2022 · Robert Moses State Park, south shore of Long Island, New York, looking out over the Atlantic under the JFK approaches
Nightcrawler Research: a civilian sensor study off Long Island (2022-2023)
The team's converted RV in its Faraday cage at Robert Moses State Park, watching small lights over the Atlantic under the JFK approaches. · Illustration for uaptrail.com
When2022 to July 2023 (phase one); key event 28 August 2022, 00:15
WhereRobert Moses State Park, south shore of Long Island, New York, looking out over the Atlantic under the JFK approaches
Backing2 independent
Evidencepaper, official records
Twin electrical engineers John and Gerald Tedesco and journalist Donna Lee Nardo ran a ten-month sensor study from Robert Moses State Park on Long Island from 2022 to July 2023, from an RV fitted with marine radars, hyperspectral, SWIR and infrared cameras, lidar, RF and acoustic sensors. After six months spent ruling out aircraft, birds, insects and ships, they report about 50 clips they could not explain, including rotating spheroids with polyhedral cores, an orb entering the water without a splash and radar returns matched to camera tracks. On 28 August 2022 an object approached the beach and both brothers collapsed and briefly lost the use of their legs while cameras and goggles failed. The study was published after peer review in the Open Journal of Applied Sciences, and the team says an AARO representative inspected its upgraded platform and that its FBI partnership is expanding. Natural causes are proposed for many such clips but not demonstrated for these.
Evidence, in date order (2)
- 2026AARO (a representative, unnamed)officialinspected Nightcrawler 3.0 and called it 'the highest end system in the civilian world', per the Tedescos That UFO Podcast via Cristina Gomez (xlLVyQnsFzM, 2:44); not confirmed by AARO
- about August 2025 (Coulthart: 'August this year')Open Journal of Applied Sciencespaperpublished the phase-one field study after peer review Tedesco, Tedesco and Nardo, Open Journal of Applied Sciences, as cited on Reality Check (TanIrdzE9TQ, 3:17)
How plausible · High
Named engineers ran a documented, multi-sensor study with published methods and spent months on prosaic causes; the 28 August event has four named or identified witnesses, though all are one team and the raw data has not been independently analysed.
- ●●Access They built and ran the instruments and were on the beach for the 28 August event.
- ●●Checkable details check out The peer-reviewed paper, book, site and clips are public.
- ●○Cost of speaking Named on television and in print, with their own retirement money spent; some ridicule risk.
- ●○No gain sought A book is sold; otherwise no evident gain.
- ●○Consistent over time Paper, book and two separate interviews tell the same story.
- ●○Restraint Six months of ruling out prosaic causes and hypotheses labelled as such; but they also float TWA 800 and deliberate degradation of Pentagon video.
Plausibility weighs how well an account fits where secrecy hides the documents by design, so missing records never count against it. Strength measures what is documented. Assessed 2026-11-04.
Claims
From 2022 to July 2023 the Tedescos and Nardo ran a ten-month field study from Robert Moses State Park on Long Island's south shore, looking about 55 miles out to sea under the JFK approaches, from a converted 30 ft RV inside a Faraday cage: two X-band marine radars (horizontal and vertical), hyperspectral and SWIR cameras, infrared and night vision, a UV-C detector, lidar, acoustics, ADS-B and marine traffic. It cost about $250,000, much of it the brothers' retirement money, and six months went to ruling out aircraft, birds, insects and ships.Reality Check Rewind: Nightcrawler Research's 'UFO motherload' off Long IslandThe Galileo Project (Harvard, Avi Loeb)firsthandSourced, unconfirmedJohn and Gerald Tedesco and Donna Lee Nardo (Reality Check)
They report about 50 clips they could not explain: rotating 'spheroids' with a polyhedral core that brighten as they spin faster, objects visible only in infrared, an orb on the water that cast a reflection, SWIR footage of an orb entering the water with no surface disturbance, a 'Tic Tac' passing an airliner by day, and four orbs trailing an aircraft on 16 January 2023.Reality Check Rewind: Nightcrawler Research's 'UFO motherload' off Long IslandfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJohn and Gerald Tedesco and Donna Lee Nardo (Reality Check)
An object moved away from an infrared torch several times, and a 'peekaboo' orb appeared to hide behind a road sign as the camera moved.Reality Check Rewind: Nightcrawler Research's 'UFO motherload' off Long IslandfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJohn and Gerald Tedesco and Donna Lee Nardo (Reality Check)
Radar returns were intermittent but solid and co-located with camera tracks. RF carriers near 1.6 and 3 GHz correlated with activity; S-band ship radar was ruled out when no ships were within 36 miles.Reality Check Rewind: Nightcrawler Research's 'UFO motherload' off Long IslandfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJohn and Gerald Tedesco and Donna Lee Nardo (Reality Check)
Lidar on a cube-like object (15 July, phase two) twice returned 45 ft for something they judged more than 500 m away; they suggest lensing.Reality Check Rewind: Nightcrawler Research's 'UFO motherload' off Long IslandspeculationSourced, unconfirmedJohn and Gerald Tedesco and Donna Lee Nardo (Reality Check)
Batteries drained unexpectedly about six times, once with a full power failure including the generator.Reality Check Rewind: Nightcrawler Research's 'UFO motherload' off Long IslandfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJohn and Gerald Tedesco and Donna Lee Nardo (Reality Check)
At 00:15 on 28 August 2022 a stable three-point infrared formation held for about 45 minutes in 35 mph gusts. A small object came in toward the beach; as John lit it with a 100,000-lumen torch, both brothers collapsed in turn and could not use their legs for under a minute. The cameras saturated, Nardo's infrared goggles and other gear failed, and a still shows a translucent dome around a polyhedral core. Nardo and a registered nurse named Sue saw the brothers stumble back distressed.Reality Check Rewind: Nightcrawler Research's 'UFO motherload' off Long IslandBlue orb passes through a driver near DavisfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJohn and Gerald Tedesco and Donna Lee Nardo (Reality Check)
After the 28 August event they found a krill and a shrimp, dead and desiccated with burst thoraxes, glowing in infrared rather than visible bioluminescence.Reality Check Rewind: Nightcrawler Research's 'UFO motherload' off Long IslandfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJohn and Gerald Tedesco and Donna Lee Nardo (Reality Check)
At Holbrook, at the parked RV after a session, three sodium street lights went out together, a blue-then-white light grew on the RV frame, and the lights came back one by one; they read it as an infrared source above the lamps' photo-sensors.Reality Check Rewind: Nightcrawler Research's 'UFO motherload' off Long IslandfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJohn and Gerald Tedesco and Donna Lee Nardo (Reality Check)
An AARO representative inspected Nightcrawler 3.0 and called it 'the highest end system in the civilian world'; the team's partnership with the FBI fed into material later released, and is 'expanding'. DHS and local first responders are also interested.AAROCristina Gomez: the Tedesco brothers on Nightcrawler's work with the FBI and an AARO visitthread/pursuefirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJohn and Gerald Tedesco (That UFO Podcast)
His FBI sources confirm the Bureau's close interest in the Tedescos' work.Reality Check Rewind: Nightcrawler Research's 'UFO motherload' off Long IslandanonymousLeadRoss Coulthart
Over ten months they tracked a sphere of light on the Atlantic surface on four cameras at once; local boaters report similar radar returns, and two surfers and two couples came forward with sightings. Sightings dropped after dredging along the Robert Moses shoreline.Cristina Gomez: the Tedesco brothers on Nightcrawler's work with the FBI and an AARO visitfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJohn and Gerald Tedesco (That UFO Podcast)
They and Coulthart raise a collision with an anomalous object as an open question for TWA Flight 800, which came down about 7 miles from their area; they also think the Pentagon's released videos were lowered in quality on purpose.Reality Check Rewind: Nightcrawler Research's 'UFO motherload' off Long IslandCristina Gomez: the Tedesco brothers on Nightcrawler's work with the FBI and an AARO visitspeculationLeadJohn and Gerald Tedesco and Donna Lee Nardo (Reality Check)
Similar cases · sharing people, threads, topics or era
Connected cases
- Blue orb passes through a driver near Davis 2007Parallel (biological effects)
- The Galileo Project (Harvard, Avi Loeb) 2021Shared funder (Eugene Jeong)
- Northeastern orbs 2024Parallel (FBI northeastern orbs)
People and organizations
- AARO orgInspected the platform (per the team)
- Ryan Graves personParallel (cube in a sphere)
Sources
- Reality Check Rewind, 'UFO Motherload Discovered by Citizen Scientists' (YouTube, reposted 31 Oct 2026), Nightcrawler Research
- Cristina Gomez, 'What Is Really Going On Between The FBI And UFO Hunters' (YouTube, 3 Nov 2026), the Tedesco brothers