they were a mixture of metals, including iron, nickel, and chromium. The largest chunk retrieved was approximately fifty pounds, but some UFO enthusiasts suspect that the pieces scattered near the lake were just a bit of rubble from an alien spacecraft. The ship itself, they theorize, plunged into the water and sank to the bottom of the lake. Skeptics insist it was nothing more than space debris, but that contradicts eyewitness testimony of a hovering ship with rotating lights. The mystery remains unsolved.
The woman at the center of the second incident had been just a toddler in 1977 when the Big Lake Park sighting earned Council Bluffs a spot on UFO maps. She probably had never heard of the freaky occurrence and was not pondering spaceships and aliens when she went to the park “to think” on the night of December 5, 2015. Creatures from outer space or not, few women would not be wary of visiting a deserted park alone after dark. Liz Golyar, however, was unexpectedly bold, especially for someone who’d just reported a stalker was after her.
The park is a peaceful place to walk or jog in the daylight but creepy after sundown. Two large parking lots sit on opposite ends of the grounds, and neither is lit. At night, the park is awash in an inky sea of darkness. It was 6:41 P.M. when a 911 operator was alerted to trouble at Big Lake Park. The caller gave her location, and she sounded scared. “I’ve been shot in the leg!” she cried.
“Where are you in the park, ma’am?”
“I’m in one of the parking lots on the, um, left hand side. I have a little red Toyota, and I’m laying next to it.”
“Is the assailant still nearby?”
“I don’t think so. I took off running.”
“How many people were there?”
“Oh, I, I don’t know,” the victim stammered. “I only heard one.”
“Do you know if it was male or female?”
“A female.” The caller sounded certain of that.
“Is there more than one wound?”
“Um, I think it’s just one. They shot out a couple of shots. They only hit me with one, I think.” Clearly distressed, the woman cried, “Um, my, my pant leg is filled with blood. Oh, Jesus.”
The Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office is one-tenth of a mile from Big Lake Park and can be seen from the south parking lot where Liz Golyar waited for help to arrive, but the first responder was with the Council Bluffs Police Department. Officer Dave Burns, a ten-year veteran with CBPD, pulled his cruiser into the dark lot and noted a single vehicle, a small car, in the northeast corner. The driver’s door was open, spilling light onto the woman who sat on the ground, her back to the door jam. She held a cellphone to her ear as she talked to the 911 operator. Burns observed no one else in the vicinity as he approached the injured woman. Shot in her left thigh, she was obviously in pain. Burns reassured her that medics were on the way and asked, “Who shot you?”
“I don’t know.” Pale and distraught, she was going into shock. Was the shooter still in the area? For all Burns knew, somebody could be hiding behind a tree, watching them, planning to shoot again. Despite the fact the parking lot had no lights, tonight it was somewhat brightened by the moon and the light from the victim’s car and the police cruiser.
“Where were you when you were shot?” the officer prodded.
She indicated a bench, about 100 yards north. “I went there to think,” she volunteered. Suddenly her fuzzy memory cleared. “It was Amy Flora! Amy Flora shot me!” She told Burns she’d been lying on the bench when someone named Amy had suddenly appeared and blurted, “So, you like fucking Dave?” After asking the crude question, the assailant had shot her and vanished into the night. She said she hadn’t seen the shooter leave and had no idea where she went. Officer Burns wrote down her description of the incident, including her assertion that she and this Amy had been involved with the same man.
Medics and another officer soon arrived. Liz was rushed off to CHI Health Mercy Hospital while police cordoned off the crime scene. Officer Burns and other police searched the park for the shooter, and Omaha PD sent their Able-1 Helicopter team to assist. If the armed attacker was on foot, she couldn’t have gotten far. Anyone else she encountered could be in grave danger.
People driving by the