GOD'S EYE // UAP › Browse › by shapeUFO and UAP cases: lights and fireballs
137 well-documented UFO/UAP encounters describing lights and fireballs, 1896 to 2026: 50 disputed, 42 unresolved, 31 explained, 12 identified, 2 unassessed. Each case has its sources, timeline and the official or best explanation.
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137 cases
Mystery airship wave 17 November 1896 · California to the Midwest and Texas, United States EXPLAINED Tunguska explosion 30 June 1908 · Podkamennaya Tunguska River basin, Central Siberia EXPLAINED The 1909 New Zealand airship scare 23 July 1909 · Kelso, West Otago, and across the South Island, New Zealand DISPUTED The Sheerness airship — questions in Parliament 14 October 1912 · Sheerness and Queenborough, Isle of Sheppey, Kent DISPUTED Great Meteor Procession 9 February 1913 · Toronto, Ontario, on a path from Saskatchewan to Bermuda EXPLAINED Brown Mountain lights 13 September 1913 · Brown Mountain, Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina EXPLAINED Fátima — the “miracle of the sun” 13 October 1917 · Cova da Iria, near Fátima, Portugal DISPUTED Foo fighters — 415th Night Fighter Squadron 23 November 1944 · Rhine valley near Strasbourg UNRESOLVED 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 Arrey, New Mexico — a theodolite track by a Skyhook balloon crew 24 April 1949 · About three miles north of Arrey, New Mexico, in the White Sands test area UNRESOLVED Clyde Tombaugh’s Las Cruces sighting 20 August 1949 · Las Cruces, New Mexico 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 Lubbock Lights 30 August 1951 · Lubbock, Texas DISPUTED Nash–Fortenberry sighting 14 July 1952 · Chesapeake Bay near Newport News, Virginia UNRESOLVED Salem Coast Guard Air Station photograph 16 July 1952 · U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Salem, Winter Island, Salem, Massachusetts DISPUTED Washington, D.C. radar-visual sightings 19 July 1952 · Washington, D.C. DISPUTED Flatwoods "monster" 12 September 1952 · Flatwoods, Braxton County, West Virginia EXPLAINED 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 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 Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter 21 August 1955 · Sutton farm, Kelly, Kentucky EXPLAINED Lakenheath–Bentwaters radar-visual case 13 August 1956 · RAF Bentwaters & RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk UNRESOLVED Marfa lights 1 July 1957 · Mitchell Flat, east of Marfa, Texas EXPLAINED RB-47 radar–ECM–visual encounter 17 July 1957 · Gulf Coast to Oklahoma UNRESOLVED Levelland vehicle-stopping reports 2 November 1957 · Levelland, Texas DISPUTED White Sands military police patrols 3 November 1957 · White Sands Proving Ground (up-range), New Mexico EXPLAINED Fort Itaipu sentries burned 4 November 1957 · Fort Itaipu, Praia Grande, São Paulo UNRESOLVED Kirtland Air Force Base tower sighting 4 November 1957 · Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico EXPLAINED Coast Guard cutter Sebago — radar contacts in the Gulf of Mexico 5 November 1957 · USCGC Sebago, about 200 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi, Gulf of Mexico EXPLAINED American Airlines Captain Peter Killian’s three lights 24 February 1959 · Over central and northern Pennsylvania, between Philipsburg and Bradford DISPUTED Father Gill’s sightings at Boianai 26 June 1959 · Boianai Mission, Papua (Papua New Guinea) UNRESOLVED Redmond, Oregon — an FAA station reports a hovering light 24 September 1959 · Redmond Airport, Redmond, Oregon DISPUTED Red Bluff — California Highway Patrol sighting 13 August 1960 · Red Bluff area, Tehama County, California EXPLAINED Betty and Barney Hill 19 September 1961 · U.S. Route 3, Franconia Notch to Indian Head, New Hampshire DISPUTED Bahía Blanca and Espora air base sightings 11 May 1962 · Bahía Blanca and Espora Naval Air Base UNRESOLVED Trancas — lights over the Moreno farm 21 October 1963 · Finca of the Moreno family beside the Belgrano railway, Trancas, Tucumán UNRESOLVED August 1965 — lights over Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas 1 August 1965 · Oklahoma City and across Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and New Mexico DISPUTED Incident at Exeter 3 September 1965 · Kensington, near Exeter, New Hampshire DISPUTED Kecksburg fireball 9 December 1965 · Kecksburg, Pennsylvania DISPUTED Michigan "swamp gas" sightings 20 March 1966 · Dexter and Hillsdale, Michigan EXPLAINED Portage County police chase 17 April 1966 · Ravenna, Ohio → Conway, Pennsylvania DISPUTED Paulding Light 1 July 1966 · Robbins Pond Road, near Paulding, Michigan EXPLAINED The lead masks of Vintém Hill 17 August 1966 · Morro do Vintém, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro DISPUTED Malmstrom AFB Echo Flight shutdown 16 March 1967 · Echo Flight, Malmstrom AFB missile field, Montana EXPLAINED Falcon Lake incident 20 May 1967 · Falcon Lake, Whiteshell Provincial Park, Manitoba DISPUTED Shag Harbour crash-landing 4 October 1967 · Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia UNRESOLVED Devon "flying cross" police chase 24 October 1967 · A3072, Holsworthy to Hatherleigh, Devon EXPLAINED Minot AFB — B-52 radar and missile-field sightings 24 October 1968 · Minot AFB and missile field, North Dakota DISPUTED Jimmy Carter’s light at Leary, Georgia 6 January 1969 · Outside the Lions Club meeting, Leary, Georgia DISPUTED Fort Beaufort — police fire at an object 26 June 1971 · Braeside farm near Fort Beaufort, Eastern Cape UNRESOLVED Delphos ring 2 November 1971 · Delphos, Kansas UNRESOLVED Pascagoula encounter 11 October 1973 · Pascagoula River, Pascagoula, Mississippi UNRESOLVED Coyne helicopter incident 18 October 1973 · Near Mansfield, Ohio DISPUTED Berwyn Mountains "crash" 23 January 1974 · Cadair Berwyn, North Wales EXPLAINED Loring Air Force Base intrusions 27 October 1975 · Loring Air Force Base, Limestone, Maine UNRESOLVED Wurtsmith Air Force Base and the KC-135 chase 30 October 1975 · Wurtsmith Air Force Base, Oscoda, Michigan UNRESOLVED Travis Walton disappearance 5 November 1975 · Apache–Sitgreaves National Forest near Heber, Arizona DISPUTED Malmstrom AFB — objects over the missile fields, November 1975 7 November 1975 · Malmstrom Air Force Base and its Minuteman missile fields, Montana UNRESOLVED Canary Islands sphere 22 June 1976 · Canary Islands (Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Fuerteventura) DISPUTED The Allagash abductions 26 August 1976 · Eagle Lake, Allagash Wilderness Waterway, northern Maine DISPUTED Tehran F-4 Phantom intercepts 19 September 1976 · Tehran, Iran UNRESOLVED The Moroccan coast “UFO” — a Soviet rocket part re-entering 19 September 1976 · Along the Atlantic coast of Morocco, from Agadir to Kenitra and inland to Meknes and Fez IDENTIFIED Talavera la Real air base sentries 12 November 1976 · Talavera la Real Air Base, Badajoz UNRESOLVED Corporal Valdés — the patrol at Pampa Lluscuma 25 April 1977 · Pampa Lluscuma, near Putre, Arica DISPUTED Petrozavodsk phenomenon 20 September 1977 · Petrozavodsk, Karelia, USSR DISPUTED Colares "chupa-chupa" & Operação Prato 15 October 1977 · Colares Island, Pará DISPUTED The object that fell near Bermejo — Bolivia’s 1978 search 6 May 1978 · El Taire hill above the Bermejo River, Tarija department, on the Argentine border UNRESOLVED Gujan-Mestras — the light that put out the street lamps 19 June 1978 · Gujan-Mestras, Arcachon basin, Gironde EXPLAINED Disappearance of Frederick Valentich 21 October 1978 · Bass Strait, off Cape Otway, Victoria UNRESOLVED Clarenville — RCMP constable watches object over the water 26 October 1978 · Clarenville and Random Island, Newfoundland UNRESOLVED Kuwait’s oil-field sightings and the pumps that stopped 9 November 1978 · Kuwait Oil Company fields around Umm al-Aish, near the satellite earth station, northern Kuwait UNRESOLVED Kaikōura lights 31 December 1978 · Kaikōura coast, New Zealand DISPUTED Pranles — the yellow light with a turning blue beam 21 July 1979 · Pranles, near Les Ollières-sur-Eyrieux, Ardèche UNRESOLVED Val Johnson — deputy's patrol car struck by a light 27 August 1979 · Near Stephen, Marshall County, Minnesota DISPUTED Manises — airliner diversion & Mirage intercept 11 November 1979 · Over Ibiza → Valencia-Manises Airport, Spain DISPUTED Cergy-Pontoise “abduction” (hoax) 26 November 1979 · Cergy-Pontoise, Val-d’Oise, France EXPLAINED Paul Bennewitz and the lights over Manzano 24 October 1980 · Kirtland Air Force Base and the Manzano weapons storage area, Albuquerque, New Mexico DISPUTED Rendlesham Forest 26 December 1980 · Rendlesham Forest, outside RAF Woodbridge, Suffolk DISPUTED The spiral over south-west China 24 July 1981 · Sichuan and Yunnan, and across south-west, north-west and south-central China DISPUTED 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 Morenão stadium sighting 6 March 1982 · Estádio Morenão, Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul UNRESOLVED Hessdalen lights 1 February 1984 · Hessdalen valley, Norway UNRESOLVED Hudson Valley "Westchester boomerang" 24 July 1984 · Brewster, Putnam County, New York EXPLAINED 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 Torpo film 13 July 1986 · Mountain farm near Torpo, Hallingdal UNRESOLVED Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 17 November 1986 · Over north-east Alaska DISPUTED Gulf Breeze photographs 11 November 1987 · Gulf Breeze, Florida EXPLAINED Knowles family encounter 20 January 1988 · Nullarbor Plain, between Madura and Mundrabilla, Western Australia UNRESOLVED Kapustin Yar — the KGB file on a night of lights over a missile depot 28 July 1989 · Military sites 30–45 km from Kapustin Yar, Astrakhan oblast UNASSESSED Pereslavl-Zalessky — the Soviet air defence report 21 March 1990 · Pereslavl-Zalessky region, north-east of Moscow UNRESOLVED Belgian UFO wave — F-16 intercepts 30 March 1990 · Brussels – Wavre – Gembloux, Belgium DISPUTED The “immense triangle” over France — a Proton re-entry 5 November 1990 · From the Bay of Biscay across France to Alsace IDENTIFIED Montreal — lights over the Bonaventure Hotel 7 November 1990 · Hôtel Bonaventure, downtown Montreal, Quebec UNRESOLVED Cosford incident 30 March 1993 · RAF Cosford and RAF Shawbury, Shropshire DISPUTED Lake Michigan lights — 911 calls and a weather radar 8 March 1994 · The Lake Michigan shore of Ottawa and Muskegon counties, Michigan (Grand Haven to Holland) 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 Pretoria police helicopter chase 28 August 1996 · Pretoria to Cullinan, Gauteng UNRESOLVED The Wash incident 5 October 1996 · The Wash, Lincolnshire coast EXPLAINED The Yukon “mothership” 11 December 1996 · Along the Klondike Highway from Fox Lake through Carmacks to Pelly Crossing, Yukon DISPUTED Phoenix Lights 13 March 1997 · Henderson, NV → Phoenix → Tucson, Arizona EXPLAINED Howden Moor — sonic booms and the search for a crash 24 March 1997 · Howden Moors, Dark Peak, on the Derbyshire–South Yorkshire border DISPUTED Southern Illinois police sightings 5 January 2000 · Highland → Lebanon → Shiloh → Dupo, Illinois DISPUTED Mexican Air Force FLIR — Campeche 5 March 2004 · Southern Campeche, Mexico EXPLAINED Tinley Park lights 21 August 2004 · Tinley Park and Oak Forest, Illinois DISPUTED 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 Cláudio — Military Police report 19 November 2008 · Cláudio, Minas Gerais UNRESOLVED Morristown lights (admitted hoax) 5 January 2009 · Morris County, New Jersey EXPLAINED Norwegian spiral 9 December 2009 · Northern Norway and Sweden (seen from Troms and Finnmark) IDENTIFIED The spiral over eastern Australia — Falcon 9’s first flight 5 June 2010 · Eastern Australia: New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland IDENTIFIED The “mystery missile” off Los Angeles — an airliner’s contrail 8 November 2010 · Over the Pacific about 35 miles west of Los Angeles, north of Santa Catalina Island IDENTIFIED The light over the Dome of the Rock (hoax) 28 January 2011 · Dome of the Rock, Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif), Old City of Jerusalem EXPLAINED Ladakh lights — the “Chinese drones” that were planets 1 August 2012 · Thakung post, near Pangong Tso, eastern Ladakh, India EXPLAINED Chelyabinsk meteor — and the “UFO that shot it down” 15 February 2013 · Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia; the air burst south of Chelyabinsk EXPLAINED Naga fireballs of the Mekong 19 October 2013 · The Mekong around Phon Phisai and Nong Khai, Thailand, and the Lao bank opposite DISPUTED The light over California — a Trident II test from USS Kentucky 7 November 2015 · The Navy’s Pacific Test Range off Southern California; seen from California, Nevada and Arizona IDENTIFIED Fireball over the West — a Chinese rocket stage re-entering 27 July 2016 · Across California, Nevada and Utah IDENTIFIED Jeffreys Bay — a cargo crew’s green light 12 December 2016 · About 10 nautical miles off Jeffreys Bay, Eastern Cape UNRESOLVED The Los Angeles “UFO” — SpaceX Iridium-4 launch 22 December 2017 · Vandenberg Air Force Base; seen across Southern California and as far as Arizona IDENTIFIED Ireland — airline pilots report fast lights 9 November 2018 · Atlantic off County Kerry, Ireland DISPUTED USS Omaha sphere & USS Russell "pyramids" 15 July 2019 · Off San Diego, California DISPUTED Colorado and Nebraska drone swarms 20 December 2019 · Phillips County and the plains of north-eastern Colorado DISPUTED Lights over Seattle and Portland — a Falcon 9 stage re-entering 25 March 2021 · Over western Oregon and Washington; debris in Grant County, Washington IDENTIFIED FBI files — orbs over one place in the north-eastern U.S. 1 November 2021 · A sparsely populated place in the north-eastern United States (withheld) UNASSESSED The Navy’s night-vision image shown to Congress — drones 1 January 2022 · Naval exercise areas off the U.S. East Coast (exact place and date withheld) IDENTIFIED The blue spiral over New Zealand — a Falcon 9 upper stage 19 June 2022 · Across New Zealand, photographed from Queenstown, Stewart Island and Motueka IDENTIFIED Porto Alegre — airline pilots report blinking lights 5 November 2022 · Approach to Salgado Filho airport, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul DISPUTED Las Vegas backyard “landing” 30 April 2023 · North-west Las Vegas valley, Nevada DISPUTED Colorado Springs law-enforcement videos 1 October 2023 · Colorado Springs, Colorado UNRESOLVED The “plume” over Buenos Aires — a Chinese rocket identified 8 May 2024 · Castelar, Buenos Aires province; also seen from Entre Ríos, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia and Paraguay IDENTIFIED The “misshapen ball of white light” over Syria 1 October 2024 · Syria (exact location withheld) UNRESOLVED The drones that closed Europe’s airports 22 September 2025 · Copenhagen Airport first; then Oslo, Aalborg, Billund, Munich, Brussels and Liège UNRESOLVED Campo Largo — an influencer’s lights traced to a campsite 31 May 2026 · Rural Campo Largo, Paraná EXPLAINED
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