On Friday, November 7, 1975, two young men from Brooklyn (Vincent L. and John D.) took a weekend break at the Catskill Forest Preserve, about 100 miles northwest of New York City.
When they arrived, it was raining heavily and the area, rapidly sinking into dusk, was almost deserted. In order not to get wet, the young men pitched their tent under a rough wooden picnic canopy, consisting of four columnar supports and a high roof.
Around 1:00 am they were awakened by sounds coming from the side of the trash can. Subsequently, they noted that they felt strange and woke up at the same time. As John prepared to scare away the animals they suspected were rummaging through the trash, he unzipped the tent and laid the lantern on the ground outside. At that moment, both men realized that something like moonlight was shining through the semi-transparent walls of the tent.
The men went outside, but saw nothing. There were no animals or their tracks on the wet ground near the garbage can. As they pushed the trash can away from the tent, they heard a strange "sonar-like sound" moving back and forth above them, and they thought it was some kind of bird.
Suddenly John and Vincent noticed something like a "streamlined tourist trailer" in the forest nearby and thought that it was he who was the source of light and sounds. They decided that some tourists had arrived.
John headed into the woods to get a closer look at them. He had walked only a few yards when he realized that it was not an ordinary tourist trailer, but an unsymmetrical object with a mast at one end and some kind of rotating element attached. But the most surprising thing was that its entire smooth surface glowed faintly.
Drawing of a landing object, Vinnie L
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The men were stunned by what they saw and, returning to the tent, tried to convince each other that this could not be what they thought. “This thing isn't there,” John said. He was holding a switched on lantern, and suddenly a beam illuminated a figure standing in the forest and looking at them. Tall with two large dark "eyes" and a row of diagonal stripes on one cheek, she was also faintly luminous.
Finally frightened, John fumbled around with a flashlight beam and found three more creatures, one of which, apparently, was near the tree. They were completely silent and the same, except for the number of stripes on the face. For a while, John and Vincent believed that these figures were some kind of ghosts, created by a projector or something similar. It was only when the creatures approached them about 4.5 meters away that they realized that this was not a flat projected illusion.
The figures were coming in and out, coming in and out. They moved with incredible ease, despite the dense undergrowth. There were no arms or legs to be seen on these silhouettes, and the strangest thing was that every time the flashlight beam fell on one of the figures, it stopped and remained motionless until the beam left it. The three-striped figure that hovered behind the group seemed to be controlling the others - when a beam of light fell on it, everyone else would stop at the same time.
Both tourists were convinced that they were about to be kidnapped. Later, recalling this incident, Vincent said, "I really thought I would die there." Swinging axes, they made a fire, realizing that light and fire are their only protection. The car was parked in a parking lot 30 meters away, but the young people were very afraid to move away from the fire. Soon the mysterious figures departed.
Earlier, John and Vincent noticed that one of the creatures on the left was slowly approaching them, along with a floating object, which John described as a small, covered wagon without wheels, approximately 75 cm wide and 1.8 meters long. It showed several hoops that supported what looked like a clear plexiglass cover.
The men built a barricade out of picnic tables and benches in front of the tent. As the creatures retreated back into the forest, Vincent threw all the belongings into the tent, cut the ropes, and rushed down to the car to start the engine. John remained under the tent by the fire and prepared to photograph the creatures if they suddenly returned. Before he raised the camera to his eyes, Vincent yelled at him to put it down: "They'll think it's a weapon."
Now everything was in the car and the friends were ready to run. John poured some water over the burning logs, the fire went out, and at that moment the figures rushed to the campsite. John ran as fast as he could into the parking lot. Vincent recalls that at first the engine almost stalled, and then they rushed forward, "leaving rubber on the road." John and Vincent rushed out of the park in panic, heading home.
Drawing of a "wagon" object by John D.
John recalls a stretch of road marked with small, mirrored metal reflectors along the median strip. At some point, the headlights snatched out a series of glowing dots from the darkness and the men almost screamed in panic, suggesting that the glowing pursuers were already nearby.
At 3:30 AM, they drove through the New York State Freeway toll barrier, about an hour's drive from their point of contact. From the moment the events began, when they woke up at about 1:00 am, everything had lasted for at least an hour and a quarter.
Assuming that probably no one would believe them, the young men did not report the contact to the authorities, although they did tell their parents and girlfriends. John and Vincent were so shocked by what happened that they tried not to leave the house for the next week. Stella, Vincent's fiancée, recalled that he was "white as a sheet for a few days, although Vinnie usually has an olive complexion." In addition, about a day after the incident, she noticed several diagonal abrasions on his back, one above the other, which were located in the lower back. Faint traces of scars have survived to this day.
John's case is even stranger. He noticed a few days after the event a small "burn" mark near the navel. It gradually expanded downward towards the groin and was painful. A few weeks later, two more similar marks appeared in the same area. Ultimately, he consulted with his doctor, without mentioning the incident at the resting place. In April, 6 months after contact, his condition worsened, and the doctor sent John to the hospital for examination - a kidney tumor was suspected. But nothing was found to cause the disturbing marks, and 7 days later John was discharged and declared completely healthy.
John was reluctant to talk about another strange feature that had surfaced in the months following the incident at the Catskill Forest. He had occasional episodes of absolute clairvoyance. For example, one day while shopping, he lost his new sunglasses. The next day at work, he “saw” a salesman at an office supply store pick up his glasses, put them in a brown envelope with a clasp, and put it away on the third top shelf. She and Maria returned to the store. The salesperson they had expected to see was not at work, and the new person had not heard of any lost glasses. “Check the third shelf,” John said, “and see if there’s a clasp envelope. They are there. And the glasses were there. These episodes became less frequent and eventually ceased.
It is likely that John and Vincent were abducted either before they woke up in the tent at the very beginning of the incident, or afterwards from a car that would not start. The markings on their bodies are, of course, a sure sign of a likely kidnapping. Both men, independently of each other, are confident that they were abducted due to physical traces, as well as subsequent dreams and flashbacks.
Vincent has a memory of how he lies on the table and looks over his right shoulder through the round window and sees something like the ground below. John, lying in his hospital bed, experienced an unusual fear when the nurse leaned over to him for a routine check. After the incident, John bought and read Bloom's Beyond Earth and Heinek's The UFO Experience, while Vincent was so scared he didn't want to hear or read anything about it. They never looked for publicity; on the contrary, each insisted on complete anonymity. Vincent was a car salesman at the time, and John was an employee of a large insurance company in Manhattan.
Adapted from Budd Hopkins