On a chilly Saturday night in November 1974, three teenage boys lit up a Carbondale silt pond and sparked a UFO legend that still glows 40 years later.

The boys, including Robert Gillette Jr., reported to police on Nov. 9 they saw “a red, whirring ball fly over Salem Mountain and into the mine pond.”

What would become known as the “Carbondale UFO” drew police officers, military, UFO enthusiasts and curious spectators from across the country. The glow lasted nine hours. After two days, a diver emerged from the murky waters with nothing but an old railroad lantern in hand.

Twenty-five years later, Gillette admitted throwing the battery-powered lantern into the pond to scare his sister, but the legend lives on.

read more UFO lore still hovers over Carbondale.