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Clouds quickly fill the night sky, obscuring a nearly full moon. It's not a good night to find Whatever's Out There.
Still, half a dozen people who have parked their cars on the shoulder of a country road in New York's Hudson Valley crane their necks to scan the sky. This is supposedly a prime area for spotting UFO activity, but the only things visible on this cool autumn evening are airplanes banking into nearby airports.
Peter Gersten waits suspiciously. The silver-bearded lawyer believes 99% of supposed UFO sightings are easily explainable, despite the vanity license plates on his Porsche that read UFOSREAL. He has devoted hundreds of hours to wresting UFO documents from the government in court.
Most UFO watchers are more patient than the federal government. The U.S. Air Force canceled its surveillance program, Project Bluebook, on Dec. 17, 1969, almost five months after the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon. Dr. Edward U. Condon of the University of Colorado recommended that the program come to an end after years of unconvincing research.
Ready to Submit
But UFO searchers persist. Victoria Lacas waits expectantly. She is mad because most people abducted by aliens are unwilling victims, and she would be more than happy to submit herself to experiments.
Linda Doern waits calmly. Linda and her husband, Peter, both real-estate appraisers, admit to being fascinated by psychic and other unexplained phenomena. An evening in Pine Bush, she jokes, "beats watching television."
Ellen Crystall waits excitedly. The self-described UFO photographer is the guardian of the field, where she claims to have seen aliens and dozens of unexplained lights. She has driven to this field from her New Jersey home hundreds of times since 1981 in the hope of making contact again.
"You missed it, Ellen," Gersten tells Crystall when her car pulls up half an hour later than expected. "The mother ship was here. There used to be several more of us waiting."
Crystall dismisses the joke and checks...