Overview
An archive of vintage UFO material is drawing renewed attention to Stella Lansing, a Massachusetts contactee whose films and photographs from the late 1960s and early 1970s have long occupied an unusual corner of UFO lore. The collection, spanning 1967 to 1973, includes what Lansing described as recurring clocklike formations made up of eight to 11 disc-like objects, along with anomalous lights and several humanlike figures that later became known in the literature as “the Occupants.” The material has resurfaced in online UFO circles, including #ufotwitter, where researchers and enthusiasts continue to debate whether the images capture unexplained phenomena or represent misinterpretations of ordinary footage.
The 1967 Palmer footage
One of the most discussed sequences in the archive comes from February 18, 1967, when Lansing was filming unusual lights near Palmer, Massachusetts, using an 8mm movie camera. According to the account, she observed several yellow-orange lights near the road and power lines, along with a bluish-white light and another bright object she dubbed the “Red Bug.” The footage itself became more significant only after it was developed and examined carefully, illustrating a recurring theme in UFO cases: apparent details emerging only after the fact, rather than during the original sighting.
The footage later took on added importance when Lansing and others reported seeing four humanlike figures in the sequence. These figures were not visible to Lansing while she was filming. Instead, they were identified later, by April 1968, when she reviewed the film at a slower speed. Psychiatrist and UFO investigator Berthold Eric Schwarz subsequently published four frames from the film, covering roughly four and a half seconds of footage, helping to make the case one of the more widely cited examples from Lansing’s archive.
The broader investigation
Schwarz’s work gave structure and visibility to a set of claims that also included “Pete the Ghost,” “The Monk,” an alleged UFOnaut, and other anomalous figures and lights. He published several of Lansing’s images in Flying Saucer Review, a key outlet in the historical study of UFO phenomena. That publication context is important: Lansing’s material was not presented simply as a local curiosity, but as part of a broader mid-century effort to document sightings that seemed to fall outside conventional explanation. At the same time, the cases remained controversial, with little agreement on whether the images reflected extraordinary events, perceptual ambiguity, or the limits of film technology.
Why the archive still matters
What keeps Lansing’s archive in circulation is not just the strangeness of the images, but their persistence across multiple years. The reported clocklike formations and recurring lights suggest a pattern rather than a single isolated incident, which makes the case especially intriguing to researchers who look for repetition and consistency in witness testimony. Even so, the material sits at the intersection of UFO reporting, paranormal interpretation, and historical media analysis. More than half a century later, the footage remains unexplained, and that uncertainty is precisely what continues to give it relevance in contemporary UFO discussions.
