Oral History Interview with
Don Bushnell
Date:
1988
Interviewer:
Barbara Bartholic
Transcription:
Thomas Tulien
TRT:
Approximately 50 minutes (with a couple breaks in the recording, as indicated).
Format:
90-minute audiocassette (copy from the original provided by BB).
Copyright:
AFS/Dialogue Productions LLC, Barbara Bartholic, and the Sign
Oral History Project.
_______________________________________________________________________
NOTICE
This is a transcript of
a tape-recorded interview conducted and is essentially a transcript of the
spoken, rather than the written word.
RESTRICTIONS
This oral history
transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of
research. It may not be published in whole or part except by permission of the
copyright holder.
Thomas Tulien
Sign Oral History Project
________________________________________________________________________
[Note: A newspaper article referencing the Bushnell sighting was published by the Tulsa Tribune for December 1, 1957, and is appended to this transcript. According to Tulsa World: Bushnell, Donald N., 74, engineer, died Sept. 23, 1992].
Barbara Bartholic: BB
Don Bushnell: DB
BB You were interviewed in 1950?
DB: Yes
BB: The year after your sighting in 1949. Who interviewed you?
DB: Donald Keyhoe.
BB: How did he come to hear about your sighting?
[Tape Break?]
DB: After I came back off my vacation this happened on vacation in October 1949, course, I talked to some people about it I mentioned it to my barber we talked about it in the barbershop and a few other fellows heard it. How the word got to him I don’t know. He called on the telephone and was coming through Wichita and wanted to know if he could arrange an interview. I did. That was about 6 month’s after it happened and he was going through town and came from the airport and we met at a restaurant and he interviewed me there for about an hour.
BB: What was your experience?
DB: We were
driving down the highway my wife and three children, they were small, they were
asleep in the back seat. And at about, as near as I can remember it was almost
exactly between three and three thirty in the afternoon. And, ah…this was in NM
not too far from White Sands, NM. And, I’m driving down the road my wife and I
are talking and I had the radio on. Directly something caught my eye to the
right of the road about a quarter of a mile. And I looked and saw this thing
that was going the same direction as we were and I told my wife “Look at that
thing over there.” I never heard the term flying saucer or UFO, even then, I
don’t believe, and she looked and we watched it was going the same direction as
we were, gradually it was cutting over getting less distance all the time and
it was probably a couple hundred feet off the ground just going along level
flight at slightly more speed than we were at about 50-55 miles per hour. It
did that for I guess a distance of 2 or 3 miles. But it kept getting closer and
the shape is what really impressed me. It was pretty big.
Directly, it speeded
up it looked like about a mile or two ahead of us and then made a big left hand
turn and that brought it up at an angle that we could tell it was round.
Looking at it there you really couldn’t tell what the breadth of it was because…and
the distance that it was. And, it made a
big left hand turn and come over to the highway, and continued down the highway
in the same direction we were going ahead of us. For a little while. In the
meantime I slowed down some became interested and directly it kinda swooped up
in the air and made a U-turn about, probably a half mile or more ahead of us
and then it come right back down toward the highway and came right back towards
us. Of course I slowed down and it was about as near as I can judge about
100-150 feet above the highway. Which really as big as it was…the highway it
was a blacktop, about 40-50 feet wide with no fences but slight grader ditches
and as it came back towards us…as it started coming back…it was going slow…
course I let my foot off the foot feed, slowed down and pulled over to the side
of the road. And, it kept continuing towards us and got down lower where it looked like the belly of it wasn’t any more than the height of our car, over
the highway. It came down and went right up and over the top of our car. As it
went over I immediately got a hold of the door handle and opened the door and
stepped out and looked. It went on down the highway. I judged then it wasn’t
over 25 feet…I looked at the belly…this thing was at least a hundred feet in
diameter. It was big.
I judged the highway to be thirty, thirty-five feet. This thing looked like it hung out on both sides, thirty-five feet on both sides
over and beyond the highway. This thing was big! It was right close to us when
it went over the top of the car. As it went past the car there was a real loud
static on the radio. Just a …zzzzzhhh… on the radio. It was so loud it
attracted my attention from looking at the object. As it went right over us it
went up, a little, circled and came back and did the same thing again. It’s
circle was to our left…and it went… I mean, as I looked at it the circle was
actually to my right if I faced that direction. Which was a counter-clockwise
circle it made on down the road and then came down and did it again…it passed
over twice. Then it went off out over the field and started up at an incline of
about thirty degrees and then speeded up and just went right-on out of sight.
In the meantime as it faded away of course the noise faded away on the radio
and my engine was dead. And I had a real easy starting car but I had to crank
it several times to get it to start. I was so nervous I could hardly drive.
We
continued to drive five miles down the road to a truck stop. I asked the guy at
the service station did he see anything. He had not seen it then but they all
seen things like that. He informed me that they were not far from White Sands,
New Mexico. And they are doing a lot of strange things over there. It’s
probably from over there. Besides there have been several people who have said
they have seen those strange things over there. He said, “We just don’t think
much about it.” I said, Oh boy, I did!
Then we went to the restaurant; there was a restaurant and service station
there. We talked to the waitress and a couple of other people in there about
it. And they weren’t really all that surprised. They also reminded us, “Oh, its
something the government is doing at White Sands.” I guess people expected
strange things, I guess, from White Sands, because of the bomb that was dropped
on Japan, all that…
BB: Do you
feel like that was an American-made product? DB: Of
course, at that time I didn’t think at all…of it…being from… only that it would
be made here. No. I didn’t associate it
with other earths out in space. No I didn’t associate it with anything like
that. BB: This was
before they had anything on the news about flying saucers? DB: I had
never heard the term flying saucer I kept calling it a ‘thing.’ It was later if
you check back that they coined…1949…I had never heard the term ‘flying saucer’ But this thing it would suggest a saucer,
it was oval shaped – a lot larger in radius on the bottom side with a smaller
radius, which made it higher humped on the topside. We had a good view when I
could still see the top and that little thing that was up there in the middle,
on down the road from us, because it was within six to eight city blocks until
it turned. It was tight down low to the pavement it was less than the height of
my car to the pavement. My concern was it was going to hit the top of my
car…but it turned up. On out there a ways, I could see the topside. The bottom
side looked like it was made out of a different material. Now, at the time – see
I spent all of WWII in the Cessna aircraft plant and was familiar with
aircraft – and am also an engineer. The bottom looked like that it was put
together in sheets. Rather huge, large sheets. Because it had squares all
across the bottom of the thing that looked like rivet joints on an airplane.
Which I am familiar with. And, the material looked real shiny but it didn’t
exactly look like aluminum it looked like stainless steel. In my mind that I
thought to myself after it was gone. There was no protrusion or anything on the
bottom other than a smooth, shiny and real reflective surface is what it looked
like. On the topside, however, it was more of a dull-dull finish. I couldn’t
discern those squares that looked like rivet joints, on the top, however, I
didn’t get to look at it as long as I got to see the belly. There was a thing
up on top that was rounded and it looked like it had windows in it. However,
the squares were pronounced that looked like windows however it didn’t look
like it had glass it looked like the same material, however, there were squares
on it. Maybe so they could be opened? I know they could see what they were
doing because they absolutely raised their height as they went over the car. BB: That was
in 1949? DB: Yes that
was in 1949. We left late September and was gone until the beginning of the second
week in October. [TAPE BREAK.
However, Barbara’s partial transcript reads at this point…DB: I had just
left Cessna and went to Beechcraft. I was outside subcontract administrator on
the B-26 project. I went to work in aircraft in 1938. I am an engineer.]
BB: How did
it disappear? DB: It
raised some in height and inclined up about thirty degrees and just speeded
up…you would not believe how fast it went out of sight. Phtttt…It was gone.
However, there was no other sound that I heard from this, other than what was
on the radio a kind of a real loud humming came on the radio that was what
scared and alarmed us…it was so loud, we didn’t have the volume real loud but
this thing was real loud on the radio. BB: What
about your kids? DB: They
woke up from the noise and really didn’t get to see anything. Wanted to know
what we were looking at, you know. BB: How old
were they? DB: Say, ah,
from two to almost seven, Aurora was six and a half and the baby was two. BB: Wow,
that was a fabulous sighting! DB: I
thought so too. Anyway, at that time, we hadn’t heard much about them but then
it started shortly, where people were seeing they saw this or that- cigar
shapes but it seems as though everything I saw in the paper, all these
sightings were at night what I thought was real strange about our sighting was
that in broad daylight, no reflections it wasn’t lights or sparks or any of
that. It was right there, there wasn’t any reflections, the thing was there,
you can misjudge a lot of things at night by golly this was broad daylight and
it wasn’t a real shiny, it was a partly cloudy day, however, it was light it
wasn’t dark and it wasn’t getting ready to storm. BB: What is
your wife’s name? DB: Laura. BB: Did the
experience change your lives? DB: No. Not
anything noticeable, no. BB: What
about your children today, are they kinda interested in spiritual matters – are
they artists? What occupations? DB: No.
Aurora is the oldest daughter is the girl you see on Channel 3, who appears on
TV and talks about restaurants and food and talks about different places to
eat. [Veale, Aurora Ann (Bushnell), deceased 5/6/2009]. My middle daughter is a
teacher and housewife and then my youngest has for twenty-thirty years been at
Telex used to be old Midwestern Instruments. My wife is a real estate broker.
She has Bushnell Company, which is small, because she was in an unfortunate
accident at Six Flags over Texas, so she doesn’t get around all that good since
that accident. She’s a broker. You may have seen her signs. I am retired all my
life I have been an engineer, a manufacturing engineer. [BB shows DB photos of UFOs. Apparently,
this is the large photo book of the Billy Meier UFO photos].
DB: This
isn’t too far right here. [Referring to one of the photos] However the projections,
the bottom was straight rounding like this and the top seems to be a higher
hump then this, it was this shape on the bottom straight through without the
definite offset and then on the top as I remember the top had a higher hump and
a dome on it. It did have a deal that looked like this right here. [Referring to other photo with dome…] OK. Like this right here it went straight
through it didn’t have all the other rings, but the top looked pretty close to
that right there. I told you they looked like windows they didn’t have glass in
them you could see the outlines. It would be closer to this Type 2. Only, I
definitely remember it didn’t have the different separation of the rings.
Because, this whole bottom as it went over is what I looked at and it was
divided it looked like big squares of aluminum or stainless that had been
riveted together you could definitely see joints and I could see what looked
like rivet laps or joints, or whatever, as it went right overhead. The texture
struck me course-see this wasn’t too long of time, I got two views, two times I
saw it. And the distance it was away was so close I thought it would hit the
top of the car. Then is when you got the sensation of how huge it was. Then you
could tell you had…the road width to compare it with in other words the roadway
to compare it with it wasn’t trying to say, OK that thing is five miles
off…there the darn thing was… I know it was under forty feet it had to be
because before it swooped up in the air I absolutely saw the distance between
it and the pavement was awfully close to hitting the top of my car. My first thought was that it would hit the
top of my car. And that’s pretty startling, you know what I mean. Its imprinted
on my mind what the thing looked like. The bottom of it was smooth. I can’t
recall anything in my mind that it had anything other than a smooth surface
underneath. BB:
Hypnosis? Lost time? [BB is querying whether there was any “lost time”]. DB: [DB
seems to be ignoring BB’s line of questioning]. This looks like more
[referring to the photos], course, I can’t see if this has the ridges, but this
is what it looked like right there. It was a smooth surface underneath. BB: 1947 was
when they were first talked about. [Looking at photos…] DB: This one
did not have ridges; it was cut up into squares...it looked like it had seams. BB: It was
fast. You knew aircraft at that time… DB: No see
they were in the early jets, at that time. When I last saw it going out of
sight it was still gaining altitude. [Referring to photos] There several… I am surprised most of what I
have read everyone talks about different shapes, I am surprised how similar all
these photos are.
[Referring to photo] It looks like this
could possibly be the same size as what I saw compared to the trees. I can
judge size with distance pretty good. It has always been in my mind that it was
at least 100 feet in diameter. Judging by the roadway- the standard lane on a
good blacktop road in 1949 was usually about 12 feet usually a roadway was
about 24 feet. And judging with that then this object was at least 100
feet. The times I got to see it up close
were fairly short but even when it was out there I could see the shape in
comparison with these, and when it was making its circle and when I first picked
it up it wasn’t any farther away from us than this one in this photograph right
here. And it continued out there – they don’t always go that fast, this one
wasn’t gaining on us – but very little only a few miles an hour and made that
left-hand turn and descending at the same time down right on top of the roadway
this thing was actually centered right over the top of our car unless it was
our car that made them do that, why would it have made two passes over our car?
Why would it speed up and get ahead and come right down the center of the
roadway and then after it got past our car and when I stepped out of the door
and looked back at it going – it didn’t go probably over a thousand yards until
it made another turn and came back and made another, almost identical pass to
the first pass. So, they were concentrating on not anything but our car. Out
there…back then there were lots of times we were the only car you could see
either direction. And that’s where we were.
But by the same token the people at this truck stop could have seen if
they had been looking this thing was large enough they could have seen it for
five miles. [Tape Break] DB: …White
Sands and there’s a lot of strange things going on over there, so that kinda
satisfied my curiosity. Like I told her, I have never been a fan of that [UFOs]
there was a deal in Wichita, KS probably a year after that that happened before
I was aware of it was a day or two we drove by and saw, supposedly, a spot
where a UFO landed. Course they called the Air Force. The situation was that
two men and their wives were coming from a prayer meeting at the Church on a
Wednesday night and, ah, they were neighbors of ours down the same block we
lived in. As one couple was taking the other couple home, the guy that owned
the car was the guy who lived on our block that we did and this thing landed
out in a field and they stopped the car and observed it for a while this was at
night about 9 o’clock – they went out to the fence and started walking out there
towards it and it flew off and supposedly then, I did not go out there to see,
but they had it roped off where it was supposed to be the spots where it landed
in the pasture. The depression – whatever. This was from them and scorched the
grass and all that stuff. It was the talk of the neighborhood for a few days
and that was about all. BB: Bob
[BB’s husband- present at the interview] was born in Wichita. DB: I worked
Cessna aircraft, Beech aircraft and was on loan from Cessna Aircraft for
several months during the glider program.
I will be seventy in October of this year. So, course this was after
WWII but I worked all through it. [Some discussion about Wichita] DB: That’s
my only experience with whatever you want to call it. [BB and DB talk about DB’s daughter,
Aurora, etc. BB compliments DB’s daughter for being an exceptional local talk
radio (KELI) and TV host. BB asked if she saw the object in 1949 and DB
responds, “no.” BB invites DB to appear on a local TV program to discuss his
experiences- and he declines].
DB: It got
to where, after about two or three years that I never would mention, cause you
know what crazy stuff is going. People looked at you as though you were
something else, I kept quiet about that for years. [Laughs and declines invite
to appear on TV show. BB is referring to abductees and DB responds…]. I don’t know I have always thought about
that I don’t get too enthused about that. You know I have never read, and it’s
in a book, in the library, in the book by Donald Keyhoe, he’s the one who
actually interviewed me. And I have never gone to the library, I get calls from
people, “Are you the Don Bushnell in Donald Keyhoe’s book…” and I say, “I guess
so.” I have had calls from students out at TU that have read that. But I have
never read, because this other one, I am so disappointed, I don’t know where
the guy that wrote the article in true Magazine in 1964, I got it at home, and
it gives a bunch of sightings around the country, and foreign countries,
there’s not one detail in that thing, other than I had a sighting and my name
that is correct They had it at night; they had it at Tulsa Ok, simply cause I
lived here when they heard about it, I guess. And that was so far from the
truth of anything I have ever seen. BB: Did they
call you to talk to you? DB: I never
talked to this guy. He got the information second-hand from someone, because I
was, at the time that he wrote that, I was a factory superintendent at
Southwestern Porcelain [Southwestern Porcelain Steel Corporation] and that’s
what it has in the article. Don Bushnell a factory superintendent of
Southwestern Porcelain, so forth, had a sighting, so forth, not one other
detail after that hardly was right! [Laughs]. We made service stations that went all over
the country. I was with Southwestern at two intervals I left and went to Dan
Huser Machine Works, which became Heston Corporation over in Claremore and left
there and went back to Southwestern when they started making these big silos,
and I went to Germany, Japan, Canada to help break-in crews how to put those
things up. Those big jobs that are blue, with a ripple…I took my wife with me
to Japan; she did not go with me to Germany. [BB questions DB about his oldest daughter,
Aurora, and they briefly discuss personal issues.] DB: [question
to Barbara] What is this, you keep mentioning changes in your life, so
forth, I have not heard anything like that what is supposedly the changes. How
would you know that there was a change in your life that wouldn’t have been
there had you not had the sighting? BB: Many times
the changes will come on fast where you may have more interest in religious
matters, maybe more intuitive knowing that the phone is going to ring or you
know what I am going to say before I say it. DB: No I
don’t think so. BB: It seems
strange to me that it would pass over two times. Definitely it was focused on
your car. In my investigations there’s usually some meaning to this…if you were
meant to see something two times like that and it was that large and obviously
directed for you to see it. DB: It
didn’t, as far as I know in our family; it didn’t even really dwell on our mind
much more than some other things. Because, remember right immediately after it
happened we were told by people that this was something that our government was
messing with so we didn’t place any great emphasis on it like maybe some people
would. We didn’t put any great emphasis, it was something that happened and
probably wouldn’t have been much more than if any government plane had buzzed
our car, a couple of times, you see what I mean? So, therefore we didn’t dwell
on it, not a lot of conversation, it was kind of like most any other unusual
thing that happens, most people don’t really dwell on it so we didn’t try to
put things, you know, that it wasn’t, or whatever, at that time we didn’t
realize that it wasn’t really what we thought it was and then later, it was
kind of a gradual dawning on us that it was that.
[Discussion concerning government
involvement and press coverage…] DB: Yea, ah,
I don’t know. My feeling is that this would be something that would be
absolutely impossible for your government to do. It would have all been out in
the open and Congress would have had a hearing on it. As far as squashing it…my
feeling is that the government doesn’t know anything more about it than I do.
And, ah, there’s no way, through so many years, with so many people come and
gone in the government, that if they had the slightest thing to do with either
trying to suppress it, because they were responsible for it, they couldn’t do it,
they are not that smart. That’s my feeling of the government. [Laughs] Even the
secrets they most want to keep, someone turns it loose. After all these years,
I truly believe now these things are there and there are probably people in the
government trying to probably squash it, they don’t know what in the world it
is, maybe they think it will panic the people, or something- I don’t panic- so,
I don’t know what it is but I don’t think it is something the government could
suppress. I don’t think they know anything
more about it than I do, I don’t think the government has anything to do with
it at all. It’s a phenomenon, I believe that, and I don’t think that government
has anything to do with it at all. Back then I did, cause that’s what I heard
and that was fresh on my mind right after the incident and I didn’t have time
to conjure up any answers, or anything so it didn’t mean that much to us. BB: Sure is
a wonderful sighting. DB: Every
time I hear about this, I don’t doubt, but I truly believe that they don’t know
a bit more about it than I do…and I don’t know [laughs] only what I saw… [TAPE END SIDE ONE] [Talks about DB’s daughter Aurora and
people who have contacted him] DB: I
haven’t dwelled on it. I haven’t thought it would be something that would influence
my life, or anything, figure, I just happened to be there. [Personal discussion] BB: That’s
just amazing. DB: How did
you hear about me? BB: I worked
with Dr. Jacques Vallee and he had your experience listed in his book. DB: I wonder
if he had the details right. I don’t remember the man who wrote the True
article…they couldn’t be further from right. I filled out a questionnaire that
DK used to get the details and verify the sighting and after I moved here in
1953 he came through from the airport, that was when I was at Southwestern
Porcelain, see, that this other guy put in this article, and wanted to know if
I would answer some questions and he sent me this questionnaire. I filled it
out. I never placed much importance on
it. And most certainly this is why I don’t want to gain any notoriety and this
is the reason I wouldn’t want to go on radio and all that. Now, anything that I
have said to you today you have the right to use. My wife and I are great collectors. Anyway,
I collect clocks and my wife collects paperweights. I’ve been on Channel 2,
etc. at different times, guests of Betty Boyd. But I had to quit due to
burglaries, I turned Channel 6 down because I don’t want it broadcast that I
have clocks in my house. Same with my wife. I don’t mind going on tape, you can
use this information wherever you want, but I don’t want to go on TV… [BB wonders why DB was fortunate to witness
this incident]
DB: I have always wondered about that, why me? I just happened to be there, I know why! [Laughs] [BB talks about the abductee phenomenon] DB: Well. It would have been the shortest interview ever, cause I am always conscious of
time. I had contact with people right on down the road right after I knew what time
it was. If they are capable of doing that they would not have to beam me anyplace
cause they would already know. Being an engineer, I have to see and know when
things are concrete. If they can do that in
the first place they wouldn’t need to beam me up there to find out. See what
I mean. That’s my belief. [BB discusses “lost time” and when
referring to the idea that UFOs are piloted by alien beings... DB agrees,
“There’s something, yea.” some further discussion… [INTERVIEW ENDS ABRUPTLY IN
MID-SENTENCE]
