The Swamp Gas Lie

In March 1966, colored lights hovered over a marsh behind a women’s dormitory at Hillsdale College in Michigan, the night after a farm family near Dexter reported something glowing in their swamp. When Air Force astronomer J. Allen Hynek blamed swamp gas, the country laughed, the witnesses were furious, and Congressman Gerald Ford demanded a real investigation. The man who said “swamp gas” would spend the rest of his life acting like he’d gotten it wrong. So what was really over that marsh?