1968 UAP Sighting — FBI Files
Reports detail strange flying objects dominating the skies over North Jersey. A bright white disk hovered over the Wanaque Reservoir, prompting investigations by NICAP and local scientists. Witnesses described the object as performing dives and maneuvers, and it was seen by polic
Background
A UFO/UAP incident extracted from page 14 of 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_10, a declassified FBI vault file released by the Department of War on May 8, 2026 as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The incident is dated January 15, 1968 and located in Unknown location.
What the file records
Reports detail strange flying objects dominating the skies over North Jersey. A bright white disk hovered over the Wanaque Reservoir, prompting investigations by NICAP and local scientists. Witnesses described the object as performing dives and maneuvers, and it was seen by police officers from their patrol cars.
Witnesses on file: civilian observers.
Verbatim from the file
“thousands of eyewitnesses know well the story of that mysterious terrestrial stranger.”. “The bright white disk that streaked across three counties and hovered periodically over the Wanaque Reservoir will provide an ample amount of conversation for weeks to come.”. “Even the police were dumb-founded. They too saw the white oval hovering in the heavens from their prowl cars.”
Status of the case
The page-level assessment recorded in the file is: unresolved. All records released under the PURSUE program are designated unresolved by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office unless otherwise stated, meaning the federal government has not concluded the events were anomalous, has not concluded they were conventional, and has not ruled out either possibility. Conventional candidates for sightings of this period include experimental aircraft, weather balloons (especially the Project Mogul series), atmospheric optical phenomena, and astronomical objects.