The UFO Phenomenon

John Lennon once wrote song lyrics about a UFO he'd seen in New York

By T.K. Randall
May 10, 2025 ·  5 comments

Image: New York City
Credit: Karl Döringer / (PD) The incident, which occurred during his 18-month relationship with assistant and production coordinator May Pang, took place on August 23rd of that year after Lennon had arrived home from working in the studio.

Exactly what happened next was later recalled by Pang in a 2020 interview with New York classic rock station Q104.3, when she described how Lennon had suddenly noticed flashing lights outside of their apartment.

When she looked out, she observed a strange object with flashing white lights along one edge and red lights on the other. It was moving silently and had ventured remarkably close to their location.

"No sound. I could see the underbelly of this object," she said.

"You know when it's hot and you see these heat waves? I could see clear as day, right underneath... It just cleared the buildings next to us, maybe two to three stories over us.""I always said that if Reggie Jackson hit a home run, he could hit this thing."

Both she and Lennon maintained that they had seen something remarkable that day.

"It went down the river, turned right at the United Nations, turned left, and the down the river," Lennon had told a reporter at the time.

"It wasn't a helicopter, and it wasn't a balloon, and it was so near. [It was] silent, and it looked dark, like black or grey in the middle, and it had white lights-just looked like light bulbs-just going off, on, off, on, off, on, blink, blink, blink, blink, 'round the bottom, and on top was a red light."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the sighting inspired some of the lyrics in one of Lennon's later songs - "Nobody Told Me" - which references UFOs in New York City.

He also wrote a reference to the event on the inner sleeve of his album Walls and Bridges.

Source: Good.is | Comments (5)

Tags: John Lennon, UFO