Is there life beyond what we know it to be on Earth? At least two Southern Tier families say they know there is and so do the 162 Upstate New Yorkers who reported UFO sightings in 2020.

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Not all UFO sightings take place at night. It was actually 10:00 in the morning on April 24, 1964, when a young farmer named Gary Wilcox was at work on his property when he sensed something strange in the woods. Wilcox drove his tractor for a closer look and what he spotted would leave residents of the Southern Tier wondering if perhaps there is life beyond that on Earth.

Wilcox described seeing something hovering off the ground shaped like an egg and 20 feet long, 4 feet high, and 15 or 16 feet wide. He also stated that two very short men who were covered from head to toe exited the vessel. Wilcox claimed that the beings asked him questions about farming and he answered the questions for a period of about two hours. And then, they just got back into their vessel and left. That afternoon, Wilcox took a big bag of fertilizer to the site where he encountered the vessel and when he checked the next morning, the bag was gone.

While some locals questioned the legitimacy of Wilcox's claims, a psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Berthold E. Schwarz researched the incident and extensively interviewed Wilcox and was impressed with his "stability, integrity, honesty, and intelligence" and covered the farmer's story in his two-volume book called 'UFO Dynamics' which was released in 1983.

Another sighting was reported only a few months after Wilcox's experience - this time by Mr. and Mrs. Fred Howland, also of Newark Valley. The couple was so shaken that they went to the home of a nearby police officer at 10 p.m. on July 29, 1964, to report that they were sure they'd seen a  UFO in the area of East Berkshire.

Interestingly, Mr. and Mrs. Howland weren't the only ones to report a strange sight that night. Tioga County Sheriffs received three other phone calls that night about a strange object in the sky and what's more is that when Mr. Howland took deputies to the spot where he saw the object, they too saw "two objects moving across the sky in irregular patterns" and they did not believe that the objects were aircraft.

While it isn't every day that we hear about UFO sightings in New York, reports are still coming in - quietly. People are less likely to loudly declare that they've seen a UFO for fear of being verbally mocked by the media and community members but what if they really are seeing something?

Since UFO sighting record-keeping began, there have been 5,582 reports in New York, making New York the fifth-highest state for reported sightings and according to Syracuse.com, there were 162 reported sightings in Upstate New York in 2020.

If you're hoping to lay eyes on a UFO, research from Empire Stakes claims that the best date and time to see one in New York is April 7 at 9 p.m.

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