Article on Sheffield’s UFO Monument Park

For those who may not know, in the town of Sheffield there is a unique historic park. It marks the only historically documented UFO sighting in the United States.

In an article from the website tugta.com the event happened in 1969, according to Thom Reed who was involved in the encounter. Reed who was 9 years old at the time of his encounter. He and his family were coming back from Great Barrington. “It was a very hot, still day without a breeze. It felt unseasonably stale and lifeless,” he said. Reed and his family had gone to a local restaurant to eat and afterwards his mother needed to stop to make a night deposit drop for her luncheonette in town. While his Mother went to make a deposit, his grandmother ran into a local store to pick up a few items.

Reed continued, “We then continued toward the Sheffield Covered Bridge. It was dark and there was a glow emitting up through the planks as we entered the bridge. As we exited the bridge my grandmother turned and talked to me as I had given my brother candy and she thought he might choke on it. She remarked on the luminescence that still remained behind us. At that point the craft was still beneath the riverbank.” He continued, the family watched as a craft, which almost looked like an upside-down Hershey’s Kiss, began to ascend. “It came up, the craft had a roundish look and almost seemed to be bleeding light. The light kind of blinded us but you could tell something was in the light itself, like a disk or craft. It rose up 2-3 stories.” He said his family continued driving slowly down the bumpy dirt road lined with trees on both sides. “The craft was travelling in the same direction further away over a large open field,” Reed said. As they looked through the trees the light flickered.

“We got to an opening in the trees and pulled off to the right. The car was running, the headlights were on and the inside of the car was dark as we were all looking at it. All of sudden the inside was lit up and a reddish amber light was outside off to the right. Suddenly It was almost like we were underwater like we were in a cocoon. Then all of a sudden, the katydids and crickets were loud and seemed to explode in unison. There had been complete silence to this point, it was louder than anything we had heard that day. Then all of a sudden there was nothing again.”

“The next thing I remember is being in a building or a large area that resembled an airplane hangar with long fluorescent tubes, providing very low lights, equally spaced out on the top corner walls. My left arm was grabbed by a small bald hairless person. He pushed me out of the room and down a hallway. At that point I remember seeing two large ant-like insects there. They were four and a half feet tall with stick bamboo like legs. Their heads were orangey gold and shaped like a football. “

“At this point we found ourselves back in the car. My mother, brother and I were still unconscious at this point. My grandmother came to first and tried unsuccessfully to revive my mother. The car ignition was now off. She turned the car around and drove back over the bridge, assuming we had been gone for 15 minutes.”

“She arrived at the store she had visited earlier, she slammed the door and I came to about that time. I went in with her and we found out it was almost 11 p.m. People from the store remembered how shaken she was and how truthful she was being.” By the time the pair got back to the car, Reed’s mother was conscious and his brother shortly followed.

The family went home and reported the incident to the police the next morning. Fifteen to twenty other people had also called the station about a sighting.”

Another person who believes to have had a 1969 UFO encounter around the same time was Kevin Titus, Historian, who lived in Falls Village Connecticut at that time. “A friend and I went across the river in search of two cattle that had broken a fence. We followed a mountain path that the cows would sometimes go up. Around noon, we came across one of the missing cattle and it was dead. The cattle had a strange pink color like it had exploded. It was weird and strange in a way we couldn’t account for. “

“We then looked up and saw something along the mountain tree line that we thought might be a helicopter. The craft was a weird shape with a low light flitting along. “When we were coming down the hill the craft in the sky felt like it was following us. It did not make noise as far as we could hear. We ran back down the mountain and called my grandparents. It terrified us. We couldn’t explain it.”

The adults called the sheriff who in turn called the air base. “There was a small Air Guard Station. Other people called it into the police and the guard. The air guard said there was no aircraft up that day but something had been spotted on their radar that day.” Titus said connected with Reed in 2015, when he realized the two events occurred within a day or so of each other

Though the 1969 siting was the basis for the park, Reed also had two encounters in 1969 and 1967. The first sighting was in September 1966 just after school started. I saw it on our property. It was about 60 feet around and looked like a tarnished turtle shell with lines on top of it. The shell was multi-colored pewter with gold running through. I saw the same thing in 1967.

The International UFO Museum in Roswell New Mexico has a wall dedicated to the Sheffield event as well as a diorama of the ship and replication of the being’s heads. Reed will be speaking at the museum’s International UFO Festival July 6- 8, 2018.

The park and the monument on it marks the only historically documented UFO event in the United States, receiving citations from Governor Charles D. Baker and from the Great Barrington Historical Society. In the Commonwealth citation it states, ”The incident was factually upheld, founded, and deemed historically significant and true by means of Massachusetts historians. The records highlighting the historic event are now officially part of the Great Barrington, Ma. Historical Society’s Collection and your recent induction into Massachusetts history. “

Reed is currently writing three novellas/ memoir as a part of a possible three film trilogy by Director Luis Morneau and Reed said he is in discussions regarding a six segment mini-series with James Keitel. The Sheffield episode has also been portrayed on Alien Mysteries, Paranormal Paparazzi, New England legends and Uncovering Aliens.

(Article information taken from tugta.com and article photo used by permission)