‘The UFO man.’ One time, North Carolina had a dean of the lights in the sky.

Reporter Julia Coin this week took her spot in line with other Charlotte Observer writers who have had one or two run-ins with UFO tales, alien worries and strange lights in the sky. (Turns out the mysterious flickering lights on Thursday night belong to Elon — not E.T.).

Her report made me wonder what Retro Charlotte might find in the archives.

Behold, George Fawcett.

Fawcett was the dean of North Carolina “UFOnauts,” according to The Observer’s Joe DePriest in 1998. He tried — for years — to raise millions of dollars for a UFO museum in North Carolina.

In 1981, the Observer directed readers to contact Fawcett if they spotted an unidentified flying objects.

Fawcett died in 2013. His obituary says he investigated more than 1,200 UFO sightings.

Can you imagine if he’d had Twitter?

This story was originally published May 5, 2023 at 12:53 PM.

Anna Douglas

The Charlotte Observer

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Anna Douglas is The Charlotte Observer’s deputy managing editor and previously worked as an investigative reporter and news editor in the newsroom. Prior to joining the Observer, she worked as a local news reporter for The (Rock Hill) Herald and as a congressional correspondent in Washington, D.C., for McClatchy. Anna is a past recipient of the South Carolina Press Association’s Journalist of the Year award and the Charlotte Society of Professional Journalists’ Outstanding Journalism Award. She’s a South Carolina native, a graduate of Winthrop University, and a past fellow of the Dori Maynard Diversity Leadership Program, sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists. Anna has lived in Charlotte since May 2017.