The March 2023 conjunction of Jupiter and Venus photographed from the International Space Station. The appearance of the two planets close together in the sky prompted multiple UFO reports in Lebanon County, according to records from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. (Credit: NASA)
Mysterious lights following a motorist on a dark country road, a saucer-shaped craft hovering over a suburban subdivision, and a flaming orb falling into the woods are among phenomena Pennsylvania residents have reported to authorities, state records show.
After the head of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) casually mentioned during a legislative hearing earlier this year that the agency tracks UFO sightings, the Capital-Star obtained records showing PEMA has investigated more than a dozen such events in the last decade.
“We take all reports and we share it with the appropriate agencies to be able to investigate,” Padfield told members of the state House Appropriations Committee in February.
Often dull and tedious, state budget hearings nonetheless are a chance for the Legislature to grill administration officials about how they plan to spend the taxpayers’ money.
The cabinet secretaries flesh out the details of the governor’s budget proposal but deliver few bombshells. Every once in a while, however, an answer prompts lawmakers to look up from their stacks of white papers with surprise and demand more.
It was thus as Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency Director Randy Padfield fielded a question from state Rep. Ben Waxman (D-Philadelphia) about potential threats to the state’s nuclear power plants from drones and unmanned aerial vehicles.
“We have had reports of unidentified flying objects in the past,” Padfield said before quickly moving on to the role of the Federal Aviation Administration in regulating drones.
“So, wait. Run that back again. What did you say about UFOs?” House Appropriations Committee Chairperson Jordan Harris (D-Philadelphia) asked when Padfield had finished his answer.
Padfield replied that PEMA occasionally gets reports of lights in the sky from county 911 centers and upon investigation authorities can attribute them to astronomical or earthly sources, such as helicopter traffic around the Pennsylvania National Guard base at Fort Indiantown Gap.
“Most of them are unfounded, or they’re attributable to some other mechanisms,” Padfield concluded, prompting another follow up from Harris.
“So, what about the un-most?” Harris asked. “You’re talking like ET phone home or something?”
Padfield conceded that some sightings are “undefined” and are difficult to understand unless the person reporting the phenomenon gets pictures but everything is passed along to the appropriate agencies.
Not satisfied with Padfield’s answer, the Capital-Star filed a right-to-know request with PEMA seeking records of unidentified flying objects and aerial phenomena and, for good measure, “encounters with unknown beings including those of suspected extra-terrestrial or cryptozoological nature.”
PEMA responded, perhaps appropriately, on April 1, with 40 pages of records on UFO reports passed to the Commonwealth Watch and Warning Center, which receives reports of certain events from county emergency dispatch centers and distributes them to appropriate state and federal agencies.
