Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings [Paperback]

Dr J. Allen Hynek (Author), Philip J. Imbrogno (Author), Bob Pratt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 1998

There is no way you can determine if the "truth is out there" unless someone reveals it. Now you can discover the truth that will rip open the entire UFO phenomenon, when you read "Night Siege" by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Philip J. Imbrogno, and Bob Pratt.
The late Dr. Hynek was a famous astrologer who was a consultant to the Air Force's "Project Blue Book" UFO investigation and later had a cameo in the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." He began the research that was continued by science educator Imbrogno and journalist Pratt. What they uncovered was that thousands of people have been seeing strange objects in the sky--and sometimes even contacting strange beings--in the Hudson Valley just north of New York City.
-Seven thousand reported sightings
-Witnesses from all walks of life
-Reports from strangers corroborate what others saw
-A huge object that hovers and floats through the sky almost silently
-Encounters with entities who looked like they had gray skin . . . or were reptilian
-Physical evidence that something strange took place
The first edition of "Night Siege" is widely known as a classic in the UFO field for its in-depth reporting. It has now been updated to cover the latest sightings and close encounters. The book features sixteen photos, including one of a UFO taken by a law enforcement official.
To this day, the military, the media, and scientists have remained silent about the Hudson Valley phenomenon. If you want to find out the amazing secrets of UFOs just minutes from New York City, you must get "Night Siege.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications; 2 Expanded edition (May 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156718362X
• ISBN-13: 978-1567183627
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #464,340 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

New Year's Eve 1982 marked the beginning of one of the most puzzling UFO cases in recent times: the Hudson Valley "siege." The siege begot over 7,000 sightings of a boomerang-shaped craft or crafts moving silently through the sky over New York and Connecticut between 1982 and 1995. Night Siege is the collaborative effort of Hynek, Imbrogno, and Pratt to report the data gathered from witnesses of this mystifying experience, without speculation of what it might be. If you missed the first edition of Night Siege, this is your chance to delve into the Hudson Valley mystery. If you have read the first edition, you may be interested in the additional data covering sightings from 1986 to 1995, the graphical analysis of the UFO's appearance, and the chronology of the sightings. Aside from the purely factual value of the catalog of reports in Night Siege, its coverage of an undeniable series of events that somehow went largely untouched by the local authorities and the national media invites speculation into the origins of these silent objects. --Brian Patterson

From Publishers Weekly

The "Westchester Boomerang" was a UFO reported by hundreds of people in New York State and Connecticut between 1983 and 1986 and described by most witnesses as a hovering, immense V-shaped series of flashing lights connected by a dark structure. UFO investigators Imbrogno (Crosswalks Across the Universe) and Pratt write in detail about the "close encounters" of some 900 people who filled out "witness forms." (Famed UFO author Hynek died in 1986, "as the book was being written," but the authors maintain that he participated in the investigation and include the transcript of a Hynek interview with a witness.) They note a "feeling" common to the witnesses: "They felt as if the object or whatever intelligence that was behind it was trying to communicate with them in some way." After a two-year analysis, the authors conclude that there is "no conventional explanation for the Hudson Valley UFO." The illustrations (not seen by PW) include photos, drawings and sequential frames from a videotape of the lights.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications; 2 Expanded edition (May 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156718362X
• ISBN-13: 978-1567183627
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #464,340 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 50 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Plato's Cave Projected Onto the Hudson River Valley Skies August 25, 2003

By J. E. Barnes

Format:Paperback

Despite its ominous title, 'Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings' by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Philip J. Imbrogno, and Bob Pratt is a sensible, sober book on the subject of unexplained aerial phenomena.

Witnesses to the events and active participants in the investigation during the period described, the authors have limited the book to examining the dramatic 13-year UFO wave that took place over the Hudson River Valley from 1982 through 1995. During that period, the UFOs were seen by an estimated 7,000 people and reported to authorities by at least a tenth of that number.

The "boomerang-shaped," brightly-lit UFOs behaved like brazen tricksters and interactive provocateurs during their reign of the night skies.

Most often described as "bigger than a football field," the silent objects flew less that 500 feet above heavily populated commercial and residential areas, stopped traffic on freeways, turned sideways and spiraled through the air like Ferris wheels, dived into and flew out of bodies of water, hovered over single homes and cars for minutes on end, responded to lights flashed in their direction with dramatic light displays of their own, and disappeared over the horizon in bursts of unbelievable acceleration.

Several witnesses reported that the objects dematerialized--or "vanished"--right before their eyes.

On the night of July 24th 1990, an enormous, apparently nonchalant UFO hovered over the Indian Point Nuclear Reactor Complex and came within thirty feet of the only reactor in operation.

Awestruck plant personnel had the object on camera for more than fifteen minutes, and were given tentative orders to shoot it down....

Helpless police officers confronted the UFOs and repeatedly explained to panicked callers that they did not know what the objects were. The FAA reported that witnesses were seeing nothing more than small lightweight planes flying together in formation, an explanation few accepted. The national media ignored the sightings year after year.

However, identically-described objects were reported in the area as early as the mid-Fifties, and have been reported in subsequent decades from countries all over the world.

Commonly known today as "black triangles," a number of theorists--experts and amateurs alike--believe the triangles are the product of United States "black operations" military programs. The most common theory is that the objects are enormous "solid dirigibles," or "stealth blimps," that function as transportation systems for large numbers of soldiers and masses of heavy equipment.

Were the Hudson Valley UFOs secret advanced-model solid dirigibles? If so, why did they repeatedly fly over areas where they would inevitably be seen by a great number of affluent, educated people?

What practical purpose could their colorful, complex light patterns have had? If the objects were created to carry government troops, why has no soldier come forward to discuss his or her experience on such a vessel?

If the United States has access to such incredibly advanced technology, why weren't these ships utilized in recent wars? Why are the United State's space shuttles still built with comparatively rudimentary and unreliable technology?

Though the presented evidence often seems highly credible, it is difficult to accept that the United States government, as it is generally understood to exist, can presently create and control objects like those reported here.

Nor is there any sound reason to believe that the Hudson Valley UFOs were extraterrestrial craft.

Interpreted imaginatively, the objects seem like nothing so much as highly advanced, unmanned investigatory probes or other scientific tools--immense to us but tiny, perhaps even microscopic, to their creators--from some greater plane of reality that were intermittently thrust into mankind's perception, and then removed from it with equal ease.

Like objective correlatives to the allegory of Plato's Cave, the objects seemed like tangible, mocking proof that the universe is a much stranger place than mankind, with its dogmatic "consensus reality," wants to accept. This is true regardless of the genuine facts concerning their nature and origin.

The authors remain admirably restrained and objective throughout, hesitantly putting forth ideas but drawing no conclusions (except for one unfortunate slip in Chapter 16 when the UFOs are described as "something [that is] not of this Earth"). A number of witnesses of the phenomena--including police officers--are quoted at length. Reports of alien abduction phenomena, what some witnesses called "telepathic communication" with the object, and CE-IIIs ('close encounters of the third kind') are noted but left purposefully undiscussed.

As Jung concluded in his "Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies," "Something is seen, but what?" Read more ›

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Excellent Synopsis of an Elusive Series of Incidents November 2, 2000

By Trent K. Rollow

Format:Paperback

This book was, I believe, Hynek's last, and was primarilly written by Phil Imbrogno. It is a good read, frequently backed up with eyewitness testimony and impressions. Several incidents are covered, leaving little doubt that people in the Hudson Valley saw SOMETHING, but what? The flying triangles have since been seen in other areas, and skeptics still point to government "explanations" which seem to leave as much unexplained as the initial reports themselves.

Readers familiar with the recent "Stealth Blimp" sightings in Illinois, the triangles over Belgium, or the Phoenix lights will spot similarities. There are also apparently sincere witnesses who completely disagree with each other-sometimes over the same sighting-as to what has been seen.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Hudson Valley UFOs July 22, 2009

By Dr. Peter A. Mccue

Format:Paperback

This is the second, and updated, edition of a book describing a remarkable series of UFO sightings in and around the Hudson Valley, mainly involving places in southern New York State and Connecticut, such as Bedford, Brewster, Carmel, Danbury and Fairfield. They began at the end of 1982. UFO hotspots are often in relatively remote areas, but the Hudson Valley is populous, and within commuting distance of New York City. References to 'New York' in what follows refer to New York State, not New York City.

J. Allen Hynek was a professor emeritus and chairman of the astronomy department at Northwestern University in Illinois. It was he who introduced the well-known UFO classification scheme that includes Close Encounters of the First, Second and Third Kinds. Since he died in 1986, he obviously didn't participate fully in the writing of the second edition of the book, which refers to 7,046 UFO sighting reports between 1982 and 1995. Philip Imbrogno, was (and perhaps still is) a science teacher. He was the principal investigator of the Hudson Valley phenomena. Although he's nominally the second author of Night Siege, it seems that he may have actually been its main author. Nevertheless, I'll refer to the authors as 'Hynek et al.', given that Hynek is formally listed as the first author. The third author, journalist Bob Pratt, died in 2005.

In relation to the investigations, there are references in the book to 'we' and 'us'. I wonder whether these should be understood in fairly general terms. It may be that Imbrogno worked with various investigators, and that Hynek and Pratt weren't always present.... Therefore, in what follows, references to 'the investigators' may not necessarily relate specifically to Imbrogno, Hynek and Pratt, although I imagine that Imbrogno was involved in most, if not all, of the investigative work.

As noted, 'Night Siege' refers to 7,046 UFO sighting reports. This figure no doubt refers to individual witness reports, not separate incidents, although there do appear to have been a large number of the latter (but presumably nowhere near 7,046). Chapter 17 of the book includes a number of interesting charts, giving statistical data about the sightings. They indicate, for example, that a large majority of the sightings involved a boomerang-, triangle-, or V-shaped object, which was mostly judged to be at least 100 feet across.

The following examples give some flavour of what was reportedly experienced.

Shortly before midnight on 31st December 1982, Tony Vallor (pseudonym) saw a group of very bright lights to the south of his home in Kent, New York - some red, some green, and some white. He called to his wife to bring their movie camera. By the time she emerged from the house, the lights were almost directly over it. To Vallor, they appeared to be connected to some sort of structure, with a boomerang- or V-shape. He was aware of a faint, deep hum, and a deep vibrating sensation in his chest. The object was maybe 500 feet above them. When he began filming, the coloured lights immediately disappeared and were replaced by three bright white lights. After what may have been five seconds, the white lights went out and the coloured ones reappeared. The object passed slowly overhead, towards Interstate 84. The investigators saw Vallor's film, but the lights didn't show up well, and no structure was visible.

A 55 year-old warehouse foreman called Edwin Hansen also reported having seen the object, apparently just after the Vallors had seen it. He was driving home on Interstate 84 at the time. The UFO was projecting a beam of light to the ground, but Hansen heard no noise from the craft. He thought to himself that he would like it to come closer and give him a better look. Immediately, it began to descend and head towards his car, its 'searchlight' now switched off. He became apprehensive and frantically blew his horn, vainly hoping to scare it away. He raised his hands to shield his eyes from the light, which was intense. The object again projected down a beam of white light, which fell on the road ahead and then moved towards Hansen's car. Thoroughly frightened, he pleaded for the object to go away. He reportedly felt "thoughts that weren't [his] own, but a kind of voice telling [him] not to be afraid." (Such comments were apparently heard a number of times in relation to the sightings.) The object suddenly turned away, and the beam of light disappeared.

UFOs have a habit of turning up over 'sensitive' locations, and this was apparently the case in the Hudson Valley area, since witnesses testified to sightings involving the Indian Point nuclear reactor complex at Buchanan, New York, on 14th June and 24th July 1984 (discussed in Chapter 11 of the book). Regarding the second sighting, one of the witnesses said that the object was about the size of three football fields.

In addition to the many reports of straightforward UFO sightings, the investigators were told of other strange experiences, which may have been linked with the UFO phenomena. For example, on pp. 181-182, Hynek et al. describe an incident reported by a woman called Ellen. She was awoken one night in April 1983 by a male voice, which frightened her. Her husband was beside her, but she was unable to wake him. The mysterious voice, which was getting louder, seemed to be speaking gibberish, but then - clearly and loudly - it said, "Do not be afraid. We will not harm you." It seemed to be coming from a radio in the room, but Ellen knew that the device was switched off. Then she saw flashes of multicoloured lights through the skylight above the bed, and she heard a low humming sound, as if something were just above the house. She tried to get out of bed, but there appeared to be an invisible weight on her legs. A beam of white light suddenly came through the skylight, engulfing her and her sleeping husband. Her next recollection was of waking up at 8 a.m. The couple got up, feeling as if they'd been awake all night, and they were uneasy and irritable for the rest of the morning. When Ellen eventually told her husband what she'd experienced, he said that he'd dreamt about seeing a UFO and a beam of light, and of being taken on board. However, he was apparently unwilling to discuss the matter with the investigators. Ellen's account is therefore uncorroborated.

Hynek et al. note that although area newspapers, radio, and TV stations carried stories about the Hudson Valley sightings, there was little in the way of national coverage, and that the matter was ignored by officialdom (law enforcement agencies, state governments, etc.). They explain that some sightings arose from small planes flying in formation, but the vast majority of sightings couldn't be accounted for in those terms.

Philip Imbrogno mentions the Hudson Valley case in his recently published book 'Ultraterrestrial Contact' (Llewellyn Publications, Woodbury, Minnesota, 2010). He gives some details that are absent from 'Night Siege'. For example, he refers to sightings of aircraft that were flying in tight formation over the area, and which were found to be operating from a part of Stewart International Airport (formerly a USAF Strategic Air Command base). The suggestion is that the CIA or the military was behind the flights. "It was apparent", Imbrogno writes, "that [they] were trying to fake a UFO, possibly attempting to discredit the real sightings that had recently taken place" (p. 248). Why wasn't this mentioned in 'Night Siege'? To me, its omission is analogous to writing a military history of World War II without mentioning the Battle of Stalingrad or the Battle of Midway! Before reading 'Ultraterrestrial Contact', I gave 'Night Siege' four stars, but I'll now give it three.

In conclusion, I would say that 'Night Siege' is a very interesting book, although I'm disappointed that important information is missing from it. It would have benefited from one or more maps, showing the locations mentioned in the text. It would also have benefited from a more comprehensive index. Read more ›

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing piece of research October 22, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This is without a doubt the best book on UFOs ever written. I read it cover to cover in one night. It reads like an adventure story and it is proof of something strange in the skies. The best book on the subject I have come across in thirty years!!

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly readable no-nonsense UFO investigations August 2, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I originally discovered this book a number of years ago and found myself devouring its contents in a matter of a day or so. I was impressed by the straightforward and sceptical(though cencerned) attitude of the researchers/authors toward a subject that is fraught with silly cultural hyperbole and media saturation. They do not presume to know what is going on at any time during their accounts of the events nor do they presume to tell readers what to think about same. Thier apparent honesty in reporting the facts and my living in such close proximity to the research area made reading the many detailed encounters that much more chilling. I read most of the updated section recently while waiting for friends at a local bookstore. This section, if my memory serves me well, seemed out of sych with rest of the book with regard to the types of sightings; there seemed to be more of the close-up and invasive kind in the years since the first research in the area. All in all I have! read few other books on this subject that I found myself reading cover to cover. Enjoy!