why the 'flap' was allowed to rumble on so long once the perpetrators were identified...
Even all this time later, I'm not sure they have been.
Despite all the errors of geography, lack of rigor, assumptions, bare faced bias and weird non-sequiturs, the sighting details from Night Seige don't paint an entirely consistent picture.
First of all, I'm going to assume all reports made are genuine, in so much as the authors came into possession of the information presented.
A lot of the accounts start out very similar - with a set of 5-7 lights, described as white green and red. The lights appear to be some distance away, with no associated noise, with a hint of structure behind them, 'the size of a football field'.
The lights hover or move very slowly, then are suddenly overhead (at about this point many witnesses begin to become fearful/alarmed) and the lights either change colour (red, green, yellow and blue come up a lot), turn sharply and speed away, disappear behind trees only to re-appear in the distance a short time later and a few miles away (often corroborated by another sighting from another witness elsewhere).
I contend that these types of sightings are low flying C5's - these sightings are often along stretches of roads, from moving vehicles (motor vehicle engine noise might mask aircraft noise entirely, or render it to the 'soft hum' that is reported by some).
The Hudson Valley area is heavily wooded (and whilst the trees may have changed a lot over the past 40 years, I've no reason to suspect the overall character of the landscape and its trees has changed that much), so apart from along the roads and from highground (the area is quite hilly), there will not be that many unobstructed vistas over which to track the objects for long periods.
I put the fear/alarm/agitation/feeling of being observed down to a combination of adrenaline, arriving at the conclusion that something out of the ordinary is occuring ('The Oz Factor'), it being after dark (I have not yet read any daylight accounts, if indeed there are any), the witness being either alone or having children with them.
Where witnesses entertain the notion that it might be aircraft, they universally point to a single large craft 'larger than anything they know of', and reject the idea of small craft in formation for any number of reasons, including - lights too close and movement too rigid to be more than one craft, wrong sound, too much wind, too dark/dangerous for that, beyond human ability to fly that close and smooth.
How much any of these elements is down to the individual witness observations or consistent enquiry/coaxing/coaching from the authors (who apparently interviewed many/most of the witnesses in the book) is impossible to know becasue I'm halfway through and there's been no discussion of the methods employed for such interviews, or transcripts (edited or otherwise) from the interviews (again with the lack of rigor).
The only aspect that really can't be accounted for is the reports of the lights changing colour (often as they pass overhead/close by), and I put this down to this being the point where one or more of the collision/position/navigation lights (red for left, ventral and dorsal, green for right), or local atmospheric conditions affecting the lights - look up C5's at night on Youtube - in some video's the white lights appear shifted towards yellow or blue.
Sadly, very little information is given about atmospheric conditions or the weather at the times of sightings. (Further lack of rigor).
So those sorts of sightings I'd contend are C5's.
Other sightings describe only red or green lights in the triangle or 'boomerang' configuration, or circles of lights, or a pattern like 'a ferris wheel in the sky'. Others include beams of lights pointed at the ground - like searchlights (again, this effect can be seen on a few C5 at night video's, either pointing down, or towards the observer, often with visible haze in the atmosephere), but some are red 'searchlights' and/or have smaller objects/lights emerge from them that behave independ ently, or the beams appear to 'scan around' as if actually searching for something.
I have no idea what to make of those sightings, and whilst a few might be C5's or other aircraft at odd angles or in unusual or obscured conditions, I don't think it's be very many.
As to police responses - I get the distinct feeling so far that for the most part it's mainly driven by disinterest, the usual 'folks be crazy, drunk or high' eyerolling and nervousness due to not knowing how to handle something outside their comfort zone/training/expertise as more and more people demand answers/action of them.
The FAA just seems to be rigidly abiding by the party line of 'UFO's? They don't exist, pal'.
The couple of denials attributed to either the Air National Guard (there has been one mention of a call made to Stewart so far) or the Airforce (I think there was one contact made with them so far - I'll have to check again) smack very much of 'well, yes, we've got stuff going on, but we're not about to tell
you about it' or a smirking 'nope, not one of
ours' becasuse whilst they know full well whats up there, it technically belongs to a different military branch, it's the middle of the night, they're bored rigid, and dicking the civvies around is a welcome diversion.
Still, plenty more accounts to get through, if I can face continuing after that last clanger!