UFO. United States

About 10 p.m. on the muggy, moonless night of Tuesday, August 19, 1952, Palm Beach County, Florida, Deputy Sheriff Mott N. Partin received an urgent call. The Florida Highway Patrol had just been contacted by a farmer who lived about 12 miles southwest of West Palm Beach on Military Trail, a rural highway running north-south roughly parallel to and about 10 miles inland from Florida's Atlantic coast. The highway patrol was handing the matter over to the sheriff.

It seemed the farmer and his wife had three frantic boy scouts in their living room. The boys' scoutmaster was in some sort of fix. Joined by Lake Worth Constable Louis Carroll, who followed in a separate vehicle, Partin hurried to the scene.

About 10:20, Partin and Carroll pulled up to the farmhouse. There they found the worried farm couple and the three scouts, Bobby Ruffing, 12, David Rowan, 11, and Charles "Chuck" Stevens, 10. The boys said their scoutmaster, hardware clerk and ex-U.S. Marine D. S. (Dunham Sanborn) "Sonny" Desvergers, 30, had gone into the scrub pine and palmetto just off Military Trail to investigate some odd lights. Moments later, the boys saw red, flare-like lights in the area where Desvergers had gone. Badly frightened, they ran to the farmhouse for help.

Taking the boys, the lawmen drove to Desvergers' car, parked about three-quarters of a mile south on the east shoulder of the road. Deputy Partin pulled over a few yards north of Desvergers' vehicle at about 10:30, Carroll drawing up behind. As the officers considered the situation, a man emerged from the palmettos about 75 feet from the road. He was waving a machete and shouting repeatedly, "I'm coming, here I am!" He looked, said Partin, "like a wild man" as he struggled up the highway embankment, babbling incoherently. It was Desvergers, white-faced, shaking. Quoting Partin, "In all my 19 years of law enforcement work, I've never seen anyone as terrified as he was."

With some reluctance, Partin and Carroll followed the scoutmaster back through the woods. In a small clearing, they found Desvergers' large, multi-cell flashlight resting lens-down in the grass, still on. Close by, the sparse grass was flattened as though someone had been lying on it. A search turned up nothing else unusual. Partin marked the locations of the flashlight and crushed grass with twigs, and the three men trekked back to the road.

As Partin and Carroll drove Desvergers and the boys to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office, Desvergers said the hair on his forearms was singed and the skin burned. At the sheriff's office, Desvergers and the boys were re-questioned, and Partin examined Desvergers arms and found the hair singed and the skin of one arm reddened. He also noted three tiny holes burned in the scoutmaster's billed cap.

The burns were real, but of greater interest was their alleged cause: Desvergers claimed he had been attacked by a flying saucer.

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Sonny Desvergers, a scoutmaster, driving with 3 boy scouts after dark, noticed a light in the woods and went in to investigate. In a clearing it became oppressively hot & humid, he smelled a pungent smell, and he had the feeling of being watched. Looking up, he saw a dark body above him. Backing up & shining his flashlight on it, he saw a huge smooth gray disc, somewhat concave on the bottom, with vanes around the edge and a dome in the middle.

Then he heard a slight sound, and a small red fireball began to drift toward him, expanding into a cloud of red mist; as this enveloped him, he lost consciousness. On recovery he ran for the road, & encountered the car of a deputy sheriff summoned by the boys, who had seen the red fire strike him. His arms face, & cap showed slight burns, and his hair was singed. At the site the grass showed scorched roots. In later accounts, Desvergers said that he had got aboard the rim of the saucer and had fought there with 3 humanoids in grayish clothing that had a sweaty odor.