'96 Power Outage

A massive power outage hit the western half of the US on the day of the Independence Day movie's initial West Coast screenings, July 2, 1996. The Drudge Report stated that 17 states were affected. The HALNET Internet Services said of the this massive power outage:

Nils Olvesen, N5WVS
HAL-PC Internet Services (HALNET)

To the best of anyone's knowlege, have there been any reports of UFO sightings anywhere in the Western U.S. on the night of the massive power blackout? Insofar as what I have been able to ascertain by listening to radio and TV news reports, there was no mention of any sightings, although the cause of the electromechanical breakdown and subsequent restoration of power remains a mystery. (The actual parts which failed have been idenfied, but the reason(s) for their failure seems to be unknown.)

A little historical background may be in order here:

On the evening of November 9, 1965, at approximately 5:00 P.M., a main circuit breaker at the hydroelectric power station at St. Catherine's, Ontario tripped open for no apparent reason. This caused a cascading power surge and resulting failure in all of the main power stations and substations along the grid serving the Northeastern U.S. and southeastern Ontario, resulting in one of the greatest blackouts in U.S history, leaving over 30 million customers in the dark for over 12 hours. Just prior to and during the cascading power failure, there were many reports of UFO's streaking to the east from Ohio and western New York State, and were seen hovering over the main power distribution stations in the lower Hudson Valley area which service the New York City area and Long Island. The UFO's then reportedly streaked off at great speed toward the east, and were not seen again. New York City was in the dark from 5:28 P.M. until 5:30 A.M. the next morning (I know this; I lived through it). All investigations conducted to attempt to explain why this breaker, which cost $2.50, tripped open were unsuccessful in pinpointing a cause. The part was examined extensively, and it was determined that there was nothing wrong with it; it was functioning properly.

On July 13, 1977, a similar situation occured when a substation serving New York City and Long Island suddenly failed just after 9:00 P.M. This substation, located in Buchanan, N.Y., in Rockland County, distributed power to the New York City and Long Island areas from one of the nuclear reactors at the Indian Point nuclear power station. This time, almost 24 hours elaped until power was fully restored. Subsequent investigations blamed the entire failure on lightning storms which were in the vicinity of Buchanan that evening. The report stated that 3 bolts of lightning were responsible for knocking out all of the power for New York City and Long Island, which of course, seemed quite preposterous. Upon further investigation, again there were reports of UFO sightings in the Buchanan and Indian Point areas just prior to the massive power failure.

Many investigation of many power blackouts and disruptions throught the world have revealed the nearby presence of UFO's. Remember, UFO's are reported to interfere with electrical and elecronic devices on the ground (e.g. automobiles which stall when a UFO passes over the car or is nearby), and after they leave the immediate vicinity, those devices suddenly and inexplicably resume normal operation as though nothing happened!

UFO's were sighted at the timeof the July 2, 1996 power outage:

My local radio station reported that an employee at an unknown power substation (obviously on the west coast) saw two UFO-like disks in the sky around the time of the outage.
Jack Grimes
[email protected]

A power outage of this scope has not been witnessed since the mid 1960's, when many recall that UFO's were also sighted:

Seconds before the outage, a cargo plane pilot spotted what he described as a ball of fire above a main power line between Syracuse and Niagara Falls, NY. Also, several years after the outage occurred, the Adam Beck Power Plant admitted that "hundreds of phone calls" had been made reporting unidentified flying objects above the power plant on the night that the outage happened. Originally, this was denied by the power plant. You may recall that the Adam Beck Power Plant was identified as "the cause" for the outage...a "faulty relay" supposedly. So IMHO, I think it is quite reasonable for people to question whether or not there was an "unidentified flying object" activity in the vacinity. Certainly, this current power outage strikes incredible similarities to the outage of 1965 in the northeast.
Cathy Zylka