Hudson Valley UFO sightings (1982-1986)

Some interesting footage and testimony from the Hudson Valley Sightings of the 1980s:

Footage:
www.youtube.com...

Great documentary about the Hudson Valley sightings - interesting testimony at 1:20 and 3:53:
www.youtube.com...

The Hudson Valley UFO.
Summary: A good, brief overview of the Hudson Valley UFO sightings. "In a place you would hardly expect, just one hour north of New York City, lies the site of one of the most widely observed and yet most unexplainable set of UFO sightings ever seen. The place is the Hudson Valley, and the story of its strange UFO started on New Years Eve, 1982."

In a place you would hardly expect, just one hour north of New York City, lies the site of one of the most widely observed and yet most unexplainable set of UFO sightings ever seen. The place is the Hudson Valley, and the story of its strange UFO started on New Years Eve, 1982.

A few minutes before midnight, a retired police officer was out in his backyard in Kent, New York when he observed a group of strange lights off to the south. They were colored red, green and white. At first the former officer thought they belonged to a jet aircraft in trouble, but as the object passed over his house at a height he estimated to be about 500 feet, he realized it was moving much too slowly for a jet and made too little noise. Just a distant humming sound. As he watched, he decided the the lights, which appeared as a "V" shape, were connected by a dark, triangular fuselage.

What the former officer had seen would be observed many times in the Hudson Valley area over the next few years by hundreds of different witnesses: A "V" shaped set of multicolored lights moving slowly and silently across the sky.

Characteristics:

The object apparently cruised over the community of Yorktown that evening too where the police switchboard became so jammed with reports, officials became concerned that they would be unable to take emergency calls.

On the Taconic parkway people pulled over to watch the object as it moved slowly on its path. One observer estimated it was "as large as an aircraft carrier."

The UFO researchers estimated that over 5,000 people had seen the object over a period of five years from 1982 through 1986. Often the UFO seemed to glide over large areas causing dozens of sightings in one night. It was never spotted during the day.

While most reports described the UFO moving at a very slow speed, hovering, or turning slowly like a wheel, a few reports described the object as suddenly zooming away at fantastic speeds, or just disappearing. In some accounts the shape varied so that the lights appeared as more of a circle than a "V". Often the color and arrangement of the lights changed as the viewers watched. In a few cases reports arrived that put the object at two distant locations at the same time suggesting there might be more than one of them.

One of the most striking reports that the group gathered was from guards at the Indian Point Nuclear Plant. The UFO apparently hovered over an active nuclear reactor for some minutes coming as close to the reactor dome as thirty feet. The security supervisor even considered ordering guards to shoot it down. One guard described it as being the length of three football fields.

The object also seemed to be interested in bodies of water. One observer watched the UFO over Croton Falls Reservoir where it seemed to use a red beam to probe the surface.

Explanations:

The researchers knew that when investigated most UFO reports turn into reports of IFOs: Identified Flying Objects. Often they turn out to be planes, balloons, satellites, or even the planet Venus. They did find evidence that some of the reports of the "V" shape may have been a group of small planes flying out of the Stormville Airport. The pilots seemed to have been flying their planes in a formation in a deliberate attempt at a UFO hoax.

The plane hoax only cleared up a small number of reports, however. Most observers reported that the lights moved together as a solid object. Others could see the body of the UFO between the lights. None of the observers who had seen both the planes and the object thought they were the same phenomenon.

There are few good explanations for most of the Hudson Valley sightings. The only object that moves slowly through the air and hovers almost silently is a blimp. Researchers contacted all blimp operators in the area and could find no matches between the blimp schedules and the UFO reports. It was widely speculated at the time that object was a formation of ultralight planes. This seems unlikely as the UFO was nearly silent, could hover, and carried tremendously bright lights, all things ultralight aircraft are incapable of doing.

Links:
www.ufoevidence.org...
www.ufocasebook.com...

Great book about the Hudson Sightings -'Night Seige' by Dr. J. Allen Hynek:
www.mufon.com...

Some of the Hudson Valley eyewitness statements:

Dennis Sant:

"As we approached the house I saw a large, triangular object hovering over my yard about fifty feet from my house. It seemed to be not much higher than my roof. We pulled into the driveway, and we all jumped out and ran into the backyard. The object was no longer there. I took the children into the house to get them ready for bed, but I felt a strong urge to go back outside."

"You could see people on the bridge pointing at it."

".. a very large object, its structure was a very dark gray, metallic."

"It had numerous lights from end to end-red, green, and white. There seemed to be an amber light coming from it. This was in sequence, from one end of the shaft to the other. I call it a shaft because that's what it resembled."

"It seemed to be about the width of a football field and was a dark, very gray metal. It was so close you could hit it with a baseball."

What I saw was not airplanes in formation."

William Durkin:

"At first, I thought it was a large jetliner flying very low, perhaps in trouble. Then I realized it was coming too slow to be any type of conventional aircraft, and at this time I could see it was boomerang in shape."

Louise Ondekirk:

"But I thought it was strange for them to be flying so low and in such a tight formation. I see formation flights all the time in this area, but there was something different about this. It was really puzzling because when the lights began to turn, they all turned at once."

Ed Burns:

"Out of nowhere, I got lots of statics on the radio. And I thought maybe I was on the wrong number and I turned the dial again. That's when I looked up and saw this craft."

"As I continued to drive, the lights became more profound. Then they came right over my car. I shut the radio off, rolled the window down, and looked out at this huge craft above me. I heard no noise. It was moving silently and slowly."

"It was a triangular, chevron, ship. And the back of that chevron had to be as large as a football field, at least. It was one solid piece of a chevron shaped ship. And there was no noise. It seemed so close to the ground. It seemed that I could have thrown a rock at it maybe."
The object had lights all around it with thirty to forty colored lights along the back alone, he said to the CUFOS ufologists on the field.

"It was truly a flying city, if that's what you want to call it. I mean it was huge."

"If there is such a thing as a flying city, this was a flying city. It was not a small craft. It was huge."

"It was so shocking. People were just staring at this thing. I remember one guy, the size of his eyes was so large. It seemed I could talk about it for an hour. I was so excited about it, I wanted to share whatever I was feeling at the time."

"When I reached the Millwood area, I noticed twelve cars off to the side of the road. I pulled over and stopped, and then all of a sudden this huge craft was right over my car. That's when it was really shocking."
"Then the craft seemed to stop. The different colored lights seemed to go off, and just the white lights seemed to stay on. It was hovering a bit. It was just there looking like it was observing us as we were observing it."

"What can I tell you? I'll never forget that for the rest of my life. Five airplanes it was not."

John Dorazio

"The funny thing about it was that the lights weren't like any other lights I've ever seen. They didn't cast a glow or a beam of any sort."

Andi Sadoff :

"I was working on a midnight to 4 a.m. tour, and was setting up some radar, for detecting cars speed up."

"I looked up into the sky and saw, coming from East to West, there was a series of lights. And first I thought it was a plane, it was quite in the distance, quite far away. But is was really quite large."

"As I recall, there were mostly white lights but there were green lights also. It was alternating, green and white lights."

"All of a sudden from a hill I saw a string of white lights, very wide, forming a half circle. It was just coming over the ridge and it caught my attention because it was so large."

"It approached my vehicle, and as it approached my vehicle, it stopped, and it seemed to hover."

"It then turned left started coming around where I was parked. I started shaking my head, thinking that this was strange because I heard no sound and this thing was large. It then passed over my vehicle and headed towards the town. Then about four minutes later, it came back in my direction. It turned over my car once again, but this time it was much lower. The way the object moved was very smooth, as if it was gliding. when it came around I could see the shape better.
It was in the shape of a V with white lights on the top and green lights on the bottom. It was flying towards me and headed right for my car. So I looked out the window and did the normal thing. I locked the door. This time it was very low. I stuck my head out of the window and it stopped right over my car."

"It then hovered there about 20 seconds, and I could see a masse that was very large. Behind it, that is, behind the lights, I could see a large solid object."

"There was no sound, and I was looking at this thing and I was thinking, what is it? When I put my head out of the window and looked up, it was huge."

"There was still no sound at all, and I'm saying to myself, this can't be happening, what's happening here? So I got on my radio and I made a call to one of the other guys and they said they got quite a few calls about it. The object then started to move again and headed over the ridge, and that was it."

"The thing that I recall most is that I was amazed that there was no noise. There was no huming, here was no engine, no low sound to it. It was absolutely silent."

"I was sitting there looking at it, and I wasn't afraid, I was just amazed, it was just weird and I didn't now what it was. Where did it come from?"

"I'm not tring to say what it was, I don't now what it was. I know it wasn't airplanes."

www.ufologie.net...

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

We just had Phil Imbrogno on our show this past friday, who spoke volumes about the Hudson Valley sightings, and how tyhis hasn't been just recent sightings, but ones reported throughout history (Colonials, etc). There are also many other strange reported phenomena in the area.

Link is in my sig.

[edit on 8-9-2009 by jritzmann]

reply to post by jritzmann


Jritzmann -many thanks for linking that interview.
Would you beleive the volume isn't working on my computer -you've now inspired me to get it fixed.

I also see you've had (the quite legendary) Dr. Richard Haines on your show.
If you've not seen it before then theres a thread here detailing his very interesting report on '56 Pilot Sightings Involving Electromagnetic Effects':
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Cheers

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

reply to post by karl 12


Hi Karl-
Yes indeed, Dr. Haines is an amazing researcher and scientist. He was a great interview. Make sure you check out the rest, we've had nothing but top-shelf guests.

reply to post by jritzmann


Hey Jeff -am listening now -very good stuff.
As for the Hudson Valley sightings, theres a comprehensive thread here by Kandinsky which has some mighty fine info:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Cheers.

I happen to live in the Hudson Valley. Every few years this becomes a hot spot it seems. I cannot even count how many times I see something 'unusual' in the sky. The most recent was about a week ago(maybe 10 days). I watched 2 sizeable light orbs chase eachother around for at least 10 minutes. It was behind cloud cover but still VERY obvious to the naked eye. Many locals, including friends and family saw things the same night. I'm trying to find out if it's been recorded anywhere. Any other NYers on ATS happen to see this?

Honestly, we have so much weird stuff go on around here (in the skies) that I honestly feel that I won't be 100% sure of exactly what I am seeing until a ship lands in my yard!

reply to post by karl 12


The Hudson Valley sightings are one of the best incidents (top twenty) in my opinion. Kandinsky's thread, which you already linked is a great one on this case.

Thanks for adding some more information to this case for us Karl.

[edit on 9/9/2009 by jkrog08]