Further research revealed to us that our area of upstate New York, comprising roughly Westchester, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, and Ulster counties, had an absolutely extraordinary series of sightings of boomerang- or triangular-shaped objects of enormous size, starting in 1983. Thousands of people saw these objects, ranging from meteorologists and Federal Aviation Administration employees to a whole cross section of local people. Town police officers, sheriffs, state troopers, even in one case an entire town government en masse viewed the things, which have been described as being "the size of an aircraft carrier."

The official explanation, detailed in Discover magazine in November 1984, was that the sightings were created by a group of pilots flying light aircraft. According to Discover, the light aircraft sometimes flew in formation with their engines off and their wing tips six inches apart at night. Since these planes never seemed to use their radios, it was subsequently added in local newspapers that radio silence was maintained during these tight nighttime maneuvers.

A pilot told me that this was all highly unlikely, that such formation flying would not be possible e even with much heavier aircraft. Pranksters and even secret aircraft may be part of the answer to the enigma, but they are not the whole answer.

An article appeared in the April 17, 1983, issue of The New York Times quoting a professional meteorologist who observed a silent object a thousand yards in diameter hovering a hundred feet above him. He is quoted by the Times as saying that he had the sensation of "being scanned and rejected."

I do not think that a professional meteorologist would mistake an object nearly a mile wide for a flight of airplanes, not at an altitude of a hundred feet.

Mr. Philip J. Klass, a noted debunker of unexplained UFO sightings, claimed that people were probably seeing 'an advertising airplane. Mr. Klass was at that time an editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology, a publication noted for its uncanny ability to obtain scoops from the Department of Defense about secret aerospace projects. Mr. Klass also writes for a publication I have admired, The Skeptical Inquirer. In view of my own experiences, however.

I am beginning to suspect that, in the case of this particular chimera. skepticism has been taken farther than is reasonable or wise.

Neither the official story nor Mr. Klass's offering explains the hundreds of closeup sighting reports collected by local science teacher Phillip J. Imbrogno whom the Times described as "one person working hard to provide a rational explanation." I spoke to Mr.

Imbrogno, who said that he had collected since 1983 snore than two hundred reports from people trained in some way as observers, and that they had seen huge devices that had clear structure to them. He added that on one night when there were extensive and clear sightings of a device hovering above a local parkway, the winds were averaging 23 knots! What people saw on that night was not aircraft, heavy or light flying in close formation.