History of UFOs

On the right side are Significant UFO Reports or Events

Bonilla Observation

The Bonilla observation was an astronomical event in 1883 in which hundreds of unidentified flying objects were observed and photographed by Mexican astronomer José Bonilla.

Mystery Airships

Newspapers across California, and later other states, especially the Midwest, printed reports of strange airships and lights. Common elements of the descriptions included bright lights, cigar-shaped bodies, movable wings and a metallic hull.

Aurora, Texas, UFO Incident

Local correspondent S. E. Hayden reported the crash of an airship piloted by an alien. According to Hayden, the pilot was buried in the local cemetery. Residents of Aurora embrace the story without taking it seriously.

Mihal Grameno UFO

“One night, while the fighters of Çerçiz were stationed at the top of a high mountain, a shiny object flew in front of us, stood suspended in the air for several minutes, and then disappeared.”

Miracle of the Sun

Thousands of people gathered in Fátima based on reported Marian apparitions and claimed to see bizarre solar activity. Catholic bishop José Alves Correia da Silva declared the miracle “worthy of belief” on 13 October 1930, and the primarily Catholic witnesses described the event in religious terms. Despite the many photographers present in the crowd, no unusual photo of the Sun was captured. Later, Jacques Vallée, Joaquim Fernandes and Fina d’Armada would interpret it as a mass UFO sighting.

Foo Fighters

During World War II, allied fighter pilots above Europe reported colorful balls of light following their aircraft at high speeds.

Battle of Los Angeles

Just months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. radar stations picked up an unidentified aerial object in the early morning. For several hours, anti-aircraft artillery fired thousands of rounds, and the LA Times reported that “the air over Los Angeles erupted like a volcano.

Trinity UFO Case

In 2003, two men began telling conflicting accounts of an avocado-shaped craft piloted by insectoid aliens crashing at the site of the first atomic bomb detonation. Despite a lack of evidence or internal consistency, the case was cited in the UFO investigation section of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023.

The Ghost Rockets

Thousands of UFO sightings were reported over Europe. Due in part to concerns that foreign governments were testing recovered experimental German technology, the Swedish and Greek governments investigated the reports separately.

Kenneth Arnold Sighting

After the Kenneth Arnold sighting was reported in the news, over 800 similar sightings were reported throughout 1947.

Flight 105 UFO Sighting

A United Airlines crew including Captain Emil Smith, co-pilot Ralph Stephens, and flight attendant Marty Morrow witnessed nine unidentified objects. Believing them to be aircraft, Smith flashed the plane’s landing lights intending to alert the objects which he described as “smooth on the bottom and rough appearing on top”.

Rhodes UFO Photographs

Inventor and amateur astronomer William Albert Rhodes took photographs of what he described as a silent grey object that appeared after a thunderstorm. The Air Force investigated the photographs and concluded that they showed airborne “paper swept up by the winds”.

The Roswell Incident

Walter Haut, a United States Army Air Forces spokesperson, issued a press release announcing the “capture” of a “flying saucer”. Hours later, the Army announced that the find was a crashed weather balloon. In 1978, the case regained attention after Jesse Marcel, the Army Officer who recovered the wreckage, told UFO researchers that the weather balloon explanation was a cover story. In 1994, the Air Force attributed the incident to the previously classified Project Mogul.

Maury Island Hoax

Fred Crisman mailed an account from employee Harold A. Dahl, along with a cigar box of metal wreckage, to Raymond A. Palmer who had previously published the Shaver Mystery stories. Dahl claimed that his dog was killed and his son was injured by debris in an encounter with six flying doughnut-shaped objects. He also reported that he was subsequently threatened by Men in Black.

Mantell UFO Incident

Captain Thomas F. Mantell, a Kentucky Air National Guard pilot, died in the crash of his P-51 Mustang fighter plane near Franklin, Kentucky, United States, after being sent in pursuit of an unidentified flying object. While following the object, he climbed beyond 25,000 feet (7,600 m) and blacked out from a lack of oxygen. The military later identified the craft he was pursuing as likely a Skyhook weather balloon.

Aztec, New Mexico UFO hoax

Conmen Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer sold “magnetic oil-detecting machines” based on the story that they had replicated technology from a crashed spaceship. The pair were convicted of fraud in 1953. Elements of their story regarding a crashed ship with occupants were later entangled in the Roswell narrative.

Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter

Clarence Chiles and John Whitted, American commercial pilots, reported that their airplane had nearly collided with a UFO near Montgomery. According to the pilots the object “looked like a wingless aircraft…it seemed to have two rows of windows through which glowed a very bright light, as brilliant as a magnesium flare.”

Gorman Dogfight

A US Air Force pilot sighted and pursued a UFO for 27 minutes over Fargo, North Dakota. According to US Air Force officer Edward J. Ruppelt, this was one of three cases, along with the Mantell incident and Chiles-Whitted encounter, that shifted the Air Force’s attitude about UFO reports leading to the creation of Project Blue Book.

The Green Fireballs

The US Air Force investigated reports of green flares streaking across the sky after an Air Force C-47 transport encountered a green ball of fire on 5 December 1948. The pilot, Captain Goede, described the object as larger than a meteor and not arching downward as a meteor would. The Air Force investigation was inconclusive.

McMinnville UFO photographs

A farmer took pictures of a purported “flying saucer”. These were the first flying saucer photographs since the coining of the term.

Mariana UFO Incident

The manager of Great Falls’ pro baseball team took color film of two UFOs flying over Great Falls. The film was extensively analyzed by the US Air Force and several independent investigators.

Sioux City Mystery Plane Incident

Two pilots and a military officer passenger aboard a commercial DC-3 reported being buzzed by an unidentified straight-winged plane both larger and more maneuverable than a B-29.

Lubbock Lights

Several lights in V-shaped formations were repeatedly spotted flying over the city. Witnesses included W. I. Robinson, A. G. Oberg, and W. L. Ducker, professors of geology, chemical engineering, and petroleum engineering respectively. Teenage student Carl Hart Jr. photographed the lights.

Wonsan-Sunchon UFO Incident

Four American military personnel aboard two different B-29 bombers reported seeing an orange globe-shaped light over two different cities in northern Korea.

1952 Washington, D.C. UFO Incident

A series of sightings accompanied radar contacts in the Washington area. These were the first sightings to be widely and seriously reported as potentially physical craft operated by intelligent life from another planet. In response, the CIA formed the Robertson Panel which advised Project Blue Book to “strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired”.

Nash-Fortenberry UFO Sighting

William B. Nash and William H. Fortenberry, pilots of a DC-4 airliner of Pan American Airways, radioed the Norfolk civil aviation authority to report eight large, round, glowing red objects.

The Flatwoods Monster

Three local boys followed a bright object into the forest to what they believed was a UFO landing. They went to the nearby home of Kathleen May who accompanied them back to the spot along with two other children and teenage National Guardsman Eugene Lemon. In the forest, they smelled a foul odor and saw what May described as a tall figure with claws and “a head that resembled the ace of spades”.

Marius Dewilde Sighting

French metalworker Marius Dewilde claimed to have become a contactee in 1954. Local newspapers and Radar magazine covered Dewilde’s story of small humanoid figures landing a ship on the abandoned railroad tracks near his home. The coverage of Dewilde and other 1950s contactees spurred the careers of French ufologists Aimé Michel and Jacques Vallée.

Fiorentina Stadium Mass Sighting

A football game between Fiorentina and Pistoiese was under way at the Stadio Artemio Franchi when a group of UFOs traveling at high speed abruptly stopped over the stadium. The stadium became silent as the crowd of around 10,000 spectators witnessed the event and described the UFOs as cigar shaped.

Kelly–Hopkinsville Encounter

At a rural farmhouse, eleven people witnessed creatures in the night. Two of the men opened fire with a shotgun and rifle, and the entire group later fled to the Hopkinsville police station. The creatures have been variously described as goblins, aliens, “little green men”, owls, and circus monkeys. Four officers, five state troopers, three deputies, and four military police investigated the farmhouse finding bullet holes but no monsters. The story has had a broad impact on popular culture.

Lakenheath-Bentwaters Incident

United States Air Force (USAF) and Royal Air Force (RAF) radar operators (from Lakenheath RAF Station, Bentwaters RAF Station, and Sculthorpe RAF Station) detected up to 15 objects over Suffolk. An RAF pilot was sent out from Waterbeach RAF Station in a de Havilland Venom, a jet aircraft with aircraft interception radar. The pilot reported spotting the object on radar and visually observing a luminous white object that moved behind his craft when he attempted to intercept.

Elizabeth Klarer

A series of photos depicting a supposed UFO were taken on 24 July near Rosetta in the Drakensberg region. The photographer, meteorologist Elizabeth Klarer, claimed detailed adventures with an alien race including having had an alien lover, Akon, who would have fathered her son Ayling.

Gordon Cooper UFO Sightings

Gordon Cooper, one of the original Project Mercury astronauts, witnessed a type of metallic craft without wings flying over Germany in the 1950s. At the time, Cooper believed these to be Soviet aircraft. His attitude later changed after an incident at Edwards Air Force Base. Cooper sent a crew of James Bittick and Jack Gettys out to a dry lakebed to set up data-recording photography equipment. Cooper said the two men, both familiar with experimental aircraft, came back shaken and talking about witnessing a wingless aircraft with retractable legs silently land and take off near them. Cooper reported the incident to The Pentagon which asked for all photographs of the craft. Cooper looked at the photos before sending them off and believed that the government covered up a UFO encounter.