Hello and welcome to the program UFO Warning.
In this episode we're talking about the 1966 Wanaka New Jersey
UFO incident. That's correct, the 1966 Wanaka
New Jersey UFO incident. Now this was a series of
sightings of UFOs over the Wanaka reservoir in New Jersey
and they started on January 12th and 1966 and continued for
several months beginning. And that January 12th in 1966,
Patrolman Joe Cisco of the Wannaca Police Department
received a call about a strange light over the reservoir.
He responded to the call and saw a bright light hovering above
the water. The light then darted away at a
high speed. Over the next few weeks there
were numerous more sightings of the UFOs.
Some witnesses reported seeing a single light while others
reported seeing multiple lights. The lights were described as
being different colors, including white, blue and red.
Some witnesses also reported seeing the UFOs performing
unusual maneuvers such as hovering, darting and changing
direction. Suddenly on October 10th, 1966,
there was a mass UFO sighting. Hundreds of people reported
seeing the lights over the reservoir.
Some witnesses even reported seeing the UFOs land on the
water. Now the Wanake UFO incident was
investigated or some would say covered up by the Air Force's
Project Blue Book and they came up with the normal excuses for
white people hadn't seen what they reported saying.
I find these cases particularly interesting where these UFOs are
spotted over these man made reservoirs.
Now we saw this with a recent case there in Maryland back in
the 90s. Something is going on here with
these things and their need for water.
Or possibly there's some sort of mineral deposit right there
under that area, Who knows? But there's definitely a
connection between these large bodies of water, man made
enclosures actually, and these UFOs doing all kinds of weird
things periodically. Now, we'll look at a couple
stories here, but first I want to take a look at an actual
newspaper article, just a short article from back in 1966 when
this happened, just to kind of get an idea of what people were
seeing, feeling and believing in 1966.
Now this newspaper article comes to us from nicap.org.
I'm going to put a link at the Buy Me a Coffee website.
There's just been this really, I think, excellent academic study
done about this UFO, and they've got a bunch of links there and
PDF files you can go back and look at, look at the evidence
about these things. Neat stuff.
Now this one. The article says the Wanakee
Reservoir incident. And they begin by saying on the
night of 11 January 1966, hundreds of residents of
Wanakee, New Jersey reported observing a strange large white
light with which maneuvered over the local reservoir.
Some of the many were Mayor Harry T Wolf, who was alerted by
the police, and Councilman Arthur Barton and Warren
Hagstrom. The object was seen from
Oakland, Ringwood, Patterson, Totowa, Wayne, and Butler.
It was reported to have been seen in Oakland first, then over
the reservoir, then above Lakeland Regional High School
and over the Hudaville Sand Pit and Haskell.
It then appeared to move southeast toward Pines Lake and
Wayne, where it disappeared. The object was reported as
gliding oddly and changing color from white to red to green and
back to white. Some described it as a very
brilliant white light, like a star, except that it didn't
flicker and others said it was Oval.
Civil Defense director Bentley Spencer and Richard Rumen were
also alerted by Reservoir patrolman George Dykeman and
went out to view the object. Spencer went to the top of the
1500 foot long Raymond Dam with reservoir employee Fred Stens,
and from that vantage point he reported later, he observed a
bolt of light was shot down as if attracted to the water.
He said it appeared to be a beam of light emitted from a
porthole. Hundreds of curious were turned
back by reservoir police when they converged on the dam from
both the north and the north to the from both the north and the
South to view the object. Later news clippings carried the
explanation by the Air Force that observers had been watching
an 8F helicopter, but it was later learned that the
helicopter was not in that area at the time.
Also suspect were Venus in the evening sky and Jupiter in the
early morning. However, the appearance of these
two planets does not coincide. It was also reported that
reservoir policeman Charles Theodora spotted an object from
the reservoir station at 2:00 AM on January 12th after he was
notified by the Pompton Lake police that they had been
chasing the object. He said he watched the object
until 4:30 AM along with the other officers.
He said it came over the pumping station, danced from side to
side, blinked on and off, or at times ascended at such a fast
rate that he couldn't track it for 2 1/2 hours, after which it
headed into the north and disappeared over the rim of the
dam. Wanaki Reservoir is one of the
vast network of reservoirs in northern New Jersey.
The sighting of AUAO over a freshwater supply is only one of
many documented by APRO in the in the past five years.
Now going back to this source here, this nightcap.org, they've
got some original witness reports.
They've even got copies of the handwritten reports and then
they've got them typed up here, 104 pages if you want to look.
I mean, they've got a bunch of PDF files if you're really
interested to go to the Buy me a Coffee website and I'll have the
links there and you can check the site yourself.
Pretty cool stuff. Now this first one says it's
dated October 17th, 1966, no name or address of witnesses
says. And then it has a New Jersey
Wanaque Reservoir. Since February 1966 I have been
reading in newspapers, on TV news reports, also on local TV
station WKERE Pompton Lakes about the UFO at Waunakee
Reservoir. Also people and police officers
in nearby towns seeing objects in sky heading toward the
reservoir. On Monday October 17th, 1966, my
lady friend misses Dorothy Davenport and her 15 year old
son Dennis and myself took a ride up there.
There were about 200 cars parked along the road around the
reservoir. We finally found a place to park
and in about one hour just before 9:00 PM a woman comes
down the road and said it's flying down Westbrook Rd.
The car parked ahead of me with the two young women in it and my
car went down Westbrook Rd. About a half a mile.
Then nearly above our heads was the UFO.
We turned off the motor and lights and got out of the car to
see it. It was about as high as a 10
story building and shiny with very bright white lights all
around it and a red and green flashing light in the bottom.
It was huge, no noise. It seemed to stand still but a
slight up and down movement like breathing.
The car ahead of us turned around and headed down the road
to where we were parked in the 1st place.
We saw the object for about 3 minutes and then it went behind
some large cedar trees that were along the road right after the
UFO left. Very slowly a plane crossed the
same path it had been in but was heading in the opposite
direction. The plane was very noisy and
much smaller than the object we saw.
Think about that thing ten stories tall.
It's over 100 feet tall. This thing is massive.
This is not an airplane. It's not swamp gas.
I mean, it's none of these silly insulting excuses that Project
Blue Book or any of the debunkers would have put up
says. We finally turned the car around
and went back to where we had parked in the 1st place at the
intersection of Stone Town Road and Westbrook roads.
The two young women were parked there and said they had left
because they were frightened. The reservoir guard also parked
there and about 15 other cars. Some people that came from
Stonetown Rd. had just seen the object there.
That road is about a mile from where we saw it and figure it
must have gone there after it left us.
Is that is the direction it took off.
The next morning I listened to the local radio station Wker for
some news about the object but heard nothing.
So I called them on the phone and I spoke to Ron Hickman who
was in charge of news. He said he had many calls about
the sighting that night. I wondered why he didn't say
anything on the news that morning about it.
It seemed odd is there was a plane in the sky and the pilot
would have to be blind not to have seen the UFO.
He said he'd have to check it, but I never heard anything, only
in newspaper. The next day, the police from
Wannaco asked people to stay away from the reservoir.
They were causing traffic trouble as the roads are very
narrow and dangerous and 60 parking tickets have been given
out. On the night of October 17th,
1966, in another paper, it said stop going to Waunakee Reservoir
looking for flying saucers, they'll come to you.
Just last night there was an accident up there.
A car went there, the guard, the guard said and landed in the
water. People are still going up to
look, especially on a clear story night as it was when we
were there. I never really believed in UFOs
before, but what I saw was a solid object.
If I was alone that night, I never would say anything about
it. But there was five of us and
then later the people who saw it on Stoney Lemon Rd. must have
numbered at least 25 to 30 people.
I really don't care if anyone believes me or not, but if
someone tells me they've seen one, then I say I have.
There is ATV mobile truck up there this way.
From what station? I don't know and it is watching
for a sighting report to check on it.
I have noticed there's no more reports in the radio about the
objects but people are still going there and to look they
could be still seeing them and the radio and newspaper are
saying nothing. There was an article in life
April 1st 1966 about sightings at Wanaki Reservoir in March
1966 on Jim Jason's news in New York and they showed the
reservoir scene and mayor and local news man and reservoir
guard at reservoir looking on the scene of the sighting.
They had UFO over reservoir and a beam of light came out the
bottom of it and froze the thick ice on the water.
People who have reported the object coming out of the water.
The Air Force was in Waukee in March 1966 to question the
people who had seen the object and the light melting the ice.
Mayor of Waukee and his council were having a town meeting when
it was reported, and they and Patterson area newspaperman
Howard Ball went to the scene. A man and a nearby convent also
saw it from his window. Since February 1966 I have been
reading in newspapers, on TV news reports, also on local
radio station Wker Pompton Lake, Sabat UFOs at Wanake Reservoir.
Also people and police officers in nearby towns seeing objects
in the sky heading toward the reservoir.
And then we have a second report.
Here they show typewritten. It says October 25th, 1966.
Doctor Paganel on Friday evening, October 21st at about
11:10 PMI was on my way home for my job in Pompton Lakes.
I live in the Mount Glen Lakes section of West Milford.
There is a Six Mile stretch of deserted Rd.
Newark Watershed property from Bloomingdale into West Milford.
I was traveling along the only car in the road when I spotted a
bright white light in the sky just to the right of the car.
Its approximate altitude was that of a private plane.
It was the size of an office or school clock.
When I spotted it, I slowed down and then it began making huge
circles around the car. I kept on moving and so did this
light, but always in a circular motion around my car about two
miles from my home. It picked up speed and climbed
to the altitude of a commercial airliner as I turned into the
street where I live. It too turned, circled around my
house and then proceeded to the lake.
I went into the house to call my husband to the window to verify
what I saw, but this time it by this time it had turned red and
was hovering over the lake. At that time we heard a jet
plane approaching and the light just vanished.
I then called a friend who lives nearby and asked her if she saw
anything of this and she confirmed what my husband and I
saw. A few months ago she contacted
you about numerous sightings in our area, which is only a few
miles from the Waunakee Reservoir.
Rather than notify our local police, who tend to make a
mockery of these sightings, I suggested contacting you and
misses Mercurio gave me your address, it says.
I know of your work with NICAP and I hope this information will
be of some use to you. Please contact me if there's
anything else you wish to know. This was not my first sighting,
nor my last, I hope. Sincerely, Carol Free Meyer,
this is Roger D Freemeyer. Fascinating stuff.
I just sent another one of these cool sightings.
They've got more on here. For the sake of time, I'm going
to go ahead and go to this article.
That's that I found talking about the instant kind of
describing what happened. This next article comes from
courierpostonline.com. The title is Weird New Jersey
UFOs over 1K and 66. And it says it was published
February 6th, 2016. So it's been a while ago, but I
think it's a decent enough article.
We've read the eyewitness reports from a couple people
that were there and, you know, right after they saw these
things and now we can kind of step back a little bit and see,
you know, what was going on there.
Kind of from big picture. It says 50 years ago this month,
January 11th, 1966, started like any other midwinter day in the
small suburban town of Waunakee, New Jersey.
The air was clear and cold in residence of the Passaic County
borough went about their usual daily routines.
Little did they know that before the day was over, something
would happen, something fantastic and unexplainable that
would change the lives of many of the townsfolk forever.
It all started in the early evening of that Tuesday night.
It was about 6:30 PM, and the winter sun was already long
gone. Over the western horizon, past
the great Wanaki Reservoir and behind the darkened Rampopo
Mountain range, Wanaque patrolman Joseph Cisco was in
his cruiser when a call from Pompton Lakes dispatcher came
over his police radio. It was a report of a glowing
light, possibly a fire. Then, as if right out of a
sci-fi movie, Cisco heard the words.
People in Oakland, Ringwood, Patterson, Totawa and Butler
claim there's a flying saucer over the Wanaque quote.
I pulled into the sand pit and open area to get my bearings,
Cisco recalls. There was a light that looked
bigger than any of the stars, about the size of a softball or
volleyball. It was a pulsating white
stationary light changing to red.
It stayed in the air. There was no noise.
I was trying to figure out what it was.
Wannaki, Mayor Harry T Wolf, Councilman Warren Hagstrom and
Arthur Barton, and the mayor's 14 year old son Billy were on
their way to oversee the burning of the Burl's Christmas trees
when they heard the reports that something very white, very
bright, and much bigger than a star was hovering over the wonky
reservoir. They decided to pull into a sand
pit near the Raymond Dam at the Head Works to meet Officer Cisco
and get a better look at the thing.
The Mirror's son Billy spotted the object at once, flying low
and gliding oddly over the vast frozen lake like a huge star.
But it didn't flicker, Billy told reporters the next day.
It was just a continuous light that changed from white to red
to green and back to white. The phenomenon was terribly
strange, Merrill Wolf would later recall.
He described the shape of the unidentified object as Oval and
estimated it to be between 2:00 and 9:00 feet in diameter.
The next thing that offers that Officer Cisco remembers is his
patrol cars radio going bananas as calls from all over 20 mile
radius flooded into the police headquarters.
Cisco Radio Officer George Dykeman was on patrol nearby.
Two teenagers came running up his patrol car, frantically
pointing at the sky and shouting.
Look, look at that moment, Wannaki Civil Defense Director
Bentley Spencer drove up with CD member Richard Rumen.
The police radios are all jammed up, Spencer said excitingly.
Back at the sand pit, Joseph Cisco's radio crackled as
another unbelievable message came across airwaves.
Something's burning a hole in the ice, something with a bright
light on it going up and going down.
Then another transmission fought its way through the den.
Oh boy. Something just landed in front
of the dam. Spencer and Reservoir employee
Fred Steins raced to the top of the 1500 foot long Raymond Dam,
where they described seeing a bolt of light shoot down as if
attracted to the water, like a beam emitted from a porthole.
According to John Shuttle, a town Councilman who witnessed EU
FOI saw it. A brilliant white object, two to
three feet across. And it's collar.
No, not collar. Shade.
It kept changing. Wow, so this thing almost sounds
like a USO to me. Where it's coming into this
water or using the water for something.
Maybe the water hasn't got special quality to it, I don't
know. And this is January 12th, 1966.
One day after the initial sightings of the UFO.
Patrolman Jack Wardlow reported seeing a bright white disc
floating in the vicinity of his home in the stone town section
of Wanaki, just West of the reservoir.
It seemed like only a block away, above the Lily Mountain,
maybe 1000 feet up, Wardlow said.
Don't ask me what it was, but I do know it wasn't any
helicopter, plane or comment. It shot laterally right and
left. It stopped, it moved up straight
and then it moved down and disappeared in the direction of
Ringwood to the north. Word Lord describe the object is
definitely disk shaped and at certain angles egg shape.
So see we're getting a couple different descriptions of this
thing. One of like this, almost like a
giant cube, maybe 100 foot tall, and this thing is being egg
shaped or flying saucer shaped. Sergeant Davis Cisco said that
he was on patrol at about 6:30 that evening when the UFO
noiselessly hovered into view. It glided then streaked faster
than the jet, he told reporters, and when it rose, it went
straight up. After the January 1966
sightings, radar was installed atop the Reservoir Dam October
10th, 1966. Whatever it was that visited the
skies over Wannaca Reservoir in January reappeared for its most
fantastic showing showing to date in October.
The first reported sighting of it came shortly after 9:00 PM on
the evening of Monday the 10th, when Robert J Gordon of Pompton
Lakes and his wife Betty saw what they described as a single
saucer shaped object about the size of an automobile, glowing
with a white brilliance. At first I thought it was a *
Betty Gordon McCall, but it seemed to be moving.
It had a definite pattern. It would move to the left of the
tower and then move back directly over the tower.
I'm quite sure it was not a star or planet one, OK?
Police Sergeant Ben Thompson was driving his patrol call South of
the reservoir of the time. Thompson looked out of his car
and, to his astonishment, saw the UFO heading right toward
him. I saw the object coming at me,
he said. There was an extremely bright
light. It was a bright white light,
bright like when a light bulb is about to blow.
It was very low. It appeared to be about 75 feet
over the mountain at this point. Other motorists along Westbrook
Rd. Also began to notice a strange
light hovering in the sky and slowed their cars to get a
better look at it. 13 years after the 1966 UFO sightings at
the Waunakee Reservoir, the nonprofit organization Vestigia,
which was based in Byram, prepared a detailed study of the
strange lights that were witnessed.
Bastigia, an organization that seeks to provide plausible
scientific explanations for unexplained phenomena, came to
the conclusion that the glowing lights that were seen over 1K by
hundreds of people, or the result of a seismic pressure
from the nearby Ramapo fall. Well, I'm sorry to tell you
this, but that's about the most stupid thing I've heard all day.
And we've just heard multiple people, reliable witnesses tell
us that they saw these giant flying saucer, giant egg shaped
thing. Giant looks like a ten story
tall building flying over this, over this reservoir, and I don't
need to have some experts come in and tell me that what these
people are reported seeing was just a phenomenon created by
some kind of an earthquake over this reservoir.
That is absolutely stupid. Then it goes on, it says.
Mystika's theories, however, did little to dissuade eyewitnesses
from their belief that what they had seen was indeed a UFO.
Wannaca officers Jack Wardlow and Chuck Fiora rejected the
Army's initial explanations of the mysterious lights as merely
swamp gas or a helicopter, and did likewise with festigious
contention. The Pentagon offered its own
scenario. What hundreds of people had
witnessed in the skies over the reservoir that January was
nothing more than the planets Venus and Jupiter in a rare
celestial alignment. Wow.
So there you go. I mean, you have these fantastic
witnesses. Hundreds of people see multiple
UFOs from giant flying saucers. That what looks like a 10 foot
tall, excuse me? A 10 story tall object in the
sky hovering over the lake, beaming lights down into the
frozen water melting the ice. These detailed fantastic
eyewitness accounts by police officers, the mayor, City
Council, all the people that should be considered reliable
witnesses. And then a parallel narrative
starts, well, one by Project Blue Book, shortly after it
happened. We can expect the lies to come
from the government. And then the script called
Bastigia, which I really haven't done any kind of investigation
into. But thirteen years later, they
tried to develop another parallel narrative.
But the eyewitnesses are there and they're saying, no, that's
not what happened. And luckily somebody has
recorded these eyewitness accounts first hand and posted
them online. And like I said, the links here,
buy me a coffee, go through and read these.
There's all these different people have have put pen to
paper and said this is what happened, this is what I saw.
So let me ask you, are we supposed to believe the
authorities and the deep bunkers or are we supposed to believe
the accounts of the people that were actually there in 1966 in
New Jersey and saw these massive UFOs and these and these
unbelievable maneuvers they were doing in the sky?
Until next time, this is UFO Warning Over now.