Fact or fiction: UFO spotted by the Platte in 1957

KEARNEY — It was Nov. 5, 1957, and Reinhold Schmidt, a grain dealer, was driving on Highway 10 three miles southeast of Kearney, hunting for milo.

Suddenly he saw a flash of light in the trees along the Platte River. He thought a balloon crashed. He drove toward the site, but his car battery suddenly went dead, so he got out of his car and walked toward the glow.

Along the banks of the Platte, he saw what he thought was a balloon 100 feet long and 30 feet wide, standing on four stakes. Paralyzed by a light coming from the ship, he was approached by two men speaking both German and English. They invited him inside the UFO.

Nathan Tye, lecturer in the history department at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, told that story Wednesday at the Brown Bag Lunch series presented by the Kearney Public Library and UNK.

Tye set the scene for the packed crowd. It was 1957, and people now saw planes and other objects in the sky. he said. Russia created worldwide headlines with the launch of Sputnik II on Nov. 3, 1957.

Two days later, Schmidt claimed to have seen a UFO southeast of Kearney.

During Schmidt’s 30 minutes inside the craft, he took detailed observations. He returned to his car, which suddenly ran again, and drove away.

Schmidt hurried to the Kearney police station and told his story to a deputy behind the desk. Schmidt then went back to the Fort Kearney Hotel, the site of what is now Wells Fargo bank.

“The word spread.. Soon the hotel is surrounded by people who want to talk to Schultz. Five hours later, it’s on KGFW. The story quickly appears across the country with stories on Sputnik. Crowds swarm the hotel,” Tye said.

“A German-speaking pilot in an unknown aircraft just 48 hours after Sputnik? That raises concern,” he added.

Two days after the incident, psychiatrists interviewed Schmidt for two to three hours. Authorities investigated the landing site, but the craft was gone. So were footprints or any other evidence.

A little background

Reinhold Schmidt was the son of German immigrants. Born and raised in Kenesaw, he went to Kearney State College for a year, “but his criminal history included arrests for bad checks, and he spent a year in the Nebraska State Penitentiary for embezzlement,” Tye said.

Soon, the FBI and Air Force personnel in Omaha heard about the story and sent in two investigators.

“He draws a picture of the spacecraft, but he doesn’t tell us quite where along the Platte it was. It was off Highway 10, but he noted that the aliens had landed on public property so as not to violate private property laws,” Tye said.

In his picture, the craft’s exterior looked like aluminum. Its interior was chrome. Instrument panels lined the walls. It had a conveyor belt that could move people. He said four women were working inside.

It also had a lounge “as a place to rest,” he said. Schmidt had described the lounge as similar to a living room, “but the Air Force said in the drawing, it looked like the inside of a Buick,” Tye said.

“Schmidt told this story for decades, and over the years the story became quite different from his original one,” he added.

The Kearney Hub’s initial headline was “Space ship landing – fact or fiction?” 

The Air Force grew suspicious. Schmidt had said the struts on the vehicle were four feet high, “but no trees or shrubs were touched in the area where he said it landed. Wouldn’t they have been crushed?” Tye said.

The Hub had a photo of the police with a “mysterious green liquid” they found at the site. Later, the Air Force found an oil can in the area, along with a bottle opener. Its notches matched those on the can in Schmidt’s car. Analysis proved that the oil residue in the cans matched the oil found on the field.

“The Air Force said he was foolish enough to keep the oil cans in his car,” Tye said.

By now, Buffalo County residents were irritated. The county mental health board committed him to Hastings State Hospital for three weeks. He was then released. “There was no reason to keep him any longer,” Tye said.

UFO returns

A few months later, Schmidt was driving on Highway 30 through Elm Creek when a UFO stopped his car again. Its crew was the one he’d met south of Kearney.

“The crew told him they’d have ‘staged a mass presentation with the release of flying saucers over Kearney’ to rescue him from Hastings State Hospital had he not been released,” Tye said.

Schmidt began speaking across the country about the initial incident, but on March 6, 1958, just 37 people attended his talk at the National Guard Armory. By now, people were beginning to be wary of him.

By now, too, he also began to inflate his story. His drawings of the craft were much more detailed. He claimed to have ridden to the Arctic aboard a spaceship. He said he had seen underwater missile silos being built by the Soviets which were to be used against the U.S.

“He didn’t get much attention here, so he left the grain business and went to California and became a full-time UFO expert,” Tye said. “He began buying property and mining rights in California.”

He claimed more trips to the Arctic. He said the spacecraft picked him up at a coffee shop in Oklahoma and took him to the mothership’s base in Montana.

“They also took him to the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, where he was shown the UFO of Jesus Christ,» Tye said. “He was told that Jesus was living on Saturn. Schmidt claimed to have seen Jesus’ sandals and documents, written in English by Christ.”

Schmidt wrote a book, “The Kearney Incident.” He also sold rights to his story to filmmakers Ron and June Ormond, who made a 60-minute film, “The Edge of Tomorrow,” documenting his encounters. He claimed it contained “real” footage of the Kearney incident.

Fraud trial

Schmidt then moved into alternate medicine. He said quartz crystals from a mine he owned in California could cure cancer, and he “sold shares of that mine to wealthy widows who found hope and possibility in what he was offering.”

Eventually, the county held a fraud trial because Schmidt did not repay borrowed money, and “affection was promised and not delivered.”

At the trial, Schmidt insisted that the UFO was real, and that his crystals worked.

According to the story in the Kearney Hub, “The courtroom was hushed. The jury was awed. Schmidt was cool. From the tone of his voice, he might have been describing a reaper sale in Lincoln,’ expert witness said.”

One surprise witness was Carl Sagan, who became a noted astronomer. He testified that the planet Saturn could not host life. The defense attorney responded, “Have you ever been there?”

“Nothing Reinhold said was true, but that didn’t mean he didn’t believe it,” Tye said. “He believed what he believed.”

Reinhold eventually returned to Nebraska and died in 1975. He is buried in Bridgeport.

Tye noted that at the time, the space age was unfolding and Cold War perils were real. “It’s an unusual story, but it speaks to the terror of the Cold War,” Tye said.

“It also represents a neat compromise between the need to believe in traditional God, and contemporary pressures to accept pronouncement of science,” he added.

Tye said a 150-page report on Schmidt and his UFO claims is available free through the National Archives. Tye would also be happy to talk to any Schmidt family members who are still in this area.