Night Siege

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Contents 5
Night Siege
Illustration of an open book about flying saucers
Illustration: an open book about flying saucers. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.
TypeBook, film or media
On the Timeline2 events, 1984

Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings is a 1987 book by astronomer J. Allen Hynek, researcher Philip Imbrogno and journalist Bob Pratt about the wave of UFO sightings in New York's Hudson Valley and neighbouring Connecticut in 1983–1984. It was Hynek's last book, published after his death in 1986.[1][2]

The sightings

Illustration of official papers and files
Illustration: official papers and files. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.

From March 1983 through 1984 thousands of residents of Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties and nearby Fairfield County, Connecticut, reported huge, silent, V- or boomerang-shaped formations of lights. The New York Times described objects reported to be the size of a football field, usually in a V shape or a circle.[1]

The book

Illustration of a military base at night
Illustration: a military base at night. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.

The authors collected witness accounts and argued that a light-aircraft explanation could not account for all of them, describing objects that hovered silently for long periods. Imbrogno also reported claims that security guards at the Indian Point nuclear power plant saw an object over the plant in 1984, which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it had no record of. Hynek called the events "absolutely weird".[1]

Explanations

Illustration of a jet meeting an unknown object
Illustration: a jet meeting an unknown object. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.

State police, plant security and later skeptics attributed many sightings to a group of pilots flying small aircraft in tight formation from Stormville Airport and switching their lights on and off together; skeptic Brian Dunning wrote that the pilots called themselves "the Martians". The case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries in 1992.[1][3]

On the UAP Timeline

Illustration of a government hearing
Illustration: a government hearing. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.

References

This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.

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