Page 13 - 200810 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - October 2008

New Yorkers Stand by UFO Sightings 13 New Yorkers Stand by UFO Sightings 13 New Yorkers stand by the stone chambers in the woods of Kent for the - Statements from police officers in New Yorkers stand by 1980s UFO sightings in chance to see a spook light or perhaps a druid West Yorkshire describing sightings of "bright 1980s UFO sightings in ghost. lights in the night sky" More than 1,500 people packed a one- - Testimony collected from a U.S. Westchester, Putnam day UFO conference. Airforce Sabre jet pilot ordered to "shoot down Westchester, Putnam counties Support groups started for people a UFO" flying over eastern England during the counties certain they were contacted by extraterrestrial height of the Cold War beings, including a monthly gathering called the - A letter from a person dubbed "alien- BY ROB RYSER | The Journal News UFO Roundtable in Yonkers. Cable networks spotter extraordinaire" who reported regular sent production crews to dramatize an already alien visits since 1982 One generation ago, a boomerang- remarkable story with special effects. Another of the 19 files released by the shaped object as bright as a city street and as In March, the History Channel aired a British Ministry of Defence to the National big as a football field appeared in the night program that called the Lower Hudson sightings Archives details a near-miss with a possible skies over southern New York state, drawing the biggest UFO vortex mystery of all time. UFO and passenger jet carrying 57 people en such mixed reactions from some 7,200 And why not? route from Milan to London's Heathrow Airport witnesses that it never turned into the cosmic The Lower Hudson Valley always has on April 21, 1991. public event that it really was. been a place, as Irving writes in ‘‘The Legend of Alitalia pilot Achille Zaghetti saw a Now, 25 years after the well- Sleepy Hollow,’’ where ‘‘stars shoot and flash zoom by his cockpit windshield and documented but not necessarily well- meteors glare oftener across the valley than in screeched, "Look out, look out" to his co-pilot, remembered UFO phenomenon put Putnam any other part of the country’’ and where people the archives show. and Westchester counties on the map as are ‘‘given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs, A call placed to the control centre paranormal hot spots, the massive case study subject to trances and visions.’’ revealed an unknown target was spotted 10 that has resulted is elevating the Lower Hudson Patterson-based real estate broker nautical miles behind the aircraft. Valley to the status of one of the three major Freddy Vicente found that out while driving An investigation into the flying object UFO vortexes in the world. April 27 on the Taconic State Parkway, when, debunked Zaghetti's suspicion it was a cruise The other two are Stonehenge, England, he said, a circle of 12 or more clearly oversized missile. The Ministry of Defence also and Sedona, Ariz. lights glided past his windshield and out of sight confirmed the object was neither a weather In a land with a heritage that celebrates into the night. balloon nor a space rocket. Washington Irving’s iconic Headless Horseman The burden of handling the UFO The projectile remains unexplained to every Halloween, the sightings are also sightings - which came in the hundreds on the this day. yielding new theories about why these quiet same night across town and county lines on at David Clarke, a UFO expert who works suburbs apparently are so haunted. least three dates during the peak - fell on local for the archives, suspects as many as 160 UFO- The most fantastic theory is developed police departments, whose officers sometimes related files will be made available to the public in four books by one high-profile UFO also witnessed the same unidentified object as in the next three to four years. investigator who teaches middle-school science the public they were protecting. "Whatever you believe about UFOs, or in White Plains, N.Y. He believes that ancient ‘‘We are sworn to uphold the law and don't believe, that is a serious incident and it has European explorers built stone chambers in help citizens, but that night we didn’t know to be treated as such by the Civil Aviation nearby Putnam to mark anomalies in the Earth’s what we had,’’ said Soravilla of the Yorktown Authority," Clarke told the BBC. magnetic field that may open windows into the police. ‘‘It was mind-boggling.’’ In another strange case, the crew aboard fourth dimension, thereby giving the Departments often had little recourse Britannia Airways Boeing 737, spotted a "small supernatural universe a portal into suburban beyond calling airport control towers to find a black lozenge-shaped object" roughly 90 life. conventional explanation. metres to the left of the aircraft. Teacher and author Phil Imbrogno was The Lower Hudson UFO story remains Air traffic controllers on the ground among the first on the Lower Hudson scene more legend than popular history because the located the oddity and clocked it at 190 with national UFO experts to record eyewitness witness experience is so personal and varied. kilometres per hour -- even the quickest birds accounts in 1983. At the time, hundreds of Some people screamed out in fear at the sight can only fly about 95 kilometres per hour when people in Westchester and Putnam were calling while others felt awe and even an attraction to it pressed. police to report a huge but silent lighted ship - especially those who sensed a wordless An investigation into that incident could that the witnesses were certain they had never communication from the object not to be afraid. not determine what the object was. seen before. ‘‘Maybe years from now the Hudson "Now you can look at the actual primary The Federal Aviation Administration Valley UFOs will be looked at like ’The Legend material -- the stuff coming into the Ministry of explained the strange sights as light aircraft of Sleepy Hollow,’ ’’ Imbrogno said. [] Defence every day -- and make your own mind flying in formation - a possibility that many up," Clarke said. [] eyewitnesses said they rejected when they Britain opens secret spoke to Imbrogno and the other investigators. Britain opens secret UFO files to public The best pilots invariably break UFO files to public formation, and their engines are always audible CTV News from the ground, said Lt. Kevin Soravilla of the CTV News Yorktown police. He was a patrolman on duty the night of March 24, 1983, when he twice saw Officials easily dismissed numerous a silent and massive delta-shaped lighted ship. reports of UFOs tracking the London sky in The government explanation of 1989 as a laser light show at an outdoor Tina conventional aircraft was perhaps to be Turner rock concert at Wembley Stadium. expected. The Air Force studied 12,600 UFO But not all "flying saucer" sightings reports from 1947 until 1969 and then stopped, between 1986 and 1992 have been as easily in part because it said it was a waste of taxpayer explained, according to primary documents money and in part because the sightings did not made available to the public for the first time by represent new technology or a national security Britain's National Archives on Monday. threat. The more than 4,500-page online As a result, the government turned all document is the second batch of testimonies investigations over to private groups. And the chock-full of shimmering objects, mysterious Lower Hudson UFO legend only grew. crop circles and creatures from another People came out in groups to watch the dimension collected by British military and night skies for UFOs. New-age seekers toured released this month. It includes first-hand accounts such as: