Investigators busy with UFO sightings

BUCKS COUNTY. From flaming trees to six-sided, hovering aircraft, people in towns like Langhorne and Fairless Hills are seeing things otherworldly — making the area the current ground zero of the UFO world.

“I’m spending almost two hours a night on these sightings in Bucks County,” John Ventre of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Mutual UFO Network said last week. “This wave that [started] the second half of last year was incredible.”

Over 100 sightings since June more suited for Fox and Mulder than local police departments have attracted the attention of the Discovery and History channels.

The Discovery Channel brought its “UFOs Over Earth” series to Bucks County last year and the History Channel’s “UFO Hunters” is now investigating some of the more credible sightings.

“There was an incredible spike in 2008,” UFO Hunters producer Kevin Barry said. “We’re still talking to people to see if we have something on our hands.”

Unexplainable sightings are not new to Lower Bucks County, Barry said, noting a well-known 1973 UFO sighting along Route 1 in Fairless Hills.

“It’s interesting because there is a history there,” Barry said.

Sightings last year include a Levittown woman who said she saw probes of light dropped into a tree in her backyard, Ventre said, and a Doylestown man who saw a slow-moving six-sided UFO near his home.

The new question — beyond where aliens will appear quickly and vaguely next  — is what comes first: the appearance of UFOs or the appearance of UFO television shows.

“That’s an undeniable part of some stories. What makes people see these things?” Barry said.