Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 17, 1993 TAG: 9301170237
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEVE SILK THE HARTFORD COURANT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
YOU PASSED SIGN INTO THE TWILIGHT ZONE
Not so long ago, Pan Am was accepting reservations for flights to the moon. The airline has gone down the tubes but hopes for space travel are still soaring.And why shouldn't we dream of venturing out into Star Trek territory? After all, many people believe that beings from outer space have been piloting UFOs here for quite some time.
Assuming UFOs exist, you might hope to have a close encounter of your own. So where should you head?
UFO researchers, abductees and saucer buffs are far from unanimous in their suggestions. Many say looking for one would be a waste of time.
"It's like trying to find tornadoes - you know they're in Kansas but do you go out there and wait for them?" asks Dr. Ralph J. LaGuardia, a Connecticut internist and a volunteer state investigator for the Mutual UFO Network, an independent organization that researches and investigates UFO sightings. The network is based in Seguin, Texas.
But others gladly offer a few tantalizing clues, tips that make a prospecting trip more than a fly-by-night shot in the dark. Some even talk of going on UFO hunts themselves.
And though you might not want to plan a whole vacation around saucer-spotting, you could, at least, keep your eyes peeled next time you're in a likely spot. Who knows what might turn up.
New Hampshire: Military bases are deemed prime places for UFO activity, say those who claim to know. Pease Air Force Base, just outside Portsmouth, N.H., is regarded as an especially hot UFO spot, even though it closed several years ago.
New Hampshire has had more than its share of bizarre UFO reports over the years. Bright yellow balls of light have been buzzing Hillsboro, a little burg on the Contoocook River southwest of Concord, for decades, many townspeople say.
And in Exeter, a glowing red disk, 50 feet in diameter, lighted up houses as it rose from a grove of trees, says Marc Peloquin, a Natick, Mass., photographer who has spent years documenting the "haunted landscapes" where paranormal activity has been reported.
Betty Hill, the New Hampshire woman who says that she and her husband Barney were abducted by aliens and examined aboard their spacecraft, takes people out in the Portsmouth area to spot UFOs on occasion. Don't hold your breath waiting for an invitation, though.
New York: Strategic Air Command bases in particular are considered promising for close encounters. Peloquin zeroes in on Plattsburgh Air Force Base in upstate New York as a likely spot to see a UFO.
Massachusetts: In Massachusetts, UFO buff Dan Shenefield of Agawam says that if he were hunting UFOs he would head for a military base. But he doesn't have to. His wife, Marianne, says that the skies over Agawam are crowded with UFOs.
In June, she says, alien crafts were hovering in the area, and on one street all the mailboxes simultaneously burst into flames. Brilliant white light bathed a local senior citizens' center. "Some people saw entities in their houses," she says. "A lot of people were praying."
But Gary Nardi, records sergeant with the Agawam Police Department, says that no unusual reports were filed with police the night Shenefield says some of the heaviest activity occurred.
Marianne Shenefield says she has been abducted twice by aliens, once in 1952, and again in 1972.
Diana Desimone, the Massachusetts researcher for the Mutual UFO Network, says Cape Cod is now the most UFO-inundated part of the Bay State. Desimone says she often hears of unexplained amber-colored lights cruising over the moors or offshore. But, she allows, they could be planes headed to Logan International Airport in Boston.
Connecticut: In Connecticut, UFOs have made repeat appearances in the Winsted-Torrington area. Police, campers, nurses, teen-agers and small boys have all reported seeing strange, brightly lighted objects in the sky over the last 25 years. And then there's the 1986 incident when more than 200 people watched as an airborne strip of lights illuminated the night sky over Highland Lake in Winsted.
So you never know when or where a saucer might appear next. All you can really do is hope you get lucky. Remember the classic entreaty from "The Thing," one of the first of the creature feature sci-fi films of the 1950s: "Watch the skies."