Gulf Breeze UFO Incident

Was it one of the most compelling proofs of extraterrestrial visitation or the most orchestrated hoax?

Name	Gulf Breeze UFO Incident
Occurred on	From late 1987 to early 1988
Seen by	Multiple witnesses, which began with Ed Walters
Investigated by	Several UFO researchers, skeptics, and organizations, mainly the MUFON

UFO cases reportedly experienced by multiple witnesses aren’t new. These have been happening for decades, haunting people and the sciences in their search for explanations.

In these incidents, the idiom “seeing is believing” is applied. People rarely acknowledge anything unless there is evidence. However, there are cases in which, even with evidence and corroboration, many remain doubtful, such as in the Gulf Breeze UFO incident.

What Is the Gulf Breeze UFO Incident?

From late 1987 to early 1988, the coastal community of Gulf Breeze became synonymous with UFOs, as over 135 residents claimed to witness unidentified objects flying in its skies.

What’s more, the incident wasn’t only verbally documented. It was one of those cases with actual photo evidence. These immediately drew attention from the media, UFO enthusiasts, and researchers, and sparked a long-standing debate about its authenticity.

Reports came from reliable sources—individuals who weren’t the type to perpetrate a hoax, and whose credibility and reputations would be put at risk by such claims.

• Teachers
• Doctors
• Newspaper editors
• Police officers
• Business owners

These corroborations significantly shaped the course of the Gulf Breeze UFO incident and strengthened its authenticity. However, despite the weight of the evidence, the case remains highly questioned by researchers and skeptics alike.

The Key Witness’s Credibility

Several witnesses came forward, but only one man claimed to be pursued by the UFOs. Ed Walters, then 41, would be the most critical figure or contactee in the incident.

He was like any other UFO witness—a local man, a regular building contractor, who happened to witness a mysterious craft hovering near his house. Except that, Walters would be able to present clear photographs of this UFO and claim to have communicated with its travelers.

Ed Walters was a charismatic, media-savvy claimant who regularly appeared on TV and engaged in debates with his debunkers. As the Gulf Breeze UFO incident unfolded, he managed to keep himself at the center of intrigue, pushing out photographs after another.

By the end, he had 38 photos across 20 different encounters, and in one of his guestings claimed that these were “proof positive.”

No longer can I look at the night sky and disregard the possibilities of intelligent life … The personal stigma I carry in revealing the true story of these emotional events become less and less important when compared with the reality of the UFO—proof positive.

What Events Happened During the Gulf Breeze UFO Incident?

It was Ed Walters’s narrative that opened the floodgates of these UFO sightings. His first encounter happened on November 11, 1987, at approximately 5 PM.

He recounted being in his study alone when a light moving behind the trees caught his peripheral vision. Curious, Walters went out to take a closer look and saw this large, glowing, orange UFO hovering 200 feet above the ground. He rushed back inside to grab his Polaroid camera and snapped his first five photos.

He would then later claim that the mysterious craft shot a blue beam at him, paralyzing and pulling him up towards it. Before he was let go, he recounted the following events taking place:

• A voice spoke to him telepathically, telling him to “calm down.”
• He attempted to scream, but no sound came out.
• The voice in his head changed from male to female.
• He began seeing images of dogs.

The reason why he was dragged up or telepathically shown images of dogs remains a mystery. What’s certain is that some of the most substantial photos of a UFO were caught that night.

The Timeline of Ed Walters’s Subsequent Encounters

That was only the beginning of Walters’s encounters. Similar events would soon continue to plague him in the next few months.

Here’s a rundown of his sightings—narratives taken from his book—including the significant action he took in reporting or documenting them. This list would capture the extent of Walters’s experiences, alongside the photo evidence he was able to gather.

The Events of November 1987

November 16, 1987	Ed Walters brought the photos to the Gulf Breeze Sentinel Editor, Duane Cook, who declined to publish them.
November 17, 1987	Ed Walters anonymously sent his images to the Gulf Breeze Sentinel, the local newspaper, under the alias, “Mr. X.”
November 19, 1987	The Sentinel runs the story, with the content: These polaroid photos were taken from the front yard of a Gulf Breeze residence on Wednesday evening, November 11th. If anybody saw it or knows any information regarding this, please contact the Sentinel.
November 20, 1987	Ed Walters heard a UFO voice; this time, it was using an African dialect. He went outside and, as he saw the UFO again, he began shouting at it to leave him alone. A voice responded, saying, “Be calm. Step forward,” but he stands his ground and snaps more photos. He claimed he heard a conversation from inside saying he can’t expose them, and that they won’t hurt him. He then recalled suddenly seeing naked women. These weren’t drawings of naked women, but ACTUAL naked women. Big women, little women, fat, black, white women from every race and every age.

The Events of December 1987

December 2, 1987	Ed Walters heard a conversation in his head in Spanish. A male and a female conversed about why they were only given bananas and why they needed to keep their voices down. He walked outside and saw the UFO. This time, he had a gun in his hand and lifted it, and the object allegedly backed off.
December 3, 1987 (3 AM)	Ed Walters woke up and lifted his blinds. On the other side of his window, he saw a 4ft creature. He ran outside to check when he was struck with the blue beam again.
December 5, 1987	A different craft appeared nearby Walters’s house and began talking to him, saying, “Do not resist. Stay where you are. You are in grave danger. We will not harm you. We have come for you.”
December 17, 1987	Ed Walters woke up in the middle of the night and saw three dark figures in his room. When he got up to defend himself, a sharp pain appeared in his head—his wife corroborated this story. He looked out the window and saw the UFO. He charged out with his camera and gun, snapping more photos.
December 23, 1987	Ed Walters was outside, turning his pool filter on, when three UFOs hovered above him.
December 28, 1987	Ed Walters managed to shoot a video of the UFO flying behind his house, but no record of this footage was found online.

The Events of January 1988

January 12, 1988	Ed Walters was working on a construction site when a UFO came down to street level. Then the following happened: A white light struck him while he was in his truck. He felt intense pins and needles in his arms. He attempted to reach for his gun but failed to grab it. He guided his arm to his camera and shot a photo. He then got out of the truck and heard the UFO demanding that he come forward. When he didn’t, it shot down five blue beams, each time depositing little creatures holding glowing silver rods. He got back in his truck and left.
January 21, 1988	Two men from MUFON decided to stay at Walters’s house to observe whether anything happened. Walters then began hearing a hum in his head and radioed over to one of the men. Unfortunately, he didn’t see anything, except for an airplane.
January 24, 1988	Duane Cook accompanied Ed Walters. They were driving down Highway 98 when Walters reported severe pain in his head. They pulled over to Soundside Drive and attempted to lure the UFO out. Walters got out of the car, screaming, “Why won’t you just leave me alone? Show yourself!” As he screamed, he looked over Duane’s shoulder and shot a photo. The publisher didn’t see anything but Walter taking the photo, “I saw you shoot this picture, and this is the picture I saw you pull out of the camera. I peeled it.”4

The Events of February to May 1988

February 7, 1988	The UFO chased his wife, Frances Walters, and fired a blue beam at her, barely missing her.
February 26, 1988	Ed Walters was given a camera by MUFON and used it to photograph unusual lights in the sky. These photos were presented during a press conference and were implied to depict a large object in the distance.
March 20, 1988	Ed Walters heard the familiar hum and went outside, bringing a new camera rig. This new setup had two cameras that allowed him to take two photos simultaneously to triangulate the object’s distance and size.
May 1, 1988	Ed Walters went to Soundside Beach to find the UFO. At some point, he heard the hum and shot more photos. During this encounter, he also claimed that his hands smelled bad and that he had some black residue under his fingernails. He was also bruised and had an hour and 15 minutes of memory lapse. This would be his last reported encounter.

What Were the Other Witnesses’ Experiences?

The Gulf Breeze UFO incident was definitely not an isolated case. In fact, while the event was at its peak, residents organized “UFO search parties” to look for these unidentified objects. By the end, hundreds of people had come forward to share their encounters.

Here are some of the individuals who spoke up.

Doris and Charlie Somerby

Doris and Charlie were Duane Cook’s parents, who, after seeing Walters’s photos, acknowledged that the craft was the same one they had seen on one November night.

Charlie recalled that the incident happened just as the sun set, and they saw this circular object at a distance. He described it as:

• Bluish-gray in color
• With light shining through its portholes
• Had a lighted dome on top

Jeff Thompson

On November 11, 1987, at 8:10 AM, Jeff Thompson claimed he saw a UFO at treetop level. It was allegedly being trailed by two military jets before it shot straight up into the sky and disappeared. When asked about this, the U.S. Military denied flying its jets that day.

Two years later, on February 8, 1989, Thompson claimed he encountered a mysterious craft again—this time, he was accompanied by his 12-year-old son. He described it as a 3ft-wide, 2ft-high object, and when he tried to approach it, the craft emitted a crackling sound and a white light before disappearing.

Mary and Art Hufford

In November 1987, they were driving along Bayou Boulevard when they saw it. A grayish, oval-shaped craft was silently flying over the treetops. It remained in view for minutes before disappearing from their line of sight.

When they got home, they talked about it but couldn’t come up with a rational explanation.

It just didn’t make any sense. We thought UFOs were something that happened to Billy Bob out on a boat after too many beers.

Several weeks later, they saw Walters’ photographs in the Sentinel and commented how it was as if someone had taken a photo out of their brains. And when debunkers had shut down the Gulf Breeze UFO incident, Art Hufford spoke up.

Frankly, the debunkers make me mad. I saw what I saw.

Brenda Pollak

Brenda Pollak, a city councilwoman, claimed to have seen a strange orange light over Gulf Breeze on March 17, 1988.

She first sighted it crossing the Pensacola Bay bridge, lost it as she got off, then saw it again along Shoreline Drive. She pulled over to observe its flight, describing it as larger and brighter than any aircraft she had seen.

What I saw was certainly not a small model made of paper plates or any other small model. It was a massive object.

John Broxson

John Broxson described himself as a skeptical person who didn’t believe in Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster, but that changed after his encounter.

I saw something that blew my mind. It’s a mystery to me. It just looked like something I wasn’t expecting to see. I didn’t want to see one and have people thinking I was weird. That’s the only time I can recall seeing something that weird.

A parade of different colored lights was hovering above his house in Villa Venyce. He was with his wife and friends when it happened, and he was certain they had seen everything.

Shirley and Fenner McConnell

The McConnells claimed to have witnessed a disc-shaped object skimming over water, its landing lights brightly illuminated. When Walters’ photos were published, they, too, recognized the similarities in what they saw.

“Believer Bill”

On two separate occasions, December 3 and 23, 1987, the Gulf Breeze Sentinel would receive photographs of a UFO from an anonymous sender under the alias “Believer Bill.”

The photo was dated back to June 1986, a year before the whole Gulf Breeze UFO incident erupted. Believer Bill claimed he didn’t release it at that time because he didn’t want to be seen as a crackpot and only dared to do so when Walters came forward with his story.

What Did Investigations and Researchers Say About the Gulf Breeze UFO Incident?

UFO researchers and organizations were torn between believing its authenticity or not. One of the first statements was issued by MUFON’s International Director, Walter H. Andrus Jr., after its cursory 1988 investigation.

It reflected the organization’s support for the Gulf Breeze UFO incident.

This is one of the most amazing UFO cases that I have investigated in the past 30 years in the United States … No evidence was disclosed that this Gulf Breeze citizen [Ed Walters] was involved in anything deceptive.

MUFON’s Florida Director, Don Ware, also added:

These sightings are proof of alien visitation. One might ask why one couple in Gulf Breeze has been allowed 18 photographic sessions. The most obvious reason to me is the aliens want people to see the photographs.

However, the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) would like to believe otherwise. The organization collectively labeled the photos as “most probably a hoax.”

It based this conclusion on the alleged craft’s windows not being evenly spaced, which, to its members, simply went against the aliens’ nature.

The Division Among UFO Researchers

Of the several UFO researchers who looked into the Gulf Breeze UFO incident, many remained skeptical about its credibility.

One of the sole believers was Bruce Maccabee, a U.S. Navy optical physicist, who was genuinely impressed by the photos, saying, “I think there’s a good chance it’s the real thing.

Upon examining the Walters’s photographs, he commented on how some details on them wouldn’t be achieved through simple double exposure. 

On the other hand, several researchers were adamant that the whole case was nothing but a ruse.

• Philip Klass. Klass was among the loudest with his skepticism, despite not having investigated the incident personally. His reason? He wouldn’t waste his time. He wrote in his book:

  I really don’t think there’s any question that the Gulf Breeze sightings were a hoax. There are things in the sky that can’t be identified. Just because it can’t be identified doesn’t mean it’s a visitor from another planet.⁷

• Dr. Robert Nathan. Dr. Nathan was a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist who, despite claiming Walters’s photos weren’t superimposed, remained skeptical.
• Willy Smith. Smith was the co-founder of UNICAT, a UFO information-gathering group, who claimed that he could see a support under the object in one of the photos.

Ed Walters’s Polygraph Test

On February 10, 1988, Walters took a polygraph test, which Harvey McLaughlin conducted. The session was said to have lasted for nearly six hours over two days, with the witness being asked the following questions:

1. Did you lie or falsify the information you have furnished me concerning the UFOs you have seen?
2. Did you, in any way, falsify or lie about the photographs you have presented concerning these UFOs?
3. Did you, in any way, falsify or lie about the humanoid beings that you saw or any of the physical evidence that you have presented?

To these, the examiner got the following conclusion:

With the information that is available to this examiner at this time, it is felt that Mr. Walters truly believes that the photographs and personal sightings he had described are true and factual to the best of his ability.

Ed Walters’s Regressive Hypnosis

Another interesting event in this case was that Walters had personally submitted himself to a regressive hypnosis.

He uncovered three episodes of missing time from specific periods of his life, indicating that his experience with the extraterrestrial didn’t occur only during the Gulf Breeze UFO incident.

• At age 17. Walters saw an alien face above him while he was sleeping. His brother, who responded to his yells, noticed that Walters was wet and there were several footprints around his room.
• At age 25. Walters was driving when a light circled him. He pulled off to the side, and while this happened within minutes, several hours had passed from his perspective.
• At age 33. Walters was canoeing when he hit a large metallic object that glowed green as bubbles began to form around it. Suddenly, he woke up on his canoe, closer to the shore, with several hours already passed.

These narratives further added to Ed Walters’s reputation as a contactee. However, months after his last known encounter, two massive scandals broke out, damaging the case’s credibility.

What Were the Scandals that Fueled the Skeptics’ Doubts?

What started as mere questions surrounding Walters’s photographs hardened into a full-blown controversy in 1990, when two events happened:

• A cardboard model was found in Walters’s house.
• Tommy Smith came forward, claiming he helped with the hoax.

The UFO Model

In September 1989, Robert Menzer had moved into Ed Walters’s house. Weeks later, while he was renovating the attic, he allegedly found a cardboard model of the UFO.

• Measured 9 inches in diameter and 5 inches in depth
• Wrapped in blue plastic film
• With an orange paper ring and a plastic tube held together with electrical tape

Menzer knew about the Gulf Breeze UFO incident but didn’t think much about it.

When I uncovered the model, I didn’t think much about it. It was just a curiosity that it was there. I was not aware at that time of the significance attached to a model of a UFO.

This incident came to light only when Craig Myers, a Pensacola News Journal reporter, knocked on his door and asked whether Menzer had found anything in the house.

For the believers, this was suspiciously coincidental; for the skeptics, it was proof that the entire affair had been staged. However, Walters was adamant that the model was planted.

The prank that was pulled by putting a model in a house that I used to live in was an effort by whoever to discredit the sightings, and it shows me that there’s a very definite cover-up going on, trying to make this phenomenon go away.

The Testimony

In 1990, Tommy Smith spoke about his role in faking the Gulf Breeze UFO incident, assisting Walters in double-exposing the photographs.

He had a spot on the floor where he could kneel or sit and photograph the model every single time. I was sitting in the bedroom, and he went into the closet and pulled one model out and said, “No, wrong one,” and stuck it back up.

To this, Ed Walters called out why people are suddenly believing Smith.

Every word that I have uttered has been examined and cross-examined. Why is it that we are suddenly expected to believe, without any examination, every word this young man says just because he happens to be a naysayer?

What Is the Significance of the Gulf Breeze UFO Incident in Modern Ufology?

To this day, the Gulf Breeze UFO incident remains a subject of debate.  However, in terms of remarkability, the case still holds a special place in UFO history.

To skeptics, it’s easy to dismiss it on the grounds of the model’s existence and Tommy Smith’s testimony—but these don’t explain the hundreds of witnesses testifying to what they saw. To believers, these controversies can be easily associated with the suppression of similar cases.

Ultimately, the entirety of the incident, from its investigations to the controversies, is widely left to the public’s interpretation, fueling the intrigue and mystery surrounding it.

If you want to hear it from the witness himself, here’s what he has to say:

This type of ridicule is the same thing the government does to virtually every high-profile UFO case. Hundreds of people in Gulf Breeze are testifying to seeing this thing. Now, if you want to believe I am a faker, then you also have to somehow or another convince all these other people who are seeing the same thing that they are hoaxsters.

So, was the Gulf Breeze UFO incident authentic or was it merely a hoax? If you’re interested in reading other UFO events like this, browse our website for more.

FAQ

Were the Gulf Breeze UFO photos considered authentic?

There’s no one true judgment of their authenticity. Some UFO researchers and analysts believed they were authentic, while others remained skeptical. The case remains highly disputed within the UFO community.

Did any official investigations confirm UFO activity?

No government or scientific agency confirmed the Gulf Breeze UFO incident as extraterrestrial. While some researchers did review the photos, no official conclusion supported the claim that the objects captured were non-human craft.

Why did the Gulf Breeze case gain so much attention?

The Gulf Breeze incident stood out because of:

• The number of witnesses included
• The number of photographs gathered
• The clarity of these images

References