Ralph Jarrett: West Virginia Ufologist

James Ralph Jarrett was born on September 11, 1923. In December of 1966, 43 year old Ralph was working as a mechanical engineer for Union Carbide and living at 2523 Winter St., which was located in the River Lake Estates subdivision of St. Albans, WV. That December would be one that would change the course of his entire life. 

At around 1:50 p.m. on Saturday, December 3, Mr. Jarrett and his brother were working on the north side of his Winter St. home. The day was cold, but it was calm, and the sun was very bright. The brother, Hugh Jarrett, was the first to see the unidentified object and alerted Ralph. The two men observed what they described as a wobbling piece of aluminum foil 200 feet above the Coal River. The object was gaining altitude, but Ralph managed to grab his binoculars within 40 seconds of the initial sighting, and further watched the object. He couldn’t make out much detail as it was fairly far away, but could tell that it was disc-shaped, and that it reflected the sun. It made no noise and emitted no exhaust.

On Saturday, January 14, 1967, Ralph and his father, Hugh Jarrett Sr., spotted ANOTHER unidentified object. It was another clear day, but the temperatures were much milder on this day. At about 5:50 pm, as dusk was setting and a bright red sun was on the horizon, the two men stepped out into the backyard of Ralph’s home. Ralph looked straight up and saw what he described as a brilliant star, brighter than anything else in the sky, moving south very quickly. But, once again Ralph was quicker. This time, instead of running to grab his binoculars, he ran next door and grabbed his neighbor, Donald Reitz, and Reitz’s son, Karl, to witness the strange event before the object disappeared over the horizon.

A third sighting took place on Monday, January 23rd. It was a mild, clear night about 7:10 pm and Ralph was walking east in front of his home when he saw a weird light effect in the trees atop a steep cliff, due north behind his home. He thought it may have been a car’s abnormally bright taillight, but then he realized he could see both the white light AND the orange-red light at the same time, and further, a car couldn’t reach that point on the cliff. 

Around this time, local newspapers reported three additional sightings from the nearby area. On January 19th, Tad Jones had his infamous close encounter with a spherical craft on Interstate 64 near Dunbar. On Tuesday, January 24th, two boys in Nitro’s River Dell Acres saw a ball of light on the mountain. And finally, on Wednesday, January 25th at about 6:20 am, Mrs. Robert Drake of Sun Valley Drive, St. Albans saw an oval-shaped, glowing, pulsating object just below the moon and near the crest of a hill about a quarter of a mile away (believed to be the same hill/cliff where Jarrett saw the object). 

Jarrett reached out to all the witnesses, and compiled data about each sighting, plotting all the information on a map, which he sent to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in Washington, D.C. He was convinced that if this wasn’t the same object, these sightings within such close proximity of each other must be related in some other way. His interest in UFO research would only grow from there.

By February 1967, he had built a simple device to detect magnetic mass, and thus, hopefully detect UFOs. Jarrett stated his theory behind the device in a February 5 article in the Sunday Gazette-Mail. He believed  that such an object to move without noise and exhaust and in such as manner must be utilizing magnetic field, and thus, “a permanent magnet when suspended from its midpoint will align itself with the earth’s magnetic field. If extraneous electrical fields are brought within the limits of the magnet, it immediately re-aligns with the fields and will experience movement.” 

Ralph continued to read articles, interview UFO witnesses around the area, and speculate as to what so many people, including himself were seeing in the skies. His interest led him to become president of UFO Investigators, a coalition of UFO researchers and investigators. This group not only investigated UFO sightings, but was instrumental in bringing UFO education to the Kanawha Valley.

The group sponsored a presentation by the infamous UFO researcher from Clarksburg, Gray Barker in April of 1968, and set up a PO Box that people could write to to share their experiences or request further information. One of the more significant events held by the group was the 6th Annual Convention of The Congress of Scientific Ufologists. Ralph, along with Gray Barker, put in a bid to have the convention held in Charleston, WV because, as Ralph states, West Virginia was a ‘ufo capital’ because the state had more sightings per capita and of a greater variety than any other state in the union. 

The convention was held June 20th and June 21st, 1969. The first night was a closed session, open only to members of the Congress of Scientific Ufologists, and held at the Daniel Boone Hotel in Charleston. The next evening, the event was open to the public, and offered both a ‘flea market’ where attendees could purchase books, magazines and other UFO-related materials as well as a line-up of various speakers. It was held in the Little Theater section of the Charleston Civic Center and admission cost $1.50. 

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find much more about Ralph Jarrett’s involvement in the UFO community past the 1960′s. He passed away on August 2, 2007. I’m so glad I recently stumbled upon his name while researching the Tad Jones sighting. Although I’ve lived within 15 minutes of St. Albans my entire life and have had an interest in paranormal phenomena as long as I can remember, I had never heard of him and his close involvement with West Virginia’s UFO history!