They Are Not Alone: U.F.O. Reports Surged in the Pandemic With skies lacking light pollution and most nights free, New Yorkers reported nearly twice as many mysterious sightings last year. Virginia “Cookie” Stringfellow says Memorial Point at Bear Creek Harbor in Ontario, N.Y., is one of the places she was “taken” by alien beings. She does not use the term “abducted,” because she went willingly.Credit...Libby March for The New York Times April 9, 2021Updated 4:36 p.m. ET In the years since she says extraterrestrial beings took her from her suburban yard outside Rochester, N.Y., Virginia Stringfellow has kept her story mostly within a close-knit community of people who say they have also encountered U.F.O.s.