Beginning in late December 1982 a triangular shaped UFO was sighted in the Hudson Valley of New York State. This “V” or boomerang shaped row of lights flew slowly, silently and was estimated to be bigger than a football field. It was only seen in the evenings on a variety of nights with no discernible schedule. The lights were estimated to come as close as 100 feet to some observers. Many who saw it felt the row of lights were connected by a dark metallic structure. The evening of March 24th of 1983 hundreds were reported to have seen the lights. The sightings continued through the years to July of 1984 and then a few sightings in 1985 and 1986. Overall, many thousands claimed to have seen the lights. People in their cars pulled to the shoulders and medians of highways, got out of their cars and watched, people stood out in their front yards or out in the streets to watch. Calls to the local Police Stations were often handled with humor until Police Officers themselves started seeing the lights. There were some individuals who would flash their headlights or flashlights and the lights would flash in response. A few felt that the craft was responding to their thoughts, for example thinking: “come closer so I can have a better look” would cause the craft to stop change direction and slowly come closer. Some observers believed that a beam of white light shown down and temporarily engulfed them. On July 24th of 1984 the lights hovered 300 feet above Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant in close view of at least 6 security guards (those 6 spoke to UFO investigators before they were warned to be silent by their superiors). On August 25th 1984 from 10am and scheduled to end at 10pm a free public conference was held in a middleschool auditorium with seats for 500 with the expectation that much fewer would show up. By noon more than 1,500 had shown up. Seventy-five newspaper, radio, and TV news-people attended the conference, including reporters from the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Hartford Courant, ABC, CBS, and NBC. During the conference about 900 people filled out witness report forms. The event went on until midnight and was the largest attended UFO conference of its time.
Months after the first sightings a group of pilots flying Cessna planes began to be seen on some nights in close formation with their landing lights on. Observers who had seen both the planes and the UFO said the difference was obvious. There were also rumors that Ultralights were responsible for the sightings and some newspapers ran it as the cause though the Ultralight theory was ruled out.