From gray aliens with oval-shaped heads, to a 9-year-old claiming to have been abducted by aliens, Massachusetts residents have had a number of UFO sightings.
Overall, there have been 1,884 sightings in the commonwealth, according to Stacker.com, making it among the top 20 states for UFO sightings.
Massachusetts ranks number 17 in the U.S., the highest among New England states. California, however, has the most UFO sightings with more than 10,000 reported sightings, the website states.
“It’s no surprise that the state with the most UFO sightings is also home to the annual Contact in the Desert, the world’s ‘largest UFO conference,’” the website states about California. “The event generally features speakers, panel discussions, lots of opportunities for stargazing, and a steady stream of believers ready to share their experiences—many of which have been captured on camera.”
North Dakota has the least amount of reported sightings with 192.
The website used information from the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), which has documented about 90,000 UFO sightings. Although it was founded in 1974, it has information on sightings dating back to 1400, the website states.
“Almost three-quarters of all UFO sighting reports in the United States occur between 4 p.m. and midnight, and tend to peak between 9 and 10 p.m.,” Stacker wrote.
While many sightings are “easily explained away as military tests, weather balloons, or other terrestrial activity,” some are still a mystery.
In January 1967, Betty Andreasson was at home with her family in South Ashburnham, Massachusetts, when she claimed “gray aliens with oval-shaped heads and enormous eyes slipped her into a trance and abducted her,” according to Stacker.
The aliens then exposed the meaning of life to her while aboard their craft, she said. But they then immediately erased her memory, the website reported.
Andreasson later when on to recover some of those memories under hypnosis, according to the website, and they were documented in the book “The Andreasson Affair.”
One of the most notable sightings in Massachusetts was officially recognized as a historic event by The Great Barrington Historical Society in 2015.
Former resident Thomas Reed was 9 years old when he had his UFO sighting in the 1960s. He then spent decades telling and retelling the stories.
In 2015, The Great Barrington Historical Society formally inducted the account of the 1969 incident in February, describing it as “significant and true” after reviewing contemporaneous news coverage, witness statements and polygraph results.
The monument is an oversized white granite brick and features a plaque touting “the official induction of our nation’s first off-world/UFO incident.” A crowd gathered in 2015 when it was dedicated.
But Reed said his story has been sensationalized.
He has appeared on a number of alien-baiting cable reality shows — all of which, from “Paranormal Paparazzi” to “Alien Mysteries,” promised to take his story seriously before exaggerating it on-air, Reed previously told MassLive. And the mainstream press has been little better, according to Reed, describing his accounts as “abductions” — a word he swears he never uses.
“The papers and the stories have gotten so ridiculous that the truth has been lost,” Reed said. “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.”
In 2016, Reed told MassLive that he remembers that him and his family were driving from Ski Butternut in Great Barrington over the Sheffield Bridge when they noticed a bright, floating object near their car. They felt what Reed describes as a change in pressure, or an electromagnetic field; a dead silence fell, the light grew brighter, and they found themselves somewhere else.
“Now, we do remember being in what looked like an airplane hanger,” Reed said. “We didn’t stay in the car. We were removed from the vehicle, that’s true. Where we were, I don’t know.”
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