No request is too unusual for our Reference librarians.
Recently, Adult Services Librarian Brandee fielded a question via email from Colette, a woman who grew up in Park Ridge and now lives out of state. She wanted to verify a story from her youth that she’d been telling her kids about for years. Her kids, it seems, were skeptical.
On the evening of December 14, 1978, Colette and a friend, both 12 at the time, were at West (now Centennial) Park. The two girls observed “a saucer-shaped object with flashing red and yellow lights hovering over the park for approximately 20 minutes.”
Colette wanted to verify that this incident happened, after years of telling her children the story and “having them roll their eyes.” Remembering she was interviewed by the local papers at the time, she turned to the right place – the Library – to find evidence of this experience.
Brandee quickly located two 1978 newspaper articles in the Park Ridge Herald and the Park Ridge Advocate – then separate, competing newspapers – referencing the account and the girls’ testimonial. The Advocate article focuses on a story about another girl and her mother, who observed a similar flying object on December 9 of that year from their home on Cuttriss Avenue in Park Ridge. View the December 21 Herald article and the December 14 Advocate article in PDF format.
Have a burning question, or just need proof that something from a long time ago actually happened? Ask a Reference librarian! Email prkref@parkridgelibrary.org.
