Stephen Poleskie

We recently found this interview with Jeffery Mishlove while searching the web. It is part of a larger piece.

Jeffrey Mishlove: When I got back to San Francisco, I pursued the question with Owens, of his demonstration, and he set it up with me in November of 1976 as follows: he said, "I will cause a UFO to appear. It will happen within 90 days, it will happen within a 100-mile radius of San Francisco." In fact, he said, "I'll cause multiple UFO appearances, and one in particular will be seen by very reliable witnesses. The photograph will be published on the front page of the local newspaper, and that's how you'll know, it'll be my signature."

And other things happened as well. He said, "There will be power blackouts," (that's also one of his signatures).

In December. 1976, it occured pretty much on schedule, December 12th as I recall, in Sonoma State College, a small college campus about 50 miles north of San Francisco. The Art Department, on a clear December day, was sponsoring a live demonstration of an unusual art form -- aerial artwork. A pilot who is an artist was flying his aircraft over the campus, he had smoke trailing out the back of his plane, and he was creating loop-de-loops and other designs in the air.

And this was the demonstration hundreds of students were outside looking up at the sky. Some of them had video-cameras. (This was in the days before camcorders but they were recording it, and there were photographs being taken). Many faculty members were out there.

The pilot of this airplane was named Steve Poleskie, and he was a visiting Professor of Art from Syracuse [Cornell] University. He was visiting Berkeley, and he was performing.

I actually have the videotape of this event.

As he was doing his loop-de-loops about 3,000 feet above the Sonoma State College campus, a UFO appeared right in his airspace. He witnessed it from the air. He said it was about 15-20 feet wide, and it just came out of nowhere. It was right there in his airspace, and it stayed there a few minutes and suddenly disappeared.

It was seen from the ground, and it was photographed. The photograph was published on the front page of one of our local papers, The Berkeley Gazette. And the videotape was actually shown on the Channel 9 Evening News, KQED-TV in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ted Owens had scored pretty much a direct hit.

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