The Carbondale UFO Incident ("Fire in the Pond")

Carbondale sits in Lackawanna County, about 15 miles northeast of Scranton. The coal mines had left their mark on the land. Behind Russell Park lay a silt pond, holding wastewater from the mines. Locals called it the old mine pond.

Saturday, November 9, 1974. About 7 p.m., three teenage boys called Carbondale Police. They had seen a glowing airborne object traveling rapidly from east to west over Salem Mountain. It descended, then crashed into the pond.

Robert Gillette Jr. was 14 when he told WVIA reporters that year, "Well we seen a big bright light." "It looked like a star, that's what we thought it was at first, a fallen star. We seen it coming down at an arch." Other accounts describe a red, whirring ball, a glowing orange ball of fire, and a light that whirled through the sky, hovered, then landed in the water and sizzled. After the police were slow to respond and the boys called a second time, Gillette recalled, "They didn't come up, they thought we were on dope or something, they didn't believe us."

Beneath the murky surface, a light was burning; witnesses described a green glow that lasted, depending on the account, seven to nine hours. Word spread fast, and about 1,500 people crowded the site while planes and helicopters flew low overhead. From Saturday to Monday, some 10,000 came. Police reportedly contacted NORAD, NASA and the military, and calls arrived from as far away as England. One officer is said to have fired his gun at the object.

Kay Pope was 15. She rode her bike to the park and saw "a big flatbed truck on the road with something huge." Others later spoke of a military-looking truck carrying a large object under a tarp along back roads.

Monday, November 11. About 3:30 p.m. Diver Mark Stamey found a metal handle in the silt. He brought up an electric railroad lantern, its bulb still lit, powered by a six-volt Sears battery. Mayor A. J. Kaufman examined it. Acting Police Chief Francis Dottle called the whole affair a hoax.

Matthew J. Graeber of the Philadelphia UFO Report and Information Center heard the news on WCAU radio around 2 a.m. He was in Carbondale by 6 a.m. He concluded the boys had seen a bright meteor, and that the glow came from a thrown lantern. He insisted there were "no vehicles with floodlights or cranes at the scene during the entire 44 hour fiasco."

In 1999 Gillette told The Scranton Times he had thrown the lantern into the pond to scare his sister. In 2016, aged 56, he changed his story. "It wasn't a lantern. Something was pulled out of the pond," he said.

"I don't think it was aliens. Some people do." His own theory was a Soviet satellite. Skeptics still ask how a lantern kept glowing under water for hours. Others suggest a meteor, a secret military aircraft, or a beam lighting up sulfur-laden silt, while MUFON investigator Bill Weber noted that about 85% of cases get explained.

Carbondale embraced its mystery. A historical marker now recalls the night. Jerome Gillott, the police photographer who filmed the event on 35mm, appears in the 2025 WVIA documentary The Day Carbondale Stood Still. The first Carbondalien Festival marked the 50th anniversary in 2024. In 2025 the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins took the ice as the Carbondale UFOs.