2016 Was Very Busy with UFO Sightings, Bigfoot and Cryptid Encounters across Pennsylvania

From Researcher: Stan Gordon

 Many Pennsylvanian’s reported encounters of the mysterious kind during 2016.  Witnesses reported strange formations of lights in the sky, and loud booms that shook houses in some areas.  There were also reports of strange footprints, odd animal screams and cries, low level sightings of mysterious objects in the sky, odd field formations, and close range encounters with Bigfoot and other cryptids (creatures whose existence have not been confirmed ) from across the state. Residents reported various paranormal incidents and in some cases, strange lights and images were captured on digital cameras.

Since I began researching and documenting such oddities from across Pennsylvania in 1959 as a curious ten year old boy, many thousands of mysterious incidents have continued to be reported, and such cases occur annually. I began to conduct on scene research in 1965 after the UFO incident occurred near Kecksburg, PA.  During the 57 years that I have been investigating these anomalies, I have never had a personal encounter with a UFO or Bigfoot.

It became apparent to me long ago, that many mysterious encounters, when properly investigated, are found to have a manmade or natural explanation. UFOs quite often are misidentifications of such things as bright stars and planets, meteors, satellites, searchlights, Chinese lanterns and drones. Some Bigfoot sightings were identified as bear, large shaggy dogs, and hunters in camouflage. There are, however, UFO sightings and other strange encounters reported each year that can’t be so easily dismissed.

There were many sightings of UFOs reported statewide throughout the year. Observers reported sightings of spherical, cylindrical and triangular shape objects. There have been an increasing number of sightings in recent years of large solid rectangular objects that have been seen at low level.

Those individuals who have reported such sightings come from all walks of life and age groups. Many are professionals such as police officers, military and commercial pilots, engineers, and educators. The vast majority of witnesses I have interviewed were not seeking any publicity. Many of these people did not believe in the existence of these phenomena until they had their own personal encounter.

I have been taking calls from the public since 1969, and I receive sighting reports on a regular basis via phone and email. Across the country and in Pennsylvania, there are many other researchers and organizations who also receive Pennsylvania sighting reports. Some of those sources include the Keystone Bigfoot Project, The Pennsylvania Cryptozoology Society, The Center for Cryptozoology Studies, Jim Brown of Jim’s Destinations, Lon Strickler of “Phantoms & Monsters,” the National UFO Reporting Center, and the PA Chapter of MUFON. I continue to maintain contact with many sources from across the state and nation.

The following is a synopsis of some of the interesting cases reported during 2016:

 January 1, 2016- A man who was visiting in the area for the holidays, was traveling during the early morning hours between Trafford and Monroeville. The headlights of the car ahead of him struck a figure walking on the side of the road. The man noticed a brown hair covered creature that stood about 6 feet tall. Its arms hung down past the knees and it was walked hunched over. The most prominent feature was that the creature had two glowing red eyes. The witness said it was likely that the other motorists on that road also saw it.

February 4, 2016- Witnesses along Route 30 near Latrobe observed a formation of about 7 red-orange lights moving in the evening sky. Some observers reported that the lights broke formation and moved slowly up over the Chestnut Ridge and higher into the sky where they vanished from sight.

March 2016- The Lower Burrell area in Westmoreland County has had a history of sightings of what some witnesses have reported as “Black Panthers.” An animal sighted in a wooded area in March had an estimated body length with the tail at about 7 feet long. The animal had ears that appeared to be pointed and stood straight up. In September in this same general area, another witness came upon a series of what appear to be 4 inch cat tracks.

A rural road near West Newton, PA, where a witness reported encountering a Bigfoot in 2016.
Copyright 2016
Stan Gordon

April 17, 2016- During the evening, a woman was driving on a rural road near West Newton when she noticed ahead of her, a tall dark figure emerge from the right side and move up on the road just as she was approaching the area. She slowed down and looked at a 7 foot tall creature covered with long brownish-red hair. The witness noticed that the arms were very long and skinny, and that the creature had large red eyes that were glowing in the dark. The witness, who had no interest or belief in Bigfoot, became very frightened and left the area very quickly.

May 10, 2016- Two men were riding on a rural road in Fayette County outside of Fairchance. It was a foggy, and rainy evening when this incident took place.  Suddenly, an upright 7 feet tall hair covered creature emerged from the bank on the left side of the road and stopped in the path of the car 20 feet away. The driver slammed on the brakes, while the creature stared at the car with its glowing red eyes.

After a short time of staring at the creature, the driver slowly moved the car forward, and both men felt the car make slight contact with the hairy being. At that point the creature placed its hands on the front of the vehicle, with the bumper against its legs. Soon after, the creature removed its hands from the car and walked into the woods below the road and was not seen again. This area has had a history of other Bigfoot encounters. Researcher Jim Brown investigated this incident.

June 11, 2016- In a rural area near Jeanette, several people observed a series of orange objects that looked similar to meteors. However, they had no tails and were slow moving. While under observation, one object broke apart and separated into two similar objects that moved across the sky in different directions. A similar sighting occurred near Leechburg in Armstrong County on June 16^th, where other witnesses reported up to 10 luminous objects in the sky that were blinking orange then white in color. At one point, two of the objects joined together, then separated and moved off in different directions.

September 15, 2016- Witnesses saw what looked like a silver disc in the clear morning sky moving towards the southeast. About 20 seconds after the object was lost from sight, what appeared to be 5 military jets approached and circled over the area. Just three days earlier in Ohio, a witness I had talked with observed a semi-circular object that appeared to be metallic and gray in color. About 20 minutes later he heard the sound of a military jet in the area.

October 16, 2016- During the afternoon, a couple was driving down Route 43 in Fayette County outside of Uniontown. They were approaching the crest of a hill when a black misty smoke cloud appeared above some trees and began to form into a large black rectangular object. The object moved over the two left southbound lanes of the highway. It then quickly moved over the northbound lanes that they were traveling on towards Pittsburgh. As the object nearly cleared those lanes, it suddenly stopped and formed a circular shape that was not as solid as the rectangular object had looked. It quickly reformed back into the rectangular shape and moved back over the southbound lanes of the highway then suddenly just vanished from sight and was not seen again.

screen shot capture photo of the object seen in downtown Pittsburgh in November of 2016.
The picture is used with permission of the witness.

November 8, 2016- Pittsburgh-During the afternoon a man had just left work and was walking to his car in downtown Pittsburgh. He noticed high in the sky what appeared to be a cylinder shaped object that looked as though it was hovering but had some movement to it. The object then seemed to drop from that altitude and smoke appeared to be emitting from the object. As the object fell, it was blocked from view by the parkway.

The man started videotaping as he ran in that direction. The object was blocked from view at its lowest level but the witness saw it for a second over the Monongahela River. The object appeared to descend fast yet almost gliding.

The witness had the opinion that the object was metallic and he noticed some type of triangle near the rear section. The witness believes the object fell into the river. The witness was able to capture some screen shots of the object from the video footage he had taken.

Sketch of triangular object sighted in York County, PA. Sketch used with permission of the witness.

November 11, 2016- A man located in York County was outside talking on his phone that evening when he noticed an unusual object in the sky that appeared to be gliding. The object was three dimensional and looked like a very large metallic triangular object. The object was dark gray in color and appeared to have a white foggy mist surrounding it.

The witness could clearly see the side of the craft that was visible to him. He also had a very good view of the underside of the object. There were a number of lights seen on the object, including three white circular ones that were evenly spaced straight across along the rear underside.

The witness also noticed two bluish rectangular configurations which he felt may have been an exhaust system on the back of the object. The object made a slight sound similar to the low growl of a high performance sports car. (Sightings of these large solid triangular objects have been reported for many years across the state. During the last two years I am aware of a number of low level sightings of similar objects and some were observed in daylight.)

November 2016- During this month and occurring for about 4 months prior, residents that live along the Derry side of the Chestnut Ridge report having seen a luminous sphere of light about the size of a softball and sometimes accompanied by other small lights of various colors come up to a window of the house and slide across the glass and then move away. (The Chestnut Ridge has a long history of UFOs and cryptid encounters and similar smaller round objects have been reported for years.)

I received information concerning many cryptid sightings from widespread locations in the Keystone State. Bigfoot sightings were reported from many areas including Allegheny, Butler, Westmoreland, and Fayette Counties. There were Black Panther, thunderbird (huge birds with massive wingspans) and other  strange creature accounts reported.

There were some accounts from wide spread areas of an animal that witnesses were unable to identify.Some said it looked like a cross between a wolf and a very large dog. During a July morning, a motorist traveling on Route 66, between Greensburg and Delmont saw a strange animal emerge from the brush along the road. It was a dog-like animal that was running low to the ground. The hair on the body looked like that of a deer and it had a long black non-bushy tail. The witness noticed that the head was like a dog, but it had a long snout and a very pointed nose. The ears were pointed and stood upright. The animal ran up an embankment and moved out of sight.

In early December near Blairsville, a person driving in a car saw an animal that looked like a very large dog. However, it had some wolf-like features. The animal had medium gray fur that was thick like that of a wolf. It also had a tail similar to that of a wolf. On the same day, but on the other side of the state another strange animal was observed. In a rural area of Dauphin County, Two people saw a strange animal run in front of their vehicle. The animal was covered in a gray fur unlike that of a dog. It did however have features of both a wolf and a canine and it moved very fast on four legs. The animal reportedly had a large snout and wolf-like ears and an arch on its back. Some of these could be coywolf sightings however, some of the reports that are being received by various researchers seem somewhat stranger and are being investigated.

To report a UFO, Bigfoot, Cryptid or other unusual event from Pennsylvania, you can contact me at: 724-838-7768, or email me at: paufo@comcast.net. Keep checking my website: www.stangordon.info for updates on recent sightings. If you have any information on the 1965 Kecksburg UFO incident please contact me as well.

Many Strange Encounters with UFOs and Mysterious Creatures in Pennsylvania During 2015

From Stan Gordon

(photo copyright Stan Gordon) A section of the Chestnut Ridge in Westmoreland County, PA where there has been a history of Bigfoot and UFO sightings.

Did you see anything strange in the sky last year? Were you out in the woods and encountered a mysterious animal unlike anything that you had ever seen before? Did you experience an incident that you couldn’t find an explanation for? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you were not alone. Many Residents from across the state of Pennsylvania reported numerous observations of strange lights and objects in the sky throughout 2015. Some claimed to have seen formations of glowing lights, while others reported encountering spherical, cigar, triangular and rectangular objects from many locations of the Keystone state.

Even stranger were reports from many locations of encounters with mysterious creatures. Sightings of Bigfoot have historically been recorded for years, and these incidents continue to be reported annually. There were reports of huge birds with massive wingspans (thunderbirds) and even black panthers that are not common to this part of the world. Some creature reports were even stranger.

Citizens of Pennsylvania reported many types of strange incidents including seeing strange footprints, hearing frightening howls, whoops and screams from nearby woods, observing odd clouds, seeing fireballs crossing the sky, and experienced loud mystery booms that shook their homes. Some reported various paranormal experiences including capturing strange images on their cameras. As in past years, the majority of anomalies reported concern unusual lights and objects in the sky.

My interest in strange occurrences began in 1959, when I began to record and document mysterious incidents that were occurring in my home state of Pennsylvania. I was 16 years old in 1965 when the Kecksburg UFO incident occurred in Westmoreland County, and I began to document details about what had taken place. I began to conduct in the field investigations of UFO and cryptid reports after that incident, and set up a hotline in 1969, for the public to report UFO sightings and other unusual accounts. After so many years of interest in these strange occurrences, I still have never seen a UFO or Bigfoot.

I continue to record such incidents that come to my attention yearly via phone or email. Today there are many other researchers and organizations who also receive Pennsylvania reports. Some of these resources gathering this information include the National UFO Reporting Center, The Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society, the PA Chapter of MUFON, Jim Brown of Jim’s Destinations, and Lon Strickler of “Phantoms & Monsters.” I maintain contact with many UFO and Bigfoot investigators statewide and across the country.

When I began my field investigations many years ago into various phenomena, it became apparent that many incidents that initially sounded unusual, when properly investigated, were found to be explainable and determined to be of manmade or natural origin. Many UFO sightings are found to have logical explanations and over the years some observations were explained as bright planets and stars, brilliant meteors or re-entry of space debris, lights on aircraft, satellites, NASA high altitude tests, searchlight beams, lights reflecting off of insects, Chinese lanterns, and remote control aircraft. And now we have to deal with quadcopters (drones) with led displays.

Some Bigfoot sightings were only misidentifications of bear or large shaggy dogs. Others were camouflaged hunters in the woods. Many strange footprints were normal tracks that had been distorted by weather and ground conditions. The point is that many anomalies of various types can be explained. Not every UFO and cryptid encounter, however, can be so easily explained away.

While strange encounters are reported from many widespread locations from across the state, one of the most active areas for such unusual incidents continues to be along the Chestnut Ridge that covers sections of Westmoreland, Fayette, and Indiana Counties.

The following are some of the interesting incidents that came to my attention in 2015.

March 12, 2015- Two people had gone out to do some late night shopping near Monessen, located in the Mon Valley area. As they passed under a bridge, the car headlights struck a nine feet tall man-like creature that was covered with black hair that was standing along the side of a road. As soon as the lights hit it, the creature squinted its eyes and turned and tilted its head. The couple stared at the creature for about 15 seconds then quickly left the area. About 50 feet away from where they saw the creature, they noticed a terrible odor. The Mon valley has had a long history of Bigfoot sightings.

March 16, 2015- Numerous sources received information of a loud boom that shook houses that evening over a wide area of Fayette County from Connellsville to Uniontown. About the same time odd lights were reportedly seen in the area, which were followed by observations of an unusual amount of helicopter activity. A similar mystery boom was reported the night before in Allegheny County.

April 17, 2015- During the evening at a rural location in Westmoreland County not far from West Newton, two people were sitting off a country road and observed a bright white light in the sky moving in their direction which began to make a circular motion. The solid round white object, which made no sound, approached closer to them and hovered over some trees. Suddenly, the car and the area around it became illuminated by a dim white light that was emitted from the hovering object. The witnesses quickly left the area.

April 18, 2015- At a rural location in Greene County not far from Waynesburg, a driver observed what looked like a tall upright figure covered with hair moving quickly up a hillside near a construction site.

April 18, 2015- During the early morning hours, a witness located in a rural area near South Greensburg saw what looked like a tall dark figure in the yard. Later at that location, a large unusual footprint was found that measured approximately 16.5 inches long and 8 inches wide. In past years, other strange creature encounters have been reported from this general area.

April 21, 2015- Around 10:30 AM, a couple was driving between Parker and East Brady in Butler County when they saw a bright flash of light in the sky. The flash appeared to have been the sun reflecting for a moment off the surface of a very large solid object that appeared to be off in the distance over the Allegheny River. The witnesses pulled over to take a better look. The object looked solid black and rectangular shaped and looked to have 4 rows of windows or indentations on its surface. The object entered a large dark cloud that was nearby. The man readied his camera to photograph the object when it exited the cloud, but after 45 minutes, the object was never seen again.

May 8, 2015- Two people driving up a hill during the afternoon in North Huntingdon Township observed a silver metallic “pill” shaped elongated object that was rounded on the ends. The object was moving rapidly across the sky and was soon blocked by trees. When they reached an open view the object was not seen again. There have been many UFO sightings reported around the Irwin and North Huntingdon areas for years.

August 28, 2015- In the distant evening sky over the Laurel Ridge near Ligonier, witnesses observed an object that looked like a clear bubble with a fuzzy looking outside edge. As the witnesses watched, the strange object suddenly dropped straight down from the sky towards the ground. They expected there to be an impact and explosion but they neither heard nor saw anything after that. Many strange events have occurred over the years around both the Laurel Mountain area and Chestnut Ridge.

Late August-Early September, 2015- This incident took place around 5 PM on a sunny afternoon as the witness was taking a leisurely drive in eastern Butler County. Suddenly, 15-20 feet ahead of the vehicle and about ¾ of the way across the road, a being that was hard to describe was moving from right to left in front of the car. Whatever this thing was, it had a skinny body, stood about 4-4 ½ feet tall, and was similar to the color of a deer.

The head looked somewhat like that of a deer but was not real pointy. It narrowed at the top then rounded off. The creature was observed only from the side. The arms were very short and were held close to the chest. The hands were quite small and looked as though they were carrying something or being held together. No legs or feet were observed. The driver said the thing just “glided” above the roadway. When the witness reached the location on the road where the creature had been, it was no longer seen. The witness could not understand how the thing was just gone in a matter of seconds.

September, 2015- A witness reported seeing a huge black bird with a wingspan estimated to be over 15 feet wide that wasn’t flapping its wings, but just soaring through the sky. The sighting took place near the Cedar Street exit outside of Greensburg. This area has had a history of thunderbird reports. There were other reports of giant bird sightings from across the state during the year.

September-October 2015- Numerous reports of triangular objects were reported from various locations.

On September 1, 2015, a witness near Springdale located about 18 miles NE of Pittsburgh observed a very bright white light toward the west that evening. As the light got closer, an unusual loud sound was heard unlike that of jet or propeller aircraft. As the object passed low overhead, it appeared to be huge and was not any type of aircraft the witness was familiar with. The observer looked up at the bottom of a solid boomerang shaped object that had evenly spaced dim white spotlights that were all non-blinking along the edge of the underside of the object. The underbelly of the object had a greenish tinge. The object moved toward the east, then banked to the south and moved out of sight.

In early October at a rural location between Fayette and Westmoreland counties, a man walked outside of his home around 11 AM and looked up to see the bottom of a very large solid black triangular object that had appeared to have four exhaust vents. The object was moving very slowly about 500 feet above the ground and was completely silent. The man grabbed his cell phone which was completely charged to take a picture. When he aimed at it, the phone reportedly lost all power and would not function. This effect has been reported by other witnesses over the years.

November 23, 2015- At about 2 PM, a married couple was driving on a rural road about 2 miles from Ligonier. The driver noticed some movement in the bushes to the right of the road. Suddenly, an animal began to trot from right to left about 10-20 feet ahead of the car. The car was stopped as both witnesses watched something quite strange.

The animal was four legged and looked somewhat like a fox. However, they could only see the outline of the animal, as this creature was not solid, and no color or fur was observed. The husband told me that the animal had a “smoky veil shape” but his wife who had a longer look at it stated that she could “see through it.” She also said that there was a specific area within the body shape that was like an energy pattern. They watched as the animal entered the woods to their left and never saw it again.

December 24, 2015- At about 9 PM, a witness was outside when he noticed a solid triangular object southwest of Greensburg. There were a number of non-blinking lights on the silent object which was approaching closer to the witness location. The witness grabbed a floodlight and aimed it towards the object. As soon as the light hit the object, it disappeared and was not seen again.

December 9, 2015, was the 50^th anniversary of the Kecksburg, PA UFO crash-landing incident. Late that afternoon in 1965, a brilliant fiery object was observed over a widespread area. That object reportedly fell from the sky into a wooded ravine near that Mount Pleasant Township community. Soon after the object fell, many eyewitnesses reported military personnel arriving in that area to search for the fallen object.

The object was reportedly taken away from that location on a military flatbed tractor trailer truck where it was transported first to Lockbourne Air Force Base in Ohio for a short stay over. The truck then continued on to Wright Patterson Air Force Base where it ended its journey. There have been many theories brought forth over the years as to what the object was that fell near Kecksburg in 1965. What that object was remains open for speculation.

To report a UFO, Bigfoot, cryptid, or any mysterious event from Pennsylvania, contact Stan at 724-838-7768 or email him at: paufo@comcast.net. Visit Stan’s website at: www.stangordon.info.