Hudson Valley UFO sightings

[pigfarmer]

Plodding through 1984 and have to stop for now. I thought this was interesting - state troopers confronting the pilots at Stormville Airport after receiving several boomerang or v-shaped UFO reports.


Also, in 1984 a local lawyer Peter Gersten keeps popping up like a bad penny. He organized a conference in Brewster in 84 and seems to be the go-to reference every time there's a report. I found one case where a resident reported a daylight sighting of a green pyramid at ground level and another of daylight discs and yet somehow Gerten was called for comment and wound up talking about boomerangs and so forth. Unrelated. He offered a $1000 reward to useful info pertaining to those types of cases and after he did the reports slacked off.

This is all context, it's what was going on here at the time and the papers are accurately reporting the local zeitgeist.

 

[pigfarmer]

I believe I found the original report that started all this. Seems Monique O'Driscoll was with her daughter at White Lake not too far from here on February 26 1983 and saw a boomerang shaped craft low to the ground. I have no idea what she saw and she didn't either.

Right after this was when we started seeing low flying military aircraft and of course, the damned small planes. Lots of stories about the small planes and lots of witnesses. Typically, some saw alien spacecraft while others heard engines.

Had it not been for those idiots with the small planes this case would be as forgotten as the other two UFO reports I found that do not fit this mold.

 

[pigfarmer]

Another report from about the same area. High school kid and photography club member got the only picture I've seen

Gee, since nothing else that flies could possibly have red, green and white lights on them appearing is a boomerang or triangle shape then I guess we are just stuck with this unsolvable mystery ......

Snarkiness aside there are a very few truly High Strange reports so far in this period but it's also absolutely fair to say that at the time several factors were playing into all this. Phil Imbrogno being one that like Peter Gersten, seems to have all over this like a stink.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Nice finds, Pigfarmer! What happened to Monique certainly sounds like something that would happen with UFOs. What do you think of her sighting? Planes or something else?

 

[pigfarmer]

Nice finds, Pigfarmer! What happened to Monique certainly sounds like something that would happen with UFOs. What do you think of her sighting? Planes or something else?

February and March of 83. Haven't looked through 82 yet but don't recall any from my last attempt.

I think Monique most likely saw some sort of terrestrial aircraft. I also think young photography club Jeffrey was on his game to have taken a picture, even that one. Short answer is 'in this area at this time reports of boomerang and/or v-shaped objects, especially those with red, white and green lights are probably either those small planes or very large ones new to the area doing things the locals weren't used to'

Seen the hoaxers myself. Large aircraft many, many times which geography and weather/lighting conditions can make quite startling some times. These were ingredients in a big stew that created the myth.

However, in '83 and '84 I did find some reports of daylight discs and one real standout on October 21 9184 - an hour after the state troopers confronted the small plane pilots at Stormville. Greenish, pyramid or boomerang shaped, below tree top level, completely lit with yellowish-white lights. This description seems different from the rest.


So, amongst the terrestrial nonsense there are a couple of High Strange reports, including @Terra. What to say about that ? They didn't fit the mold and unless you are digging nobody seems to remember them.

What I say about the Hudson Valley Wave is that the story has grown legs like many do as time passes but if you come here right now and talk to anyone 60+ they'll tell you some version of what I am saying.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Here is a very interesting incident from 1980:

Old Encounters

UFOs apparently scanning smelters and hanging around mines, happens. The white light at the front is where the beam came from, I think. The red lights on the "wings"; one of those took off and came back; similar things have also been reported from police on the ground during the triangle...

alienexpanse.com

 

[pigfarmer]

Been surfing through 1982 throughout the entire area, not just Dutchess County.

There are precisely two UFO reports in 1982. One is much further south in Mamaroneck, Westchester County and the news article relates a July 28 1976 sighting of a brilliant bell or pear shaped UFO over the Hudson River that moved off at high speed.

The other wasn't really a UFO it was a meteor, the witness identified it when she saw it.

Other than that the only hits on 'UFO' turn up lots of TV shows and 'The UFO Incident' which was apparently rerun fifty two billion times over those few years.

I want to try and see who Peter Gersten is or was. I know he was a lawyer from Tarrytown/White Plains and that he organized at least one public meeting about the rash of UFO sightings starting in 1983. I think he simply had the resources to indulge his interest and did, sort of a small scale Bob Bigelow. He may have turned on the porch light that attracted that pest Phil Imbrogno. The combination of those two factors definitely amped up public perception that only seemed to cool when Gersten offered a decent reward to valid info, after which the volume of reports dropped. Notably, with few exceptions the descriptions all seemed about the same which suggests human nature not visiting spacecraft.

Also by the all of the local police departments were pretty damned sick of all this. There were still actual criminals running around they would rather have been chasing.

 

[Todd Feinman]

I want to try and see who Peter Gersten is or was.

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EUf9sGOrJjc&pp=ygURcGV0ZXIgZ2Vyc3RlbiB1Zm8%3D&t=1m45s

 

[pigfarmer]

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EUf9sGOrJjc&pp=ygURcGV0ZXIgZ2Vyc3RlbiB1Zm8%3D&t=1m45s

I liked Sgt. Stone's account because it sounds entirely believable. Wouldn't be surprised if that's part of what Grusch is on about.

As for Gersten, thanks for that video as I now have another thread to follow: Citizens Against UFO Secrecy.

I have to get to work but he certainly sounds a lot like what I suspect he was back in the HDVL flap, an instigator. As I said it sounds like he has quite an interest and had the resources to create a town hall event or two that attracted a lot of attention. He might be how Imbrogno comes into the picture, or is at least coincidental. Certainly Imbrogno used the opportunity to interview witnesses and they both appeared in a lot of articles about UFOs for comment - they were allowed to define the narrative that we have today.

And just look at what Imbrogno turned out to be. He was a local high school teacher and would have been better off staying that way.

A note about J Allen Hynek's involvement. The man was dying of a brain tumor. Having been through that I can say he definitely could not have been on his game in any way and many of the changes that inevitably occur begin in very subtle ways.

Hoping to get over to the East Fishkill library this week. Haven't been in a few years but know they're networked and can probably request what I want from the Thrall library. I can drive right over to Middletown but it's about 40 miles and I'll try this first.

 

[pigfarmer]

I went to the local library yesterday and the very nice and helpful clerk spent some time looking for what I asked for. Specifically it was the Middletown Times Herald Record for July 1985. She found multiple references to the collection but I guess whatever inter-library network they have isn't quite as networked as I had hoped. She gave me a contact for the librarian who she said will help, she just wasn't there for whatever reason at the time.

She seems to have found what I did online. Up to about 1976 they are archived, after that ???

Middletown isn't that far. I'll first contact Thrall and ask about the collection and if it's there I'll take a ride over.

 

[pigfarmer]

Thrall responded to my request very quickly. They have THR 1985 on microfilm and I'll go over and take a look in the next week or so.

 

[pigfarmer]

Incidentally, searching 1982 and earlier turned up exactly one reference for Peter Gersten and it was in reference to a criminal case. Starting in 1983 he's seen as some sort of investigator and his name appears right with Imbrogno and is intertwined with this case. Not only were they interviewing witnesses but I think Gersten organized at least one big Town Hall event.

It makes me wonder exactly when and where these two came out of the woodwork. They're both from that Tarrytown/White Plains area south of where this all happened. Regardless of the origin of the strange lights these two seem to have put themselves on center stage pretty quickly. As I said they were allowed to define the narrative that we hear today.

I found an Oct 1983 article that put J Allen Hynek in a diner in Mahopac putting jelly on his muffin having breakfast with Imbrogno. Seems they had both interviewed Monique O'Driscoll. Hynek died in 1983 so he wasn't as close to the end at this point than I'd originally thought.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Triangles over Wales, 1983:

UK ufologist Alan Foster talks about the Night of Triangle UFOs over Wales/ Plus RAF Pilot who chased huge UFO over Cyprus - UFO Talker

Season 2 Episode 36. Host Michael Ryan interviews UK ufologist Alan Foster. Mr. Foster covers many topics including The Night of Triangles which happened in Southern Wales in January, 1983. He also talks about an RAF pilot who ch...

www.buzzsprout.com

 

[Creepy Green Light]

January 13 1983
View attachment 19961

November 9 1983

Yeah, I know. He wasn't a physicist, he was an engineer.
View attachment 19962

I wish that would have been around where I grew up. I'm glad that I got to sit in on one of his full lectures at the McMinnville, OR UFO festival. It was him and Betty Hill's niece Kathleen Marden that did the lecture together. Afterwards myself & family got to meet them and chat for a minute or two.

I also remember that famous case where a UFO that looked like a flying house was called in to police (I think it was in IL) and there were a bunch of officers from different towns that saw it & were interviewed for a documentary about it. You could tell all the witnesses saw something either square or triangle shaped but it appeared to have been an advertising blimp.

This isn't the original doc I saw but it's the same case Watch Highland, Illinois Clip | HISTORY Channel

 

[Creepy Green Light]

Incidentally, searching 1982 and earlier turned up exactly one reference for Peter Gersten and it was in reference to a criminal case. Starting in 1983 he's seen as some sort of investigator and his name appears right with Imbrogno and is intertwined with this case. Not only were they interviewing witnesses but I think Gersten organized at least one big Town Hall event.

It makes me wonder exactly when and where these two came out of the woodwork. They're both from that Tarrytown/White Plains area south of where this all happened. Regardless of the origin of the strange lights these two seem to have put themselves on center stage pretty quickly. As I said they were allowed to define the narrative that we hear today.

I found an Oct 1983 article that put J Allen Hynek in a diner in Mahopac putting jelly on his muffin having breakfast with Imbrogno. Seems they had both interviewed Monique O'Driscoll. Hynek died in 1983 so he wasn't as close to the end at this point than I'd originally thought.

View attachment 20011

My eyes instantly went to the Adamski-ish looking UFO at the top right. I think the Gersten character moved to AZ & does weird meditating at a spot in the desert that he says is a time portal/energy epicenter of some type.

 

[pigfarmer]

advertising blimp

My initiation to UFOs came with a close range sighting in about 1976 with my brother and his girlfriend. You could've inserted our account into that video easily except I didn't get the best look at it as it was obscured by trees (it was very low) and I was in the back of a van that had cosmetic windows in the back.

At the time in order to avoid paying more for commercial plates your van had to have windows on the sides so it was common to stick in weird little vanity designs. My brother was a mechanic at a Chrysler dealer at the time and he had the iconic Chrysler pentagram shape in the back of his '74 Plymouth Tradesman Love Machine, complete with shag carpets, a bed. I was looking through curved tinted plexiglass. Not exactly the best vantage point. I described it at the time as a fluroescent tube with red lights.

This scared the snot out of me and I later found my older brother had deliberately capitalized on this and later came up with a real whopper about him encountering it a second time a couple of years later a thousand miles away. It was all bullshit but I swallowed it all because I believed him. You want to know why I am skeptical ? Because I don't even believe my own brother unless I figure it out myself. I'm not paranoid just practical. What did Gorbachev say? Trust but verify.

I clearly remember right where we were and what I saw at one point and it was not very extraterrestrial looking. It had what appeared to be lights and at that exact moment sitting on a shelf in my bedroom was a motorized Goodyear blimp that had rows of lights and I thought at the time that was odd. But it looked damned freaky at the time. Now, years later when I read very, very similar accounts over in Florida, NY in 2009 - not far from Middletown - literally was caused by an advertising blimp. Although rare they do exist and I believe at one time there was a company operating one in Bergen County, NJ. Also right there. Incidentally, that's also about ground zero for that road flare balloon hoax that was so successful.

Somewhere in this thread I found a reference to the 2009 incident that I'll backtrack, maybe a visit to Thrall will serve two purposes. But, even thought I strongly suspect my first sighting was a blimp I never found anything to substantiate that and won't say so until I do.

 

[pigfarmer]

My eyes instantly went to the Adamski-ish looking UFO at the top right. I think the Gersten character moved to AZ & does weird meditating at a spot in the desert that he says is a time portal/energy epicenter of some type.

Why didn't they bother talking to people who saw things around here that didn't agree with their narrative? They existed at the time but this is what made the papers. Maybe Monique blew the both of them when they interviewed her, I don't know .....

Could be many boring prosaic reasons why they didn't but frankly, those are the ones I am more interested in and why I want to go to Middletown to look for confirmation. I don't expect it to prove anything other than to actually document what someone saw.

There is something I call 'gathering'.

When you are depressed you tend to go out and collect a big list of all the ills of the world to cry over when in fact it's probably a much shorter list that has you upset. Although I've read probably the same things about big triangle UFOs as the rest of us here - Belgian Wave etc - I am cautious to go 'gathering' anything that sounds similar to lend credence to what happened here. The same way an advertising blimp in 1976 and one in 2009 really have nothing to do with one another but for the startling effect.

 

[Terra]

I knew the Thrall library would have it!
I can’t wait to see what you find!

 

[pigfarmer]

Gersten had apparently been involved with al group called Citizens Against UFO Secrecy, FOIA requests and lawsuits against the government just prior to the HDVL flap.. A quick google search will show there are references to him in the CIA and NSA but in mundane ways., just because they come from those agencies doesn't always mean they are of any great interest. Looks like the CBS Evening News must've ran a piece on his activities

Wikipedia has an entry on him

Peter Gersten, former director of CAUS, is a criminal defense attorney who in 1977 brought suit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using FOIA. As a result, over nine hundred UFO documents were provided by the CIA in 1979. One year later Gersten brought a suit against the US National Security Agency (NSA) through CAUS. On November 18, 1980, in response to an NSA affidavit,[2] the judge denied release of the documents.[3][4]

In 1983 CAUS filed a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, with petition filer Larry Bryant stating, "We want the bodies [of extraterrestrials]."[5] Bryant also filed a suit against James S. Gilmore, governor of Virginia, for the release of information related to "the clandestine invasion of UFOs within Virginia."[6] CAUS lost the case.[7]

Gersten, who has been described by ufologists as "UFOlogy's foremost ambulance chaser" and has been accused of "turn[ing] the once respectable CAUS into a fringe new age association,"[8] was in 2012 reported to be intending to jump off Bell Rock in Sedona, Arizona, with Gersten saying, "I believe that some type of cosmic portal will be opening at that time and place and that an opportunity will present itself. I fully expect that it will either lead to the next level of this cosmic program; freedom from an imprisoning time-loop; a magical Martian-like bubble; or something equally as exotic."[9] Gersten "wandered home" when his predicted vortex did not appear.[10]

As of 2023 CAUS is listed as an inactive organization, with its non-profit status revoked.[11]

 

[Todd Feinman]

My initiation to UFOs came with a close range sighting in about 1976 with my brother and his girlfriend. You could've inserted our account into that video easily except I didn't get the best look at it as it was obscured by trees (it was very low) and I was in the back of a van that had cosmetic windows in the back.

At the time in order to avoid paying more for commercial plates your van had to have windows on the sides so it was common to stick in weird little vanity designs. My brother was a mechanic at a Chrysler dealer at the time and he had the iconic Chrysler pentagram shape in the back of his '74 Plymouth Tradesman Love Machine, complete with shag carpets, a bed. I was looking through curved tinted plexiglass. Not exactly the best vantage point. I described it at the time as a fluroescent tube with red lights.

This scared the snot out of me and I later found my older brother had deliberately capitalized on this and later came up with a real whopper about him encountering it a second time a couple of years later a thousand miles away. It was all bullshit but I swallowed it all because I believed him. You want to know why I am skeptical ? Because I don't even believe my own brother unless I figure it out myself. I'm not paranoid just practical. What did Gorbachev say? Trust but verify.

I clearly remember right where we were and what I saw at one point and it was not very extraterrestrial looking. It had what appeared to be lights and at that exact moment sitting on a shelf in my bedroom was a motorized Goodyear blimp that had rows of lights and I thought at the time that was odd. But it looked damned freaky at the time. Now, years later when I read very, very similar accounts over in Florida, NY in 2009 - not far from Middletown - literally was caused by an advertising blimp. Although rare they do exist and I believe at one time there was a company operating one in Bergen County, NJ. Also right there. Incidentally, that's also about ground zero for that road flare balloon hoax that was so successful.

Somewhere in this thread I found a reference to the 2009 incident that I'll backtrack, maybe a visit to Thrall will serve two purposes. But, even thought I strongly suspect my first sighting was a blimp I never found anything to substantiate that and won't say so until I do.

And that's the problem with witness accounts and other evidence; people will listen to a degree, and you can wedge your foot into the doors of their minds, but unless they have experienced it for themselves or have testable proof, nothing really moves forward. And the majority of sightings and contacts are like that. Even when there is some kind of physical evidence (and there has really been none that has been shown to be truly anomalous), there is disagreement about results, etc., as with science generally. Even if there was a government announcement, many wouldn't believe it.