10/27/2022
John Lennon's Amazing UFO Story...
In 1974, former Beatle John Lennon claimed to have seen a UFO in New York City. He was living in an apartment in Manhattan with girlfriend May Pang when he saw the flying saucer.
It wasn’t just a light in the sky and there were other witnesses. This sighting was up-close, of a huge craft, and it happened right outside Lennon’s 52nd Street apartment. He wasn’t afraid to talk about it and, in fact, he famously wrote about it in a song. This was Nobody Told Me and, as Lennon sang it, “There’s UFOs over New York and I ain’t too surprised… Nobody told me there’d be days like these. Strange days indeed.”
The sighting occurred when he was living with May Pang, his so-called “personal secretary” who’d turned into a lover during Lennon’s separation from Yoko Ono. It was a hot August night, August 23, 1974, when John Lennon walked out on his balcony facing the East River to catch a cool breeze. He was completely naked. He started yelling at Pang to come out to the terrace.
Drawing by John Lennon of “Walls and Bridges”- Lennon also drew a picture of a UFO, most likely inspired by his sighting, when sketching out ideas for the cover of his “Walls and Bridges” album. The flying saucer appears in a New York City-type scene with the initials “UFOER” on it. The drawing was done on both sides of a blank record sleeve.
When she did, she saw what he saw. According to her description later, it was a “large, circular object coming towards us. 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. There were so many of these lights that it was dazzling to the mind.
It was, I estimate, about the size of a Lear jet and it was so close that if we had something to throw at it, we probably would have hit it quite easily.” The sighting lasted from five to ten minutes, and the UFO drifted away and came back before sprinting off into the sky. Apparently, Lennon and Pang weren’t the only ones to see the UFO, multiple other witnesses (at least seven) had called city newspapers. It took a lot of courage for Lennon to talk this openly. For starters, he was a Beatle and everyone knew he’d taken his share of mind-altering drugs. Then there was the fact that he wasn’t dressed when he saw it. Under those conditions, to come forward to talk about seeing a UFO was to risk certain ridicule from at least some people, if not a majority. Even more discrediting from the public point of view, he also claimed to have seen one when he was a child, and even talked about a potential childhood abduction experience.
In the standards of 1974, John Lennon was not a “good” witness. But Lennon was never shy about speaking his mind, even about UFOs. His courage makes it easier for other witnesses even today. Bottom line: John Lennon and May Pang claimed to have seen something approximating a “classic” UFO, hovering outside their apartment in New York, something that was the size of a private jet aircraft, from only a hundred yards away, so close they felt they could almost touch it.
Given Lennon’s reputation for brutal honesty, one has think that some fans who did not give much credence to UFO sightings have had to stop and re-consider their positions. You can bet that if John Lennon actually just celebrated his 70th birthday, he would have had a lot more to say on this subject over these last three decades. Just gimme some truth, he’d have demanded. Imagine.
May Pang and John Lennon
The rare drawings were auctioned off along with several other John Lennon sketches from the 1970s last Friday, March 21 by CooperOwen Auctions in London. The drawings were given to guitarist Jesse Ed Davis from Lennon. Davis was a session musician who played lead guitar on Lennon’s albums “Walls and Bridges” and “Rock and Roll”. Other drawings by Lennon uctioned included scenery in Japan from 1979 and a sketch of Lennon, Pang and Harry Nilsson in Palm Springs in 1974.
May Pang says John had always been fascinated by UFOs… he subscribed to a British UFO Magazine, the ‘Flying Saucer Review’. “I had just stepped out of the shower one Friday night toward the end of August when I heard John shout. “Fung Yee, come here.”
May recalls how John sounded “panic-stricken” as he screamed, “Now, Fung Yee. Now!” May immediately ran outside beside John to ask him what was the matter. Lennon pointed to the sky, “Look up there. Tell me what you see.”
May couldn’t believe her eyes. She described what she saw as “a saucer shaped object surrounded by blinking white lights gliding through the sky”, she was “astonished”. It was difficult for her to believe what she was actually seeing, yet still, she was convinced she was witnessing a UFO! She then began to laugh.
John questioned her laughter, and because they were both naked, she humorously replied, “Suppose it’s looking at us. Maybe they think that everyone who lives on the East Side wanders around naked on their balconies on Friday evenings. We look like Adam and Eve.” They went back inside to get a telescope to further study the UFO.
