For the first time in decades, a congressional subcommittee will hold a hearing on UFOs.
The House Intelligence Committee’s subcommittee on counterterrorism, counterintelligence and counterproliferation will hold the hearing — officially on unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs — on Tuesday, according to the New York Times, which reported that a focus will be “national security and flight-safety questions raised by” an intelligence report released last summer.
That report looked into just 144 instances of UAPs, but the National UFO Reporting Center has catalogued more than 150,000 sightings, including more than 4,500 in Pennsylvania.
Anyone can file a report with the National UFO Reporting Center, and they are listed anonymously on the NUFORC website. Seeing a UFO doesn't necessarily mean you've seen something from Mars, UFOs can also be considered UAPs, or unidentified aerial phenomena— which can be anything from drones to hot air balloons, to military craft.
Humans aren't the only tourists attracted to the allure of the Pocono Mountains. Stories ofUFOs, or unidentified flying objects, are part and parcel to the rich fabric of local lore in the region.
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Looking to the stars
Mycul Lugo, of East Stroudsburg, was behind his house, during the day, when he looked up and saw what he thought was a "shooting star." But then the "star" stopped moving.
Lugo pulled out his smartphone and began filming.
The object Lugo captured on video "blinked" with what he described as artificial light.
"It was (blinking) every color you can think of, just flashing, like, different colors." Lugo said. The object glowed brighter before "taking off" in another direction.
It wasn't the first time Lugo had seen something move "that shouldn't be moving"in his Winona Lakes neighborhood. Lugo and his brother have seen similar "lights" in the sky before, "almost past the stars."
Lugo was excited to have caught such a clear UFO sighting on film, and didn't hesitate to upload the footage to his YouTube channel, a place he typical uploads his own music.
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The video has since received thousands of views and dozens of comments from both believers and skeptics alike. Its also been reuploaded on other YouTube channels.
It even garnered the attention of a one "Prince of Darkness."
The footage is being featured on season 2 of "The Osbournes Want to Believe", a Travel Channel show in which Jack and Kelly Osbourne try to convince their parents, Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, of the existence of paranormal phenomena.
An analysis of the data revealed more than 100 sightings reported in northeast Pa. over the last 30 years or so, many of which occurred in three areas: Lord's Valley in Pike County, and Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg in Monroe.
Lords Valley, in Blooming Grove Township, has been host to 15 sightings overall. 14 sightings have been reported in Stroudsburg and 11 inEast Stroudsburg.
So what do these areas have in common?
At face value, very little, but there's more to it. Locals knowStroudsburg and East Stroudsburg are more than their boroughs, which are thriving centers for tourism and nightlife.
Lords Valley, is made up of more than 166 square miles of dense forest and rugged terrain— and a population of only 72 people per square mile. The unincorporated community takes up roughly afifth of Pike County's land mass.
Stroudsburg is centered around the borough's downtown area, which spans just1.74 miles total, while the area within the Stroudsburg zip code (18360) stretches just under 80 miles. East Stroudsburg is a little more complicated, despite the area's borough being a short walk from the edge of Stroudsburg's Main Street. The borough itself is under 3 square miles, but the entirety ofEast Stroudsburg stretches farther, made up of unincorporated communities spanning multiple zip codes for approximately 100 miles.
The Winona Lakes community is about 30 miles east of Tobyhanna Army Depot, a military installation in Monroe County that supplies satellite communications services and technologyto the US military.
A neighbor brought the Depot to Lugo's attention, but he didn't think there was any connection. Lugo said that the object appeared to be travelling "the opposite direction" towards New York City.
Why would a UFO come here? Lugo asked. "What is it about those places that they would (go there?)"
The idea that the Depot could have something to do with outer space isn't that farfetched, considering its function.
In 2020, Tobyhanna Army Depot became home to a "pivotal" control center for Department of Defense satellites, according to a press release.The Wideband Integration Centeris a 25,000 square-foot facility that supports satellite communication control operations for DoD assets, as well as those belonging to allies through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
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The military have become a part of the regional UFO lore, even when it comes to debunked suburban legends. In 1974, a lantern sunk into a Carbondale pond and caused a 3-day media frenzy. According to a website dedicated to the legend, many "eye witnesses" claimed to see a large truck resembling a military vehicle,carrying a large covered objectdeparting Carbondale "via the less travelled back roads, bound for parts unknown."
Although the truth was uncovered quickly about the "Carbondale UFO", the small city in Lackawanna County remembers it fondly. It's a common topic at special events, festivals and even parades.
Carbondale is just under 35 mileswest of Tobyhanna Army Depot, but the Carbondale incident, or any other known UFO sighting, has not been publiclylinked to the base.
The Federal Aviation Administration has said that reports of unmanned aircrafthave increased dramatically over the past few years due to drones.The Drive's War Zone,an online defense technology industry publication, offered the theory: increases in UFO sightings could be explained by foreign adversaries piloting drones to spy on US military operations.
While recent UFO sightings could be explained by drones, Lugo was skeptical as to whether or not his sighting could be another statistic.
"Personally, I have a really nice drone," Lugo said, adding thatyou canhear the dronewhen its flying at a high altitude, even though Lugo's is a smaller model.
Lugo didn't hear any sound emanating from the light he saw in the sky, and he was skeptical that the light was part of an airplane or helicopter, because it was a single "bright white orb."
"It was like a little ball (of super bright white light.)" He said. "It was stronger than anything I've seen in the sky."
Of the more than 950 drone sightings recorded by the FAA in the third quarter of 2021, only two occurred in northeastern Pennsylvania.
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Blinded by the light
Among the Stroudsburgs, sightings described as "fireballs", "lights" or "flashes" were the most common, making up 10 of the area's 25 sightings.
What is notable about the fireball, lights and flashes spotted among Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg are that none of them were reported to occur at the same time, and the sightings span 20 years. If you compare them to other sightings in the area marked under different categories, you'll notice commonalities such as balls of orange or red lights, moving along roadways or flying above the Burgs.
Flying balls of light have also been spotted in other parts of Monroe County around the same times as sightings reported in Stroudsburg, such as those seen over thePocono Lake section of Pocono Pines.
A report filed from Stroudsburg regarding a sighting on July 6, 2013 describes an individual's mother and sister seeing "10 orange fireball/circular lights in a staggered formation moving west in the sky." The report says the lights were "easily viewed above the trees" and had "glowing orange" centers.The lights "moved slowly across the sky, no sound whatsoever, and went out one by one, like turning off a light switch." The person wrote.
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In 2014, someone reported "Red/Orange lights" over Pocono Lake seen less than two weeks after the July, 2013 Stroudsburg sighting.
"When I saw this with my wife we both were stunned." The anonymous filer wrote. "We were both standing on my deck smoking cigarettes. I saw 4 red lights. flying slow over the mountain in a straight line they were flying south to north and perfectly spaced apart from each other."
Such sightings are in line with others found in the Pocono Record archives.
Afireball and a “plane” crash reported on March 3, 1991 in a wooded section of Normal Street in East Stroudsburg, near East Stroudsburg University. Residents reported seeing flames, smelling smoke and hearing a crash.
Police, firefighters and ambulance crews searched the area from the ground and air for an hour and found nothing.
On Feb. 23, 1954, three residents of the Snow Hill area (located near the Delaware State Forest) spotted an "illuminated object" that dropped from the sky and burned for 20 minutes. Local woodsmen, acquainted with the terrain, searched nearby swamps for the object. Like the 1991 incident, local law enforcement got involved to locate the "crash" site, but found nothing.
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The MADAR Project
What dominates the reports made for Lords Valley are those including"MADAR Node" 44 and 121. The NUFORC database offers barely any descriptionof those incidents, but MADAR-generated reports are nothing to balk at.
MADAR Nodes areMultiple Anomaly Detection & Automated Recording devices that detect magnetic and electromagnetic field anomalies. The devices were installed at various points around the world as part of a global project, founded by Francis Ridge and aiming to "betray the presence of UFOs" according to the MADAR website.
UFO enthusiasts can become a part of the project by purchasing their own MADAR-111 Data Probe for $240. Additional requirements include an ethernet cable, a free ethernet port on an internet router, and an "always-on" internet connection. The device sends alerts to the operator via text message, email, or an Apple iOS push notification.
The latest version of the technology, which relies on patented hardware, sends alerts whenever a node detects field anomalies. Enthusiasts believe such anomalies to be related to that of UFO activity.
Node 44 is one of four units positioned in Pennsylvania as of October, 2021. There were 118 nodes online as of October 8, 2021.Node 121 was apparently offline at the time of this story.
The operator ofNode 44 posted the following on July 14 from Lords Valley:
"10:16 pm. EDT. Cloudless night in the Poconos with plenty of stars. The witness and his son saw an object traverse the sky from southeast to northwest in no more than 8 seconds. It was an orange cylinder, no FAA standard lighting whatsoever, no comet or meteorite-like trail behind it."
The operator compared that sighting to a similar one seen in Millerton, about 160 miles away.
"The Lords Valley case being more precise on time and course this may have been the same object, or maybe even two objects." They wrote."Readings of the type here and documented as lasting as long as 5 minutes would preclude any type of meteoric source. All in all, there seems to have been some (unidentified aerial phenomena) activity in the region."
When asked if he was planning to seek out more UFOs, Lugo replied with a confident "yes."
"I definitely have been thinking about that," He said. "I look up a little bit more now."
Ashley Fontones is the Managing Editor at Pocono Record and Tri-County Independent, and writes about arts, culture and local folklore from time to time. Reach her at afontones@poconorecord.com.
— Pocono Record writer Kathryne Rubright contributing reporting for this story.
