I'm Lauren Norton, and this is one strange thing, the show where we search the nation's news archives, for stories that can't quite be explained. Strangers, we have brought you some choice UFO stories in our time.

But here, on the main feed, we've had few opportunities to tell you about people who claim to have had

off-world experiences. These are an extension of the Heinex scale. If you'll recall, that's the

classification system that created variations on the whole close encounter thing, of the first

kind, of the second kind, etc.

The most famous, of course, are close encounters of the third kind, because of that

1977 movie of the same name. Close encounters of the third kind involve actual sightings

of alien beings, and they were once the be-all-end-all of Heinex chart.

But euphologists have added to and further elaborated upon his categories.

For our purposes, the most important is what they call an extension of the Heinex scale.

Close encounters of the fourth kind, or off-world experiences,

more commonly known as alien abductions. Many of these off-world experiences are alleged by

single individuals, and some of these folks claim to have dozens of trips under their belts.

But every so often, a wider community is hit by a wave of incredible off-world reports.

Such was the case in Massachusetts back in September of 1969.

Now collectively known as the Berkshire UFO incident, these saucer sightings and

alleged abductions across small towns took place in a county in western Massachusetts. Now, if this

sounds familiar to you, strangers, we think that you've probably been spending some quality time

with the Unsolved Mysteries reboot on Netflix.

One of their first new episodes covered this very event.

It particularly featured the story of one family, the Reeds.

Their off-world encounter in Berkshire County is perhaps the most synonymous with the September 1st, 1969 incident,

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