Giant UFOs over Hudson Valley
Like the valley near Norway's Hessadalen, New York's Hudson Valley was the scene of unexplained lights and objects travesersing the skies, low to the groumd, silent, unlike anything people had seen before. Yet this was a place as different from Hessdalen as can be imagined: a densely populated region just north of New York City.
1983 had been the Hudson Valley's "breakout year," but 1984 had more of everything. After a winter lull, the sightings picked up in the spring. A March 11 incident in Wolcott, Connecticut, just after midnight, involved a mother and her daughter seeing a large cilindrical object through the iwndow of their home, just a few feet away. For seven long minutes, it hovered low over the ground. Then it moved away, never once making a sound. On March 21 at 8pm, a trucker driving south of NYS Route 87 saw a massive boomerang-shaped object with red, white, and green lights along the side. The object was incredibly low in the air: the driver estimated it to be about 100 feet off the ground. As a result, he could see the enormous, dark structure that unifeid the lights. He said it was "at least the size of a 747" and made no sound, even after he rolled down his truck window. He assumed it was an experimental vehicle. Then it vanished.
New York Stat's Taconic Parkway meanders along a piceturesque north-south course, roughly 15 miles from the Connecticut border. On the night of March 25, 1984, near the town of Peekskill, hundreds of people saw low-flying lights over this road. Drivers stopped their cars, stepped outside, and watch in amazement. Descriptions were consistent: a slow-moving, boomerang-shaped object with six intensely bright lights and a green light in the center. The lights moved like one object, even when making a sharp turn. Many people had to shield their eyes, but at least one witness, a professional photographer, discerned a dark structure connecting the lights. He estimated it to be at least 300 feet long and flying at 30mph. It moved over the water when, "all of a sudden, the lights were out and the thing was gone." He videotaped the event, but his tape came out blank.
Local police were overwhelmed with phone calls that night, although researchers, recieving only stonewalling, were for a long time unaware of this fact. Eventually, they learned that the official policy in most towns was to discourage police from talking about the sightings. Some were dismissive or even insulting to witnesses that night. In Danbury, Connecticut, one officer told a resident that "it can't be UFOs because they don't exist." Another advised a caller to "sleep it off and the pink UFO will go away." Presumably statements like these were in the days before the adoption of "community policing" principles.
The incident of March 25 repeated itself six days later, on the 31st. Once again, motorists on the Taconic Parkway saw V-shaped lights moving slowly overhead, sometimes stopping and hovering. Hundreds of people got out of their cars. Most astonished witnesses could hear no sound except for a very quiet hum.
April was quiet - until the night of the 25th, when the Taconic Parkway was again visited by a huge, hovering object. It had brilliant white lights in a half circle, along with smaller red lights, and some witnesses discerned a football-field-sized dark structure, silent and motionless. Drivers swerved in their vehicles as they saw this object. One witness phoned the New York State Police, which informed her she "probably saw those hang gliders from Stormville Airport." Events like this continued all through the spring and summer, overshadowing all other UFO activity anywhere else in the world. Local researchers such as Philip Imbrogno and Peter Gersten interviewed witness after witness, collecting more then 90 reporters of a large V-shaped formation in just one month, from late May through June 1984.
Considering all that was happening, the paucity of the news coverage was striking. Local newspapers continued to cover the sightings, but the wire services and major media stayed away. The official word was simply that there was no phenomenon happening, other than some stunt flyers playing pranks. The discrepancy between witnesses and authorities was vast even when the witnesses were the authorities. On June 11, a New Castle police lieutenant named Peterson called the Westchester Airport about an object he and others had seen. His concern was simple. "If this thing can come in here and do whatever it wants, " he said, "I want to know where the hell are our government's defenses." The airport representative told him what he saw was probably airplanes in formation. When Peterson adamantly disagreed, the representative replied, "just tell the people they saw planes.... It's planes, at least that's what I was told." Researchers contacted the FAA the next day, and were told the conversation had never taken place.
Matters became more serious when a triangular object entered on the premises of the Indian Point Nuclear Facility, in Westchester County, on June 14, 1984. This turned out to be the first of two air space violations over the facility that summer. at 10:15pm, several plant employees saw an immense ("football-field sized") boomerang-shaped object enter their airspace. It had intensely bright lights along its sides and moved very smoothly, despite the high winds that evening - certainly no weather for ulta-light flyers. For twenty minutes, the object alternately hovered and moved, finally departing slowly. It did not bank when it turned, but moved as if on a horizontal plane. Witnesses were adamant that there was a dark mass visible behind the lights. Either this or a similar object was seen elsewhere that night, even videotaped, although the video showed only the lights. One witness insisted that the center of the object was hollow.
And so it continued. A large V-shaped object was seen flying low over Hyde Park on June 21. The same night, 50 miles to the south, unidentified lights were seen over the Wanaque Reservoir in New Jersey. Four anonymous calls were made tot he local police between 9:44pm and 12:17am about "lights" over the reservoir. Police saw nothing, but local press interviewed a witness who claimed to have seen an egg-shaped object "moving too fast for a blimp." On the 22nd, a three-minute video of a close light formation was recorded and brought to a scientifically trained, experienced pilot. His only certain conclusion was that these were not conventional aircraft (if indeed the lights were separate objects) and that private pilots were not at the controls. He doubted that even special military aircraft would use such a dangerous formation. Investigators contacted the FAA to learn whether anyone had clearance for formation flying in the area. The answer was negative. (The FAA spokesperson added "it is the policy of the FAA that UFOs do not exist, so we do not collect any reports of such.") On June 24, witnesses observed a "big, giant thing in the shape of a V," flying over the road. One the 25th, near Bethel, Connecticut, a slow moving, huge object with many lights was seen for twenty minutes. While people saw normal aircraft elsewhere in the sky this object looked like an enormous Ferris Wheel in its side.
A major event took place July 12, about 20 miles east of the Taconic Parkway, just over the Connecticut border. Police in the towns of Danburg, Ridgefield, Bethel, New Fairfield, and New Milford received report after report of a low-flying, slow moving object "as large as a football field." Its lights were incredibly bright, and intense beams of light were directed to the ground. IT also gave off heat to those beneath it. Yet, its light pattern was not a boomerang, but circular. Many formerly skeptical members of the Danbury police saw the object. After this, they were believers.
Local publicity for this event was strong, and newspapers listed the telephone numbers of some of the local UFO investigators. They were immediately flooded with calls, and investigators later estimated that 5,000 witnesses saw the object that night. A police officer from Bethel told them that not only had many officers seen the object that night, but they had been asked by the FAA to stonewall both press and investigators. If pressed, they were to explain the lights as caused by stunt fliers, primarily to prevent panic.
More sightings occurred in the coming weeks, but the major event of the summer occurred on Jul 24. This time, video was recorded in Brewster that was good enough for professional analysis. The same night, the Indian Point Nuclear Facility was once again the scene of an overflight by an enormous object.
The video was recorded by Bob Pozzuoli, a New York City electronics executive. At 10m, he videotaped a large object with a string of six bright lights around it. He briefly lost it to view behind a pine treel it emerged with a string of rotating multicolored lights in the shape of a disc, and a flashing red light at the rear. It then vanished behind some houses. Pozzuoli's video also captured airplanes flying overhand in formation, very useful for analysis. The impressive video was studied by many groups, including ABC television and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. All agreed it was authentic, and none could explain the object.
Just a few miles away was the Indian Point Nuclear Facility, in Peekskill. It was there that the most extraordinary UFO event of the year occurred - indeed, an argument can be made that it was the most extraordinary event anywhere on Earth during 1984.
On the night of July 24, 1984, at least a dozen plant workers and security guards at the facility watched a boomerang pattern of lights approach. Seen from below, the object resembled an ice-cream cone - triangular but with a curved string of lights in the back. They could plainly see that these were not disconnect lights, but a solid body of enormous size, "about the size of three football fields," as one guard later put it. Despite winds that gusted at 30mpg, the huge object moved with cool purpose toward Reactor #3, the sole operation reactor at the plant. The guards stood, awestruck, as the object hovered directly above it. "That's what got our supervisor worried," one of them said. "This thing got to within thirty feet of the reactor."
Even more extraordinary, as the object approached the reactor, the plant's security and communications systems were rendered inactive. The computer controlling them simply shut down.
IT need harldy be mentioned that this was a serious matter. No aircraft of any kind was allowed to fly over the reactors without proper clearance. Video cameras at the facility filmed the object, and the officer in charge of filming later spoke to researchers. The object, he said, had eight bright lights in a wide V-formation. "It was one solid structure and very large. We had it on camera for 15 minutes.... Whatever it was, it was larger than a C-5A, which is the largest aircraft in the world... This was much larger. It seemed very brazen. It acted like it didn't care who saw it."
The shift commander contacted nearby Camp Smith, a New York National Guard base, requesting identification of the object. As the base had no answer to give him, he asked for an armed helicopter to shoot it down. He then ordered his mento prepare to fire on the object. "We had shotguns adn were waiting for the final word to fire on it," said on guard - an incredible statement that was confirmed by other personnel.
All seemed ready for a hopeless armed confrontation. But, before the command was given to launch the helicopter, the object glided away. The next day, the commander of the security guards informed his staff that "nothing happened." They were told to forget the event.
Researchers had already known that Peekskill police had received many phone calls that night from area residents describing the same object. The encounter at Indian Point, however, was not known by them until early September. At that time, a plant employee contacted Philip Imbrogno and wanted to tell the story. Somehow, clearance was initially granted for a few researchers to meet witnesses and visit the reactor on September 5. Then, without any reason given, the visit was canceled and the employees forbidden to talk. At this point, an angry Imbrogno threaten to go public. That was when management relented. The guards were once again allowed to meet with the researchers, but not at the facility, and only with a security supervisor present. Two meetings subsequently took place.
In the days after the July 24 incident, official of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission visited the plant, and, according to Imbrogno, the entire security system underwent a shakeup. One journalist received an acknowledgement from the plant that sightings had occurred, and that New York State police had arrested four Cessna pilots in connection with it! This was simply too absurd, and the UFO researchers checked state police records which showed that no pilots had been arrested. Plant authorities had simply lied. FOIA requests were filed with New York Power Authority, US Department of Energy, and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Each of these agencies replied that they knew nothing about an incident from July 24. Authorities also denied the existence of any video tape that may ohave recorded the incident. Researchers attempted to obtain copies of radio communications that night, but none reportedly existed. Imbrogno summed up the matter well: such obstruction was tantamount to proof that UFO reports, when they involved national security, were exempt from FOIA.
-Above excerpted from Richard Dolan's "UFOs and the National Security State - The Coverup Exposed - 1973-1991"