-Hillsdale\_CUFOS\_MultiWit\_NLr.pdf](https://cufos.org/PDFs/cases/1966_03_20-21_US_MI_Dexter-Hillsdale_CUFOS_MultiWit_NLr.pdf)**
>
> 2.38 MB

Jack Butler, “UFO: In 1966, Hillsdale Had Its Own Close Encounter,” The Collegian (Hillsdale College), March 19, 2015;

> **[UFO: In 1966, Hillsdale had its own close encounter](http://hillsdalecollegian.com/2015/03/ufo-in-1966-hillsdale-had-its-own-close-encounter/)**
>
> The night of Monday, March 21, 1966 was pretty typical for the McIntyre Hall residents—until the UFO appeared. At about 10:30 p.m., according to an eyewitness account written by Gidget Kohn three days later, dozens of girls and other witnesses — 87...

“Students Present ‘Aliens in the Arb’ Documentary,” The Collegian (Hillsdale College), April 7, 2022;

> **[Students present 'Aliens in the Arb' documentary](https://hillsdalecollegian.com/2022/04/students-present-aliens-in-the-arb-documentary/)**
>
> Nine Hillsdale students will tell the story of “Aliens in the Arb” in a documentary for their Documentary Filmmaking class. The documentary will premiere at 7 p.m. on April 20 in the Plaster Auditorium. 

“Aliens in the Arb,” Elizabeth Oxaal YouTube channel, April 2022;

[![](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/7/7b8f32d0944a51a2d473088885c80bd6c127907c.jpeg "Aliens in the Arb: The Incredible Story of the 1966 Hillsdale College UFO Sighting") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af3-49PerGU)

“Hillsdale, Michigan, College Girls and Residents Talk about Witnessing a UFO in 1966,” Eyes on Cinema YouTube channel, January 7, 2024;

[![](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/uapdiscovery/original/2X/b/bc3291b58962504077de1209af1d0ef26576912e.jpeg "Hillsdale, Michigan, college girls and residents talk about witnessing a UFO in 1966") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIGhz015hWY)