Autumn beckons the hunter to venture forth inside West Virginia’s challenging forests, and in 1968, a young man loaded his .22-caliber rifle and answered the call.

Besides the customary, nervous darting about of squirrels, what the youthful hunter found was no earthly game.

A swishing noise arrested his attention up a steep, dirt road.

In seconds, just 30 yards away, the soon-to-be Vietnam-bound soldier looked upward, and Dave Campbell witnessed an unidentified craft, one that reminded him of those old Norelco shaving commercials that ran incessantly at Christmas in the 1960s.

Campbell’s experience is among many that veteran West Virginia news reporter Kyle Lovern has chronicled in his first book, “Appalachian Case Study: UFO Sightings, Alien Encounters, and Unexplained Phenomena,” published by Woodland Press.

“I guess, over the years, it’s a subject I’ve been interested in,” Lovern explained.

“I’m sort of a UFO researcher or historian.”

For years, Lovern has toiled the media vineyards at various newspapers and radio stations, all the while carefully recording every instance of a UFO sighting brought to his attention, including his own at age 8 in Mingo County.

Descriptions of aircraft vary as much as the personalities of the individual observers — from coal miners to educators to law enforcement.

Decades ago, those privileged, or unfortunate, depending on one’s perspective, to have witnessed a UFO were reluctant to share their experiences, largely out of fear of becoming instant targets of scorn. But over the years that has changed, what with so much attention applied to the phenomena by the national media, and the credence supplied by such believers as Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Presidents Truman and Carter, and astronauts.

“I think there’s a lot more out there than we realize,” Lovern says. “A lot of people were just afraid to talk about it because of the stereotypes, especially in the past. You know, ‘people are going to think I’m crazy.’ I think that’s changing now that we’ve gotten into the new century.”

Lovern collected stories in his career, and while working at a newspaper, invited readers of his column to contact him if they were willing to discuss sightings. Two or three observers reached him because of the column.

In his first book, the author writes with color and an economy of words about a myriad of sightings and covers such West Virginia favorite tales such as the Braxton County Monster, perhaps the granddaddy of sightings, and the mysterious invader along the Ohio River valley known as Mothman.

“I definitely think they’re from maybe planets,” he says of UFOs.

“I don’t think they’re hostile. I think if they were, we would have known that a long time ago. I think it’s sort of egotistical of us to think we’re the only planet in this solar system even to have life on it. There are a lot of solar systems and planets we don’t know about.”

Theories are nearly as plentiful as the sightings themselves and Lovern certainly has his own, based on a lifetime of study and research.

“I think they may be coming to visit to check out the planet, our life forms,” he says. “I hope one day we’ll find out their real reason.”

Lovern acknowledges many sightings could indeed be experimental craft on which the government has tried to keep the lid tight. It’s no coincidence, he says, that a number of sightings occur near Air Force installations.

“I don’t think they all are,” he says of the skeptics’ customary dismissals of UFO sightings.

“There are just too many credible witnesses that have seen the flying objects. Some say they have landed or buzzed right over the top of their car. Edgar Mitchell, one of 12 astronauts to walk on the moon, recently said, ‘Hey, there are UFOs. I saw one up close.’ The government has covered it up.”

Lovern devotes an entire chapter based on his interview with physicist Stanton Friedman, considered the world’s top authority on UFOs who appeared at conventions this year and last in the Charleston area.

In his senior year of high school, Lovern recalls the rash of sightings across Ohio and West Virginia, including Beckley.

Flashing, strobe-like lights, emanating from craft of various sizes and shapes, illuminated the night skies in November that year, a benchmark time perhaps not rivaled except in 1952 when the curious creature known as the Braxton County Monster terrified a knot of youngsters and adults in Flatwoods.

Lovern’s book is available at Borders, Amazon.com, Target.com, Barnes and Noble, and soon at Tamarack. Already, he has appeared at a book signing at Huntington Mall.

There has been no dearth of UFO exploits for Lovern to write about in the hills of his native state. In fact, so many stories have been passed on to him that Lovern is at work on a sequel, as yet untitled.

Meanwhile, he will be keeping his eyes trained on the skies.

“I’d like to see one land in my backyard,” he says. “I think a lot of people would.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com