Curious about UFOs after Wednesday hearing? Here are some of NJ's most famous sightings
UFOs were the talk of the internet Wednesday when former military members testified in front of a congressional committee about their experience with mysterious flying crafts.
One of the members, former Air Force and intelligence official David Grusch, even claimed that the Pentagon has retrieved spacecraft and non-human "biologics."
The three men all talked about their experience with so-called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, which are more commonly known to the public as unidentified flying objects.
New Jersey is no stranger to UFO reports, with claims of extraterrestrial sightings dating back decades. Here's a look at some of the Garden State's most famous cases of out-of-this-world claims.
Wanaque Reservoir UFO
Perhaps the most famous New Jersey UFO sighting happened in 1966, over the Wanaque Reservoir.
Officer Joe Cisco received a call on a cold January evening, requesting that he check out a bright light spotted near Raymond Dam.
"Something's burning a hole in the ice! Something with a bright light on it! It's going up and down!" were among the descriptions called in to police.
Cisco arrived and saw the light hovering above the water before it darted away.
Then, on Oct. 10, hundreds of calls to police flooded in with reports of an even brighter light near Dead Man's Curve on Clinton Road. Denials and conflicting explanations followed.
1962 Central NJ sighting
On July 10, 1962, a 20-year-old Rutgers student reported seeing what was described as a "very unusual aircraft," hovering over Route 1 in Fords, an unincorporated community in Middlesex County.
The encounter is documented in a case file from Project Blue Book, a government study of unidentified flying objects conducted between 1952 and 1969.
The student who allegedly saw the aircraft over Route 1 reported that it was stationary in space before accelerating and that it appeared to be revolving. He thought nothing of it until he saw an article in the Newark Star-Ledger that featured a similar sighting in a different part of New Jersey.
The flying object reportedly moved "in front of or above" a passenger airplane and appeared to be considerably larger. The student who reported it also provided sketches of the aircraft, which appeared to be saucer-shaped.
The sighting was likely nothing alien, however. Attached in the case file is a Star-Ledger clipping from July 14 saying the UFO spotted by various Central Jersey residents was "nothing more than an electrified advertising sign being towed by an airplane."
What was the ad for? Well, ice cream, of course.
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2001: A Space Odyssey? Probably just flares
An ABC News article from 2001 details a strange sighting in the sky. On a July night, over a dozen drivers reported seeing a set of lights hovering in a "V" formation over the New Jersey Turnpike.
According to the article, two of the people who reported seeing it were Carteret police officers.
An FAA spokesperson said at the time that there were no scheduled military operations and that air traffic was light, according to ABC News.
However, the story quotes a researcher who believed the lights were likely just a set of military flares.
Morristown council race dredges up UFO past
In June, Chris Russo defeated Morristown Town Council President Sandi Mayer in a race for the Democratic nomination to represent the 4th Ward. But the day after the election, Mayer emailed The Daily Record, pointing to a 2009 incident in which Russo and a friend staged a UFO hoax.
According to reports, Russo and the friend attached lighted flares to helium balloons and released them into the skies above Morris County.
He and the friend friend later admitted, in an April Fools' Day article in The Skeptic magazine, that they were behind the prank, saying they wanted to debunk UFO reports and make a point about the public's willingness to accept wild claims.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: UFO hearing: Recap of New Jersey's most famous sightings
