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Night Siege Update: UFOs Over Central Connecticut

Philip J. Imbrogno

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Summary: An update to the Hudson Valley UFO sightings reported in the book Night Siege (by Philip Imbrogno and J. Allen Hynek). "Since the publication of Night Siege, I have often been asked if there has been any more reports from the point where the book leaves off. The last reported sightings in Night Siege took place late in 1985, since then there has been continued activity in the Hudson Valley area, also most of Connecticut is now involved. Hundreds of people in the Connecticut area have now gone on record as seeing the strange boomerang shaped UFO."

Since the beginning of 1983 the residents of the Hudson Valley area of New York and nearby Connecticut have seen something very strange in the night sky. The UFO has been described as being larger than a football field with multicolored flashing lights. The object seems to take on a Boomerang shape, but at times it also has appeared circular. Most witnesses report that it is a solid object made up of some type of very dark, gun-grey material. The object has been seen by at least five thousand witnesses which include police officers, scientists, and people from all walks of life. All indicate that the silent slow moving UFO was something that they had never seen before and could not identify.

These early sightings from 1983-1985 were documented in my book "Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings" (Ballantine books, 1987), which I co-authored with the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Mr. Bob Pratt. Since the publication of Night Siege, I have often been asked if there has been any more reports from the point where the book leaves off. The last reported sightings in Night Siege took place late in 1985, since then there has been continued activity in the Hudson Valley area, also most of Connecticut is now involved. Hundreds of people in the Connecticut area have now gone on record as seeing the strange boomerang shaped UFO.

On January 9 1986, the UFO was reported over the skies in the greater Hartford Connecticut area. At about 9:00 p.m., the police in Hartford and neighboring towns started to receive numerous calls of a low flying large object with many lights. At first they dismissed the calls but got concerned when the calls continued. At about 9:15, the police telephone lines were jammed from people calling in reporting the UFO. At that time, police officers were sent to investigate the reports and noticed as they approached Highway I-84 in Hartford that traffic was backed up. They noticed that many people were getting out of their cars and were looking up at the sky. The officers arrived just in time to see a large boomerang pattern of lights slowly drift toward the south-west.

One witness who saw the UFO at that time was a Mrs. Diane Duont age 40 and a resident of West Hartford. Mrs. Duont was in the area of Hartford where highway 84 runs into 91, right in the heart of town. Mrs. Duont's sighting account is related below:

"I was driving north on 84 through the Hartford area, I was heading toward the I-91 North cut off when I noticed a formation of brilliant white lights approaching from the east. I thought that it looked quite unusual and although I have seen large aircraft low over this area, I thought this was unusually large. It continued to approach and I thought at first that it was a large jet going to crash into the city. I pulled over to an exit and stopped the car and got out. I looked back toward the highway because I heard the sound of brakes squealing. The cars along the highway had slowed down, some had even stopped. This was dangerous since that part of the highway is hectic and under normal circumstances there are fender benders all the time.

I watched as these lights approached and I was surprised that I heard no sound at all.

They seemed to be in a boomerang shape, and all white.

As it continued to approach, I noticed red, blue and green lights in between and very close to the white lights. In all I would say there were about twenty lights. The object passed almost directly over my car and as I looked up I saw a dark mass against the brighter night sky. I could not see any structure, but this thing just blocked out the sky. I estimated its size to be about that of a 747, but it's shape was strange...it looked like a flying wing. The object then continued to move to the south. At this time it stopped and hovered for fifteen seconds, then continued to the south west. It was a fantastic sight and no matter how much you tell yourself that these things can't be real I could find no answer as to what that thing could have been. It was not from this world!"

Most of the reports from that area at that time seem to support the idea that this thing was very large, silent and very low. Most of the estimates place it around 500-800 feet above the ground. Bradley international airport is close by, so how can an object this large come into a populated area and go undetected by radar? Local police were baffled by the sightings. State police told them that the sightings were caused by nothing more than a group of stunt planes flying in formation. The FAA official at Bradley would not confirm or deny if they had anything on radar but insisted that the entire sighting over the Hartford area was most likely a hoax with a hot air balloon. However, many people who saw the object that night say that the explanations don't fit. As one building inspector in the Hartford area said: "This thing about balloons and aircraft is a lot of crap".

The UFO did not disappear, it continued to head south and was seen over New Britain. Here, many people ran out of their homes to see the giant UFO pass overhead. The time was about 9:15 p.m. One witness told us that he stood and watched it pass over his street. He reported that the underside was a dark grey like structure with all kinds of tubes and grids connecting the bottom. He said that the lights were flashing and were all white with a red one in the middle. He also said that the lights were in a boomerang shape but he could also make out a dark structure that extended toward the rear that made it look kite shaped. He and his neighbors just stood in awe as it passed over their homes without a sound.

The UFO was seen then heading north-west and at about 9:30 p.m. it was reported over Torrington, Connecticut which is about 15 miles west of Hartford. At this time, dozens of calls were made to police headquarters in Torrington. Scores of calls were also made to local radio station WSNG. One woman who lives in the surrounding area of the city of Torrington told police that she looked out the window and saw these lights approaching her home. At first she thought it was a jet going to crash. She then alerted the entire family who all watched the UFO approach.

As it approached she said it seemed to be losing altitude and started to slow down. The UFO then hovered directly over their home and engulfed the entire house in a beam of white light. The entire family ran down to the basement to seek protection, since they were not sure what they were dealing with. The object then continued to move towards downtown Torrington. Despite all the calls to the local Torrington police they were helpless and could do nothing. This was a familiar scenario that was once again repeating itself. In 1984, a UFO flew over the towns of Yorktown, New Castle and Mt. Kisco in Westchester county, New York. Local police were helpless and only stood in amazement as they observed the object. As New Castle police Lt. Herbert Petersen put it, "If this thing can come in here and do this I want to know where the HELL are our country's defenses".

Hartford and Torrington police were now experiencing the same frustration as had been experienced several years before in Westchester. Federal spokesmen and state police were providing no real answers.

As the object continued to move to the west, it was witnesses by a Mr. Arnold Springster his wife and their friends near Whist pond just off of Route 4 about ten miles west of Torrington. Below is Mr. Springster's sighting account as related to me:

"I was driving with my wife and two friends, west on Route 4, near Whist pond. As we were approaching the pond area I noticed a series of very bright white lights approaching from the south. I called the lights to everyones attention and my friend said, "It looks like a squadron of helicopters". The lights continued to approach, very slow. I stopped the car and rolled down the windows. Off to my right was the pond and it was frozen at the time. We looked at the lights and I knew this was something strange. My wife told me not to be silly that it will probably turn out to be a plane or something like that. As it approached, I could see a group of red lights mixed in with the white. I became somewhat concerned because this thing was low and was still heading straight for us. I would estimate it's altitude at this time to be no more than 500 feet high. My friend's wife said, "What the hell is it?".

It was almost overhead and there was no sound. The UFO then started to get lower and it continued to approach. It was moving very slow. I knew that no aircraft could possibly keep that altitude and go so slow, plus it was dead quiet. I opened the door and got out of the car and looked up as the thing passed over the car. It was so huge it seemed like it took a long time to pass over. Everyone at this time started to get a little worried, I mean here we were on this road with no other traffic, it could have easily did what ever it wanted to do to us. I looked up at it, it was directly overhead and about two hundred feet above the car.

At that point, all the white lights went out and I saw ten red lights, very small, surrounding a triangular shaped object with one red light in the middle. This was weird since when the white lights were on and it was approaching the object looked like a boomerang or half circle. I looked up and saw this structure. There were parts that looked like they were soldered together, but very smoothly. It was made up of some type of dark greyish material that had a very low reflectability. This was no type of an aircraft. I have an engineering background and have flown all types of small aircraft and I know there was no was this was anything man made. I saw this large object that blacked out the entire sky above me, it was easily as large as a football field.

I noticed that the underside was criss-crossed by a network of tubes and grill like work. It looked like some type of modern art. At that point the circular red light in the middle of this thing detached itself and flew ahead of the thing at great speed. The red light then circled the object three times then went back to its original position in the middle of the underside. It just reattached itself to the same place. By this time, the UFO or what ever it was passed over the car and made a very sharp turn toward the south. My wife and friends were yelling for us to get out of there and I just stood outside the car and watched the thing until I lost it behind some trees. My wife and friends stayed in the car all the time. The entire sighting was about ten minutes long. The next day the papers carried a story and said that hundreds of people had seen it. The papers went on to quote a spokesman from Bradley International airport who said that it was a hoax created by five small aircraft in tight formation. I saw this thing with my friends and I can tell you this was no plane. My wife never believed in UFOs, but after that night we are both convinced that these things are real!"

There were many accounts reported to this researcher that January 9th, from stable, credible people. However, when these people tried to find out more they were told by state police that the sightings were caused by nothing more than a group of stunt fliers from some airport in Dutchess county New York.

The UFO was then seen heading south and by 9:45 p.m. it was seen in the Thomaston area which lies 15 miles south of Torrington. The two towns are connected by Route 8, a major Connecticut road. There were several reports from motorists along that area who saw the huge object drift overhead moving in a southward direction. Closer towards the town of Thomaston, along Route 8, several people stopped their cars and got out to watch the strange object pass above. At about 9:45, the Thomaston Police Department said it got several calls of an elliptical formation of lights. It seems the UFO turned on more lights as it approached Thomaston. It now resembled what was video taped on July 24, 1984 at 10:30 p.m. in Brewster, New York. Moments after the UFO was reported to them, Thomaston police received a call from state police telling them that the lights were a formation of planes from Hudson, New York. When this information came to my attention, I was puzzled since there is no airport in the area of that town.

But residents who watched the UFO over Thomaston were not convinced that airplanes were the answer. Mr. Paul Tracy observed the UFO as it hovered above his home: "It was big and moved very slowly. It made no noise and that's what bugged me", he said. David Marcoux was driving home from downtown Thomaston when he and his wife saw the UFO. "I thought at first it was a plane. It had rows of seven bright red lights with a big bright red one that looked as bright as a beacon in the middle."

Marcoux said that when they got home, his wife went inside to grab a camera. The lights were too far away at this time but they did manage to snap twenty frames. To my knowledge at the time of publication of this article not one of them came out. Marcoux summed up his feelings about the sighting this way; "I would sure like to know what's going on," he said.

His feelings are echoed with many in the Hudson Valley area who saw the UFO from 1983-1984. As one witness in the Hudson Valley stated, "We want answers, not explanations".

Stranger still, the lights were once again reported in the Thomaston area on Monday the 13th of January. Once again, quite a few people saw what they thought was an object the size of a football field hovering in the area and slowly drifting overhead from 10:00-10:30 p.m. Most of the reports seemed to have come from the less populated areas and only from the Thomaston area!

This was strange, why did the UFO come back and why did it only appear in that one particular area? There were no other reports from any of the surrounding towns that night. If that wasn't enough, a more baffling occurrence was to take place the next day. When the people of Thomaston woke up on Tuesday morning they noticed that all the electric clocks in the town had gained ten minutes. When middle school principal Douglas Harlow arrived at his desk Tuesday morning he discovered that all the school's clocks were ten minutes fast. "I couldn't figure it out", Harlow said. Mr. Harlow was not the only one who couldn't figure it out. The Connecticut Light and Power Company speculated that sometime in the night there was a power surge that somehow caused the clocks to move ahead. Philip Gervais a shift supervisor for the utility said that he never heard of such a thing happening because of a power surge. He did say that there was no record of a power surge, but there was a power loss in the area of Hummiston Court, where 109 homes were without electricity for several hours. This is very close to the area that the UFO was seen, but no reports came to me from that particular street.

What ever caused the blackout and power surge may never be known. Many people speculated that the fast clocks had something to do with the sighting of the UFO the previous night and several days before. We know that UFOs have caused such electromagnetic effects as power surges and power blackouts, but was it responsible? What ever caused the clocks of Thomaston to speed ahead caused enough trouble to upset the morning routine of many people.

This update covered UFO reports that took place in the Connecticut area. The activity in the north-east continues. In the months to come I will be relating more information on UFO reports in and around the Hudson Valley area of New York.

Read more articles on this topic:

Hudson Valley Sightings