NUFORC Sighting 37362

Occurred: 1983-07-15 21:15 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2004-06-05 01:03 Pacific
Duration: 3 Minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Poughkeepsie, NY, USA

Shape: Other
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Emitted other objects

1500-2000 foot UFO seen above Mid-Hudson Bridge by Poughkeepsie, NY in July 1983.

I was the passenger in a car that crossed the Franklin D. Roosevelt Mid-Hudson Bridge to Poughkeepsie, NY at about 9:15PM. As we wended our day at about 25 mph (speed limit) down the serpentine on-ramp from the toll booths, both bridge stanchions were visible directly ahead of us. For less than 30 seconds, they were blocked from view as the road took us through blasted out rock. When we took a left turn out of the rocks and onto the bridge, an immense object was directly ahead of us, hovering just above the bridge(less than 100 feet). Though no surface was visible on the object, it's outline was traced by thousands of multi-colored lights, many in motion. My friend and I simultaneously shouted, "holy shit," as we drove across the span, which the bridge authority later told me was about 3,000 feet. Parked at our end of the bridge, it's length extended 2/3rds+ of the way across it, or approximately 2000 feet, and certainly no less than 1500. As we drove across the span, it was visible out of every window in the car for most of our crossing. About halfway across, I rolled the window down and looked directly up at it, as my friend white-knuckled the steering wheel, repeatedly uttering, "I'm not stopping, I'm not stopping." It was completely silent, and many of the lights underneath were apparently rotating around a central axis at speeds that were changing often. The strange thing is that they didn't appear to accelerate or decelerate, but were instantly going different speeds, like the speeds were quantized. Some of the lights were detached from the main object and rotating around the central point at some distance. A glowing spherical orb of an orangish color was about 25 feet from my head, just beyond the bridge girders, moving with us. About a half mile south of the bridge, a smaller lighted object was hovering above the river channel, which may have been the more commonly seen-then and there-chevron shaped UFO seen edge on. As we got across the bridge, to the top of the hill, at Market! street, I turned and saw that it was still there, in the same position it had been. Note that this immense object had to have silently moved out of nowhere to just above the bridge in the 30 seconds that it was not in our line of sight.

The night of this sighting, the local radio stated that 1500 people reported seeing it, including numerous police, doctors and nurses at Vassar Hospital.

NUFORC Note:

Time and date are approximate. PD

Posted 2004-06-18