Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings (Paperback)

~ Dr J. Allen Hynek (Author), (Author), Bob Pratt (Author) "NOTHING IN JIM COOKE'S engineering and physics background could explain what it was he saw while driving home late one night in 1983..." (more)
Key Phrases: mystery fliers, boomerang pattern, object hovering, New York, Hudson Valley, Westchester County (more...)

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 alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 263 pages
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications; 2 Expanded edition (May 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156718362X
• ISBN-13: 978-1567183627
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #344,228 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 30 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 (Bayridge, Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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 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?"

10 of 11 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 (Seal Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

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

By A Customer

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!