Strange Columbus May 30, 1954 UFO




Strange Columbus: May 30, 1954 UFO

UFOs are kind of a hot topic right now. The US government has recently been releasing videos and documentation on what they acknowledge they can’t explain. The releases have begun to gain mainstream media attention, including a recent 60 Minutes report. The Pentagon is currently preparing a report to release to Congress sometime in June on these events, the contents of which could either be mundane or extraordinary. Is it a new technology from a foreign adversary? Optical illusions or natural events? Or something altogether far weirder? In the spirit of these recent news events, I thought it’d be interesting to go over some of the UFO sightings in and around Columbus over the years. This new series, Strange Columbus Things, will also highlight other types of weird local phenomenon throughout history. I hope to give a new post in this series 1-2 times per month.

The UFO events come from declassified files of the infamous Project Blue Book, which ran from the late 1940s to 1969. For the most part, the Blue Book files will just be scanned photos of the actual reports, with only occasional commentary.

This event was never explained due to a lack of information.



To view other information on global incidents, go here.
UFO Database



Random Columbus Photos 1

On the hot, summer day of August 21, 1947, a thunderstorm hit the Columbus area that would produce a memorable and tragic event. A bolt of lightning struck the southwestern corner of the Broad Street Bridge in Downtown. Perhaps because of the extreme heat or structural deficiencies, the lightning caused part of the bridge to seemingly explode, and large chunks of the bridge collapsed into the Scioto River. While no cars fell off the bridge as a result, 4 pedestrians did. One of those pedestrians died the following day from sustained injuries. The bridge itself had been built as the replacement for the one destroyed during the great flood of 1913. After the incident in 1947, the bridge was repaired and continued to serve as the main Scioto River crossing at Downtown for another 43 years. In 1990, it was demolished and replaced by the current (and very similar looking) Discovery Bridge, completed in 1992 in time for the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the “discovery” of America by the city’s namesake, Christopher Columbus.
Random Columbus photos 1

The damaged bridge.