Hudson Valley UFO sightings

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Unfortunately I can only estimate summertime 1986, possibly 1987, so not good to go by.

My hypothesis today going by researchers is it was a military operation mimicking UFOs to see how the public would react as part of their "alien invasion" card, but never really needed to be played with the internal collapse of the USSR.

There was a bizarre poster on Reddit who would reply how as a child he was somehow abducted and taken on a space craft whose occupants wanted him to try to operate the craft! The implication I think being the craft was someway symbiotically interfaced with consciousness, and a certain type of consciousness was needed for it to work, so they were testing children. I know it sounds wild, but it was an interesting story posted in response to a Hudson Valley thread.

Well, could be, wabbit. I'm pretty familiar with the area and have been to a number of the military facilities around here and am a bit doubtful, but I'll have another look through the archives. Most of what I've found has been posted in this thread already.
 

Standingstones

Celestial
I know this is changing the subject but I seem to remember Imbrogno puting the feelers out and announce his re-imurgence into high strangeness matters. I don't know if that possibly included a book as well but I wouldn't bet against it.
Per Amazon, Imbrogno has a book coming out December 2018.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Yesterday I was speaking with a man who has been an area resident a long time. We had some time to kill and he brought up a number of odd topics - Nostradamus at the top of the list. I mentioned cryptids and UFOs.

Without any prompting he told me that in the summer of 1983 or 1984 he was traveling on I84 East and saw a weird set of lights in the sky. He pulled over along with a number of other people to watch. The Great Hudson Valley Giant Structured Craft it seems. Except he and many of the people on the road side with him realized it was light planes. He heard the engines the same as I did.

Just to give the dead horse another kick - those that saw it at relatively close range weren't fooled. Those that didn't were. And those that wanted to write a book did.
 

Creepy Green Light

Don't mistake lack of talent for genius
Yesterday I was speaking with a man who has been an area resident a long time. We had some time to kill and he brought up a number of odd topics - Nostradamus at the top of the list. I mentioned cryptids and UFOs.

Without any prompting he told me that in the summer of 1983 or 1984 he was traveling on I84 East and saw a weird set of lights in the sky. He pulled over along with a number of other people to watch. The Great Hudson Valley Giant Structured Craft it seems. Except he and many of the people on the road side with him realized it was light planes. He heard the engines the same as I did.

Just to give the dead horse another kick - those that saw it at relatively close range weren't fooled. Those that didn't were. And those that wanted to write a book did.
I lived in Bloomingburg (worked in Ellenville) in parts of 1995/96. I was always keeping my eyes peeled for anything. I had a telescope that worked pretty good - especially in the conditions that you would get when you live away from a big city.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
I lived in Bloomingburg (worked in Ellenville) in parts of 1995/96. I was always keeping my eyes peeled for anything. I had a telescope that worked pretty good - especially in the conditions that you would get when you live away from a big city.

Ellenville is about an hour west of me, yonder over the mountain.

But you were in the vicinity of Pine Bush - which for some reason was supposed to be a UFO hot spot.
 

Creepy Green Light

Don't mistake lack of talent for genius
Ellenville is about an hour west of me, yonder over the mountain.

But you were in the vicinity of Pine Bush - which for some reason was supposed to be a UFO hot spot.
I lived in NY just from Nov '95 to June '96. When I was looking for a place to live I kept seeing Pine Bush mentioned so I know that I wasn't too far from it. Wasn't too hot of a spot when I was there :/
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Rt.52 runs west through Walden, Pine Bush, Walker Valley, past the World's Largest Kaleidoscope up to the mountaintop lookout where people hang glide. Then down the mountain into Ellenville at Rt.209. Fantastic rides on the motorcycle. You can freeze to death in the shade of the trees on the 4th of July around there.

I think Pine Bush worked up a reputation as a follow on to the Hudson Valley UFO wave. If I'm not mistaken there are public road signs that tell you that you can't park on the sides of certain roads to UFO hunt. Enough nitwits were collecting to create a hazard to navigation. No idea what sparked it except the 'triangle' purportedly lurks around there somewhere - no doubt lurking to and fro from it's secret military underground base. And they have an annual festival too, like Exeter. Unsurprisingly it's in the same air traffic corridor I am, but on the other side of the river.

Just this morning I was out with the pooch. Not quite dark, not quite light, light rain, overcast and a little fog. I see three powerful lights in a triangle pattern just hovering in midair. About the size of a quarter or maybe a bit larger at arms length. It just hovered there being very, very weird looking. To paraphrase CE3K "the object is quite brilliant".

And then the C5 or C17 made a turn and revealed it's navigation lights, only barely visible through the weather. The landing lights though, cut right through it and as it slowly headed directly toward me it's motion wasn't immediately apparent. Never heard a sound - some weird acoustic quirk. No doubt things just like this account for their fair share of UFO reports in this area.
 

Creepy Green Light

Don't mistake lack of talent for genius
Rt.52 runs west through Walden, Pine Bush, Walker Valley, past the World's Largest Kaleidoscope up to the mountaintop lookout where people hang glide. Then down the mountain into Ellenville at Rt.209. Fantastic rides on the motorcycle. You can freeze to death in the shade of the trees on the 4th of July around there.

I think Pine Bush worked up a reputation as a follow on to the Hudson Valley UFO wave. If I'm not mistaken there are public road signs that tell you that you can't park on the sides of certain roads to UFO hunt. Enough nitwits were collecting to create a hazard to navigation. No idea what sparked it except the 'triangle' purportedly lurks around there somewhere - no doubt lurking to and fro from it's secret military underground base. And they have an annual festival too, like Exeter. Unsurprisingly it's in the same air traffic corridor I am, but on the other side of the river.

Just this morning I was out with the pooch. Not quite dark, not quite light, light rain, overcast and a little fog. I see three powerful lights in a triangle pattern just hovering in midair. About the size of a quarter or maybe a bit larger at arms length. It just hovered there being very, very weird looking. To paraphrase CE3K "the object is quite brilliant".

And then the C5 or C17 made a turn and revealed it's navigation lights, only barely visible through the weather. The landing lights though, cut right through it and as it slowly headed directly toward me it's motion wasn't immediately apparent. Never heard a sound - some weird acoustic quirk. No doubt things just like this account for their fair share of UFO reports in this area.
Nice & thanks for sharing. I lived on Roosa-Gap road which then links to Hwy 52. So that's how I'd go to & from work. In the winters on Fridays - I'd stop at the store and get a bottle of red wine...then I'd go outside in the snow and set up my telescope. Warm jacket - red wine - telescope in January - that was my exciting Friday night lol.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
OK. I read Chapter 11 and it was incredibly short. Here are my thoughts on the topic.

One is that I remember listening to WNBC out of New York. 660 AM. Used to be Imus in the Morning, Soupy Sales in the afternoon and Howard Stern in the afternoon drive time. In terms of gravitas this wasn't exactly BBC America. Lee Speigel's show was, if I very vaguely remember, would have been later at night and a sort of an Art Bell type - so frankly, calls ins to that show would need a prodigious filter if you're going to take them seriously. I remember when they played their final sign off and became WFAN.

This is a river valley and no, from that vantage point your field of view to the northeast is restricted by mountainous terrain so if they saw small planes they were necessarily at altitude and at some distance. Go there and look for yourself. The hills haven't moved. That is exactly the direction the planes would have come from though.

Saying that they were pondering whether or not to open fire begs the question: were you in such dire threat it was necessary? What makes anyone think that would hav been any more effective than throwing rocks at the moon? Frankly even if it were a WW2 vintage Japanese Zero making a strafing run shotguns and pistols wouldn't be especially effective. Ever fired a 9mm, .38 or .357 handgun? Any personal experience of the ballistics and forces involved? A shotgun isn't all that different if they were loaded with 00 buck. If you want to give them credence for saying they were familiar with firearms look at the whole picture. I sure as hell am and would be tip-toeing out the back door rather than even thinking of skinning that smoke wagon.

Oh, and Camp Smith? I think you'd be lucky to find someone awake there at night much less anyone capable of dispatching an armed helicopter to shoot down an intruder. As I remember, there actually was a hangar full of exactly such things up at ANG Stewart - sorry to beat the drum but I've been there too - just up the river but don't think their mission statement has them sitting there ready to play Ride of the Valkyries and go booming down the river valley on Intruder Alert.

The NY State police did not arrest anyone because even after the FAA investigated - see the Poughkeepsie Journal clips - they apparently weren't doing anything illegal. They did it for several years running and the reports grew like a big snowball culminating in the book. I coincidentally spoke to a pair of NYS troopers, who I happen to hold in high regard, immediately after my encounter and they were the ones who told me about the planes, airports and all that.

I'd also like to point something out about eyewitnesses, especially ones with a military or law enforcement background. We are all perfectly fallible human beings first and then everything else afterward. Creepy Green Light was spot on about the P3s exploding in midair and the subsequent reports. My opinion is that these security guards saw the same thing I did but from such a distance that they were undoubtedly surprised by it.

I looked up the qualifications for 'nuclear security guard' today and they aren't unreasonably stringent even post 9/11. Sounds like these guys fit the bill. I worked with a man who was a resident contractor there for years with my company and I went there a few times in the early '90s to give tech support. First, as a known contractor in a marked vehicle I was generally just waved through. As I remember from my colleagues who went 'inside' the only real difference was a pretty thorough physical check, some check of your radiation exposure before and after and a lottery system to see if you get to go pee in a cup. And you're escorted everywhere. I've been to many non-nuclear facilities that (minus the need for my hot piss and radiation testing) are exactly the same thing. Go to a FedEx facility that's on airport tarmac and tell me I'm wrong. Oh, and after the radioactive leak in 2000 I was 'inside' for three days and never had to even wave at anybody to be let 'inside the secure area' - marked truck and all that. I could hit one of the containment domes with snowballs if I wanted.

I think it may have been a case of excitement and confabulation. Whatever it was they called into a radio show, spoke to a known fraud about it at he local diner and kept their identity concealed, were not backed up by their superiors and did so at a time when other very known and terrestrial misinterpretations were occurring. I can think of very prosaic reasons their security protocols might've had a look-see after all that.

Contrast that to Cmdr. Fravor and the tic-tac video. I certainly do give weight to his statements because he's done so publicly, has a genuinely credible reputation and is commenting on something directly within the range of his professional experience. Nobody knows what the hell he saw, least of all him, and one of his colleagues produced not only corroborating testimony but backed it up with the video footage we've all be clucking over. Oh, and his superiors let him speak his mind about it. If I had a credibility-o-mometer it would give a far better rating to him that this 'nuclear security guard' stuff. He's someone who can wrap himself in a credential and it really gives weight to what he says. And even at that I'm still not jumping to conclusions and he certainly wasn't even thinking of taking a potshot at it.

I've also been privy to some sophisticated security cameras, much more so that what would have been in use at the time, and can say that they are designed to do what they are needed to do; view buildings, parking lots, fence lines etc and can do so with great clarity in many cases. They generally aren't designed to scan the skies and in any case, imagine that, everything just failed at that moment anyway and there doesn't seem to be anything to corroborate that. Amazing. What a coincidence. By the way - what's so fascinating about a nuke plant anyway? power lines etc? You'd wonder that if they could get here in the first place what would necessitate loitering around things that must be awfully primitive by comparison. Ahh, but when it comes to adding weight to a UFO story, just using the word 'nuclear' adds a bit to the story, doesn't it? Had is been a garbage burning plant I doubt we'd have heard of it nor would we expect the military to come swooping in quickly.

I wonder if it would have been possible at the time to coordinate the flight plans filed locally with any of these incidents, if such records existed and were available. Wonder why Imbrogno didn't follow up on that? Didn't need to I guess.

With these sightings as I've said, I've lived here and actually saw the damned thing myself very close to where they originated from. I can go up on my roof right now and see the beacon from one of the airports. People who have made fantastic statements have gained all sorts of traction and here we are decades later still chewing our cuds over it. Yet somehow someone like me who says nope, it just ain't so, my eyewitness testimony and opinions on the topic appear ring hollow to many.

I like to write and could have just as easily spun a fantastic yarn that I guarantee someone, somewhere, would swallow hook, line and sinker.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Why would the pilots do this in the first place? This was a just a few years after Close Encounters. I believe that either Hynek or Friedman, or both, had spoke locally at the community college a bit before all this.

Take a special interest group like these pilots, mix in a little pop culture, a sense of humor and there you go. Sometimes people just do weird shit. Why would Imbrogno fake his credentials? I think once they realized it was making the papers - there was one early clipping regarding odd lights in northern Dutchess County in there - they were encouraged. Especially after they realized they weren't going to get into trouble. Especially after Imbrogno contronted them at Stormville Airport.

After a while they probably got sick of it, maybe it cost too much money or became dangerous, or some combination of the above. Maybe someone had unrelated health issues. Easy to speculate on that sort of thing than to suggest it was a craft from Elsewhere. Nobody that actually lives right here in this area and saw it thiks anything like that.

Take the Phoenix Lights. I am a bit dubious but didn't see the thing for myself so I don't have a fraction to say about that than I do this.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Hynek spoke in the area at least twice in October 1978. This only proves that he did and there was enough local interest to merit his appearances. I think Stanton Friedman may have been here too and remember going to a Bermuda Triangle presentation at the IBM country club as a kid - could have been Berlitz, don't remember.
Fertile ground here for fertile imaginations.

October 6 1978 upload_2019-1-29_8-56-10.png

October 13 1978

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The real fun began in 1984.
In my opinion this is probably the genesis the the whole thing:

May 1983

upload_2019-1-29_9-0-37.png

November 1983
. Reported to MUFON

upload_2019-1-29_9-2-29.png


There are a number of small grass strips around here that these planes can operate from and a local interest in exactly that sort of aviation. Been up in biplanes myself a few times.

A minor point but have a look at a real map and see where they started and where the sightings ultimately ended up. They began in a relatively sparsely populated area and when they realized they were getting attention they moved south to a much more heavily populated area: and they accomplished exactly what they intended.

But never mind, in amongst the local interest in UFOs, MUFON apparently being available to contact to make a report - obviously there was zero interest in the topic and these were just salt of the earth types being bothered by an alien craft. Clearly, no front loading at all.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Back to this again. I am a bit fixated and this is a bit of a retread from what I said earlier.

@Dean got me flipping through Night Siege again for the first time in many years. @humanoidlord thinks that in addition to the small planes there had to have been a real object involved and I don't like to just dismiss things out of hand. He's probably right about something else being involved but I don't think it's extraterrestrial vehicles.

Night Siege
is responsible to popularizing all this and regardless of my opinions about it it is true that once something gets noticed then the War of the Worlds mentality is responsible for adding to the story.
Chapter 1 reports Jim Cooke's October 1983 low level sighting in Croton Falls and knowing the geography I remember seeing in the newspaper archives a report from August 1976 in the nearby Mahopac area. I realize it is several years earlier but does serve to show that reporting UFOs in the area and them making the local paper wasn't unheard of:

upload_2019-1-30_10-33-2.png

Mahopac, Lake Carmel, Kent, Croton Falls - all relatively near one another.

The other day in this thread I posted an article from November 1983 over Rhinebeck
upload_2019-1-30_10-37-15.png

It was identified as a large plane that left its landing lights on. Rhinebeck is located much further north than the majority of the sightings, but in aircraft terms still right in the area.

So when I continued reading Chapter 1 I started to think about the terrain involved. It's extremely hilly around here and a short ride can change elevation by several hundred feet. The roads are often twisty and the field of view can be limited. The Taconic State Parkway runs north-south and is like that. It's a stone bitch in bad weather. I84 runs east-west and is a much better road with fewer hills and turns, but it isn't like driving through other states where you can see for miles and miles ahead of you either.

In Chapter 1 it talks about New Year's Eve sightings in Kent and Lake Carmel. OK. They are at the top of a 900' plateau that runs into Putnam County. I agree that no matter how badly you might want to perpetrate a hoax it's highly unlikely to be doing it at that time of year in very cold weather. When you leave Carmel/Kent and head west on I84 in only a couple of miles you go down a long sweeping hill into the river valley and for a short time can see for many miles - specifically you can get a decent view towards Stewart ANG base. And that thought is what prompted this post.

105th Airlift Wing - Wikipedia

The heavy airlift wing arrived at Stewart ANG in May 1983 and started flying those massive C-5 in October 1985. They didn't just show up unannounced - large aircraft had always used that facility and been in the area to some degree. Big Cold War Era runway.

Right around the time all this occurred in addition to the known hoaxers there was suddenly a great increase in the numbers of large aircraft, and after the Fall of '85 very large aircraft we weren't used to seeing, in the sky in the area. I have seen them with their landing lights on on a dark night, in all weather conditions, at all times of the year. You can't always tell what the hell you are looking at even if you are used to them. When I thought about that and the geography involved I can understand how things appear motionless, have weird and startling lights, and how many people could be easily convinced that some high strange event was happening. Because to them - it was. Later on in Gulf 1 and 2 the amount of heavy lift traffic around here increased dramatically, and does every time there is some military involvement - which is unfortunately all too frequent. Point is, I bet I've seen the big triangle or whatever the hell it is, doing just about everything described whether it was deliberately hoaxed or misidentification.

So again I've vented my spleen on the topic. So no, it doesn't explain Jim Cooke's lake-probing UFO - and of course accounts like that and the Indian Point ninsense are what True Belief latches on to. . But weird lights moving strangely or even appearing to be very close and hovering and then disappearing, yup, I can see that. I'd love to think it was a real inexplicable wave but I can't.
 

karl 12

Noble
I've heard the 'Hudson Valley UFO wave' mentioned by various guests (on various podcasts) and it is invariably referred to as one of the most iconic inexplicable series of events in ufology.

This doco has an interesting part on the Hudson Flap Pigfarmer.




Richard Dolan also makes some comments here about it.




Cheers
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
This doco has an interesting part on the Hudson Flap Pigfarmer.




Richard Dolan also makes some comments here about it.




Cheers


Thanks but I skimmed through the HBO doc and wasn't one of the pics they showed later identified as a train wheel?

Also, I got to about the 8 minute mark with Richard Dolan. I'll have to get back to it - my "oh my achin' ball bag" breaker kept tripping. Bear in mind, I'm not trying to produce a show and I literally witnessed the hoax and continue to witness the cargo aircraft regularly.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Screenshot_20190320-194000.jpg

 
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