The Hudson Valley UFO flap:

Contact of the Fourth Kind

(Abductions in the Hudson Valley area of New York)

By Philip J. Imbrogno

Over the past five years the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut area have been the scene of a massive number of UFO sightings. The numbers of reports are so great that I believe this area has the highest number of raw UFO sighting reports in the entire world. These reports are documented in my book NIGHT SIEGE THE HUDSON VALLEY UFO SIGHTS which I co-authored with the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Mr. Bob Pratt.

I have been asked over the years by many UFO researchers if there have been any close encounter-abduction type cases in the Hudson Valley. My answer to most was No. Only to few did I admit that there were abduction cases and plenty of them. This denial of such cases was at the request of Dr. Hynek since he wanted NIGHT SIEGE to be a documentation of the many UFO reports in the Hudson Valley. D. Hynek also wanted to keep these cases quiet until we had more data about the sightings in the area.

With so many reports over the years and with the sighting still continuing it was only a matter of time before the growing number of abduction cases in the Hudson Valley had to be dealt with.

To this date I have been contacted by at least 75 people who feel as if they had more than a sighting. Of the 75 there are 25 that would be suitable for further study. Of these twenty five ten come from professional backgrounds. All do not want any type of publicity. I will explore two of these cases in this article. At the witnesses' request, I have changed their names to protect them. I would also like to inform the reader that Whitley Strieber, author of the best selling book COMMUNION experiences took place in the Hudson Valley area. Since the publication of his book many people have come forward with incredible stories, people who would otherwise would have kept silent.

On July 2 1987 I received a call from a 36 year old woman from Toms River New Jersey who I shall call Gail. Gail was very troubled on the phone and insisted that she talk to me about a UFO related experience that she had. During the last part of June (1987) as she was lying down on her bed, she felt somewhat uneasy as if someone was watching her. The time was Ten PM. She then heard a voice say" We have come for you. You will not be hurt." She then realized that her entire body was paralyzed and that she could only move her eyes. Gail was lying on her back and noticed that three beings stood in the doorway to her bedroom. She was alone in the house at the time, but does live there with her seventeen year old daughter who was away visiting her father in Croton Falls N.Y. Gail is divorced.

Three beings were dressed in something that looked like tightly fitting jumpsuits and stood in a single row, one behind the other. The leader, according to Gail seemed to have a problem getting into the room. It was as if some type of invisible shield was blocking his way. He lifted up his hand and pressed them against the invisible shield, then he put his hand on it. The light in the hall was dim, and she could not see their features. She noticed they were about five feet tall with very long arms.

The leader then took some type of rod out from a side pocket and turned the bottom of it. The rod then glowed with a green light and he passed it over the doorway area. They then walked into the room without any effort. As they entered the room still in a single file she noticed that they had large heads and eyes that looked like a cats which wrapped around their heads. She never heard them talk but heard all kinds on buzzing noises in her head when the leader communicated with the others.

Gail tried to scream but could not, she could only move her eyes. The leader placed himself on her right side and then one of them went to the foot of the bed and the other on the left side of the bed. The beings on each side of her then placed their hands under her head and raised it up. She then noticed that the one on her left took a tube of what like a narrow roll of white cotton and started pushing it up her left nostril. At that moment she felt extreme pain in her head and then started to lose consciousness. She felt as if she was falling from a great height, then she does not remember anymore.

The next thing she recalls is waking up at 8am with a very bad headache. As she walked to the bathroom her nose (both nostrils) started to bleed. She felt as if something was stuck up her nose, but nothing was there. She looked in the bathroom mirror and noticed her nose was swollen and puffy. She noticed a rash on her neck, legs and slightly on her arms.

She had hoped that the experience from that last night was a dream and tried to block it out of her head. When her daughter arrived home that night she told her about what happened. Gail told me that before she even finished with her story her daughter started shaking and then told her that on the same night, about the same time she and her father were followed by a UFO on route 116 near Croton Falls New York. She described to her mother a large dark craft triangular in shape that paced the car for five minutes above tree top level.

I found this report very interesting since Croton falls is near the border of Westchester and Putnam Counties in New York and that lonely route has been the site of more than one Close Encounter over the past five years. I also found it interesting that both mother and daughter had a experience with the paranormal at the same time.

There is more to this case than meets the eye. The daughter and father according to my findings may have had as much as thirty minutes missing time. If this is so and if both were abducted then the experience happened to father, mother and daughter at the same time!

Gail's rash and headaches continued for a few days then disappeared. I plan to have Gail undergo hypnosis in the near future by a certified psychologist. The story does not end here. Several weeks later I received a call from Gail telling me that it happened again. She said "Those creatures came back the same time and they did the same thing." She continued "It was as if I was watching a movie of the first time they came, they did exactly the same thing. Including having trouble getting into the doorway to the bedroom. My daughter was once again away visiting her father."

This case is still under study, but initial findings indicate that both Gail and her daughter may have a history of interactions with the intelligence behind the UFO phenomenon.

The second case I would like to cover took place on July 19th 1984 during the peak of activity in the Hudson Valley. The sighting involved a Close Encounter, Missing time and abduction. If this was a real experience then the implications are fantastic. In all the cases that I chose to study all the witnesses related the truth, or what they thought was the truth. There is no doubt in my mind that their stories are not hoaxes since none would have nothing to gain by going public with their experiences.

Bill (as we shall refer to him) is a thirty two year old computer programmer for a major scientific-engineering corporation that helped design the major components for the new NASA Hubble space telescope. On July 19th 1984, at about ten-thirty pm, Bill was leaving work and heading west on Highway I-84. As he approached the Taconic Parkway ramp in Dutchess county New York he noticed a very bright almost circular object off to the north. The object seemed to be just sitting there in the sky and the lights were very bright white. As he watched the object it began to move and it was at that time he noticed a dark mass behind it which blocked out the brighter light polluted night sky. He continued to drive on 84 and soon lost sight of the object. He then brushed the entire incident off his mind and thought "Oh, it must have been those guys from Stormville flying those planes faking a UFO." He then drove on listening to his radio.

He then turned off the route 52 exit near Stormville New York and began traveling north. The time now was close to eleven PM and the roads were quite desolate. He came to a clearing where there was a large field and noticed a large dark mass sitting in the field about 200 yards from the road. At first he thought that it was a new home, but then he knew there was no house there since he went this way just last night and the field was empty. As a matter of fact Bill drove this way home and passed the field every night and never saw a house there.

Bill slowed down the car. "This thing was huge and dark," he said. The strange thing was it was almost the same shape as a big barn, but it seemed more tapered toward the sides and very smooth. As he watched, the dark object rose into the air without a sound. This really upset Bill since he was the only car on the road. The object then rose higher and higher. All that Bill could see was the dark mass slowly rising into the air. It was now about twice as high as the trees and it moved slowly towards Bill who was still in the car. Bills radio then started to sound "funny" he said that the music on the radio sounded like a tape player, playing music with very weak batteries. The voices and the music sounded out of tune.

Bill then put his car into gear and sped away from the object. His heart was racing as he drove up the road at about fifty miles an hour. Bill then lost sight of the object and continued to drive at a slower rate of speed. After several minutes he noticed a glow up ahead over a hill. As he approached the crest of the hill there the object was! It was about 300 feet above the trees and was all lit up with rows of white and yellow lights. He then stopped his car and turned off the engine and the lights. He was hoping that who ever was in the thing would not see him. The object then turned off its lights and he could see this huge dark mass slowly drifting toward him. The object passed right over his car, he could now see its shape, it was triangular. Bill told me "I don't want to make light of this, but the ship looked like one of the star destroyers in Star Was. The underside was the same shape, although I did not see the top."

The object passed over Bill, as he looked up he saw circular areas underneath the UFO. These circular areas seemed to be like tunnels leading into the object. Inside these circular tunnels there was a white flashing, similar to the flashing of a white strobe light (we had several reports of this white flashing effect from past CE cases in the Hudson Valley, also the circular areas have been reported numerous times before). Bill told me there was no sound. He estimated its size to be at least 300 feet from end to end.

Then something strange took place. The last thing Bill remembers is watching it go over his car, he did not see it leave. The next thing he knows he is at the bottom of the hill 600 feet from the position he was when the UFO passed over his parked car. The object itself was gone. He was not sure what time it was when he watched the object passed over his car, but he feels it was most likely about eleven-thirty PM. The time was now twelve-fifteen. He started his drive home upset and with a very stiff neck.

When he arrived home he told his wife about his sighting. She was worried to begin with since he was almost an hour late. That night Bill woke up yelling in the night saying "get away from me!" His wife said that the nightmares continued for a while at least twice a week. Bill told to me that the he was not sure of what the nightmare was, but he knew something was after him. As time went on Bill was afraid to drive at night alone. He even had to insist to his boss not to put him on the evening or night shift at his job. Finally Bill wanted to find out more since the experience of the UFO and the fearful dreams tormented him. It wasn't until 1987 that Bill contacted me and told me his story. Bill Had seen Budd Hopkins (author of the book INTRUDERS) on a number of shows and asked me if would be possible for him to be hypnotized. Hearing Budd on TV talk about the abductions made him fearful and he wanted to make sure that this did not happen to him. I arranged to have Bill meet with a certified psychologist that I occasionally use to perform hypnosis. The following is a brief transcript of Bills encounter under hypnosis. He first related seeing the object on 84 and then the object in the field and then in the sky over the hill, it is then that his voice becomes fearful.

Bill: "I see it now its that thing! It's coming in my direction! I am going to turn off my car lights. Maybe they won't see me and go away. It's huge... Oh my God what is it! There's someone standing in the road he is now walking toward the car. Who are you!... he's saying something to me "don't be fearful we need you...you have been selected." Selected for what, get away! I feel strange like I am floating in the air, it's all dark. I am now on this table and these guys are all around me, six of them. Two are at my head and two on the sides (two on each side). My legs and arms are like dead weights I can't move them."

(Bill is then asked to describe them.)

"These guys are small, large heads with round eyes, the eyes are all black I can see no pupils in them, they remind me of sharks' eyes. They are dressed in some type of black and white skin type suits. I can't see their hands. The one at my head is moving some type of device that looks like a portable car vacuum cleaner up and down the left side of my head. It vibrates my entire head, it feels like a drill going through my head... STOP! It hurts. He tells me that they are looking for something and found it.

I now can feel my legs and arms they are allowing me to get up. They are very small only up to the bottom part of my chest (Bill is six foot one inch). The others are now over some type of panel. Two of them are leading me by the arms. I asked them where they were from: "The one on my right leading said "We are from here." I didn't understand the answer. I asked him if they planned to let me go. He replied: "Yes but we will see you again-" He told me that they need us because they have trouble living in our world. He said they come from a place which is very ugly when compared to our world and they would rather live here, but can't. I told him that I would remember and tell every one about this. He said I would remember in time but there are forces in your own (?) which will stop you from telling anyone about this experience." Bill then found himself back in the car. Bill now recalls every aspect of the experience. It was a very real experience to him.

There are about a dozen other cases similar to Bill's and Gail's. In The Hudson Valley area, an all of these people who have had UFO abductions and sightings in this part of the country be experiencing some type of mass hysteria? I don't think so. The evidence indicates that there is some type of non-human intelligence at work. If the case histories of the total experiences are true then we all better work together to get to the bottom of this.

In 1987 Peter Gersten a Peekskill New York attorney put together a new organization called CONTACT. Peter who is known for his work in obtaining UFO related documents from government agencies organized CONTACT in response to the great number of Close Encounter cases in the New York area. Peter had some of the top Ufologist flown in from all over the country to meet at his Peekskill home. Among them were Tracy Torme, Budd Hopkins, Jim McCampbell and this author. On September 27 CONTACT organized a free UFO public conference in Brewster New York. The theme of the conference was to explore the abduction phenomena and the possibility that some people have been in contact with a non-human intelligence. Speakers at the conference included John Keel, Whitley Strieber and Budd Hopkins. Over 900 people attended the 12 hour conference and 200 filled out forms who felt they had a contact experience.

Then during the first several months of 1988 Peter Gersten dissolved CONTACT and as of the date of this publication CONTACT is no longer in existence. The reasons for this are not clear but Peter still maintains a UFO Hotline where callers can get up to date information about UFO sightings.