"UFOs of North Bergen"

At the start of 1975 the United States was captivated by the idea of intergalactic travel. Americans across the county were enthralled with the possibility of a high speed trek through space. The ability to visit another world. What happened was something right out of mind of futurists like H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. A sci-fi novel come to life. On January 15, 1975 Space Mountain in Disney World had finally opened. However, before roller coaster fanatics lined up for an out of this world experience, North Bergen's North Hudson County Park was actively being visited by interstellar travelers.

The Stonehenge Apartments
Courtesy of Lenny DiBrango

I must first admit, I am a bit of a skeptic when it comes to the topics of UFOs and Martians. As someone who studies history I tend not to pay attention to the idea of aliens. However, throughout the research done to produce this article and subsequent presentation I am now slightly more prepared to give the idea a second chance. That said, the topic of UFO sightings in North Bergen are deeply rooted in town lore and myth. Most famously in the 1975 Stonehenge Incident, however that is not the first report of other worldly visitors to our town.

Footage from June 2015 sighting
Courtesy of Priscilla Silvestre

The first encounter between residents of North Bergen and those from another plant start in the 1940s. There is a story from 1948 that some residents of the Woodcliff neighborhood saw not only lights in the night sky but there were claims of a landing as well. After the original 1948 sighting there were sporadic sightings throughout the 50s and 60s but nothing substantial. But at the dawn of the 1970s North Bergen would become the focal point for UFO sightings and close encounters.

Footage from July 2016 sighting

Near 69th and Tonnele Avenue
Courtesy of Raul Deras

On August 23, 1971 at 9:10 pm Robert Aguilar a security guard at the Penn Central Railroad (Weehawken) saw something odd in the night sky. As he looked north along the Hudson he claimed to have seen an object illuminating bright white lights. The object seemed to hover and rotate in place what Aguilar estimated to be about 2 miles away, which would line up near Hudson County Park. Aguilar shocked by the sight called to a truck driver near by, Douglass Harrell. Together the two observed the object for several minutes, when Aguilar went to alert his supervisors the object was no longer visible.

Courtesy of UFO Explorer

In October of 1972 a Bellville artist, Howard Averall, claimed to have seen something flying through the park. Averall was on Riverview Drive in Hudson County Park when he saw an object flying across the park and heading north towards the George Washington Bridge. He stopped his car and watched as the object faded from a vibrant orange then to a darkening shade of pink and finally disappearing into the night sky.

The Wamsley Incident is of great interest. It was a sighting that took place on January 11, 1975,  six hours prior to the famous Stonehenge Incident or O'Barksi Incident. At rough 9 o'clock that Saturday night the Wamsley family gathered around their TV, presumptuously to watch either S.W.A.T., The Mary Tyler Moore Show or perhaps NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies. The Wamsely residence was located near 67th Street and Boulevard East just south of the Galaxy Towers. Robert Wamsley, the youngest member of the family, was the first of the family to see something. He described a large circular object that just seemed to hover in place.

The Stonehenge Incident Report
By Ted Bloecher
Courtesy of The Center for UFO Studies

Young Robert called to his parents, Joseph and Alice. They too were aw struck by what they were witnessing. Robert's siblings, Joe Jr. and Debbie, also confirmed the families encounter. They collectively described what they saw. A flat bottomed object with circling lights, domed and displaying very bright multi colored lights. They also claimed that they could hear a constant humming coming from the craft. The object was visible for several minutes and head north along Boulevard East. Alice Wamsley said it seemed as if the vessel was purposely moving slow, almost spying into the windows of the high rises along the Palisades. The Wamsley Incident is key when trying to add validity to George O'Barski's encounter in the park several hours later. 

Six hours after the Wamsley family saw what they believed to be a spacecraft, George O'Barski was heading home after a long day at work. It was just after 2 in the morning on January 12, 1975, the weather was mild, with the temperature hoovering around 40 degrees. O'Barski entered Hudson County Park through the Broadway entrance. He made his way through the Riverview Drive traffic circle and that is when his experience with the UFO begins. He was driving with the  driver side window slightly opened, as he made his way through the stop sign at the traffic circle he noticed some static come over the radio. He fiddled with the dial to adjust his reception but was greeted with only more static. However, another noise was apparent to the tired man, a droning sound which he later compared to the humming of a refrigerator. It was just then as O'Barski looked to his left and saw something that left him in complete shock.

Mr. George O'Barski near the landing site one year after the sighting

Courtesy of The Village Voice

As O'Barski reached the next stop sign on Riverview Drive, near the present day statue of James J. Braddock, he saw something coming down, something landing. O'Barski kept his foot on the brake and watched completely flabbergasted.  O'Barski would later describe what he say to UFO investigators:

"I would say that thing was 30 feet across, it was a big thing, maybe 6 feet high like a blown up pancake and the thing landed right ahead of me."

"What George O'Barski Saw"

The Arpo Bulletin July 1976

Courtesy of the Center for UFO Studies

O'Barski said he witnessed several entities exit the spaceship. They were dressed in all white, he described them looking like: "small kids in snowsuits." He claimed that that the unknown entities held in their hand square receptacles and some sort of instrument for digging. He went on to explain that they prodded the ground several times seeming to have taken ground samples. O'Barski then explained just as fast as they arrived they were gone. 

Almost one minute passed. O'Barski's experience lasted a brief moment as his car slowly rolled down the hill toward Boulevard East, but to him seemed like an eternity. Clearly shaken by the event O'Barski headed home. Recalling that night he explained his thoughts:

"I was scared to death, I was sweating. I made some tea, took two aspirin, I was scared. Either I'm going crazy or there is something awfully wrong with me."

Map depicting the "Stonehenge Incident"

The Arpo Bulletin July 1976

Courtesy of the Center for UFO Studies

Another witness to the O'Barski event was the doorman for the Stonehenge Apartments, located directly across from the supposed landing site. Bill Pawlowski was on duty that night. He was at the concierge desk when a bright light in the park caught his eye. Almost at the same time a window in the lobby cracked. Pawlowski believed the window was damaged by vandals and alerted the police. Upon their investigation, he withheld the detail of the lights in the park. Pawlowski also noted that a tree across the street from the building was damaged that morning, and was not damaged the when he went to work on January 11th.

Now the O'Barski Incident is the most well known UFO sighting in the park, however there were several other sightings we should note as well. Roughly a year after the O'Barski and Wamsley Incidents, on January 29, 1976 three people completely unrelated to each other saw something in the park. Dr. Ann Carr who lived on 23rd Street and 9th Avenue in New York City reported seeing something that was lighted, top-shaped and hovering over the Hudson River near Weehawken at roughly 4 pm. This story was also told by a 7 year old boy who was in the park that same day. However, this youngster claimed he had seen a landed UFO on spindly legs near the lake in the park around 4:15pm. The boy ran home in terror and told his parents. Naturally they did not believe him, but it was his conviction in his story and later news of sightings that made them contact the police. The last witness was a Stonehenge doorman by the name of Francisco Gonzalez. Gonzalez claimed 

 "It was very bright, with square windows. I was really shocked! I was standing in the door without opening it and I saw this thing very clear--the bottom of the object." 

He said it was circular with the windows around the perimeter, and had a flat bottom that was brightly illuminated. After a minute or so, Gonzalez went outside to the driveway for a better look. "When I opened the door, I heard that sound, I was really shocked!" He said the sound was unlike any conventional aircraft, and compared it to the "buzzing or humming" of a bee, going "straight into your ear" and creating a vibrating sensation in the ear.  It was such a "heavy sound," he said, that he thought "it was going to wake up everybody" in the building. After several minutes, the object began to ascend slowly, going straight up. "Not like a helicopter, but Straight up!"  Disturbed by what he saw and heard, he went back into the lobby and tried to call the Stonehenge security guard. In the meantime, the object gradually rose out of the doorman's line of vision in the lobby. When he reached the security guard, Alberto Perez, the latter did not take him seriously.

North Bergen Police Chief George Lehman was contacted for a comment in February of 1976 after these sightings were making their way around town,

"If they clear Immigration and Customs and have a green card, we'll welcome them as tourist to our community."

The Jersey Journal polled some local North Bergen residents and it seems not many believed that little green men were roaming Hudson County Park. However, one young resident did offer his thoughts on the sightings:

"Sure there are people right here and it only seems logical that these beings study us from up close like we would when studying primitive societies in South America and Africa."

Then there is the Stith Incident of August 1979. Harold Stith was driving through Hudson County Park nearing the O'Barski landing site. His son Robert retold the events that happened to his father in a 2007 intervew:

"My father was driving home from work, driving on Boulevard East, and he turned into the [Braddock] park, his car just stopped dead. Then the radio went dead. A bright light came on top of the car and then my father heard some strange things on the radio, some language that he didn’t understand. He then noticed it was some sort of spaceship. The doors of the ship opened and these little grey men with big eyes came out. The next thing my father knew was that the door shut and they flew off. He thought it was like 10 minutes, but as it turned out, it was like three hours. My mother said that my father came home three hours late.”

To make this encounter even stranger, UFO investigator Bud Hopkins believes that Stith was abducted. Robert explained “He believed that he was abducted. We all thought he was crazy. He didn’t want the story to come out because other people would have thought he was nuts.” Two days after Stith had his close encounter, he told his family that he had a dream about the Miss America pageant. “My father named the winner, what she wore, what she performed, where she was from,” Robert Stith said. “No one took it seriously. We didn’t have an affiliation with the pageant and we had no idea why he would pick the Miss America winner.” Sure enough, Harold Stith’s prediction came true. Two weeks later, it all happened just like Stith said it would. Cheryl Prewitt of Mississippi, the one Stith named after his dream, was crowned the Miss America of 1980.

The last major or at least reported sighting happened on July 6, 1986. Ron Lee and Ninette Nappi were taking in the sights from Ms. Nappi's balcony in The Stonehenge. They notice a large but silent stationary object over the park. They claimed the UFO just sat there and suddenly took off heading south. Nappi, an artist sketched what she saw:

Reproduction of the sketch produced by Ninetta Nappi of the sighting.

Courtesy of UFO Explorer 

Since the Nappi Incident there have been several sighting in or near Hudson County Park dating back to 1988 and most recently reported in 2016. Reports of lights in the sky, disk shaped objects, spinning triangles, lights make erratic movements in the sky, mysterious beams of light, aircraft turning in unexplained ways and even two reports of what looked like a fireball shooting across the sky. There have also been reports of odd circle patterns found in the park. Along with unexplained scorch marks and sporadic holes throughout the field. There was also at one time a person reported the old flag pole missing. 

Sightings since the Nappi Incident:

June 1, 1994

A disk shaped object in outer space. 

It was a very calm and peaceful shade of fluorescent blue or soft powder blue light

June 1, 1997

Lights over North Bergen, NJ

Seen for 1 to 2 minutes

September 20, 2000

A triangle shaped object spinning for near 10 minutes

November 3, 2003

A UFO moving on a zig zag and circular motion.

Noticed for 45 minutes

June 15, 2005

A silver cylinder shape non moving, vertically oriented, close to ten minutes.

August 8, 2006

A bright star like UFO over North Hudson Park

Seen at 3:20 in the afternoon for roughly 12 minutes

November 24, 2007

Beam shoot upwards from North Hudson Park.

May 25, 2008

Two stationary objects holding position for 10 minutes.

February 2, 2009

white and green lite hovering 20 or 30 feet over head. then zipped away and disappeared after 3 or 5 seconds

August 12, 2009

Pulsating light moving very slowly around the sky.

November 21, 2009

Extremely bright light zooming across the sky just disappears from sight.

November 23, 2010

An object changing colors over the Hudson in mid afternoon

September 30, 2011

A circular UFO observed near North Hudson County Park

October 25, 2011

 A circular UFO observed flying over town, north to south.

August 12, 2012

A triangular formation in the skies with 3 glowing lights seen for 30 minutes.

November 6, 2013

Blinking red circular lights going in circle for almost an hour.

April 20, 2016

Object flying straight upwards with a flashing lights 

Flashed about 3 times and disappeared as it went upwards

To be honest at the start of researching these events I would have considered myself a skeptic. I like to think I base research in fact and evidence. But during the course of looking into these "sightings" and seeing similarities being reported by people completely unrelated and unknown to each other leaves perhaps more questions than answers. It leave me with more of a want to know if it is true, did aliens really land in North Bergen? And if so why North Bergen? I feel the words of Rekha Sharma best some up my new found feelings on the subject:

“I believe there’s other forms of intelligence in the universe. I’ve seen and heard some pretty convincing UFO stuff. Besides, if we’re the most intelligent things in the universe… well, that’s just depressing."