The Bridgewater Triangle Casebook - the UFO Sightings

The Bridgewater Triangle Casebook - the UFO Sightings

by Bill Russo

What is the Bridgewater Triangle? 

It is a name given to a group of 17 towns and cities in Southeastern Massachusetts, in the New England region of the United States. The roughly 200 square mile area has been host to an enormous number of paranormal happenings from the present day and dating back to colonial times.

Though the parameters of the strange area are not fixed like a stone wall, the Triangle starts near the city of Brockton, home to the late Rocky Marciano, the only unbeaten heavyweight champion in the history of the sport of Boxing.  

Spreading out on one side it veers down towards Providence, Rhode Island, stopping at the town of Rehoboth.  The other side of the Triangle heads towards Fall River, the home of the infamous axe murderer suspect, Lizzie Borden.

Though she was found innocent by a jury, most people still think that Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks, and when she was done, she gave her father 41.

While awaiting for the start of her trial and during the course of it, Lizzie was housed for about a year in the old Taunton jail on Hodges Street.  Curiously, for the rest of her life she would never admit that she was in the jail.  She claimed instead, that she was detained in the eerie Taunton State Hospital.  (for more information, see Bill Russo's book and podcast of Hauntin' Taunton, the Asylum)

The Triangle has been the site of massive amounts of hauntings, UFO sightings, ghastly creatures, satanic cult activity and many other oddities.

A number of researchers say that the abnormalities trace their beginnings to colonial days.  When the Europeans came to the land now called America, they killed off enormous numbers of Native Americans with two things that they carried with them: Muskets and Diseases. The people living in the 'New World' had few defenses against either one.

With his dying breath one of the Wampanoag chiefs cast a perpetual curse on both the people and the land of the Bridgewater Triangle. Whether we believe in such things or not, it is one possible explanation for the spate of problems that have plagued the region for some four hundred years.

The UFO Sightings

Though much about the Triangle is frightening and sometimes dangerous, the UFO sightings have never hurt anyone, as far as we know.  They are more interesting than scary. 

Appropriately the very first recorded UFO sighting in the Bridgewater Triangle was in Bridgewater itself.  If you look on the map you'll see that Bridgewater is almost at the apex of the the diagram. 

One morning the whole town got excited when a strange vibrating noise was heard in the sky.  Bewilderment from that racket was soon forgotten when something even more astounding happened.

A hulking, glowing white sphere floated between the clouds.  From the phantom orb, a great light shined down upon the village.  The rays emitted by the sphere were so strong that they actually cast shadows on the street.  

No, this was not an airplane or a satellite for such things had not been invented (at least on earth) when this sighting took place.  It was more than 300 years ago, in 1710.

The object was viewed by many people and the event was duly recorded in the Boston Newsletter, the first newspaper in the British Colonies of the 'New' World. The broadsheet was first published in 1704.  

The most famous and credible recent sightings were in the sky above the town of Raynham (pronounced Rain-ham) which shares a border with Bridgewater.  

Hundreds of people near the Raynham Dog Racing track reported seeing a bright light high above them, moving across the night sky, in 1979.  What further boosts the credibility of this encounter is that two of the observers were respected, veteran newsmen from a major Boston radio station, WHDH. 

Both men still work in broadcasting. Steve Sbraccia is currently with CBS television, at a major outlet in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Jerry Lopes is president of a radio network.  Back in 1979 they covered all of Massachusetts and Rhode Island for WHDH which was at the time one of the top-rated Boston stations. 

One night Steve and Jerry were driving back from an assignment to their studio in Boston.  Shortly after they entered Raynham, about 35 miles from the city, they noticed something in the sky near the race track.  The track is very close to the Hockomock Swamp, one of the major hotspots of the Triangle.

They pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the car.  Other vehicles also had stopped and people were looking up at the strange light in the sky. 

In the award winning Bridgewater Triangle Documentary, now showing on Amazon Prime, Steve Sbraccia said:

"We saw this this thing coming at us with this very bright light.  It passed directly overhead. It was as big as three Boeing 707s, wingtip to wingtip.  It hovered for a couple of minutes, and then it took off."  

Steve said the object was shaped like home plate on a baseball field.  He saw it two more times in two other locations.  Over the next few days, newspaper reports in the Brockton Enterprise and other publications confirmed that many people had seen the UFOs and their descriptions matched that provided by Steve and Jerry. 

For me, the UFO report by the two veteran journalists, was one of the major highlights of the Bridgewater Triangle Documentary.  Though I saw a creature that may have been a Puckwudgie in the same area (my house was less than three miles from the race track)

I have never seen a UFO.  

One of my sons, has not seen a UFO either, but he spends a lot of time in the area of the Hockomock Swamp and he has been witness to some unusual, almost ghostly, lighting of trees in the middle of the night.  

In the woods surrounding a pond at the edge of the swamp, he has seen, on three separate occasions, whole sections of the trees in the forest, glowing with an eerie white light.  Not bright, the illumination was faint.  He described the trees as looking like giant glow sticks using up the last of their energy.  They had a dim, but discernable light.  

One tree, he said, might not have been noticeable, but when 75 or a hundred trees have the same dim glow, it's somewhat unsettling.  The next morning, in the daylight, he examined the trees to see if they had moss or lichen that could have been the reason for the illumination.  There was however, no moss on the trees and no rational explanation for the glowing effect - except for the fact that they are growing in, and glowing in, "The Bridgewater Triangle".

-0-

Watch for the upcoming film 'Wonderland' on Netflix - if it actually gets filmed.  Due for release this year (2020) the movie starring Mark Wahlberg is using the now shuttered, Raynham Dog Track as the location for much of the production.   The script was created from the book, Wonderland, by Robert B. Parker.  It features Mark Wahlberg as Spenser the Boston Detective.  

Live dog racing was banned in Boston, Raynham and Taunton, the only three tracks in Massachusetts, about 15 years ago.  So the track has become run down and overgrown as you can see.  

This is what it used to look like:

This is what it looks like in the film Wonderland:

So they're trying to make a movie in a run down race track that's right in the beating heart of the Bridgewater Triangle.  Will the Puckwudiges allow this?  What about the snakes the size of stovepipes?  And the Thunderbirds, are they going to be okay with this?  Well Wonderland is scheduled to be on Netflix this year.  We'll see. Or we won't!

-0-

Look for more unusual stories from the strange area of the Hockomock Swamp in The Bridgewater Triangle Casebook in Bill Russo's blog, Adventures in Type and Space.

-0-

Bill Russo is the author of both non-fiction and fiction books.  His work is available on all major online retailers.  Many of his books and short stories are free on Smashwords.  Bill is the producer of Short Story Theater, which has produced 39 of his stories as dramatic audio productions.  They are all free on Spreaker, and all other podcast sites.