Website: Water UFO (waterufo.net)
Waterufo.net UFO case report:
“09-15-1962
DISC LANDING REPORTED IN NEW JERSEY – IN U.S.
& ABROAD SIGHTINGS CONTINUE”
The whole UFO case report:
“(Extract-CF-)
A series of New Jersey police sightings after a
reported disc landing in a reservoir -- important because police and several
newspapers openly rejected an attempted ‘hoax’ explanation.
The action began on September 15. At 5 p.m., two shiny
discs were seen over Oradell, N.J. At 6 p.m., two shiny, round UFOs were
sighted by former Navy flying officer J. J. McVickers just across the state
line. At 7:50, NICAP member Victor Cipolla saw a glowing object descend toward
Oradell, and other witnesses saw it dart back and forth near the reservoir. At
7:55, three teen-aged boys saw a bright, oval-shaped object land in the
reservoir with a loud splash. A man working nearby also heard the splash,
according to police. After a moment the strange device took off, climbed
silently at high speed.
As McGuire AFB began an investigation, new reports
came in. On September 21, four Hawthorne police officers watched a device with
two beam-like headlights hover over a quarry. Officer George Jediny, in a
report to NICAP, said the UFO -- which he sketched as a disc -- seemed to
revolve. The quarry night watchman, Wm. Stocks, said the UFO had also appeared
the night before. When he drove a Jeep nearer to check up, the object
maneuvered to keep out of the headlights. (Similar reaction often reported.)
Just after midnight, September 24, the same or a
similar device was seen over the quarry by over a dozen Hawthorne police
officers and the chief reporter of the N. J. State Press, George Della Penta.
When a police-car spotlight was pointed up at the UFO, it began to move. Before
it left, Mr. Della Penta shot 18
feet of color film. (Analysis not completed.)
Later, Oradell police received a letter signed ‘The
Bergenfield Pranksters,’ purporting to be from some boys who said they faked
the sightings with aluminum-coated model aircraft supported by helium balloons.
This was promptly rejected by the police and newspapers that checked the facts,
among them:
The Newark
Evening News, Science Writer Philip Del Vecchio: ‘It would
have been impossible for them (the Bergen County boys) to put their model
planes so high that they could be seen in Hawthorne... No object such as they
could have put together could have moved at the lightning speeds attributed to
the UFO. The light... could not have been produced by amateurs. This newspaper
makes an appeal to other residents ...with the assurance that reports will be
treated with dignity.
The
Hawthorne Observer, rebuking those who accepted an
unsigned letter from a town miles away, said it was time to treat the reports
seriously.
The
Riverdale Sunday Trend: ‘Suppose the real hoax is the
letter purporting to explain the whole thing?’
The Hawthorne
News Record: ‘To imply so flippantly that our police
officers spent almost half an hour looking at a balloon and then watched it
speed away at an incredible rate -- all in quite an opposite direction from
Oradell--is insulting.’
The Newark
Sunday News: ‘Flying saucers are still a big
mystery...are seen with great regularity by sane and logical inhabitants of the
planet Earth. What they are and where they come from and what their mission is
has not yet been satisfactorily explained.’
Regardless of the final outcome, these New Jersey sightings have shown that an increasing number of newspapers no longer accept quick brush-off answers to sightings by competent witnesses.
_______________________________________________
This reference: UFO Investigator (NICAP), Vol. 11, No. 6, October/November 1962, pp. 3-4. With thanks to the Donald E. Keyhoe Archives.
NOTE: There are many more references to the 15th’s sighting, but only three have a reference to the water. I have highlighted these in yellow below.-CF-”
I also reported on this case in 2011:
(tageo.com photo)