On November 18th, 2024, a wave of unidentified drone sightings began grabbing headlines and unnerving residents across New Jersey. The surge of drone reports continued not only in New Jersey, but around the country and world, over the next month. On December 17th, officials from the FAA, FBI, US Defense Department and Homeland Security Department released a statement in response to the drone phenomenon. They asserted that fewer than 100 out of over 5,000, or less than two percent, of the reported sightings merited any further investigation, and attributed the vast majority of reports to misidentified stars, aircraft, and commercial, hobby and law enforcement drones.
Since early December, there’s also been a marked increase in sightings of orbs, or unidentified lights, flying over locations across the US and world, sometimes but not always alongside the drones. These aerial lights are seen to hover and move silently through the air, alone and in groups, both near the ground and at higher elevations, with no visible means of propulsion and often reaching speeds and performing maneuvers impossible for known conventional aircraft. Since December 7th, orbs have been reported in Oregon, Egypt, UK, Minnesota, New York State’s Hudson Valley, Maryland, New Jersey and California.
Orbs are nothing new to the Seneca Lake area. For over seventy years, these quietly glowing lights have been reported hovering, gliding, darting and dancing in the air around the lake and its surrounding communities.
The following is a selection of some of the more interesting Seneca Lake-area orb sightings, gleaned from publications, online databases and interviews, from the 1950s to the current day.
It should be noted that “lights in the sky” is the most commonly reported type of UFO around the world, and orbs aren’t the only unidentified aerial objects that have been observed around the lake. Still, stories of lights in the sky around Seneca Lake have persisted for generations.
ORB SIGHTINGS AROUND SENECA LAKE – 1950s to 2020s
August 1, 1952 – Dundee, approx. 9:45 a.m.
The United States Air Force Director of Intelligence, along with the USAF Director of Operations, conducted the largest press conference at the Pentagon since World War II on July 29, 1952. In an historic statement, the Air Force publicly acknowledged, for the first time, their keen interest in “flying saucers,” or UFOs, and revealed that they’d investigated between 1,000 and 2,000 UFO reports since 1947. Asserting that the vast majority of reports could be explained as misidentification of stars or meteors, no explanation was found for roughly twenty percent of the total sightings. The Air Force assured the public that none of the unexplained reports posed any danger or threat to national security.
The Air Force’s transparency was in response to a massive increase in UFO sightings during the prior two months across the country, most notably in Washington, DC, where multiple sightings over the final two weekends of July had generated international news headlines. The bright white lights flying over the nation’s capital were simultaneously detected on radar and observed visually by the both military and civilian pilots, resulting in the scrambling of fighter jets and, undoubtedly, much hand-wringing inside the White House and Pentagon. During the same time frame, numerous sightings were reported to the east of the Finger Lakes in Central New York, and to the west of the Finger Lakes in the Southern Tier. And it wasn’t long before the “saucers” began showing up near Seneca Lake.
At 9:45 a.m. on Friday, August 1st, three days after the Pentagon press conference, Byron Cronk of Dundee was looking at what he first believed to be a bright star in the northeast sky in the direction of the lake. Suddenly, the light shot straight upwards, then briefly paused before traveling abruptly to the north, emitting what appeared to be smoke or vapor, until it was out of sight. The object made no sound. Within seconds, Cronk saw what looked like the same strange light moving southward, before he lost sight of it in the morning sun. Meanwhile that same day, newspaper offices in Elmira were inundated with hundreds of calls reporting shiny and round, as well as ‘pancake’ or ‘disc’ shaped, flying objects. In Afton, just east of the Finger Lakes, locals gathered in the streets and also watched round objects passing across the sky in large numbers for around two hours. More sightings were reported in south-central New York State, as well as the eastern and western regions, making it one of the largest single-day UFO flaps in upstate New York history.
Autumn 1968 – Numerous locations, southern 1/3 of Seneca Lake
November 20, 1968 – Hector, NY, approx. 6:30 p.m.
Seneca County Deputy Joseph McDonald was traveling south on Route 414 to meet Schuyler County Deputy Robert Przygoda at the county line, just north of the hamlet of Valois, around 6:30 p.m. Deputy McDonald was meeting with Deputy Przygoda to transport an injured man to Waterloo Hospital. As Deputy McDonald drove, he watched a “light heading south high above Seneca Lake for some time.” Upon arrival, he drew Deputy Przygoda’s attention towards the aerial object. Przygoda said “It made no noise. There were sparkling flashing lights in many colors. It finally disappeared over Watkins Glen.”
Meanwhile, two more law enforcement officers and an extra witness observed the same multi-colored flashing light in the sky near Penn Yan. Penn Yan Police Department Patrolman Kenneth Austerman, Yates County Sheriff’s Deputy Fred Loman, and a woman on Court Street all spotted the same object around 6:30 p.m.
November 26, 1968 – Reading, NY, approx. 6:30 p.m.
A man was doing chores on his farm in the town of Reading around 6:30 p.m. in the dwindling twilight. When his three children saw a large, bright light hovering over in the night sky west of their farm, he grabbed his binoculars for a closer look. He watched as the object, which made no sound, changed colors from green to yellow, red and white. The man telephoned his relatives about four miles north near Rock Stream, who also began watching the silent, motionless airborne light. He also called the Schuyler County Sheriff’s department, and Deputy Alex Cole was dispatched to the farm. Deputy Cole also observed the hovering object, although, strangely, Cole said that he didn’t see the light change colors. Rather, he said it appeared black and white to him. The anomalous object remained in the sky for around half an hour.
December 12, 1968 – Reading, NY, approx. 5:30 p.m.
A fuel and feed business operator from Dundee was driving a delivery truck south on Van Dyke Road in Reading, heading towards Mud Lake Road, around 5:30 p.m. The man saw something in the distance that he thought at first to be an airplane. He then realized that the object had no red or green wing lights that a plane would have. It was a brilliant, constant, circular light he described as “mammoth.” The strange light, which the witness believed was around 6 by 8 feet, was moving from the west to the east and traveling roughly along the same path as County Line Road. The man watched the object for several minutes as he drove approximately 2 miles when it suddenly vanished. According to the witness,
“As though it became aware it was being watched, it shut off. It didn’t fade or fly away behind clouds. It shut off like someone flipped a switch. But first, it shot down a flat beam of light towards the ground.”
The next day, Barbara Bell, a reporter from the Ithaca Times, interviewed the witness about the Van Dyke Road sighting. After asking around the neighborhood of County Line Road to see if anyone else saw the same object, Bell found a second witness. A fifteen year old boy was driving a tractor in a field nearby when he saw an extremely bright cluster of lights in the sky. He started towards the farm owner’s home to alert them, but the lights “turned off suddenly.” The entire sighting lasted ten seconds. Neither witness knew about the other until Bell investigated and wrote about the incident in the evening paper.
February 2, 1977 – Watkins Glen, early evening
Although it’s unclear exactly where the sighting took place, Schuyler County Sheriff’s Deputy Wayne Pelchar saw a glowing green object hovering in the sky. Suddenly, the object flew off at a high rate of speed. Deputy Pelchar relayed the story to dispatcher Charles Dunlap at the Sheriff’s Office in Watkins Glen, excitedly remarking on the object’s rapid departure, “Man, it boogied!” After reporting the incident early in the evening, the deputy declined any further comment.
October 20, 1979 – Romulus, approx. 6:00 a.m.
A military policeman leading a special five man team at the Seneca Army Depot was in a vehicle patrolling on and around the base. The team had been ordered to keep their distance from the platoon of MPs guarding the restricted area, and the witness had the driver park in a location inside the restricted area shortly after 5:00 a.m. where they could rest before watching civilian employees arrive at the base at 6:00 a.m. The witness described the event:
“I was sitting in the passenger side up front and just looking out at the plant. A sphere of light dropped down out of the sky probably 800-1,200 feet right in my line of sight at the other end of the parking lot just above the tree line. It was just hovering there, a sphere of light. Best described as a UFO. never saw anything like it, just hovering spinning light. I starting yelling at the the other men in the team to look at this! Just as i did that, it zigzagged, right left about five times while going up and disappeared in the sky. Never saw anything move that fast and with a zigzag motion. Nobody else on the team saw it. It was only a matter of 2-3 seconds and gone.”
Early September 1983 – Romulus
The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle published an article on September 18, 1983 profiling the Rochester UFO Study Group, founded in 1964 to investigate area UFO sightings. The group had “gathered reports in recent weeks of unusual lights or objects over Seneca Lake and the Seneca Army Depot.”
Although details are currently scant on the 1983 Depot sightings, there have been many high-profile UFO incidents over the years at U.S. Air Force bases where nuclear weapons were located, including three detailed reports from bases in Maine, Michigan and Montana in 1975, and another from 2010 in Wyoming. And in September 1983, the Seneca Army Depot, which held one of the largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons in the US, would have been in a heightened state of activity, readiness and security, due to U.S.-Soviet relations being at a low point in the history of the decades-long Cold War.
May 15, 2001 – Watkins Glen, approx. 9 p.m.
An aerial object was recorded on video. It appeared as a white light in the sky and on video, but looked red, white and yellow when viewed through binoculars. The witness watched the object for an estimated 15 minutes, and described the light’s behavior:
“The object moved with motions very similar to a bumble bee – up, down, sideways – very fast. It stayed in the same location it was hovering. On video it looks like if you had a laser light and were just moving it in all different directions on a wall.”
July 4, 2010 – Lakemont area, approx. 9:30 p.m.
A group of six friends, all professionals ranging in age from 35 to 56, were watching fireworks around the lake from a dock. Within a fifteen minute span, the group watched three separate unidentified lights flying over Seneca Lake. The first sighting lasted about 5-6 minutes, and the next two just over 4 minutes each. All the objects came from the southwest, with the first object coming from a point further west in comparison. The witness provides the following account:
“The objects…traveled northerly up the lake, pulsating an orangish red glow. Their sizes at their largest point was about twice that of Venus, which was visible just above the western horizon and at least as bright if not brighter. Each time, their altitudes were at least a few thousand feet (…based on the height of the surrounding hills from the water). Most of their movements were similar in character to each other with erratic speed (fast then slow) and motions – veering off to one side or the other, sometimes instantly reversing their direction – sometimes appearing to stop or hover along their mainly northern route before continuing. None of the movements were super-fast.
All three sightings ended similarly in that they appeared to stop in about the same location to our south (distance unknown and very difficult to even guess) although their routes to get to that area were slightly different.
After being stationary a few seconds-they got brighter and brighter then began to move south and upward slowly (in relation to our position) as their light dimmed and then vanished. The second object reappeared briefly (and dully) after a second or so of turning south disappearing, remaining visible for one or two more seconds again, which helped to verify that it was still moving after we lost sight of it before it then vanished…
They were NOT an aircraft that anyone could identify – no flashing lights typical of aircraft, movements were not typical of planes, and no airplane noises were heard.”
March 9, 2011 – Romulus, approx. 6:15 a.m.
While traveling south from Geneva through Romulus on Route 96, the witness spotted a bright light in the northwestern sky:
“The light was coming across Seneca Lake traveling at a high rate of speed. The light continued across the sky, moving west to east, then abruptly changed direction, moving in a north east direction towards the water tank located at Five Points Correctional Facility. The light continued to travel at a high rate of speed in this direction until I could no longer view it.
There were no indications to me this was an aircraft, military or otherwise. There were no other visible marker lights as there would be with private, commercial or military aircraft.
l had stopped my vehicle initially just south of Kennedy Road then proceeded to the entrance to Sampson State Park, where I further observed this bright light. Initially thought this was some type of aircraft, but it was moving way too fast and the light was too bright. I was not able to make out any shapes or hear any noises.”
May 19, 2012 – Ovid, 10:15 p.m.
Over a five minute span, two witnesses watch as four bright orange lights move rapidly through the sky from east to west about 35 degrees above the horizon. All of the objects moved at the same high speed and made no sound. Although four lights were seen in total, only three were seen as one time, with two of the three appearing closer together. When the objects reached a point directly in front of the witnesses, they either faded out or moved towards the south and out of sight.
July 5, 2012 – Watkins Glen, approx. 10:00 p.m.
Three adults and two children are on their way home from fireworks on Cayuga Lake. The trip took on an eerie vibe when the group observed “odd lightning high in the atmosphere.” which “glowed an orange-red.” The witness describes what happened next:
“When we reached Watkins Glen, I noticed five red-orange orbs in the sky that looked similar to a star formation. It was shaped with 4 of them making a diamond with the 5th one off to the bottom of the diamond. In the vehicle along with me were my wife, our friend and our two children. We all saw this in disbelief.
I parked the car for a moment and we sat dumbfounded for a couple of minutes before even thinking to grab our camera phones to video tape it. As we grabbed our phones, the objects moved and simply disappeared before we could record anything...
This was a bizarre event and although I was a skeptic before, I have to admit I am a believer today. There is simply no logical explanation for what we all witnessed.”
August 23, 2014 – Watkins Glen, 9:30 p.m.
A husband and wife were camping at Watkins Glen State Park on the northern end of the Tuscarora Village campground. While looking north from their campsite through the trees, they saw a silent, slow-moving, round, orange red object moving to the west along the path of Glen Creek. The couple watched the object for about a minute as it continued westward, intermittently losing sight of it in the tree canopy, until it was no longer visible through the trees.. They described its shape as a “perfect circle,” and estimated the altitude to be about the same as propeller-driven planes – roughly 10,000 feet or lower. The witnesses provided a detailed description of the object:
“The object was orange in center and had a red fire like ring on the peripheral circle, which had fire like licks or prongs emanating into the center orange portion, similar to looking straight up into the base of a rocket outlet, but flame going inwards to center and flames were slowly intermittent like a dying ember not a fast burn.”
June 5, 2015 – Ovid, approx. 9:21 p.m.
A retired state corrections officer and military veteran was sitting on his front porch in Ovid when he saw something highly unusual in the night sky: a triangular light formation silently hovering. He called his wife to the porch to take a look and bring a camera.
She took several photos of the odd lights, which changed from orangish red to white as the couple watched for about three minutes. The man observed that when the lights changed, there seemed to be a ripple effect in the air around them. He continued:
“To the east about a half mile away I saw four red orange balls of light in a V formation traveling south slowly with absolutely no noise. The lights looked like they may be attached to a boomerang object, possibly 500 feet from the front light to the rear left light. There were two lights behind the front light on the left and one light behind the front light on the right. I called for my wife to grab her camera. She took three good photos with her cell phone. The pictures clearly show the V formation. As we watched for almost three minutes, the formation of lights ascended up into the clouds and disappeared from our view. As the lights moved in formation there stayed a constant distance between the lights.
I don’t know what they were, but I do know what they weren’t. They weren’t anything I’ve ever seen before.”
June 22, 2019 – Burdett, approx. 11 p.m.
Two visitors to Seneca Lake’s wine region were stargazing late in the evening. Suddenly, two of the “stars,” which were close together and motionless,
“…immediately accelerated from a dead stop in directions approximately 80 degrees apart from each other. one heading north and the other east.
(There were) no blinking lights on either object and (they were) extremely fast – faster than any plane I have seen or know of, and at apparently a higher altitude. We observed planes flying that night both before and after the event and could clearly differentiate planes from the UFOs. Neither of us has ever seen an object traveling at such a high rate of speed.”
July 15, 2020 – Dundee, 10:20 p.m.
The witness was by a campfire outside his home near the village of Dundee and noticed a bright flash in the night sky above the house. After confirming no aircraft in the area, he began using a high-powered green laser to make circles, and flash Morse code signals, into the night sky. He recalled,
“About five minutes later it suddenly flashed again right above me, then started to move towards the east, Seneca Lake, very, very slowly. Every time I used the laser, (the object) would flash couple low flashes, then (an) ultra bright massive flash that was much bigger in size, in response.”
A neighbor came by and watched as the witness used the laser to signal the light, and the light responded. The neighbor was also on the phone with a relative in the village of Dundee who was watching the same light through a telescope. The object continued slowly moving east over the lake until, according to the witness,
“(The orb) got to about middle of the lake then just vanished from the sky, no more flashes, nothing. (It) just suddenly stopped and vanished…
I don’t know if it submerged – Seneca Lake is very deep in areas – or just took off and went over the hilltop on the other side of the lake.”
So what are these unidentified lights in the sky around Seneca Lake? Are the lights reported more often around Seneca Lake compared to surrounding areas? Are they somehow connected to the lake or the landscape? Why do some witnesses say the orbs appear to be aware that they’re being observed? Are they the same types of orbs being seen around the US and world in the last month?
I don’t know the answer to any of these questions (yet), so please let me know your thoughts, speculations, answers, feedback, or if you’ve had your own sightings, and we’ll dig into the mystery in 2025.
Keep in mind, the sightings described in this article are only an introduction to the “Seneca Lake Lights.” There are other remarkable, more recent sightings I’ll be discussing and examining in the coming year. Please subscribe to the email list and follow Seneca Lake Mysteries on social media for all updates and more unusual, strange and unexplained stories.
Oh, and considering the current uptick in orb sightings around the world, you might want to get your eyes on the skies, especially if you happen to live near Seneca Lake.