The fifth episode of Netflix's Unsolved Mysteries revival, "Berkshires UFO," neglects to mention several key facts regarding UFO sightings. While the vast majority of the strange UFO-related events occurred on a single night in 1969, there were credible reports of UFO activity both before and after the night profiled in the episode. The episode also largely focuses on the experiences of four witnesses, ignoring the sheer volume of collaborating reports in favor of interviewing skeptics or authorities who had nothing to do with the original investigation.
The Berkshire UFO Sightings are one of the famous UFO-related events in American history. Multiple witnesses gave strikingly similar accounts of strange events that occurred on the evening of September 1, 1969 in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Some, like local business owner Jane Green, reported seeing blinding lights while driving along the freeway, before seeing strangely silent saucer-shaped ships hovering in the sky. Other locals, like Melanie Kirchdorfer, reported being taken on board an alien craft and seeing other kids in their class, before being returned to Earth. Perhaps the most startling account is that of Tom Warner, who claimed to have made telepathic contact with an alien and apparently been taken aboard their spaceship after being trapped in some kind of strange beam, according to the account of Debbie Shaw, who was Tom's babysitter at the time.
One thing the Unsolved Mysteries report on the Berkshire UFOs neglects to mention is that the Berkshire County area has an extensively documented history of UFO sightings beyond the night of September 1, 1969. While that Labor Day weekend is the largest collective of shared UFO experiences in the county's history, there have been reports of alien encounters both before and after the night profiled in "Berkshires UFO." One of the witnesses in the episode, Thomas Reed, claimed that he and his younger brother, Matthew, were first taken on-board an alien spacecraft in 1966. They were taken and released again in 1967, before being taken and released along with their mother and grandmother on the night of September 1, 1969.
Another fact "Berkshires UFO" neglects to mention is that the events of that night are more widely accepted locally than they are ridiculed. The Unsolved Mysteries report makes great play of the fact that there is little official record of what happened that night, despite the large number of people in Berkshire County who have given oral accounts of their experiences over the past five decades. Nothing strange was recorded in the police blotter that night in Great Barrington, and the son of the police chief of Sheffield at the time claimed that his father had investigated several of the UFO sightings privately, but did not take them seriously. Several people also called in to the local radio station, WSBS, to report what they were seeing, but no effort was made to save the tapes from that night's broadcast, despite the station manager reporting on the sightings and asking for anyone who had seen the UFOs to call in.
Despite this lack of a written or audio record, the Great Barrington Historical Society & Museum saw fit to induct Thomas Reed's story of his experiences into their archives, based on his accounts and written records provided by WSBS. This effectively declared his account of the Berkshire UFOs to be true from a professional historian's perspective. The Unsolved Mysteries' episode also neglected to mention that a historical marker was erected at Sheffield Bridge in 2015, marking the spot where Thomas Reed and his family were supposedly taken. While the monument was paid for with private donations rather than the state, it speaks to the locals' belief in Reed and the others who claim they saw something strange on that summer night in 1969.