The New Jersey Turnpike Lights: Carteret, 2001

The Arthur Kill is a tidal strait between Carteret, New Jersey, and Staten Island, New York, just south of Newark International Airport. The New Jersey Turnpike runs within sight of it.

Saturday, July 14, 2001, turned into Sunday. Somewhere between about 12:20 and 12:40 in the morning, people on the Turnpike and in Carteret looked up. Above the water hung a set of golden lights. Lt. Daniel Tarrant of the Carteret Police Department counted them. "I saw 16 golden-orange colored lights, several in a V-type formation. Others scattered around." They made no sound. For about 10 to 15 minutes they simply hovered. Then they went out, one at a time. "It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen," said witness Joe Malvasio. "They were just hovering, then disappeared one at a time."

Not everyone saw the same thing. Some saw separate lights. Others felt they were looking at one huge solid object. A local reverend, reported to be an experienced small plane pilot, estimated it to be at least 1000 ft in length. Another witness reportedly used an infrared rangefinder and found the lights were less than 2,000 feet up.

ABC News counted more than a dozen people, including two Carteret police officers. Carteret police dispatchers reportedly took at least 15 calls, and about 75 cars pulled over on the Turnpike. A report to NUFORC put the crowd at about 100. Veronica Bagley filmed the lights. "It's really amazing," she said. Nobody seemed afraid. "I wasn't alarmed because it was peaceful," said Paulette Holmes. Patty Ercallino went further. "Very peaceful, very serene, very beautiful. I think we witnessed a miracle."

The FAA said air traffic was light, no pilots reported anything unusual and there were no planned military operations. Newark reported no unusual flight patterns. U.S. space officials said it was not the International Space Station or the Shuttle. A National Weather Service meteorologist found nothing in the weather data to explain the lights. No formal government investigation followed.

Colm Kelleher of the National Institute for Discovery Science offered a preliminary view. "Based on a preliminary investigation, it sounds like the Jersey Lights were a set of military flares." ABC's headline caught the mood: "Flares or UFO? Jury Still Out." The orange glow and the one by one fade fit flares. Yet no drill in the area was ever confirmed. Researcher Michael Hathorne kept an open mind. "But of course it could turn out to be something else. Most of them do."

Investigator Dennis Anderson took a different line. He later became astronomical advisor to NY-SPI, which says a source inside the FAA supplied Newark radar data. According to NY-SPI, it showed an enormous number of airborne objects without transponders, from 10:31 PM to 12:51 AM. That data has never been published in verifiable form. Anderson also believed "there was probably more than one object because certain people did see individual lights flying in different directions."

NY-SPI calls Carteret one of its largest cases. It also links a same night report from Fort Lee, near the George Washington Bridge, of a huge, solid V-type object and a missing time experience. History.com later listed the Turnpike lights among the most credible modern UFO sightings. No hoax has ever been alleged. The lights remain unexplained.