From Birmingham Post-Herald,Feb.17,1989
Transcribed by Meade Frierson

By Kathy Kemp, Post-Herald Reporter
FYFFE [AL] -- Fred Works does not fit the stereotype of a fellow
who encounters UFOs.
   He doesn't live in a trailer, he has all his teeth, and his
friends don't call him Bubba.
   But Works, the assistant police chief in a rural Sand Mountain
community of 1,400, realizes some people just won't be convinced.
   "You know how it is," he said, sitting in a booth during the
lunch hour rush yesterday at King's Grill.
   "It always happens in some small town in Alabama that has a
sheriff named Bubba or Junior."
   Works, 35, and Fyffe Police Chief Junior Garmany were checking
out reports of a peculiar-shaped object in the sky last Friday
night when -- as their patrol car cruised in the area of Gilbert's
Crossroads -- they looked up and there it was.

   "It was about 1,500 feet off the ground, and we could tell it
was big," Works said.
   "I'd say it was triangular shaped. It didn't have any wings.
We never heard an engine, and it flew right over us.  There was
this white light on the bottom that was shining up against the
thing. Seems like there were also some red lights."

   Works realizes such a tale is bound to prompt whoops from the
skeptics, like J. W. Boggs, a chicken farmer who was having coffee
yesterday in a King's Grill back booth.
   "I've been trying to find some of the stuff they was drinking
that night, but I hadn't been able to find it," Boggs said.
   Added Edward Carroll, a retiree seated across from Boggs:
"I wouldn't-a told it if I'd-a seen it."
   The assistant police chief seemed to take the good-natured
ribbing in stride. "I don't drink at all," Works said. "I don't
even take an aspirin. And the chief, well -- we definitely wouldn't
be drinking on duty, anyway."
   When they spotted whatever it was they spotted Friday night,
Works and Garmany -- who make up half the Fyffe police force --
were responding to a telephone call from Donna Saylor.
   A homemaker in the Kelly's Chapel community near Fyffe, Mrs.
Saylor had reported seeing a brightly lighted "banana-shaped"
object hovering over a neighbor's pasture just after 7:30 p.m.
   "My sister and I had gone to Fyffe to the grocery store about
7 o'clock -- we was getting some Alka-Seltzer Plus -- and when
we were going home we saw this bright light in the sky just over
the trees," she said.
   "It wasn't moving, but it was too big to be a heliocopter. It
just about scared my sister to death. And then it disappeared,
just like if you were standing here and all of a sudden you
disappeared."
   A few minutes later, the women spotted the object flying in
the distance, she said. They ran to the house to get their
husbands, and the whole group took turns with a pair of bino-
culars.
   "It was far enough away that we could see it was shaped like
a banana, and it had red lights on the end and green lights
all across the bottom. Every so often it looked like it was
turning, and then it looked like a big ball with green lights
coming out of the bottom, kind of like fireworks."
   The mother of a 2-year old, Mrs. Saylor -- like Works -- is
a responsible-looking person who hardly seems the type to make
a habit of hunting UFOs. Sitting in the living room of her
brand-new log cabin, she seemed both amused and concerned.
   "I have two conclusions," she said. "First, it's a UFO from
outer space. The other is, it's something the government is
testing, and they do it in these little out-of-the-way places
where they think nobody but hicks live."
   Garmany, who joined the police force in 1972, wasn't sure
what it was, but he's sure what it wasn't. "What we seen, it
was no kind of hoax," he said. "A UFO is what it was."
   Mrs. Saylor and the officers pooh-poohed the noKion the
object could have been a weather balloon.  And a National
Weather Service official said any weather balloon that drifted
into the area would have burst by 7 p.m., a half-hour before
the sightings.
   Airport officials in Huntsville and Birmingham had no ex-
planation, Garmany said.  And Dominic Amatore, a spokesman for
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, said he couldn't figure it
out either.
   "We don't have any tracking here of celestial objects, and
we don't launch or fire anything."
   "Redstone Arsenal does some testing of missiles, but I can't
imagine them flying off the installation."
   Whatever it was, it's stirred up more excitement in the town
than Garmany's seen in his 17-year career.  He said he's had
telephone calls from reporters in Canada, Oregon, California
and Texas. And TV crews from Atlanta and all over Alabama have
trampled into town with their cameras.
   The hoopla has triggered a few rumors, such as the unconfirmed
report of a terrified farmer firing his 12-gauge shotgun at the
object in the sky.
   Pranksters sent Works and Garmany identical T-shirts that say
"Welcome home, E.T."  And some devilish soul poked Christmas
tree lights into a banana and hung it by a string in the police
station -- right over Works' desk.
   It has been the inspiration for Charles Bailey, a 31-year old
construction worker and lifelong Fyffe resident. Bailey and his
brother Jeff, 23, are selling their "I survived the Sand Mountain
UFO" T-shirts for $10 apiece.
   Pictured on the shirts is a rural scene, with a black top
road running toward a mountain. On the road is a police car, and
standing beside the car, pointing toward a gigantic banana in
the sky, is a policeman with red hair.
   Guess what color Works' hair is.