1966: Wanaque New Jersey Mass UFO Sighting



Mass sightings of UFOs are always of great interest to researchers. It, once again, verifies that there are actual objects in the sky that a group of people not only saw, but were baffled by. 

In 1966 in Wanaque, New Jersey, there was such an event.

You could not have gotten a better assortment of credible witnesses than ones such as police officers, councilmen, and even a mayor. 

On the evening of January 11, 1966, a large luminous white light was seen over the reservoir. The color of the light changed from blue to green to red at different times. Even the shape of it was reported different at different moments from a cigar shape to a football shape to a simple sphere. 

And, to make it even more ominous, people reported a beam of light coming down from the vessel (perhaps 500 to 1000 feet off the ground) to the ice-covered surface of the reservoir.



This photo (above) surfaced and was claimed to be taken there, but it has not been fully verified. 

One officer who witnessed it noted that he saw what looked like a baseball shaped white light, and as he studied it, it turned red, hovered in the sky and made no sound. The mayor, having heard the officer's call, got in his car with his son and headed out toward the dam where they saw it moving over top of the iced reservoir and changing colors. 

Calls came into the police station about the odd light. Citizens were pulled over, studying it and pointed it out to another officer. Then, someone called out that the bright light was going up and down and burning a hole into the ice.

Note: Although the first laser was designed in 1960, it was not something readily available, used or portable in 1966. In fact, it wasn't until 1969 that scientists shot a laser light to the moon to see its potential.

Interestingly, even the next day, there was a report of the light near the reservoir again, several miles away.


What happened in New Jersey in the mid 60s? It would seem a mass sighting of something unexplained that put off unusual lights and hovered over an icy lake where it shined a light down on it. We can't ever verify what it was at this point, but we can compare it to other incidents and see if there is a pattern. When I saw a triangular UFO with my family, I went around looking online for other reports of triangular UFOs in my area and the time they were seen. I started to see patterns of a period of time in the Southwest when they were being seen.

It seems extraordinary that this thing hovered so low and flashed lights and studied the surface of the frozen reservoir knowing they had to be seen. What was so important there? We can't even guess what a frozen body of water would mean to a potential alien ship or an unusual experimental craft, that they would risk detection. 

What we do know, however, is that some very impressive witnesses and a lot of them saw this event as it unfolded and no clear answers were even given.

*** Tomorrow's post "Death By Exorcism"


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