UFO and UAP cases with pilot and aircrew witnesses

57 well-documented UFO/UAP encounters backed by pilot and aircrew witnesses, 1944 to 2023: 27 unresolved, 25 disputed, 5 explained. Each case has its sources, timeline and the official or best explanation.

57 cases

• Foo fighters — 415th Night Fighter Squadron 23 November 1944 · Rhine valley near Strasbourg UNRESOLVED
• Kenneth Arnold — "flying saucers" over Mount Rainier 24 June 1947 · Mount Rainier, Washington DISPUTED
• Chiles–Whitted encounter 24 July 1948 · Near Montgomery, Alabama EXPLAINED
• Gorman dogfight 1 October 1948 · Fargo, North Dakota EXPLAINED
• The green fireballs of New Mexico 5 December 1948 · Over northern and central New Mexico, near Los Alamos, Sandia and White Sands DISPUTED
• Farnborough test pilot’s disc — the Flying Saucer Working Party 14 August 1950 · Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, Hampshire EXPLAINED
• U.S. Navy R5D — object over the North Atlantic 10 February 1951 · North Atlantic, east of Newfoundland DISPUTED
• Fort Monmouth radar and T-33 sighting 10 September 1951 · Fort Monmouth and the Jersey Shore, New Jersey EXPLAINED
• Long Beach — six F-86s chase an object they cannot reach 23 September 1951 · Over Long Beach, California DISPUTED
• Mitchel AFB — a Navy TBM chases a “parachute” over Long Island 21 January 1952 · Mitchel Air Force Base, Hempstead, Long Island, New York DISPUTED
• Wonsan and Sunchon B-29 sightings 29 January 1952 · Wonsan and Sunchon, North Korea UNRESOLVED
• Nash–Fortenberry sighting 14 July 1952 · Chesapeake Bay near Newport News, Virginia UNRESOLVED
• Washington, D.C. radar-visual sightings 19 July 1952 · Washington, D.C. DISPUTED
• Carson Sink — two colonels in a B-25 meet three deltas 24 July 1952 · Over the Carson Sink, Nevada, on the airway to Salt Lake City UNRESOLVED
• Little Rissington Meteor encounter 21 October 1952 · Over Gloucestershire from RAF Little Rissington UNRESOLVED
• Ellsworth AFB — the Black Hawk light and the F-84 chase 5 August 1953 · Black Hawk and Ellsworth Air Force Base, Rapid City, South Dakota; later Bismarck, North Dakota DISPUTED
• West Malling Vampire sighting 3 November 1953 · Over RAF West Malling, Kent DISPUTED
• BOAC Stratocruiser paced by seven objects 29 June 1954 · Gulf of St. Lawrence, near Sept-Îles, Quebec UNRESOLVED
• The Nowra Sea Fury — two lights on the radar 31 August 1954 · South-west of Goulburn, New South Wales, on the way back to Naval Air Station Nowra UNRESOLVED
• Salandin near-miss over Southend 14 October 1954 · Over Southend-on-Sea, Essex UNRESOLVED
• Lakenheath–Bentwaters radar-visual case 13 August 1956 · RAF Bentwaters & RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk UNRESOLVED
• Milton Torres — ordered to fire on a UFO 20 May 1957 · Over East Anglia, from RAF Manston DISPUTED
• RB-47 radar–ECM–visual encounter 17 July 1957 · Gulf Coast to Oklahoma UNRESOLVED
• Portuguese Air Force F-84s — the Lemos Ferreira sighting 4 September 1957 · Over the Portuguese–Spanish border region, returning to Ota air base UNRESOLVED
• American Airlines Captain Peter Killian’s three lights 24 February 1959 · Over central and northern Pennsylvania, between Philipsburg and Bradford DISPUTED
• Gemini 4 — McDivitt’s “beer can with an arm” 4 June 1965 · In orbit, passing over Hawaii, on the 20th revolution of Gemini 4 DISPUTED
• Minot AFB — B-52 radar and missile-field sightings 24 October 1968 · Minot AFB and missile field, North Dakota DISPUTED
• Coyne helicopter incident 18 October 1973 · Near Mansfield, Ohio DISPUTED
• Wurtsmith Air Force Base and the KC-135 chase 30 October 1975 · Wurtsmith Air Force Base, Oscoda, Michigan UNRESOLVED
• Tehran F-4 Phantom intercepts 19 September 1976 · Tehran, Iran UNRESOLVED
• Kaikōura lights 31 December 1978 · Kaikōura coast, New Zealand DISPUTED
• Cecconi G.91R photographs over Treviso 18 June 1979 · Treviso Sant'Angelo air base, Veneto DISPUTED
• Manises — airliner diversion & Mirage intercept 11 November 1979 · Over Ibiza → Valencia-Manises Airport, Spain DISPUTED
• La Joya air base pursuit 11 April 1980 · La Joya air base, Arequipa, Peru UNRESOLVED
• VASP flight 169 — the light that paced a Boeing 727 8 February 1982 · Night flight from Fortaleza to Rio de Janeiro, first seen near Petrolina, Pernambuco DISPUTED
• Aeroflot Tu-134 over Minsk — the light that became a cloud 7 September 1984 · Over Minsk, Byelorussian SSR, on the flight to Tallinn DISPUTED
• Brazil’s "Official UFO Night" 19 May 1986 · São José dos Campos – Rio de Janeiro – Goiás UNRESOLVED
• Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 17 November 1986 · Over north-east Alaska DISPUTED
• Pereslavl-Zalessky — the Soviet air defence report 21 March 1990 · Pereslavl-Zalessky region, north-east of Moscow UNRESOLVED
• Alitalia MD-80 near miss over Kent 21 April 1991 · Near Lydd, Kent, England UNRESOLVED
• Air France 3532 — radar-visual over Coulommiers 28 January 1994 · Near Coulommiers, Seine-et-Marne, France UNRESOLVED
• British Airways 5061 near miss over the Pennines 6 January 1995 · About 8 nautical miles south-east of Manchester Airport UNRESOLVED
• America West Flight 564 over the Texas Panhandle 25 May 1995 · Over Bovina, Texas, near the New Mexico border UNRESOLVED
• Bariloche — the blackout and Aerolíneas Argentinas 674 31 July 1995 · San Carlos de Bariloche airport, Río Negro, Argentina UNRESOLVED
• USS Nimitz "Tic Tac" 14 November 2004 · Pacific Ocean ~100 mi SW of San Diego UNRESOLVED
• Río de la Plata — two airliners and a rising light 4 April 2005 · Over the Río de la Plata between Ezeiza (Buenos Aires) and Carrasco (Montevideo) UNRESOLVED
• Chicago O’Hare disc 7 November 2006 · O’Hare International Airport, Gate C-17 DISPUTED
• Alderney airline sighting 23 April 2007 · English Channel near Alderney & Guernsey UNRESOLVED
• Stephenville, Texas 8 January 2008 · Stephenville / Dublin, Erath County, Texas DISPUTED
• USS Theodore Roosevelt — Gimbal & GoFast 21 January 2015 · Atlantic warning areas off Jacksonville, Florida DISPUTED
• Jeffreys Bay — a cargo crew’s green light 12 December 2016 · About 10 nautical miles off Jeffreys Bay, Eastern Cape UNRESOLVED
• Learjet and American 1095 over Arizona — “something just passed over us” 24 February 2018 · Over southern Arizona, east of the Sonoran Desert National Monument DISPUTED
• Ireland — airline pilots report fast lights 9 November 2018 · Atlantic off County Kerry, Ireland DISPUTED
• American Airlines 2292 — “cruise-missile type of thing” 21 February 2021 · Northeastern New Mexico, at about 36,000 ft UNRESOLVED
• Porto Alegre — airline pilots report blinking lights 5 November 2022 · Approach to Salgado Filho airport, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul DISPUTED
• AARO’s “Eglin UAP” — a lighting balloon 26 January 2023 · Eglin Air Force Base training range, over the Gulf off north-west Florida EXPLAINED
• February 2023 shoot-downs (Alaska, Yukon, Lake Huron) 10 February 2023 · Deadhorse AK · Yukon · Lake Huron UNRESOLVED

By evidence

• Official government documents 158
• Many independent witnesses 135
• Military witnesses 74
• Photographs 55
• Video footage 53
• Radar tracking 48
• Physical traces 39
• Police witnesses 36
• Infrared or other sensor data 21
• Audio recordings or radio transcripts 15
• Reported electromagnetic effects 13
• Documented physiological effects 11
• Motion-picture film 6