Trenton, New Jersey: Night watchman burned by red-glowing cigar, award later reversed

Harry J. Sturdevant, night watchman at the construction firm Herbert Elkin and Company in Trenton, saw a cigar-shaped object some 60 to 100 feet long and 15 feet in diameter descend swiftly toward him, glowing red, hissing like steam and giving off a foul odor; it swooped past and vanished. He lost his sense of taste and smell, possibly permanently, his face was burned so that he could not shave for two weeks, and he began to lose hearing in his right ear. The next day he found leaves on the ground burned up like tissue paper. He applied for state workmen's compensation, and an adjudicator awarded it on the ground that he was injured while investigating, as his job required. However, the state denied his claim, and the award was reversed in 1958. The account follows the entry in George M. Eberhart's chronology UFOs and Intelligence (CUFOS) and the sources cited there; it is not an independent determination by From Beyond Space.