UFO lands in Eastborough

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — In the days leading up to Halloween, folks on the east side of Wichita reported seeing a UFO on the ground in Eastborough.

The first photos of the silver sphere emerged on social media. KSN sent Jason Lamb to investigate the UFO claims.

Lamb confirms; a UFO is standing in a driveway in Eastborough.

Take a drive east on Douglas and through the intersection at Douglas. The UFO can be spotted to the left or on the north side of the street.

The builders of the spacecraft are earthlings.

This UFO sighting is legit. Grant Rine and his wife, Janet, made sure of that.

“Well, my wife and I have done Halloween for years. We’ve done elaborate sets. We’ve been in College Hill for the last 20 years, and this is the first year we’re going to Eastborough,” said Grant Rine. “About three years ago, she said, ‘I want a UFO’. And I said, ‘OK’, and she drew it up and said, ‘Here’s what I want.’ I say, ‘Oh, that’s no problem’. Well, it needs to be about 30 foot in diameter. I said, ‘Well, that is a problem.'”

It took four months of engineering and work by ironworkers to build the UFO out of aluminum and steel. Rine says it takes about three days to assemble it.

“We’re still tweaking it for Halloween. We have the fog machine. We have all the sound effects coming and more lighting for tonight. So, it’s really kind of an ephemeral thing. We just throw it up. Have it and get it out of the way because it draws kind of a lot of attention,” he said.

The landing spot this year is Rine’s driveway at a residence he’s having renovated on the north side of the entrance of Eastborough.

“Eastborough’s already a slow-paced place anyway. I saw one fellow texted me and said it looks like an Eastborough cop pulled over a UFO this time. So, I don’t know. We’re notorious for getting pulled over in Eastborough,” said Rine.

The UFO is so realistic. It’s drawing more than humans. A neighbor across the decorated his lawn with a line of inflatable green aliens pointed towards the UFO.

“It’s a typical, vintage, iconic, 50s-looking, science fiction, movie spaceship. That’s what we wanted to do. It’s meant to be more of a fun look. Iconic look and that’s what she had in mind when she designed it. And I think that I was inspired by — I love 50s sci-fi movies. I personally have seen a UFO. It didn’t look anything like this,” said Rine.

The retired radiation oncologist and physician is a bit of an expert on UFOs. Rine claims he saw one near Arkansas City in the early 1980s.

“You know, my experience was on Christmas Day 40 years ago, almost to this year, where we saw a UFO following our car going to my grandma’s house. It was 10 o’clock in the morning. And we stopped and got out, and this thing, it followed us, and then it stayed fixed and gyrated in the air about 100 feet off the ground. No sound,” said Rine.

So, what does Rine hope earthlings take away from this UFO experience?

“I think it takes your mind off of what’s going on in the world. It’s just a brief, positive thing. We care to give this to the community. We’re hoping the kids love it. Tonight, we’ll have tours inside because there’s an entire control panel on the inside of the ship,” said Rine. “It’ll be fun for them. They’ll have memories. They’ll have pictures, and you know, hopefully, they’ll look back and say, ‘Wow, I can’t believe that guy did that for us.'”

The first and last time the Rines displayed the UFO was in 202 at their Belmont Street residence. Rine says that year, the UFO was just one of six different Halloween-themed sets on his lawn that year, and it drew about 7,000 kids!