NUFORC Sighting 79901

Occurred: 1994-07-01 19:28 Local
Reported: 2011-02-01 21:56 Pacific
Duration: 12 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Easthampton, MA, USA

Shape: Triangle
Characteristics: Lights on object, Left a trail, Emitted beams, Aircraft nearby, Electrical or magnetic effects

Close encounter with hovering black triange, fighter jets chased it away!

It was Friday, July 1, 1994, at about 7:28 PM. Myself and a friend were traveling on Easthampton Rd. headed from Northampton towards Easthampton. My friend noticed a low flying aircraft off to the right side of the car, it was coming down fast and moved right over the top of us. I slowed down and pulled off to the side of the road.

The entire hood and windshield of my car lit up like someone was shining a spotlight on the front of the vehicle from above. My first thought was a helicopter, but there was no sound. The light moved forward fallowed by two more spotlights on either side of my car. The lights moved ahead of us slowly in a triangular formation. A red flashing light became visible under what appeared to be a flat triangular craft with three white spotlights pointing down, one from each corner.

As the craft continued to move forward slowly we were not able to hear any sound and I was convinced it was some kind of glider preparing to land on the road. I let it get about 100 yards ahead of us and then decided to fallow it. I sped up to about 50 MPH and caught up to the craft a short distance up the road. I fallowed behind the craft for about a half mile until it stopped and hovered about 80 ft off the ground behind Valley Sport Center on Northampton St. in Easthampton. I pulled into the buildings parking lot and my friend and I both stepped out of the car to observe the craft as it hovered there silently. The sun had set just below the treeline as this all began a few minutes earlier. There was a slight haze in the air. With a few minutes of diminishing daylight left I could see the craft reasonably well. It was a flat black triangle with rounded edges and corners and a non-reflective surface. It appeared to be slightly wider than the road we had just fallowed it d! own, maybe 75 ft. wide.

As we observed the craft hovering a short distance in front of us, I remember thinking it was just close enough that I might have been able to hit it if I threw a rock. I kept a spotlight on the front seat of my vehicle which I used for my job. I reached into the car, plugged the spotlight into my cigarette lighter and shined the tightly focused light beam off to the right side of the craft. The light beam was visible in the slightly dim hazy sky for a short distance beyond the craft. I then guided the light slowly towards the craft in an attempt to illuminate it. The light failed to contact the surface of the craft, appearing to simply fade out prematurely as it got anywhere close. I guided the light back to the right and it reached a little beyond the distance of the craft again. I shut the spotlight off for a moment then pointed it directly at the craft and flashed it two times a few seconds apart. The craft responded by returning two similar flashes directly at us which blinded both of us for a few moments. As our sight was recovering from the bright flashes, the craft began to move slowly towards O'Neil St.

We again fallowed the craft which stopped and hovered over a wooded area between O'Neil St. and Lovefield St. We pulled over on O'Neil St. and stepped out of the car to observe the craft again. After what seemed to be about three minutes the craft shot like a bolt of lightning across the sky to our right and disappeared through what appeared to be some kind of a circular hole in the sky. The craft left a silvery streak in it's path and the hole it disappeared through faded away quickly.

As we stood by the car for a few moments trying to make sense of what we just experienced we heard some low flying jets approaching from behind us. Within seconds two A-10 Warthogs screamed overhead at a very low altitude. The Warthogs passed directly over the position where the UFO had just been hovering and fallowed in the same direction as the UFO had gone until they were out of sight. About the time the Warthogs were headed out of sight we observed two other fighter jets flying at high altitude east of our position. At that point in time I estimate that about two minutes had passed since the UFO departed from the area.

We got back in the car and I noticed the time was about 7:44 PM. We quickly returned to my home a few miles away. A little while after we got back to my home I called the Easthampton police department to see if anyone else had reported seeing the strange aircraft. The officer I spoke to was politely dismissive of the incident and said they had received dozens of phone calls about a UFO and that it was just the planet Venus which was easy to see in the sky that night. Fighter jets continued to patrol the sky in the area for a couple hours after the incident.

Over the course of that weekend there were thousands of UFO reports across New England. These sightings were widely reported in local media for a short time after the incident. I don't recall any reports from national media about the story. For the most part the local authorities and the media made a mockery of the entire situation and blamed it on the usual flares and swamp gas. The story was quickly swept under the rug and I've heard no mention of it since.

I continue to experience phenomena related to this incident but do not wish to release that information publicly at this time.

Posted 2011-02-08

© 2023 National UFO Reporting Center. All rights reserved. Use or reproduction within any application without written consent is prohibited.