Joe Simonton Extended Hospitality
More than pancakes: He broke bread with the occupants of a flying saucer.
After a late breakfast one fine spring morning, Joe Simonton watched a flying saucer drop from the sky and stop just above the driveway of his home in the woods of northern Wisconsin.
“It came straight down like an elevator,” Mr. Simonton said. “So, I rushed out to see what it was. And by that time there was a hatchway opening up in the top of it, just like the trunk of your car. And in there stood a little man.”
The man, Mr. Simonton said, looked like a small human, about 5-feet tall, 120 pounds, with a perfect complexion and in his late 20s or early 30s. Also present were two humanoid crewmen inside the saucer. They had dark hair. And the leader had dark, “penetrating” eyes.
The date was Tuesday, April 18, 1961. The time was about 11 a.m. And the place was Mr. Simonton’s farm, about four miles west of Eagle River, Wisconsin.
The strange moment also showed us what kind of man Mr. Simonton was. And while the UFO occupants did not speak a word of English or anything else, communication was in the form of hand gestures: The alien leaned his head and raised his hand as if drinking some water.
Rather than running as fast as he could into the woods and making tracks north toward the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Mr. Simonton extended hospitality to his visitors. He went to the well and brought them fresh water.
Mr. Joe Simonton holds one of four “pancakes” he reported were presented to him by the occupant of a UFO in 1961. Mr. Simonton had extended a heartfelt welcome to the visitors, giving them fresh water when asked for a drink. That is the height of civilization, extending kindness to guests — wherever they are from and whatever their nature. Photo credit above: The Chippewa Herald.
Mr. Simonton Details His Review of the Encounter
In the following, Mr. Simonton stood outside his home, located in the forest about four miles west of Eagle River, Wisconsin. The area is in about 15 miles south of the border with Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Around 11 a.m., on .
“Right here is where this Flying Saucer, this UFO landed – right here, about where I'm standing. And it was a big, huge thing.
“And I wondered, ‘What the heck it was?’ I was in my kitchen having a bite of lunch and I turned around to put the dishes in the sink. And I looked out the window and that's when I first saw this thing coming straight down, just like an elevator.
“At first I thought, ‘The roof went off of my house,’ and I thought, ‘No, the roof is green and this is bright. What the heck is it?’
“So, I rushed out to see what it was. And by that time there was a hatchway opening up in the top of it, just like the trunk of your car. And in there stood a little man.
“I say, a little man about 5 foot tall, holding up a jug or a container. And he motioned he wanted to drink. He motioned for water, so I walked up to him to get this jug.
“And I looked at his eyes and they were so penetrating that I had to look away. So, I went to the basement to get this water and I thought, ‘Well, they want water, so I'll take it up to them and see what happens.’ And with that, I brought the water up.
“And he was looking at me when I first came out of the basement, but I didn't look at his face until I got right up to him. Then I looked up and I handed the Jug up with both hands. And I noticed that had that same look in his eyes – a sort of a penetrating look.
“And when he took the water, I balanced myself with this hand (holding up his right) against the machine. And I stepped back a few steps and then, with that, he set the jug down and he gave me a salute – with the back of his hand, a gesture of thanks I presume. And then, well, I gave him my salute. What am I going to do?
“So, I noticed this little man, the same size of the man, right at the side of the man – the right side of the hatchway, cooking, ah, cooking these pancakes, which I have one here yet. He was frying these pancakes, and I pointed to him and made a gesture like eating.
“I thought, ‘Maybe I could get a conversation out of him?’ Nobody was saying anything. But, he didn't say a word. He just reached over, and he got a handful of them, four of them, and he handed them down to me. And they were hot and greasy.
“And this man cooking these pancakes, it was on a square grill-like concern, I couldn't see any flame coming from it. But it seemed to be very hot, there was smoke coming from it.
“And if that was their food, God help ‘em. Because, I took a bite of one of ‘em and it tasted like a piece of cardboard. And if that's what they live on, no wonder they're small.
“And with that, he reached up and he closed his hatch with a heavy thud, click-like. And it latched. And you couldn't a bit see more, see where that hatch was, anymore than you could see a hole in my hand. And with that, the thing started to rise – just like it came down.
“Everything was timed perfect. It went up about 20 feet. It tilted about 45°, facing straight south and shot off. And within 2 or 3 seconds, it was out of sight.
“Well, there I stood in the driveway, with a handful of greasy pancakes, my mouth wide open, wondering what the heck I saw? What had just happened?”
Jacques Vallee: Simonton on TV was Most Credible
Jacques Vallee, “Forbidden Science,” pp: 156-157
Chicago. 3 October 1965.
We have just watched the documentary released by NBC. How fragile and irrational we look, Allen and I! In a way the most solid character, stable as the rock of his own strong inner conviction, turned out to be Joe Simonton, the old Wisconsin country boy who saw a flying saucer land in his backyard. Three occupants came out of it and he is absolutely sure they gave him some pancakes. Besides, he still has the pancakes to prove it! (Project Blue Book investigator USAF Major Hector) Quintanilla, too, looked very solid as he stood at attention in front of the camera and recited the Officers Handbook, open at the page: “Undesirable Phenomena.” But this doesn't fool anybody. Naturally NBC put the emphasis on silly local sightings that proved nothing. They did not use the Toulouse case. They also cut out Vins*, which I had spent so much time documenting for them in an effort to show the scientific relevance of the observation. There is an important lesson to be drawn from all this: These people are just entertainers. I was a fool to believe they would seriously try to show how this problem transcended our knowledge. That is not what the public wants to hear. After watching this documentary I measure better the extent of our loneliness, of our vulnerability.
* In the chapter notes, Vallee wrote: These observations were cut from the NBC documentary but both cases were described in detail in Challenge to Science. The sightings at Vins was the basis for a celebrated scene in Close Encouters of the Third Kind, where metallic objects vibrate wildly while a UFO hovers nearby.
The following video includes several interviews with Mr. Simonton over the years. In each iteration, he may add a detail or emphasize one aspect over another, but has kept to the same facts as originally stated.
Truth — Not Ridicule — Needed
For many UFO researchers, the Joe Simonton and his alien pancakes are a favorite encounter. While on the surface it may be pure comedic gold, the encounter certainly contains important information.
Occurring months before the reported abduction of Betty and Barney Hill in September 1961 (which would only become public almost five years later), and the encounter of Officer Lonnie Zamora in Socorro, New Mexico in 1964, the Simonton case includes important parallels and corroborating details .
Those who knew him said Joe Simonton was a man who, before his encounter, could care less about flying saucers or as they were then euphemistically called officially, Unidentified Flying Objects. His friends and neighbors — including the Judge Franklin Carter, a local official who also was a member of NICAP and encouraged the original reporting to USAF Project Blue Book — all attested in support of Mr. Simonton as honest and straightforward.
That's why I wish more people had taken the time to ask him what he experienced in a respectful manner -- that is respecting him just for what he is: a human being. Perhaps he would have been willing to go on the record to share his thoughts in the years afterward, including unreported encounters and ideation that possibly were messages from non-human intelligences.
Sadly, today is too late for his story’s detractors to say, “Sorry” to Mr. Simonton, who passed in 1972 at age 71. It is not too late, however, to tell his story accurately and use it to build what is known about encounters with UFO occupants. Who knows? Perhaps one day the scientists at AARO — the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office at the Pentagon — can figure out a way to find useful data from narrative.
Among the facts we have learned in the years since, per ufologist Brad Warner:
Another resident of the area, Savino Borgo, an insurance agent, reported seeing an unidentified flying object the same day as Simonton says he met the strange people with their weird greasy pancakes. Phyliss Lorbetske, another area resident, said that she and he three children also saw a UFO that day, in the same area where Simonton lived.
While we don’t know where they came from or what they are, we do know that a citizen of the United States of America — a regular guy from northern Wisconsin — extended kindness to strange visitors who looked like they were from another world. That is how civilized people act.