SUBJECT: SIX SOLDIERS AWOL FROM INTELLIGENCE UNIT FILE: UFO2200 This was from the Tampa Tribune for Thursday, 26 July 1990: ----------------------------------------------------------- FORT KNOX, Ky. (AP) - Six soldiers charged with going AWOL from their intelligence unit for what a friend described as a rendezvous with UFOs could lose pay and rank under disciplinary terms offered Wed-nesday by the Army. The six were reported missing from their units in Augsberg, West Germany, on July 9 and arrested in Gulf Breeze, Fla., four days later. They were offered the "non-judicial punishment" after an in- vestigation failed to find evidence of espionage, said Major Ron Mazzia, a spokesman at Fort Knox, where they were being held. The soldiers were given three days to consider the proposed disciplinary action and could later be discharged, Mazzia said. It was still unclear why the six, all from the 701st Military Intelligence Brigade, traveled to Florida. Stan Johnson of Bybee, Tenn., said the oldest member of the group, Specialist Kenneth G, Beason, 26, told him they had been "chosen by ... divine intervention to help prepare for the end of the world, which was supposed to occur in about eight years from now. ... "They were going to Florida to kick off preparations," said Johnson, a friend of Beason's for several years who picked him up at the Knoxville, Tenn., airport upon arrival from Germany. "The real interesting part of this," Johnson said, "was that when the second coming of Christ occurred, Jesus Christ was going to arrive in a spaceship." Gulf Breeze, a beach town near Pensacola where Beason and others in the group received training, has been the site of many reported UFO sightings. Besides Beason, those charged were identified as Pfc. Michael Hueckstaedt, 19, of Farson, Wyo.; Pfc. Kris Perlock, 20, of Osceola, Wis.; Pfc. William Setterberg, 20, of Pittsburgh; specialist Vance Davis, 25, of Valley Center, Kan.; and Sgt. Annette Eccleston, 22, of Hartford, Conn. Capt. Kenneth Hicks of the Gulf Breeze Police Department said that when he questioned Hueckstaedt and Eccleston, neither spoke of religion or UFOs. "Really, the only thing they said is they were heading out West and they were just going to kind of live out in the woods - kind of like a survivalist group," Hicks said. They mentioned Santa Fe, N.M., and Texas. Mazzia said the soldiers were AWOL for varying amounts of time, but the longest was seven days. ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo * **********************************************