On the morning of October 3, 1973 (some reports note October 4 due to the early hour), Eddie Doyle Webb, a 45-year-old truck driver from Greenville, Missouri, experienced a dramatic and physically injurious encounter with a UFO while driving southbound on Interstate 55 near Cape Girardeau. Webb was operating a tractor-trailer rig for Sam Tanksley Trucking Inc. of Cape Girardeau, with his wife Velma Mae (also an experienced truck driver) riding in the cab beside him.
Around 6:15–6:30 a.m., Webb noticed unusual multi-colored lights in his rearview mirror, approaching rapidly from behind. He initially thought they might be from another vehicle but soon realized the object was flying low and closing in. He leaned his head out the window for a better look. At that moment, a brilliant white flash or beam struck him directly in the face. Webb cried out in pain, “Oh my God! I’m burned! I can’t see!” and clutched his face. One lens of his glasses had popped out, and the plastic frames had partially melted from the intense heat or energy.
His wife immediately took control of the truck and drove him to a hospital in Cape Girardeau. Doctors found that Webb had suffered temporary blindness and burns to his face and eyes, but the damage was not permanent. He was treated and released. The incident left him shaken, and he later drew a sketch of the object, describing it as turnip-shaped or football-shaped with red and yellow lights in the center and a bright white light that emitted the blinding flash.
The case attracted significant local and national attention during the major 1973 UFO flap in the United States. It was one of several dramatic reports from southeastern Missouri that month, including other sightings of strange lights and objects. The U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book had already closed years earlier (in 1969), so this sighting was not formally part of that program, but it was investigated by local authorities and received coverage in newspapers like the Southeast Missourian. Physicist Dr. Harley Rutledge, who later studied the 1973 Missouri sightings, examined Webb’s glasses and noted the unusual melting pattern, suggesting an intense, focused energy source rather than ordinary heat.
Webb consistently maintained his account in interviews, insisting the object was not a conventional aircraft or helicopter. No conventional explanation (such as a spotlight, flare, or aircraft landing light) fully accounted for the rapid approach, the specific shape, the blinding flash that melted his glasses, or the physical effects he suffered. Skeptics have suggested it could have been a misidentified aircraft or a hoax, but the physical evidence of the damaged glasses and Webb’s immediate medical treatment make it one of the more compelling “close encounter with injury” cases of the 1973 wave.
The sighting remains a notable part of Missouri UFO lore and is frequently cited in discussions of the 1973 UFO flap alongside the famous Pascagoula abduction and other incidents. Eddie Webb passed away years later, but his story continues to be referenced in UFO literature and online forums as an example of a UFO encounter that caused verifiable physical harm.
