Ex-newsman producing his second UFO book

By Mannix Porterfield
Register-Herald Reporter

Hardly a day passes that Kyle Lovern isn’t approached by someone with a tale to tell about an Unidentified Flying Object sighting in the hills of West Virginia.

Just recently, while making a bank transaction, a teller inquired, “Are you the guy who wrote the book?”

Indeed, he is that man who wrote the book, “Appalachian Case Study: UFO Sightings, Alien Encounters, and Unexplained Phenomena.”

Correction. Two books.

Lovern has a second one in the works, with publication by Woodland Press expected in late September or early October.

“Actually, I’ve gotten a lot of response from the first one,” he said. “A lot of people contacted me, wanting to share their stories. One guy was from California. He originally lived in the ’60s in Virginia, on the other side of Bluefield. He used to go out hunting in Hidden Valley.”

While on one such foray, the man, accompanied by his father and some cousins, experienced a UFO sighting.

Lovern soon found after his first book hit the market there certainly was no dearth of material. A number of other people since have come forth to furnish vivid details of personal sightings.

One of them was shared by a former supervisor of a work crew engaged in contour mining in Mingo County. About 40 employees joined him in watching a UFO maneuver up close to their work site in the 1980s, a time of intense activity for the unexplained, Lovern pointed out.

A state professor at Morehead University detailed his account of watching a UFO with his two sons while driving home one evening, telling Lovern it appeared to land in a meadow or a valley near his subdivision. A woman provided her own version while out with a friend to take in the Christmas lights of her neighborhood.

“Then some people heard this scream, like a woman screaming, ‘Oh, my God, please help me!’ from the same area, and even called 911,” the author said.

“Police, fire and ambulance crews were sent out in the area of the scream. There is actual proof there, with the emergency services being contacted, that something had happened. It was a real eerie story.”

Yet another episode Lovern covers in his second book, tentatively titled “Appalachian Case Study Two: Mysterious UFO Sightings and Alien Encounters,” entails a report that a UFO sideswiped a passing CSX freight train in eastern Kentucky.

Lovern, a former newspaper reporter in southern West Virginia, now works in the marketing department for Dignity Hospice and Home Health in Logan and Mingo counties.

Recently, he appeared at a book signing at Tamarack, and has been sought out by a number of media outlets across the country for interviews. One talk show beamed coast-to-coast is ironing out details for an appearance. Already, he has shared his personal UFO experiences on an Internet show.

“I’m starting to get a little bit of national exposure,” he acknowledged.

So far, however, there has been no contact from the aliens themselves.

“I told my wife, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if one would flash the lights at me?’” he said. “I could really share a story. But then, I probably wouldn’t remember it. They would probably take my memories away.”

Originally published in the Beckley Register-Herald
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