How Did The Berkshire UFO Sightings Become Famous?

Unsolved Mysteries is back, thanks to the partnership between Netflix and the Stranger Things creators. Naturally, the fifth episode of the new series caught our eye as it explores the UFO sightings from Massachusetts in 1969.

So what happened? Well, On September 1st 1969, four unconnected families encountered the same UFO. All were picked up and moved by a ray of light. Some of the witnesses even claim they met each other aboard a craft, whilst others say they passed out and cannot account for the missing time.

The most prominent witness was 9 year old, Thomas Reed who was with his family driving home. According to his report, Thomas describes:

“being taken aboard a tarnished circular looking vessel where an image of a willow tree was displayed.”

Tom Warner, also witnessed the event and remembers running out of his family home when he was struck by a beam of light. His neighbour, Jane Shaw, claims Tom vanished for a few minutes before returning. In these missing minutes Tom claims to have met another neighbour, 14 year old Melanie Kirchdorfer, aboard the craft. Melanie confirms his story.

Since the event, the Great Barrington Historical Society officially recognised the incident as an historical event in 2015, due to the amount of independent witnesses.

The encounter has had a lasting effect on all of the witnesses. Reed, who now works in UFO research, has never been too fond of the media’s response to his report. Telling MassLive:

“The papers and the stories have gotten so ridiculous that the truth has been lost. First of all, they keep using the cornball terminology you might find — the abduction stuff. That’s not what happened. Our family is very credible. We’re not a bunch of lunatics.”

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