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Fifty years of strange encounters in Weston
Recently photographed UFOs have been regularly reported
By Christopher Burns
In the fall of 1966, a dentist driving down Route 53 through Redding and Weston noticed something unexplainable hovering over the Saugatuck Reservoir.
The dentist, Dr. Harry Neilsen of Darien, later described what he saw as “a large, triangular glow bearing red and white lights” just above the horizon near the large reservoir, a news wire service reported in December of that year.
This event would prove to be the first of many published reports of strange, often red-orange lights in the skies above both Redding and Weston. The reports, found in old newspaper articles and on UFO reporting sites, have been compiled and today, almost 50 years since the first report, Hersam Acorn Newspapers has what may be the first photographic evidence of the phenomenon.
Taken in November and December of 2013, the digital photographs by Wilton Bulletin reporter Christopher Burns show an unnatural orange light moving horizontally and slowly just above the tree-line on the southeast side of the Saugatuck Reservoir, near the Easton/Weston town line.
The light is so bright in the photographs that a clear reflection of it can be seen in the water of the reservoir.
An instantaneous picture of the light above Saugatuck Reservoir. If you look closely at the bottom of the frame, you will see the light’s reflection in the reservoir. (Click on the picture to enlarge it.) (Click here to compare the light to a picture of an airplane taken at Saugatuck Reservoir.)
Out of the ordinary
Andrew Flynn, a Reddingite who was with Mr. Burns while he took the pictures, said the light was bright and immediately unfamiliar.
“Living just outside of New York City, planes and helicopters are seen quite often. When I first saw this light I was with a group of people and it was immediately identified as something out of the ordinary,” Mr. Flynn said.
And it didn’t happen just once, Mr. Flynn said. During the winter of 2013, he “continued to see it time and time again.”
The Saugatuck Reservoir was constructed in the late 1930s on the site of a hamlet known as Valley Forge. In the 1700s, Valley Forge was made up of farms and swampland. In the 19th Century, the village was a vital industrial center, boasting iron and steel mills and factories along the Saugatuck River.
But in the early part of the 20th Century, Bridgeport Hydraulic Company bought up most of the land, dammed the Saugatuck River and flooded the valley to create the reservoir to serve the city of Bridgeport to the south.
The majority of the reservoir is located in Weston, where 75% of the town’s land is protected from development in perpetuity. In fact, the entire eastern shore of the reservoir borders Centennial State Forrest, where no development has been allowed.
A map shows the point on the reservoir where the photos were taken, and the estimated location of the lights. (Click the maps to enlarge)
Historical sitings
In addition to the 1966 lights siting, a string of Redding Pilot articles from the mid-1970s report a very similar phenomenon.
“Moving in a straight path across the sky was a large yellow globe, the brightest thing in the clear evening. It moved from west to east above the tree line at a fairly good speed and then disappeared over the horizon,” one Pilot editorial from 1976 reads. “[The woman] explained how the bright sky-thing had kept pace with her car as it moved north into Redding; then it suddenly changed direction and headed east.”
In the editorial account, the light would later return to the home of the woman, where she and her husband saw it hovering again.
Another story in The Pilot, “Encounters Too Close for Comfort” from 1978, goes into even greater detail.
Leon Adams reported seeing a strange light as he drove to work the midnight to 8 a.m. shift in the boiler room at the Gilbert and Bennett Wire Mill in Georgetown.
The article reads, “At first the light was stationary and looked as if it hung directly over the factory, Mr. Adams said, but as he approached it, he realized the UFO was more distant. He estimated its location as above the Saugatuck Reservoir because the brightness lit up the trees … He tried to think of likely explanations for the object, but the light had been too bright, particularly when it began to spin and show colors, to have been a helicopter, a plane, or a search light.”
The first page of a proofread draft of an article titled “Encounters Too Close for Comfort” which appeared in a 1978 copy of The Redding Pilot newspaper. To see copies of all news articles related to the lights, click here.
More recent reports
At least two more Redding Pilot articles from the 1970s discuss strange lights in the skies above Redding, Weston, and even Easton. Such grouped sitings might have beeen written off as the work of a prankster had the orange lights not continued to be reported from that time up until today.
Four reports of lights in the sky were published by the National UFO Reporting Center in the early 2000s. One, from February 2011, discusses a light above Devil’s Den, a nature preserve near the Weston/Redding border.
“Last night at 8 p.m. I looked out [of] my living room window and noticed a flashing bright red light low on the horizon a mile or so away over the Devil’s Den area on the Weston/Redding border. It was low in the sky and unusually bright, much brighter than any airplane lights, flashing and drifting very slowly.”
Weston’s Animal Control Officer Mark Harper grew up on the reservoir and often works in the area, but told Hersam Acorn last year that he has never heard of the orange lights.
Weston Police Chief John Troxell, who has been with the Weston Police Department for 34 years, said he can’t recall any reports regarding lights over the reservoir.
On the other hand, a former Redding Pilot reporter told the newspaper that even 40 years after he saw the lights on BlChampignons snijdenack Rock Turnpike, he still remembers them. The Weston Forum has decided to keep his report anonymous at this time.
“In my mind, definitely UFO(s),” he wrote in an email Feb. 16 of this year. “Years later, someone suggested the possibility they were helicopters from Sikorsky. But they changed direction too quickly and moved way too fast. Never seen anything like it before or since.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------eston Forum Reporter Patty Gay contributed to this story.
Anyone with their own story about the Redding/Weston lights is encouraged to send a brief note about the experience to CBurns@WiltonBulletin.com.
To see all of the newspaper articles associated with the lights, click this link.
For a timeline of all 11 published reports of the lights, click this link.
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