Silver Discs Over Paterson
Some people think working for Weird NJ means the paranormal just sits down in your lap and says hello. That is not the case. I have never seen a ghost. I have no scars inflicted from a Jersey Devil attack. In a long history of being exposed to so many mysterious things and accounts I have little of my own and not for the lack of putting myself out there.
But on April 25th 2008 at about 10:50 in the morning I saw my first UFO’s. I did not say I witnessed “flying saucers.” I saw two unidentified flying objects clear as day for a good two minutes or so.
Our issue comes out twice a year and on those occasions I find myself in Paterson at warehouse where I help oversee the distribution of our magazine. I was waiting on the loading dock waiting for our contact Zute to come pick up his boxes of the issue. Mark Sceurman was down in the catacombs cleaning up. Just the night before was a killer episode of Lost and, as such, I was staring up at a passenger plane flying West to East imaging the horror of what it must to have been like to be Jack or Locke when the plane went down. I know they are fictional – I can tell the difference between real and make believe. I just never knew the shock that would come over me when those lines blurred though. I had noticed the plane was flying at a relatively low altitude. Not enough that I could read the logo of the airliner but just about. Behind it in the distance were two jets, dark dots flying side by side, coming from the north towards the south in my direction. As the plane moved left to right and was about to crest part of our storage facility and go out of view. The two jets seemed to enter the same airspace of the plane – that is they appeared a little too close and about the same altitude. What happened next is when my brain sort of short circuited with adrenaline, excitement, and confusion. The “jets” stopped moving from north to south and in their side by side pattern and seemed to be hovering some three hundred yards directly behind where the plane was. There they lingered in the sky no longer black dots in the distance but much more detailed. I instantly suspected they had to be the fabled weather balloons. They were clearly metal and very shiny reflecting the bright sun as they literally spun around each other as if caught in an updraft. I was trying to determine their shape – they were wingless, dare I say it, almost saucer shape but more spherical. In excitement I tried to keep my eye on them as they danced around each other and moved to a higher altitude. I looked down only once to call Mark on the cell phone to come up as soon as possible and witness these with me. But when I looked up they were gone. Damn. I looked everywhere and pinched my eyes. I spotted them again almost double the altitude they were an instant before. They were specs now but still orbiting each other. As Zute pulled in he must have thought me rude as I waved for him to stop with my eyes trained to the sky. The specs were fading behind the wisp of scarce clouds. I looked down to yell to him to get out of the car and check these out but when I looked up again they were gone.
I have no idea what I saw. I felt like Travis Walton san probe as I excitedly told my story to Mark Sceurman when he finally came up. As I spoke to the others that would listen I realized I sounded like every farmer in a cornfield who told of something he reckoned he saw in the sky. I know, fact, that I saw what I saw. The excitement hit me that maybe many of those who claim the same also saw what they saw.
I absolutely believe, without a doubt, that we are not alone in the universe – how primitive and arrogant to think otherwise. But I won’t say these were alien ships. I reserved the idea that I saw UFO’s (again by definition) but figured I would settle that they must have been weather balloons – earlier forward momentum and other inconsistencies aside. That is until I told Mark Moran back at the office and he told me two things: one, weather balloons aren’t used anymore and, two, that the area of Paterson I was in has a long history of UFO accounts. –Ryan Doan… Special thanks to Mark at Weird NJ.com and Brent Berry Arts.com for the UFO rendering.
KEN PFEIFER MUFON NEW JERSEY
WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOS.ORG
