Camp Hero Montauk, Mid-20th c.

My father was among a group of surf casters who had permits to fish the surf inside the gated area known as Camp Hero, an Army Post in Montauk, NY., during a time-frame roughly 1947 till sometime in the early 1950s. This isn't a research project, this post, just a comment, and perhaps a shot across somebody's bow, I'm not sure exactly who or why. Among the other guys were a Real Estate broker from East Hampton, and the president of a roofing company, who drove all the way from Riverhead, several times a week, to fish. They were gentleman fishermen, not rowdy, not heavy drinkers. 

To get right to the point, on many occasions they saw what they began to call flying saucers. As I remember them talking about it at our home, they were saucer shaped glowing things, about the size of a small car, that came in and out of the ocean, flew up, flew back down and under the water, and sometimes skipped along the water like a stone. There was no doubt about it from the point of the three men that I heard talking about it, (I was just a child), that these things were not flares, and not any kind of vehicle known to man. 

After talking to an officer at the camp and getting a "Don't know anything about it.", the guys decided my father, being a nationally known illustrator, should get in touch with some higher up in the government. Ray said he would, but held off, not wanting to get in trouble. Then, while at his club in the city, The Society of Illustrators, he heard from one of his friends about a writer who wrote for True Magazine; Air Force Major Donald Kehoe. Kehoe had written non-fiction and some Science Fiction for Men's magazines and such, and had recently written a book called Flying Saucers are Real which was just then about to become a break-out best seller.  

Ray wrote to Kehoe and they began to write back and forth, and eventually met, and Ray became a true believer in Flying Saucers. That went on for about a year or so, and then.....nothing. He stopped talking about it, and everyone seemed to forget.

A few years later, when I began riding horses on a neighbor's farm, the farmer's wife reported that on numerous occasions she had seen a flying saucer land in her yard and that little green men got out and walked around. The unanimous opinion was that she was sweetly, if female-hysterically, crazy. She went on with these sightings until a psychiatrist got her to begin doing ceramics, making porcelain horses, at which time she ceased seeing things. Perhaps it was the lithium in the clay.  

I have not discussed this topic, now referred to as UFO sightings, since the topic is still subject to derision, and since I am not, exactly, a true believer. I'm a doubting Thomas. 

Even though I've seen one. (Oh, Jesus, there, now I've really blown it.)  What I mean is, once, some years ago, perhaps it was around 1990, (this isn't a research paper so I'm not looking things up, if I decide to do so I'll do some editing), I saw one. 
Anyway; I was single, not seeing anyone in particular, but I had met a willing participant at a party who seemed willing to do what we called in those days Watching the Submarine Races. So we were driving towards the beach from the residence of some literary type who was renting a bungalow between East Hampton Village and Amagansett, which beach happened to be the one called Wyborgs. Information about said beach may appear at some future date in an as yet non-existent index to this blog. As we came toward the corner, called the Kazickas corner, about which same as above, we saw a string of lights low on the horizon over Hook Pond, as we faced West. 

I pulled over on the grass and we both quickly got out of the car and stood watching. It was impressive. Some of the lights were stronger than others. For a minute I thought it was an oddly lit Jumbo Jet coming in for a crash landing on the Maidstone Club Golf Course. But within a split second it started to rise up almost vertically, and took on the shape of an oval, lit all around, and then appeared to be completely circular as it reached directly over us. It was rising at it's constant speed, which didn't seem too fast because it was so big. I would have said that it was at least a couple hundred feet in diameter. Then, the interior of it began to present a light show, different colored lights flashing in abstract pattern like the northern lights. This was the part that made me think it was some sort of gadget. I wondered if it was a giant holograph being put on by a Broadway producer. One happened to live behind the hedges just over there on the other side of the road.  

The thing got smaller, the light show stopped, and the craft, or hologram, or secret weapon, now the size of a quarter, turned Southeast and cruised down along the shoreline, from it's great height, until, after about twenty minutes, it disappeared. 

My date and I were suitably freaked out, but calmed down enough to visit and shmooze with some folks at the beach who had also seen this thing. We accepted a cold drink, and decided that we were all sort of blood brothers now, having seen a UFO.  I never saw her or any of the other people again.