I thought I'd take a crack at finding a location for the video on the roads alongside the Saugatuck Reservoir (Valley Forge Road and Newtown Turnpike). I've included quite a few Google Earth images in this post, all of which are aligned so up is always due North according to Google Earth.
I started by taking a virtual drive along the roads in Google Streetview, from the southern end, but didn't find anything that stood out, until I reached the north end of the reservoir.
I've highlighted the possible viewpoint with a red circle in this image.
The Location
Here's an image with a closer view of the location.
My reason for focusing on this area was some elements of the description by Robert Klein, of the apparent movement of the light. I've had to adjust the timing of some of his description a little for this location to make sense, but as eyewitness reports are notoriously bad, I think this is reasonable to do.
I've marked the relevant parts of the description on the text below by number and the positions I believe they relate to, on the image below.
"I had just started my midnight shift, which is 11pm to 7am, I was approximately 40 minutes into the shift, and
(1) I was checking up north near the bywater(?) which is a reservoir.
(2) As I was about 250 feet in, all the sudden, from my left-rear, there was a really strong light: it lit up the entire cab of my cruiser, to the point I was having a hard time driving because I really couldn't see, I was blinded by it. So I immediately put [the car] into park, rolled down the window, and blocked the light with my hand, because it was very intense, to see where it was coming from and what exactly it was.
(3) At that point the light started to move along the left side of the cruiser, until it stopped, right in front off to the left."
What I suggest may have occurred is as follows.
- Klein in his cruiser was on Newtown Turnpike, on the North East side of the reservoir, travelling anti-clockwise around the North end of it. In his description he was at first under the cover of trees, that obscured the sky and the reservoir.
- Klein in his car enters the Northernmost bridge on the reservoir, which brings the sky and reservoir into view, on his left side. He sees a light approximately to the East of his position, which would be to the left-rear of his cruiser. The light is at considerable distance (multiple miles) to the East. The bridge is approximately 400 feet long, so Klein's "250 feet" comment would be around the midpoint of it.
- He continues along the Newtown Turnpike for a short distance, through some trees where the road bends round to his left, bringing his view of the East, towards the front of his cruiser. He comes to a stop at the South East end of the bridge. It is here that he records his video.
The video viewpoint
I had a look on Streetview for features that might be a match for those in the video. Unfortunately, the video is poor quality, with little in it to identify the location. However, there is the (rough) view of the horizon and some foreground trees. A complicating factor is that the video is taken in April, when the trees would have been almost empty of leaves, but at the specific location I've identified (that I discuss later) the Streetview images are from July, so the trees are fully leaved, making comparison with foreground trees, almost impossible.
Here is an image from a short section of the Newtown Turnpike (at the North end of the reservoir), for which Streetview's images are from April, not July, that shows the condition the trees would have been in at the time of year the video was recorded.
The image below shows the close to position on Streetview, to where I suggest the video was recorded.
The actual position along the road would be slightly further along the road, closer to the trees on the right side of the image above, which would explain the foreground trees visible in the video.
This GIF shows the relevant part of this view, overlaid with a screengrab of the video.
Here is a Streetview image that is closer to the specific position I suggest the video may have been taken from, although it was probably a little closer than this to those trees. The trees in the center of the image could be those seen in silhouette in the video, but bare of leaves due to the time of year it was recorded (April).
The horizon line in my GIF anim isn't a perfect match, but I only scaled the grab of the video uniformly to try to match the horizon, with no rotation applied, which will likely have been slightly different in the video and the Streetview image. Tweaks to rotation and scaling might give a better match. Additionally the difference in leafage between April and July might introduce some minor difference between the images as well.
On the left of the video is what might appear to be a steep rise in the horizon, but I think it's more likely to be part of the twigs and branches of small nearby trees, visible above it, that can be seen better as they are contasted against the sky.
I chose the Streeet location image for the animated GIF above for the video comparison, as it showed a better view of the horizon, which is a lot more identifiable, than the foreground trees. Those trees are essentially impossible to try an match to the video, partly due to the difference in leafage at the different times of the year, but also because of the difficult of getting a close enouch angle of shot of them from Streetview, to compare with the video.
Statement order adjustments
For this location to be correct, a couple of adjustment to the order of the events in Robert Klein's statement would be required.
Adjustment 1
He states that he immediately pulled over after seeing the light to the left-rear of the car. However, a light from this direction is unlikely to be "blinding", causing someone to immediately pull over.
I think it more likely that he first noticed the light, either in his peripheral vision when entering on the 1
st bridge, or in a glance to his left towards to the water, but did not stop immediately.
Instead, he continued a short distance (about 0.3km, 0.2mile) along Newtown Turnpike, which makes a 90-degree left turn (starting on the 1st bridge and completes at entry to the 2
nd) as it does so. This would have shifted his view of the light from it being to the left-rear of the cruiser, towards being to the left-front of it. He may have then decided to stop when it would have become more noticeable, on exiting the small section of trees between the two bridges, with the light by then being to the left-front of the cruiser.
Adjustment 2
Klein states that the light started to move "along the left side of the cruiser"
after he stopped. This might be a referrence to the slow, left to right movement seen in the video, but it may be a conflation of that and the more pronounced apparent movement of the loght, that was a consequence of the 90 degrees turn, he would have taken on that part of the road.
A bit of juggling of things is required to make the statement fit the location, but I don't think it's an egregious amount. Possibly the actual point the at which Klein stopped to record the video is a little different to the one I'm suggesting, but I think this location is worth considering.