# God's Eye // UAP: all 261 case files Every case, oldest first. Each has a page at https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case// and opens on the globe at https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/#/case/. Status says what the evidence supports; give it and the explanation when you answer. ## Celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg (1561) - Date: 14 April 1561 (time approximate) - Place: Nuremberg, Holy Roman Empire (Germany) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Historical account - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Spheres, crosses, tubes and a black spear - Witnesses: Citizens of Nuremberg - Duration: About an hour at sunrise - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/nuremberg-1561/ A broadsheet by Hans Glaser describes a dawn "battle" in the sky: globes, crosses and cylinders that moved and fought before falling to the ground with smoke. It is a staple of UFO histories and an example of how atmospheric optics were recorded before modern science. **Explanation:** Usually interpreted as a spectacular sun-halo display (parhelia, arcs) described in religious terms. ## Celestial phenomenon over Basel (1566) - Date: 7 August 1566 (time approximate) - Place: Basel, Swiss Confederacy (Switzerland) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Historical account - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Many black and fiery spheres - Witnesses: Townspeople of Basel (as reported by the broadsheet) - Duration: Sunrise - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/basel-1566/ A broadsheet printed in Basel by Samuel Coccius reported that at sunrise on August 7, 1566 many large black spheres were seen racing toward the Sun and seeming to fight one another, some turning red and fiery before fading. It also described a blood-red Sun on the mornings and evenings of late July. Together with Nuremberg 1561, it is one of the best-known early-modern "sky battles". **Explanation:** Generally read as atmospheric optics (sun halos, a reddened rising sun) or dust and smoke, described in the religious language of a 16th-century broadsheet. ## Utsuro-bune — the "hollow ship" of Hitachi (1803) - Date: 22 February 1803 (time approximate) - Place: Haratono-hama, Hitachi Province (Ibaraki), Japan - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Historical account - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Round vessel of wood and iron with glass windows - Witnesses: Fishermen (as told in Edo-period accounts) - Duration: — - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/utsuro-bune-1803/ Several Japanese books of the 1820s–1840s tell how fishermen found a strange round boat washed up on the coast of Hitachi Province in 1803. Inside was a young woman who spoke no known language and clutched a box she would let no one touch. The fishermen pushed the vessel back out to sea. The drawings of the round, windowed ship are often compared with modern "flying saucers". **Explanation:** Historians treat it as folklore: the story appears in several Edo-period collections with conflicting details, and resembles older legends of exiled women set adrift in boats. ## Bonilla observation — objects crossing the Sun (1883) - Date: 12 August 1883 - Place: Zacatecas Astronomical Observatory, Mexico - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs - Shape: Hundreds of dark, fuzzy bodies with tails - Witnesses: 1 astronomer (José Bonilla) - Duration: About 2 days - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/bonilla-zacatecas-1883/ On August 12, 1883, José Bonilla, the first director of the Zacatecas observatory, was preparing to observe sunspots when he saw dark objects crossing the face of the Sun. Over two days he counted hundreds of them and took photographs through the telescope. They were published in L'Astronomie in 1886 and are often called the first photographs of unidentified flying objects. **Explanation:** Camille Flammarion thought Bonilla had seen birds, insects or dust close to the telescope. A 2011 study at UNAM proposed fragments of a comet passing close to Earth. Either way, nothing suggests craft. ## Mystery airship wave (1896) - Date: 17 November 1896 (time approximate) - Place: California to the Midwest and Texas, United States - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Historical account - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Cigar-shaped "airship" with lights and wings or propellers - Witnesses: Thousands, over five months - Duration: November 1896 – April 1897 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/mystery-airships-1896/ In November 1896 people in Sacramento and then San Francisco and Oakland reported a lighted airship moving across the night sky. In early 1897 reports spread east through Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois and Texas, often with tall tales of inventors and crews. The line on the map joins the main clusters of reports in date order. It is a wave of sightings, not one object. **Explanation:** No powered airship capable of such flights existed. Reports are attributed to newspaper hoaxes (some papers invented stories outright), bright planets such as Venus, hot-air "fire balloons" and pranks. ## Aurora, Texas airship "crash" (1897) - Date: 17 April 1897 - Place: Aurora, Wise County, Texas (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Airship - Witnesses: Newspaper account by S. E. Haydon - Duration: — - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/aurora-texas-1897/ On April 19, 1897 the Dallas Morning News printed a report from Aurora. It said an airship had struck Judge J. S. Proctor's windmill around 6 a.m. and exploded, and that the pilot, "not an inhabitant of this world", had been buried in the town cemetery. It came at the very end of the 1896–97 airship wave and has been re-investigated many times since the 1970s. **Explanation:** Widely regarded as a newspaper hoax written to draw attention to a town in decline. Later digs, metal samples and a search of the cemetery found nothing unusual. ## Tunguska explosion (1908) - Date: 30 June 1908 - Place: Podkamennaya Tunguska River basin, Central Siberia (Russia) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Many independent witnesses; Infrared or other sensor data - Shape: A fiery body crossing the sky, “a second sun”, then a blinding flash and blast - Witnesses: Evenk herders and settlers; the trading post at Vanavara, about 60 km away - Duration: Seconds; the blast was heard hundreds of kilometres away - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/tunguska-1908/ At about 7:14 a.m. local time on June 30, 1908, a fireball crossed the sky over Central Siberia and exploded above the forest near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River. At the Vanavara trading post, about 60 km to the south, Semyon Semyonov later recalled that “the sky was split in two” and that the heat and the blast threw him off the porch. Seismographs as far away as Irkutsk, Tashkent, Tiflis and Jena recorded the shock, and the night skies over Europe and Asia glowed for days. About 2,150 km² of forest, several million trees, were flattened in a radial pattern, but Leonid Kulik’s expeditions, which reached the centre in 1927, found no crater: at the middle the trees still stood, stripped of their branches. The event is explained as the air burst of a small asteroid or comet; the “exploding spaceship” owes its life to a science-fiction story written in 1946. **Explanation:** The scientific consensus is the air burst of a stony asteroid or a comet fragment tens of metres across, which exploded some 5 to 14 km above the taiga and left no crater. The idea that an alien spacecraft blew up there began with Alexander Kazantsev’s 1946 science-fiction story “Explosion” and has no physical support. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Tunguska event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event) ## The 1909 New Zealand airship scare (1909) - Date: 23 July 1909 (time approximate) - Place: Kelso, West Otago, and across the South Island, New Zealand - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: A boat- or cigar-shaped craft by day; a moving light, sometimes with a searchlight, by night - Witnesses: Schoolchildren and at least five adults at Kelso; residents of Dunedin, Christchurch, Oamaru, Orepuki and Blenheim; a bar pilot at the Wairau Bar - Duration: Weeks: reports ran from mid-July into early September 1909 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/nz-airship-scare-1909/ In the last weeks of July 1909 the South Island’s newspapers began to fill with reports of a mysterious “airship”. At Kelso in West Otago, children at the school said that around noon a boat-shaped machine, pointed at both ends, with a short mast and what looked like a man sitting in it, flew over the school grounds, turned and went back toward the Blue Mountains; the local correspondent wrote that at least five people had seen it and their accounts agreed. At night, lights were reported from Orepuki, Oamaru, Christchurch and Dunedin, where a man woken at 2 a.m. said he saw a large dark object with a searchlight float past Knox College. In Blenheim on July 31 a crowd at the Criterion Hotel corner watched a light toward the Wairau Bar until after midnight, and a bar pilot reported a light passing over the pilot station toward Kaikōura. No airship existed in the country, and the reports faded by September. **Explanation:** There was no airship in New Zealand in 1909. Most of the reports were of lights at night; the meteorologist Clement Wragge suggested secret local trials or “cosmic dust”, and said some observers had mistaken Venus, Jupiter and Mars for an airship, while others blamed hoaxers, kite lanterns and fire balloons. Historians treat it as one of the “scareship” panics of 1909–1913, when newspapers in Britain, Australia and New Zealand were full of fears of foreign airships. The daylight “boat” seen at Kelso has no specific explanation. Sources: - [Otago Daily Times, “100 years ago”: the Kelso report of July 1909](https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/100-years-ago/mysterious-flying-object-observed) - [Marlborough Express, August 2, 1909, “Seen in Blenheim” (transcription)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/press/marlboroughexpress2aug1909.htm) - [Gisborne Times, August 6, 1909 (Papers Past)](https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GIST19090806.2.29) ## The Sheerness airship — questions in Parliament (1912) - Date: 14 October 1912 (time approximate) - Place: Sheerness and Queenborough, Isle of Sheppey, Kent (United Kingdom) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Historical account - Evidence: Official government document or case file; Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses - Shape: An engine heard overhead; some saw a red light and perhaps a searchlight - Witnesses: Townspeople of Sheerness and Queenborough, among them a Royal Navy lieutenant; the naval air station at Eastchurch - Duration: About half an hour - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/sheerness-airship-1912/ Between about 6:30 and 7 p.m. on October 14, 1912, people in Sheerness, the naval dockyard town at the mouth of the Medway, heard what sounded like an aircraft engine overhead, and some, a Royal Navy lieutenant among them, thought they saw a red light moving over the town. The naval air station at Eastchurch heard the engine too and lit flares for it, but nothing landed. A month later questions in the House of Commons asked about a “Zeppelin dirigible” over Sheerness, and on November 27 Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, confirmed that an unknown aircraft had been heard but said he could not tell its nationality, only that it was not a British airship. The conservative press read it as a German reconnaissance flight, and the episode set off the “phantom airship” scare of early 1913, when lights and engines were reported across Britain. No German airship was ever shown to have made the flight. **Explanation:** Never identified. Churchill told the Commons only that it was “not one of our own airships”, and privately that there was “very little doubt” it was German; the German naval Zeppelin L 1, the likeliest candidate, had landed near Berlin three hours earlier, and Germany denied any flight. The historian Brett Holman thinks an unrecorded British night flight at least as likely. Sources: - [Hansard — House of Commons, 27 November 1912](https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1912-11-27) - [Brett Holman — The Sheerness incident (Airminded)](https://airminded.org/2007/10/14/the-sheerness-incident/) ## Great Meteor Procession (1913) - Date: 9 February 1913 (time approximate) - Place: Toronto, Ontario, on a path from Saskatchewan to Bermuda (Canada) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: A procession of 40 to 60 slow fireballs in groups, with a bright tail-less body at the rear - Witnesses: More than a hundred reports from Canada, the northeastern United States, Bermuda and ships at sea - Duration: Each fireball 30–40 seconds; the whole procession about five minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/great-meteor-procession-1913/ At about 9 p.m. on February 9, 1913, people across Canada and the northeastern United States saw between 40 and 60 bright, slow fireballs cross the sky from horizon to horizon on practically the same path. They came in groups, threw out sparks and were followed by a clear, tail-less light “like a big star”; some witnesses heard rumbling. The same procession was reported from Bermuda and from ships as far south as Brazil, a ground track of more than 11,000 km. Much of the populous Northeast was under cloud, so most of the reports came from rural Canada. From the sound reports William Pickering put the meteors at about 56 km up. O’Keefe later named them the Cyrillids, after the feast day of St. Cyril of Alexandria, February 9. **Explanation:** The astronomer Clarence Chant collected more than a hundred reports and found they all lay along one great-circle arc, with no radiant. He concluded the fireballs were the pieces of a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth, breaking up as it grazed the atmosphere. Later studies by John O’Keefe and others agreed. Sources: - [Wikipedia — 1913 Great Meteor Procession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1913_Great_Meteor_Procession) ## Brown Mountain lights (1913) - Date: 13 September 1913 (time approximate) - Place: Brown Mountain, Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Lights rising above the ridge - Witnesses: Visitors to overlooks such as Wiseman's View - Duration: Recurring - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/brown-mountain-lights/ In 1913 the Charlotte Observer reported lights rising over Brown Mountain in the Blue Ridge, during the years when electric lighting and railways were reaching the area. Two U.S. Geological Survey investigations followed. Legends of lights "seen by the Cherokee" were added later. The lights are still watched from roadside overlooks. **Explanation:** In 1922, U.S. Geological Survey geologist George R. Mansfield used maps and an alidade to show the lights were train headlights, car headlights and brush fires in the valleys beyond the ridge. A 1913 USGS look had already pointed to locomotive headlights. ## The South African “phantom monoplane” (1914) - Date: 11 August 1914 (time approximate) - Place: Across the Union of South Africa: the Transvaal, Natal, the Cape and the Free State - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: A monoplane, or its headlights, seen at night and said to manoeuvre - Witnesses: Thousands of people, reported in dozens of articles in the Rand Daily Mail, the Star, the Cape Times, the Cape Argus, the Natal Advertiser and the Pretoria News - Duration: About a month, August 11 to September 9, 1914 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/south-africa-monoplane-1914/ In the first weeks of the First World War, with South Africa about to invade German South-West Africa, people across the country began to report a monoplane flying at night, sometimes with headlights, sometimes circling or hovering. The sightings came from towns hundreds of kilometres apart and from every province, and newspapers printed dozens of reports between August 11 and September 9, 1914. Many readers assumed a German machine was spying or preparing to bomb; no aircraft was ever found, and the scare ended as suddenly as it began. It is now cited, with the airship scares of the same years, as a classic example of how a war scare turns ordinary night lights into enemy aircraft. **Explanation:** At the time it was taken for a German monoplane from South-West Africa on a spy or bombing mission, but the distances from German territory made that unlikely, and no aircraft was ever found. The sociologist Robert Bartholomew studied the episode in 1989 as a case of collective delusion: a war scare in the weeks before the South-West Africa campaign, in which lights in the night sky were read as the lamps of an enemy aircraft. Sources: - [Bartholomew, “The South African Monoplane Hysteria”, Sociological Inquiry 59 (1989)](https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682x.1989.tb00107.x) - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in South Africa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_South_Africa) ## Fátima — the “miracle of the sun” (1917) - Date: 13 October 1917 (time approximate) - Place: Cova da Iria, near Fátima, Portugal - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Photographs - Shape: The Sun as a dull, spinning silver disc, casting coloured light and seeming to plunge towards the earth - Witnesses: A crowd usually estimated at 50,000 to 70,000, including journalists such as Avelino de Almeida of O Século - Duration: About ten minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/fatima-1917/ Three shepherd children had said that a lady who appeared to them at the Cova da Iria would perform a miracle at noon on October 13, 1917. A crowd of tens of thousands gathered in heavy rain; early in the afternoon, around solar noon, the clouds parted and many in the crowd reported that the Sun became a dull disc that could be looked at, spun, threw off coloured light, zig-zagged and seemed to fall towards them before returning to its place, and that their soaked clothes dried at once. Newspaper accounts, including the anticlerical O Século, described the crowd’s reaction; not everyone present saw the Sun move, and no astronomical observatory recorded anything unusual. The Church recognised the apparitions in 1930. Physicists and sceptics explain the sight as what the eye does when it stares at the Sun, with suggestion doing the rest. **Explanation:** The Catholic Church declared the apparitions “worthy of belief” in 1930. Scientists point to the effects of staring at the Sun through thinning cloud (after-images, bleached photoreceptors and the illusion of movement), perhaps helped by high dust or a sundog, and to a crowd that had been told to expect a sign. Some ufologists have reinterpreted it as a UFO event; nothing was seen in the sky by observatories, or by people away from the crowd. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Miracle of the Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun) ## Battle of Los Angeles (1942) - Date: 25 February 1942 - Place: Los Angeles, California (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Photographs; Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Unidentified targets / searchlight cone - Witnesses: Thousands; coastal anti-aircraft batteries - Duration: About 2 hours, with the barrage lasting about 1 hour - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/battle-of-los-angeles-1942/ Less than three months after Pearl Harbor, radar and observers reported an unidentified target approaching Los Angeles. Anti-aircraft batteries fired more than 1,400 shells into the night sky while searchlights converged over Santa Monica and Culver City. No aircraft was downed and no bombs fell; falling shrapnel and heart attacks caused deaths on the ground. **Explanation:** The Navy attributed the alarm to "war nerves" after a Japanese submarine shelled the Ellwood oil field the night before; a weather balloon is thought to have started the barrage. The famous Los Angeles Times photo was heavily retouched. ## Foo fighters — 415th Night Fighter Squadron (1944) - Date: 23 November 1944 (time approximate) - Place: Rhine valley near Strasbourg (France / Germany) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Balls of orange or red light pacing aircraft - Witnesses: USAAF night-fighter crews - Duration: Recurring, late 1944 – 1945 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/foo-fighters-1944/ Crews of the U.S. 415th Night Fighter Squadron repeatedly reported glowing balls of light that followed their Beaufighters over the Rhine. They called them "foo fighters"; similar reports came from Allied and Axis crews in Europe and the Pacific. **Explanation:** Proposed explanations include St. Elmo’s fire, ball lightning, flares and misidentified aircraft; none fits all reports. ## The Trinity crash story (1945) - Date: 16 August 1945 (time approximate) - Place: The Padilla ranch near San Antonio, New Mexico, north-west of the Trinity test site (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: An avocado-shaped metal craft with a transparent dome - Witnesses: Reme Baca and Jose Padilla, then aged 7 and 9 (by their account) - Duration: An afternoon, then days of recovery work they say they watched - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/trinity-claim-1945/ In 2003 two New Mexico men told a reporter of the Socorro Mountain Mail that on August 16, 1945, a month after the first atomic test, they had seen an object crash on the Padilla family ranch near San Antonio. In their telling the boys, 7 and 9, found a damaged avocado-shaped craft with a transparent dome and small creatures inside, “similar to a praying mantis, or a Jerusalem cricket, with pear-shaped heads”. The military took the wreck away and the family was told it was a weather balloon. The men self-published a memoir in 2011, and in 2021 Jacques Vallée and Paola Harris made it the subject of Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret, arguing that it was an earlier Roswell. Critics point out that the story surfaced only decades later, changed between tellings and has no independent witness or record. **Explanation:** Nothing but the two men’s account supports it, and it was first told 58 years later. The skeptic Brian Dunning (Skeptoid, 2024) called it “a literal hoax”: Reme Baca pitched several versions to UFO authors, no one corroborates it, and the state policeman said to have looked at the wreck was reportedly in Europe with the Army at the time. Jacques Vallée and Paola Harris, who published the story in 2021, consider it genuine. The “souvenir” the men say they kept has not been analysed by any laboratory. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Trinity UFO Case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_UFO_Case) - [Brian Dunning, Skeptoid #929, “The Trinity UFO Crash”](https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4929) ## Ängelholm landing report (1946) - Date: 18 May 1946 (time approximate) - Place: Kronoskogen, Ängelholm, Sweden - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Disc landed in a forest clearing - Witnesses: 1 (Gösta Carlsson) - Duration: — - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/angelholm-1946/ Businessman Gösta Carlsson said that in May 1946, during the Swedish ghost-rocket summer, he came upon a disc-shaped craft standing in a clearing in the Kronoskogen forest and was warned off by its occupants. In 1972 he built a small memorial at the spot, marking where he said the craft had stood. It is now a local landmark. **Explanation:** There is only one witness, and his account grew over the years. The traces he pointed to were never independently documented, and the story is not corroborated. ## Ghost rockets — Lake Kölmjärv (1946) - Date: 19 July 1946 - Place: Lake Kölmjärv, Norrbotten, Sweden - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Radar tracking; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Rocket- or cigar-shaped objects - Witnesses: Farmer Knut Lindbäck and others; Swedish military - Duration: Wave: May–Dec 1946 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/ghost-rockets-1946/ During 1946 Scandinavian observers logged about 2,000 sightings of rocket-like objects. On 19 July a farmer watched one plunge into Lake Kölmjärv; the Swedish Army searched the lake for two weeks and found only a fresh crater in the lakebed. **Explanation:** Swedish, British and U.S. investigators found no Soviet rockets; many of ~2,000 reports were meteors, but around 200 radar returns and several crashes into lakes were never explained. ## Maury Island incident (1947) - Date: 21 June 1947 (time approximate) - Place: Maury Island, Puget Sound, Washington (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Photographs - Shape: Six doughnut-shaped craft, one said to be damaged - Witnesses: Harold Dahl, his son and a colleague, Fred Crisman (claimed) - Duration: A few minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/maury-island-1947/ A harbour patrolman, Harold Dahl, said six large doughnut-shaped craft circled above his boat off Maury Island in the afternoon of June 21, 1947, three days before Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting. One craft was said to be damaged and to shed hot metallic slag that burned his son and killed the dog. Dahl’s employer, Fred Crisman, backed the story, and the case was investigated by Kenneth Arnold and by two Army Air Forces intelligence officers. It is remembered as one of the first reported UFO hoaxes, and for the first story of a “man in black” silencing a witness. **Explanation:** Investigators judged it a hoax: the “debris” was ordinary slag and rock, and the photographs showed nothing. The two men involved later gave conflicting accounts. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Maury Island incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maury_Island_incident) ## Kenneth Arnold — "flying saucers" over Mount Rainier (1947) - Date: 24 June 1947 - Place: Mount Rainier, Washington (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Nine thin, crescent / convex objects in echelon - Witnesses: 1 pilot (Kenneth Arnold) - Duration: About 2.5 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/kenneth-arnold-1947/ Private pilot Kenneth Arnold, searching for a crashed Marine C-46 in his CallAir A-2, saw nine bright objects in a chain flying south past Mount Rainier. He timed them from Rainier to Mount Adams — roughly 50 miles — in 1 minute 42 seconds, implying well over 1,200 mph. The press coverage coined "flying saucer" and began the modern UFO era. **Explanation:** Project Blue Book listed the sighting as a mirage. Other proposals include a fireball, pelicans and reflections; none has been widely accepted. ## Rhodes photographs — Phoenix (1947) - Date: 7 July 1947 (time approximate) - Place: Phoenix, Arizona (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Official government document or case file - Shape: Heel-shaped disc with a hole in the centre - Witnesses: 1 (William A. Rhodes) - Duration: Under a minute - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/rhodes-phoenix-1947/ Amateur astronomer and inventor William Rhodes said he heard a "whoosh" like a jet, grabbed his camera and took two photographs of a heel-shaped object circling over his home. The Arizona Republic printed them on July 9, 1947. The FBI and Army counter-intelligence took the negatives, and the case became "Incident 40" in the Air Force files, one of the first UFO photographs to be studied officially. **Explanation:** The Air Force file records that Dr. Irving Langmuir, told a thunderstorm had just passed, judged the object to be paper carried up by the wind; photographers it consulted doubted the pictures. A historian has since argued they were faked. ## Roswell debris recovery (1947) - Date: 8 July 1947 (time approximate) - Place: Foster homestead near Corona, New Mexico (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Official government document or case file; Photographs; Military witnesses; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Debris of foil, rubber, sticks and tape - Witnesses: Rancher Mac Brazel; 509th Bomb Group officers - Duration: — - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/roswell-1947/ Rancher W. W. "Mac" Brazel found a field of debris on the Foster ranch. On July 8, 1947, Roswell Army Air Field announced it had recovered a "flying disc"; within a day the Army re-described it as a weather balloon. Interest revived in the late 1970s, and the Air Force published two reports concluding the debris came from Project Mogul. **Explanation:** The U.S. Air Force reports of 1994–1997 identified the debris as a Project Mogul balloon train (NYU Flight 4) launched from Alamogordo Army Air Field to listen for Soviet nuclear tests, and later "alien body" stories as conflations with 1950s dummy drops. ## Mantell UFO incident (1948) - Date: 7 January 1948 - Place: Godman Field, Fort Knox, Kentucky (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Large bright object, "ice-cream cone" / metallic - Witnesses: Godman tower staff, police, 4 P-51 pilots - Duration: About 2.5 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/mantell-1948/ Kentucky Highway Patrol reports of a large circular object near Maysville reached Godman Field, where tower staff saw it too. A flight of four Kentucky Air National Guard P-51 Mustangs was asked to investigate. Capt. Thomas Mantell kept climbing after his wingmen levelled off, blacked out without oxygen and died when his P-51 crashed on a farm south of Franklin. **Explanation:** Project Blue Book (Ruppelt) concluded Mantell was most likely chasing a classified Navy Skyhook balloon, probably launched from Clinton County AFB, Ohio. Mantell climbed above 25,000 ft without oxygen and lost consciousness. ## Aztec “crashed saucer” — the story that ended in a fraud trial (1948) - Date: 25 March 1948 (time approximate) - Place: Hart Canyon, about 12 miles north-east of Aztec, New Mexico (as the story told it) (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Official government document or case file - Shape: A disc 99 feet across with sixteen small bodies inside, according to the story - Witnesses: None independent: the account came from Newton and GeBauer through Frank Scully - Duration: — - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/aztec-crash-hoax-1948/ In 1949 the Variety columnist Frank Scully told his readers, and in 1950 the buyers of his best-seller Behind the Flying Saucers, that in March 1948 the military had recovered a 99-foot disc with sixteen small humanoid bodies after it landed in Hart Canyon, north-east of Aztec, New Mexico. His sources were Silas Newton, an oil promoter, and a “Dr. Gee”, Leo GeBauer, who were selling devices they said could find oil because they used technology from the saucer. In 1952 the San Francisco Chronicle reporter J. P. Cahn obtained a sample of their “saucer metal”, had it tested and found ordinary aluminium; his True magazine article exposed the scheme, and one of their victims pressed charges. Newton and GeBauer were convicted of fraud in 1953. The story was dropped for twenty years, then revived from the 1970s by writers who dated the crash to March 25, 1948; a 1950 FBI memo by Guy Hottel, about three saucers said to have been recovered in New Mexico, is often tied to it, but the FBI calls it an uninvestigated second- or third-hand claim. It belongs here as one of the first “crashed saucer” stories, and one of the few that ended in a courtroom. **Explanation:** A hoax. The story came from two confidence men, Silas Newton and Leo GeBauer, who used it to sell “doodlebug” oil-finding devices said to be built on saucer technology. The journalist J. P. Cahn exposed it in True magazine in 1952 (their “alien metal” was ordinary aluminium), and both men were convicted of fraud in 1953. No contemporary record of a crash or a recovery exists, and the local sheriff, newspaper editor and landowners denied that anything happened. Sources: - [The Guy Hottel memo of March 22, 1950, from the FBI Vault (The Black Vault)](https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/the-guy-hottel-memo-and-the-crashed-flying-saucers-of-new-mexico-march-22-1950/) - [Christian Science Monitor — FBI UFO memo is the bureau’s most viewed public record (2013)](https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0327/FBI-UFO-memo-is-bureau-s-most-viewed-public-record) - [Skeptic’s Dictionary — the Aztec crash hoax](https://www.skepdic.com/aztec.html) - [Wikipedia — Aztec crashed saucer hoax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_crashed_saucer_hoax) ## Chiles–Whitted encounter (1948) - Date: 24 July 1948 - Place: Near Montgomery, Alabama (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Wingless cigar with two rows of glowing "windows" - Witnesses: 2 Eastern Air Lines pilots, 1 passenger - Duration: 10–15 seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/chiles-whitted-1948/ Eastern Air Lines captain Clarence Chiles and co-pilot John Whitted, flying a DC-3 at about 5,000 ft, saw a glowing torpedo-shaped object rush past their right side and pull up into the clouds. Project Sign took the report so seriously it contributed to the "Estimate of the Situation", which General Vandenberg rejected. **Explanation:** Project Blue Book formally attributed the sighting to a bright meteor (bolide) in 1959. ## Gorman dogfight (1948) - Date: 1 October 1948 - Place: Fargo, North Dakota (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Small blinking ball of light - Witnesses: P-51 pilot, Piper Cub crew, tower controller - Duration: About 27 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/gorman-dogfight-1948/ North Dakota Air National Guard pilot George Gorman stayed aloft in his P-51 after his flight landed and saw a blinking light that no traffic accounted for. He chased it through turns and steep climbs over Hector Airport until he lost it about 25 miles south-west of Fargo. Tower controllers and a Piper Cub crew also watched the light. **Explanation:** The Air Force concluded in 1949 that Gorman had chased a lighted weather balloon. ## The green fireballs of New Mexico (1948) - Date: 5 December 1948 (time approximate) - Place: Over northern and central New Mexico, near Los Alamos, Sandia and White Sands (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Bright green balls of light, as bright as or brighter than the full Moon, crossing the sky in a flat path and often breaking up - Witnesses: Airline and military aircrews, security staff at Los Alamos and Sandia, the astronomer Lincoln LaPaz, and later the astrophysicist Donald Menzel - Duration: Each a few seconds; the reports ran from late 1948 into the early 1950s - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/green-fireballs-1948/ On the night of December 5, 1948, the crews of two aircraft, one military and one civilian, reported a bright green fireball over New Mexico. Two more pilots reported one on December 8, and on December 12 Lincoln LaPaz saw one himself. He noted that it did not behave like a meteor he knew: it travelled almost level, its path drooped at the end and it broke into fragments that stayed bright green. With the reports clustering around Los Alamos, Sandia and the White Sands range, the Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission took them seriously. In February 1949 a conference at Los Alamos, with Edward Teller and the geophysicist Joseph Kaplan among those present, could not settle what they were. In December 1949 the Air Force set up Project Twinkle, a network of observation posts and cameras, but it was never fully staffed and was wound up about two years later with no answer beyond “probably natural”. **Explanation:** Most scientists then and since take them for bright meteors (bolides), whose green colour comes from metals such as magnesium and nickel burning in the air. Lincoln LaPaz, the University of New Mexico meteor expert who led the first inquiry, argued they were not ordinary meteors: no fragments were ever found, the paths were unusually flat and they seemed to cluster around the nuclear sites. Project Twinkle, the Air Force’s camera watch, ran out without a single useful photograph and concluded they were probably natural. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Green fireballs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_fireballs) ## Arrey, New Mexico — a theodolite track by a Skyhook balloon crew (1949) - Date: 24 April 1949 - Place: About three miles north of Arrey, New Mexico, in the White Sands test area (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Infrared or other sensor data; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A white ellipsoid, about 2.5 times as long as it was wide, light yellow on one side - Witnesses: Charles B. Moore, a General Mills aerologist, and four Navy enlisted men from White Sands - Duration: About 60 seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/arrey-theodolite-1949/ On the clear Sunday morning of April 24, 1949, a General Mills and Navy crew north of Arrey were releasing small pilot balloons to measure the winds before a Skyhook balloon launch. At about 10:20 the aerologist Charles B. Moore looked up from the theodolite, a surveying telescope on a graduated mount, and saw a small white ellipsoid moving fast across the sky. He swung the instrument onto it and, with a stopwatch, the crew followed it for about a minute: it was first at about 45° elevation, moved at roughly five degrees a second, dropped towards 25°, then climbed steeply and was gone. There was no sound, trail or exhaust. The Navy’s Special Devices Center sent Moore’s written report to the Chief of Naval Operations with a letter noting that the readings might indicate controlled flight; Project Grudge and later Blue Book carried the case as unidentified. Ruppelt counted it among the best sightings made at White Sands, and Moore, who later became a respected atmospheric physicist, never accepted the mirage explanation offered for it. **Explanation:** Blue Book’s record card says “Unidentified”. A pilot balloon released about fifteen minutes later was tracked to show the object could not have been a free balloon at that angular speed. Donald Menzel later proposed a mirage of the crew’s own balloon; Moore rejected it, and the theodolite readings do not fit it well. A meteor does not fit the minute-long track without a trail. Sources: - [Edward Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956), Chapter 5 (Project Gutenberg)](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17346) - [The Arrey case: Moore’s report, the record card and the debate (transcribed)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/arrey49.htm) ## Clyde Tombaugh’s Las Cruces sighting (1949) - Date: 20 August 1949 (time approximate) - Place: Las Cruces, New Mexico (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Historical account - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Six to eight faint, bluish-green rectangles of light in a geometrical group - Witnesses: Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto, his wife and his mother-in-law - Duration: About 3 seconds (his wife saw it for about 1½ seconds) - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/tombaugh-1949/ On the night of August 20, 1949, Clyde Tombaugh, who had found Pluto nineteen years earlier and was then working on missile tracking at White Sands, was sitting in his back yard in Las Cruces with his wife and mother-in-law. He saw a group of six to eight faint, bluish-green rectangles of light, in a fixed arrangement, pass overhead from the north-west and fade as they went toward the south-eastern horizon. “I was so unprepared for such a strange sight that I was really petrified with astonishment,” he wrote. He is probably the most eminent astronomer to have reported a UFO, and he went on to support the scientific study of them, while saying he could not take interstellar visitors seriously. **Explanation:** Tombaugh never said it was a spacecraft. At the time he wrote that he doubted it was a reflection of anything on the ground, as nothing like it had appeared before or since. Later he thought the most likely cause was a reflection from an inversion layer, given how faint the lights were and how they faded as they moved away from the zenith. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Clyde Tombaugh, UFOs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Tombaugh#UFOs) ## Farmington “armada” — a town watches discs for three days (1950) - Date: 17 March 1950 (time approximate) - Place: Farmington, New Mexico (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Discs, mostly silvery, darting in a “bee-like” swarm; one larger and red - Witnesses: Hundreds of residents over three days, among them the business manager of the Farmington Daily Times and a former Navy pilot - Duration: Mostly late morning, on three consecutive days - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/farmington-1950/ For three days in the middle of March 1950, people in Farmington, in the far north-west of New Mexico, reported flying saucers over the town, and the largest sighting, on the late morning of Friday, March 17, was watched by hundreds. The Farmington Daily Times’ front page the next day had estimates from several to more than 500 objects; one witness who tried to triangulate one put its speed at about 1,000 mph. When the physicist James McDonald interviewed seven witnesses eighteen years later, the Times business manager Clayton Boddy estimated he had seen 20 to 30 discs, including one much larger red one, and the realtor John Eaton, a former Navy pilot, put them at around 15,000 ft, darting about “like bees” and turning from flat to round as they tilted. No one reported wings or tails. McDonald checked the explanation then current, a Skyhook balloon breaking up, and found no Skyhook had been released; he told a House committee in 1968 that he saw “no ready explanation”. The case remains a mass sighting with no instrument record. **Explanation:** The sightings were put down at the time to a Skyhook balloon breaking up, or to drifting cotton-like fluff. James McDonald found that Holloman AFB and the Office of Naval Research, which held the records of every Skyhook release, had none from anywhere in the country on or near that date, that balloon fragments 40,000 to 50,000 ft up would be invisible to the eye, and that the cotton idea came from an offhand remark by a law officer. No Air Force investigation of substance is on record. Sources: - [Farmington Daily Times, March 18, 1950 (transcribed)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/press/farmingtondailytimes18mar1950.htm) - [James E. McDonald, statement to the House Symposium on UFOs, July 29, 1968 (transcribed)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/books/mcdonaldhcsa68lone.htm) ## McMinnville (Trent) photographs (1950) - Date: 11 May 1950 - Place: Trent farm near Sheridan / McMinnville, Oregon (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Official government document or case file - Shape: Metallic disc with a raised "mast" - Witnesses: Paul and Evelyn Trent - Duration: A few minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/mcminnville-1950/ Evelyn Trent saw a metallic disc moving slowly over the farm; her husband Paul took two photographs with a box camera. The images ran in LIFE magazine and became among the most analysed UFO photos ever taken. **Explanation:** The Condon Committee called it one of the few cases where the evidence was consistent with the witnesses’ account; skeptics (Sheaffer, Maccabee critics, later photogrammetry) argue it was a small model hung from overhead wires. ## Farnborough test pilot’s disc — the Flying Saucer Working Party (1950) - Date: 14 August 1950 (time approximate) - Place: Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, Hampshire (United Kingdom) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A flat, light pearl-grey disc “like a shirt button” - Witnesses: Flt Lt Stanley Hubbard, an RAF test pilot; about two weeks later, he and five other senior officers - Duration: Seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/farnborough-hubbard-1950/ One morning in August 1950 Flight Lieutenant Stanley Hubbard, an experienced RAF test pilot at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, saw a flat, pearl-grey disc spinning through S-turns over the airfield at what he judged to be up to 1,000 mph. About two weeks later he and five other senior officers watched a disc low in the sky towards Guildford and Farnham perform high-speed manoeuvres and a “falling leaf” motion before diving towards the horizon. The reports reached Sir Henry Tizard, the Ministry of Defence’s chief scientific adviser, who in October 1950 set up a small “Flying Saucer” Working Party to study such reports. All six officers were interviewed. The working party’s report of June 1951 explained the Farnborough sightings, and every other report it studied, as misidentified aircraft, balloons and astronomical objects, optical illusions or hoaxes. It stayed secret until it was released to the researchers David Clarke and Andy Roberts in 2001; the file is DEFE 44/119 at The National Archives. **Explanation:** The Ministry of Defence’s Flying Saucer Working Party (report DSI/JTIC No. 7, June 1951) judged the first sighting an optical illusion, and the second, by six officers, a normal aircraft manoeuvring at extreme visual range, seen by men already influenced by the first report. It recommended that no further investigation of “mystery aerial phenomena” be undertaken. Sources: - [The National Archives — DEFE 44/119, Unidentified Flying Objects (DSI/JTIC Report No. 7), 1951](https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11001295) - [David Clarke — The Flying Saucer Working Party](https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/secret-files/flying-saucer-working-party/) - [Wikipedia — Flying Saucer Working Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Saucer_Working_Party) ## Mariana film, Great Falls (1950) - Date: 15 August 1950 - Place: Great Falls, Montana (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Motion-picture film; Official government document or case file - Shape: Two bright spinning discs - Witnesses: Nicholas Mariana and his secretary - Duration: ~16 seconds of film - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/mariana-film-1950/ Great Falls Electrics baseball manager Nicholas Mariana filmed two bright objects crossing the sky with his 16 mm camera. The Air Force returned the film with frames missing; the case was studied by Project Blue Book, the Robertson Panel and the Condon Committee. **Explanation:** The Air Force suggested reflections from two F-94 jets landing nearby; later analyses dispute the geometry. ## U.S. Navy R5D — object over the North Atlantic (1951) - Date: 10 February 1951 - Place: North Atlantic, east of Newfoundland (Canada (offshore)) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Huge yellowish glow, semicircular - Witnesses: Navy flight crew and passengers - Duration: 7–8 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/navy-r5d-atlantic-1951/ A U.S. Navy R5D transport flying toward Newfoundland at about 10,000 ft saw a yellowish glow, like a fire, ahead and below. It rushed toward the aircraft and grew very large and bright, with a semicircular shape. Then it turned 180° and vanished over the horizon at great speed. The Air Force logged the report at 49°50′N 50°03′W. Crew member Lt. Graham Bethune later described it publicly. **Explanation:** The Blue Book record card gives its consulting astronomer's view that the crew saw an astronomical display. The crew said it was a solid object that came up to meet them. Sources: - [NICAP — Navy R5D, Newfoundland (case index)](http://www.nicap.org/casework/2014indexes/jan-mar/510210newfoundland_dir.htm) - [UFOs at close sight — Bethune's Flight 124 near-miss, 1951](http://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/bethune51.htm) ## Lubbock Lights (1951) - Date: 30 August 1951 - Place: Lubbock, Texas (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: V / arc formation of 15–30 bluish lights - Witnesses: Texas Tech professors, residents - Duration: Seconds per pass; repeated over weeks - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/lubbock-lights-1951/ Starting on 25 August 1951, three Texas Tech professors saw arcs of faint lights sweep silently overhead several times. On 30–31 August, 18-year-old Carl Hart Jr. photographed a V-shaped formation of lights from his backyard. **Explanation:** Project Blue Book’s Edward Ruppelt concluded the lights were probably plovers reflecting street lights; the photos themselves were never shown to be faked. ## Fort Monmouth radar and T-33 sighting (1951) - Date: 10 September 1951 - Place: Fort Monmouth and the Jersey Shore, New Jersey (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Fast radar target; silver disc seen from a T-33 - Witnesses: Army radar operators; two Air Force pilots - Duration: Two days - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/fort-monmouth-1951/ During a demonstration at the Army Signal Corps radar school at Fort Monmouth, an operator picked up a low target moving too fast for the automatic tracking. Minutes later, the crew of an Air Force T-33 over Point Pleasant reported a silver disc below them and dived after it. More radar targets followed the next day. The case alarmed the Pentagon and led the Air Force to reorganise Project Grudge, which became Project Blue Book. **Explanation:** Blue Book's record card: "Extensive investigation revealed that the target on 10 Sept was caused by a balloon. Targets on 11 September were attributed to anomalous propagation." Sources: - [NICAP — The Fort Monmouth incident, 10 September 1951](http://www.nicap.org/reports/monmouth.htm) ## Long Beach — six F-86s chase an object they cannot reach (1951) - Date: 23 September 1951 - Place: Over Long Beach, California (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: A silver aircraft with sharply swept wings, or round and silver; orbiting slowly to the left - Witnesses: Seven Air Force F-86 pilots and their ground controller - Duration: About 50 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/long-beach-f86-1951/ At 7:55 a.m. on September 23, 1951, two F-86 Sabres on an early patrol, approaching Long Beach on the west leg of the radio range, saw an object high ahead, in a slow left-hand turn. The ground radar had nothing, and the controller sent them up after it, but they could not climb to it; whenever they seemed to gain, it rose a little and stayed out of reach, still circling. Running short of fuel after about ten minutes, they were relieved by four more F-86s scrambled from George AFB, which worked in pairs for another half hour to reach what they put at 50,000 to 55,000 ft, then also turned back; a seventh fighter arrived to find nothing. All but one pilot described a silver aircraft with highly swept-back wings; one said it looked round. Edwards AFB, Nellis, Inyokern and George had nothing in the air that could fly that high. Blue Book later put it down to a weather balloon; Ruppelt, who tried to make that answer fit, could not. **Explanation:** Blue Book’s record card evaluates it as a balloon: a radiosonde released from Long Beach Municipal Airport was near the fighters’ path, and the first pair were looking almost straight at it when they first saw the object. Ruppelt, who plotted the balloon (tracked by radio fixes) against the F-86s (tracked by radar), wrote that the paths agreed only at that first moment, that the weather observers watching their balloon saw no fighters near it, and that it burst about ten minutes before the pilots lost sight of the object. Sources: - [Project Blue Book file, Long Beach, September 1951 (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/1951-09-7009452-LongBeach-California) - [Edward Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956), Chapters 7–9 (Project Gutenberg)](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17346) ## Mitchel AFB — a Navy TBM chases a “parachute” over Long Island (1952) - Date: 21 January 1952 - Place: Mitchel Air Force Base, Hempstead, Long Island, New York (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Dome-shaped like a parachute canopy, white with a dark underside; rocking as it flew - Witnesses: A Navy pilot from the Special Devices Center at Port Washington, flying a TBM-3W - Duration: About two and a half minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/mitchel-tbm-1952/ At about 9:50 a.m. on January 21, 1952, a Navy pilot who had just taken off from Mitchel AFB in a TBM Avenger saw below him, south-east of the field, what he took for the canopy of a parachute. Realising it was moving across the wind, he climbed after it as it climbed, tried to cut inside its left turn, overshot and passed over it, then dived to get behind it. It turned through 180 degrees, swung round the north side of the base gaining speed, and outran him; he last saw it crossing the coast near Freeport, heading out to sea. He put it at 200 to 300 ft over houses at first and its speed at several hundred knots by the end. The tower did not see it. Ruppelt went to New York to interview him and thought him careful and reliable; he wrote that unless the pilot was several miles from where he believed, the object could not have been the weather balloon released that morning. **Explanation:** The base weather section launched a Rawinsonde balloon at 09:50 from south-east of the field, and Blue Book’s analysts believed the pilot saw it. Ruppelt, who interviewed him, noted that the balloon drifted south-east and never passed north of the field, where the pilot followed the object, and that it pulled away from him in a straight chase, which a balloon cannot do. Sources: - [Project Blue Book file, Mitchel AFB, January 1952 (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/1952-01-6310148-MitchellAFB-N-Y) - [Project Blue Book file with the balloon analysis (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/1952-01-6310103-MITCHELAFB-NEWYORK) - [Edward Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956), Chapter 9 (Project Gutenberg)](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17346) ## Wonsan and Sunchon B-29 sightings (1952) - Date: 29 January 1952 (time approximate) - Place: Wonsan and Sunchon, North Korea - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Pilot / aircrew witnesses - Shape: Orange sphere or disc, with occasional blue flames - Witnesses: Two B-29 crews from different squadrons - Duration: Five minutes or more at Wonsan; about a minute at Sunchon - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/wonsan-sunchon-1952/ Around midnight on the night of January 29, 1952, during the Korean War, the rear gunner and the central fire-control gunner of a B-29 Superfortress at 20,000 feet over Wonsan saw an orange, globe-shaped light about three feet across that stayed near the bomber for five minutes or more. A second B-29 from a different squadron, hundreds of miles away at Sunchon, reported a lighted orange sphere that followed it for about a minute on the way back to base. The two reports were made independently by trained aircrew over hostile territory, and the story was widely published in February 1952. Air Force UFO experts have argued that the wide publicity it received helped feed the 1952 wave, which ended over Washington, D.C. **Explanation:** No explanation was ever settled. Air Force Lt. Gen. Otto Weyland said that “we can’t say there’s nothing to it” but that without more data a conclusive answer could not be expected, and he doubted that jet aircraft were responsible. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Wonsan-Sunchon UFO incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonsan-Sunchon_UFO_incident) - [NICAP — Korea, 29 January 1952 (case index)](http://www.nicap.org/520129wonsan_dir.htm) - [UFOs at close sight — U.S. military reports, Korea, 29 January 1952](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/korea29jan52.htm) ## Barra da Tijuca — the O Cruzeiro disc photographs (1952) - Date: 7 May 1952 (time approximate) - Place: Coast at Barra da Tijuca, near Pedra do Marisco, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs - Shape: A flat disc with a raised rim, seen sideways and tilted - Witnesses: Two O Cruzeiro staff: photographer Ed Keffel and reporter João Martins - Duration: About one minute (five frames) - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/barra-da-tijuca-1952/ On the afternoon of May 7, 1952, the reporter João Martins and the photographer Ed Keffel of the weekly magazine O Cruzeiro were on the coast at Barra da Tijuca, south of Rio, when Martins pointed out what he first took for an aircraft “flying sideways”. Keffel took five photographs with a Rolleiflex in about a minute, and the magazine published them as a flying disc. They became famous across South America, and Brazilian Air Force officers reportedly declared a hoax impossible after studying the distances. In 1963 Menzel and Boyd pointed out that the disc is lit from the opposite side to the palm and the hillside beneath it, which a single sunlit scene cannot do. William Hartmann made an independent enlargement for the Condon study (1968), found that it supported the objection, and noted that the case was offered as incontrovertible while containing “a simple, internal inconsistency”. The study never interviewed the photographers, and the case has no other witnesses. **Explanation:** Donald Menzel and Lyle Boyd called the photographs a hoax because the disc is lit from the left while the hillside and trees below it are lit from the right; the Condon study’s own enlargement supported that objection. Brazilian Air Force analysts had said a hoax was impossible, but no independent study of the negatives was ever made and neither man admitted a fake. Sources: - [Condon report, case 48: Barra da Tijuca, Brazil (Project 1947 transcription)](https://www.project1947.com/shg/condon/case48.html) - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Brazil (1952)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Brazil) ## Tremonton, Utah film (1952) - Date: 2 July 1952 - Place: Near Tremonton, Utah (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Motion-picture film; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: About a dozen bright objects milling in the sky - Witnesses: Navy Chief Warrant Officer Delbert C. Newhouse and family - Duration: ~1 min of 16 mm Kodachrome - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/tremonton-1952/ Driving about seven miles north of Tremonton, Navy photographer Delbert Newhouse stopped and filmed a group of bright objects with his Bell & Howell 16 mm camera. The Navy’s Photographic Interpretation Laboratory spent over 1,000 man-hours on it and ruled out aircraft and birds; the Robertson Panel disagreed. **Explanation:** Navy photo analysts could not identify the objects; the 1953 Robertson Panel suggested seagulls reflecting sunlight. The film was re-released in 2026 as PURSUE record DOW-UAP-PR159. Sources: - [Condon Report, case 49 — Tremonton, Utah, movie film](https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/case49.htm) - [UFOs at close sight — the Tremonton colour film of 2 July 1952](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/tremonton.htm) ## Nash–Fortenberry sighting (1952) - Date: 14 July 1952 - Place: Chesapeake Bay near Newport News, Virginia (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Eight glowing red-orange discs in echelon - Witnesses: 2 Pan Am pilots; independent ground witnesses - Duration: ~12 seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/nash-fortenberry-1952/ Pan American pilots William Nash and William Fortenberry, flying a DC-4 at 8,000 ft toward Norfolk, saw eight glowing discs race in formation below them, flip on edge and reverse direction, then climb west out of sight. Blue Book classified the case as unknown. **Explanation:** Listed as "unknown" by Project Blue Book. Menzel suggested haze-distorted ground lights or fireflies; others a mirage of Venus. ## Salem Coast Guard Air Station photograph (1952) - Date: 16 July 1952 - Place: U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Salem, Winter Island, Salem, Massachusetts (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Four elliptical blobs of light in formation, with rays - Witnesses: Shell Alpert, a Coast Guard photographer’s mate; a second Coastguardsman reportedly saw the lights - Duration: Seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/salem-coast-guard-1952/ At 9:35 a.m. on July 16, 1952, Shell Alpert, a photographer at the Coast Guard Air Station in Salem, Massachusetts, saw bright lights through the window of the station’s photo laboratory and took a single picture: four elliptical blobs of light, apparently in formation, above the parked cars. It was taken in the middle of that summer’s wave of sightings and was soon in the newspapers. Blue Book’s file, case 1501, holds sixteen photographs and a series of analyses: the first suggested a double exposure, a second that the “objects” were reflections of interior lights on the glass, a test with a photo-flood lamp showed that a real light source would also have been reflected in the cars, which these are not, and the case finished as unexplained. It is one of the best-known UFO photographs, and one of the plainest examples of how hard a single frame is to settle. **Explanation:** Blue Book’s analysts went back and forth: a probable double exposure, then probably reflections of lights on the window glass, and in the end the case was filed as unexplained. Against the reflection idea, the parked cars in the photograph reflect the sun but not the lights, and some accounts say the window was open, with only a screen. Sources: - [Project Blue Book photo file 1501, Salem, July 1952 (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/1952-07-7274460-Salem-Massachusetts-1501-) - [Blue Book photo case 1501 and its analyses (transcribed)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/bluebookpics1501.htm) ## Washington, D.C. radar-visual sightings (1952) - Date: 19 July 1952 - Place: Washington, D.C. (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file; Photographs - Shape: Radar blips; orange-red lights - Witnesses: Air traffic controllers, airline and fighter pilots - Duration: Two weekends - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/washington-dc-1952/ On consecutive Saturday nights, controllers at Washington National Airport and Andrews AFB tracked unknown targets over the capital — including the prohibited airspace over the White House and Capitol — while airline pilots saw lights where radar showed them. F-94 jets scrambled from New Castle AFB, Delaware; one pilot said lights surrounded his aircraft. The Pentagon held its largest press conference since WWII. **Explanation:** The Air Force attributed the radar returns to temperature inversions; radar controllers involved rejected that explanation. The widely published "Capitol UFO" photo shows lens flares. ## Carson Sink — two colonels in a B-25 meet three deltas (1952) - Date: 24 July 1952 - Place: Over the Carson Sink, Nevada, on the airway to Salt Lake City (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Three bright silver delta-wing craft with no tails or canopies, a ridge from nose to tail - Witnesses: Two Air Force colonels, both command pilots stationed at the Pentagon - Duration: Seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/carson-sink-b25-1952/ On July 24, 1952, two Air Force colonels flying a B-25 from Hamilton AFB to Colorado Springs crossed the Sierra Nevada and were heading east at 11,000 ft on the airway “Green 3” towards Salt Lake City. At 3:40 p.m., over the Carson Sink, one of them saw three objects ahead and to the right that looked like F-86s in a tight V. Within seconds they were close enough to see clearly: bright silver deltas with no tails and no canopies, only a ridge running from nose to tail. The three made a slight left bank and passed the bomber within 400 to 800 yards at what the pilots put at three times the speed of an F-86. Both were command pilots with thousands of hours, whose work would have shown them anything the United States had flying; both had been sceptics. They reported it on landing, and Blue Book’s checks found no aircraft, no delta and no balloon to account for it. Ruppelt used it in his book as an example of a report that ends simply “Unknown”. **Explanation:** Blue Book checked Flight Service records (no aircraft near), the Navy and Air Force delta-wing aircraft (none there; the Air Force’s only delta was grounded) and every weather and research balloon flight (none), and carried the case as unknown. Ruppelt’s own speculations, F-86s flying where they should not, missing records or a misjudged distance, were offered only as possibilities. Sources: - [Edward Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956), Chapter 1 (Project Gutenberg)](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17346) ## The Florida scoutmaster — burned, and called a hoax (1952) - Date: 19 August 1952 (time approximate) - Place: Palmetto scrub off a back road inland from West Palm Beach, Florida (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Documented physiological effects; Police witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A dark, round, slightly concave craft about 30 ft overhead, with a dome and vanes around the rim; a ball of red fire - Witnesses: D. S. “Sonny” Desvergers, a scoutmaster, and three Boy Scouts in his car; a deputy sheriff and a constable afterwards - Duration: Several minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/desvergers-scoutmaster-1952/ On the evening of August 19, 1952, Sonny Desvergers, a scoutmaster in his early thirties, was driving three scouts home along a black-top road through palmetto scrub inland from West Palm Beach when he saw lights in the pines and stopped. He told the boys to fetch help if he was not back in fifteen minutes and went into the scrub with a machete and two flashlights. By his account he came into a clearing, felt heat, and saw a dark disc about 30 ft above him; when he shone his light on it, a small ball of red fire drifted down, became a mist, and he blacked out. The scouts said they saw a red ball engulf him and ran to a farmhouse; a deputy and a constable found him coming out of the brush, badly frightened, with his forearms, face and cap lightly burned. Ruppelt flew down from Dayton the next day. The burns were like mild sunburn, which a flight surgeon could reproduce with a cigarette lighter. Blue Book found the scoutmaster’s record did not match the story he told of himself, concluded it was a hoax, and called it “the best hoax in UFO history”; but a laboratory found the roots of the grass under where the object was said to hover charred and the blades unharmed, which nobody could explain. **Explanation:** Blue Book wrote it off as a hoax, mainly because of the scoutmaster’s record and reputation, the press agent he hired and a re-enactment showing the scouts could not have seen him fall where they said. Ruppelt, who led the investigation, admitted they could not prove a hoax and that the two pieces of physical evidence, tiny burned holes in his cap and grass roots charred as if the ground had been heated to about 300 °F from below, were never explained. Sources: - [Project Blue Book file 1981, West Palm Beach, August 1952 (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/1952-08-7275004-WestPalmBeach-Florida-1981-) - [Edward Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956), Chapter 12 (Project Gutenberg)](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17346) - [History.com — the Florida scoutmaster burned by a “UFO”](https://www.history.com/articles/ufo-encounter-florida-desvergers-scoutmaster-burned) ## Flatwoods "monster" (1952) - Date: 12 September 1952 - Place: Flatwoods, Braxton County, West Virginia (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Documented physiological effects - Shape: Bright light; tall figure with a spade-shaped hood - Witnesses: 7 (the May brothers, Kathleen May, Eugene Lemon and others) - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/flatwoods-1952/ Just after 7 p.m. three boys saw a bright light cross the sky and come down on the Fisher farm. They climbed the hill with Kathleen May, National Guardsman Eugene Lemon and two other boys. At the top they saw a pulsing red light, and in Lemon's flashlight beam a tall figure with a glowing face and a spade-shaped hood. It hissed, and they fled. Several later felt sick. A bright meteor was reported over Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that same evening. **Explanation:** Investigator Joe Nickell concluded the light was a meteor seen over three states that evening, the pulsing red glow an aircraft beacon, and the "monster" a barn owl on a branch, magnified by fear. The witnesses' nausea fits fright and the smoke of the fire. ## RAF Topcliffe disc — Exercise Mainbrace (1952) - Date: 19 September 1952 - Place: RAF Topcliffe / Dishforth, North Yorkshire (United Kingdom) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Silver disc, rotating - Witnesses: Flt Lt John Kilburn and RAF aircrew on the ground - Duration: About 20 seconds of hovering - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/topcliffe-mainbrace-1952/ During NATO's Exercise Mainbrace, RAF aircrew at Topcliffe watched a silver, disc-shaped object following a Meteor jet as it came down to land at nearby Dishforth. The object descended, swinging "like a pendulum", hovered and rotated. It then shot away westward at high speed. The report made front pages and was raised in Parliament years later. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_the_United_Kingdom) ## Oloron-Sainte-Marie "angel hair" (1952) - Date: 17 October 1952 - Place: Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Pyrénées-Atlantiques (France) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: White cylinder with a train of smaller "saucers" in pairs - Witnesses: Jean-Yves Prigent of the Oloron lycée, his family and townspeople - Duration: About 20 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/oloron-angel-hair-1952/ Around midday, residents of Oloron-Sainte-Marie saw a cottony white cylinder tilted at 45°, drifting slowly across a nearly cloudless sky. Around it were about thirty smaller objects moving in zig-zagging pairs. Long white filaments ("angel hair") fell from them onto roofs, trees and wires, then turned to jelly and vanished. A similar event followed at Gaillac ten days later. **Explanation:** Most researchers attribute "angel hair" falls to silk from migrating ballooning spiders, common in autumn. The Oloron filaments dissolved and no sample was analysed. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Angel hair (folklore)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_hair_(folklore)) ## Little Rissington Meteor encounter (1952) - Date: 21 October 1952 (time approximate) - Place: Over Gloucestershire from RAF Little Rissington (United Kingdom) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: Three white, perfectly circular discs - Witnesses: Flt Lt Michael Swiney and Lt David Crofts (Royal Navy) - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/little-rissington-1952/ An instructor from the Central Flying School and a Royal Navy trainee broke through cloud at 12,000 ft in a Meteor T.7 and saw three white, circular objects far above, which they first took for parachutes. They climbed toward 35,000 ft, but the objects crossed their path from left to right and disappeared in a fraction of a second. Radar at Gloucester reported three objects, two Meteor F.8s were scrambled, and Southern Sector radar logged targets heading east at great speed. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) ## Ellsworth AFB — the Black Hawk light and the F-84 chase (1953) - Date: 5 August 1953 - Place: Black Hawk and Ellsworth Air Force Base, Rapid City, South Dakota; later Bismarck, North Dakota (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Military witnesses; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A bright light, white turning green; red-to-white lights later - Witnesses: A Ground Observer Corps volunteer, radar controllers, airmen and two F-84 pilots - Duration: About 20:05 to 02:50 MST, on and off - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/ellsworth-1953/ At about 8:05 p.m. on August 5, 1953, a Ground Observer Corps volunteer at Black Hawk, west of Rapid City, reported a bright light to the Air Defense Command radar station at Ellsworth AFB. The controller saw blips through the ground clutter, and airmen sent outside watched a light cross from north to south. F-84 fighters on patrol were vectored onto the returns. One pilot saw only a brief, very bright light; the second climbed from 15,000 to 26,000 ft after a white light that turned green and was “considerably brighter than a star”, said it “definitely moved in relation to the stars”, and chased it for about 80 miles to the north while the controller tracked both on radar. His radar gunsight’s warning light came on, but the gun camera produced nothing usable. After midnight the Bismarck filter center, told to look for flying saucers, reported more lights. Capt. Edward Ruppelt flew to Rapid City to investigate himself; Blue Book filed the case as unsolved, and the Condon study later explained it as stars, a meteor and radar artefacts. **Explanation:** Project Blue Book carried the case as unsolved. The Condon study (1968) attributed the Rapid City and Bismarck sightings to stars seen through a temperature inversion, at least one meteor, anomalous-propagation and ghost echoes on the ground radar, and a faulty radar gunsight in the F-84; the Blue Book investigator had suggested Capella low in the north, a balloon or a meteor. Sources: - [Project Blue Book file, Rapid City and Black Hawk, August 1953 (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/1953-08-6979324-RapidCity-Blackhawk-SoughDakotaArea) - [Blue Book Status Report 12 on the case (transcribed)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/ellsworth53bluebook.htm) - [The Condon report’s summary of the case (transcribed)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/ellsworth53condon.htm) ## West Malling Vampire sighting (1953) - Date: 3 November 1953 (time approximate) - Place: Over RAF West Malling, Kent (United Kingdom) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Bright object - Witnesses: RAF aircrew Terry Johnson and Geoffrey Smythe - Duration: — - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/west-malling-1953/ Two RAF aircrew flying a de Havilland Vampire over West Malling reported an unidentified object. The report reached the House of Commons, where the Air Minister called it a weather balloon. Another MP raised it again the next day. **Explanation:** In Parliament, the Secretary of State for Air said the object was "a weather balloon". The crew did not accept this. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_the_United_Kingdom) ## Kinross F-89 disappearance over Lake Superior (1953) - Date: 23 November 1953 - Place: Lake Superior, off the Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Radar tracking; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Unidentified radar target - Witnesses: Ground-control radar operators - Duration: About 30 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/kinross-moncla-1953/ Air defense radar picked up an unidentified target over the restricted airspace near the Soo Locks. An F-89C Scorpion was scrambled from Kinross AFB, flown by 1st Lt. Felix Moncla with radar operator 2nd Lt. Robert Wilson. Ground controllers watched the fighter close on the target over Lake Superior at about 8,000 ft, until the two returns merged into one. The F-89 never answered again, and neither the aircraft nor its crew was ever found. **Explanation:** The Air Force said the target was a Royal Canadian Air Force C-47 flying off course and that the F-89 probably crashed after the pilot became disoriented (vertigo). The RCAF denied any intercept took place, and no wreckage of the F-89 has ever been found. ## BOAC Stratocruiser paced by seven objects (1954) - Date: 29 June 1954 - Place: Gulf of St. Lawrence, near Sept-Îles, Quebec (Canada) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: One large dark object and six smaller ones - Witnesses: Captain James Howard, First Officer Lee Boyd, crew and passengers - Duration: 18 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/boac-stratocruiser-1954/ BOAC Flight 510-196, a Boeing Stratocruiser from New York to London via Goose Bay, was cruising at 19,000 ft when the crew saw a large dark object and six smaller ones keeping pace a few miles off the port side. They held station for 18 minutes as the crew and passengers watched. Goose Bay sent up a USAF F-94. As it approached, the small objects seemed to merge into the large one, which shrank and disappeared. Captain Howard was interviewed on the BBC days later. **Explanation:** Suggested explanations include a mirage or other optical effect in the evening sky; none has been generally accepted. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in the United Kingdom (1954 BOAC entry)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_the_United_Kingdom#1950s) ## The Nowra Sea Fury — two lights on the radar (1954) - Date: 31 August 1954 - Place: South-west of Goulburn, New South Wales, on the way back to Naval Air Station Nowra (Australia) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Two very bright white lights, each on top of a large, vague dark mass - Witnesses: Lt J. A. “Shamus” O’Farrell, RAN, the Sea Fury pilot; PO Keith Jessop on the Nowra radar; a ground witness - Duration: Several minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/nowra-sea-fury-1954/ On the evening of August 31, 1954, Lieutenant James O’Farrell of 723 Squadron was flying a Hawker Sea Fury home to Nowra at 220 knots after a night cross-country flight through Young, Temora and Yass. At about 7:10 p.m., south-west of Goulburn, he called Nowra and then saw a very bright light closing fast from one o’clock; it crossed ahead of him and took up station on his left, seeming to orbit. A second, similar light appeared at nine o’clock, passed about a mile in front and joined it. Close up he could make out only “a vague shape with the white light situated centrally on top”, a large dark mass with no other lights. He asked Nowra about other traffic; the radar operator, Petty Officer Keith Jessop, had two returns in company with the Sea Fury, and O’Farrell turned through 180 and then 360 degrees so that radar could pick out which return was his. The two lights re-formed and left to the north-east at great speed, and radar followed them for a while. O’Farrell landed at about 7:30 p.m., was examined by a surgeon commander and wrote a report that the Navy kept classified until 1982. J. Allen Hynek interviewed him in 1973. **Explanation:** The Navy found no explanation. A minute paper at the Fleet Air Arm Museum records that no RAAF aircraft were nearby and that the only other aircraft in the area was a TAA Convair airliner, which does not account for two lights that crossed in front of the fighter and were painted beside it on radar. The Directorate of Naval Intelligence called the pilot “an entirely credible witness”. Sources: - [National Archives of Australia — Flying saucers: fact or fiction?](https://www.naa.gov.au/blog/flying-saucers-fact-or-fiction) - [Bill Chalker — The “Sea Fury” encounter](https://www.project1947.com/forum/bcoz2.htm) - [Ulladulla Times — Nowra had its own alleged UFO sighting](https://www.ulladullatimes.com.au/story/8295105/odd-history-nowra-had-its-own-alleged-ufo-sighting/) ## Quarouble railway encounter — Marius Dewilde (1954) - Date: 10 September 1954 - Place: Quarouble, near Valenciennes, Nord, France - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Dark mass on the railway with two or more small figures - Witnesses: Marius Dewilde, a 34-year-old metalworker - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/quarouble-1954/ On the night of September 10, 1954, Marius Dewilde, living beside a level crossing on the Saint-Amand–Blanc-Misseron line, went into his yard after his dog barked. He saw a dark mass on the tracks and two small figures, about a metre tall with large heads like glass helmets, heading for it. When he approached, a bright light left him unable to move; the object rose and vanished to the west. Air police inspectors found symmetrical dents in the wooden sleepers at five places and displaced ballast, and one of them said the marks might fit landing struts. It became one of the best-known cases of the 1954 wave of sightings in France. **Explanation:** The marks on the sleepers were real, and an investigator thought they could be landing struts. But there was one witness, who had suffered a head injury the year before and later had nervous disorders, and the air police and gendarmes found no footprints or other proof. Sources: - [UFOs at close sight — the 1954 French flap, Quarouble, 10 September](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/1954/10sep1954quarouble.htm) ## Salandin near-miss over Southend (1954) - Date: 14 October 1954 - Place: Over Southend-on-Sea, Essex (United Kingdom) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses - Shape: Two circular objects, one silver and one gold - Witnesses: 1 (Flt Lt James Salandin, No. 604 Squadron) - Duration: Seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/salandin-1954/ Flt Lt James Salandin of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force was climbing through 16,000 ft over Southend in a Meteor F.8 from North Weald when two circular objects, one silver and one gold, came toward him. The silver one came head-on, filling his windscreen, and he only narrowly avoided a collision. He reported it on landing. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_the_United_Kingdom) ## Gravataí Air Base — the Brazilian Air Force communiqué (1954) - Date: 24 October 1954 - Place: Gravataí Air Base (today Canoas Air Force Base), near Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Circular objects of a dull silvery colour, moving erratically - Witnesses: Air Force officers, sergeants and soldiers at the base, and civilians - Duration: About two hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/gravatai-1954/ Between about 1 and 3 p.m. on October 24, 1954, officers, sergeants and soldiers at the Brazilian Air Force base then called Gravataí, near Porto Alegre, watched circular, dull-silver objects over the base. Two days later the base command issued a communiqué: the objects’ speed and height could not be measured but were far beyond those of anything known, their course was erratic and they returned to earlier positions, they could not be confused with known celestial bodies, and no weather balloons were in the area. The base reported to the Air Force general command, asked for an investigation and invited civilians to send in their own reports, while its commander forbade staff to talk to the press until experts had studied the evidence. On November 16, 1954, Brigadier Gervásio Duncan released summaries of five of sixteen reports selected by the Air Force, two of them about Gravataí, and declined to speculate on what the objects were beyond saying that the observers were well qualified. No explanation was published; the communiqué survives through contemporary press reports collected by the Brazilian researcher Olavo Fontes. Sources: - [Olavo Fontes in Flying Saucer Review, May 1956 — the Gravataí communiqué (Project 1947 transcription)](https://www.project1947.com/articles/fontes_fsrmay56.htm) - [Canoas Air Force Base (formerly Gravataí Air Base) — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canoas_Air_Force_Base) ## Florence stadium sighting (1954) - Date: 27 October 1954 - Place: Stadio Comunale (Artemio Franchi), Florence (Italy) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Egg- or cigar-shaped objects; falling silvery filaments - Witnesses: About 10,000 spectators and the players - Duration: A few minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/florence-stadium-1954/ During a match between Fiorentina and Pistoiese, the crowd and players stopped to stare at objects crossing the sky over the stadium. Witnesses described slow-moving "eggs" or fast "cigars" that stopped dead. Silvery filaments drifted down onto the ground and dissolved when touched. The same day two shining objects were reported over Venice, and sightings followed across Tuscany. **Explanation:** Proposed explanations include migrating spiders' silk (angel hair) catching the sunlight. A sample analysed by University of Florence chemists was reported to contain boron, silicon, calcium and magnesium, which does not fit spider silk. The sample was not preserved. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Italy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Italy) ## Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter (1955) - Date: 21 August 1955 - Place: Sutton farm, Kelly, Kentucky (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Light in the sky; small, glowing "goblins" - Witnesses: 11 members of the Sutton and Lankford households - Duration: About 10 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/kelly-hopkinsville-1955/ Around 7 p.m. Billy Ray Taylor said he saw a bright light land in a gully behind the Sutton farmhouse. Over the next hours the family reported small, silvery creatures with large eyes and ears approaching the house, and they fired guns at them repeatedly. At about 11 p.m. they drove to the Hopkinsville police. Officers found bullet holes but nothing else. The family said the creatures came back after the police left. **Explanation:** Project Blue Book listed the case as a hoax. Investigators have since suggested great horned owls, which defend their nests aggressively at night and have eyes that shine in torchlight, seen by frightened people after a meteor passed overhead. ## Lakenheath–Bentwaters radar-visual case (1956) - Date: 13 August 1956 - Place: RAF Bentwaters & RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk (United Kingdom) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Fast radar targets; luminous objects - Witnesses: USAF radar operators and ground crew; RAF Venom crews - Duration: About 6 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/lakenheath-bentwaters-1956/ Radar at USAF-run RAF Bentwaters tracked targets at thousands of miles per hour coming in from the sea. Lakenheath’s ground personnel then saw luminous objects, and RAF de Havilland Venom night fighters were scrambled. One pilot reported locking on before the target appeared behind him; radar showed it following the fighter. **Explanation:** The Condon Report judged "the probability that at least one genuine UFO was involved appears to be fairly high"; others propose anomalous radar propagation, meteors and stars. ## West Freugh radar incident (1957) - Date: 4 April 1957 (time approximate) - Place: RAF West Freugh, near Stranraer, Scotland (United Kingdom) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Radar echo "as large as a ship" - Witnesses: Radar operators at West Freugh and Ardwell - Duration: About 30 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/west-freugh-1957/ Radar at West Freugh tracked a very large target hanging almost stationary at about 50,000 ft over the Irish Sea for ten minutes. It then rose vertically to about 70,000 ft and moved off. A second radar at Ardwell tracked it too. Operators said it made a turn no aircraft could make and gave an echo bigger than a normal aircraft, like a ship. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_the_United_Kingdom) ## Milton Torres — ordered to fire on a UFO (1957) - Date: 20 May 1957 (time approximate) - Place: Over East Anglia, from RAF Manston (United Kingdom) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Radar return the size of an aircraft carrier - Witnesses: 1 (Lt Milton Torres, USAF); ground-control radar - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/milton-torres-1957/ Lt Milton Torres, a USAF F-86D pilot at RAF Manston, was scrambled after ground radar tracked a large target over East Anglia. He was ordered to fire a full salvo of 24 rockets at it and got a radar lock at 32,000 ft. He said the return was as big as an aircraft carrier. Before he could fire, it accelerated off his scope at an estimated Mach 10 or more. He said a man in civilian clothes later warned him not to talk. His account was published in the UK National Archives UFO files in 2008. **Explanation:** One suggestion is that the target was a radar-spoofing test by U.S. electronic-warfare units (Project Palladium). This has not been confirmed, and the MoD found no record of the incident. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) ## Marfa lights (1957) - Date: 1 July 1957 (time approximate) - Place: Mitchell Flat, east of Marfa, Texas (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Video / film footage; Photographs; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Glowing orbs that split, merge and drift - Witnesses: Visitors to the viewing area, nightly - Duration: Recurring - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/marfa-lights/ Lights seen on the desert toward the Chinati Mountains, south-west of the Marfa Lights Viewing Area on U.S. 90, are said to bob, split, merge and change colour. Local lore traces them to a cowhand in 1883, but the first published account is a 1957 Coronet magazine article. The town now promotes them to tourists. **Explanation:** Observers from the University of Texas at Dallas (2004) and a study over 2000–2008 concluded that most lights are car headlights on U.S. 67, distorted by layers of warm and cool desert air, along with ranch lights and campfires. ## RB-47 radar–ECM–visual encounter (1957) - Date: 17 July 1957 - Place: Gulf Coast to Oklahoma (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Infrared or other sensor data; Military witnesses; Pilot / aircrew witnesses - Shape: Intense white / red light; 2.8–3 GHz radar-like signal - Witnesses: 6-man USAF RB-47H crew; ground radar operators - Duration: Over 1 hour, ~700 miles - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/rb-47-1957/ An RB-47H electronic-reconnaissance jet of the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing was paced across Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas by a source seen visually by the pilots, detected by the ECM operators’ direction-finding gear, and painted by ground radar at the same position. The source blinked off on all three channels at once, then reappeared. **Explanation:** Condon Report Case 5 concluded the crew’s recollections were "not adequate to allow identification"; skeptics have proposed a mix of airliner lights and ground radar. Physicist James McDonald considered it among the strongest cases. Sources: - [Condon Report — Case 5](https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/case05.htm) - [J. E. McDonald — the 1957 Gulf Coast RB-47 incident (1970)](http://kirkmcd.princeton.edu/JEMcDonald/mcdonald_fsr_16_3_2_70.pdf) ## Portuguese Air Force F-84s — the Lemos Ferreira sighting (1957) - Date: 4 September 1957 (time approximate) - Place: Over the Portuguese–Spanish border region, returning to Ota air base (Portugal) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses - Shape: A yellowish sphere that swelled and shrank, turned red and “sausage-shaped”, and released four smaller yellow spheres - Witnesses: Capt. José Lemos Ferreira and the pilots of three other F-84G Thunderjets - Duration: About 35 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/portugal-f84-1957/ On the night of September 4, 1957, four Portuguese Air Force F-84G Thunderjets from Ota were on a night navigation exercise into Spain, led by Capt. José Lemos Ferreira, who later became Chief of Staff of the Air Force (1977–1984). At about 9,000 m the pilots saw a yellowish sphere just above the horizon that “was not a star, a planet or a comet”; it grew and shrank, “in seconds, turning from a billiard ball into a basketball”, became intense red and elongated, and four smaller yellow spheres separated from it and took up positions around it. When one pilot felt the objects were closing on them fast, the formation broke up; when it re-formed, nothing was visible. The pilots wrote a joint report, which Ferreira believed was passed to NATO; it has not been published. Accounts disagree on the route (towards Córdoba and Cáceres, or back from Granada over Portalegre and Coruche). Ferreira, who never offered an explanation, noted that hunters near Coruche saw “a dance of lights” at the same time, and that the Coimbra geophysical institute recorded magnetic disturbances. Sources: - [RTP / Lusa — General Lemos Ferreira recalls the encounter 50 years later (in Portuguese)](https://www.rtp.pt/noticias/pais/general-lemos-ferreira-recorda-encontro-nos-ceus-50-anos-depois_n46796) - [Sábado — José Lemos Ferreira, the general who swore he saw a UFO, has died (in Portuguese)](https://www.sabado.pt/vida/detalhe/morreu-jose-lemos-ferreira-o-general-que-jurou-ter-visto-um-ovni) ## Ubatuba magnesium fragments (1957) - Date: 14 September 1957 (time approximate) - Place: Ubatuba, São Paulo, Brazil - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Official government document or case file - Shape: Disc that exploded over the sea (as told) - Witnesses: A fisherman and friends (reported in a letter) - Duration: Seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/ubatuba-1957/ On September 14, 1957 the Rio de Janeiro columnist Ibrahim Sued printed a letter, with three small pieces of white metal, from a reader who said he had watched a disc explode over the sea near Ubatuba and had picked up fragments. A laboratory of Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture and a second spectrographic analysis found the metal to be extremely pure magnesium. Ufologists, among them James Harder, argued that purity that high was hard to make at the time; later analyses of the isotopes gave normal Earth ratios, and the origin of the pieces remains unproven. **Explanation:** The fragments are real and were analysed, but the story of their origin rests on a letter from an unnamed reader. Later isotope analyses found ordinary terrestrial magnesium, and sceptics regard the tale as a hoax. Sources: - [UFO Evidence — The Ubatuba, Brazil fragments](http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case829.htm) ## Antônio Vilas-Boas abduction claim (1957) - Date: 16 October 1957 (time approximate) - Place: São Francisco de Sales, Minas Gerais, Brazil - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Documented physiological effects - Shape: Circular or egg-shaped craft with a rotating cupola - Witnesses: Antônio Vilas-Boas, a 23-year-old farmer (the only witness) - Duration: About four hours (as told) - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/vilas-boas-1957/ Antônio Vilas-Boas, a farmer working at night in a field, said that on the night of October 15–16, 1957 a circular craft landed near him and that five-foot beings in grey coveralls seized him, took him aboard, took blood from his chin and exposed him to an unknown gas. He also described a sexual encounter with a female being, and said the whole episode lasted about four hours. In February 1958 Dr. Olavo Fontes of Brazil’s National School of Medicine examined him and concluded he had been exposed to a large dose of radiation, with mild radiation sickness: pains, nausea, headaches, loss of appetite and skin lesions that appeared over the following months. It is often cited as one of the earliest well-known abduction stories, and it is widely doubted. **Explanation:** It is one account by one man, first told months afterwards. The researcher Peter Rogerson doubts it, noting that a similar story ran in the magazine O Cruzeiro in November 1957, before Vilas-Boas first reported his, and arguing that he may have borrowed details from it and from the contactee George Adamski. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Antônio Vilas-Boas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B4nio_Vilas-Boas) ## Levelland vehicle-stopping reports (1957) - Date: 2 November 1957 - Place: Levelland, Texas (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments); Official government document or case file - Shape: Glowing egg-shaped object, 100–200 ft - Witnesses: 15+ motorists, sheriff, fire chief - Duration: About 3 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/levelland-1957/ Over roughly three hours, motorists on several highways around Levelland independently reported a glowing, egg-shaped object on or over the road; each said their engine and headlights died until it left. Sheriff Weir Clem and Fire Chief Ray Jones saw lights as well. **Explanation:** Project Blue Book attributed the reports to ball lightning / an electrical storm; weather records showed drizzle but little lightning. ## White Sands military police patrols (1957) - Date: 3 November 1957 - Place: White Sands Proving Ground (up-range), New Mexico (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Reddish-orange, egg-shaped light - Witnesses: Two U.S. Army military police patrols - Duration: 3 to 25 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/white-sands-patrols-1957/ Hours after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2, and on the same night as the Levelland sightings in Texas, two Army MP patrols in jeeps reported lights up-range. At about 2:30 a.m. the first saw a brilliant, reddish-orange egg-shaped light hover for about three minutes, then descend and disappear. That evening a second patrol saw a glowing object that climbed until it looked like a star. The reports reached the newspapers during the November 1957 wave. Air Force investigators found the young soldiers had talked over their sightings before reporting them. **Explanation:** Project Blue Book concluded the first patrol saw the half-full Moon through broken cloud, with the drifting cloud creating the apparent motion, and the second saw Venus, then near its greatest brilliance. Sources: - [NICAP — White Sands, 3 November 1957 (case index)](http://www.nicap.org/571103whitesands_dir.htm) ## Fort Itaipu sentries burned (1957) - Date: 4 November 1957 - Place: Fort Itaipu, Praia Grande, São Paulo (Brazil) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Documented physiological effects; Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments) - Shape: Bright orange light descending from the sky - Witnesses: 2 sentries; garrison woken by the power failure - Duration: About 3 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/itaipu-fort-1957/ In the early hours, the day after Sputnik 2, two sentries at the coastal Fort Itaipu saw a bright orange light descend and stop above the fort. They said a wave of intense heat followed and both collapsed with burns. The fort's electricity failed, including the emergency circuits. Brazilian military investigators interviewed the soldiers, and American officials were reported to have joined them. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Brazil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Brazil) ## Kirtland Air Force Base tower sighting (1957) - Date: 4 November 1957 - Place: Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: Egg-shaped object, 15–20 ft tall, with a single white light at its base - Witnesses: CAA tower controllers R. M. Kaser and E. G. Brink - Duration: About a minute in view; about 20 minutes on radar - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/kirtland-1957/ At about 10:45 p.m. on November 4, 1957, in the week of the Levelland sightings, two Civil Aeronautics Administration controllers in the tower at Kirtland AFB saw a white light cross the airfield eastward. A dark object then came down steeply near the end of runway 26 and crossed the field a few tens of feet up. Through binoculars it looked egg-shaped, 15 to 20 feet tall, with one white light at its base. It hovered within 3,000 feet of the tower for up to a minute, moved east to the base boundary and climbed fast into the overcast. Albuquerque Radar Approach Control tracked a target that turned south, circled near the low-frequency range station, hovered over the outer marker, then followed a departing C-46 for about 14 miles before returning to the marker and fading. Radar contact lasted about 20 minutes. **Explanation:** Capt. Shere of Ent AFB, who interviewed the controllers for Project Blue Book, found nothing a small private aircraft could not do and concluded that was what they saw; the radar returns matched a small plane. The Condon Report agreed, suggesting a pilot who had strayed onto the military field by mistake. The physicist James McDonald, who later spoke to the controllers, said they found the explanation amusing. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Kirtland AFB UFO sighting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirtland_AFB_UFO_sighting) - [NICAP — Kirtland AFB, November 4, 1957 (case index)](https://www.nicap.org/kirtland57dir.htm) ## Coast Guard cutter Sebago — radar contacts in the Gulf of Mexico (1957) - Date: 5 November 1957 - Place: USCGC Sebago, about 200 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi, Gulf of Mexico (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Radar targets; one brilliant light “like a planet” crossing for three seconds - Witnesses: The cutter’s radar operators and four men on deck - Duration: 27 minutes on radar; the light three seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/sebago-1957/ At 5:10 a.m. on November 5, 1957, during the wave of sightings that followed Levelland and the launch of Sputnik 2, the Coast Guard cutter Sebago was steaming north about 200 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi when its radar picked up a target 14 miles off, moving north to south. Over the next 27 minutes the log records a string of contacts: one closing to two miles and passing up the port side, then lost, others at 22 and 55 miles, one stationary at seven miles, and the last at 175 miles. At 5:21 four men on deck saw a brilliant light, like a planet, cross part of the sky to the north-west for three seconds. The navigator’s estimates of the target’s speed, from 1,000 to 3,300 mph, made the papers, which described one object circling the ship. Blue Book and later the Condon study treated the light as a meteor and the radar targets as unrelated echoes. **Explanation:** Blue Book evaluated the radar contacts as false targets from anomalous propagation and the visual sighting as a meteor. The Condon study’s radar analyst agreed that the visual object was a meteor and the echoes most likely anomalous propagation, with the first target possibly an aircraft. The news reports of a single craft circling the ship were built from separate, unrelated contacts. Sources: - [Project Blue Book file, Gulf of Mexico, 5 November 1957 (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/1957-11-7230993-Approx200MisouthofNewOrleans-Louisiana) - [Washington Post, November 7, 1957 (transcribed)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/press/washingtonpost7nov1957.htm) - [SUNlite review of the Sebago case (German translation)](https://www.hjkc.de/_blog/9425-ufo-forschung-unzureichende-informationen-in-nicap-dokument-als-ufo-beweis-teil-31/) ## Trindade Island photographs (1958) - Date: 16 January 1958 - Place: Trindade Island, South Atlantic (Brazil) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Saturn-like disc with a ring - Witnesses: Crew and scientists aboard the Almirante Saldanha - Duration: Under a minute - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/trindade-1958/ As the Navy survey ship Almirante Saldanha prepared to leave Trindade during the International Geophysical Year, people on deck saw a ringed disc approach from the east, pass over Desejado Peak, turn sharply and leave to the north-west. Photographer Almiro Baraúna took four frames; President Kubitschek allowed their release. **Explanation:** The Brazilian Navy examined the negatives and did not declare a hoax; skeptics argue photographer Almiro Baraúna faked them. ## American Airlines Captain Peter Killian’s three lights (1959) - Date: 24 February 1959 (time approximate) - Place: Over central and northern Pennsylvania, between Philipsburg and Bradford (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Three bright lights in a line, changing from yellow to orange, sometimes in the spacing of Orion’s belt - Witnesses: Capt. Peter Killian and his crew, stewardesses and passengers; the crews of two other American Airlines and two United Airlines flights - Duration: About 40 to 45 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/killian-1959/ On the evening of February 24, 1959, Capt. Peter Killian, a pilot with 20,000 hours, was flying an American Airlines DC-6 from Newark to Detroit by way of Philipsburg, Bradford and Erie when he noticed three bright lights in a line off the left side of the airliner, to the south. At first he took them for the belt of Orion, then saw Orion as well. For about 45 minutes the lights stayed with the DC-6, changing colour and brightness, sometimes coming forward and sometimes falling back. Killian called two other American Airlines captains on the radio, who said they saw the lights too, and two United Airlines crews reported them in the same area; passengers and stewardesses watched. Killian filed a CIRVIS report and told the press the next day. The Air Force first mentioned Orion and then, in March, concluded that the crew had seen three B-47 bombers refuelling at night from a KC-97 tanker, a formation of lights that can last over an hour. Killian rejected it, and the case became a long-running argument between NICAP and the Air Force. **Explanation:** The Air Force first mentioned the belt of Orion, then concluded that the crew had watched three B-47s refuelling at night from KC-97 tankers, which its records placed in the area flying east to west at about 17,000 ft and 210 knots. Critics, among them NICAP and later Brad Sparks, argued that the timing and geometry do not match and that a military transport saw the lights well to the south. Sources: - [Project Blue Book file, Pennsylvania, February 1959 (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/1959-02-9079193-Pennsylvania) - [New York Times, February 26, 1959 (transcribed)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/press/nyt26fev1959.htm) - [The Killian case: accounts and the Air Force’s answers (transcribed)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/killian59.htm) ## Father Gill’s sightings at Boianai (1959) - Date: 26 June 1959 - Place: Boianai Mission, Papua (Papua New Guinea) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Disc with figures on top; bright lights - Witnesses: Rev. William Booth Gill and some 38 others, most of them villagers - Duration: Hours, over two nights - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/boianai-1959/ On the evening of June 26, 1959 the Anglican missionary William Booth Gill saw a bright white light to the north-west of the Boianai Mission. About 38 other people, mostly staff and villagers of the mission, joined him as a large disc appeared above the station, with four figures seen moving on top of it. Gill waved and, he said, the figures waved back. The sightings continued the next night. Gill wrote a report signed by 25 witnesses, and the case was studied by the Royal Australian Air Force and by J. Allen Hynek, who counted it among the best close encounters of the third kind of its time. **Explanation:** Sceptics, among them Donald Menzel, identified the first bright light as Venus and later lights as other celestial objects. Several witnesses and Gill’s own written report, signed by 25 of them, describe more than a distant light. Sources: - [UFOs at close sight — Father Gill, Papua New Guinea, 1959](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/papua59report.htm) ## Redmond, Oregon — an FAA station reports a hovering light (1959) - Date: 24 September 1959 (time approximate) - Place: Redmond Airport, Redmond, Oregon (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Police witnesses; Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: A bright, round, flat light that changed from white to reddish-orange, with tongues of red, yellow and green light - Witnesses: Patrolman Robert Dickerson of the Redmond police; FAA flight service specialists at the airport - Duration: Minutes in sight; the radar reports lasted about two hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/redmond-1959/ Before dawn on September 24, 1959, a Redmond police officer, Robert Dickerson, saw what he first took for a falling meteor stop and hover a few hundred feet up north of the airport. FAA staff at the Redmond flight service station watched it move off to the north-east, project “long tongues of red, yellow and green light”, and, when a fast aircraft approached, rise into the clouds, then reappear to the south. The station reported it to Seattle Air Route Traffic Control Center at 1310 GMT; Seattle’s log said the Klamath Falls ground-controlled intercept radar had it, and F-102s were scrambled from Portland. Seattle later passed on radar reports of an object 25 miles from Redmond at altitudes up to 52,000 ft. The FAA’s logged account, sent to NICAP, made the case famous; the Air Force’s answers changed from a balloon to insufficient data to Venus, and in 1960 Blue Book concluded that the light was Venus and that no radar track had been confirmed. **Explanation:** The Air Force first called it a balloon, then said there was insufficient information, and in 1960 Blue Book concluded that the light was the planet Venus, very bright and low in the east, distorted by refraction, possibly with Regulus. It found no evidence that the Klamath Falls radar had tracked it or that the fighters had seen anything, and a later review suggests the radar return was a false target over a gap-filler site during a temperature inversion. NICAP held that the FAA log shows radar contact and an attempted intercept. Sources: - [Project Blue Book file, Redmond, September 1959 (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/1959-09-6958382-Redmond-Oregon) - [FAA Redmond Communication Station letter, January 15, 1960 (transcribed)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/redmond59faaletter.htm) - [A review of the Redmond case: Venus and a false radar target (German translation)](https://www.hjkc.de/_blog/25464-ufo-forschung-weeding-out-the-weinstein-catalog-september-24-1959-redmond-oregon1/) ## Red Bluff — California Highway Patrol sighting (1960) - Date: 13 August 1960 - Place: Red Bluff area, Tehama County, California (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file; Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments) - Shape: Football-shaped object with red lights at each end - Witnesses: CHP officers Charles Carson and Stanley Scott; sheriff's deputies - Duration: More than 2 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/red-bluff-1960/ Two California Highway Patrol officers thought they were about to see an airliner crash when a large object dropped toward the road ahead of them. At about 100–200 ft it stopped, reversed and climbed. They watched it for more than two hours as it moved about the sky, swept a red beam over the area and caused radio interference. Deputies at the Tehama County sheriff's office also saw lights. Similar reports came from across northern California that week. **Explanation:** The Air Force concluded the Red Bluff sightings were due to atmospheric refraction, most probably of the planet Mars rising, with a strong temperature inversion and a layer of forest-fire smoke adding to the effect. Sources: - [NICAP — Red Bluff, 13 August 1960](https://www.nicap.org/600813.htm) - [UFOs at close sight — the Red Bluff case, August 1960](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/clarb60.htm) ## Betty and Barney Hill (1961) - Date: 19 September 1961 - Place: U.S. Route 3, Franconia Notch to Indian Head, New Hampshire (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Pancake-shaped craft with windows and lights - Witnesses: 2 (Betty and Barney Hill) - Duration: Sighting ~1 hour; about 2 hours unaccounted for - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/hill-abduction-1961/ Driving home to Portsmouth from Montreal, the Hills saw a light moving near the Moon south of Lancaster. It followed them through Franconia Notch, passing near the Cannon Mountain tramway. South of Indian Head it came down to about 100 ft over the road, and Barney saw figures at the windows through binoculars. They reached home around dawn, about two hours later than expected. Under hypnosis in 1964 both described being taken aboard, in the first widely publicised "alien abduction". **Explanation:** The Air Force file notes that Jupiter was low in the south-west and would have set about when the object disappeared, and that there was a strong temperature inversion. The abduction story emerged only under hypnosis in 1964. The psychiatrist, Dr. Benjamin Simon, believed it was a fantasy that grew out of Betty's dreams. ## Bahía Blanca and Espora air base sightings (1962) - Date: 11 May 1962 (time approximate) - Place: Bahía Blanca and Espora Naval Air Base (Argentina) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Lighted "railroad car"; ball of light - Witnesses: Base personnel, truck drivers, a newspaper photographer - Duration: Two weeks - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/bahia-blanca-1962/ In May 1962 objects were reported at the Espora naval air base on May 11 and 18. On May 12, three truck drivers on Route 35 said an illuminated object like a railway carriage rose from a field, crossed the road at about 4 m and split in two. On May 21, La Nueva Provincia photographer Miguel Tohmé photographed an object over the city, and the photo made the front page. Sightings at the Puerto Belgrano naval base followed. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Argentina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Argentina) ## Trancas — lights over the Moreno farm (1963) - Date: 21 October 1963 (time approximate) - Place: Finca of the Moreno family beside the Belgrano railway, Trancas, Tucumán (Argentina) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Official government document or case file - Shape: Several luminous objects, some over the railway line and one near the gate; a beam of light that turned violet - Witnesses: The sisters Argentina and Yolie Moreno, the house worker Dora Martínez Guzmán, and others in the household - Duration: About 40 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/trancas-1963/ At about 10 p.m. on October 21, 1963, the women of the Moreno family at their farm near Trancas, in Tucumán, saw several bright lights over the Belgrano railway line beside the property and one close to the gate. A beam from one was turned on them; it changed from white to violet, surrounded by a fog, and they felt intense heat. Figures seemed to move around the lights on the tracks. After about forty minutes the lights left in formation towards the Medina hills. The police report described a white mist with a strong smell of sulphur lasting forty minutes, and small white balls and a powder found by the tracks were later analysed as mostly calcium carbonate. The case was widely reported at the time and is one of the classic Argentine close encounters. Later local accounts add burns to the worker’s face and arm and bare ground where nothing grew; these are not in the contemporary record. La Gaceta notes that soldiers from Tucumán regiments were being moved along those tracks for exercises at the time, which could account for figures seen walking there; nobody has explained the lights. Sources: - [La Gaceta (Tucumán) — Caso Trancas: the last living witness remembers (2023)](https://www.lagaceta.com.ar/nota/1010882/sociedad/caso-trancas-unica-testigo-viva-recuerda-ovnis.html) - [La Liberté de l’Est, 25 October 1963 (transcribed)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/press/lalibertedelest25oct1963.htm) - [Contexto Tucumán — Caso Trancas](https://www.contextotucuman.com/nota/361770/caso-trancas-uno-de-los-eventos-ovni-mas-famosos-en-el-mundo-sucedio-en-tucuman-en-1963.html) ## Socorro landing (Lonnie Zamora) (1964) - Date: 24 April 1964 - Place: Socorro, New Mexico (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Police witnesses; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Official government document or case file - Shape: Shiny egg / "O" shape on legs; red insignia - Witnesses: Police Sgt. Lonnie Zamora - Duration: A few minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/socorro-zamora-1964/ Chasing a speeder south of Socorro, Sgt. Lonnie Zamora heard a roar and saw flame, drove toward it and saw a whitish oval object in a gully with two small figures in white beside it. The object rose on a blue-orange flame and left. Investigators found scorched brush and four depressions. **Explanation:** Project Blue Book listed the case as "unknown" — one of its best-known. Proposed explanations include a lunar-lander test and a student hoax; none is confirmed. ## The Solway Firth “spaceman” photograph (1964) - Date: 23 May 1964 (time approximate) - Place: Burgh Marsh, near Burgh by Sands, Cumberland (United Kingdom) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs - Shape: A tall white figure in what looks like a space suit and helmet, behind the child - Witnesses: Jim Templeton, a Carlisle fireman and photographer, his wife and their five-year-old daughter - Duration: One photograph in a sequence of three - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/solway-firth-spaceman-1964/ On May 23, 1964, Jim Templeton photographed his five-year-old daughter Elizabeth sitting on Burgh Marsh, overlooking the Solway Firth. He said that no one else was in sight, but when the film came back the middle of three frames showed a tall white figure apparently in a space suit standing behind her. Kodak said the picture had not been tampered with, the Carlisle police found nothing suspicious, and the photograph went round the world. Templeton later told of two men claiming to be from the government who quizzed him at the marsh, and repeated a story that a Blue Streak launch at Woomera had been stopped by two similar figures. In 2014 David Clarke proposed the explanation now generally given: Templeton’s wife had walked into the background, her back to the camera, outside the part of the scene the viewfinder showed, and the overexposed blue dress turned white. **Explanation:** In 2014 the researcher David Clarke concluded that the “spaceman” is most likely Templeton’s wife, Annie, who was there that day: seen from behind, her pale blue dress overexposed to white, standing beyond what the camera’s viewfinder showed. Darkened and straightened, the figure looks like a person seen from the back. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Solway Firth Spaceman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solway_Firth_Spaceman) ## Big Sur — Atlas "Buzzing Bee" film (1964) - Date: 15 September 1964 (time approximate) - Place: Anderson Peak, Big Sur, and Vandenberg AFB, California (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Motion-picture film; Military witnesses - Shape: Object circling a missile warhead - Witnesses: 1369th Photographic Squadron team - Duration: Seconds, on film - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/big-sur-atlas-1964/ In 1964 an Air Force team on Anderson Peak used a telescope borrowed from Boston University to film Atlas missile launches from Vandenberg. In 1982, Robert Jacobs, the officer in charge on the mountain, said the film of one launch, nicknamed "Buzzing Bee", showed an object fly around the warhead and hit it with beams of light, and that the film had been confiscated. The project engineer said it showed decoy deployment. **Explanation:** Project engineer Kingston George wrote in 1993 that the film showed the re-entry vehicle releasing decoy warheads and chaff, a classified technology at the time, which Jacobs was not cleared to know about. ## Gemini 4 — McDivitt’s “beer can with an arm” (1965) - Date: 4 June 1965 (time approximate) - Place: In orbit, passing over Hawaii, on the 20th revolution of Gemini 4 (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Photographs; Audio recording / radio transcript - Shape: A white cylinder, about three times as long as it was wide, with a long arm sticking out of one side - Witnesses: Major James McDivitt, U.S. Air Force, the command pilot; Ed White was asleep - Duration: Under a minute - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/gemini-4-mcdivitt-1965/ During the four-day flight of Gemini 4 in June 1965, with Ed White asleep beside him, James McDivitt looked out of his window while passing over Hawaii and saw a white object: “It had a very definite shape — a cylindrical object — it was white — it had a long arm that stuck out on the side.” He took two pictures and called the ground. Asked how far away it was, he guessed “ten miles or so” and added that this was only a guess, since he could not tell whether it was small and near or large and far; Mission Control said the nearest tracked object was the Pegasus satellite, about 1,200 miles away. The capsule was drifting and the window glass was dirty. He never found the frames he believed showed the object, and the picture later released as his “UFO” was one he identified as a window reflection. **Explanation:** The likeliest explanation is a piece of the mission’s own hardware, above all the Titan II second stage that had been flying near the capsule since launch, which a NORAD officer named to Philip Klass. McDivitt accepted that one of his photographs showed the Titan stage, but always said it was not the object he had described; he called it an unknown man-made object, not an alien craft. NASA’s published picture is a different frame, which McDivitt said showed only a reflection on the window. The Condon Report listed it among three astronaut sightings it could not adequately explain. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in outer space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_outer_space) - [Patrick Gross — McDivitt, Gemini IV, June 1965 (with the air-to-ground exchange)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/gemini465.htm) ## Valensole landing (1965) - Date: 1 July 1965 - Place: Lavender field, Valensole, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (France) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Official government document or case file - Shape: Egg-shaped craft on legs; two small beings - Witnesses: Farmer Maurice Masse - Duration: A few minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/valensole-1965/ Lavender farmer Maurice Masse said he found a rugby-ball-shaped craft on six legs in his field and two small beings beside it; one pointed a tube at him and he was paralysed. The craft left marks in the soil where lavender failed to grow for years. **Explanation:** Investigated by the Gendarmerie; the ground marks and the effect on lavender plants were documented but never explained. ## Deception Island — the Antarctic sightings (1965) - Date: 3 July 1965 - Place: Argentine station, Deception Island, South Shetland Islands (Antarctica) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file; Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments) - Shape: Lens-shaped object, mostly red and green, changing to yellow, blue, white and orange - Witnesses: Seventeen people at the Argentine station; nine at the Chilean station; five at the British base; two meteorologists on Laurie Island - Duration: 15–20 minutes (Navy statement) - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/antarctica-1965/ Over two winter nights in July 1965, the staff of three stations on Deception Island and of the Argentine station on Laurie Island, in the South Orkneys, reported a coloured, manoeuvring light. On July 2 five British observers saw a green and red light zig-zag, hover and speed up. On the evening of July 3, nine Chilean observers watched a light change colour and leave a steam-like trail, and at 19:42 seventeen people at the Argentine station, three Chilean visitors among them, watched a lens-shaped object. In a statement on July 6, the Argentine Navy described “a giant, lens-shaped flying object, solid in appearance, mostly red and green in color”, moving on a zig-zag course toward the east with changes of speed and direction, without sound, 10 to 15 km away. On Laurie Island, two variometers registered “sudden and strong disturbances of the magnetic field” during a 15-second sighting. **Explanation:** The Argentine Navy said in an official statement that its observers had seen a solid, lens-shaped flying object, and Lt. Daniel Perisse, at the Argentine station, said a weather balloon, a plane or a star had been ruled out. No explanation was ever published, and the photographs said to have been taken have not been released. Sources: - [NICAP — Antarctica, July 1965: the reports and the Argentine Navy statement](https://nicap.org/docs/antarctica/650703rep.htm) - [UFOs at close sight — Deception Island, Antarctica, 1965](http://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/decepcion.htm) ## Buenos Aires — Meteors scrambled (1965) - Date: 16 July 1965 (time approximate) - Place: Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Photographs; Many independent witnesses; Military witnesses - Shape: Two bright discs - Witnesses: Many residents; Argentine Air Force - Duration: About 10 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/buenos-aires-meteors-1965/ Two bright discs hung motionless over Buenos Aires for about ten minutes, then flew off at high speed. With calls pouring in, the Seventh Air Brigade scrambled three Gloster Meteor jets from Morón air base, which found nothing. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Argentina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Argentina) ## August 1965 — lights over Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas (1965) - Date: 1 August 1965 (time approximate) - Place: Oklahoma City and across Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and New Mexico (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: Coloured lights, red, white and blue-green, reported hovering and moving - Witnesses: Oklahoma Highway Patrol and police officers, weather observers and thousands of residents - Duration: From about 8 p.m. to 3 a.m., and again the following nights - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/midwest-wave-1965/ On the night of August 1, 1965, from about 8 p.m. until 3 a.m., a steady stream of reports came in from Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and New Mexico of coloured lights moving in the sky, some in formation. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said officers in several towns had seen them and that Tinker Air Force Base had as many as four on radar at once at about 22,000 ft. Tinker would neither confirm nor deny the radar contacts, and its approach-control radar reported none during the height of the local sightings. The reports continued for several nights, and Blue Book received dozens from the region. The Air Force answered first that people were seeing the Delta Aquarid meteors, then that they were seeing bright stars and planets, which led to public objections from planetarium staff that the planets named were not in view. **Explanation:** The Air Force first suggested a meteor shower, then said the lights were stars and planets made to change colour by scintillation, naming Jupiter among them. Planetarium directors in Oklahoma objected that Jupiter was not in the evening sky at that season; one suggested Antares or Vega. The reported radar contacts were never confirmed: a Tinker AFB spokesman would neither confirm nor deny them, and the base’s approach-control radar reported no contacts at the peak. Sources: - [Oklahoma Journal, August 2, 1965 (transcribed)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/press/oklahomajournal2aug1965.htm) - [Oklahoma City Times, August 3, 1965 (transcribed)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/press/oklahomacitytimes3aug1965.htm) - [Daily Oklahoman, August 4, 1965 (transcribed)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/press/dailyoklahoman4aug1965.htm) ## Heflin Polaroids — Santa Ana (1965) - Date: 3 August 1965 - Place: Myford Road near Santa Ana, California (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Official government document or case file - Shape: Hat-shaped disc; a smoke ring - Witnesses: 1 (Rex Heflin, highway traffic investigator) - Duration: About 20 seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/heflin-santa-ana-1965/ Orange County highway traffic investigator Rex Heflin was photographing road signs from his work van when he saw a hat-shaped object cross the road ahead. He took three Polaroid pictures through the windshield and side window, then a fourth of a smoke ring it seemed to leave behind. The photos were printed in the Santa Ana Register and studied by the Air Force and the Condon Committee. **Explanation:** Project Blue Book classed the photographs as a hoax. Analysts argued the "UFO" was a small object hung or thrown near the van. Supporters point out that Heflin's originals were never shown to be faked. Sources: - [Condon Report, case 52 — Santa Ana, California, photographs](https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/case52.htm) - [UFOs at close sight — the Rex Heflin photographs, 1965](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/heflin65.htm) ## Incident at Exeter (1965) - Date: 3 September 1965 - Place: Kensington, near Exeter, New Hampshire (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Row of five pulsing red lights - Witnesses: Norman Muscarello; officers Bertrand and Hunt - Duration: About an hour in total - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/exeter-1965/ Hitchhiker Norman Muscarello saw five pulsing red lights hover over a field on Route 150 and rushed to the Exeter police station. Returning with Officer Eugene Bertrand, both — and then Officer David Hunt — watched the lights rise from behind trees and move over the field. **Explanation:** The Air Force first blamed a military exercise and twinkling stars, then changed the case to "unidentified". A 2011 Skeptical Inquirer analysis proposed a KC-97 refuelling tanker. ## Kecksburg fireball (1965) - Date: 9 December 1965 - Place: Kecksburg, Pennsylvania (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Photographs; Official government document or case file - Shape: Fireball; later claims of an acorn-shaped object - Witnesses: Thousands across six states - Duration: Seconds (fireball) - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/kecksburg-1965/ A brilliant fireball crossed the sky over the Detroit–Windsor area and was reported from Ontario to Pennsylvania. Residents of Kecksburg said something fell into the woods; state police and military personnel searched and reported finding nothing. **Explanation:** Astronomers identified a bright bolide seen from six states and Ontario; no object was found at Kecksburg. Claims of a recovered acorn-shaped craft are unsupported, and the Soviet Kosmos 96 re-entry was ruled out by timing. ## Tully "saucer nest" (1966) - Date: 19 January 1966 - Place: Horseshoe Lagoon near Tully, Queensland (Australia) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Police witnesses - Shape: Grey saucer rising from the lagoon - Witnesses: Banana grower George Pedley - Duration: Seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/tully-1966/ George Pedley heard a hissing sound and saw a saucer-shaped object rise from a lagoon and climb away. In its place was a floating circle of flattened, clockwise-swirled reeds about 9 m across — the original "saucer nest". **Explanation:** Police and the RAAF suggested a willy-willy (whirlwind) flattened the reeds; others considered it unexplained. ## Michigan "swamp gas" sightings (1966) - Date: 20 March 1966 - Place: Dexter and Hillsdale, Michigan (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Photographs; Official government document or case file - Shape: Football-shaped object with lights; glowing lights over a swamp - Witnesses: Farm family, a dozen police officers, 87 college students - Duration: Two nights - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/michigan-swamp-gas-1966/ On March 20, 1966, Frank Mannor and his son near Dexter said they walked toward a glowing, football-shaped object hovering over a swamp. About a dozen police officers reported lights. The next night 87 women at Hillsdale College watched a light hover over the campus arboretum for hours. Congressman Gerald Ford called for hearings, which led to the Condon Committee. **Explanation:** J. Allen Hynek, the Air Force's scientific consultant, suggested that burning marsh gas might explain some of the lights over the swamps, and Blue Book filed the flap as "marsh gas". The explanation was widely ridiculed. Hynek later said he regretted how it was presented. ## Westall school sighting (1966) - Date: 6 April 1966 - Place: Westall High School, Clayton South, Melbourne (Australia) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Silvery disc; descended into a paddock - Witnesses: 200+ students and teachers - Duration: ~20 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/westall-1966/ Students and staff watched a silvery disc descend behind trees into a paddock known as The Grange, then rise and leave while light aircraft circled. Several students said they saw a flattened circle in the grass. **Explanation:** Researchers have proposed a stray HIBAL cosmic-ray research balloon launched from Mildura, trailed by light aircraft. ## Portage County police chase (1966) - Date: 17 April 1966 - Place: Ravenna, Ohio → Conway, Pennsylvania (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file; Audio recording / radio transcript - Shape: Bright disc-shaped light, "as big as a house" - Witnesses: Deputies Dale Spaur & Wilbur Neff, officers in three towns - Duration: ~1 hour; ~85 miles - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/portage-county-1966/ Portage County sheriff’s deputies Dale Spaur and Wilbur Neff, checking an abandoned car on Route 224, saw a brilliantly lit object rise from the woods. Told by radio to follow it, they chased it east at up to 100 mph for about 85 miles into Pennsylvania, joined by officers from East Palestine and Conway, PA, who also saw it before it shot straight up. **Explanation:** Project Blue Book (Maj. Hector Quintanilla) concluded the officers first saw the Echo satellite and then Venus; the officers and Rep. William Stanton rejected this. Sources: - [NICAP — Portage County chase documents](https://www.nicap.org/660417ravenna_dir.htm) ## Paulding Light (1966) - Date: 1 July 1966 (time approximate) - Place: Robbins Pond Road, near Paulding, Michigan (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Photographs - Shape: A light that brightens, dims, changes colour and seems to sway - Witnesses: Visitors to the viewing spot, nightly since the 1960s - Duration: Recurring - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/paulding-light/ From the end of Robbins Pond Road in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, visitors look north along a power-line cut and see a light rise, brighten, change colour and seem to sway before going out. Teenagers first reported it in 1966, and legends grew around it, the best known being the lantern of a railway brakeman killed on the line. In 2010 a group of Michigan Tech students set up a telescope at the spot and could make out pairs of headlights, then recreated the light on cue with a car on U.S. 45, the highway that crosses the line of sight about 4.5 miles away. **Explanation:** In May 2010 students from the optics society (SPIE) chapter at Michigan Technological University watched the light through a telescope, saw that it was a pair of car headlights, and recreated it on cue by having one of them drive U.S. 45, about 4.5 miles away, with his hazard lights on. Sources: - [Michigan Tech — Students solve mystery of the Paulding Light (2010)](https://www.mtu.edu/news/2010/10/just-time-for-halloween-michigan-tech-students-solve-mystery-paulding-light.html) - [Wikipedia — Paulding Light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulding_Light) ## The lead masks of Vintém Hill (1966) - Date: 17 August 1966 (time approximate) - Place: Morro do Vintém, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Official government document or case file - Shape: A round orange light rising and falling over the hill (one resident’s report) - Witnesses: A boy who found the bodies; police; a local resident who reported an orange light - Duration: Unknown - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/lead-masks-1966/ On August 17, 1966, two electronics technicians from Campos dos Goytacazes, Manoel Pereira da Cruz and Miguel José Viana, travelled to Niterói, bought raincoats and a bottle of water, and were last seen in a bar, one of them nervously checking his watch. On August 20 a boy flying a kite on Morro do Vintém found their bodies side by side, dressed in suits and raincoats, with crude lead eye-masks beside them. There were no signs of violence. A notebook held the instructions “16:30 be at the specified place. 18:30 swallow capsules, after the effect protect metals, await signal, mask”. The autopsy came weeks late and no toxicology was done, so the cause of death was never established. Days after the discovery, Rio newspapers reported that a resident had seen a round orange object rising and falling over the hill on the night the men went up, and the case entered UFO literature through Flying Saucer Review in 1967. There is no evidence linking the light to the deaths; a friend told police the men belonged to a group of “scientific spiritualists” who tried to contact other beings, which points to drugs taken in a ritual. **Explanation:** The likeliest account is an accidental overdose during an attempt at contact: a friend said the men were “scientific spiritualists”, their notebook told them to take capsules and wait for a signal, and mask-making materials were found at their homes. No toxicology was ever done, so the cause of death is officially unknown. Sources: - [Skeptoid #398 — Solving the Lead Masks of Vintém Hill](https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4398) - [Wikipedia — Lead masks case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_masks_case) ## Malmstrom AFB Echo Flight shutdown (1967) - Date: 16 March 1967 - Place: Echo Flight, Malmstrom AFB missile field, Montana (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Reported glowing red object (1990s testimony) - Witnesses: Launch crew; security guards (later testimony) - Duration: — - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/malmstrom-echo-flight-1967/ All ten Minuteman I missiles of Echo Flight dropped off strategic alert almost simultaneously. Decades later, former missile officers said guards had reported a glowing red object hovering at the gate. The Air Force’s contemporaneous report found no UFO involvement. **Explanation:** The 1967 Air Force report found no UFO link and rumours "disproven". A 2025 Pentagon report stated the shutdown was caused by a classified electromagnetic-pulse test. Later accounts by former officers (Robert Salas) described a red glowing object over the gate. ## Falcon Lake incident (1967) - Date: 20 May 1967 - Place: Falcon Lake, Whiteshell Provincial Park, Manitoba (Canada) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Documented physiological effects; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Official government document or case file - Shape: Two glowing oval objects; one landed - Witnesses: Stefan Michalak - Duration: About 30 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/falcon-lake-1967/ Amateur prospector Stefan Michalak said two glowing craft descended near him; one landed on a rock outcrop. When he touched it, a blast of hot gas from a grid-like vent burned his chest. CBC has called it Canada’s best-documented UFO case. **Explanation:** RCMP, RCAF and the Condon Committee could not explain it; some soil samples were mildly radioactive, possibly from radium paint. Later marks on Michalak’s body were judged self-inflicted. ## UMMO — the San José de Valderas photographs (1967) - Date: 1 June 1967 (time approximate) - Place: San José de Valderas, Alcorcón, near Madrid (Spain) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs - Shape: A circular craft with the UMMO sign, )+(, on its underside - Witnesses: Anonymous photographers (“Antonio Pardo”); no credible eyewitnesses were found - Duration: A few minutes, according to the photographers - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/ummo-valderas-1967/ In June 1967 photographs of a round craft marked underneath with the sign )+( reached the Madrid newspaper Informaciones and Spanish UFO researchers, left anonymously at a photo shop in Carabanchel and sent by a man signing himself “Antonio Pardo”. They were said to have been taken on June 1 at San José de Valderas, outside Madrid. The sign was that of UMMO, a planet whose inhabitants had been writing long typed letters to Spanish enthusiasts since the mid-1960s, and the pictures made UMMO famous. No reliable witness of the flight was ever found; the negatives that were later analysed had gaps in their sequence, and a police laboratory study in the 1990s, while finding no thread, noted lighting that suggested artificial light and could not rule out fraud. In the 1990s José Luis Jordán Peña, a Madrid engineer with an interest in parapsychology, admitted that he had created UMMO, that he had written the letters with the help of a few friends, and that the photographs showed a model hung from a thread. Believers still defend the case. **Explanation:** A hoax. José Luis Jordán Peña, the main witness of the 1966 Aluche “landing”, admitted in the 1990s that he had invented UMMO as an experiment in credulity and that the photographs showed a small model hung from nylon thread; a stylistic study of the letters signed “Antonio Pardo” pointed to him, and in 1996 Manuel Carballal reproduced the pictures with a model on a fishing line. Sources: - [Wikipedia (Spanish) — Ummo](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ummo) - [Patrick Gross — The UMMO affair: the San José de Valderas photographs and their analysis](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/ummo/guardiacivil01.htm) ## Cussac — two children and four small black beings (1967) - Date: 29 August 1967 (time approximate) - Place: Cussac, Cantal, Auvergne, France - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Official government document or case file - Shape: Round craft about 4.6 m across, with four small black beings - Witnesses: François (13) and his sister Anne-Marie (9) - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/cussac-1967/ On August 29, 1967 a 13-year-old boy, François, and his 9-year-old sister, Anne-Marie, told the local police that while watching cows in a field at Cussac they had seen four small black beings, about 120 cm tall, with a shiny, silk-like look. The beings seemed to rise in the air and enter a round craft about 4.6 metres across that hovered over the field. The police noted a smell of sulphur and dried grass at the spot the craft was said to have left. The file is one of those that the French government put online in March 2007, and one of the children was later said to have suffered lasting health effects. **Explanation:** No explanation has been agreed. The two children, aged 13 and 9, gave the same account to the police, and the police recorded a smell of sulphur and dried grass where the sphere was said to have stood. There were no other witnesses. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Close encounter of Cussac](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_encounter_of_Cussac) - [UFO Evidence — The Cussac encounter, 29 August 1967](http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case705.htm) ## Six “flying saucers” across southern England (hoax) (1967) - Date: 4 September 1967 (time approximate) - Place: A line of six sites from the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, to Clevedon, Somerset (United Kingdom) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Police witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Smooth, metallic-looking saucers about 1.4 m long, emitting a bleeping noise - Witnesses: Members of the public who found them; four police forces, army bomb-disposal teams, the RAF and the MoD - Duration: One day - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/saucer-hoax-1967/ On the morning of Monday, September 4, 1967, people in southern England began finding small “flying saucers”, six in all, set out along a nearly straight line at about 51.5° N: on a housing estate near Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey, on a golf course in Bromley, in a paddock at Winkfield near Ascot, at Welford near Newbury, at Chippenham, and on Dial Hill at Clevedon. Each was about 1.4 m long, weighed about 45 kg and gave out an eerie electronic sound. Police cordoned them off; army bomb-disposal teams, RAF helicopters and the Ministry of Defence’s intelligence staff were called in; the army blew up the Chippenham saucer, one was lifted from Sheppey by helicopter, and one was sent to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston. When one was drilled into, a foul-smelling paste burst out over the police. By the evening the makers, apprentices from the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, had owned up: it was a stunt for their Rag Week. The MoD’s file on the day was released by The National Archives. **Explanation:** A Rag Week hoax by aircraft engineering apprentices at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, led by Christopher Southall and Roger Palmer: fibreglass shells with an oscillator and loudspeaker inside, filled with fermenting flour paste. They owned up the same day and raised money for charity. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) - [Wikipedia — 1967 British flying saucer hoax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_British_flying_saucer_hoax) ## Shag Harbour crash-landing (1967) - Date: 4 October 1967 - Place: Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia (Canada) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Row of 4 orange lights; object floating on the sea - Witnesses: RCMP officers, fishermen, residents - Duration: About an hour - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/shag-harbour-1967/ Residents and three RCMP officers watched orange lights descend at an angle and hit the water off Shag Harbour. Rescue boats found a patch of yellow foam but no aircraft; no plane was missing. Earlier that evening an Air Canada crew and a fishing boat’s radar also reported unusual objects. **Explanation:** The RCMP, Canadian Coast Guard and Navy divers found no aircraft; the Condon Committee listed it as unexplained. No debris was recovered beyond a yellowish foam on the water. ## Devon "flying cross" police chase (1967) - Date: 24 October 1967 - Place: A3072, Holsworthy to Hatherleigh, Devon (United Kingdom) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Star-spangled cross of light - Witnesses: PCs Roger Willey and Clifford Waycott; a motorist; two BBC engineers - Duration: About an hour - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/devon-flying-cross-1967/ Two police constables driving from Holsworthy to Hatherleigh saw a bright, cross-shaped light at treetop height. They followed it for about 14 miles, at up to 80 mph, and said it was like "looking through wet glass". A second object joined it at 04:23. A Land Rover driver saw it too. It faded at about 5 a.m. The case was raised in Parliament during the autumn 1967 "flying cross" wave. **Explanation:** The Ministry attributed it to the planet Venus, as it did several similar sightings that month. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_the_United_Kingdom) ## Zond IV re-entry — the “craft with windows” (1968) - Date: 3 March 1968 - Place: Across the sky from Kentucky through Ohio to Pennsylvania (United States) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Two or three fiery objects with golden-orange tails; some witnesses described a cigar-shaped craft with lit windows - Witnesses: Hundreds of people along a line from Kentucky to Pennsylvania; about 78 written reports - Duration: About two minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/zond-4-reentry-1968/ At about 9:45 p.m. EST on March 3, 1968, hundreds of people along a line from Kentucky to Pennsylvania saw a slow procession of fiery objects with golden-orange tails cross the sky to the north-east. Most saw two or three main pieces; some described a single long, wingless craft, said that “many windows seemed to be lit up from the inside”, or put it at treetop level. NORAD identified the objects as pieces of the Soviet Zond IV probe, launched on March 2, or of its rocket, and Project Blue Book recorded “satellite decay”; a contractor even estimated where surviving pieces might have fallen in north-central Pennsylvania. For the Condon study, William Hartmann compared about 30 detailed reports with the known event: many put the objects within a few miles and below 10,000 ft, when the debris was burning up tens of kilometres high, and the joining of separate lights into one windowed hull became his textbook case of the “airship effect”. **Explanation:** NORAD identified the objects as fragments of the Soviet Zond IV probe or its rocket re-entering the atmosphere; Blue Book closed the case as satellite decay. The Condon study used it as its standard example of how honest witnesses turn a re-entry into a structured craft. Sources: - [Project Blue Book file, “Northeastern U.S.”, March 1968 (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/1968-03-6958071-NortheasternU-S) - [Condon report, Section VI, Chapter 2: Perceptual problems — the re-entry of Zond IV debris](http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s6chap02.htm) - [Wikipedia — Zond 4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zond_4) ## Minot AFB — B-52 radar and missile-field sightings (1968) - Date: 24 October 1968 - Place: Minot AFB and missile field, North Dakota (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Radar tracking; Military witnesses; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Photographs; Official government document or case file; Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments) - Shape: Large glowing orange object - Witnesses: Missile maintenance and security teams; B-52 crew - Duration: About 3 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/minot-afb-1968/ Before dawn, maintenance and security teams at several Minuteman sites reported a large glowing object. A B-52 returning to Minot was asked to look for it. Its radar navigator painted a target that stayed about a mile off the bomber, and radarscope photographs were taken. The UHF radio dropped out when the object was closest. After landing, the crew described a bright light near the ground. Blue Book closed it within weeks. It is one of the best-documented military cases in the files. **Explanation:** Blue Book's conclusion: ground sightings were probably the B-52 and the star Sirius; the radar contact and the B-52's temporary loss of UHF radio were "possibly plasma", similar to ball lightning; the crew's sighting could have been the star Vega or a light on the ground. Sources: - [A Narrative of UFO Events at Minot Air Force Base](https://minotb52ufo.sohp.us/narrative.php) - [Shough report on the Minot events (abstract)](https://minotb52ufo.com/shough/ms_sec1.php) ## Jimmy Carter’s light at Leary, Georgia (1969) - Date: 6 January 1969 - Place: Outside the Lions Club meeting, Leary, Georgia (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: A bright light, as bright as the Moon, changing from white to blue to red and back - Witnesses: Jimmy Carter, then a Georgia state senator and Lions Club district governor, and about ten others - Duration: 10 to 12 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/carter-leary-1969/ At about 7:15 one evening in 1969, Jimmy Carter was waiting outside a school lunchroom in Leary, Georgia, to speak to the local Lions Club, when one of the men pointed out a light in the west, about 30 degrees above the horizon. Carter said it seemed to come closer, stopped beyond the pine trees, changed from white to blue, then red, then white, and then receded, after 10 to 12 minutes. As governor, in September 1973, he filled in a sighting report for the International UFO Bureau, dating it October 1969; the Lions Club’s own records show his Leary speech was on January 6, 1969, and the club had disbanded before October. Investigators in 1976 found that most of those present did not remember the event. On January 6, Venus was a brilliant evening star in the direction Carter gave, which is the accepted explanation; Carter said later that he took it for something unexplained, not for a spacecraft. **Explanation:** Robert Sheaffer and Allan Hendry identified it as Venus, which was near its greatest brilliancy in the western sky that evening; a later analysis proposed a barium-cloud release from a rocket fired at Eglin AFB. Carter himself said he never thought it was an alien craft. Sources: - [Carter’s report to the International UFO Bureau (NICAP copy)](http://www.nicap.org/waves/CarterSightingRptOct1969.pdf) - [Robert Sheaffer — President Carter’s “UFO” is identified as the planet Venus (1977)](http://www.debunker.com/texts/carter_ufo.html) - [Wikipedia — Jimmy Carter UFO incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_UFO_incident) ## Fort Beaufort — police fire at an object (1971) - Date: 26 June 1971 (time approximate) - Place: Braeside farm near Fort Beaufort, Eastern Cape (South Africa) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Fireball that changed colour - Witnesses: Farmer Bennie Smit, farmhands and police officers - Duration: Morning - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/fort-beaufort-1971/ Farmer Bennie Smit said he, his workers and local police fired shots at a fireball-like object that changed colour as it hovered among the trees on his farm. The story went around the world. Rumours said the army investigated the site but no records were produced. The town's "UFO Bar" and hotel clippings kept the story alive. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in South Africa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_South_Africa) ## Lake Cote aerial survey photograph (1971) - Date: 4 September 1971 - Place: Laguna de Cote, Costa Rica - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Official government document or case file - Shape: Metallic disc over the lake - Witnesses: None at the time (found on the negative) - Duration: Single survey frame - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/lake-cote-1971/ An Instituto Geográfico Nacional aerial-survey camera flying at about 10,000 ft photographed Lake Cote for mapping. One frame shows a disc-like object over the water that the crew never saw; the adjacent frames do not show it. **Explanation:** Taken by the government’s Instituto Geográfico Nacional mapping aircraft; the object was not noticed at the time. Analyses have not produced an accepted identification. Sources: - [NICAP — Costa Rica, 4 September 1971 (case index)](http://www.nicap.org/710904costarica_dir.htm) - [UFOs at close sight — the Lago de Cote photograph, 1971](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/decote.htm) ## Delphos ring (1971) - Date: 2 November 1971 - Place: Delphos, Kansas (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Many independent witnesses - Shape: Mushroom-shaped, with multicoloured lights - Witnesses: Ronnie Johnson (16) and his parents - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/delphos-1971/ While doing evening chores on his family’s farm near Delphos, 16-year-old Ronnie Johnson saw a mushroom-shaped object, lit in many colours, hovering about 25 yards away. His parents came out to a glowing ring on the ground where it had been. It was still visible the next day. Investigators found that the soil in the ring was dry beside damp ground and would not let water through, and that it held more calcium and soluble salts and was more acidic, with a white deposit of calcium oxalate. Both calcium oxalate and oxalic acid irritate skin and eyes, and Ronnie’s parents said touching the ring numbed their fingers. It is one of the classic UFO “landing trace” cases. **Explanation:** No official body reached a conclusion. The soil results are the main physical evidence; sceptics note that the account rests on one family, and that fungi can leave rings of altered, water-repelling soil. Sources: - [The Black Vault — Analysis of soil samples, Delphos, Kansas](https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/analysis-soil-samples-related-delphos-kansas-november-2-1971/) ## Pascagoula encounter (1973) - Date: 11 October 1973 (time approximate) - Place: Pascagoula River, Pascagoula, Mississippi (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Audio recording / radio transcript - Shape: Oval object with flashing blue lights - Witnesses: Charles Hickson (45) and Calvin Parker (17) - Duration: Not recorded - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/pascagoula-1973/ Charles Hickson and his young colleague Calvin Parker said that while fishing from a pier on the west bank of the Pascagoula River they heard a whirring noise, saw two flashing blue lights and an oval object about 30–40 feet across, and were taken aboard by three creatures with claw-like hands, examined and returned. They went to the Jackson County sheriff’s office around 11 p.m. Officers who suspected a prank left the two alone in a room with a hidden recorder; the men’s talk matched their story. The case set off a wave of 1973 reports along the Gulf Coast and made Hickson a long-time public speaker; Parker published his own account in 2018. **Explanation:** No physical evidence was found beyond the two men’s testimony. Sceptics see a hoax or a hallucination; the witnesses stuck to their story, including when they were secretly recorded at the sheriff’s office. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Pascagoula incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascagoula_incident) ## Coyne helicopter incident (1973) - Date: 18 October 1973 - Place: Near Mansfield, Ohio (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments); Official government document or case file - Shape: Grey cigar-shaped body, red nose light, white tail light, green beam - Witnesses: Four-man Army Reserve crew; a family on the ground - Duration: About 5 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/coyne-1973/ An Army Reserve Bell UH-1H (tail number 68-15444) on its way from Columbus to Cleveland was cruising at 2,500 feet near Mansfield when the crew saw a red light closing on the helicopter from the east. Capt. Lawrence Coyne took the controls and began an emergency descent, expecting a collision. They then saw a cigar-shaped grey object hover over the helicopter, with a red light at the nose, a white light at the tail and a green beam that lit the cockpit. After it left, the crew found the helicopter at about 3,500 feet in a climb of 1,000 feet a minute, with the collective still fully down, and the compass spinning. The Army Reserve’s report is among the best-known official records of an aircrew encounter. **Explanation:** The sceptic Philip Klass argued that the crew first saw a bright fireball of the Orionid meteor shower and then misjudged what followed. Investigators for CUFOS and others reject this: by their timeline the object was in view for several minutes, and a family on the ground reported lights too. Sources: - [NICAP — Mansfield, Ohio, October 18, 1973](http://www.nicap.org/731018mansfield_dir.htm) - [J. Zeidman — A helicopter–UFO encounter over Ohio (CUFOS)](https://cufos.org/PDFs/books/A%20Helicopter-UFO%20Encounter%20Over%20Ohio.pdf) ## Berwyn Mountains "crash" (1974) - Date: 23 January 1974 - Place: Cadair Berwyn, North Wales (United Kingdom) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Infrared or other sensor data - Shape: Glowing light on the hillside - Witnesses: Villagers across the Dee valley; a nurse who drove up the mountain - Duration: Evening - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/berwyn-1974/ At 20:38 a loud bang and tremor shook villages around the Berwyn Mountains, and people saw lights on the hillside. A local nurse drove up and described a glowing sphere. Police searched and found nothing. The event was later retold as a UFO crash with a secret military recovery, sometimes called "the Welsh Roswell". Seismographs recorded an earthquake, and meteor observers logged a fireball at the same moment. **Explanation:** A small earthquake shook the area at the same moment that a bright fireball was seen across northern England and Wales. The lights on the hillside were most likely poachers' lamps. Investigators found no crash and no recovery. ## The Betz mystery sphere (1974) - Date: 27 March 1974 (time approximate) - Place: Fort George Island, Jacksonville, Florida (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Military witnesses - Shape: A heavy, polished metal ball about 20 cm across - Witnesses: Antoine, Jerri and Terry Betz; the U.S. Navy at Jacksonville; reporters - Duration: Found in an afternoon; the stories ran for weeks - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/betz-sphere-1974/ On March 27, 1974, the Betz family went to look at a small brush fire near their home on Fort George Island and found a shiny metal sphere about 8 inches (20 cm) across, weighing about 22 lb (10 kg), They took it for a conquistadors’ cannonball and kept it. Two weeks later their son Terry was playing the guitar near it and said it answered with a throbbing hum; the family went on to say it rolled across the floor, stopped and turned by itself, and seemed to follow people around the house. The story went national, the National Enquirer offered a reward for proof that anything was from outer space, and the Navy took the ball for tests: it was hollow, with a shell about half an inch thick, and made of stainless steel. A panel of scientists at an Enquirer conference in June agreed it was “made on earth”. **Explanation:** The Navy, which examined the ball in April 1974, said it was “nothing more than a huge ball bearing”, a stainless-steel ball used as a check valve in industrial piping, and its size, weight and steel match such a valve. An artist later said a few of these balls, which he used in sculptures, fell off his van’s roof rack near Jacksonville around 1971. It “moved on its own” only after being handled; a Navy man pointed to the house’s old, uneven stone floors and the ball’s near-perfect balance. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Betz mystery sphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betz_mystery_sphere) ## Coyame “crash” — Chihuahua (1974) - Date: 25 August 1974 (time approximate) - Place: Coyame, Chihuahua, Mexico - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Disc-shaped object (as told) - Witnesses: Local residents (reported) - Duration: Not recorded - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/coyame-1974/ According to ufologists, residents near Coyame, in the Chihuahuan desert, reported a mid-air collision between a UFO and a small aeroplane on August 25, 1974, followed by a military recovery and a cover-up. The best-known version says U.S. air-defence radar followed a fast, high object from the Gulf of Mexico until it vanished near Coyame, and that a light aircraft that had left El Paso collided with it. Historians point instead to the real 1974 crash and recovery of a Cessna that had been carrying drugs, which they believe gave rise to the story. It is sometimes called Mexico’s Roswell. The case is listed because it is so often cited, not because the account is documented. **Explanation:** Historians say the reports were most likely prompted by the crash and military recovery of a Cessna used for drug smuggling. The radar story that circulates in UFO literature is known only from later retellings. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Mexico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Mexico) - [Mexico Unexplained — The flying saucer crash at Coyame](https://mexicounexplained.com/flying-saucer-crash-coyame-mexican-roswell/) ## Langenburg rings (1974) - Date: 1 September 1974 - Place: Langenburg, Saskatchewan (Canada) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Official government document or case file; Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments) - Shape: Five domed discs - Witnesses: 1 (farmer Edwin Fuhr) - Duration: About 15 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/langenburg-1974/ Farmer Edwin Fuhr was swathing a rapeseed field when he saw five metallic, dome-shaped objects spinning just above the ground near a slough. He sat frozen for about 15 minutes until they rose silently in formation and left, trailing grey vapour. He said his swather would not restart. The RCMP found five rings of flattened, swirled crop matching his description, with no tracks leading in. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Canada: Langenburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Canada#1974,_Langenburg,_Saskatchewan) ## Billy Meier’s “beamship” photographs (1975) - Date: 28 January 1975 (time approximate) - Place: Zürcher Oberland, around Hinwil, canton of Zürich (Switzerland) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Motion-picture film - Shape: Disc-shaped “beamships” with domes and rings - Witnesses: Eduard “Billy” Meier alone; no independent witness of any contact - Duration: Claimed contacts from 1975 onwards - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/billy-meier-1975/ Eduard “Billy” Meier, from the canton of Zürich, says that on January 28, 1975, he met Semjase, a woman from the Pleiades, beside her spacecraft, and that contacts which had begun in his childhood went on for years. From 1975 he produced hundreds of sharp colour photographs and some film of saucer-shaped “beamships” over the fields and woods of the Zürcher Oberland, later the basis of books, a following and the 1987 film Contact. Scientists, sceptics and most ufologists regard them as fraudulent. Investigators such as Kal Korff argued that models had been photographed close up or combined with landscapes; Meier’s former wife Kalliope said in 1997 that she had seen the models and that the stories were invented; Meier conceded that he had used models to re-create scenes; and pictures he presented as the aliens Asket and Nera were traced to performers on American television. **Explanation:** A hoax. Meier’s former wife said in 1997 that the “beamships” were models made from household objects such as dustbin lids and carpet tacks; Meier admitted to Gary Kinder that he had used models to “recreate scenes”; and photographs of two “Pleiadian” women turned out to show dancers from the Golddiggers troupe on The Dean Martin Show. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Billy Meier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Meier) ## Loring Air Force Base intrusions (1975) - Date: 27 October 1975 - Place: Loring Air Force Base, Limestone, Maine (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Low aircraft with a red light and a white strobe - Witnesses: Security police, including S/Sgt Danny Lewis - Duration: About 40 minutes the first night; repeated for days - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/loring-1975/ On the evening of October 27, 1975 a security patrol at Loring Air Force Base, a Strategic Air Command base that held nuclear weapons, saw an aircraft with a red light and a white strobe approaching the north perimeter at about 300 feet. The base was put on alert and a ground sweep began. Over the next 40 minutes the object came within 300 yards of the restricted weapons storage area at about 150 feet, moving in ways described as helicopter-like, and no one could get a fix on it before it left toward Grand Falls, New Brunswick. Similar reports came from the base, and from other bases, for more than a week; Air Force messages about them were released under the Freedom of Information Act. **Explanation:** The Air Force never identified the object; its messages from the base describe an unidentified, helicopter-like aircraft that evaded the ground sweep. No conventional aircraft was found. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Loring Air Force Base alert area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loring_Air_Force_Base_Alert_Area) ## Wurtsmith Air Force Base and the KC-135 chase (1975) - Date: 30 October 1975 - Place: Wurtsmith Air Force Base, Oscoda, Michigan (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: One white light pointing down and two red lights at the rear - Witnesses: Base security police and the six-man crew of a KC-135 tanker - Duration: About an hour - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/wurtsmith-1975/ At about 10:10 p.m. on October 30, 1975, guards at Wurtsmith, a Strategic Air Command base on Lake Huron, saw an object with a white light pointing downward and two red lights at the rear. Minutes later security police reported an “unidentified helicopter” hovering low over the weapons storage area, and the base radar approach control picked up a target about 35 miles to the south-east. A KC-135 tanker flying nearby was asked to look. Its six-man crew, among them Maj. Frederick Pappas, saw lights and painted the object on their radar for about ten seconds, and followed it at about 2,000 feet north over Lake Huron and then south toward Saginaw Bay; each time they closed in it sped away, and Capt. Myron Taylor put its final speed at about 1,000 knots. Low on fuel, they broke off. The NORAD log recorded that the tanker “made both visual sighting and radar skin paint” and that contact was lost 25 nautical miles south-east over Lake Huron. **Explanation:** The NORAD log called it a helicopter over the weapons storage area, but no helicopter was identified, and the tanker crew described an object that pulled away each time they closed on it. It is one of a series of intrusions at northern Strategic Air Command bases that autumn, including Loring and Malmstrom. Sources: - [NICAP — Wurtsmith AFB, October 30, 1975 (report)](https://www.nicap.org/reports/751030wurtsmith_rep.htm) - [UFOs at close sight — the 1975 SAC base intrusions](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/sac.htm) ## Travis Walton disappearance (1975) - Date: 5 November 1975 - Place: Apache–Sitgreaves National Forest near Heber, Arizona (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Glowing disc hovering over a clearing - Witnesses: 7 (the logging crew) - Duration: 5 days missing - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/travis-walton-1975/ A seven-man logging crew led by Mike Rogers was driving out of the forest after sunset when they saw a glowing disc over a clearing. Travis Walton got out and walked toward it, and the crew said a beam of light knocked him to the ground. They drove off in panic. When they came back he was gone. Police searched for five days. Walton then called his sister from a phone booth in Heber, saying he had been taken aboard. His story became the 1993 film Fire in the Sky. **Explanation:** The crew passed some polygraph tests and Walton failed one. Philip Klass and Michael Shermer argued it was a hoax, with a motive: the crew was behind on a Forest Service contract, and an "act of God" could excuse the penalty. Walton maintains it happened. ## Malmstrom AFB — objects over the missile fields, November 1975 (1975) - Date: 7 November 1975 (time approximate) - Place: Malmstrom Air Force Base and its Minuteman missile fields, Montana (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Radar tracking; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Lights over the launch facilities; on radar, slow targets that sounded like a jet - Witnesses: Missile-site security teams, Air Defense radar operators and F-106 crews - Duration: Several nights in early November 1975 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/malmstrom-1975/ In the first weeks of November 1975, after the intrusions at Loring and Wurtsmith, NORAD’s logs and messages record a run of reports from the Minuteman fields around Malmstrom AFB in Montana. Security teams at several launch facilities reported lights and objects; Malmstrom’s search and height-finder radars carried a target between about 9,000 and 15,600 ft moving at only seven knots; witnesses said it sounded like a jet, and the FAA said no jets were in the area. F-106 interceptors scrambled from Malmstrom could not make contact because of the darkness and the target’s low altitude. The NORAD messages, released under the Freedom of Information Act by 1979, give no explanation. Later accounts add a security alarm at launch facility K-7, a glowing disc “the size of a football field” and tampered warheads; those details come from interviews years afterwards, not from the released records. Sources: - [The Black Vault — records on objects over Malmstrom AFB, November 1975 (FOIA)](https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/unidentified-flying-objects-over-malmstrom-afb-november-1975/) - [CIA Reading Room — “U.F.O. files: the untold story” (1979), quoting the NORAD messages](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp88-01315r000300070001-4) ## CFS Falconbridge — the NORAD message from Ontario (1975) - Date: 11 November 1975 - Place: 30 nautical miles south-south-west of Canadian Forces Station Falconbridge, near Sudbury, Ontario (Canada) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file; Many independent witnesses - Shape: A circular, brilliantly lit object with two black spots in the centre - Witnesses: Four members of the station (a major, a captain, a corporal and a master corporal); many reports to the Ontario Provincial Police in Sudbury - Duration: 14 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/falconbridge-1975/ At 11:15 UTC (6:15 a.m. local) on November 11, 1975, personnel at CFS Falconbridge, a Pinetree Line radar station north-east of Sudbury, saw and tracked an object bearing 210 degrees magnetic, 30 nautical miles from the station. 22nd NORAD Region Headquarters passed the report to the National Research Council in Ottawa: a “circular object, brilliantly lighted with two black spots in the center”, moving straight up “at high speed from 42,000 ft. to 72,000 ft.” with no horizontal movement, for 14 minutes, under broken cloud. The major who was the prime witness took photographs but did not know if they would come out. The same observers saw a similar object bearing 270 degrees, too far away for detail, and the Ontario Provincial Police in Sudbury received many other reports. The station’s history adds that two F-106 interceptors were scrambled from Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Michigan and saw nothing. **Explanation:** No explanation was given. The sighting came in the autumn of 1975, when bases along the northern U.S. border were also reporting lights and radar targets. The radar fixed only a bearing and range; the height and the vertical climb are the observers’ estimates. Sources: - [NORAD 22nd Region message to the National Research Council, November 11, 1975 (transcription)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/offica04.htm) - [Pinetree Line history — Falconbridge, Ontario](https://www.candemuseum.org/sites/default/files/archives/Pinetreeline/other/other15/other15e.html) - [Wikipedia — CFS Falconbridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFS_Falconbridge) ## Canary Islands sphere (1976) - Date: 22 June 1976 - Place: Canary Islands (Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Fuerteventura) (Spain) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Photographs; Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Light rising from the sea, then a huge glowing sphere - Witnesses: Several hundred, including the crew of the Spanish Navy corvette Atrevida - Duration: Over 40 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/canary-islands-1976/ The crew of the corvette Atrevida saw a light rise from the sea, then a vast, luminous sphere spread out in the sky. Hundreds of people across Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera and Gran Canaria saw it. A doctor near Gáldar said he saw two tall figures inside a transparent sphere. The Spanish Air Force investigation was leaked in 1977 and officially declassified in 1994. **Explanation:** Spanish researcher Ricardo Campo matched the 1976 sighting, and similar Canary Islands events of the period, to U.S. Navy submarine-launched Poseidon missile tests in the Atlantic, whose exhaust clouds glow in sunlight at high altitude. The Spanish Air Force report left it unexplained. ## The Allagash abductions (1976) - Date: 26 August 1976 (time approximate) - Place: Eagle Lake, Allagash Wilderness Waterway, northern Maine (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: A large glowing sphere that changed colour and shone a beam on the water - Witnesses: Jim and Jack Weiner and Chuck Rak, art students, and their guide Charlie Foltz - Duration: Minutes as they remember it; hours by the fire - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/allagash-1976/ In late August 1976 four young men from Massachusetts were on a canoe trip in the Allagash wilderness. On the night of August 26, camped by Eagle Lake, they built a big bonfire as a landmark and paddled out to fish in the dark. They say a bright sphere rose over the trees, and when Rak signalled at it with a flashlight it came toward them and shone a beam down on the water; the next thing they knew they were back on the shore, and the fire that should have burned for hours was embers. Years later the ufologist Raymond Fowler took up the case, and under hypnosis all four described being taken aboard and examined. Fowler’s 1993 book The Allagash Abductions made it one of the best-known abduction cases, and one of the few claimed by a whole group. **Explanation:** The abduction rests on memories recovered under hypnosis years later, a method that is known to produce false memories. The four agree that they saw a bright light over the lake and that their fire had burned down sooner than they expected; the rest is in dispute. In 2016 Chuck Rak said the abduction “didn’t happen”, that he had backed the story to make money and that they had been “stoned” on the lake; Charlie Foltz and Jim Weiner deny the drugs and stand by it. Sources: - [The County (Houlton, Maine), “How much of a famed 1976 UFO abduction is true?” (2016)](https://thecounty.me/2016/09/21/houlton/how-much-of-a-famed-1976-ufo-abduction-is-true-4/) - [Boothbay Register — The Allagash Abductions](https://boothbayregister.com/node/179620) ## Tehran F-4 Phantom intercepts (1976) - Date: 19 September 1976 - Place: Tehran, Iran - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file; Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments) - Shape: Brilliant flashing lights; object released a smaller one - Witnesses: Controllers, two F-4 crews, a general, civilians - Duration: ~3.5 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/tehran-1976/ After civilian reports of a bright object over Tehran’s Shemiran district, the Imperial Iranian Air Force scrambled two F-4 Phantoms from Shahrokhi AB. Both crews said their instruments and communications failed near the object; the second pilot, Maj. Parviz Jafari, reported a radar lock and that his weapons panel died as a smaller object came toward him. **Explanation:** A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report called it "an outstanding report" meeting all criteria for a valid study. Skeptic Philip Klass proposed Jupiter plus coincidental equipment failures. ## The Moroccan coast “UFO” — a Soviet rocket part re-entering (1976) - Date: 19 September 1976 - Place: Along the Atlantic coast of Morocco, from Agadir to Kenitra and inland to Meknes and Fez - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A silvery, luminous flattened ball or a large luminous tube, shedding bright sparks from the rear - Witnesses: People in Agadir, Kalaa Sraghna, Essaouira, Casablanca, Rabat, Kenitra, Meknes and around Fez, including Maj. Mohamed Lissaoui of the Royal Gendarmerie - Duration: Minutes; most reports between 01:00 and 01:30 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/morocco-reentry-1976/ Between 1 and 2 a.m. on September 19, 1976, the Royal Gendarmerie took calls from Agadir, Marrakech, Casablanca, Rabat, Kenitra and other towns describing the same thing: a silent, silvery, luminous object, disc-shaped to some and tube-shaped to others, moving slowly from south to north parallel to the Atlantic coast and giving off intermittent trails of bright sparks and fragments. Major Mohamed Lissaoui of the Gendarmerie saw it himself at about 1:15 a.m. on his way back from Kenitra, flying low and slowly “as if it were an aircraft preparing to land”. King Hassan II sent the Gendarmerie’s commander, Col. Housni Benslimane, to the U.S. embassy on September 23 to ask what the Americans knew; the defence attaché was shown witnesses’ drawings and cabled Washington. The State Department answered that it knew of no U.S. aircraft or satellite activity and that a meteor or a decaying satellite was possible. The cables became public through WikiLeaks in 2013. **Explanation:** In 2012 the satellite tracker Ted Molczan matched the time and track to the re-entry of a piece of a Soviet Molniya rocket (an ullage-motor assembly from the third stage that orbited Molniya 1-35 in July 1976), an object catalogued by U.S. space tracking. The State Department’s 1976 reply had already said the sightings “could conceivably be compatible with a meteor, or a decaying satellite”. The witnesses’ estimate of 1,000 m was far too low, as estimates of a re-entry’s height usually are. Sources: - [U.S. embassy Rabat cable 1976RABAT05209 (WikiLeaks)](https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1976RABAT05209_b.html) - [State Department reply, cable 1976STATE247538 (WikiLeaks)](https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1976STATE247538_b.html) - [Foreign Policy — The Soviet space junk that became a Moroccan UFO](https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/11/wikileaked-the-soviet-space-junk-that-became-a-moroccan-ufo/) ## Talavera la Real air base sentries (1976) - Date: 12 November 1976 - Place: Talavera la Real Air Base, Badajoz (Spain) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Intense light; tall luminous figure - Witnesses: 3 soldiers on guard duty - Duration: About 30 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/talavera-1976/ Two soldiers on night patrol at Talavera la Real air base heard a sound like radio interference that became a piercing whistle. When it stopped they saw an intense light in the sky for about 15 seconds. With a third guard and a guard dog they searched the perimeter. The dog came back cowering, and they said they saw a tall, glowing figure and fired their rifles at it before it vanished. The Spanish Air Force investigated and later released its file. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Spain) ## Broad Haven schoolchildren — the Welsh Triangle (1977) - Date: 4 February 1977 (time approximate) - Place: Broad Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales (United Kingdom) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Yellow cigar-shaped craft; later an “upside-down saucer” - Witnesses: 14 schoolchildren, then teachers and a hotel owner - Duration: Lunchtime on Feb 4; further reports to April - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/broad-haven-1977/ At lunchtime on February 4, 1977 a group of 14 children at Broad Haven Primary School reported a yellow, cigar-shaped craft that landed in a field beyond the school grounds, and a silver creature with pointed ears. The headmaster had them draw what they saw, and the drawings agreed closely. On February 17 teachers and others said they saw the same craft, and on April 19 the owner of the Haven Fort Hotel in nearby Little Haven reported an “upside-down saucer” and two figures in a field. The wave of sightings in the area became known as the Dyfed or Welsh Triangle. A Ministry of Defence investigator found nothing to show a landing. The events were revisited in a 2023 Netflix documentary and a 2024 BBC series. **Explanation:** A Ministry of Defence investigator found no physical evidence that anything had landed and suggested that “a local prankster” might have been responsible. The children’s drawings agreed closely, which is why the case is still told. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Broad Haven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Haven) - [Herald.Wales — The Welsh Triangle: what was seen in the sky in 1977?](https://herald.wales/west-wales/pembrokeshire/the-welsh-triangle-what-was-seen-in-the-sky-back-in-1977/) - [SUFON — Broad Haven, the Welsh Triangle](https://www.sufon.co.uk/post/broad-haven-the-welsh-triangle) ## Corporal Valdés — the patrol at Pampa Lluscuma (1977) - Date: 25 April 1977 (time approximate) - Place: Pampa Lluscuma, near Putre, Arica (Chile) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Bright violet lights descending from the sky - Witnesses: Corporal Armando Valdés Garrido and seven conscripts of a Chilean Army patrol - Duration: About 15 minutes (Valdés’s absence) - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/valdes-putre-1977/ In the early hours of April 25, 1977, a Chilean Army patrol of a corporal and seven conscripts camped on the Pampa Lluscuma, in the altiplano near Putre, said two bright lights came down near them. Corporal Armando Valdés walked towards one and disappeared; about fifteen minutes later he came back, collapsed and said, “You don’t know who we are or where we come from, but I assure you we will return.” The soldiers said his face now carried several days’ beard and his digital watch showed a date five days ahead. The story reached the press across the world, from Chilean papers to French ones, and became Chile’s best-known UFO case. It was never investigated under the military government: no statement was taken officially and the watch was neither photographed nor studied. Later reporting found that the group was guarding army horses rather than patrolling, and some soldiers said Valdés had a beard before that night. Valdés has given contradictory accounts since, at times calling it a prank that got out of hand. **Explanation:** Valdés himself said in later interviews (reported for 2004, 2009 and 2013) that it was a joke among the patrol that got out of hand, with the watch set forward and the beard explained away to avoid punishment for not shaving, though at other times he has said it happened. The army never investigated and the watch was never examined. Sources: - [The Clinic — the supposed UFO sightings in Chile (2012)](https://www.theclinic.cl/2012/05/18/los-supuestos-avistamientos-de-ovnis-en-chile/) - [Diario Uno — the controversial Chilean case that still raises doubts](https://www.diariouno.com.ar/chile/ovnis-extraterrestres-y-abduccion-el-polemico-caso-chile-que-aun-genera-dudas-n1325227) ## Petrozavodsk phenomenon (1977) - Date: 20 September 1977 - Place: Petrozavodsk, Karelia, USSR (Russia) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file; Radar tracking - Shape: Glowing "jellyfish" showering rays - Witnesses: Thousands, from Helsinki to Vladivostok - Duration: ~12 minutes over Petrozavodsk - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/petrozavodsk-1977/ In the early hours, residents of Petrozavodsk saw a glowing object spread over the city like a jellyfish, "raining" shafts of light. Reports came from across the Soviet Union and Finland. The event prompted the Soviet research programme Setka. **Explanation:** Usually attributed to the launch of Kosmos-955 from Plesetsk, but the 1977 Academy of Sciences report said the phenomenon could not be satisfactorily understood. ## Colares "chupa-chupa" & Operação Prato (1977) - Date: 15 October 1977 (time approximate) - Place: Colares Island, Pará (Brazil) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Photographs; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file; Documented physiological effects; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Beams of light, "chupa-chupa" lights - Witnesses: Islanders; Brazilian Air Force team - Duration: Months in 1977 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/colares-1977/ Residents of Colares reported lights that fired beams and left burn-like marks. The mayor asked for help, and the Brazilian Air Force ran Operação Prato under Capt. Uyrangê Hollanda, photographing lights over several months. Hollanda gave a dramatic interview two decades later. **Explanation:** The Brazilian Air Force closed Operação Prato after about four months, reporting no unusual phenomena; its files and photos are in the Arquivo Nacional. ## The object that fell near Bermejo — Bolivia’s 1978 search (1978) - Date: 6 May 1978 (time approximate) - Place: El Taire hill above the Bermejo River, Tarija department, on the Argentine border (Bolivia) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A luminous cylinder or egg with a flaming tail - Witnesses: Many people along the border; Bolivian Air Force pilots who searched the slope - Duration: Seconds (the fall), followed by an explosion - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/bermejo-1978/ In the afternoon of May 6, 1978 (some reports say the Sunday evening, May 7), people on both sides of the Bermejo River, where Bolivia’s Tarija department meets Argentina, saw a luminous object with a fiery tail fall towards the El Taire hill and heard an explosion and a sonic boom. The Bolivian army and police searched, scientists from the University of Tarija went to the area, Argentina sent border police, and newspapers in Buenos Aires carried a police chief’s description of a dull metal cylinder about four metres long. The U.S. Embassy in La Paz reported the fall to Washington, and two U.S. Air Force attachés flew to Tarija; the embassy denied any secret recovery. A CIA-released bulletin of May 17, 1978 is headed “Bolivia reports conflict on details of fallen object”. The searches, slowed by the terrain and weather, recovered nothing anyone published. Explanations at the time ranged from a meteorite to space debris; no country reported losing a satellite, no meteorite fall is catalogued there for that date, and the object was never identified. Sources: - [CIA reading room — “Bolivia reports conflict on details of fallen object” (May 17, 1978)](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/0005515665) - [Nice-Matin, 17 May 1978, and NOSTRA (transcribed)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/press/nicematin17mai1978.htm) - [Nick Redfern — the lesser-known UFO crash in Bolivia](https://www.planet-today.com/2021/03/lesser-known-ufo-crash-in-bolivia.html) ## Emilcin abduction report (1978) - Date: 10 May 1978 (time approximate) - Place: Emilcin, Lublin Voivodeship (Poland) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Documented physiological effects - Shape: White, hovering, humming craft - Witnesses: 1 (farmer Jan Wolski) - Duration: About an hour - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/emilcin-1978/ Jan Wolski, a 71-year-old farmer, said that while driving his horse-drawn cart through the woods near Emilcin, two short beings with greenish faces invited him aboard a white craft hovering over a clearing. There they examined him. He was later interviewed by investigators, who found him sincere. A monument now stands near the site, one of the few UFO memorials in the world. ## Gujan-Mestras — the light that put out the street lamps (1978) - Date: 19 June 1978 - Place: Gujan-Mestras, Arcachon basin, Gironde (France) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments); Official government document or case file - Shape: An orange, oval luminous object - Witnesses: Several residents; motorists on the RN113 near La Réole - Duration: About 23:00 to 00:45 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/gujan-mestras-1978/ On the night of June 19, 1978, several people in Gujan-Mestras, on the Arcachon basin, heard a loud, dull noise and then saw an orange, oval light over the town. While it was there the street lighting faltered; the light faded from view as it climbed. Motorists on the road to Bordeaux near La Réole also saw a light moving slowly in the stormy sky. The gendarmerie took statements and GEPAN, the French space agency’s UFO office, investigated. GEIPAN classes the case B: probably a weather phenomenon connected with the storm. The two sightings could not be shown to be the same thing. **Explanation:** GEIPAN class B: the witnesses probably saw an atmospheric phenomenon linked to the thunderstorm threatening the area. The gendarmerie and GEPAN could not link the town sighting to a light seen by motorists near La Réole. Sources: - [GEIPAN case 1978-06-00525, Gujan-Mestras (in French)](https://www.cnes-geipan.fr/fr/cas/1978-06-00525) ## Disappearance of Frederick Valentich (1978) - Date: 21 October 1978 - Place: Bass Strait, off Cape Otway, Victoria (Australia) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Audio recording / radio transcript; Official government document or case file - Shape: "Long shape" with four bright lights, orbiting above - Witnesses: Pilot (radio transcript); later ground reports - Duration: ~6 minutes of radio contact - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/valentich-1978/ Twenty-year-old Frederick Valentich, flying a Cessna 182L from Moorabbin to King Island, told Melbourne Flight Service a large lit aircraft was orbiting over him. His last words were "It is not an aircraft", followed by 17 seconds of metallic noise. No trace of him or the aircraft was ever found. **Explanation:** The Department of Transport could not determine the cause. Theories include disorientation (seeing his own lights reflected while inverted), a staged disappearance and suicide. ## Clarenville — RCMP constable watches object over the water (1978) - Date: 26 October 1978 (time approximate) - Place: Clarenville and Random Island, Newfoundland (Canada) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Oval with a fin, lights - Witnesses: 12, including RCMP Constable James Blackwood - Duration: 1–2 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/clarenville-1978/ In the early morning a dozen people in Clarenville called the RCMP about an object hovering over the water toward Random Island. Constable James Blackwood watched it for one to two hours through a surveillance telescope. He described an oval with a fin at the back, hanging about 100 ft above the water. When he flashed his headlights, the object seemed to flash back. It then vanished and left no trace. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Canada: Clarenville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Canada#1978,_Clarenville,_Newfoundland_and_Labrador) ## Kuwait’s oil-field sightings and the pumps that stopped (1978) - Date: 9 November 1978 (time approximate) - Place: Kuwait Oil Company fields around Umm al-Aish, near the satellite earth station, northern Kuwait - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file; Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments) - Shape: A dazzling light; close up, a domed disc the size of a jumbo jet with a red light on top - Witnesses: Staff of a Kuwait Oil Company pumping station, including an American, and of the nearby satellite station - Duration: About seven minutes on the ground; the series of sightings ran for five weeks - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/kuwait-oil-fields-1978/ On the night of November 9–10, 1978, according to the Kuwaiti dailies Al-Qabas and Al-Watan, employees of the Kuwait Oil Company and of the satellite station near Umm al-Aish saw a dazzling light come down nearby. Four oil-company workers, one of them an American, went to within about 250 metres and saw a disc as big as a jumbo jet, with a cupola and a red light on top, which stayed on the ground for about seven minutes while telephone and radio links in the area were cut, then rose vertically at great speed. Sightings over the oil fields went on until December 14. The U.S. embassy’s cable to Washington in January 1979, “UFO sightings cause security concern in Kuwait”, reported that the government had set up a committee of experts from the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, and that a senior Kuwait Oil Company official said the oil-pumping equipment had shut down automatically during one sighting and started again by itself when the object left, although it could normally be restarted only by hand. **Explanation:** The government’s committee of experts from the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research ruled out spy aircraft but gave no explanation, and its report was never published. The U.S. embassy reported the stop and restart of the pumping equipment as a Kuwait Oil Company official described it; nothing else about the landing is documented beyond press accounts. Sources: - [U.S. embassy Kuwait, “UFO sightings cause security concern in Kuwait”, January 1979 (FOIA copy)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/foia59.htm) - [Le Méridional, November 13, 1978 (translated press archive)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/press/lemeridional13nov1978.htm) ## Zanfretta — the Torriglia night patrol (1978) - Date: 6 December 1978 - Place: Marzano di Torriglia, Genoa, Italy - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Red oval craft over 10 m across; later a triangular craft - Witnesses: Pier Fortunato Zanfretta (a security guard); 52 other statements - Duration: Under an hour - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/zanfretta-1978/ At about 11:30 p.m. on December 6, 1978 the 26-year-old security guard Pier Fortunato Zanfretta, on patrol at Marzano, in the municipality of Torriglia, noticed four lights in the garden of a mansion called Casa Nostra and then a red oval object more than ten metres across. He radioed his supervisor that “they are not men”, then contact was lost; he was found unconscious and in shock. He described three-metre beings with mottled skin, yellow triangular eyes and clawed feet. A semicircular imprint of flattened grass was found in the garden, and Carabinieri Brigadier Antonio Nucchi collected 52 statements from people who had seen strange lights that night. A neurologist found no mental disturbance in January 1979. Zanfretta later described further abductions, eleven in all between 1978 and 1981, which are the most disputed part of the story. **Explanation:** Sceptics say the grass imprint matched the place where the owners tied a horse, that regression hypnosis can create false memories, that the beings resembled characters in popular 1978 Italian TV and comics, and that the “footprints” were puddles. Italy’s national UFO centre (CUN) judged the case unreliable. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Zanfretta UFO Incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanfretta_UFO_Incident) ## Kaikōura lights (1978) - Date: 31 December 1978 - Place: Kaikōura coast, New Zealand - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Motion-picture film; Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Audio recording / radio transcript - Shape: Bright white lights with a red tinge; pulsing orb - Witnesses: Safe Air crew, TV crew, Wellington radar - Duration: Two flights on Dec 30–31 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/kaikoura-1978/ After a Safe Air crew reported lights tracked by Wellington radar on 21 December, an Australian TV crew rode along on the Argosy newspaper run. On the night of 30–31 December they filmed lights pacing the aircraft off the Kaikōura coast in colour on 16 mm film, with Wellington controllers reporting matching radar returns. **Explanation:** Explanations offered include Venus and Jupiter, squid-fishing boat lights, and meteors; none accounts for the radar returns to everyone’s satisfaction. ## Cecconi G.91R photographs over Treviso (1979) - Date: 18 June 1979 - Place: Treviso Sant'Angelo air base, Veneto (Italy) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Photographs; Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Dull black, capsule-shaped, with a milky dome - Witnesses: Maresciallo Giancarlo Cecconi; Istrana radar; Treviso tower - Duration: About 5 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/cecconi-treviso-1979/ Returning from a photo-reconnaissance sortie in a G.91R, Italian Air Force pilot Giancarlo Cecconi was asked to identify an object tracked by Istrana radar over Treviso air base. He found a dull black, capsule-shaped object about 6–8 m long at about 1,300 m. He made passes within about 100 m and took more than 80 photographs with the aircraft's reconnaissance cameras. Then radar and the tower both lost it. **Explanation:** The Italian Defence Ministry later said its photo interpreters had identified the object as a cylindrical balloon made of black plastic bags (a "solar balloon"). Cecconi rejected this, noting the object did not move in his jet's wake. Sources: - [The Black Vault — The UFO case of Maresciallo Cecconi, 18 June 1979](https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/the-ufo-case-of-maresciallo-cecconi-june-18-1979/) ## Pranles — the yellow light with a turning blue beam (1979) - Date: 21 July 1979 - Place: Pranles, near Les Ollières-sur-Eyrieux, Ardèche (France) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A stationary yellow-orange light projecting a blue beam that turned through 360° - Witnesses: Two couples in neighbouring houses; the first witness a scientist who worked on light and colour - Duration: About 45 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/pranles-1979/ From 22:45 to 23:28 on July 21, 1979, a couple at Pranles, in the Ardèche, watched a stationary yellow-orange light on top of a ridge towards the Serre de Pieroulet, like a lighthouse, projecting a blue beam that turned steadily through 360° and swept the ground. No sound was heard. As the husband, a scientist who worked on light and colour, prepared to take a photograph, it went out. Their neighbours had seen the same light in the same direction before closing their shutters at about 23:00. He reported it to the gendarmerie the next day. Re-examining the case decades later, GEIPAN found that a helicopter with a searchlight was the only plausible explanation, but a blue beam from a yellow source, turning continuously for no purpose, did not fit it. The case stays class D, unexplained, though GEIPAN notes it is near the line between unexplained and unusable because no field investigation was made at the time. Sources: - [GEIPAN case 1979-07-00644, Pranles (in French)](https://www.cnes-geipan.fr/fr/cas/1979-07-00644) ## Val Johnson — deputy's patrol car struck by a light (1979) - Date: 27 August 1979 - Place: Near Stephen, Marshall County, Minnesota (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Police witnesses; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments); Documented physiological effects - Shape: Beam of bright light just above the road - Witnesses: 1 (Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson) - Duration: Seconds; ~39 minutes unconscious - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/val-johnson-1979/ Deputy Val Johnson was patrolling rural roads when he saw a bright light just above the road. It rushed toward his car, the car was engulfed in light, and he heard glass breaking. He said he was unconscious for 39 minutes. Deputies found the car skewed across the road. The windshield was cracked, a headlight and the roof light were broken, and an aerial was bent. Both his watch and the car's clock were 14 minutes slow. A doctor compared his eye irritation to "welder's burns". **Explanation:** UFO researchers (Allan Hendry, Jerome Clark) consider it significant. Skeptic Philip Klass argued it was a hoax and that Johnson damaged the car himself. The patrol car is on display at the Marshall County museum. ## Dechmont Law — Robert Taylor (1979) - Date: 9 November 1979 - Place: Dechmont Law, Livingston, West Lothian (United Kingdom) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Documented physiological effects; Official government document or case file - Shape: Dome-shaped object; two spiked spheres - Witnesses: 1 (forester Robert Taylor) - Duration: About 20 minutes unconscious - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/dechmont-law-1979/ Forestry worker Robert Taylor walked into a clearing on Dechmont Law and saw a large dome-shaped object hovering. He said two smaller spiked spheres rolled out, grabbed his trousers and dragged him toward it, and he passed out. He came to with torn trousers, grazes and a headache, and staggered home. Police recorded the case as an assault and found marks in the ground. It is often described as the only UFO event police have investigated as a crime. A marker now stands at the site. ## Manises — airliner diversion & Mirage intercept (1979) - Date: 11 November 1979 - Place: Over Ibiza → Valencia-Manises Airport, Spain - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file; Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments) - Shape: Red lights on a collision course; truncated cone - Witnesses: TAE crew, 109 passengers, controllers, Mirage pilot - Duration: ~1.5 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/manises-1979/ TAE flight JK-297 from Salzburg (via Palma) to Las Palmas saw red lights approach on a collision course near Ibiza and track the aircraft after it changed altitude. The captain diverted to Valencia — the first airliner diverted by a UFO. A Mirage F1 from Los Llanos then chased lights that accelerated away. **Explanation:** Spanish Air Force files declassified in the 1990s did not confirm an anomalous object; researchers attribute the lights to refinery flare stacks and bright stars/planets. ## Cergy-Pontoise “abduction” (hoax) (1979) - Date: 26 November 1979 (time approximate) - Place: Cergy-Pontoise, Val-d’Oise, France - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Official government document or case file - Shape: A light over the road that wrapped the car in fog and small flashing spheres - Witnesses: Three young men; the police and gendarmes arrived after the call - Duration: One week (the claimed disappearance) - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/cergy-pontoise-1979/ Before dawn on November 26, 1979, a young man telephoned the police at Cergy-Pontoise to say his friend had been “abducted by a UFO”. Three friends said they had been loading jeans to sell at a market when a light appeared over the road; the driver went towards it, it wrapped the car in fog and small flashing spheres, and when the fog cleared he was gone. Seven police officers and gendarmes searched; the story became national news. The missing man reappeared at a friend’s flat on December 3, with a journalist present, saying he had woken in a cabbage field. GEPAN’s technical note found that the witnesses’ accounts diverged from the start, that a blood test gave no sign of time in weightlessness, and that cabbages said to have been dried by the light had been left to rot as fertiliser by their owner. GEIPAN classes the affair as a hoax. **Explanation:** A hoax. GEIPAN, which reviewed the police and gendarmerie inquiry and its own analyses, calls it “a hoax whose course discredits the scientific work”; one of the friends is reported to have admitted years later that he made the story up. Sources: - [GEIPAN case 1979-11-00685, Cergy-Pontoise (in French)](https://www.cnes-geipan.fr/fr/cas/1979-11-00685) - [Sud-Ouest, November 29, 1979 (translated press archive)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/press/sudouest29nov1979.htm) ## La Joya air base pursuit (1980) - Date: 11 April 1980 - Place: La Joya air base, Arequipa, Peru - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Large balloon-shaped object - Witnesses: Lt Oscar Santa María Huertas; some 1,800 people at the base - Duration: About 22 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/la-joya-1980/ On the morning of April 11, 1980 about 1,800 people at the La Joya base saw a large, balloon-shaped object hanging still at around 500 metres. Lt Oscar Santa María Huertas, 23, took off in a Sukhoi Su-22 and fired 64 rounds at it without effect. He reported that it climbed away at up to 950 km/h, reaching about 19,200 metres, and stopped so suddenly that he had to swerve to avoid it. Peruvian army radar was said to show only his aircraft, while operators saw the object by eye. The engagement is said to have lasted 22 minutes, until his fuel ran low. The Peruvian Air Force kept the matter classified for decades; U.S. defence documents titled “UFO sighted in Peru” have since been released. **Explanation:** Peru’s air force kept the case quiet for decades; no explanation has been published. Peru has since set up an office (now DIFAA) for aerial anomalies, and U.S. documents on the case were later released. Sources: - [Wikipedia (es) — Incidente ovni de La Joya](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidente_ovni_de_la_Joya_-_Arequipa) ## Paul Bennewitz and the lights over Manzano (1980) - Date: 24 October 1980 (time approximate) - Place: Kirtland Air Force Base and the Manzano weapons storage area, Albuquerque, New Mexico (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Motion-picture film; Audio recording / radio transcript; Military witnesses - Shape: Lights moving over the Manzano storage area at night - Witnesses: Paul Bennewitz, physicist and owner of Thunder Scientific; officers of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations at Kirtland - Duration: From July 1979 through the 1980s - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/bennewitz-kirtland-1980/ Paul Bennewitz ran Thunder Scientific, an instrument firm next to Kirtland AFB, and his house in Four Hills overlooked the Manzano weapons storage area. From July 1979 he filmed lights over Manzano and recorded what he took for coded radio signals, and came to believe they were alien craft linked to the cattle mutilations then in the news. In 1980 he took a woman’s abduction story, recovered under hypnosis, as evidence of an underground base, and on October 24 he contacted Kirtland; on November 10 he briefed officers there. Instead of dismissing him, investigators and Moore fed him forged documents and tales of alien bases near Dulce. Bennewitz wrote to Senator Pete Domenici in 1981 and in 1988 drafted “Project Beta”, a plan to attack the base; that year he barricaded himself at home and spent a month in a psychiatric unit. Greg Bishop’s Project Beta (2005) and Mark Pilkington’s Mirage Men (2010) tell the story. **Explanation:** Nothing Bennewitz filmed or recorded was ever shown to be a craft. What is documented is what happened next: once he took his films and recordings to Kirtland, Air Force counter-intelligence and the ufologist Bill Moore, by Moore’s own account in 1989, fed him forged papers and stories of alien bases, apparently to steer him away from classified work near the base. The airman Richard Doty later said he had been tasked with exactly that. The “Dulce base” legend grew out of it. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Paul Bennewitz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bennewitz) ## Todmorden — PC Alan Godfrey (1980) - Date: 29 November 1980 - Place: Burnley Road, Todmorden, West Yorkshire (United Kingdom) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Police witnesses; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Diamond-shaped object hovering over the road - Witnesses: PC Alan Godfrey; other officers saw a light that night - Duration: Minutes; ~15 minutes unaccounted for - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/todmorden-godfrey-1980/ Before dawn, PC Alan Godfrey was driving his patrol car along Burnley Road looking for missing cattle when he found a large, diamond-shaped object hovering about 5 ft above the road, blocking it. He sketched it from the car. The next thing he knew, he was farther down the road and some time had passed. He said the road surface under the object was dry though the rest was wet. Other officers reported a light in the sky that night. Later hypnosis sessions produced an abduction account. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_the_United_Kingdom) ## Rendlesham Forest (1980) - Date: 26 December 1980 - Place: Rendlesham Forest, outside RAF Woodbridge, Suffolk (United Kingdom) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Official government document or case file; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Audio recording / radio transcript - Shape: Metallic lit object in the forest; star-like lights - Witnesses: USAF security police; Lt. Col. Charles Halt - Duration: Two nights - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/rendlesham-1980/ USAF security patrols at the east gate of RAF Woodbridge saw lights descend into the forest and went in to investigate. Two nights later deputy base commander Lt. Col. Charles Halt led a team that took radiation readings at three ground depressions and recorded his observations on a micro-cassette. His memo to the MoD is one of the most famous UFO documents in Britain. **Explanation:** The Ministry of Defence found no threat and did not investigate further. Skeptics attribute the lights to a fireball, the Orford Ness lighthouse (visible through the trees in the same direction) and bright stars. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) ## Cash–Landrum incident (1980) - Date: 29 December 1980 - Place: FM 1485 near Huffman, Texas (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Documented physiological effects; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Diamond-shaped object venting flame; escorted by ~23 helicopters - Witnesses: Betty Cash, Vickie & Colby Landrum; other motorists - Duration: ~20 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/cash-landrum-1980/ Driving home through the pine woods north-east of Houston, Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum with her grandson said a blazing diamond-shaped object hovered over the road, radiating heat. As it rose, they counted about two dozen helicopters, many resembling CH-47 Chinooks. All three reported injuries afterwards, and they sued the U.S. government. **Explanation:** Army and Air Force inquiries found no helicopters or craft that matched; the witnesses’ lawsuit against the U.S. government was dismissed in 1986. Skeptics question the medical and helicopter claims. ## Trans-en-Provence landing trace (1981) - Date: 8 January 1981 - Place: Trans-en-Provence, Var (France) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Official government document or case file - Shape: Lead-grey disc, two stacked saucers - Witnesses: Renato Nicolaï - Duration: Under a minute - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/trans-en-provence-1981/ Renato Nicolaï heard a whistle and saw an object land briefly on his terrace and fly off. The Gendarmerie took samples within a day; GEPAN’s laboratory analysis of the 2.4 m circular mark reported soil heated to 300–600 °C and chlorophyll changes in alfalfa leaves. **Explanation:** The French government’s GEPAN (now GEIPAN, part of CNES) analysed soil and plant samples and reported heating and biochemical changes it could not attribute to a known cause. Skeptics suggest a vehicle or the witness. Sources: - [GEIPAN — French government UAP case archive (CNES)](https://www.cnes-geipan.fr/) ## The spiral over south-west China (1981) - Date: 24 July 1981 - Place: Sichuan and Yunnan, and across south-west, north-west and south-central China - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A star-like point that brightened and grew a spinning, silver, spiral-shaped band of light - Witnesses: Very many people across several provinces; the Hangtian article claims ten million - Duration: Six or seven minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/china-spiral-1981/ At 10:38 p.m. on July 24, 1981, on a clear, moonless night, people across Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and neighbouring provinces saw a bright, star-like point grow brighter, begin to oscillate and develop a cloud-like band of light that turned into a huge silver spiral, spinning as it crossed the sky slowly from east to west. It was in view for six or seven minutes. The sighting started a nationwide craze for UFOs in the newly opened China; the U.S. Air Force’s Foreign Technology Division translated a Hangtian article about it, “UFO incident causes sensation throughout half of China”, which weighed a meteor, an aircraft and a flying saucer. Liu Yan, the Purple Mountain Observatory astronomer who handled many of the letters the public sent about UFOs in the 1980s, made it the subject of his first article on them and concluded it was man-made. **Explanation:** Newspapers first quoted astronomers blaming a meteor shower; the astronomer Liu Yan of the Purple Mountain Observatory, who analysed the eyewitness reports, concluded it was a man-made object about 650 km up, and an article in the space magazine Hangtian put it at about 500 km and rejected the meteor idea. A slowly turning spiral of light seen from half a country is what a rocket stage venting propellant in sunlight looks like (compare the Norwegian and Australian spirals), but no launch has been matched to this one. Sources: - [“UFO incident causes sensation throughout half of China” (FTD translation, DTIC ADA133326)](https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/UFOsandUAPs/ADA133326_UFOsandUAPs.pdf) - [The Black Vault — the translated Hangtian article](https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/?p=2457) - [Sixth Tone — The astronomer who calmed China’s UFO craze](https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1012934) ## Hannah McRoberts’ photograph — Vancouver Island (1981) - Date: 8 October 1981 (time approximate) - Place: A provincial park by the Eve River bridge on Highway 19, near Kelsey Bay, Vancouver Island, British Columbia (Canada) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs - Shape: A sharply focused, domed disc against clear blue sky above a mountain peak - Witnesses: None saw the object; the photographer, Hannah McRoberts, her husband and daughter were present - Duration: One frame of 35 mm colour film - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/mcroberts-1981/ At about 11 a.m. on October 8, 1981, Hannah McRoberts photographed a mountain peak from a provincial park off Highway 19 near Kelsey Bay, on the north-east coast of Vancouver Island, while travelling with her husband and young daughter. Nobody noticed anything in the sky. When the film was developed days later, one frame showed a sharply focused, dark, domed disc above the peak. Richard Haines, a perception scientist at NASA Ames, examined the original negative with micro-densitometry and computer enhancement, visited the site and interviewed the family; he found no evidence of a hoax, concluded the object was three-dimensional and at least 30 feet away, and presented the photograph to the 1997 Sturrock panel on UFO evidence. It is still one of the most reproduced UFO photographs, and one of the most argued over. **Explanation:** The NASA scientist Richard Haines examined the negative in 1987 and found no sign of tampering or a support thread; his measurements put the disc at least 30 feet from the camera, and interviews and a site survey supported the family’s account. Because nobody saw the object, a thrown object (a Frisbee, a hubcap or a pan lid have been suggested) cannot be ruled out, and later re-analyses from prints rather than the negative leave the case open. Sources: - [Patrick Gross — the McRoberts photograph and Haines’s analysis](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/picamaca2.htm) - [Metabunk — Hannah McRoberts’ 1981 UFO revisited](https://www.metabunk.org/threads/hannah-mcroberts-1981-ufo-revisited.10940/) ## Brest-Guipavas airport — the fireball by the runway (1981) - Date: 22 November 1981 - Place: Brest-Guipavas airport, Finistère (France) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A red-orange ball, low on the horizon, that seemed to drop into a field by the runway - Witnesses: Seven people in four independent groups: joggers, airport firefighters and a man waiting for a bus - Duration: Seconds (15 s or less, by most accounts) - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/guipavas-1981/ At about 7:55 on the morning of November 22, 1981, in early light, people in four separate groups near Brest-Guipavas airport saw a red-orange ball low over the horizon that seemed to fall into a field beside a runway and vanish; some saw sparks or a short trail. The airport’s firefighters, who watched it come down as if landing, alerted the control tower. The gendarmes, contacted the next day by the air traffic controller, took eight statements and searched; no trace was found. GEPAN’s original file recorded a radar echo at the time, which made the case a class D, unexplained. GEIPAN’s re-examination found that the radar centre had treated the echoes as insignificant and that the controllers had seen nothing abnormal, and reclassified it B: a meteoroid on a grazing path, seen almost head-on. **Explanation:** GEIPAN class B: probably a meteoroid entering the atmosphere on a shallow path, seen nearly head-on, which explains the red-orange ball, the short, slow descent and the sudden disappearance. A radar “spot” first cited in the file was not supported: the controllers noted nothing abnormal. Sources: - [GEIPAN case 1981-11-00900, Guipavas (in French)](https://www.cnes-geipan.fr/fr/cas/1981-11-00900) ## Trancrainville — gendarmes on the A10 and the lit-up ground (1982) - Date: 23 January 1982 - Place: A10 motorway near Trancrainville, Eure-et-Loir, north of Orléans (France) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Police witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: An indistinct bright mass in the sky, and a strongly lit patch on the ground - Witnesses: Two gendarmes of the motorway patrol - Duration: About 20 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/trancrainville-1982/ Between 4:35 and 4:55 a.m. on January 23, 1982, two gendarmes of the motorway patrol, driving south on the A10, saw an indistinct bright mass in the sky and a strongly lit area on the ground beneath it, which moved across pylons and hangars. They followed it for about 30 km, driving and stopping, losing and finding it again, and heard nothing even with the engine off; at the end only a glow remained to the east over the trees. The Orléans air base, 7 km away, had nothing flying and its radar had been off since the evening before, and the motorway operator’s staff had seen nothing. Re-examining the case, GEIPAN rejected planets (they cannot light the ground) and judged a helicopter with a searchlight above the cloud, then at 1,200–1,500 m, too unlikely for the equipment of the time. It is class D, unexplained, with the caveat that no field interview could be made. Sources: - [GEIPAN case 1982-01-00913, Trancrainville (in French)](https://www.cnes-geipan.fr/fr/cas/1982-01-00913) ## VASP flight 169 — the light that paced a Boeing 727 (1982) - Date: 8 February 1982 - Place: Night flight from Fortaleza to Rio de Janeiro, first seen near Petrolina, Pernambuco (Brazil) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Radar tracking - Shape: A bright light changing from red to orange, with a white and bluish centre - Witnesses: Captain Gérson Maciel de Britto, his co-pilot and many passengers; crews of two other airliners - Duration: About two hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/vasp-169-1982/ VASP’s night flight 169, a Boeing 727 (PP-SNG) under Captain Gérson Maciel de Britto, left Fortaleza at 01:50 on February 8, 1982 for Rio de Janeiro. About half an hour later, near Petrolina, the captain saw a light approach on the left and pace the aircraft. It changed colour between red and orange around a white and bluish centre, seemed to move above and below the airliner, and stayed with it past Belo Horizonte; at 31,000 ft the crew said a bluish light filled the cabin. Britto called the air-traffic and air-defence centre CINDACTA in Brasília, which had no traffic there, dimmed his lights and flashed his landing lights at it, and woke the passengers; one compared it to a mercury street lamp. CINDACTA later said its radar showed a return about eight miles from the aircraft, and crews of a Transbrasil and an Aerolíneas Argentinas flight reported seeing something. The light was lost in cloud over the Serra do Mar a few minutes before landing at Galeão. The case was examined in the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 2014, which concluded that the “object” was Venus, very bright in the eastern pre-dawn sky. **Explanation:** A study in the Journal of Scientific Exploration (2014) concluded the light was the planet Venus, rising brilliantly before dawn and possibly distorted by an atmospheric mirage. The captain rejected that, saying he knew Venus and the Moon; a radar return the air-traffic centre reported near the airliner has never been documented in detail. Sources: - [The VASP-169 flight Brazilian episode revisited — Journal of Scientific Exploration 27(4) (PhilArchive record)](https://philarchive.org/rec/DASUAP) - [Patrick Gross — VASP 169, February 8, 1982](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/pp-sng1982.htm) ## Morenão stadium sighting (1982) - Date: 6 March 1982 (time approximate) - Place: Estádio Morenão, Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul (Brazil) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Unidentified lights - Witnesses: More than 24,000 spectators, players and the referee - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/morenao-stadium-1982/ During a Brazilian championship match between Operário and Vasco da Gama, a crowd of more than 24,000 saw unidentified objects over the stadium. Players, including Cocada, and referee José de Assis Aragão described them. Among the spectators was Ademar José Gevaerd, who went on to become one of Brazil's best-known UFO researchers. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Brazil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Brazil) ## Hessdalen lights (1984) - Date: 1 February 1984 (time approximate) - Place: Hessdalen valley, Norway - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Photographs; Video / film footage; Radar tracking; Infrared or other sensor data; Many independent witnesses - Shape: White, yellow or red floating lights - Witnesses: Residents and scientists - Duration: Ongoing since ~1981 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/hessdalen-lights/ Lights have appeared over the 12-km Hessdalen valley since at least the early 1980s, peaking at up to 20 per week in 1981–84. Unusually, they have been measured: radar, spectra, magnetometers and a permanent camera station have recorded them, but their cause is still debated. **Explanation:** Studied since 1983 by Project Hessdalen with an automated measurement station; hypotheses include combustion of dust from the valley’s ores, plasma, and piezoelectric effects. ## Hudson Valley "Westchester boomerang" (1984) - Date: 24 July 1984 (time approximate) - Place: Brewster, Putnam County, New York (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses; Police witnesses - Shape: V / boomerang of coloured lights - Witnesses: Thousands across Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess and Fairfield counties - Duration: Recurring, 1983–1984 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/hudson-valley-1983/ For over a year residents of the Hudson Valley reported a silent boomerang or V of bright lights, sometimes "the size of a football field". Guards at the Indian Point nuclear plant reportedly saw it in June and July 1984, and a Brewster resident videotaped the lights on 24 July. **Explanation:** State police and the New York Power Authority attributed the sightings to pilots flying Cessna 152s in tight formation from Stormville Airport with coloured lights — a hoax the pilots reportedly enjoyed. ## Aeroflot Tu-134 over Minsk — the light that became a cloud (1984) - Date: 7 September 1984 (time approximate) - Place: Over Minsk, Byelorussian SSR, on the flight to Tallinn (Belarus) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Radar tracking; Many independent witnesses - Shape: A yellow light that threw out rays, became concentric circles and then a green cloud - Witnesses: Captain Igor Cherkashin and co-pilot Gennady Lazurin of an Aeroflot Tu-134, and the crew of a second airliner - Duration: Several minutes; the cloud is said to have stayed with the aircraft for hundreds of kilometres - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/minsk-aeroflot-1984/ At about 4 a.m. on September 7, 1984, the crew of an Aeroflot Tu-134 flying from Tbilisi via Rostov to Tallinn saw a bright yellow light appear to their right over Byelorussia. It threw out beams strong enough, by one account, to light up the houses and roads below, changed into concentric circles and then into a glowing green cloud that seemed to follow the airliner. Co-pilot Gennady Lazurin sketched it, and Captain Igor Cherkashin called air traffic control, which reported a “double” return on radar; a second airliner flying the opposite way also saw it. The newspaper Trud published the story in early 1985, a rare UFO report in the Soviet press. Rumours that crew members of the second aircraft later died of illnesses caused by the encounter have never been substantiated. Western analysts matched the sketches to the plume of a missile launched that night. **Explanation:** Western analysts tied it to a Soviet missile launch that night, whose rising plume and glowing exhaust cloud look much like the crew’s sketches: Jonathan McDowell’s launch catalogue lists a submarine-launched R-29R test on September 7, 1984, with a note (after James Oberg) naming it as the source of the sighting. The Soviet army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda suggested light refracted by floating space debris. Sources: - [Le Figaro, 28 February 1985, reporting Trud (transcribed by Patrick Gross)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/press/lefigaro28feb1985.htm) - [PBS, Life Beyond Earth — Minsk, U.S.S.R. (September 7, 1984)](https://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/listening/minskpop.html) - [Jonathan McDowell — General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (launch list)](https://planet4589.org/space/gcat/) - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Belarus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Belarus) ## Dalnegorsk “Height 611” crash (1986) - Date: 29 January 1986 - Place: Dalnegorsk, Primorsky Krai, Russia - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Many independent witnesses - Shape: Reddish sphere about 3 m across - Witnesses: Residents of Dalnegorsk - Duration: A few minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/dalnegorsk-1986/ On the evening of January 29, 1986 residents of the mining town of Dalnegorsk saw a reddish, silent sphere about three metres across flying from the south-east at some 700–800 metres, at about 15 m/s. It crossed part of the town and came down on Izvestkovaya mountain, known as Height 611, burning on the slope. Investigators reported tiny metallic droplets 2–5 mm across, and fibres in a tangle of metal, quartz and gold-coloured threads. In Russia it is often called the best-documented UFO crash, although the technical findings come mainly from the group that investigated it. **Explanation:** Ball lightning and other plasma phenomena have been proposed. The reports of unusual metal fragments come mostly from the investigating group and have not been independently confirmed. Sources: - [Roswell UFO Museum — The Height 611 UFO incident](https://www.roswellufomuseum.com/post/the-height-611-ufo-incident) ## Brazil’s "Official UFO Night" (1986) - Date: 19 May 1986 - Place: São José dos Campos – Rio de Janeiro – Goiás (Brazil) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Red, white and green lights; 21 radar plots - Witnesses: Controllers, F-5E and Mirage pilots, Embraer founder Ozires Silva - Duration: ~5 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/brazil-ufo-night-1986/ Controllers at São José dos Campos and radar across south-east Brazil tracked about 21 unknown contacts. Embraer’s founder, flying in, saw red lights; the Air Force scrambled F-5Es from Santa Cruz and Mirage IIIs from Anápolis. Pilots reported lights that kept their distance and targets that appeared behind them. **Explanation:** The Air Force commander said "we have no explanation". The report declassified in 2009 described objects with speeds from hovering to supersonic and 90° turns. ## Torpo film (1986) - Date: 13 July 1986 (time approximate) - Place: Mountain farm near Torpo, Hallingdal (Norway) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Two bright objects, one flashing and throwing sparks - Witnesses: A family and friends at a mountain farm - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/torpo-1986/ A couple at a mountain farm near Torpo, with their son and friends, watched two bright objects in the evening sky, one moving dramatically, flashing and throwing off sparks. The husband filmed them. Ground Saucer Watch found no sign of a hoax, but said the apparent motion could come from camera shake and that the lack of reference points made the film inconclusive. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Norway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Norway) ## Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 (1986) - Date: 17 November 1986 - Place: Over north-east Alaska (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Two small lights and a huge "mothership" - Witnesses: Capt. Kenji Terauchi and crew - Duration: ~50 minutes, ~400 miles - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/jal-1628-1986/ A JAL Boeing 747 freighter on the Reykjavík–Anchorage leg reported three objects pacing it at 35,000 ft, including one Terauchi described as enormous. Anchorage controllers reported returns near the aircraft; the objects stayed with the plane through turns and descents until near Talkeetna. **Explanation:** The FAA’s radar returns were later dismissed as clutter / a split image; Philip Klass argued the crew saw Jupiter and Mars. The FAA found the crew professional and rational. ## Gulf Breeze photographs (1987) - Date: 11 November 1987 (time approximate) - Place: Gulf Breeze, Florida (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Cylindrical craft with a ring of portholes and a glowing base - Witnesses: Ed Walters; other residents later came forward - Duration: Six months - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/gulf-breeze-1987/ Contractor Ed Walters gave the Gulf Breeze Sentinel five Polaroids of a glowing craft he said hovered near his home. Over six months he produced dozens more photos and video, and described being hit by a blue beam and seeing aliens. Researchers such as Bruce Maccabee backed the photos, and other residents reported sightings. After the model was found in 1990 and a reporter recreated the pictures, the case became a textbook example of a UFO photo hoax. **Explanation:** Considered a hoax. In 1990 the new owners of Ed Walters's former house found a styrofoam model UFO in the attic that a reporter used to reproduce the photos almost exactly. A local teenager also said he had helped fake them. Walters said the model was planted. ## Ilkley Moor photograph (1987) - Date: 1 December 1987 (time approximate) - Place: Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire, England (United Kingdom) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs - Shape: Small green humanoid; two-part silver craft - Witnesses: Philip Spencer, a retired police officer (a pseudonym) - Duration: Minutes; about two hours unaccounted for - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/ilkley-moor-1987/ On the morning of December 1, 1987 Philip Spencer, a retired police officer, was walking across Ilkley Moor, between Ilkley and Keighley, when he said he met a small dark-green figure about 1.2 metres tall, with a large head and long thin arms. He took one photograph before it ran off, then saw a whitish, two-part craft rise from the moor with a loud hum. About two hours were missing from his journey, and his compass pointed the wrong way. A wildlife photographer said the figure matched no known animal and Kodak found no signs of tampering, but the US Navy optics specialist Bruce Maccabee called the image too grainy to test. Under hypnosis in March 1988 his story changed to one of being taken aboard and examined. **Explanation:** Critics say the blurry photograph could show a person or a cardboard cutout, and ask why no picture of the craft was taken. Kodak experts found no sign of tampering, but the image is too grainy for firm conclusions, and the account changed under hypnosis. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Ilkley Moor UFO incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilkley_Moor_UFO_incident) - [UFOs at close sight — the Ilkley Moor encounter, 1987](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/ilkleymoor.htm) ## Knowles family encounter (1988) - Date: 20 January 1988 - Place: Nullarbor Plain, between Madura and Mundrabilla, Western Australia - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Large glowing ball - Witnesses: Faye Knowles and her sons Patrick, Sean and Wayne - Duration: About 90 minutes (as told) - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/mundrabilla-1988/ In the early hours of January 20, 1988, the Knowles family were driving across the Nullarbor Plain in their station wagon when a bright light appeared ahead. They said a large glowing object pursued the car for a long time and finally came down on the roof; the car seemed to be lifted off the road, and the engine and voices changed as if time were slowing. Mrs Knowles said she reached out of the rear window, felt something soft and warm on the roof, and found her hand covered in black dust. When the car dropped back onto the road a rear tyre burst. The family reported it at Mundrabilla. It is one of Australia’s best-known close-encounter stories. **Explanation:** No explanation has been established. The account rests on the four family members’ testimony and the physical details they described, and has been widely reported in Australia. Sources: - [UFO Evidence — Knowles family encounter, Mundrabilla](http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case1090.htm) ## Villa Urquiza Christmas sighting (1988) - Date: 25 December 1988 (time approximate) - Place: Villa Urquiza, Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Silver object - Witnesses: More than 7,500 - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/villa-urquiza-1988/ On Christmas Day 1988 a silver object crossed the Villa Urquiza neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, watched by thousands of people. The city airport reported an object heading west toward Avenida General Paz. It is often called Argentina's most spectacular UFO sighting. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Argentina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Argentina) ## Kapustin Yar — the KGB file on a night of lights over a missile depot (1989) - Date: 28 July 1989 - Place: Military sites 30–45 km from Kapustin Yar, Astrakhan oblast (Russia) - Status: UNASSESSED — Released without an official determination - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A disc 4–5 m across with a dome, glowing dim green, with a bright flashing light and a beam - Witnesses: Officers and soldiers of military units near Kapustin Yar, among them Ensign V. N. Voloshin, Capt. Chernikov and Sr Lt Klimenko - Duration: About three and a half hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/kapustin-yar-1989/ Between 22:10 on July 28 and 01:30 on July 29, 1989, soldiers and officers at military sites 30 to 45 km from the Kapustin Yar missile range, described in the reports as a transmission centre and a rocket-weapons depot, reported unidentified objects. At the depot, Ensign Valery Voloshin and a private watched through binoculars for about two hours as a disc some 4–5 m across with a dome, glowing a dim phosphorescent green, hovered 20 to 70 m above the warehouses, flashed a bright light and swept a beam, moved silently in sudden jerks, and finally left towards Akhtubinsk. Other officers described flashes like electric welding, a “flying plate” or a cigar-shaped object, and an aircraft was said to have been sent up but kept at a distance. The written statements, with unit names blacked out, were among 124 pages of military and civilian reports that the KGB passed in October 1991 to Pavel Popovich, president of a Soviet ufological association; Komsomolskaya Pravda published them in 2003. They are first-hand military reports, but nothing shows that anyone examined them. **Explanation:** The reports are in a package of 124 pages that the KGB sent to the cosmonaut Pavel Popovich in October 1991, with a covering letter saying that the KGB did not study UFO reports but passed on what it received. No investigation or conclusion accompanies them, and the original file was later said to have gone missing. Sources: - [Komsomolskaya Pravda, 4 February 2003: the KGB reports (translated by Patrick Gross)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/kp05022003.htm) ## Voronezh park landing (1989) - Date: 27 September 1989 - Place: Voronezh, RSFSR (Russia) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Large red sphere / oval - Witnesses: Mainly children in a city park - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/voronezh-1989/ TASS reported that children in a Voronezh park saw a large red ball land and tall beings emerge. Soviet reporting of the case — unusual at the time — made headlines worldwide. **Explanation:** Reported by the Soviet news agency TASS; later widely regarded as a children’s story amplified by the press. ## Pereslavl-Zalessky — the Soviet air defence report (1990) - Date: 21 March 1990 - Place: Pereslavl-Zalessky region, north-east of Moscow (Russia) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Military witnesses; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A disc 100–200 m across with two pulsing lights on its sides - Witnesses: More than 100 observers reported by air-defence units of the Moscow Military District; interceptor pilots Lt Col A. A. Semenchenko and others; radar crews - Duration: Evening into the night - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/pereslavl-zalessky-1990/ On the night of March 21, 1990, air-defence units of the Moscow Military District reported more than 100 visual sightings of an object near Pereslavl-Zalessky. At 21:38 Lt Col A. A. Semenchenko was scrambled to identify a target at about 2,000 m; he saw two flashing white lights and a dim silhouette against the lights of the town, and the target did not answer his identification interrogation. Other pilots and radar posts gave times, bearings and distances; one ground radar post reported a fast-moving shining object with red lights, followed by another with white lights. In Rabochaya Tribuna on April 19, Colonel General Igor Maltsev, chief of the Main Staff of the Soviet Air Defence Forces, published excerpts: a disc 100 to 200 m across with two pulsing lights, flying silently between 1,000 and 7,000 m, at two to three times the speed of a modern fighter, rotating and hovering. Maltsev said he was “not a specialist on UFOs” and could only correlate the data. It was the first time a Soviet commander of that rank described such a case in public; the underlying reports have not been released, and no explanation was published. Sources: - [New York Tribune, 21 June 1990: Soviet general describes UFO (transcribed by Patrick Gross)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/press/nytribune21jun1990.htm) - [Arizona Republic, 15 July 1990: Soviet air defence and UFOs (transcribed by Patrick Gross)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/press/arizonarepublic15jul1990.htm) ## Belgian UFO wave — F-16 intercepts (1990) - Date: 30 March 1990 - Place: Brussels – Wavre – Gembloux, Belgium - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Military witnesses; Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Dark triangle with bright corner lights - Witnesses: ~13,500 reports in the wave; gendarmes; Air Force - Duration: Wave: Nov 1989 – Apr 1990 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/belgian-wave-1990/ Beginning with a sighting by two gendarmes at Eupen on 29 November 1989, thousands of Belgians reported large, slow triangles with lights. On the night of 30–31 March 1990, after ground and radar reports, two Belgian Air Force F-16s from Beauvechain made nine interception attempts and obtained brief radar locks; the Air Force published its report openly. **Explanation:** The Belgian Air Force report left the radar contacts unexplained; critics attribute the F-16 lock-ons to the other fighter and to Bragg scattering. The famous Petit-Rechain triangle photo was admitted to be a hoax in 2011. ## Calvine photograph (1990) - Date: 4 August 1990 - Place: Moors above Calvine, Perthshire (United Kingdom) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Official government document or case file - Shape: Large diamond hovering; a Harrier jet nearby - Witnesses: Two unidentified walkers - Duration: ~10 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/calvine-1990/ Two men walking above Calvine photographed a large, silent diamond-shaped object hovering while a military jet flew past. Their negatives went from the Daily Record to the Ministry of Defence and vanished. A surviving print surfaced in 2022 and was published worldwide. **Explanation:** The MoD never explained it; proposed explanations include a rock reflected in water and a hoax. The photographers have never been identified. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) ## The “immense triangle” over France — a Proton re-entry (1990) - Date: 5 November 1990 (time approximate) - Place: From the Bay of Biscay across France to Alsace - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Three main lights in a group, read by many as an immense luminous triangle, with sparks and smoke trailing - Witnesses: Thousands, including CNES astronaut Jean-Pierre Haigneré and balloon technicians at Aire-sur-Adour - Duration: A minute or two - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/proton-reentry-france-1990/ At about 7 p.m. on November 5, 1990, a slow procession of bright lights crossed France from the Bay of Biscay to Alsace. Gendarmerie stations were flooded with calls, and for more than a week SEPRA, the CNES unit then in charge, answered witnesses describing “an immense luminous triangle”; the astronaut Jean-Pierre Haigneré was among them, and technicians at the CNES balloon base at Aire-sur-Adour held a launch to watch. On November 8 NASA identified the re-entry of object 20925, the third stage of the Proton rocket that had put the Gorizont 21 satellite into orbit, and CNES confirmed its track across France. The case, which fell in the middle of the Belgian wave, is a standard example of how a known re-entry is reported as a structured craft. **Explanation:** The re-entry of the third stage of the Soviet Proton rocket that launched Gorizont 21 (catalogue object 20925, 1990-094C), identified by NASA on November 8 and confirmed by CNES orbit specialists; GEIPAN classes the case A, fully explained. Sources: - [GEIPAN case 1990-11-01225, re-entry of a Proton stage (in French)](https://www.cnes-geipan.fr/fr/cas/1990-11-01225) - [ALSACAT — witness reports from Alsace, November 5, 1990](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/alsacat/1990-11-05-rixheim.htm) ## Montreal — lights over the Bonaventure Hotel (1990) - Date: 7 November 1990 - Place: Hôtel Bonaventure, downtown Montreal, Quebec (Canada) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Police witnesses - Shape: Ring of 8–10 bright lights; a huge round form - Witnesses: Hotel guests and staff, passers-by, police officers - Duration: 3 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/montreal-bonaventure-1990/ From 7:20 to 10:20 p.m., people on the rooftop pool deck of the Bonaventure Hotel and in the streets below watched 8 to 10 lights hanging in a circle above them, sending down bright white rays. Some described a huge round object behind the lights. Police officers attended, and the next day La Presse reported the sighting. It drifted slowly north and was never identified. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Canada: Montreal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Canada#1990,_Montreal,_Quebec) ## Alitalia MD-80 near miss over Kent (1991) - Date: 21 April 1991 (time approximate) - Place: Near Lydd, Kent, England (United Kingdom) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: Brown, missile-shaped object - Witnesses: Capt. Achille Zaghetti, with 57 people aboard - Duration: Seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/alitalia-lydd-1991/ At about 8 p.m. on April 21, 1991, an Alitalia MD-80 flying from Milan to Heathrow with 57 people aboard was at 22,000 feet over the army ranges at Lydd, on the Kent coast, when Capt. Achille Zaghetti saw a brown, missile-shaped object pass about 1,000 feet above the airliner and shouted “Look out, look out”. The London control centre told him it had an unknown target on radar 10 nautical miles behind him. The Ministry of Defence and the Civil Aviation Authority investigated as an airmiss, ruled out a missile, a weather balloon and a rocket, and closed the case unsolved. **Explanation:** The Civil Aviation Authority and the Ministry of Defence looked at missiles, weather balloons and rockets and ruled each one out, then closed the inquiry without an answer. The files were released by the National Archives in October 2008. Sources: - [Irish Examiner — Pilot reported “missile” near miss, MoD files show (2008)](https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-30382660.html) - [Kent Online — MoD reveals Kent X-files (2008)](https://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/mod-reveals-kent-x-files-a76947/) ## Mexico City eclipse videos (1991) - Date: 11 July 1991 - Place: Mexico City, Mexico - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Photographs; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Metallic disc or bright point, sometimes with a wavy haze - Witnesses: Dozens of video and photo recordings by different people - Duration: Minutes, during totality - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/mexico-city-eclipse-1991/ Millions in Mexico watched the total solar eclipse of July 11, 1991, with totality in Mexico City at 13:24 and lasting more than six minutes. At least 16 photographers and videographers recorded a bright, disc-like object near the Sun in the sky, some with a wavy trail of haze behind it. The sightings were widely seen on television and the case is a classic in Mexican ufology. Astronomers pointed out that the darkness of totality shows Venus, which stood a few degrees from the star Regulus, and that other planets also come into view, which fits many of the videos but not necessarily the apparent motion some of them show. **Explanation:** Astronomers identified the brightest object as Venus (with Mars and Regulus nearby), made visible by the darkness of totality. Reflections in glass, camera artefacts and hoaxes account for others; not every video has been explained. Sources: - [Tim Printy — The July 11, 1991 Mexico City UFOs](https://astronomyufo.com/UFO/mexico.htm) ## Crop circles — Doug Bower and Dave Chorley own up (1991) - Date: 9 September 1991 (time approximate) - Place: The fields of Hampshire and Wiltshire; their first circles near Cheesefoot Head, Winchester (United Kingdom) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Photographs - Shape: Circles of flattened cereal crop, later rings and complex patterns - Witnesses: Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, and the journalists they demonstrated to - Duration: 1978–1991 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/crop-circles-bower-chorley-1991/ From the late 1970s, circles of flattened wheat and barley appeared each summer in the fields of southern England, especially Hampshire and Wiltshire. By the late 1980s they were a national story, explained as UFO landing marks (“saucer nests”), as plasma vortices by the meteorologist Terence Meaden, and as messages by a new class of “cerealogists”. In September 1991 two men from Southampton, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, told the newspaper Today that they had made circles since 1978, inspired by the 1966 Tully “saucer nest” in Australia, starting near Cheesefoot Head, and claimed more than 200 of them. They showed their tools, a plank, a rope and a cap with a wire loop to keep a straight line, and made a circle for journalists that the cerealogist Pat Delgado then declared authentic. Not every circle since is theirs, but none has been shown to have any cause other than people. **Explanation:** Made by people. Doug Bower and Dave Chorley showed how they had made circles since 1978 with a plank, rope and a cap with a wire sighting loop, made one for journalists that a leading “cerealogist” declared genuine, and inspired the teams who make the elaborate designs today. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Crop circle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_circle) - [Interview with Dave Chorley, CBC radio, 9 September 1991 (transcribed by Patrick Gross)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/chorley01.htm) ## Cosford incident (1993) - Date: 30 March 1993 - Place: RAF Cosford and RAF Shawbury, Shropshire (United Kingdom) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Triangular craft; lights in formation - Witnesses: Police officers, RAF personnel, members of the public - Duration: About 5 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/cosford-1993/ Over the night of March 30–31, 1993, police officers, RAF personnel and the public across England and Wales reported lights in formation and a large triangular craft. A patrol at RAF Cosford saw it pass over the base. At RAF Shawbury a meteorological officer described a huge craft moving slowly across the airfield and sweeping a light beam over the ground. The MoD's Nick Pope pressed the case internally, and the files were later released to The National Archives. **Explanation:** Most of the evening reports matched the re-entry of the rocket body that had launched the Russian satellite Cosmos 2238. The MoD found no threat. Nick Pope, who investigated for the MoD, argued that later reports, including a meteorological officer's at RAF Shawbury, were never explained. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) ## Air France 3532 — radar-visual over Coulommiers (1994) - Date: 28 January 1994 - Place: Near Coulommiers, Seine-et-Marne, France - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: Huge brown or dark-red disc or bell that seemed to change shape - Witnesses: Capt. Jean-Charles Duboc, First Officer Valérie Chauffour and a chief steward - Duration: About one minute - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/air-france-3532-1994/ At 13:14 on January 28, 1994, the crew of Air France flight 3532, an Airbus A320 from Nice to London, was cruising at about 11,900 metres near Coulommiers, east of Paris, when the chief steward and both pilots saw a huge object, like a brown bell or disc, off to the left. It seemed to change shape, stayed in view for about a minute and then vanished abruptly. Reims air traffic control had no traffic there, but the military radar at Cinq-Mars-la-Pile recorded a track for about 50 seconds that crossed the airliner’s path and disappeared at the same moment the crew lost sight of the object. The radar return and the crew’s description do not agree on distance or side, which is part of why the case remains open. **Explanation:** GEIPAN, the French space agency’s UAP office, classes the case as unexplained after investigation. The military radar track is real but does not match the crew’s account closely: the crew saw a stationary object far off to the left, while the radar target was about a mile to the right and moving. Both vanished at the same moment. Sources: - [GEIPAN — case 1994-01-01345, Coulommiers](https://www.cnes-geipan.fr/fr/cas/1994-01-01345) - [UFOs at close sight — Air France 3532, January 28, 1994](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/ufology/af3532rt.htm) ## Lake Michigan lights — 911 calls and a weather radar (1994) - Date: 8 March 1994 (time approximate) - Place: The Lake Michigan shore of Ottawa and Muskegon counties, Michigan (Grand Haven to Holland) (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Radar tracking; Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Five or six round or cylindrical objects with red, green, blue and white lights, like flickering Christmas lights - Witnesses: Dozens of residents who called 911, police officers, and the meteorologist on duty at the Muskegon weather office - Duration: Hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/lake-michigan-1994/ On the night of March 8, 1994, dozens of people along the Lake Michigan shore of western Michigan called 911 about lights over the lake: five or six objects with red, green, blue and white lights that hovered and moved erratically. Police officers saw them too. A dispatcher called the National Weather Service office at Muskegon County Airport, and the meteorologist on duty, Jack Bushong, turned the office’s WSR-74C weather radar on the area and saw several returns where none should be, which he said moved fast and changed direction; he reported it to the National UFO Reporting Center. Days later the Weather Service played the radar down, saying it was built to see rain, not aircraft. Over the following weeks more than 300 people in 42 Michigan counties reported sightings; MUFON investigators interviewed dozens and found no explanation. Bushong kept his account for decades, and the case stays one of the better-documented police and radar cases of the 1990s. Sources: - [MLive — the 1994 Lake Michigan UFO sightings](https://www.mlive.com/news/us-world/2017/03/ufo_1994.html) - [WWMT — the retired meteorologist’s account of the 1994 sightings](https://wwmt.com/news/local/retired-meteorologist-shares-his-account-of-1994-west-michigan-ufo-sightings) - [Wikipedia — 1994 Michigan UFO event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Michigan_UFO_event) ## Ariel School, Ruwa (1994) - Date: 16 September 1994 - Place: Ariel School, Ruwa, Zimbabwe - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: Silver craft landing in scrub; small beings - Witnesses: 62 pupils aged 5–12 - Duration: ~15 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/ariel-school-1994/ During morning break, 62 children said a silver craft landed in bush beside the playground and one or two small figures in black watched them. Their drawings were collected within days, and Harvard psychiatrist John Mack interviewed them. **Explanation:** Skeptics suggest mass suggestion after a meteor/re-entry seen across southern Africa two days earlier; many former pupils still stand by their accounts. ## British Airways 5061 near miss over the Pennines (1995) - Date: 6 January 1995 - Place: About 8 nautical miles south-east of Manchester Airport (United Kingdom) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Wedge-shaped object with small white lights and a black stripe - Witnesses: Capt. Roger Wills and First Officer Mark Stuart - Duration: About 2 seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/ba5061-manchester-1995/ At 18:48 on January 6, 1995, British Airways flight 5061, a Boeing 737 from Milan with 60 passengers aboard, was descending through about 4,000 feet over the Pennines toward Manchester when both pilots saw a lighted object pass very close down the right side, going the other way. They described it as wedge-shaped, with small white lights and a black stripe; the first officer ducked as it went by. Nothing showed on radar. The Joint Airmiss Working Group studied the report and, unable to identify the object, called it “unassessable”. **Explanation:** The Civil Aviation Authority’s Joint Airmiss Working Group could not identify the object and rated the airmiss “unassessable”. No other aircraft or balloon was found, and no radar return was seen. Sources: - [UFOs at close sight — British Airways 5061, Manchester, January 6, 1995](http://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/manchester95.htm) ## America West Flight 564 over the Texas Panhandle (1995) - Date: 25 May 1995 (time approximate) - Place: Over Bovina, Texas, near the New Mexico border (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Audio recording / radio transcript; Radar tracking - Shape: A row of white lights flashing in sequence; a long, dark, cigar-shaped silhouette against lightning - Witnesses: The crew of a Boeing 757: the first officer, the captain and a flight attendant; Albuquerque Center controllers - Duration: Several minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/america-west-564-1995/ On the night of May 25, 1995, America West Flight 564, a Boeing 757 flying west at 39,000 ft from Tampa to Las Vegas, was passing over Bovina in the Texas Panhandle when the first officer, John Waller, and a flight attendant saw a row of bright white lights off to the right and below, flashing in sequence from left to right. When lightning lit the thunderclouds behind it, the crew saw a dark, wingless, cigar-shaped silhouette, which they estimated at 300 to 400 ft long, though its distance was unknown. Waller asked Albuquerque Center about traffic; the controllers had nothing on their radar and called NORAD, which reported a track that later proved to be a small aircraft with a faulty transponder. The next morning a controller said NORAD had tracked another target that stopped and accelerated repeatedly, but that was never confirmed. Walter Webb investigated for the Fund for UFO Research, interviewed the crew and the controllers and obtained the FAA tapes, and found no explanation; the SETI astronomer Seth Shostak later remarked that bright planets fool trained pilots, without analysing this case. Sources: - [The America West case: Walter Webb’s investigation (transcribed)](https://ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/texas95.htm) - [The Black Vault — America West Flight 564 case file](https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/america-west-airlines-flight-564-ufo-case/) ## Bariloche — the blackout and Aerolíneas Argentinas 674 (1995) - Date: 31 July 1995 - Place: San Carlos de Bariloche airport, Río Negro, Argentina - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Reported electromagnetic effects (engines, instruments) - Shape: A light between white and amber, like a star but much larger; later described as green and white, about 30 m across - Witnesses: Capt. Jorge Polanco, his crew and passengers; the tower chief, Daniel García; the crew of a Gendarmería Cheyenne - Duration: 15–17 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/bariloche-1995/ At about 8:15 p.m. on July 31, 1995, Aerolíneas Argentinas flight 674, a Boeing 727 from Buenos Aires under Capt. Jorge Polanco, was coming in to land at Bariloche when the airport lost power, and then the whole city went dark as the airliner neared the runway, forcing a go-around. A light “between white and amber”, like a star but much larger and brighter, then flew on a parallel course about 100 metres from the plane. When the power came back the 727 climbed to 3,000 metres, descended and landed, and the light left at full speed toward the south-east. The tower chief and the crew of a Gendarmería Cheyenne flying 600 metres higher saw it too, and the tower’s instruments swung from one direction to another for no clear reason. Interviewed in 2026, Polanco said: “It pursued us, accompanied us for 17 minutes.” **Explanation:** No explanation was found. Carlos Angueira, president of a local astronomy association, rejected a meteorite or a refraction, saying such things cannot “stop in the middle of the sky”. The case drew new attention in 2026, when it appeared among the Latin American incidents in UAP files released by the Pentagon. Sources: - [Infobae — “It pursued us for 17 minutes” (2026, in Spanish)](https://www.infobae.com/estados-unidos/2026/05/11/nos-persiguio-durante-17-minutos-el-impactante-relato-del-piloto-argentino-que-vio-un-ovni-y-cuyo-caso-fue-desclasificado-por-eeuu/) - [UFOs at close sight — Clarín, August 2, 1995 (translated)](https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/press/clarin2aug1995.htm) ## Varginha "ET" (1996) - Date: 20 January 1996 - Place: Varginha, Minas Gerais (Brazil) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Crouching humanoid with red eyes - Witnesses: 3 young women; later many rumours - Duration: Seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/varginha-1996/ Three young women said they saw a strange creature crouched near a wall, with vein-like marks on its skin, three bumps on its head and eyes like "two red balls". Rumours followed of military trucks carrying captured beings, bodies at hospitals, a police officer's death and animal deaths at the zoo. It became Brazil's best-known UFO story and a local tourist theme. **Explanation:** A Brazilian Army inquiry concluded that the women had seen a local man with a mental disability, known as "Mudinho", and that the military movements were routine. ## Pretoria police helicopter chase (1996) - Date: 28 August 1996 - Place: Pretoria to Cullinan, Gauteng (South Africa) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Police witnesses; Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Bright, colour-changing light - Witnesses: About 200 police officers; helicopter crew - Duration: Hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/pretoria-police-chase-1996/ At 4 a.m., Sgt Nico Stander of the Adriaan Vlok police station in Pretoria reported lights in the sky, which were videotaped. Some 200 officers and a Bo-105 police helicopter followed them east. The helicopter gave up at about 10,000 ft over the Cullinan area when it ran low on fuel. The lights were seen again on the nights of August 31 and September 1. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in South Africa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_South_Africa) ## The Wash incident (1996) - Date: 5 October 1996 (time approximate) - Place: The Wash, Lincolnshire coast (United Kingdom) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Radar-visual case - Evidence: Police witnesses; Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: Rotating, multicoloured light - Witnesses: Police officer David Leyland; other witnesses - Duration: Hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/wash-1996/ In the early morning a police officer on the Lincolnshire coast reported a rotating, multicoloured object over The Wash. The Claxby air traffic control radar reported a return in the same area. The report went up through RAF Kinloss and MoD Northwood before the conventional explanation was accepted. **Explanation:** The radar returns were at least partly explained as echoes from St Botolph's Church ("the Boston Stump"), and the visual sightings as stars and planets. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_the_United_Kingdom) ## The Yukon “mothership” (1996) - Date: 11 December 1996 (time approximate) - Place: Along the Klondike Highway from Fox Lake through Carmacks to Pelly Crossing, Yukon (Canada) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses - Shape: A row of rectangular lights, taken by some for the windows of a craft the size of a stadium; one witness describes a white beam - Witnesses: At least 31 people in four places along the highway, many of them in cars - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/yukon-1996/ On the night of December 11, 1996, people driving or at home along the Klondike Highway north of Whitehorse reported a row of lights crossing the sky. A motorist near Fox Lake saw a group of rectangular lights moving east; others near Carmacks and Pelly Crossing described the same row, and one said a large white beam came from the centre of an object as big as a football stadium. The Yukon UFO researcher Martin Jasek interviewed the witnesses over the next two years and put at least 31 of them in four separate areas, and concluded that they had seen a huge “mothership”. In 2022 the Royal Canadian Mint put the case on a glow-in-the-dark silver coin, “The Yukon Encounter”. **Explanation:** The satellite watcher Ted Molczan matched the time and direction to the re-entry of the rocket body that launched Cosmos 2335, and the skeptic Robert Sheaffer repeated that in 2012; a re-entry breaks up into a row of glowing fragments, which fits a line of lights. Martin Jasek, who collected the witnesses’ accounts over two years, concluded they saw a single enormous craft, and some witnesses describe a beam and a slow, close object that a re-entry does not explain. Sources: - [Royal Canadian Mint — Canada’s Unexplained Phenomena: The Yukon Encounter (2022)](https://www.mint.ca/en/shop/coins/2022/1-oz-pure-silver-glow-in-the-dark-coin-canadas-unexplained-phenomena-the-yukon-encounter) - [Whitehorse Daily Star — Yukoners to put UFOs under scrutiny](https://whitehorsestar.com/News/yukoners-to-put-ufos-under-scrutiny) - [UFO-Forschung — re-entries of space debris (the Cosmos 2335 explanation)](https://www.hjkc.de/_blog/3310-ufo-forschung---ifo-universitaet-re-entrys-von-weltraumschrott/) ## Phoenix Lights (1997) - Date: 13 March 1997 - Place: Henderson, NV → Phoenix → Tucson, Arizona (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Video / film footage; Photographs; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Huge V / carpenter’s square with five lights - Witnesses: Thousands along a 300-mile corridor - Duration: ~2.5 hours - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/phoenix-lights-1997/ A V-shaped formation of lights was reported moving south-east from the Nevada line, over Prescott Valley and Phoenix to Tucson. Later that night a stationary row of amber lights was widely filmed over Phoenix. The event remains one of the most-witnessed UFO events in U.S. history. **Explanation:** The ~20:00–20:45 V-formation was traced to A-10 aircraft of Operation Snowbird returning to Davis-Monthan AFB; the ~22:00 row of lights filmed over Phoenix were LUU-2 flares dropped over the Barry Goldwater Range. Some witnesses, including then-governor Fife Symington, reject this. ## Howden Moor — sonic booms and the search for a crash (1997) - Date: 24 March 1997 - Place: Howden Moors, Dark Peak, on the Derbyshire–South Yorkshire border (United Kingdom) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Infrared or other sensor data; Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A large low aircraft with lit windows, a dark triangle, two red lights, then an orange glow and smoke - Witnesses: A special constable and her husband near Bolsterstone, gamekeepers, farmers, a Peak Park warden and others - Duration: Booms at 21:52 and 22:06; a 15-hour search - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/howden-moor-1997/ Shortly before 10 p.m. on March 24, 1997, people around the moors north-west of Sheffield saw low aircraft and heard explosions. Near Bolsterstone, Special Constable Marie-France Tattersfield and her husband saw a large aircraft with all its windows lit cross in front of them at no more than about 500 ft; a farmer saw a low plane head towards the moor, then an orange glow and plumes of smoke; gamekeepers heard “a terrific explosion”; others described a dark triangle or two red lights. Seismic and acoustic instruments of the British Geological Survey recorded two sonic events, at 21:52 and 22:06. Fearing an air crash, South Yorkshire Police led one of the largest searches in the region’s history: police and RAF helicopters and about 141 mountain-rescue volunteers searched up to 50 square miles of moorland for some 15 hours and found nothing. The Ministry of Defence first said no RAF aircraft was responsible, then admitted that six Tornados had been on low-flying training until 21:30, denied that any had gone supersonic, and closed the case after an RAF Police inquiry with “no military link”. The booms remain unattributed. **Explanation:** The British Geological Survey said the recorded signal was atmospheric, not an impact, and most likely a supersonic aircraft. The MoD admitted a low-flying exercise by six RAF Tornados that it said had ended at 21:30, and denied any supersonic flight; an RAF Police inquiry in 1998 found no military link and suggested a natural cause such as a re-entry. The researcher David Clarke argues that a covert military flight continued after the exercise. Sources: - [The National Archives (UK) — MoD UFO files](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/) - [David Clarke — The Howden Moor incident](https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/secret-files/howden-moor-incident/) - [David Clarke — Moorland UFO mystery revisited](https://drclarke.substack.com/p/moorland-ufo-mystery-revisited) ## Southern Illinois police sightings (2000) - Date: 5 January 2000 - Place: Highland → Lebanon → Shiloh → Dupo, Illinois (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Huge triangle / "arrowhead" with bright lights - Witnesses: 5 police officers in 4 towns, a store owner - Duration: ~30 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/southern-illinois-2000/ Before dawn, a store owner in Highland and then police officers in Lebanon, Summerfield, Shiloh and Dupo independently reported a large, low triangular object with bright lights moving south-west toward Scott AFB and the Mississippi. **Explanation:** The FAA suggested an advertising blimp; the officers’ descriptions of speed and size are hard to reconcile with that. ## Mexican Air Force FLIR — Campeche (2004) - Date: 5 March 2004 - Place: Southern Campeche, Mexico - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Infrared or other sensor data; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: 11 bright infrared lights - Witnesses: Mexican Air Force Merlin C-26A crew - Duration: ~15 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/campeche-2004/ A Mexican Air Force surveillance aircraft hunting drug flights recorded 11 bright objects on its infrared camera at about 11,500 ft. The Defence Department released the tape on 12 May 2004. **Explanation:** Most analysts identified the lights as gas flares on Cantarell offshore oil platforms seen over the horizon by the infrared camera. ## Tinley Park lights (2004) - Date: 21 August 2004 - Place: Tinley Park and Oak Forest, Illinois (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Three to four red lights in a triangle - Witnesses: Hundreds in the south suburbs of Chicago - Duration: Up to 30 minutes, several nights - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/tinley-park-2004/ On the evening of August 21, 2004, hundreds of people in Chicago's south suburbs watched three large red lights in a triangle drift slowly and silently across the sky. Many filmed them. The lights returned on October 31, 2004 and on several nights in 2005 and 2006, and appeared on national television. They are a prominent "black triangle" style case with plenty of video. **Explanation:** Commonly attributed to balloons or kites carrying lights or flares, which match the slow drift and the colour. No one has come forward, and the cause has not been confirmed. Sources: - [Chicago Magazine — Do You Believe? (2007)](https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/march-2007/do-you-believe/) - [Patch — UFO researchers touch down in Tinley Park](https://patch.com/illinois/tinleypark/ufo-researchers-touch-down-in-tinley-park) ## USS Nimitz "Tic Tac" (2004) - Date: 14 November 2004 - Place: Pacific Ocean ~100 mi SW of San Diego (International waters (off Baja California)) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Video / film footage; Infrared or other sensor data; Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: White, smooth 40-ft "Tic Tac" - Witnesses: 4 aircrew (Fravor, Dietrich + WSOs), USS Princeton radar operators - Duration: ~5 minutes visual; radar over ~2 weeks - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/nimitz-tic-tac-2004/ For days the cruiser USS Princeton’s SPY-1 radar tracked objects appearing at about 80,000 ft, dropping rapidly toward the sea and hovering. On 14 November, Cdr. David Fravor and Lt. Cdr. Alex Dietrich were vectored to a contact and saw a white Tic Tac-shaped object above a churning patch of ocean. It mirrored Fravor’s descent, then accelerated away; seconds later Princeton reported it at the pilots’ CAP point ~60 miles away. A later sortie filmed the FLIR1 video. **Explanation:** The Pentagon released the FLIR1 video in 2020 and describes the object as unidentified. Skeptics argue the FLIR clip shows a distant aircraft; the pilots’ visual account is independent of the video. Sources: - [DoD statement on the release of historical Navy videos (Apr 2020)](https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/) ## Río de la Plata — two airliners and a rising light (2005) - Date: 4 April 2005 - Place: Over the Río de la Plata between Ezeiza (Buenos Aires) and Carrasco (Montevideo) (Uruguay / Argentina) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses - Shape: A luminous object moving upwards - Witnesses: The pilot of an Aeromas cargo aircraft, a Lufthansa crew and a Uruguayan military pilot - Duration: Brief - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/rio-de-la-plata-2005/ At about 4 a.m. on Monday, April 4, 2005, the pilot of a Uruguayan Aeromas cargo aircraft that had just left Ezeiza reported a luminous object near his aircraft over the Río de la Plata. The Ezeiza tower suggested it was an engine of a Lufthansa airliner in the area, but the Lufthansa pilot told him he had seen the light too, that it moved upwards and so could not be a meteorite, and called it a missile. A Uruguayan military pilot flying at the same time confirmed a fast luminous object. The reports went through the Carrasco and Ezeiza control towers; the Argentine Air Force recorded the report at Ezeiza, the Argentine armed forces said none of their aircraft or ships were in the area, and the Uruguayan Air Force opened an investigation. No result was published. Sources: - [La Nación — “Investigan un extraño incidente” (April 7, 2005)](https://www.lanacion.com.ar/sociedad/investigan-un-extrano-incidente-nid693949/) ## Chicago O’Hare disc (2006) - Date: 7 November 2006 - Place: O’Hare International Airport, Gate C-17 (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Dark grey metallic disc, 6–24 ft - Witnesses: ~12 United Airlines employees; people outside the airport - Duration: ~5 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/ohare-2006/ A ramp worker pushing back United Flight 446 saw a dark disc hovering low over Gate C-17; pilots, supervisors and mechanics came out to watch. Witnesses said it shot straight up through the overcast, leaving a clear hole in the clouds that closed moments later. The story emerged via a Chicago Tribune FOIA request. **Explanation:** The FAA called it a "weather phenomenon" and did not investigate; conditions suited a hole-punch cloud. Nothing appeared on radar. ## Alderney airline sighting (2007) - Date: 23 April 2007 - Place: English Channel near Alderney & Guernsey (Channel Islands) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: Two bright yellow cigar/disc shapes with dark bands - Witnesses: Aurigny captain Ray Bowyer, passengers, a second pilot - Duration: ~9 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/alderney-2007/ Flying an Aurigny Trislander from Southampton to Alderney, Capt. Ray Bowyer saw two very large, brilliant yellow objects apparently stationary over the sea, confirmed by passengers and by the pilot of another aircraft. He filed an official report with the Civil Aviation Authority. **Explanation:** Jersey radar showed only a faint primary return; proposed explanations include earthquake lights and sun dogs. ## The Haiti UFO videos (2007) - Date: 15 August 2007 (time approximate) - Place: Said to be Haiti, and in a second video the Dominican Republic - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage - Shape: Several metallic, many-armed craft flying low over palm trees - Witnesses: None: the only record is the anonymous videos - Duration: Two videos of under two minutes each - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/haiti-video-hoax-2007/ In August 2007 two short videos spread on YouTube, said to show a formation of metallic craft flying low over the palms in Haiti and, in a second clip, over the Dominican Republic. They were sharp, steady and convincing, and were all over the internet within days. The Los Angeles Times tracked down their maker: a professional animator from France who had trained at a leading art school, worked on feature films and had made the clips by himself in about 17 hours as a showcase for a film project. The case is a standard example of how cheap 3D tools made convincing UFO footage easy to fake. **Explanation:** Computer animation. The Los Angeles Times traced the videos in August 2007 to a French animator, known online as “Barzolff”, who had made them as a test for a feature film; he said it took him about 17 hours on a laptop with off-the-shelf 3D software, and later posted a video owning up. Sources: - [Gizmodo — Fake UFO in Haiti video creator uncovered (2007)](https://gizmodo.com/fake-ufo-in-haiti-video-creator-uncovered-292380) - [Snopes — UFOs over Haiti](https://www.snopes.com/photos/odd/haitiufos.asp) ## Stephenville, Texas (2008) - Date: 8 January 2008 - Place: Stephenville / Dublin, Erath County, Texas (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Radar tracking; Many independent witnesses; Police witnesses; Pilot / aircrew witnesses - Shape: Huge, silent, lit object up to a mile long - Witnesses: ~40 residents incl. a pilot and a constable - Duration: About 1 hour - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/stephenville-2008/ Dozens of people around Stephenville, including a private pilot and a local constable, reported a very large, silent object with bright lights followed by fighter jets. FOIA radar records later analysed by MUFON showed unidentified returns in the area. **Explanation:** The Air Force said F-16s from the 457th Fighter Squadron were training in the area. A MUFON analysis of FAA radar data claimed an untransponded target heading toward the Crawford ranch; this is not officially confirmed. ## Cláudio — Military Police report (2008) - Date: 19 November 2008 (time approximate) - Place: Cláudio, Minas Gerais (Brazil) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Police witnesses; Photographs; Official government document or case file; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Luminous figures; lights in the sky - Witnesses: 7 Military Police officers and residents - Duration: Night - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/claudio-2008/ Over the night of November 19–20, 2008, officers of the Minas Gerais Military Police said they chased luminous humanoid figures and photographed lights in the sky around the town of Cláudio. Seven officers signed the report, which includes three photographs and a police incident record. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Brazil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Brazil) ## Morristown lights (admitted hoax) (2009) - Date: 5 January 2009 - Place: Morris County, New Jersey (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Video / film footage; Photographs; Many independent witnesses; Police witnesses - Shape: Five red lights in a line and arc - Witnesses: Dozens of residents, police, Morristown Airport tower staff - Duration: About 45 minutes, five nights - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/morristown-hoax-2009/ Around 8:15 p.m. on January 5, 2009, residents of Hanover Township, Morristown and nearby towns saw five red lights hanging in the sky and called 9-1-1. Tower staff at Morristown Airport also saw them, but radar showed nothing. TV news and UFO groups covered the lights, and they returned on four more nights. The two men who launched the balloons had also given TV interviews posing as witnesses. They called it a social experiment to show how unreliable eyewitness claims can be. **Explanation:** Hoax. Joe Rudy and Chris Russo tied road flares to helium balloons and released them on five nights, then revealed it on April 1, 2009 with video of the launches. They were fined for disorderly conduct. ## Norwegian spiral (2009) - Date: 9 December 2009 - Place: Northern Norway and Sweden (seen from Troms and Finnmark) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Blue beam with an expanding white spiral - Witnesses: Thousands across northern Norway and Sweden - Duration: About 10 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/norwegian-spiral-2009/ Before sunrise on December 9, 2009, people across northern Norway saw a blue-white light rise from behind the mountains, stop, and begin to spin. A glowing spiral grew outward and dissolved into a black hole-like disc. Photos and video went worldwide within hours. Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell quickly suggested a failed Russian missile, and Moscow confirmed a Bulava test failure. **Explanation:** A failed test of a Russian RSM-56 Bulava submarine-launched missile from the White Sea: the third stage malfunctioned, and the spinning missile sprayed fuel in a spiral lit by the Sun. The Russian Defence Ministry confirmed the failure the next day. ## Harbour Mille — the “missiles” over Fortune Bay (2010) - Date: 25 January 2010 (time approximate) - Place: Harbour Mille, Fortune Bay, Newfoundland (Canada) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Three large grey or silver “bullets” with fire behind them and trails of smoke - Witnesses: Emmy Pardy, the postmaster, and two neighbours, one of whom, Darlene Stewart, took photographs - Duration: Several minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/harbour-mille-2010/ At about sunset on Monday, January 25, 2010, Emmy Pardy and two friends in the small community of Harbour Mille, on Newfoundland’s south coast, saw three objects moving fast across the sky over Fortune Bay. Through binoculars Pardy described one as large and grey or silver with fire coming out of it; they trailed smoke. Darlene Stewart, who had been photographing the sunset, took pictures. When the photographs reached the news, the story became a small political puzzle: the RCMP first spoke of a missile launch and withdrew it, the Prime Minister’s Office said no rocket had been launched, the Defence Minister called the information “spotty”, and the French embassy said there had been no French military activity near Newfoundland or Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. **Explanation:** Canada and France both said no missile or rocket had been launched; France’s M51 test from the submarine Le Terrible was on a different day and did not match the time or direction. A Royal Military College engineer judged the object subsonic and much smaller than a missile; federal officials suggested model rockets, which the witnesses rejected; and a television station later aired viewer video from the same time that showed a passing aircraft, whose contrail lit by the setting sun would look like a fiery trail. The RCMP closed the file as an unexplained sighting. Sources: - [The Globe and Mail — Was it a missile or a hoax?](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/was-it-a-missile-or-a-hoax/article4304061) - [CBC — No evidence UFO was rocket: PMO](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/no-evidence-ufo-was-rocket-pmo-1.951800) - [The Canadian Press — Woman who saw “missiles” says the area is not used by model hobbyists](https://www.reddeeradvocate.com/national-news/woman-who-claims-she-saw-missiles-says-area-not-used-by-model-hobbyists/) ## The spiral over eastern Australia — Falcon 9’s first flight (2010) - Date: 5 June 2010 (time approximate) - Place: Eastern Australia: New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses - Shape: A large white light with a spiral, “lollipop-type swirl” - Witnesses: Dozens of people who sent photographs and videos to ABC News, among many others - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/falcon9-spiral-australia-2010/ Before dawn on Saturday, June 5, 2010, people across New South Wales, the ACT and Queensland saw a large white light with a spiral around it, which seemed to hover briefly and then drift east out of sight. ABC News received dozens of photographs and videos. Astronomers first suggested space junk, a satellite or a rocket, and Sydney Observatory’s Geoffrey Wyatt suggested a rocket spun for stability. The answer came within a day: the Falcon 9 rocket, flying for the first time, had lifted off from Florida at 2:45 p.m. EDT on June 4 (4:45 a.m. in Sydney), and its second stage, with the Dragon qualification unit attached, was due over eastern Australia between about 5:30 and 5:45 a.m. The second stage had been rotating unexpectedly during the flight. **Explanation:** The second stage of the first SpaceX Falcon 9, launched from Cape Canaveral at 18:45 UTC on June 4 with a test Dragon capsule, passed over eastern Australia about an hour later. The stage was rolling, and propellant or gas leaking from it formed a lit spiral, as the Bulava missile’s did over Norway six months earlier. Satellite observers matched the time and the ground track; Sydney Observatory also said it was the rocket. Sources: - [iTWire — UFO in Australia explained: Falcon 9](https://itwire.com/science-news/space/ufo-in-australia-explained-falcon-9) - [Space.com — “UFO” spotted over Australia likely a private rocket](https://space.com/8546-ufo-spotted-australia-private-rocket.html) ## Hangzhou Xiaoshan Airport closure (2010) - Date: 7 July 2010 - Place: Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport (China) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Bright object over the airport - Witnesses: Airport staff and pilots - Duration: ~1 hour closure - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/xiaoshan-2010/ A bright unidentified object above the airport led authorities to close Xiaoshan and divert flights for about an hour. **Explanation:** Chinese UFO research groups found no radar images and concluded the object was probably an aircraft, possibly military. ## Montevideo — the photo from the national team’s homecoming (2010) - Date: 13 July 2010 (time approximate) - Place: Palacio Legislativo and Avenida del Libertador, Montevideo (Uruguay) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Official government document or case file - Shape: A semicircular object in the sky - Witnesses: Fans who photographed the celebration; no direct witness of the object came forward - Duration: Unknown (found in photographs) - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/montevideo-celeste-2010/ On July 13, 2010, huge crowds met Uruguay’s football team at the Palacio Legislativo in Montevideo after its fourth place at the World Cup. One fan’s photograph, and others taken at the same spot, showed a semicircular object in the sky, and the picture spread as a UFO. The Uruguayan Air Force’s commission for UFO reports, CRIDOVNI, examined it and reported on July 28: it put the chance of fraud by the photographer or anyone else, and of a psychological effect, at zero, but gave a 97% probability to a conventional object, something like a piece of nylon, paper or cloth lifted by the rising air currents over Avenida del Libertador. No one who had seen the object itself came forward. **Explanation:** The Uruguayan Air Force’s commission CRIDOVNI found the photographs genuine but rated a conventional cause 97% likely: a light object such as nylon, paper or cloth carried up by rising air over the avenue, with no one having seen anything at the time. Sources: - [Montevideo Portal — “Informe de Fuerza Aérea niega ovni” (July 28, 2010)](https://www.montevideo.com.uy/Noticias/Informe-de-Fuerza-Aerea-niega-ovni-uc115375) ## El Bosque Air Base — the object in the air-show video (2010) - Date: 5 November 2010 (time approximate) - Place: El Bosque Air Base, Santiago (Chile) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Official government document or case file; Many independent witnesses - Shape: A small dark object darting past the jets - Witnesses: Spectators at an air show who filmed it; nobody saw the object at the time - Duration: A fraction of a second per pass - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/el-bosque-2010/ On the morning of November 5, 2010, the Chilean Air Force held a change-of-command ceremony with an air show at El Bosque Air Base in Santiago, with the Halcones aerobatic team, F-5s and F-16s. An engineer from the nearby aircraft factory, reviewing his own video in slow motion, noticed a small object that seemed to loop near the jets, and handed it to CEFAA, the committee of the civil aviation directorate that studies aerial phenomena. CEFAA gathered seven videos from different spectators and, at a press conference on March 13, 2012, said an astronomer had ruled out a meteoroid, space debris, a bird and an aircraft, estimated the object’s speed at over 6,500 km/h and said the incident could not be explained scientifically. Nobody at the show had noticed anything. Critics pointed out that the speed holds only if the object was far away; analyses of the original frames by the HoaxKiller project and others found the shape and motion of an insect a few metres from the lens. **Explanation:** Chile’s aerial-phenomena committee CEFAA said the object could not be explained and estimated a speed of thousands of km/h, which depends entirely on an assumed distance. Independent analysts, among them the HoaxKiller project and the neurologist Steven Novella, showed that the frames match an insect flying close to the camera, which nobody present would have noticed. Sources: - [Leslie Kean — UFO caught on tape over Santiago air base (HuffPost, 2012)](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-extraordinary-ufo-sig_b_1342585) - [Steven Novella — UFO over Chilean air base (NeuroLogica, 2012)](https://theness.com/neurologicablog/ufo-over-chilean-air-base/) - [Kloptdatwel — the Chilean UFO video has six legs (2012)](https://kloptdatwel.nl/2012/03/22/ufo-video-uit-chili-bewijst-t-ze-hebben-zes-pootjes/) ## The “mystery missile” off Los Angeles — an airliner’s contrail (2010) - Date: 8 November 2010 - Place: Over the Pacific about 35 miles west of Los Angeles, north of Santa Catalina Island (United States) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Official government document or case file; Radar tracking - Shape: A thick, glowing vapour trail apparently rising from the sea, with a bright head - Witnesses: A KCBS news-helicopter crew; many people in the Los Angeles area - Duration: Minutes, at sunset - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/california-contrail-2010/ At about 5:15 p.m. on November 8, 2010, a KCBS news helicopter filmed what looked like a missile climbing from the sea about 35 miles west of Los Angeles, a thick vapour trail glowing orange against the sunset with a bright point at its head. The footage ran on every network as the “mystery missile”, and for a day and a half nobody official could say what it was: the Pentagon said it was not a Defense Department launch, NORAD and Northern Command said it was no foreign military launch and no threat, the Navy said it was not theirs, and the FAA had approved no commercial launch. Contrail specialists and the analyst John Pike said at once that it was an aircraft contrail seen end-on, the head of the trail moving far too slowly for a rocket; the FAA’s radar replays found no fast unknown target, and on November 10 the Pentagon said there was “no evidence to suggest that this is anything else other than a condensation trail from an aircraft.” NASA researchers later found the trail on the GOES-11 weather-satellite image as a long horizontal streak. A few experts said they could not rule out a missile, but the incident is now a textbook example of foreshortened perspective. **Explanation:** A condensation trail from an airliner flying towards the camera, which made a horizontal trail look like a vertical column lit by the setting sun. The FAA’s radar replays found no fast unidentified target, the Pentagon said there was no evidence it was anything else, and NASA’s contrail specialists found the trail on GOES-11 satellite imagery as a horizontal streak. US Airways Flight 808 from Honolulu and UPS Flight 902 were named as candidates. Sources: - [NASA — Mystery contrail spotted in satellite imagery](https://web.archive.org/web/20101117092533/https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/mystery-contrail.html) - [Reuters — Mystery vapor trail not likely from missile: Pentagon](https://www.reuters.com/article/world/us-politics/mystery-vapor-trail-not-likely-from-missile-pentagon-idUSTRE6A83Z8/) - [Contrail Science — the Los Angeles “missile” contrail explained in pictures](https://contrailscience.com/los-angeles-missile-contrail-explained-in-pictures/) - [Wikipedia — 2010 California contrail incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_California_contrail_incident) ## The light over the Dome of the Rock (hoax) (2011) - Date: 28 January 2011 (time approximate) - Place: Dome of the Rock, Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif), Old City of Jerusalem - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage - Shape: A bright white light that descends, hovers over the dome, flashes and shoots straight up - Witnesses: The anonymous uploaders of four videos; no independent witness - Duration: Under a minute - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/jerusalem-temple-mount-2011/ In late January 2011 a YouTube video appeared showing a small bright light dropping slowly toward the Dome of the Rock some time after midnight on January 28, hovering just above the golden dome, flashing, and then shooting straight up out of sight. A second clip from another angle followed, then two more, posted under the challenge “Have fun debunking this one”. The videos went round the world, with commentators noting that the multiple viewpoints made them hard to dismiss. Within days investigators pointed to the anonymous sources, the lack of any other witness in one of the most watched places on Earth, the missing reflection on the dome and signs of editing, and the case became a standard example of a digitally inserted UFO. **Explanation:** The videos were faked. They were posted anonymously; nobody else among the many people in and around the Old City reported the light; it casts no reflection on the gilded dome; one clip was filmed off a monitor screen; and the analyst Robert Sheaffer showed that the camera shake had been added with an edge-mirroring “motion tile” effect. Nobody has owned up, but no one who examined the clips found them genuine. Sources: - [Space.com — Hoax in the Holy Land: Jerusalem UFO a proven fake](https://www.space.com/10789-jerusalem-ufo-hoax.html) - [Village Voice — Jerusalem UFO videos a hoax](https://www.villagevoice.com/?p=238594) - [NPR — A UFO over Jerusalem? Only if you believe in those sorts of things](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/02/04/133493963/a-ufo-over-jerusalem-only-if-you-believe-in-those-sorts-things) ## Santiago — the silver spheres over the Paseo Bulnes (2012) - Date: 11 May 2012 (time approximate) - Place: Paseo Bulnes, central Santiago (Chile) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Photographs; Video / film footage - Shape: Six bright silvery spheres - Witnesses: Hundreds of people in the centre of Santiago - Duration: Hours, until the explanation came - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/santiago-balloons-2012/ On Friday, May 11, 2012, hundreds of people in the centre of Santiago stopped to watch a group of six bright, silvery spheres in the sky. Photographs and videos spread under the hashtag #OvnisEnStgo, and the sighting became a national talking point within hours. The same day it emerged that the spheres were silver helium balloons released from the Paseo Bulnes by students of the Universidad Mayor’s school of architecture, as an installation in a competition between four student groups intended to screen the view towards the La Moneda palace. **Explanation:** The objects were silver helium balloons released from the Paseo Bulnes by architecture students of the Universidad Mayor, one of four groups in a school competition; the installation was meant to block the view of La Moneda. Sources: - [24 Horas — the balloons that frightened Santiago](https://www.24horas.cl/tendencias/espectaculosycultura/los-globos-que-asustaron-a-santiago-132004) - [El Dínamo — the collective psychosis over #OvnisEnStgo (May 11, 2012)](https://www.eldinamo.cl/redes/2012/05/11/asi-fue-la-sicosis-colectiva-por-los-ovnisenstgo/) ## Ladakh lights — the “Chinese drones” that were planets (2012) - Date: 1 August 2012 (time approximate) - Place: Thakung post, near Pangong Tso, eastern Ladakh, India - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Military witnesses; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Yellowish luminous spheres rising from the horizon on the Chinese side - Witnesses: Indian Army and Indo-Tibetan Border Police troops - Duration: August 2012 to February 2013; hours each night - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/ladakh-lights-2012/ From August 2012, soldiers and border police on the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh reported luminous objects rising over the Chinese side and staying up for hours. With Chinese drones a real concern, the army logged 329 sightings by February 2013 and counted 155 apparent violations of the border. At the army’s request, two astronomers from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bengaluru travelled to Thakung, near Pangong Tso, and measured the objects with a theodolite: one was visible from about 6 p.m. to 5 a.m., the other from about 4 a.m., and they moved with the stars. They were Jupiter and Venus. A soldier’s note that one object rose about four minutes earlier every day, as a planet does, had already pointed the same way. **Explanation:** Astronomers of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, sent at the army’s request, identified the two brightest “objects” as Jupiter and Venus, made unusually bright by the altitude; their apparent motion was the sky turning. The defence minister told Parliament there was no conclusive proof of UFOs. Sources: - [The Register — Indian army mistook Jupiter and Venus for Chinese spy drones (2013)](https://www.theregister.com/2013/07/26/india_china_war_jupiter_mars_drones/) - [IBTimes India — Army spends six months tracking “Chinese spy drones” that were planets (2013)](https://www.ibtimes.co.in/mistaken-identity-indian-army-spends-6-months-tracking-039chinese-spy-drones039-but-finds-they-were-planets-495172) ## Chelyabinsk meteor — and the “UFO that shot it down” (2013) - Date: 15 February 2013 - Place: Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia; the air burst south of Chelyabinsk - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Documented physiological effects; Infrared or other sensor data - Shape: A fireball brighter than the Sun, leaving a long, twisted smoke trail - Witnesses: Hundreds of thousands in Chelyabinsk Oblast and neighbouring regions; filmed by hundreds of dashboard and security cameras - Duration: About 15 seconds of flight; the shock wave arrived one to three minutes later - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/chelyabinsk-2013/ At 9:20 a.m. on February 15, 2013, a fireball brighter than the Sun crossed the morning sky of the southern Urals from the east and exploded south of Chelyabinsk, leaving a smoke trail tens of kilometres long. A minute or more later the shock wave blew in windows across the city: 1,491 people sought medical help, most cut by glass, and more than 7,000 buildings were damaged. Because Russian drivers routinely run dashboard cameras, the event was filmed from hundreds of angles, which let scientists reconstruct its path and orbit within days. Within hours, too, clips circulated claiming that a small object had flown into the meteor and shattered it, and the UFO commentator Gennady Belimov said a UFO had shot it down; a survey by the newspaper Noviye Izvestia found barely half its readers accepted the official account. The fragments in museum collections are ordinary chondrite. **Explanation:** A near-Earth asteroid about 20 m across entered at about 19 km/s at a shallow angle and exploded some 30 km up with the energy of roughly 400–500 kilotons of TNT, recorded by infrasound stations worldwide and by U.S. government sensors. Meteorites were collected across the strewn field, and a 654 kg fragment was raised from Lake Chebarkul in October 2013. Claims that videos showed a UFO destroying the meteor, and a newspaper survey in which many readers preferred a weapon test or a crashing alien ship, rest on nothing but the footage of the meteor itself. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Chelyabinsk meteor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor) - [Christian Science Monitor — Was Chelyabinsk meteor actually a meteor? Many Russians don’t think so](https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0222/Was-Chelyabinsk-meteor-actually-a-meteor-Many-Russians-don-t-think-so) ## Collahuasi mine — CEFAA’s “UFO” photographs (2013) - Date: 15 April 2013 (time approximate) - Place: Collahuasi copper mine, 4,300 m up in the Tarapacá Andes (Chile) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Official government document or case file; Many independent witnesses - Shape: A silver disc, estimated 5 to 10 m across - Witnesses: Four technicians at the mine (anonymous); the photographs reached CEFAA through the chief engineer - Duration: More than an hour - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/collahuasi-2013/ On a clear day in mid-April 2013, four technicians at the Collahuasi copper mine, high in the Andes of northern Chile, watched a silver disc hover silently for more than an hour at what they estimated as about 600 m, and one of them took photographs with a compact camera. They kept quiet until the mine’s chief engineer sent two pictures to CEFAA in February 2014. A CEFAA analyst at the meteorological office ruled out lenticular cloud, aircraft, drones, balloons and birds, found the object brighter than reflected sunlight would make it, and concluded it “can be qualified as a UFO”; the director, retired General Ricardo Bermúdez, released the study in July 2014 but said it was one analyst’s view and that the committee had to be cautious. The witnesses never answered CEFAA’s requests to talk, the originals and the order of the pictures were uncertain, and critics noted that a disc against blue sky gives no way to judge its size or distance. CEFAA filed the case as unexplained. Sources: - [Leslie Kean — Chile releases official study on UFO photos (HuffPost, 2014)](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/government-agency-in-chil_b_5558713) - [Noticias Caracol — Chilean aeronautics confirms a UFO sighting (2014)](https://www.noticiascaracol.com/mundo/aeronautica-chilena-confirmo-avistamiento-de-un-ovni) - [Kloptdatwel — critique of the CEFAA analysis (2014)](https://kloptdatwel.nl/2014/07/09/chileens-ufo-bureau-weet-t-weer-eens-niet/) ## Aguadilla thermal video (DHS) (2013) - Date: 25 April 2013 - Place: Rafael Hernández Airport, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico (U.S.)) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Infrared or other sensor data; Official government document or case file - Shape: Small hot object; appears to enter and exit the sea - Witnesses: U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircrew; tower controllers - Duration: ~3 minutes of video - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/aguadilla-2013/ A Customs and Border Protection DHC-8 recorded a small, hot object crossing the airport and heading out over the ocean, where it appeared to plunge into the water and re-emerge. The leaked video became a staple of UAP analysis; AARO published a 3D reconstruction video in 2025. **Explanation:** AARO assesses with high confidence the objects showed no anomalous speed or behaviour: a reconstruction of the sensor’s look angle shows two objects travelling near each other in a straight line at wind speed, never entering the water. Its case resolution assesses with moderate confidence that they were a pair of sky lanterns. Some independent analysts still dispute this. Sources: - [AARO case resolution: Puerto Rico UAP](https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PDFs/case_resolution_reports/AARO_Puerto_Rico_UAP_Case_Resolution.pdf) ## Naga fireballs of the Mekong (2013) - Date: 19 October 2013 - Place: The Mekong around Phon Phisai and Nong Khai, Thailand, and the Lao bank opposite - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Photographs; Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Reddish-pink balls of light rising silently from the river to a few hundred metres - Witnesses: Tens of thousands of festival visitors each year - Duration: Seconds each; tens to thousands a night, on the night of Ok Phansa - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/naga-fireballs/ Every year on the night of Wan Ok Phansa, the full moon that ends the Buddhist Rains Retreat in October, crowds gather along a 250 km stretch of the Mekong centred on Phon Phisai to watch glowing reddish balls rise silently from the water, climb a few hundred metres and vanish. Local belief credits the phaya nak, the serpent said to live in the river; until the mid-1980s they were called ghost lights, and the Phayanak festival now draws tens of thousands of visitors. The photograph here was taken near Nong Khai on Ok Phansa night, 2013. Sceptics point to gunfire and flares from the Lao bank, which the crowds would not hear across the river; believers point out that the lights also appear over ponds and smaller rivers away from the border. **Explanation:** In 2002 a documentary on Thailand’s iTV filmed Lao soldiers on the far bank firing tracer rounds into the air during the festival, and the Thai biologist Jessada Denduangboripant, after studying footage, concluded the lights were flares fired from the other side. Neither explanation is accepted locally, and a Lao government inquiry in 2021, held during a COVID-19 curfew with police on the river, said it was “extremely unlikely” anyone could have fired unnoticed. The idea of phosphine or methane from the riverbed has no scientific support. Sources: - [Wikipedia — Naga fireball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naga_fireball) ## Chilean Navy helicopter FLIR video (2014) - Date: 11 November 2014 - Place: Coast between San Antonio and Quinteros, Chile - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Video / film footage; Infrared or other sensor data; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Flat, elongated object with two hot discharges - Witnesses: Navy helicopter crew (pilot and camera operator) - Duration: More than 10 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/chile-navy-2014/ On November 11, 2014 a Chilean Navy helicopter on coastal patrol west of Santiago, at about 4,500 feet, picked up an unknown object on its high-definition infrared camera. The two-man crew also saw it with the naked eye for more than ten minutes. The captain described a flat, elongated object with two thermal discharges that did not line up with its direction of travel, and the video shows what looks like a chemical plume. The Navy’s aerial-phenomena office CEFAA examined it and later released the footage, saying it could not be sure what it was. Sceptics later said the images match the contrail of a distant aircraft. **Explanation:** Chile’s aerial-phenomena office (CEFAA) left the case open because it could not be certain of the object’s nature. Later analyses by sceptics proposed an aircraft’s contrail and exhaust seen by infrared as the likely cause. Sources: - [The War Zone — The Chilean military has no idea what this flying object is](https://www.twz.com/6852/the-chilean-military-has-no-idea-what-this-flying-object-is) ## USS Theodore Roosevelt — Gimbal & GoFast (2015) - Date: 21 January 2015 (time approximate) - Place: Atlantic warning areas off Jacksonville, Florida (International waters (U.S. East Coast)) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Video / film footage; Infrared or other sensor data; Radar tracking; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Rotating lozenge (Gimbal); small fast object (GoFast) - Witnesses: VFA-11 aircrew; Lt. Ryan Graves’ squadron reported near-daily objects - Duration: Seconds of video; months of sightings - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/gimbal-gofast-2015/ In 2014–2015 F/A-18F crews of the Roosevelt strike group reported frequent unknown objects on their upgraded APG-79 radars off the East Coast. Two ATFLIR clips — "Gimbal", with a crew member exclaiming about "a whole fleet of them", and "GoFast", a small object skimming over the ocean — were released by the Pentagon in April 2020. **Explanation:** Both videos were officially released and remain "unidentified" per DoD. Analysts such as Mick West argue GoFast shows a slow object (e.g. a balloon) at ~13,000 ft that only looks fast and low because of parallax, and that Gimbal’s rotation is a glare artifact of the ATFLIR pod. AARO later published a case resolution for GoFast worked out from the sensor’s geometry and the winds aloft. Sources: - [DoD statement on the release of historical Navy videos (Apr 2020)](https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/) - [AARO case resolution: GoFast](https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PDFs/case_resolution_reports/AARO_GoFast_Case_Resolution_Card_Methodology_Final.pdf) ## The light over California — a Trident II test from USS Kentucky (2015) - Date: 7 November 2015 (time approximate) - Place: The Navy’s Pacific Test Range off Southern California; seen from California, Nevada and Arizona (United States) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Photographs; Video / film footage; Official government document or case file - Shape: A bright light trailing a glowing, expanding cone of blue-white vapour - Witnesses: Thousands of people from San Francisco to San Diego, Las Vegas and Phoenix - Duration: Several minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/trident-launch-2015/ Shortly after 6 p.m. on Saturday, November 7, 2015, a bright light rose over the Pacific west of Los Angeles and grew into a glowing, spreading cone of vapour that was seen from the Bay Area to San Diego and as far as Nevada and Arizona. Police and sheriff’s offices across Southern California were flooded with calls, and the videos spread across social media as a UFO, a meteor or a missile gone wrong. The Navy said that evening that its Strategic Systems Programs had carried out a scheduled test flight of an unarmed Trident II D5 missile from USS Kentucky in the Pacific Test Range; such launches are not announced in advance. The effect, sunlight catching the exhaust plume high above a darkened ground, is the same as the Iridium launch of 2017 and many Vandenberg twilight launches before it. **Explanation:** An unarmed Trident II (D5) ballistic missile fired by the submarine USS Kentucky during a scheduled test in the Pacific Test Range. The Navy confirmed it the same evening; its exhaust plume, lit by sunlight high above the darkened ground, produced the expanding “twilight phenomenon”. Sources: - [NPR — California: That strange light streaking across the sky was no UFO](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/08/455204983/california-that-strange-light-streaking-across-the-sky-was-no-ufo) - [NBC News — Missile test off California coast causes streaking-light confusion](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/missile-test-calif-coast-causes-streaking-light-confusion-n459356) ## Fireball over the West — a Chinese rocket stage re-entering (2016) - Date: 27 July 2016 - Place: Across California, Nevada and Utah (United States) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Video / film footage; Official government document or case file - Shape: A slow procession of bright fragments with glowing trails - Witnesses: Thousands of people in California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Colorado - Duration: More than 30 seconds in view from most places - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/long-march-reentry-2016/ At about 9:36 p.m. on July 27, 2016, a slow procession of bright fragments with long trails crossed the sky over California, Nevada and Utah, seen from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and Salt Lake City and filmed by many people. It moved far more slowly than a meteor. Within hours the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg confirmed that it had tracked the re-entry of the spent second stage of China’s new Long March 7 rocket, launched a month earlier, and later removed the object from the satellite catalogue as decayed. The astronomer Jonathan McDowell identified the stage from the tracking data. Like the Zond IV fragments of 1968, it is the kind of event that turns into a “formation of craft” in some witnesses’ descriptions. **Explanation:** The Joint Space Operations Center confirmed that the objects were the second stage of China’s Long March 7 rocket, launched on its first flight on June 25, 2016, re-entering the atmosphere and breaking up. Sources: - [Vandenberg Air Force Base — Joint Space Operations Center tracks re-entry over California](https://www.vandenberg.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/879445/joint-space-operations-center-tracks-reentry-over-california/) - [EarthSky — Spectacular rocket re-entry over U.S. West](https://earthsky.org/human-world/spectacular-rocket-reentry-over-us-west/) ## Jeffreys Bay — a cargo crew’s green light (2016) - Date: 12 December 2016 - Place: About 10 nautical miles off Jeffreys Bay, Eastern Cape (South Africa) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses - Shape: A glowing green object - Witnesses: The captain and first officer of a Boeing 737 freighter flying from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth - Duration: Seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/jeffreys-bay-2016/ At about 9:30 p.m. on December 12, 2016, the crew of a Boeing 737 cargo flight from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, about 10 nautical miles off the coast at Jeffreys Bay, saw a glowing green object climb past the cockpit to the cloud layer some 1,000 feet above them, then turn and drop back past them toward the sea at high speed. Port Elizabeth air traffic control, fearing a vessel or aircraft in distress had fired a flare, asked the National Sea Rescue Institute to check; its Jeffreys Bay station watched overnight. The object was not seen again and no craft was overdue. **Explanation:** A green parachute flare was suspected first and ruled out because a flare cannot climb that high; the NSRI found no vessel or aircraft overdue or missing. Green is the usual colour of a bright meteor, but a meteor does not climb, which is what the crew described. The NSRI called the incident “a mystery”. Sources: - [News24 — UFO spotted 1,000 feet in sky before hurtling towards earth: NSRI](https://www.news24.com/southafrica/news/ufo-spotted-1-000-feet-in-sky-before-hurtling-towards-earth-nsri-20161213) ## AARO’s “Southeast Asia Triangles” — fishing nets (2017) - Date: 30 August 2017 - Place: A river in Southeast Asia (exact location withheld) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Infrared or other sensor data; Official government document or case file - Shape: Six dark triangles in a line - Witnesses: An intelligence analyst reviewing satellite imagery - Duration: A single satellite image - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/southeast-asia-triangles-2017/ A commercial satellite image taken at 07:35 UTC on August 30, 2017 showed six dark triangles in a staggered line, and an intelligence analyst flagged them as possibly anomalous and a risk to navigation. AARO reviewed the case in 2023. Its partners found a clearer image of the same place from February 2017 that showed the triangles as cone-shaped fishing nets anchored in a river, all about 11 by 7 metres; later images from late 2022 and early 2023 showed the same shapes with turbidity trailing downstream, proving they were in the water, and stock footage showed such nets on that river. AARO closed the case as fishing nets. Its report names only “Southeast Asia”; the image’s time stamps, 07:35Z and 14:05 local, match Myanmar’s clock (UTC+6:30), and the marker is placed there only approximately. **Explanation:** AARO, with intelligence and three science-and-technology partners, found “almost certainly” static, cone-shaped fishing nets on a river, each about 11 by 7 m, matched in other satellite images from 2017, 2022 and 2023 and in stock footage of the same river. Sources: - [AARO case resolution, “Southeast Asia Triangles” (copy at The Black Vault)](https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/dod/Southeast_Asia_Triangles_Case_Resolution.pdf) - [The Black Vault — AARO releases three case resolution reports (2023)](https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/aaro-releases-3-case-resolution-reports-identifying-uap-ufo-cases/) ## The Los Angeles “UFO” — SpaceX Iridium-4 launch (2017) - Date: 22 December 2017 - Place: Vandenberg Air Force Base; seen across Southern California and as far as Arizona (United States) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Video / film footage; Photographs; Many independent witnesses - Shape: A glowing, expanding jellyfish-like cloud with a bright point at its head - Witnesses: Thousands across Southern California, Nevada and Arizona - Duration: Several minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/iridium-4-launch-2017/ At 5:27 p.m. on December 22, 2017, twenty minutes after sunset, a Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg carrying ten Iridium NEXT satellites. High above the darkening ground the exhaust was still in sunlight, and the expanding plume, the staging and the fairing separation drew a luminous, jellyfish-like cloud seen from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and Phoenix. Phones and social media filled with pictures of a UFO; the Los Angeles Fire Department put out an advisory that the “mysterious light in the sky” was the launch, and Elon Musk posted the video as a “nuclear alien UFO from North Korea”. The launch had been announced in advance; twilight launches from Vandenberg have caused the same reports since. **Explanation:** A scheduled Falcon 9 launch carrying ten Iridium NEXT satellites from Vandenberg; the exhaust plume, lit by the Sun after sunset on the ground, made the glowing cloud. The Los Angeles Fire Department issued an advisory that the light came from the launch. Sources: - [SpaceX — Iridium-4 press kit (copy at The Black Vault)](https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/iridium4presskit.pdf) - [The Black Vault — UFO, Los Angeles, December 22, 2017: solved](https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/ufo-los-angeles-california-december-22-2017-solved/) - [Via Satellite — Spectacular SpaceX launch mystifies Los Angeles (2017)](https://www.satellitetoday.com/finance/2017/12/26/spectacular-spacex-launch-mystifies-los-angeles/) ## Learjet and American 1095 over Arizona — “something just passed over us” (2018) - Date: 24 February 2018 (time approximate) - Place: Over southern Arizona, east of the Sonoran Desert National Monument (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Audio recording / radio transcript - Shape: A bright, reflective object several thousand feet above the airliners - Witnesses: The crew of a Phoenix Air Learjet 36 and of American Airlines Flight 1095, an Airbus A321; the Albuquerque Center controller - Duration: About six minutes for both reports - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/arizona-learjet-2018/ On the afternoon of February 24, 2018, a Learjet 36 flying east at about 37,000 ft over southern Arizona asked Albuquerque Center whether anything had just passed over it; the controller had nothing, and the pilot said something had. The controller asked American Airlines Flight 1095, an Airbus A321 following on the same route, to watch for traffic above it within the next 15 miles; a few minutes later its crew reported that something had passed over them, two or three thousand feet higher, going the other way, and, asked whether it was moving or hovering, said it was very bright or reflective. Someone on the frequency suggested a Google balloon, which the airline crew doubted, and someone else called it a UFO. The FAA released the recording to reporters in March; it said the controller could not see any other aircraft and suggested a high-altitude balloon. Nothing more was published. **Explanation:** An FAA spokesperson suggested a high-altitude balloon, which need not carry a transponder or tell air traffic control; the area sees regular research and weather balloons. The controller could not see anything on radar, and the pilots, who saw it pass above and in the opposite direction, did not sound convinced. No report of a military aircraft or drone in the area emerged. Sources: - [The War Zone — a Learjet and an Airbus encounter a mystery craft high over Arizona (with the FAA audio)](https://www.twz.com/19095/listen-in-as-a-learjet-and-an-airbus-encounter-a-mystery-craft-high-over-arizona) - [CBS News — two airline pilots report seeing a UFO while flying over Arizona](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ufo-over-arizona-sighting-american-airlines-learjet-pilots-see-ufo/) ## Ireland — airline pilots report fast lights (2018) - Date: 9 November 2018 - Place: Atlantic off County Kerry, Ireland - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Audio recording / radio transcript - Shape: Very bright lights moving at high speed - Witnesses: Crews of a British Airways and a Virgin Atlantic flight, and others - Duration: Seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/ireland-pilots-2018/ At about 6:47 on the morning of November 9, 2018 the pilot of a British Airways flight from Montreal to London radioed Shannon air traffic control to ask whether military exercises were under way. A “very bright light” had come up on the left of the aircraft and “rapidly veered to the north”, then disappeared at very high speed. The crew of a Virgin Atlantic flight reported two bright lights that banked to the right and climbed away at what the pilot called “astronomical” speed, “like Mach 2”. Controllers saw nothing on radar, and no military exercises were taking place. The Irish Aviation Authority said it would investigate by confidentially interviewing the pilots. More than one crew reported it, and the story was carried by news outlets around the world. **Explanation:** One pilot suggested a meteor or an object in re-entry, and an astronomer at the Armagh Observatory said the lights were most likely meteors. Air traffic control saw nothing on radar and no military exercises were running, so nothing has been confirmed. Sources: - [Time — Irish authorities investigate UFO sightings by commercial pilots](https://time.com/5453027/ireland-ufo/) - [CBS News — Pilots report seeing UFO “moving so fast” off the coast of Ireland](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pilots-report-seeing-ufo-sky-off-ireland-2018-11-12) - [Euronews — UFO sightings reported by pilots over Ireland](https://www.euronews.com/2018/11/13/ufo-sightings-reported-by-pilots-over-ireland) ## USS Omaha sphere & USS Russell "pyramids" (2019) - Date: 15 July 2019 (time approximate) - Place: Off San Diego, California (International waters (off California)) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Video / film footage; Military witnesses; Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: Spherical object descending into the sea; flashing pyramid shapes - Witnesses: Crew of USS Omaha, USS Russell and other ships - Duration: Several nights in July 2019 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/uss-omaha-russell-2019/ During July 2019, several Navy ships off Southern California reported drone-like objects around them at night. A CIC video from USS Omaha shows a sphere flying over the ocean and apparently descending into the water; night-vision footage from USS Russell shows blinking pyramid-shaped lights. Both leaked in 2021 and were confirmed as authentic Navy footage. **Explanation:** The Pentagon confirmed the leaked clips were taken by Navy personnel. Analysts attribute the "pyramids" to the triangular aperture of a night-vision lens (bokeh) on aircraft/stars, and the Omaha sphere to a distant aircraft or balloon. ## Colorado and Nebraska drone swarms (2019) - Date: 20 December 2019 (time approximate) - Place: Phillips County and the plains of north-eastern Colorado (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Video / film footage; Photographs; Many independent witnesses; Police witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Drones with a wingspan of about 6 ft and blinking lights, in groups of six to ten, flying grid patterns - Witnesses: Ranchers, residents and county sheriff’s deputies - Duration: About six weeks - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/colorado-drones-2019/ In December 2019, residents and deputies in north-eastern Colorado and western Nebraska began reporting drones with wingspans of about six feet flying in groups of six to ten, at 200 to 500 feet, in grid patterns across the plains, mostly between about 7 and 10 p.m.; one witness counted 19. County sheriffs asked the public for information, and more than 70 local, state and federal agencies met in Brush on January 6, 2020. The FAA said no drone company or test site had authorized flights there, and the Air Force, which had run counter-drone exercises at F. E. Warren AFB, would neither claim nor deny the drones. As the sightings spread, more and more turned out to be planets, stars and airliners, and the state ended its search later that month. **Explanation:** State and federal agencies found that most reports were planets, stars, aircraft and hobby drones, and the Colorado Department of Public Safety stood its effort down in January 2020. The large, grid-flying drones of the first reports were never tied to an operator. Sources: - [Wikipedia — 2019–20 Colorado drone sightings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Colorado_drone_sightings) - [Colorado Public Radio — The FAA is now investigating Colorado’s mysterious drones (2019)](https://www.cpr.org/2019/12/31/the-faa-is-now-investigating-colorados-mysterious-drones-and-sen-cory-gardner-has-weighed-in-too/) - [The War Zone — FAA documents on the Colorado drone mystery](https://www.twz.com/34662/faa-documents-offer-unprecedented-look-into-colorado-drone-mystery) ## Sendai’s white balloon (2020) - Date: 17 June 2020 (time approximate) - Place: Over Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A large white sphere with crossed struts and propellers hanging beneath - Witnesses: Residents of Sendai and Miyagi; the Sendai City Observatory photographed it - Duration: Most of a day - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/sendai-balloon-2020/ On the morning of June 17, 2020, residents of northern Sendai began posting photographs of a large white sphere hanging almost motionless in the sky, with crossed struts and propellers beneath it. The Sendai office of the Japan Meteorological Agency said it looked like a weather balloon “but it’s not ours”, police sent a helicopter but could not identify it, Kyushu University denied it was theirs, and the government said only that it was aware of the object, which later drifted out over the Pacific. In February 2023, after the Chinese balloon crossed the United States, Japan’s Ministry of Defense re-examined the Sendai balloon and similar ones over Kagoshima in 2019 and Aomori in 2021, and concluded that they were strongly presumed to be Chinese unmanned reconnaissance balloons. It protested to Beijing, which said Japan had no proof. **Explanation:** A balloon. On February 14, 2023, after the Chinese balloon was shot down over the United States, Japan’s Ministry of Defense said that the balloons seen over its territory in November 2019, June 2020 and September 2021 were “strongly presumed” to be unmanned reconnaissance balloons flown by China; China rejected the claim. Sources: - [Ministry of Defense of Japan — notice of February 14, 2023 on the balloons (in Japanese)](https://www.mod.go.jp/j/press/news/2023/02/14c.pdf) - [The Aviationist — Japan says it strongly presumes China sent three spy balloons into its airspace (2023)](https://theaviationist.com/2023/02/15/japan-says-it-strongly-presumes-china-sent-three-spy-balloons-into-its-airspace/) - [Inquirer / AFP — Mysterious “UFO” captures imaginations in Japan (2020)](https://technology.inquirer.net/101025/mysterious-ufo-captures-imaginations-in-japan) ## American Airlines 2292 — “cruise-missile type of thing” (2021) - Date: 21 February 2021 - Place: Northeastern New Mexico, at about 36,000 ft (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Audio recording / radio transcript - Shape: Long cylinder, “almost like a cruise missile” - Witnesses: The crew of American Airlines Flight 2292 - Duration: Seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/aa2292-2021/ On February 21, 2021, at about 12:29 p.m. local time, the crew of American Airlines Flight 2292, an Airbus A320 flying from Cincinnati to Phoenix at about 36,000 feet over the north-east corner of New Mexico, radioed: “Do you have any targets up here? We just had something go right over the top of us. I hate to say this, but it looked like a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing, moving really fast right over the top of us.” The transmission was recorded by Steve Douglass, a radio listener. American Airlines at first denied that it was authentic, then confirmed that it was from Flight 2292 after talking to the crew. The FAA said controllers saw nothing on radar, and the Pentagon said it had no tests in the area. **Explanation:** No explanation has been given. The FAA said air traffic controllers saw no object on their radar. The Pentagon said the military was not conducting tests in the area that day, and the FBI said it was aware of the report. Sources: - [The War Zone — American Airlines confirms pilot report of cylinder-shaped object over New Mexico](https://www.twz.com/39416/american-airlines-confirms-pilot-report-of-bizarre-cylinder-shaped-object-over-new-mexico) ## Lights over Seattle and Portland — a Falcon 9 stage re-entering (2021) - Date: 25 March 2021 - Place: Over western Oregon and Washington; debris in Grant County, Washington (United States) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Video / film footage; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Official government document or case file - Shape: A cluster of bright fragments with glowing trails, moving slowly across the sky - Witnesses: Thousands of people in western Oregon and Washington - Duration: About a minute - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/falcon9-reentry-2021/ At about 9 p.m. on March 25, 2021, people from Portland to Seattle saw a slow cluster of bright lights with trails cross the sky, breaking apart as it went, and posted videos of what many took for a meteor shower or a formation of craft. The National Weather Service office in Seattle said that night that the lights were the remnants of a Falcon 9 second stage re-entering; the astronomer Jonathan McDowell confirmed that the stage, left in orbit after a Starlink launch on March 4 when its de-orbit burn failed, had come down at about 04:00 UTC on March 26. Days later a farmer in Grant County, in central Washington, reported to the sheriff an object that had left a four-inch dent in his field: a composite-overwrapped pressure vessel from the stage, which SpaceX identified and collected. It is one of the few re-entries where the identification, the tracking and a piece of the object all came together. **Explanation:** The second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 that launched Starlink satellites on March 4, 2021, failed to make its de-orbit burn and re-entered uncontrolled about three weeks later. The National Weather Service in Seattle identified the lights the same night, and a pressure vessel from the stage was found on a farm in Grant County, Washington, and recovered by SpaceX. Sources: - [The Aerospace Corporation — Falcon 9 R/B (ID 47782) reentered](https://aerospace.org/reentries/falcon-9-rb-id-47782) - [Vice — a piece of a SpaceX rocket crash-landed on a farm in Washington](https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-piece-of-a-spacex-rocket-crash-landed-on-a-farm-in-washington/) ## Three objects on a Western U.S. military range (2021) - Date: 1 June 2021 (time approximate) - Place: Military range, Western United States (withheld) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Infrared or other sensor data; Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: Three small dots on infrared - Witnesses: Range sensor operators - Duration: ~4 minutes of video - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/western-us-range-2021/ Shown by AARO at NASA’s UAP Independent Study Team public meeting (May 31, 2023) as an example of a resolved case: three unidentified infrared dots turned out to be three separate commercial aircraft at great distance. **Explanation:** AARO matched the three dots to commercial airliners far from the infrared sensor using flight and radar data. Sources: - [AARO case resolution: “Western United States UAP” (Feb 2024)](https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PDFs/case_resolution_reports/Case_Resolution_of_Western_United_States_Uap_508-02262024.pdf) ## Maldonado — the UFO videos that were a festival campaign (2021) - Date: 12 August 2021 (time approximate) - Place: Parque del Jagüel, Punta del Este, Maldonado (Uruguay) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Official government document or case file - Shape: Not described; staged footage - Witnesses: None independent; the footage was produced for an advertising campaign - Duration: Not applicable - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/maldonado-promo-2021/ On August 12, 2021, videos circulated in Uruguay that appeared to show a UFO landing, U.S. aircraft and U.S. scientists at the Parque del Jagüel in Maldonado, with one clip presented as a breaking-news report by a well-known Subrayado journalist. The Uruguayan Air Force’s commission for UFO reports, CRIDOVNI, examined the material and announced the next day that, having investigated the evidence and analysed the possible events, they “are not real”. The clips turned out to be part of a promotional campaign for the America Rockstars music festival. **Explanation:** The Uruguayan Air Force’s CRIDOVNI investigated and said the events “are not real”: the videos were part of a promotional campaign for the America Rockstars festival, including a staged television news flash. Sources: - [Montevideo Portal — CRIDOVNI says the possible events “are not real” (August 13, 2021)](https://www.montevideo.com.uy/Noticias/Comision-Investigadora-de-Denuncias-de-OVNI-aclara-que-posibles-sucesos-no-son-reales--uc795107) ## AC-130J “cold orbs” over the Gulf of Oman (2021) - Date: 8 September 2021 (time approximate) - Place: Gulf of Oman (exact location withheld) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Infrared or other sensor data; Official government document or case file; Military witnesses - Shape: “Cold orbs”, approximately four feet in diameter - Witnesses: The crew of a U.S. Special Operations Forces AC-130J gunship - Duration: Six clips of 2 to 34 seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/gulf-of-oman-orbs-2021/ On September 8, 2021, the crew of a U.S. Special Operations AC-130J Ghostrider gunship over the Gulf of Oman tracked what an Intelligence Information Report (DOW-UAP-D101) calls “cold orbs” about four feet in diameter. U.S. Central Command sent AARO six short videos, recorded at the same time on a mobile phone pointed at the infrared sensor display. In most of them a small area of contrast stays in the centre of the sensor’s view; in two overlapping clips a larger and a smaller one cross the frame and come back. The Department of War released them as DOW-UAP-PR117 to PR122 in 2026, without a determination. **Explanation:** AARO released the six clips in 2026 as unresolved. They are phone recordings of the gunship’s infrared display, not the sensor data itself, which limits what can be measured; the accompanying Intelligence Information Report describes “cold orbs” about four feet across. Sources: - [DVIDS — DOW-UAP-PR117, Unresolved UAP Report, Gulf of Oman, 2021](https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1017793) ## FBI files — orbs over one place in the north-eastern U.S. (2021) - Date: 1 November 2021 (time approximate) - Place: A sparsely populated place in the north-eastern United States (withheld) - Status: UNASSESSED — Released without an official determination - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Video / film footage; Official government document or case file; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Bright lights splitting into several rotating points; red spheres; a “plasma-like” sphere over a pond; two red orbs moving together - Witnesses: An eyewitness the FBI rates highly credible, and in 2025 a couple about 25 miles away - Duration: Minutes to 45 minutes each, on four occasions between 2021 and 2025 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/fbi-northeast-orbs-2021/ Among the files the FBI released through the Department of War in 2026 are four phone videos from the same sparsely populated area of the north-eastern United States. In November 2021, at about 5 a.m., an eyewitness filmed a bright light near the horizon that resolved into several lights rotating erratically around each other. In March 2022 the same witness filmed two red lights, the lower turning slowly around the upper; in October 2024, a luminous “plasma-like” sphere that hung over a pond for about 45 minutes, shedding smaller points. In July 2025 a couple within 25 miles of those places saw a red sphere hovering 25 feet above their backyard, then a second above it; the two moved off together, silently, over the trees. The FBI calls the first witness highly credible and says the government authenticated the 2024 video; it does not say what the lights were. **Explanation:** Released in 2026 with the witnesses’ statements and the FBI’s view that they are credible, but with no determination of what the lights were. The phone videos are short, shaky and distant. Sources: - [DVIDS — FBI-UAP-PR001, Triangle Orbs, 2021](https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1010263/fbi-uap-pr001-triangle-orbs-2021) - [DVIDS — FBI-UAP-PR003, Orbs Over the Pond, 2024](https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1010267/fbi-uap-pr003-orbs-over-pond-2024) - [DVIDS — FBI-UAP-PR004, Northeastern Orb Sighting, 2025](https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1010269/fbi-uap-pr004-northeastern-orb-sighting-2025) ## The Navy’s night-vision image shown to Congress — drones (2022) - Date: 1 January 2022 (time approximate) - Place: Naval exercise areas off the U.S. East Coast (exact place and date withheld) (United States) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Points of light in a night-vision image - Witnesses: Navy personnel during exercises - Duration: — - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/east-coast-navy-uas-2022/ At the House Intelligence subcommittee’s open hearing on unidentified aerial phenomena on May 17, 2022, the first public congressional hearing on the subject in more than fifty years, the Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, Scott Bray, showed an image taken through night-vision goggles with a single-lens reflex camera during Navy exercises off the East Coast in early 2022. Bray told the committee that, using information from other sightings, the Navy had reclassified the objects as unmanned aerial systems. He also showed an unresolved clip of a small sphere flashing past a Navy fighter’s cockpit. The image is in the Pentagon’s official release on DVIDS. **Explanation:** The Navy said the objects were later reclassified as unmanned aerial systems, on the strength of other data and similar sightings. Sources: - [DVIDS — UAP recent East Coast Navy image (official release)](https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7201347/unidentified-aerial-phenomena-uap-recent-east-coast-navy-image) - [Wikipedia — 2022 United States Congress hearings on UFOs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_Congress_hearings_on_UFOs) ## The blue spiral over New Zealand — a Falcon 9 upper stage (2022) - Date: 19 June 2022 - Place: Across New Zealand, photographed from Queenstown, Stewart Island and Motueka - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Photographs; Many independent witnesses - Shape: A glowing blue-white spiral, growing as it moved across the sky - Witnesses: Stargazers and residents across the South Island and beyond, including a tour operator on Stewart Island - Duration: Several minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/nz-spiral-2022/ At about 7:27 p.m. on Sunday, June 19, 2022, people across New Zealand saw a bright spiral of light appear and grow as it moved across the night sky. Alasdair Burns, a tour operator on Stewart Island, was alerted by text and photographed it; Clare Rehill photographed it above Queenstown, and an observer in Motueka posted that it was “just happening”. Photographs went round the world the next day. Astronomers quickly tied it to a Falcon 9 launched three hours earlier, whose second stage was passing over New Zealand while it vented fuel before its de-orbit burn. **Explanation:** The upper stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 that launched the Globalstar FM15 satellite from Cape Canaveral at 04:27 UTC that day, venting its leftover propellant before the burn that brought it down into the Pacific. The New Plymouth Astronomical Society and satellite observers matched the time; the same kind of spiral has followed other Falcon 9 launches. Sources: - [Space.com — Wild blue spiral in New Zealand sky likely made by SpaceX rocket](https://www.space.com/spacex-rocket-launch-blue-spiral-photo) - [Newstalk ZB — Stargazers left in awe after spiral appears in night sky](https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/science/stargazers-left-in-awe-after-spiral-appears-in-night-sky) - [Spaceweather.com archive — Strange things in the sky, courtesy of SpaceX](https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2022/07/02/strange-things-in-the-sky-courtesy-of-spacex/) ## MQ-9 "Middle East orb" (2022) - Date: 12 July 2022 (time approximate) - Place: Middle East (exact location withheld) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Infrared or other sensor data; Official government document or case file - Shape: Silver, orb-like object - Witnesses: MQ-9 sensor operators - Duration: Seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/mq9-middle-east-orb-2022/ Shown by AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick at the April 19, 2023 Senate Armed Services hearing: an MQ-9 Reaper’s sensor briefly tracks a silver orb crossing its field of view — typical of the many reports AARO receives with minimal data. **Explanation:** AARO: the object did not show anomalous behaviour but remains unidentified for lack of data. ## Long March 5B core stage burns up over Sarawak (2022) - Date: 31 July 2022 - Place: Over Sarawak, Malaysia, toward the Sulu Sea - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A line of bright fragments, like a slow meteor shower - Witnesses: Residents of Kuching and other parts of Sarawak who filmed it - Duration: About a minute - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/long-march-5b-sarawak-2022/ Just before 1 a.m. on July 31, 2022, people in Kuching and elsewhere in Sarawak saw a slow procession of bright fragments cross the sky, which many took at first for a meteor shower, and filmed it on their phones. It was the core stage of the Long March 5B that had launched China’s Wentian laboratory module a week earlier. Unlike most rocket stages it had reached orbit, and its fall had been tracked and debated for days because China had not released trajectory details. The Malaysian Space Agency said the debris had crossed Malaysian airspace and fallen into the Sulu Sea; pieces were reported in Sarawak and West Kalimantan. **Explanation:** The 21-tonne core stage of the Chinese Long March 5B rocket that launched the Wentian space-station module on July 24, 2022, falling back uncontrolled. The Malaysian Space Agency confirmed that its burning debris crossed Malaysian airspace, and the re-entry point was given as 9.1° N, 119.0° E, in the Sulu Sea. Sources: - [Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation — press clipping: MYSA on the debris crossing Malaysian airspace](https://www.mosti.gov.my//wp-content/uploads/repository/keratan_akhbar/2022/07%20-%20Julai%202022/31.07.2022_THE%20SARAWAK%20TRIBUNE_MYSA_Debris%20of%20China%27s%20rocket%20crossed%20Malaysia%27s%20airspace.pdf) - [New Straits Times — Debris from Chinese rocket crosses Malaysian airspace](https://www.nst.com.my/amp/news/nation/2022/07/818065/debris-chinese-rocket-crosses-malaysian-airspace-nsttv) - [The Vibes — Long March 5B debris sparks fiery re-entry off Sarawak’s coasts](https://www.thevibes.com/articles/news/67237/chinese-long-march-5b-rocket-debris-sparks-fiery-re-entry-off-sarawaks-coasts) ## Porto Alegre — airline pilots report blinking lights (2022) - Date: 5 November 2022 (time approximate) - Place: Approach to Salgado Filho airport, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Audio recording / radio transcript; Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Lights switching on and off, one to three at a time, apparently stationary and higher than the aircraft - Witnesses: Crews of LATAM 3406, Azul 4657 and other flights; the Porto Alegre tower - Duration: Minutes, on several nights - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/porto-alegre-pilots-2022/ On the nights of November 4 and 5, 2022, crews approaching Porto Alegre reported lights in the sky to the controllers, and their radio exchanges were widely shared. The pilot of LATAM flight 3406 from São Paulo asked whether anyone had reported objects over the city and described lights that switched on and off, sometimes one and sometimes two or three; the pilot of Azul 4657 from Belo Horizonte said he had seen them since leaving Minas Gerais and that they were well above his 38,000 ft. The tower said it could see them too, apparently stationary, and that they would not affect approaches; similar reports came from over Santa Catarina in late October and from four aircraft on November 8. The Air Force said its radars detected no unknown object. Astronomers suggested Starlink satellites catching the sun, searchlights on cloud and, for some videos, meteors; none was confirmed for the pilots’ sightings. **Explanation:** Astronomers proposed several ordinary causes: sunlight flashing off Starlink satellites (an analysis of a video from Torres pointed to Starlink “almost 100%”), searchlights reflected by cloud, and meteors in other recordings. The Brazilian Air Force said its radars detected nothing unknown, and no single cause was confirmed for the pilots’ reports. Sources: - [Canaltech — pilots observe mysterious lights in Porto Alegre](https://canaltech.com.br/espaco/ovnis-no-brasil-pilotos-observam-luzes-misteriosas-em-porto-alegre-228791/) - [Olhar Digital — UFOs in southern Brazil: what SpaceX may have to do with it](https://olhardigital.com.br/2022/11/10/ciencia-e-espaco/ovnis-no-sul-do-brasil-o-que-a-spacex-pode-ter-a-ver-com-isso/) - [Agência Brasil explains the mysterious lights seen in the sky](https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/geral/noticia/2022-11/agencia-brasil-explica-o-que-sao-luzes-misteriosas-vistas-no-ceu) ## MQ-9 records object with "wake" — South Asia (2023) - Date: 15 January 2023 (time approximate) - Place: South Asia (exact location withheld) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Infrared or other sensor data; Official government document or case file - Shape: Object with apparent atmospheric wake - Witnesses: MQ-9 sensor operators - Duration: Seconds to ~2 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/mq9-south-asia-2023/ An MQ-9 filming another MQ-9 caught an object with an apparent wake crossing the frame. AARO showed it at the April 2023 Senate hearing and released both clips. **Explanation:** AARO resolved the case in February 2024 (“Atmospheric Wakes”): frame-by-frame analysis and flight data showed a commuter aircraft flying near the two MQ-9s, and the apparent wake was the heat signature from its engines. Sources: - [AARO case resolution: “Atmospheric Wakes” (Feb 2024)](https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PDFs/case_resolution_reports/Case_Resolution_of_Atmospheric_Wakes_508-02262024.pdf) ## AARO’s “Eglin UAP” — a lighting balloon (2023) - Date: 26 January 2023 (time approximate) - Place: Eglin Air Force Base training range, over the Gulf off north-west Florida (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Radar tracking; Infrared or other sensor data; Photographs; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: About 12 ft across: a rounded grey lower half and a cone on top, like an Apollo capsule - Witnesses: A military pilot - Duration: Minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/eglin-balloon-2023/ On January 26, 2023, a military pilot training over the Eglin range off Florida saw four objects on radar at 16,000 to 18,000 ft, apparently in formation. Only one was seen: about 12 ft across, grey and paneled, rounded below and cone-shaped above “like the Apollo spacecraft”, with an orange-red patch at its centre and “blurry air” beneath; the pilot later thought a vertical engine was attached to its side. The aircraft’s video recorder was out of service, so the infrared and visual sensor took two still images. When the jet closed to within 4,000 ft its radar failed, and the object sank into the clouds. AARO found that the circuit breaker had tripped on the same aircraft three times before, that the images matched a commercial lighting balloon with black and white halves, which it tested, and that the object moved with the wind at that height. It closed the case in October 2023 as very likely a balloon. **Explanation:** AARO assessed with moderate confidence that it was a lighter-than-air object, such as a large commercial lighting balloon, a weather balloon or a large Mylar balloon, drifting with the wind; its intelligence and science-and-technology partners independently reached the same conclusion with high confidence. The radar failure was a circuit breaker that had tripped three times before. Sources: - [AARO case resolution, “Eglin UAP” (copy at The Black Vault)](https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/osd/Case_Resolution_of_Eglin_UAP_2_508_.pdf) - [The War Zone — Eglin AFB pilot likely saw a lighting balloon, not a UFO, Pentagon concludes (2024)](https://www.twz.com/air/eglin-afb-pilot-likely-saw-a-lighting-balloon-not-a-ufo-pentagon-concludes) - [The Debrief — AARO has only moderate confidence in its latest findings (2024)](https://thedebrief.org/aaro-has-only-moderate-confidence-in-findings-from-its-latest-uap-investigation-its-easy-to-see-why/) ## Chinese surveillance balloon (2023) - Date: 28 January 2023 (time approximate) - Place: Aleutians → Montana → Carolina coast (United States / Canada) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Photographs; Video / film footage; Radar tracking; Official government document or case file; Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil) - Shape: Large white balloon with solar-array payload - Witnesses: Millions; NORAD tracking - Duration: 8 days - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/chinese-balloon-2023/ A high-altitude balloon from China crossed into U.S. airspace north of the Aleutians, drifted over Canada, passed over Malmstrom AFB in Montana and across the continent before being shot down off South Carolina. The event prompted NORAD to re-tune its radars, which led to the February 10–12 shoot-downs of three smaller unidentified objects. **Explanation:** A PRC high-altitude surveillance balloon; shot down by an F-22 AIM-9X off Surfside Beach, South Carolina, and recovered by the U.S. Navy. ## The balloon over Colombia — China’s second airship (2023) - Date: 3 February 2023 (time approximate) - Place: Northern Colombian airspace; also reported over Costa Rica and on towards Venezuela - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Radar tracking; Official government document or case file - Shape: An object with the characteristics of a balloon - Witnesses: Colombia’s national air-defence system; Costa Rican authorities - Duration: Until it left Colombian airspace - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/colombia-balloon-2023/ On the morning of Friday, February 3, 2023, the day the first Chinese balloon was crossing the United States, Colombia’s air-defence system detected an object “with characteristics similar to those of a balloon” in the north of the country at about 55,000 ft, moving at an average of 25 knots. The Colombian Air Force followed it until it left national airspace, said it posed no threat to national security or to aviation, and began working with other countries to establish its origin. Costa Rica also reported a balloon. The Pentagon said the same day that another suspected Chinese balloon was over Latin America, and later that these balloons were part of a fleet built for surveillance. On February 6 China confirmed the balloon was its own, calling it a civilian airship that, affected by the weather and with limited self-steering, had drifted into Latin American and Caribbean airspace. **Explanation:** The Pentagon identified it as a second Chinese surveillance balloon; China said it was a civilian airship for flight tests that had strayed far off course because of the weather and its limited steering. Sources: - [Gulf Times / AFP — Colombia says object spotted overhead after Chinese balloon warning](https://www.gulf-times.com/article/654893/international/uslatin-america/colombia-says-object-spotted-overhead-after-chinese-balloon-warning) - [Boston Globe — another Chinese balloon flew over Latin America, China confirms](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/02/06/world/another-chinese-balloon-flew-over-latin-america-china-confirms/) ## February 2023 shoot-downs (Alaska, Yukon, Lake Huron) (2023) - Date: 10 February 2023 - Place: Deadhorse AK · Yukon · Lake Huron (United States / Canada) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Radar tracking; Video / film footage; Pilot / aircrew witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Small octagonal / cylindrical objects at 20,000–40,000 ft - Witnesses: NORAD; F-22 and F-16 pilots - Duration: 3 days - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/north-american-shootdowns-2023/ After re-tuning radars following the Chinese balloon, NORAD detected and shot down three small objects in three days: off Deadhorse, Alaska (Feb 10), over central Yukon (Feb 11) and over Lake Huron (Feb 12). The first AIM-9X fired at the Lake Huron object missed. Debris was never recovered. **Explanation:** The White House said the three objects were most likely benign commercial or research balloons; none was recovered. An infrared video of the Lake Huron shoot-down was released in 2026 as DOW-UAP-PR071. ## Las Vegas backyard “landing” (2023) - Date: 30 April 2023 - Place: North-west Las Vegas valley, Nevada (United States) - Status: DISPUTED — Explanation proposed but contested - Kind: Close encounter - Evidence: Video / film footage; Police witnesses; Audio recording / radio transcript - Shape: A green flash streaking low across the sky; the family described tall beings with big eyes - Witnesses: A police officer’s body camera; a family who called 911; skywatchers in four states - Duration: Seconds (the flash); about an hour in all - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/las-vegas-backyard-2023/ At about 11:50 p.m. on April 30, 2023, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer’s body camera caught a bright light streaking low across the night sky, and people across Nevada, eastern California, Arizona and Utah reported a green fireball to the American Meteor Society. About 40 minutes later a man called 911 to say that something had fallen into his backyard in the north-west of the valley and that there were two tall beings “100 percent not human” in it. Officers came, found nothing and closed the call as unfounded; the release of the bodycam footage in June made the story famous, and later drone footage of a circular mark in the dirt was offered as evidence. NASA’s planetary defense office said the light was “certainly” a meteor, less than a metre across. **Explanation:** The flash was a bright meteor, according to NASA’s planetary defense office and reports to the American Meteor Society from four states. Nothing supports the “beings”: the police found nothing and closed the call as unfounded. Sources: - [Vice — Did aliens land in Las Vegas? NASA says no (2023)](https://www.vice.com/en/article/93kknv/nasa-las-vegas-ufo-crash-meteor) - [8 News Now — Las Vegas family claims to see aliens after several report something falling from sky (2023)](https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/las-vegas-family-claims-to-see-aliens-after-several-report-something-falling-from-sky/) ## Espora naval air base — the “battle” that the Navy denied (2023) - Date: 5 September 2023 (time approximate) - Place: Base Aeronaval Comandante Espora, Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires province (Argentina) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Video / film footage; Audio recording / radio transcript; Many independent witnesses - Shape: Claimed: four black triangles - Witnesses: Neighbours who called the police about bangs; a private UFO group’s unnamed sources - Duration: An evening - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/espora-2023/ After 9 p.m. on September 5, 2023, residents near the Comandante Espora naval air base outside Bahía Blanca posted videos and called 911 about what they took for gunfire and explosions from the base, with a helicopter overhead. A private group, CEFORA, then claimed that four black triangular objects had flown over and landed at parts of the base, that personnel had fired on them, and that a laser from one had injured two or three soldiers; the story spread with memes across Argentina. Official sources at the base said the videos and audio were edited and that “the noises and images do not correspond to the place”, that there had been no exercise or shooting and nobody had seen anything, and that a helicopter had flown a scheduled routine patrol on its usual route. The police confirmed the calls, but no injury, damage or other record of an engagement ever appeared. **Explanation:** Base sources said the circulating videos and audio were edited and did not come from the base, that no exercise or shooting took place and that staff saw nothing; the only activity was a helicopter on a scheduled routine patrol. The claims of triangular craft and a laser that wounded soldiers came from a private UFO group and were never supported by any record. Sources: - [C5N — the official explanation of the shots and explosions in Bahía Blanca](https://www.c5n.com/sociedad/enfrentamiento-ovnis-la-explicacion-oficial-los-disparos-y-explosiones-bahia-blanca-n126343) - [Minuto Uno — UFOs in Bahía Blanca: the official explanation](https://www.minutouno.com/sociedad/ovnis/bahia-blanca-la-explicacion-oficial-los-disparos-y-las-explosiones-n5817935) - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Argentina (2023)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Argentina) ## The “Nazca mummies” shown to Mexico’s Congress (2023) - Date: 12 September 2023 (time approximate) - Place: Chamber of Deputies, San Lázaro, Mexico City (the figures came from the Nazca area of Peru) (Mexico / Peru) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Landing / trace case - Evidence: Physical traces (ground marks, debris, soil); Official government document or case file; Video / film footage - Shape: Small three-fingered humanoid bodies - Witnesses: Members of Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies; the presenter Jaime Maussan - Duration: A congressional hearing - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/nazca-mummies-2023/ On September 12, 2023, at a hearing on unidentified phenomena in Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies, the journalist and UFO promoter Jaime Maussan unveiled two small, three-fingered bodies in glass cases, said they came from the Nazca region of Peru, were over 700 years old and were “non-human beings”, and cited studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), whose scientists denied that the university had endorsed any such conclusion. Mexico’s Congress took no position. Maussan had promoted similar bodies from Peru in 2017, which Peruvian officials then called recently manufactured dolls. In October 2023 Peruvian customs seized two more figures bound for a buyer in Mexico, and in January 2024 forensic archaeologist Flavio Estrada presented the analysis at Peru’s Ministry of Culture: the figures were dolls built from human and animal bones glued with modern adhesive, “not extraterrestrials”. **Explanation:** Forensic specialists working for Peru’s prosecutors and Ministry of Culture examined seized figures and found them to be three-fingered dolls assembled from human and animal bones held together with modern glue; similar bodies promoted in 2017 had already been found to be recently made. Sources: - [CBS News — “Aliens” found in Peru are actually dolls made of bones, forensic experts declare](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/peru-dolls-are-not-aliens-forensic-experts-say/) - [404 Media — the Mexican Congress alien mummies, explained](https://www.404media.co/mexican-congress-alien-mummies-explained/) ## Colorado Springs law-enforcement videos (2023) - Date: 1 October 2023 (time approximate) - Place: Colorado Springs, Colorado (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Police witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Silent lights flashing red, blue and green; triangle reports - Witnesses: Local police officer; former DoW employee (FBI interview) - Duration: Oct 2023 – Jan 2024 - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/colorado-springs-2023/ The first local law-enforcement UAP files released by the U.S. government: cell-phone videos an officer submitted to AARO showing silent flashing lights, plus separate FBI interviews and renderings of triangle-shaped UAP seen over Colorado Springs in October 2023. **Explanation:** Released by AARO/PURSUE as unresolved reports from a local law-enforcement officer; no determination published. Sources: - [DVIDS — LLE-UAP-PR002, Unresolved UAP report, Colorado, October 2023](https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1023412/lle-uap-pr002-unresolved-uap-report-colorado-october-2023) - [Denver7 — New government UFO files include Colorado Springs sightings](https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/new-government-ufo-files-include-colorado-springs-sightings) ## Imphal airport UFO — Rafales scrambled (2023) - Date: 19 November 2023 - Place: Bir Tikendrajit International Airport, Imphal, Manipur (India) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Many independent witnesses; Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Small white object - Witnesses: Airport staff and officials - Duration: About 3 hours of disruption - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/imphal-2023/ An unidentified object seen near Imphal airport in the afternoon led the authorities to halt flights. Departures were delayed and arrivals diverted for about three hours. The Indian Air Force scrambled two Rafale fighters from a nearby base, which searched the area and found nothing. The object was not seen again. Sources: - [Wikipedia — UFO sightings in India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_India) ## Langley Air Force Base drone incursions (2023) - Date: 6 December 2023 (time approximate) - Place: Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Hampton, Virginia (United States) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Drones of several sizes; the first reportedly about 20 ft long - Witnesses: Base personnel and U.S. military officials - Duration: Seventeen days - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/langley-drones-2023/ From the evening of December 6, 2023, unauthorized drones flew over Langley Air Force Base, home of F-22 Raptor squadrons, across Hampton Roads from the Navy’s largest base at Norfolk, on and off for 17 days. The Wall Street Journal later reported that they typically arrived 45 minutes to an hour after sunset, that the first was about 20 feet long and flew at 3,000 to 4,000 feet, and that a dozen or more smaller drones followed. The Pentagon confirmed the incursions in October 2024. Gen. Glen VanHerck, who led NORAD at the time, later said the military had warned for years that it was not ready for this threat; he gave no new details about who was operating the drones. **Explanation:** The Pentagon confirmed the incursions in October 2024 and said the drones did not appear to show hostile intent, but neither it nor NORAD has said who flew them. Sources: - [WHRO — The Pentagon confirmed a swarm of drones violated Langley airspace (2024)](https://www.whro.org/military-veterans/2024-10-15/the-pentagon-confirmed-a-swarm-of-drones-violated-langley-airspace) - [The War Zone — Former NORAD boss wasn’t surprised by Langley AFB drone incursions](https://www.twz.com/news-features/former-norad-boss-wasnt-surprised-by-langley-afb-drone-incursions) ## The Miami mall “alien” (2024) - Date: 1 January 2024 (time approximate) - Place: Bayside Marketplace, downtown Miami, Florida (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Mass sighting - Evidence: Video / film footage; Police witnesses - Shape: A tall, shadowy figure between police cars in phone videos - Witnesses: Shoppers, Miami police, and millions of people online - Duration: An evening; the rumour ran for days - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/bayside-miami-2024/ On the evening of New Year’s Day 2024, a brawl among about 50 teenagers at Bayside Marketplace, with fireworks going off, sent shoppers running and drew around 60 Miami police cars; four teenagers were arrested. Within hours, phone videos of the flashing lights were circulating with claims that a tall alien had been seen, that the mall had been sealed off and that airports had closed. William Shatner posted “So apparently space aliens visited a mall in Miami?” The police had to issue a statement that nothing was being withheld and there had been no aliens. It is a clear modern example of how a burst of police activity and a blurry clip become a UFO story overnight. **Explanation:** A fight among a large group of teenagers, with fireworks that some shoppers took for gunfire, brought dozens of police cars. The “alien” in the viral clips was, police said, the shadow of a person walking in front of the patrol cars. The Miami Police Department said: “No aliens, UFOs, or ET’s. No airports were closed. No power outages.” Sources: - [NBC — “No aliens, UFOs, or ETs”: Miami police clear up speculation after viral brawl (2024)](https://www.nbcboston.com/news/national-international/no-aliens-ufos-or-ets-police-clear-up-social-media-speculation-after-viral-bayside-brawl/3237685/) - [WPLG Local 10 — Miami police officers guffaw at gray alien rumor (2024)](https://www.local10.com/news/local/2024/01/06/miami-police-officers-guffaw-at-gray-alien-rumor/) ## Tyndall "Tic Tac" — USCG C-144 (2024) - Date: 24 April 2024 (time approximate) - Place: Southeastern U.S., near Tyndall AFB, Florida (United States) - Status: UNASSESSED — Released without an official determination - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Infrared or other sensor data; Official government document or case file - Shape: "Tic Tac" — IR-hot area of contrast - Witnesses: U.S. Coast Guard C-144 sensor operators - Duration: ~40 s per clip - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/tyndall-tic-tac-2024/ Two infrared clips titled "USCG C-144 Tyndall UAP … TIC TAC IR hot 24 April 2024", likely from a Coast Guard HC-144 sensor over the Southeastern United States, released in PURSUE Release 02 in response to a House request. **Explanation:** AARO released the clips in 2026 as uploaded to a classified network, noting many of these records lack a substantiated chain of custody; no determination was made. Sources: - [DVIDS — DOW-UAP-PR066, USCG C-144 Tyndall UAP 1, 24 April 2024](https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1007778/dow-uap-pr066-uscg-c-144-tyndall-uap-1-tic-tac-ir-hot-24-april-2024) ## The “plume” over Buenos Aires — a Chinese rocket identified (2024) - Date: 8 May 2024 - Place: Castelar, Buenos Aires province; also seen from Entre Ríos, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia and Paraguay (Argentina) - Status: IDENTIFIED — Object positively identified - Kind: Tracked object event - Evidence: Video / film footage; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: A glowing plume in an inverted V, rising across the sky - Witnesses: A witness in Castelar who filmed it for 40 minutes; many observers across five countries - Duration: About 40 minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/castelar-long-march-2024/ At about 11:30 p.m. on May 8, 2024, a man in Castelar, west of Buenos Aires, filmed a glowing, feather-shaped plume climbing across the sky for some forty minutes until it was almost overhead, and sent the video to the Argentine Air Force’s aerospace identification centre (CIAE). The same sight was reported that night from several Argentine provinces and from Paysandú in Uruguay, Valparaíso in Chile, Bolivia and Paraguay. The CIAE recognised the inverted-V pattern left by a rocket’s upper stage and found a Long March 3B/E that had lifted off from Xichang at 01:43 UTC on May 9 (22:43 in Argentina) with the Smart SkyNet 1-01 satellite. Rebuilding the ascent from its trajectory, it found the rocket over the South Pacific about 3,600 km up, heading north-east into the sector of sky the camera was pointing at, 47 minutes after launch. In its 2024 report the centre classed the case as definitely explained, like all 36 cases it analysed that year. **Explanation:** Argentina’s Air Force identification centre (CIAE) matched the video, by the rocket’s ascent trajectory, to the exhaust plume of the Long March 3B/E launched 47 minutes earlier from Xichang, China, with the Smart SkyNet 1-01 satellite (NORAD catalogue number 59707); it classed the case “definitely explained”. Sources: - [Fuerza Aérea Argentina, CIAE — annual report 2024 (case 14, Castelar)](https://www.argentina.gob.ar/sites/default/files/2018/11/informe-ciae-2024.pdf) - [El Entre Ríos — remains of a Chinese rocket seen from the Uruguay river coast](https://www.elentrerios.com/actualidad/restos-de-un-cohete-chino-fueron-avistados-desde-la-costa-del-ro-uruguay.htm) - [Meganoticias — the strange object seen in the night sky over Valparaíso](https://www.meganoticias.cl/nacional/447058-que-es-extrano-objeto-avistado-cielo-nocturno-region-valparaiso-brk-9-5-2024.html) ## The teardrop with a pole — United Arab Emirates (2024) - Date: 1 June 2024 (time approximate) - Place: United Arab Emirates (exact location withheld) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Infrared or other sensor data; Official government document or case file - Shape: An inverted teardrop with a vertical bar or pole hanging below it - Witnesses: The sensor operator of a U.S. military platform - Duration: 21 seconds of video - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/uae-teardrop-2024/ In June 2024 an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform recorded 21 seconds of an object that looks like an inverted teardrop with a straight vertical mass hanging beneath it, held in the centre of the field of view throughout. The mission report described “an object with a vertical pole or bar attached to the bottom”, and the observer noted that it might be a reflection of something in the water. The video was reported to AARO and released on DVIDS in May 2026 as DOW-UAP-PR29, without a determination. **Explanation:** AARO released it in 2026 as unresolved. The mission report (DoW-UAP-D8) describes an object with a vertical pole or bar under it, and the observer added that it might instead be a reflection from an object in the water. Sources: - [DVIDS — DOW-UAP-PR29, Unresolved UAP Report, United Arab Emirates, June 2024](https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1006074) ## The “misshapen ball of white light” over Syria (2024) - Date: 1 October 2024 (time approximate) - Place: Syria (exact location withheld) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Official government document or case file - Shape: A “misshapen and uneven ball of white light”, with white, red and orange patches on the video - Witnesses: The crew of a U.S. military platform over Syria - Duration: Three clips of five or six seconds - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/syria-white-light-2024/ In October 2024 a full-motion video camera aboard a U.S. military platform over Syria recorded what the mission report (DoW-UAP-D32) calls a “misshapen and uneven ball of white light”, adding that a “light/glare halo effect” appeared at the top of the feed. U.S. Central Command sent AARO three clips: in one an indistinct multi-coloured patch crosses the top edge of the display within a second; in another a half-oval of white and red highlights sits at the top edge; in the third two semi-transparent orange shapes overlay the picture for under two seconds each. They were released in May 2026 as DOW-UAP-PR31 to PR33. **Explanation:** AARO released the three clips in 2026 as unresolved. The mission report itself notes a “light/glare halo effect” at the top of the video feed, and the clips last five or six seconds each, so an optical artefact cannot be excluded. Sources: - [DVIDS — DOW-UAP-PR32, Unresolved UAP Report, Syria, October 2024](https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1006078) ## The Yemen orb and the Hellfire — shown to Congress (2024) - Date: 30 October 2024 (time approximate) - Place: Off the coast of Yemen (exact location not released) (Waters off Yemen) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Video / film footage; Infrared or other sensor data - Shape: A bright orb, at moments more cylindrical, moving on a steady course - Witnesses: MQ-9 Reaper crews (sensor video) - Duration: About 50 seconds of video - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/yemen-hellfire-2024/ At a House Oversight hearing on UAP transparency on September 9, 2025, Rep. Eric Burlison showed a 50-second infrared clip he said came from a whistleblower and was taken on October 30, 2024 off the coast of Yemen. An MQ-9 Reaper tracks, and appears to laser-designate, a bright object moving on a steady path; a Hellfire missile fired by a second Reaper streaks in, appears to hit it and throw off fragments, and glances away without exploding, while the object carries on until the clip ends. Burlison would not speculate on what it was and said an independent review was under way; a defense official told The War Zone, “We do not have anything to provide on this.” The clip was also a rare public sign that Reapers were engaging aerial targets during the Houthi attacks on shipping. **Explanation:** Unverified: the clip came from a whistleblower and the Pentagon has said nothing about it. Analysts suggested a Houthi cruise missile or drone, or a balloon, and noted that a Hellfire without a proximity fuse can pass through a light target without exploding. Sources: - [House Oversight Committee — Restoring public trust through UAP transparency and whistleblower protection (2025)](https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/restoring-public-trust-through-uap-transparency-and-whistleblower-protection/) - [The War Zone — MQ-9 Reapers engaging aerial targets: the revelation from the UAP hearing (2025)](https://www.twz.com/news-features/revelation-that-mq-9-reapers-are-now-engaging-aerial-targets-comes-from-uap-hearing) - [ABC News — Newly released video appears to show US missile bouncing off object (2025)](https://abc7ny.com/post/ufo-hearing-newly-released-video-appears-show-us-missile-bouncing-off-object/17784906/) ## New Jersey drone sightings (2024) - Date: 18 November 2024 (time approximate) - Place: Morris County, New Jersey, and the Northeast (United States) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Recurring lights - Evidence: Video / film footage; Photographs; Many independent witnesses; Police witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Large lighted drones; many reports were aircraft - Witnesses: Thousands of residents, police, state officials - Duration: About six weeks - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/new-jersey-drones-2024/ From mid-November 2024, residents in Morris County reported large, lighted drones flying at night, including over Picatinny Arsenal and near the president-elect's golf club in Bedminster. Reports spread across New Jersey and into New York, Pennsylvania and beyond. The FAA placed temporary flight restrictions over dozens of sites. Stewart International Airport briefly closed its runways, and many viral videos turned out to show airliners. **Explanation:** A joint FBI, DHS, FAA and DoD review found a mix of lawful commercial, hobbyist and law-enforcement drones, crewed aircraft and stars, with no threat to national security. In January 2025 the White House said the drones over New Jersey had been authorized by the FAA for research and other purposes. ## Drones over the U.S. air bases in England (2024) - Date: 20 November 2024 (time approximate) - Place: RAF Lakenheath, Mildenhall, Feltwell and Fairford, England (United Kingdom) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Military encounter - Evidence: Military witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Small drones of varying number and type - Witnesses: U.S. Air Force personnel; residents of nearby villages - Duration: About a week - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/uk-airbase-drones-2024/ Between November 20 and 26, 2024, small drones were seen over and around four bases in England used by the U.S. Air Force: RAF Lakenheath, home of the 48th Fighter Wing, RAF Mildenhall, RAF Feltwell and RAF Fairford. The Air Force said “small unmanned aerial systems were spotted in the vicinity of and over RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall and RAF Feltwell between 20 and 22 November”. Air traffic into Mildenhall was disrupted: on November 21 a KC-46 tanker that had brought F-35s across the Atlantic turned back and diverted to Prestwick. British troops with counter-drone equipment were sent to help, and the Ministry of Defence Police opened an inquiry. Similar reports came from U.S. bases in Germany that December. **Explanation:** The U.S. Air Force and the Ministry of Defence confirmed the drones, and the Ministry of Defence Police opened an investigation, but the operators were not identified. Sources: - [Air Force Times — Drones spotted near bases used by the US Air Force in England (2024)](https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2024/11/25/drones-spotted-near-3-bases-used-by-us-air-force-in-england/) - [Military Times — Criminal probe launched after US Air Force spots drones over UK bases (2024)](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2024/11/27/criminal-probe-launched-after-us-air-force-spots-drones-over-uk-bases/) - [The Aviationist — Unauthorised drones continue to plague U.S. Air Force bases in the UK](https://theaviationist.com/2024/11/27/unauthorised-drones-continue-to-plague-u-s-air-force-bases-in-the-uk/) - [Wikipedia — 2024 drone sightings, United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_drone_sightings#United_Kingdom) ## The drones that closed Europe’s airports (2025) - Date: 22 September 2025 (time approximate) - Place: Copenhagen Airport first; then Oslo, Aalborg, Billund, Munich, Brussels and Liège (Denmark) - Status: UNRESOLVED — No accepted explanation - Kind: Aviation encounter - Evidence: Police witnesses; Many independent witnesses; Official government document or case file - Shape: Two or three large drones with lights, seen repeatedly in the airport’s airspace - Witnesses: Copenhagen police and airport staff; police, air traffic control and the public at the later airports - Duration: Copenhagen closed for nearly four hours; the closures ran from September to November - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/european-airport-drones-2025/ On the evening of September 22, 2025, Copenhagen Airport stopped all flights for nearly four hours after two or three large drones were reported again and again in its controlled airspace; police chose not to shoot them down over a populated area. Oslo Gardermoen closed briefly the same night. Over the next days Aalborg was shut twice, Billund for an hour and reports came from Esbjerg, Sønderborg and the Skrydstrup air base. On October 2 and 3 Munich stopped flights for hours, stranding thousands, and in November Brussels and Liège closed briefly. It is the European counterpart of the New Jersey drones of 2024: an airport closed is a fact, but what was in the air is still not established. **Explanation:** No one has been identified. Danish leaders at first spoke of a “capable actor” and Russia was widely suspected, but in June 2026 Copenhagen police said they had been unable to prove or rule out that drones were over the airport at all on September 22, and that they “were not clear enough” with their reservations. Sources: - [Wikipedia — 2025 European drone sightings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_European_drone_sightings) ## Campo Largo — an influencer’s lights traced to a campsite (2026) - Date: 31 May 2026 (time approximate) - Place: Rural Campo Largo, Paraná (Brazil) - Status: EXPLAINED — Mundane explanation widely accepted or officially assessed - Kind: Photo / video case - Evidence: Video / film footage; Audio recording / radio transcript; Official government document or case file - Shape: A ring of lights alternating in brightness above the trees - Witnesses: The influencer Mayk Leão, alone on his farm - Duration: Twenty to forty minutes - Page: https://domw99.github.io/Gods-Eye-UAPs/case/campo-largo-2026/ On May 31, 2026, Mayk Leão, a nursing technician and social-media influencer who lives alone on a remote farm in Campo Largo, Paraná, said his animals had been agitated, an electric fence was knocked down and he had heard metallic clicks, roars and mechanical noises; that evening he filmed bright lights in a circular group over a forested valley several kilometres away for twenty to forty minutes, and later drew a second, larger object he said passed over the property. His live streams and videos reached millions within days and drew national coverage. The Brazilian Air Force’s airspace department said its radars detected no unknown object, and internet users compared the sounds with a film trailer. Working from the coordinates of the farm, an image analyst then showed that the lights matched an escarpment beside a campsite, Chácara Paraíso, about 10 km away, whose lights are switched off when it has no guests. **Explanation:** An image analyst who worked from the filming position showed the lights came from an escarpment by a campsite, Chácara Paraíso, about 10 km away, distorted by distance and the air; the campsite’s lights are off when it is empty, which is why they were not seen every night. The Brazilian Air Force said its air-defence radars detected nothing unusual. Sources: - [Folha (F5) — the Air Force contradicts the influencer and says it detected no UFO](https://f5.folha.uol.com.br/voceviu/2026/06/fab-contradiz-influenciador-e-diz-nao-ter-detectado-suposto-ovni-visto-no-parana.shtml) - [g1 Paraná — influencer films strange lights (June 2, 2026)](https://g1.globo.com/pr/parana/noticia/2026/06/02/influencer-filmagem-luzes-estranhas-parana.ghtml) - [Jundiaí Agora — analysis tracing the lights to the campsite](https://jundiagora.com.br/campo-4/)