The case became legend, driven primarily by the 1987 book Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings by UFOlogists Philip J. Imbrogno and Bob Pratt, with credit also given to UFOlogy legend J. Allen Hynek who died before the book was finished. A number of other books were published about it too. Even a 1992 episode of the TV show Unsolved Mysteries dramatized the case and interviewed many of the people who were there, including a number of police officers who witnessed the object.
By all reports, hundreds of people saw the UFO on many occasions during the summers of 1983 and 1984, and some sources even list a few reports from other years. Always, the descriptions were the same.
It's the kind of case where I always wish someone would jump in their car and follow this UFO to see where it goes. And luckily, that's exactly what happened in this case. In August of 1984, just as the second summer of the Hudson Valley UFO was winding down, Jeffrey Schmalz of the New York Times ground the leads down as far as he could and reported this:
One officer, according to Sgt. Kenneth V Spire of Troop K of the State police, which is responsible for the area in which the sightings have been, followed the object. "He tracked it to Stormville Airport," the sergeant said. "It was a group of light planes. They fly in formation...."
Airplanes flying in formation! Well did he arrest them, I hope?
The trooper spoke to a couple of the pilots, and they're getting a big kick out of it. There's no violation of the law here.
Schmalz took that to the FAA to verify it.
Timothy L. Hartnett, the deputy director of the Eastern region of the F.A.A., said of the hoaxers that there were no regulations prohibiting planes from flying in formation. ''They can fly as close together as they feel safe,'' he said. And in areas of sparse population, planes could fly as low as 500 feet.
Of course none of this was any surprise to people who were in general aviation in the area. A year before, in the summer of 1983, Tony Capaldi was a local air traffic controller, and here's what he told Unsolved Mysteries:
There's anywhere from upwards of seven to ten aircraft that fly around in formation, and this is visible from our tower... The first time I observed the formation flying, it looked a little peculiar. From our vantage point in the tower they just appeared to be just one big light because they are flying in tight formation. To estimate the size, maybe two football fields wide.
And just to be clear, there's no evidence that these pilots ever intended a UFO hoax. As Discover magazine put it in a 1984 article:
The area abounds with amateur pilots who fly private planes out of a number of airports, including the strip at Stormville. Several years ago, it seems, a few of the Stormville pilots begin practicing formation flying, first in daylight, then, as their skills improved, at night. Before long, other pilots joined them, and what began as loose groupings of planes became tight formations of aircraft with as little as 6 inches between wingtips.
...By early 1983, when local newspapers began printing stories about strange sightings and experiences, and television stations ran tapes of the mysterious lights in the sky, the pilots were incredulous, then amused. The group began calling themselves the Martians.
