Reasons to Drive highlights thrilling events happening within five hours of your city, giving you every reason to get on the road and start exploring.
Nestled in the shadows of the Hudson Valley’s Shawangunk Ridge lies an unassuming town that’s the epicenter of a series of unexplainable phenomena. It turns out that the UFO capital of the Northeast—and perhaps the entire country—is just 80 miles north from the busiest city in America. Welcome to Pine Bush, New York.
The Pine Bush UFO & Paranormal Museum, which opened in 2021 and operates year-round, is living proof of the region’s ties to the extraterrestrial. A wave of UFO sightings in the 1980s became the most well-known “flap,” (a.k.a. in ufology parlance, a collective reporting of sightings of boomerang-shaped crafts in the sky). A look at the museum’s timeline of sightings, however, reveals that these mysterious events go back to at least the early twentieth century.
Working with researchers at the United Friends Observers Society, which helps to document sightings around the Pine Bush area, the museum is a space for both those who are curious and those with experiences of their own to tell.
In fact, strange occurrences are so common here that the sentiment is celebrated at the annual Pine Bush UFO Fair. Since debuting in 2011, the event has become a central part of the town’s culture and community and is an otherworldly extravaganza beaming Pine Bush’s alien heritage to us humans.
Taking place on June 1, 2024 this year and marking its 13th anniversary, the Pine Bush UFO Fair’s 4-day programming includes live music, food, and, most notably, a costume contest held in the town gazebo.
For a visit to the UFO & Paranormal Museum throughout the fair, guests can also expect to experience the common overlapping theme between UFO sightings and other paranormal activity and learn about local hauntings and mysterious creatures that are said to populate the area, complete with a life-scale model of Sasquatch.
“My favorite thing is when visitors leave the museum and say they had no idea about the activity,” says Lance Hallowell, the museum director who started his project as a temporary attraction in the UFO Fair back in 2018. To delve into the full history of all these stories, a guided tour is a great way to go.
Drive Time:
2.5 hours from New York City
More things to do near Pine Bush
The Patchett House, one of the most haunted buildings in the Hudson Valley, is a fifteen-minute drive southeast of Pine Bush in the town of Montgomery. First operating as a tavern in the early nineteenth century and serving as a funeral home at one point in its history, the building now holds the Wallkill River Center for the Arts with exhibits from local artists and art classes for both adults and children. As an added bonus, the drive there takes you past Searsville Road, a popular skywatching area in the ‘90s.
South of Pine Bush in Middletown, The Switch Inn, a bar and restaurant built as a railroad hotel in 1874, purportedly has a ghost in its basem*nt that has regular run-ins with the staff when lights flicker on and off and doors close shut. As an act of reverence towards its paranormal patronage, the Switch Inn holds tarot card readings on Tuesday nights.
Restaurants and bars in Pine Bush
Right next door to the UFO & Paranormal Museum is Longstreet Tavern, proudly boasting a sign out front about winning “1st place in the intergalactic restaurant competition.” Guided tour groups get discounts on offerings like burgers and wings while visitors can have post-museum discussion over a round of local craft brews.
For something on the sweeter side on nearby Main Street, The French Connection, serves handcrafted desserts like macarons and cannoli cookies. Similar to Longstreet, this spot participates in the UFO Fair and themes their pastries with appropriately green frosting. A signature dish is a massive breakfast wrap called the Mother Ship, stuffed with a plate’s worth of an entire breakfast of eggs, maple bacon, home fries, and bananas. The cafe also serves hot tea to guests during the UFO Museum’s Haunted History Lantern Tour.
While enjoying a pastry outside, be sure to look up to spot a window on the top floor of the building. Few have set foot in this attic out of fear of its unnervingly haunted presence.
Where to stay near Pine Bush
To keep the eerie theme going, sleep at one of the most famously haunted accommodations in the Hudson Valley, The Shanley Hotel. Located in the nearby town of Napanoch, it first opened in 1845 and was rebuilt in 1895 after a fire. An assortment of reported ghosts reflect its long history of serving people with both a barbershop and a bordello. Nightly paranormal investigations offer a chance for visitors to interact with the spirits of the Shanley’s former customers.
If you’re not feeling brave enough, you can sit down to have afternoon tea with these spirits with the help of some ghosthunting equipment or get a haunted history tour during sunlight hours. Luckily, you can opt for a package tour that includes both the Shanley Hotel and the Pine Bush UFO & Paranormal Museum. The Shanley Hotel fills up quickly and rooms are booked weekends in advance, so plan early.
If you’re looking to stay outdoors in your exploration of the ‘Gunks, Boulder Point Campground offers glamping and a pool alongside more traditional campsites. And who knows? Maybe you’ll look up at the stars and catch a glimpse of something beyond this world.
Andrew Housman is a Thrillist contributor based in Brooklyn and raised in Staten Island, New York. He covered the entertainment industry for SlashFilm before moving to more culinary territory as a contributor for FoodRepublic.com. He studied public transit systems in college and still complains about the MTA when he’s in a bad mood. Follow him onX.
