Just after midnight on the morning of Sunday, July 15, 2001, witnesses began reporting a cluster of lights in the sky over Carteret, New Jersey. As the lights passed over the New Jersey Turnpike, an estimated seventy-five drivers stopped their cars and got out to watch the lights move silently overhead. Among the hundreds of witnesses were at least six policemen and military personnel. The witnesses agreed that the lights moved slowly, between 10 and twenty miles per hour. A check of the winds shows that the objects may have been drifting southwest with the 10 mph wind. They could not agree, however, on the formation of the lights. Some said a circle, some said a V, some said a U, and some said a diamond formation. A videotape of the lights shows a rather broken semicircle with other lights around it in a haphazard arrangement. The lights appear to have been at a fairly low altitude, and were not seen over a large area. Some witnesses said that the lights appeared to move in unison, as if attached to a single large object. One witness, a Ukrainian priest, said there was an emission from one of the lights like candle drippings. A military witness, who observed the objects through night vision binoculars, saw a puff of smoke from one of the lights just as it went out.
Several theories have been offered as to the nature of the Carteret lights:
The return of the Stormville Flyers?
You may remember that the "Stormville Flyers", if they really existed, were said to be a group of pilots who liked to fly small planes in tight formation at night. They are supposed to have been responsible for many of the Hudson Valley UFO sightings of the 1980s. Could this have been a group of small planes flying in formation? It doesn't seem likely because of the absence of engine noise. 16 small planes, even ultralights, should have made a lot of noise.
Again with the Flares?
One of the first explanations offered for the Carteret lights was that of airborne flares. Military and National Guard units often practice dropping flares attached to small parachutes. This was one of the popular "explanations" for the The Phoenix Lights. However, the military installations and National Guard units in the New Jersey area all say that they had nothing in the air - no planes or helicopters - on the morning of July 15th, and no flare dropping exercises were scheduled.
Top Secret Military Aircraft?
Could the Carteret lights have been some sort of top-secret aircraft, as the The Phoenix Lights are said to have been? It seems unlikely. Phoenix is near Area 51, where top-secret aircraft are plentiful. Carteret is not near such a base.
Astronomical or Meteorological Pheneomenon?
Astronomers and meteorologists who have seen the video rule this out. It wasn't the Aurora Borealis, it wasn't a meteor or even 16 meteors, and it sure as heck wasn't the planet Venus.
Fire Balloons?
Don't forget, the priest saw something like candle drippings coming from one of the lights. Another witness saw a puff of smoke as one of the lights went out. The lights were traveling at the same speed as and in the same direction as the wind. One witness claimed to have seen the lights being launched from a backyard in Carteret at about 12:20. This may be the best explanation. Fire balloons are pranks whereby someone turns a plastic garment bag into a hot air balloon by attaching a candle or a small cup of alcohol or some other flame source to the bottom. They have been used to fake UFOs before, and they can look quite unusual from a distance. Individual fire balloons can change position within the cluster, and that would account for the different formations seen.
Alien Spacecraft?
Who knows…..?
This article was previously published in 2001. It has been revised slightly by removing dead links and adding new ones as needed.
Loy Lawhon
Due to past abuses, I do not allow articles to be reprinted on other sites. You may use the first paragraph and provide a link to this page for the rest of the article.