A Modern-Day Maury Island.

Greetings. Aztec, Aurora, Del Rio, Edinburg, Kingman, Maury Island, San Agustin. The names are infamous, in fact legendary in UFO circles. Add Morristown to that debased list. 

The 2009 Morristown UFO hoax was a series of alleged events involving unidentified red lights in the sky, first reported near Morristown, New Jersey, on Monday, January 5th of 2009, between 8:15 pm and 9:00 pm local time. The unidentified lights were later observed on four other additional nights: January 26, January 29, February 7, and February 17th of 2009. The alleged events were later revealed to be a complete hoax, perpetrated by Joe Rudy and Chris Russo. Rudy and Russo described the hoax as a social experiment, with the ambition of exposing the UFO topic as a pseudoscience, which it is. The two men also stated that they wanted to raise consciousness about the unreliability of eyewitness claims. Five flare lights attached to helium balloons were released by Rudy and Russo and seen in the skies above Morris County, New Jersey, with the majority of sighting reports concentrated in the towns of Madison, Morristown, Hanover Township, Morris Plains, and Florham Park.

At 8:28pm on January 5th of 2009, the police department in Hanover Township received the first of what turned out to be several 9-1-1 calls. Neighboring police departments also received numerous phone calls in regard to the strange lights. Morristown Police Lt. Jim Cullen alerted Morristown Airport about a possible hazard to civilian airline traffic. Airport control tower workers reported seeing the unidentified lights in the sky, but could not make a firm determination as to what they were. Hanover Township police also contacted the Morristown Airport to try to pick up the objects on radar, but they were unable to pick up anything. 

Local and national news platforms covered the story, with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON,) posting information about the alleged events on their website. On April 1st of 2009, Rudy and Russo came forward with video evidence demonstrating that they were the sole perpetrators of the Morristown hoax, demonstrating how easy it is to fool the so-called "UFO experts." To be clear, there are times when it is painfully easy to pull the ufological wool over the eyes of UFO investigators. 

Nick Roesler, the author of the outstanding "Photographic Evidence of Unconventional Flying Objects," made the following statement during the course of last week's edition of my program "UFO'Real? Live!!" and I quote:

"Hoaxes are the statistical aberration among UFO cases. Statistically negligible." 

I agree with Nick's assessment. Unfortunately, those statistical aberrations are far better known than many other robust UFO cases that have persisted in their lack of a defensible explanation. That singular fact is detrimental to the entire UFO research community. With self-described "researchers" promoting hoaxes like Aztec, Aurora, Del Rio, Edinburg, Kingman, Maury Island, and San Agustin, the UFO waters have become muddied by their amateurish and embarrassing endeavors. 

Thank you for your time and consideration.