On April 23, 1897, a Florida newspaper, the Farmer's Advocate, reported an incredible story. On the evening of April 19, local rancher Alexander Hamilton, his son, and a hired man saw a giant cigar-shaped UFO hovering above a swamp near the house. Hamilton claimed that in a carriage underneath the structure were "six of the strangest beings I ever saw." Just then, the three men heard saw a manatee calf and found it trapped in the tractor beam. "We tried to get help but could not," Hamilton said, "we just stood there and watched the ship, heifer and all, rise slowly, disappearing in the northwest."
