Reptilian Nuke Device in Man's Car Scares WA Police

[Source: Oregon Live - January 27 1999 ]

The Truth is in Cle Elum

CLE ELUM, Wash. (AP) -- This Cascade Range town had a strange bomb scare this week, involving space aliens and a thermonuclear device in a car.

Police took the threat of a bomb seriously enough to evacuate a block of Columbia Avenue for four hours and call in an Army bomb squad to search the car.

No explosives or galactic invaders were found.

"The community was never at risk," said Cle Elum police officer Jim Eidemiller. "But we took the approach that erred on the side of safety."

The Kittitas County Sheriff's Office said the vehicle belongs to a 51-year-old Vancouver, Wash., man with a history of mental illness.

The incident began Sunday, when a State Patrol trooper found an insulin kit containing the Vancouver man's address and phone number on Interstate 90 near Cle Elum.

When contacted at home Monday, the man said he had been driving east on the freeway and suddenly had a strange feeling that "Andromeda reptilian aliens" had put a thermonuclear device in his dashboard, according to police.

"As a former Trekkie, I can appreciate this," said Kittitas County Sheriff Gene Dana.

The man, who was not identified, drove into Cle Elum and abandoned the car on a dead end-street, police said. Cle Elum police found the car and evacuated the street's four houses while the bomb squad searched the vehicle.

Chief Brennen Milloy said it appeared that the man got home by hitchhiking to Snoqualmie Pass and then catching a bus. The man was obsessed with the paranormal, Milloy said.

"He had all kinds of UFO magazines, tiny UFOs and model aliens in the car," Milloy said. "At one point I commented that we should call in Scully and Mulder," the fictional FBI agents on the television program "The X-Files."