1985-07-01 - Great Neck, NY - Rectangle

Giant UFO sighting on Long Island in the mid 1980's

On a warm, clear summer night my husband and I were driving on the Grand Central Parkway preparing to exit onto the Cross Island Expressway on our way back to Manhattan from our Long Island vacation home. We had a car called an AMC Pacer, which had a very large moon roof. I was fully reclined in the passenger seat looking at the stars. Suddenly I noticed the stars were blocked by an object and replaced by a series of illuminated dark gray tubes and small white lights. Having no idea what this was I rolled my window all the way down and popped my head outside the window to get a better look.

To my complete shock, an enormous gunmetal gray object hovered overhead, no more than 150 feet up. It looked like it was rectangular or at least angular in some way, it had sharp edges and corners, at least on the side I could see, since it was so large, at least the size of a football field. Its underside was gunmetal gray with a touch of green, it had a utilitarian, military feel to it. The snake-like tubes running along its underside were illuminated by a series of small white lights, like clear Christmas lights, and the object was surrounded by a subtle glow, like an aura. It was almost completely silent, but I did detect a tiny hum, and it glided very smoothly overhead, at approximately the speed of our car, which was probably about 35 - 40 miles per hour.

We were on a heavily populated highway in a dense residential area, with a lot of businesses and street lights. I looked around me and no one seemed to be looking up but me, there was no shouting, no blinking of horns one might think would accompany such an anomaly.

I stammered to my husband to look up, he did, muttered "Uh huh" and kept driving as if I had pointed out a full moon. "Is everyone asleep?" I wondered, and I kept up a steady patter about the object as we turned onto the Cross Island and I could no longer track it. When we arrived home at our Manhattan apartment (I worked as a copywriter in those days, my husband was an advertising art director) I turned on the TV fully expecting to see breaking news about the giant object, but there was nothing.

The next day my husband pointed out an article in the New York Times (an inside page)about UFO sightings in the Hudson Valley that same evening. "Ah hah!" I said, feeling vindicated, but there was nothing further about it. It did spark my interest in the subject though, and after this experience I read a great deal about UFOs and hoped maybe one day I would experience another sighting.

I did have the distinct impression during this sighting that we were being surveyed and watched by this object, it felt ponderous and powerful, and 25 years later I remember it as if it happened yesterday.


((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. We spoke via telephone with this witness, and we found her to be quite objective and eloquent in her description of two sightings. We suspect that she is an excellent witness. Please see her other report for a sighting in Watkins Glen, NY, for July 13, 2011. PD))