UFOs Over Pine Bush, NY

by Charles Lear

In the 1980s, New York’s Hudson River Valley was home to a wave of extraordinary UFO encounters by thousands of people. It was explained away as a hoax perpetrated by a group of nighttime pilots in ultralights and this was enough to make it fade from the public consciousness, even among those in the UFO community. However, one town in the area has kept the memory of the events alive with a yearly fair and a recently opened UFO museum.

A book about the wave, “Night Siege” by J. Allen Hynek, Philip Imbrogno, and Bob Pratt, was published in 1998. Hynek died in 1986 before the book was published but actively investigated and contributed to the book. His wife, Mimi, helped edit the book after his death.

According to “Night Siege,” the wave began in Kent, New York, on New Year’s Eve 1982 with a sighting by a retired New York City police officer identified by the pseudonym,“Tony Vallor. He’d just christened his new house by smashing a champagne bottle against it, and his wife had sent him back outside to clean up the broken glass after he’d told her about it. As he was cleaning up the glass, he saw a group of red, green, and white lights to the south. At first he thought he was seeing a jet having trouble but it was moving too slowly to be a jet. Read more

A UFO in Lumberton, North Carolina

by Charles Lear

Illustration by Dale Hendrickson

It is often the case with UFO investigators that once they get to an area where a UFO has been reported, the UFO is long gone, and all they can do is interview witnesses. This is important as a means of creating a record of the case that can be referred to by future investigators and researchers. But, occasionally an investigator gets the chance to be a witness and actually observe what had been reported. This happened to investigator Lee Speigel who was looking into a series of sightings by as many as thirty police officers and 50 civilians in Lumberton, North Carolina in 1975. Spiegel submitted a report on the case to the director of the Center for UFO Studies and former Project Blue Book scientific consultant, J. Allen Hynek. The case file resides in the archives housed by David Marler in New Mexico.

Along with Speigel’s report and contemporary newspaper clippings, there is also a series of paper slips in the file folder containing call information, presumably filled out at a CUFOS UFO call center. (If anyone can confirm this, please comment.) According to Speigel’s report, a violent thunderstorm in the area ended at 1:35 a.m. on April 3, 1975. A “call slip” in the case file has the information that at 1:45 a.m., Sheriff Ronn Thompson was monitoring the radio while working as the dispatcher at the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office in Lumberton when the first report of a strange object came in. It was seen by Robeson County Officer Phil Stanton and then by two officers from St. Paul. All three described the object as v-shaped with red, blue, and clear lights. A slip with 5:15 a.m., filled in for the time has the information that two Sampson County officers saw a similar object that put a spotlight on them as it moved off. One of the officers “clocked it” at 200 mph. It appears that there was a full fledge flap after 10:00 p.m. that night because a slip with 10:15-10:30 p.m. filled in for the time has information on the back that officers from four different police departments and 50 “citizens” reported seeing something.

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A UFO Landing in Socorro

by Charles Lear

The April 24, 1964 sighting by Socorro, NM, Police Sergeant Lonnie Zamora of a landed UFO with two beings standing next to it has been written about extensively and remains a fascinating mystery to this day. What’s noteworthy about this case is the large number of people who investigated it. Representatives from the Socorro Police, the New Mexico State Police, the F.B.I., and the Army were first on the scene. They were followed by the Lorenzens from the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, members of the Air Force and J. Allen Hynek as part of Project Blue Book, and Ray Stanford for the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. Besides the testimony of Zamora, there was trace evidence to examine, there were witnesses to interview who’d reported a similar craft, and there were reputed witnesses to the very craft Zamora reported who were searched for but never found.  Despite the thoroughness of the inquiries and analyses by so many experienced investigators, no one was able to come up with an agreeable earthly explanation.

According to Zamora’s written report, he was chasing a speeder around 5:45 p.m. in the southeast section of Socorro when he heard what he described as a roar and saw a flame to the southwest.  Just over a nearby hill was a dynamite shack belonging to the mayor, and Zamora was concerned that it might have blown up, so he broke pursuit and went to investigate.

As he drove, he saw a funnel shaped, narrower at the top, blue and “sort of orange” flame slowly descend behind the hill. He turned onto a dirt road, made it up a hill after three tries, and after looking around for 15-20 seconds, saw what he thought was a car standing on end in a gully. As he got closer he noted two figures in what looked like white coveralls standing next to the “car.” As he drove quickly towards them to help, one of the figures turned towards him and seemed startled.

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Pancakes From the UFO

by Charles Lear

In 1961, Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe, USMC (Ret.) was the director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. That year, he and his organization were making life difficult for the Air Force with criticism of their UFO investigation, Project Blue Book. This was nothing new, but now they were close to getting open hearings in Congress to address their criticisms.

Then, on April 18, 1961, Joe Simonton, a 54 year-old plumber, handyman and part-time chicken farmer, reported a UFO encounter involving humanoids and offered physical evidence not usually associated with extraterrestrials. This was a strange case with a single witness, but Blue Book Director Robert Friend thought the Air Force should get involved. He mistakenly thought that NICAP would turn the case into a big story and accuse the Air Force of shirking its duties.

Simonton first told his story to his friend, Vilas County Judge Franklin Carter. Carter had been a UFO enthusiast since Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 report. Carter interviewed Simonton and wrote an exclusive report for Gray Barker’s publication, the Saucerian Bulletin.

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The Socorro UFO Investigation

By Charles Lear

The April 24, 1964 sighting of a landed UFO with two beings standing next to it by Socorro, NM Police Sergeant, Lonnie Zamora has been written about extensively and remains a fascinating mystery to this day.  What’s particularly interesting about this case is how many people investigated it.  Representatives from the Socorro Police, New Mexico State Police the F.B.I. and Army were first on the scene followed by the Lorenzens from the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, members of the Air Force and J. Allen Hynek as part of Project Blue Book, and Ray Stanford for the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena.  Besides the testimony of Zamora, there was trace evidence to examine, witnesses to a similar craft to interview, and reputed witnesses to the very craft Zamora reported who were searched for but never found.  Despite the thoroughness of the inquiries and analyses by so many experienced investigators, no one was able to come up with an agreeable Earthly explanation.

According to Zamora’s written report, he was chasing a speeder around 5:45 PM in the southeast section of Socorro when he heard what he described as a roar and saw a flame to the southwest.  Just over a nearby hill was a dynamite shack and Zamora was concerned that it might have blown up, so he broke pursuit and went to investigate.  As he drove he saw a funnel shaped, narrower at the top, blue and “sort of orange” flame slowly descend behind the hill.  He turned onto a dirt road, made it up a hill after three tries, and, after looking around for 15-20 seconds, saw what he thought was a car standing on end in a gully.  As he got closer he noted two figures in what looked like white coveralls standing next to the “car” and as he drove quickly towards them to help, one of the figures turned towards him and seemed startled.  Zamora was focused on the road and radioed that there had been an accident.  When he was close to the site, he went to get out of the car and dropped the mic as he was doing so.  He turned to replace it in its holder and, as soon as he turned away from the car to head down into the gully, he heard a roar, and saw flame coming out of the bottom of a white object shaped like an oval on its side, which was rising up slowly.  He described the roar as not being like a jet, going from lower pitch to higher pitch and increasing “from loud to very loud.”  During this time he noted a red insignia like an arrow under a crescent in the middle of the object.  Fearful of an explosion, Zamora ran behind his car, bumping his leg on it and dropping his sun glasses, and kept on running to duck down just over the edge of the hill.  He glanced back at the object as he did so and saw that it was completely out of the gully and level with his car.  He had intended to keep running down the hill when the roar stopped and was replaced by a whine that went from high to low pitch for about a second. The object then moved away towards the southwest in complete silence, with no flame, in a straight line maintaining a height of 10-15 feet, which Zamora estimated in relation to the dynamite shack, which it had cleared by around 3 feet.  According to Zamora the object moved quickly away and then ascended as it took off “across country.”  Zamora later recalled seeing legs when the object was landed, that held it about three feet off the ground.  Most likely, as he was thinking he was looking at a crashed car at the time, he was unable to put what he was seeing into a proper context.  He radioed headquarters and asked the operator, Nep Lopes to look out his window and tell him if he could see what he was looking at.  Lopes saw nothing and Zamora gave directions to him and Sergeant Sam Chavez of the State Police who monitored the same frequencies as the Socorro Police.

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