The relationship between UFOs and New York’s waterways is a matter that is brought up regularly. People want to know if UFO sightings tend to cluster around these waterways.
So I decided to take a statistical look at the New York counties along the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the counties that follow the Hudson River Valley. The sighting data is gathered from the National UFO Reporting Center, the Mutual UFO Network data and county summaries from the UFO Sightings Desk Reference: United States of America 2001-2015.
The Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System is a 2,340-mile modern inland deep-water shipping route and extends from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the western end of Lake Superior. The part of the Seaway we’re concerned with is the St. Lawrence Seaway portion of the System, which extends from Montreal to the middle of Lake Erie. The New York state portion extends south-westward from the northern tip of St. Lawrence County down the St. Lawrence River across Lake Ontario to mid-Lake Erie, a distance of approximately 373 miles.
The New York counties involved with the St. Lawrence Seaway, accompanied by their UFO sighting numbers, are: Chautauqua, 55; Erie, 352; Niagara, 95; Orleans, 14; Monroe, 236; Wayne, 31; Cayuga, 31; Oswego, 55; Jefferson, 44; and St. Lawrence, 78.
New York’s UFO sighting total from 2001-2015 was 5,141. So the 991 UFO sighting reports from the St. Lawrence Seaway account for 19 percent of the state’s sightings.
The Hudson River Valley, for our reporting purposes, extends from Lake Champlain, in Clinton and Essex counties, down the Hudson River to Staten Island, in Richmond County. The route involves the following counties with their UFO sighting numbers: Albany, 123; Bronx, 77; Clinton, 32; Columbia, 23; Dutchess, 144; Essex, 19; Greene, 31; Kings, 225; New York, 426; Putnam, 38; Rensselaer, 41; Richmond, 105; Rockland, 50; Sullivan, 41; Ulster, 81; Washington, 36; and Westchester, 153.
New York’s Hudson Valley counties total 1,645 UFO sightings, which is 32 percent of the state’s sightings.
The Hudson Valley’s 1,645 sightings combined with the St. Lawrence Seaway’s 991 gives us a total of 2,636 sightings. If we divide 2,636 by 5,141, that equates to 51 percent. So there’s our answer: 51 percent of New York state’s UFO sightings are associated with the state’s principle water ways. It’s anybody’s guess why UFOs are loitering around our waterway ways.
Let’s look at a few recent sightings in New York Skies:
March 25, 2017: At 9:50 p.m., a Queens resident reported two bright lights hovering in the sky.
April 5, 2017: At 4 a.m., a Brooklyn resident observed a large, bright light that flew over his house.
April 12, 2017: At 9 p.m., a resident of Massapequa witnessed a large, bright white light moving slowly over his neighborhood.
If you are interested in joining a monthly UFO discussion group in the Onondaga County area, drop Cheryl an email at [email protected]. If you have a UFO sighting to report, you can use either one of the two national database services: nuforc.org or mufon.com. Both services respect confidentiality.