John Lennon said, "There's UFO's over New York" - remembering his UFO experience on August 23, 1974 (w/video)


John Lennon said, "There's UFO's over New York" - remembering his UFO experience on August 23, 1974
Shelley Germeaux
Examiner.com



"On the 23rd August, 1974 at 9 o'clock I saw a U.F.O." This is John Lennon's quote from the liner notes of Walls and Bridges, released January 31, 1975)

Thirty six years ago on the balmy evening of August 23, 1974, John Lennon stood naked on his deck overlooking the East River, smoking a cigarette, when suddenly he looked up to see what was obviously a UFO floating overhead. He screamed for his then-girlfriend, May Pang (author of Instamatic Karma) to come and see what he was seeing. (see the you tube recording of an interview he gave about it below.)

He and May had recently moved back to New York after living in L.A. for nine months, and moved into May's apartment, where they lived for another five months. Here are May's detailed recollections of that experience--moment by moment.

(This article is a portion of my interview with May Pang from September of 2004, originally published in Daytrippin' Beatles Magazine that fall.)

Shelley Germeaux: “You guys moved back to New York in early summer of 1974 and that’s when Walls & Bridges was recorded. On the sleeve, John writes, ‘On the 23rd August 1974 at 9 o’clock I saw a UFO.’ Can you describe that experience to me?”


May Pang: “Oh, sure! It was hot that night and the a/c was running. John had just woken up from a nap, and I had just ordered a pizza. He gets up and walks out onto the terrace, nude, of course, for a breeze and got a cigarette. I was in the back room looking for clothes to put on. (This was a one-bedroom apartment. Our living room was used as a bedroom, living room, everything. The back bedroom was basically our closet but also a guest room for Julian.)

“What happened was, he was looking south. Our terrace overlooked the East River. He loved that terrace. He liked being by water, and used to sit out there a lot. (That’s where those pictures were taken by Bob Gruen. the famous NYC t-shirt pictures). He’s looking south and he’s seeing flashing lights behind him, and thinks it must be a billboard or something. Then he thinks, ‘wait a second, I’m in a residential area, what billboards?’ So he turns around to see this THING moving over his head, very slowly. So suddenly I hear John yell, ‘May!! Come here!” I didn’t respond right away because I’m looking for clothes, and then he yells, “MAY!! Get out here NOW!!”

“So hearing this urgency, I drop the clothes and now I’m nude (laughs) and running out there. ‘What is it??’ I say. He’s looking up and there’s this thing hanging over our heads! It moves slowly down the East River. I said, ‘what the heck? What is it, a blimp?’ Even though we knew what it was. He said, ‘my god, it’s a f***ing UFO!’ I’m screaming at the top of my lungs and I look around and all the apartment lights around us are black. No one is home. Mind you, it’s Friday night-- a hot, summer night--everyone is out. I’m screaming, like a wild woman, and he’s calm. No one hears us or comes out.

“It tipped sideways—it actually flew sideways and dipped behind a building, then it came out again! You could have pitched a baseball at it. You could even see the wavy air around it from the heat. It was flying below rooftops! It was probably about the size of a two-man learjet, John said.

(In another interview, May also elaborated as to the UFO's appearance, saying, "It was shaped like a flattened cone, and on top was a large, brilliant red light, not pulsating as on any of the aircraft we'd see heading for a landing at Newark Airport. When it came a little closer, we could make out a row or circle of white lights that ran around the entire rim of the craft - these were also flashing on and off.During the time that it was almost directly overhead, May says that she didn't hear any noise. We often had helicopters flying above us, but this was as silent as the night, seventeen stories up above street level.")

“We called Elliott (Mintz) and told him we were seeing a UFO and he should look out the window because they’d probably see it. And Elliott goes, ‘Really.’ (laughs) You can hear him; you know what I’m saying? You know his voice. Then he says, ‘Is May there, John.’ So I get on the phone and tell him all these details and he finally believes me. The whole event probably lasted 10-15 minutes. Then Yoko got jealous because she didn’t see it. Finally, (laughs) and this is the truth—he tells me he wished he had been taken.”


SG:“Wow....I read that you did try to take photos of it?”

MP: “Yes we did. I grabbed a camera, but the lights were so bright, none of them turned out. We gave the film to Bob Gruen to develop, but they were all overexposed. Unfortunately that was before video cameras! We didn’t have anything like that!”

SG: “Did it just finally disappear?’

MP: “Yeah. It finally went straight up.”

SG: “I can’t believe you were able to sleep that night! I read on some nutty website that John had seen UFO’s before and that he started researching them and had a big opinion about government plots that were trying to cover this up.”

MP: “What??? No, John never saw a UFO before, this was the only time. I have a couple of magazines he bought on UFO’s after that but he didn’t have a subscription or anything. John always believed in UFO’s and he read about them but it wasn’t a huge thing.”

In another interview, May said they did try and call the police: "Immediately John and May telephoned the Daily News, and were told that at least 7 other reports had been received."

John mentioned UFO's in two of his songs. One before the incident, one after.

"Like a UFO you came to me, and blew away life's miseries..." from the song Out of the Blue, from the album Mind Games, 1973, a year before this incident.)

"There's UFO's over New York, and I ain't too surprised." A direct reference to his paranormal experience, in the song Nobody Told Me, from the album Milk and Honey, released posthumously in 1984.

What other significant events happened to John Lennon on August 23rd? Read this article to find out!
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