The Southaven Park Crash

A craft came down in flames in Southaven County Park just after seven on the evening of 24 November 1992, according to John Ford of the Long Island UFO Network. It may have been shot down by a beam from Brookhaven National Laboratory. Ford showed a videotape he said showed burning wreckage and a body. The archive's tellings add crews in radiation suits and grey alien bodies. They describe debris scattered for miles and magnetised trees and fence posts, and witnesses threatened with death. One telling has the sky turn lighter than day. In Ford's account roads were closed and the park was shut for days, and the laboratory's own fire crew put out the blaze.

What is on the record

This is one man's account and nothing independent confirms the crash. Ford and his network are the primary source, first in the South Shore Press on 25 May 1993. The bodies and the suits and the threats come from his material and not from independent witnesses.

Some of the surrounding facts are real. The park was closed from 25 to 28 November, and officials gave a duck-hunting reservation as the reason. Chuck La Salla, the laboratory's fire chief, produced a logbook entry for that evening that showed nothing unusual and no response off the site. Sal Giammusso of MUFON visited the park and found only some bent trees. The explanation on file is a brush fire. There is no physical evidence of a crash.

In 1996 Ford was arrested over an alleged plot to use radium against Suffolk County officials he blamed for the cover-up. He was found unfit for trial and committed.

Why it sits where it does

This case grades L3 on five resolved claimants from five videos on two channels. That count is still inflated. Ford is one of them. Three entries are groups of residents, townspeople and police chiefs. An unnamed police officer reaches the archive through the telling built on Ford's material. The case is told often and sourced once. What burned in Southaven Park that night is not resolved here.