Lights in the Sky: A New York Fishers' UAP Story
Lights in the Sky
It was early in the morning on August 20th and dark out on the water. Fred, a career fisherman who had spent thousands of hours at sea catching marlin, looked to the sky. An unusual movement of lights had caught his eye: a number of spherical orbs were floating above the horizon. They slowly morphed from seven orbs in a C formation, then others appeared, until there were 12-15 of them morphing slowly into a different formation. They didn’t look like anything he’d seen before. He pulled out his phone to record the sight. The grouping of bright spheres moved across the night sky, though it was unclear if they were above land or water. There was no sound as he recorded, aside from the waves lapping against the boat. He and his boatmate watched the lights move for a minute and a half before they flickered out, one by one.
Exploring and Studying the Unknown
At Enigma, our goal is to identify, disambiguate, and add clarity around unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena, known as UAP. Although it's still early in our process of building heatmaps, preliminary data suggested a correlation between UAP sightings and coastal areas, and our conversations with aviators and scientists supported that thesis. Local reports of UAP such as witness accounts and videos are crucial to increasing the pool of data and allowing more robust research to be conducted. So we decided to visit coastal communities to speak with anyone who has had recent sightings. An Enigma Labs team member, Sera, visited a fishing town in the northeastern US to interview people working on the docks, boats, and marinas in the area.
Seeking Local Reports
There were only boats and parked cars in sight as Sera pulled into the quiet fishing town. It was a small, tight-knit community, where everyone knows each other by name and locals gather in open-air waterfront bars after long days at sea. The docks were on an isolated peninsula at the opposite end of a long bridge. On one end of the beach, groups of fishing charter captains were processing their catches. Older captains with decades on the water side-by-side with young hands working summer jobs. Everyone was welcoming and friendly. Conversations with Sera about UAP eventually guided her to “Fred.” Sera joined Fred on the dock, well-kept boats with poles and reels stowed at anchor around them. He excitedly took out his phone and played a video he had recorded one morning in August right there on the same dock: a series of lights clearly visible in the sky, morphing into different patterns until they flickered out one by one. Sera watched the video.
Fred didn’t know what he’d seen, but he did feel it was something important and unusual enough to document. Sera and Fred reasoned through commonly mistaken objects and analyzed the possibilities of what Fred had seen. Sera then continued her journey through the town.
Another Perspective
On the other end of the beach, home to several world-record catches, boats were pulling into the commercial dock with their loads of tuna, bass, marlin, and bluefish. Sera spoke to the incoming fishers, telling them what she was looking for. “Bob” raised his hand hesitantly, and said he had something to share. Once Bob learned Sera was part of a dedicated team researching UAP, he became enthusiastic, revealing his interest and knowledge about UAP. He pulled out his phone and shared a video—Sera was totally surprised when she realized it was on the same night as Fred’s! As Sera watched, a line of bright orbs seemingly floated across a dark sky, flickering out one by one as they moved toward the horizon. Sera confirmed the date and time: It was the same sighting filmed from a different location.
Beyond his excitement to share his experience, Bob was also relieved to find someone who would listen to him and engage in a rational discussion about his video. He was shocked to hear someone had recorded the same sighting from another perspective. Like Fred, Bob had been on the water with a fellow fisher, so he didn’t witness it alone. But still, after seeing the lights, he didn’t feel comfortable talking about the sighting with friends. He didn’t want to be the butt of jokes, and felt he had no one to go to. This is a powerful reminder of how isolating it can be to see an unidentified object and how daunting it can feel to share it with others given the stigma.
A Shared Experience
Sera’s visit to the town resulted in surprising conversations that enabled her to make a fortuitous connection between two individuals. Although Fred and Bob were capturing footage of the same lights on the same night just miles apart, they didn’t know each other. And neither knew of a meaningful way to share what they’d seen or make sense of it and disambiguate it from known, easily confused objects that look like UAP. Nor did they know where to look for information about similar sightings.
Enter Enigma. Our platform is designed to help those who have seen or think they have seen a UAP, people like Fred and Bob. Enigma provides a place to report sightings and bring UAP witnesses together to connect, explore, and discover as a community.
