Jeff Walker #64 @7317 Thu Jul 11 23:57:31 1991 þ Ask_UFO #127 Dt: 21-Apr-91 00:03 By: Don Ecker To: All Re: Incident at Indian Point This file was provided to the ParaNet Information Service by UFO Magazine. All rights are reserved. You may distribute this file freely as long as this header remains intact. Date prepared: 4/20/91 Contributed by: Staff UFO Magazine ================================================================= Incident at Indian Point by Vicki Cooper The threat of UFOs compromising reactor security, as if the nuclear industry didn't have enough to deal with already, became a very real concern in 1984. Although of- ficials won't admit it, several researchers have information That New York 's Indian Point Reactor complex endured such a UFO problem during the long siege of sightings that happened throughout the state's Hudson Valley area. The portrayal of the event in this article is based primarily on the disclosures of unnamed sources. The summer of 1984 was a troublesome season for authorities at the Indian Point nuclear reactor complex in Buchanan, New York. Two UFO appearances, one of which was verified by Carl Patrick, director of nuclear information for the New York Power Authority (NYPA), and later documented by the press and the 1987 book Night Siege, apparently put the normally tight security of the plant to a severe test. The first event entailed the brief flyover of a huge craft, witnessed by three security policemen on June 14. That was followed ten days later by a UFO incident of unprecedented impact. It was one of hundreds of UFO sightings in the Hudson Valley, but one the nuclear workers won't soon forget. "Here comes that UFO again! " an Indian Point security guard is said to have yelled on the night of July 24, 1984, alerting other security personnel by way of the plant's internal communications system. A UFO, variously described as looking like "an ice cream cone " and "boomerang, " had lazily drifted over to Reactor #3-the only active reactor at the time-lingering about 300 feet above the domed construction for some ten minutes, sending security officials into an uproar. Now, six years later, the principal UFO researcher on the case admits that many aspects of the event remain confusing and undisclosed. And although he's still receiving information, Philip Imbrogno calls his own lengthy investigation "stagnant." "Every time new information comes up or I get a lead on something, I get very reluctant to deal with it again," said Imbrogno, who heads the science department at the Windward School in White Plains, New York. "The entire case has caused me quite a bit of pressure . . . The event would indicate that whatever appeared over there, our state-of-the-art technology in defense was unable to deal with it. " He suggests that from what his sources have said, a military aspect came into play. The Indian Point UFO represented an intolerable security breach. Military customers? Imbrogno says that it is precisely that aspect which has had a lasting effect, and which has generated repercussions that continue to this day. But according to the New York Power Authority, which oversees the reactor complex, Indian Point itself has no direct military customers. Reactor #3 primarily services local and state facilities in New York City and Westchester County, including local school districts, the New York City subway systems and some of New York's trains. Most importantly, in Imbrogno's mind, are several military installations in and around Duchess County, which allegedly get their power from Indian Point. According to his sources, these are primarily satellite receiving stations, and "a number of other military operations of which we can only guess, " Imbrogno says. The official agency overseeing the reactor complex is the New York Power Authority, although Consolidated Edison has jurisdiction over Reactor #2 and is sold use of #3 for extensive transmissions to New York residential users and, perhaps, military facilities such as Camp Smith, an Air National Guard base located north of Peekskill. (Reactor #l is inactive.) It was NYPA whose officials apparently spent considerable human energy trying to dissuade Imbrogno from writing about the July 24 event, concerned he would release information vital to the plant's security. "I think other agencies were using (the NYPA) to harass me, " he said, noting that he was constantly subjected to their repetitive phone calls, threatening that he would be forced to appear at a hearing on the incident. (He was never subpoenaed, but Imbrogno subsequently, and perhaps coincidentally, was audited by the IRS four times.) The compulsion to publish was undeniable; of what may have been as many as 70 UFO witnesses among Indian Point personnel, a number quietly sought out Imbrogno, and on the condition of anonymity provided him with the vital facts which led to the production of Night Siege (co-written with Bob Pratt and J. Allen Hynek.) "My sources involve people who work in security for the plant and also people in secretarial and janitorial positions," he said. "The only problem is that getting anything on paper- documentation, something official-is very, very hard, I have unofficial confirmation right now that a number of documents pertaining to the sighting do exist at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. " Normally, NRC records can be opened to the public under terms of the Freedom of Information Act, but when he in- quired, Imbrogno was informed that the documents were being held at the reactor complex, and as such were protected under national security regulations. "It's a joint sort of thing, " he said, "In other words, although the NRC is pretty open to the public, if they <>