List of reported UFO sightings

This is a list of notable reported sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP), and related claims of close encounters or abductions. UAP's are generally considered to include any perceived airborne, submerged or transmedium phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. ^[2][3][4] Upon investigation, most UFOs are identified as known objects or atmospheric phenomena, while a small number remain unexplained.^[5][6][7]

Antiquity

Date	Name	Location	Description
c. 1450 BC	Thutmose III Jebel Barkal Stele	•AFAF, Ancient Egypt; Jebel Barkal, Lower Egypt	After conquering the ancient Nubian city of Napata, Thutmose III had a stele erected at the Temple of Amun, beneath the Jebel Barkal outcropping.[8] The stele describes how "a star came down" to set fire to Thutmose's adversaries.[9][10] This has been cited by ufologists via the purported Tulli Papyrus, likely a fraud.[11] This alleged translation—published in issue 41 of the Fortean Society's magazine Doubt—used such Fortean tropes as "circles of fire" and fish that "fell down from the sky".[12]: 369–372
218 BC	Ships in the sky	•EUEU, Roman Republic; Rome, Italia	During the build-up to the Second Punic War, Livy recorded prodigies in the winter sky, including navium speciem de caelo adfulsisse ("phantom ships had been seen gleaming in the sky").[13][14]
76 BC	Spark from a falling star	•ASAS, Roman Republic; Asia	According to Pliny the Elder, a spark fell from a star and grew as it descended until it appeared to be the size of the Moon. It then ascended and transformed into a torch. Astronomer Richard Stothers interpreted the report as a description of a bolide.[15][16]
73 BC	Flame-like wine-jars from the sky	•ASAS, Roman Republic; Phrygia, Asia	According to Plutarch, a Roman army commanded by Lucullus was about to begin a battle with Mithridates VI of Pontus when "the sky burst asunder, and a huge, flame-like body was seen to fall between the two armies". Plutarch reports the shape of the object as like a wine-jar (pithos).[17][14]
AD 65	Sky army	•ASAS, Roman Empire; Judaea	Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus reported chariots "hurtling through the clouds" prior to the First Jewish–Roman War.[14]
AD 196	Angel hair	•EUEU, Roman Empire; Rome, Italia	Historian Cassius Dio described a "fine rain resembling silver [that] descended from a clear sky upon the Forum of Augustus." He wrote that he was able to plate some of his bronze coins, but four days later, the silvery coating was gone.[14]
AD c. 740	Air ship of Clonmacnoise	•EUEU, Ireland; Teltown in County Meath, and Clonmacnoise in County Offaly	Several sets of Irish annals, those of Ulster, Tigernach, Clonmacnoise, and the Four Masters, have entries to the effect that "ships with their crews were seen in the air".[18]

16th–17th centuries

Date	Name	Location	Description
1561-4-14	1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg	•EUEU, Holy Roman Empire; Nuremberg, Bavaria	Residents of Nuremberg described an aerial battle, followed by the appearance of a large black triangular object, and then a crash outside of the city. A broadsheet recorded that witnesses observed hundreds of spheres, cylinders and other odd-shaped objects that moved erratically overhead.[19]
1566-8-7	1566 celestial phenomenon over Basel	•EUEU, Switzerland; Basel, Basel	A broadsheet published in 1566 depicted numerous spherical objects appearing out of the sun.[19] The event was recorded and depicted by Samuel Coccius, "a student of the Holy Scripture and of the free arts, at Basel".[20]
1609-9-22	Gwanghaegun period UFO Turmoil	•ASAS, Joseon (Korea); Gangwon Province	On September 22, 1609, multiple witnesses in Goseong, Wonju Gangneung, Chuncheon County and Yangyang County described a Halo or washbowl that was divided in two in the sky.[21]

19th century

Date	Name	Location	Description
1803-2-22 or 1803-3-24	Utsuro-bune at Haratono-hama	•ASAS, Japan; Hitachi Province	In 1803, local fishermen reportedly found a closed vessel with small windows adrift. They said when they investigated it that "a beautiful young woman" with red and white hair and dressed in strange clothes emerged, holding a square box "that no one was allowed to touch" and that she spoke to them in a language they had never heard before.[22]
1883-8-12	Bonilla observation	•NANA, Mexico; Zacatecas Observatory, Zacatecas	On August 12, the astronomer José Bonilla photographed hundreds of dark objects crossing the sun while observing sunspot activity at Zacatecas Observatory in Mexico. Bonilla published an account of the event three years later in L'Astronomie.[23][24]
1896-11-17 to 1897-4-23	Mystery airships	•NANA, United States	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, wings and metallic hull.[25]
1897-4-17	Aurora, Texas, UFO incident	•NANA, United States; Aurora, Texas	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.[26][27]

20th century

1900–1949

Date	Name	Location	Description
1907	Mihal Grameno UFO	•EUEU, Ottoman Empire; Albania	Mihal Grameno a distinguished Albanian journalist, writer, and activist writes in The Albanian Uprising, "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"[28][29][30]
1909	New Zealand airship sightings	•OCOC, New Zealand; Otago	In August 1909, moving and whirring lights were reported in the sky around Otago. In the following months, many sightings were reported across New Zealand with varying descriptions of the craft and crew.[31][32][33]
1917-8-13, 1917-9-13, 1917-10-13	Miracle of the Sun	•EUEU, Portugal; Fátima, Santarém District	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.[34][35][36][37]
1926 c. 1926	Nicholas Roerich UFO sighting	•ASAS, Tibet	During his Asian expedition, Russian theosophist Nicholas Roerich reported an oval in the sky above his caravan, which was later interpreted as a "flying saucer" by Roerich's Russian followers.[38][39][40]
1933	Frank Smythe UFO sighting	Mount Everest in the Himalayas	On June 1st of the 1933 Mount Everest expedition, Smythe sighted two dark-coloured unidentified flying objects hovering and pulsating in the sky.[41][42]
1940s c. 1940s	Foo fighters	•ICIC, Over World War II theaters	During World War II, allied fighter pilots above Europe reported colorful balls of light following their aircraft at high speeds.[43]
1941 c. 1941	Cape Girardeau UFO legend	•NANA, United States; Cape Girardeau, Missouri	A local legend gained wider attention in the 1980s when resident Charlotte Mann claimed in interviews that her father, Reverend William Huffman of the Red Star Baptist Church, had administered last rites for the dying crew of a crashed flying saucer.[44][45][46]
1942-2-24	Battle of Los Angeles	•NANA, United States; Los Angeles, California	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.”[47][48]
1946	The Ghost Rockets	•EUEU, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe	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.[49]
1946-5-18	Ängelholm UFO memorial	•EUEU, Sweden; Ängelholm, Kristianstads County	Swedish entrepreneur Gösta Carlsson, attributed his success to a 1946 UFO encounter, that he commemorated with a concrete monument. Independent investigations did not verify his account.[50][51][52]
1947-6-24	Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting	•NANA, United States; North of Mount Rainier, Washington	Private pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying near Mount Rainier when he reported seeing a group of reflective craft moving at high speeds and flashing in the sun like mirrors. Bill Bequette of the East Oregonian, who first interviewed Arnold, summarized the sighting as, "nine saucer-like aircraft flying in formation." This introduced the term flying saucers, and Arnold's sighting sparked an explosion of UFO reports around the country.[53][54][55][56]
1947 c. 1947	1947 flying disc craze	•NANA, United States; Washington and other states	After the Kenneth Arnold sighting was reported in the news, over 800 similar sightings were reported throughout 1947.[57][58]
1947-7-4	Flight 105 UFO sighting	•NANA, United States; En route from Boise, Idaho to Pendleton, Oregon	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".[59][60]
1947-7-8	The Roswell Incident	•NANA, United States; about 30 mi. north of Roswell, New Mexico	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.[61]
1947-7-29	Maury Island hoax	•NANA, United States; Puget Sound near Maury Island, Washington	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. On July 31, 1947, Palmer arranged a meeting between Crisman, Dahl, Air Force investigators, and flying saucer witnesses Kenneth Arnold & Emil Smith.[62][63]
1948 c. 1948	The Green Fireballs	•NANA, United States; New Mexico and other parts of the Southwestern United States	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.[64][65]
1948-1-7	Mantell UFO incident	•NANA, United States; Kentucky	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.[66][67][68]
1948-3-25	Aztec, New Mexico UFO hoax	•NANA, United States; New Mexico	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.[69][70][71]
1948-7-24	Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter	•NANA, United States; Montgomery, Alabama	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."[72][73]
1948-10-1	Gorman dogfight	•NANA, United States; North Dakota	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.[74][75]

1950–1974

Date	Name	Location	Description
1950-5-11	McMinnville UFO photographs	•NANA, United States; a farm near McMinnville, Oregon	A farmer took pictures of a purported "flying saucer". These were the first flying saucer photographs since the coining of the term.[76]
1950-8-15	Mariana UFO incident	•NANA, United States; Great Falls, Montana	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.[77][78]
1951-1-20	Sioux City mystery plane incident	•NANA, United States; Sioux City, Iowa	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.[79]
1951-8-25	Lubbock Lights	•NANA, United States; Lubbock, Texas	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[79]
1952-1-29	Wonsan-Sunchon UFO incident	•ASAS, Korea; Wonsan and Sunchon	Four American military personnel aboard two different B-29 bombers reported seeing an orange globe-shaped light over two different cities in northern Korea[79]
1952-7-12 to 1952-7-29	1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident	•NANA, United States; Washington, D.C.	A series of sightings in July 1952 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."[80][81][82]
1952-7-14	Nash-Fortenberry UFO sighting	•NANA, United States; Norfolk, Virginia	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.[83][84]
1952-9-12	The Flatwoods Monster	•NANA, United States; Flatwoods, West Virginia	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 2 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".[85]
1954-10-27	Fiorentina Stadium Mass Sighting	•EUEU, Italy; Stadio Artemio Franchi in Florence	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.[86][87]
1955-8-21 to 1955-8-22	Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter	•NANA, United States; A farmhouse near Hopkinsville, Kentucky	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.[88][89][90]
1956-7-24	Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident	•EUEU, United Kingdom; Suffolk, England	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 Airborne 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.[91][92]
1956-8-13	Elizabeth Klarer	•AFAF, South Africa; Drakensberg	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.[93][94]
1957-5-3	Gordon Cooper UFO Sightings	•NANA, United States; Edwards Air Force Base, California	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 lake bed 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 felt that the government covered up a UFO encounter.[95][96]
1957-5-20	Milton Torres 1957 UFO Encounter	•EUEU, United Kingdom; East Anglia	U.S. Air Force fighter pilot Milton Torres reports that he was ordered to intercept and fire on a UFO displaying "very unusual flight patterns" over East Anglia. Ground radar operators tracked what was believed to be an unidentified aircraft for some time before Torres' plane was scrambled to intercept.[97][98][99][100]
1957-9-7	Explosion in Ubatuba	•SASA, Brazil; Ubatuba, São Paulo	At Praia das Toninhas, in Ubatuba, an unknown flying object exploded near the beach. Pieces of the craft were collected and examined.[101]
1957-10-15	Antônio Vilas-Boas Abduction	•SASA, Brazil; Near São Francisco de Sales, Minas Gerais	Law student, Antônio Vilas-Boas, described being abducted by humanoid aliens and taken aboard their egg-shaped craft. He also said that he was confined within a small round room where he was compelled to have sex with a four foot tall alien woman.[102]
1957-11-2	Levelland UFO case	•NANA, United States; Levelland, Texas	Drivers observed cigar-shaped lights above the highway, followed by electrical failures.[103][104]
1957-11-4	Kirtland AFB UFO sighting	•NANA, United States; Albuquerque, New Mexico	Through binoculars, two Civil Aeronautics Administration tower operators observed an egg-shaped object emitting a white light beneath it.[91][92]
1961-9-19	Betty and Barney Hill abduction	•NANA, United States; South of Lancaster on Route 3, New Hampshire	The Hills reported the first alien abduction experience to be widely spread in English-language publications. While driving home, they observed a light move through the sky and land ahead of them. Barney Hill said that, against his will, he turned the car down a side road towards the light, where he found six small humanoid beings waiting for them. Betty Hill reported that they inserted a needle through her navel among other vaguely medical tests.[105]
1963	Kallamishtez UFO incident	•EUEU, Albania; Kurvelesh	In January 1963, residents of the village of Kallamishtëz in the Kurvelesh area reported seeing a bright object in the sky. Albanian authorities attempted to calm the population by telling them that what they had seen was not a UFO, but rather a new model of a jet plane being used by the Albanian Air Force.[29][30]
1964-4-24	Lonnie Zamora incident	•NANA, United States; Socorro, New Mexico	Police officer Lonnie Zamora investigated a roaring sound. Zamora and a nearby tourist found a craft that took off shortly after their arrival. The craft left impressions in the ground that did not aid in identification.[106]
1964-9-18 until 9-24	Dwikora Operation UFO incident	•ASAS, Surabaya, Indonesia	Officer Jacob Salatun—founder of the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space in Indonesia—wrote several books on UFOs and founded an organization to study UFO reports after he served as Minister of Industry. According to Salatun, one night during the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation, pilots reported seeing and shooting at a dark, mango-shaped craft with colored lights. Salatun claims that fragments of the military's shells struck individuals outside of their homes in Sidoarjo.[107]
1965-6-4	Project Gemini UFO	•OSOS, Low Earth orbit; Above Hawaii	During Gemini 4, astronaut James McDivitt spotted a white cylinder with a protruding arm traveling in his orbit. McDivitt has said that it was impossible for him to assign scale to the object against the black background of space, saying that it could have been small enough to hold in his hands or "the size of the Empire State Building."[108]
1965-9-3	The Incident at Exeter	•NANA, United States; Exeter, New Hampshire	Numerous people reported pulsating UFOs in Exeter, New Hampshire. The events were the subject of The Incident at Exeter by John G. Fuller.[109]
1965-7-1	The Valensole UFO incident	•EUEU, France; Valensole, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur	French farmer, Maurice Massé, witnessed a spherical vehicle in his lavender field. He noticed and approached two individuals that he observed near the vehicle, but after one pointed a tube in his direction, he stood still feeling paralyzed. He described the beings as child-sized, pale, large-headed, with only holes where a mouth should be. Massé said that after they left in their vehicle, he was never again able to grow a healthy plant in the area where the craft had landed. He did not personally comment on the effect this had on him, saying, "One always says too much." His wife reported that the man was plagued with exhaustion for months, that he had confessed some type of communication to her, and that it was a "spiritual experience" for her husband.[110][111]
1965-12-9	Kecksburg UFO incident	•NANA, United States; Kecksburg, Pennsylvania	Local newspapers and newscasts reported a fireball observed in the skies over Kecksburg. According to some residents, they found an acorn-shaped object in the woods. The U.S. military closed off the area to investigate and reported no evidence of a crash. A model built for Unsolved Mysteries is kept on display by the fire department, which leads an annual UFO celebration.[112][113][114]
1966-4-6	Westall UFO	•OCOC, Australia; Clayton South, Victoria	Several hundred students and school faculty from Westall High School watched an object land at the nearby Grange Reserve.[115]
1967-8-29	Close encounter of Cussac	•EUEU, France; near Cussac, Auvergne	A 13-year-old boy and his younger sister reported an incident to their father, local police, and investigators. According to police reports, they witnessed a brilliant sphere and four small black occupants while herding cattle outside their village.[116]
1967-10-4	Shag Harbour UFO incident	•NANA, Canada; Gulf of Maine near Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia	Royal Canadian Mounted Police and six civilians reported that a large illuminated object crashed into Shag Harbour. A Department of National Defence underwater search followed, but located no physical evidence.[117][118]
1969-1-6	Jimmy Carter UFO incident	•NANA, United States; Leary, Georgia	While governor of Georgia, future president Jimmy Carter filed a written report of a "luminous, not solid" light over Leary, Georgia in 1969.[119]
1969-4-12	Finnish Air Force sighting	•EUEU, Finland; Pori	Finnish pilot Jouko Kuronen overheard a radio conversation between air traffic control and fighter pilot Tarmo Tukeva. Tukeva was ordered to investigate "seven balloons" visible from Kuronen's position in the sky. Kuronen described the objects as discs that accelerated in formation against the wind at speeds not feasible for balloons.[120]
1969-9-1	Labor Day 1969 UFO Incident	•NANA, United States; Berkshire County, Massachusetts	Four families with no prior connection alleged that they saw a UFO, were moved by a beam of light, and lost several hours of time. The Great Barrington Historical Society recognized the accounts as a "historical event" in 2015.[121]
1973-10-11	Pascagoula Abduction	•NANA, United States; Pascagoula, Mississippi	Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker were fishing from a pier on the Pascagoula River when they say that they heard whirring sounds and witnessed a craft over 30 feet long with flashing lights. Both men say they were paralyzed and then taken by humanoids with "robotic slit-mouths" and "crab-like pincers".[122][123]
1974-1-23	Berwyn Mountain UFO incident	•EUEU, United Kingdom; Llandrillo, Merionethshire, North Wales	An alleged UFO crash involving lights in the sky moments before a large impact shock. The cause of the incident was however soon revealed as a 3.5 magnitude earthquake.[124][125]
1974-8-23	John Lennon UFO incident	•NANA, United States; New York City, New York	Musician John Lennon and then-assistant May Pang report seeing a craft emitting lights that changed color in the night sky above their Manhattan penthouse. Lennon would later reference this experience in his song "Nobody Told Me".[126][127]

1975–1999

Date	Name	Location	Description
1975-11-05	Travis Walton	•NANA, United States; Near Turkey Springs in Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, Arizona	Logger Travis Walton disappeared for over 5 days resulting in a police investigation of his coworkers. When questioned on where he had been, Walton said that he had been taken aboard a spacecraft by nearly human creatures.[128] Walton's alien abduction account is the basis for the book The Walton Experience (1978), the film Fire in the Sky (1993), and the documentary "Alien Abduction: Travis Walton" (2022).[129]
1976-9-17	1976 Tehran UFO incident	•ASAS, Iran; Tehran, Tehran province	The 1976 Tehran UFO Incident was a radar and visual sighting of a UFO over the capital of Iran, during early morning hours. Two Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom II jet interceptors reported losing instrumentation and communications as they approached the object.[130]
1977-9-20	Petrozavodsk phenomenon	•EUEU, Soviet Union, Finland, Lithuania, and Denmark	Residents of Petrozavodsk reported a giant glowing "jellyfish" of light (visible for over ten minutes) looming in the early morning sky. The light was seen and photographed in several Baltic Sea countries. In response to the phenomenon, the Soviet Union created a government program to study anomalous atmospheric phenomena. This program would later attribute the Petrozavodsk sightings to the secret night launch of the Kosmos 955 spy satellite. According to Soviet astrophysicist, Yuli Platov, sunlight can cause the giant plumes of gas and dust produced by rockets to glow, especially "in twilight hours, when the rocket streaks through sunlit regions and the observer is on the nighttime side of the Earth."[131]
1978-5-10	Emilcin Abduction	•EUEU, Poland; Emilcin, Lublin Voivodeship	Polish farmer Jan Wolski reported that while returning home, two "short, green-faced humanoid entities" wearing black overalls jumped onto his horse-drawn cart and started speaking an incomprehensible language. After about 1000 ft (300 m), he reported seeing a white flying object, from which an alien creature came out and invited Wolski inside. The farmer said that they examined him once inside.[132]
1978-10-21	Valentich disappearance	•OCOC, Australia; Victoria	Frederick Valentich left Moorabbin Airport in a Cessna 182 Skylane, a single-engined light aircraft. At 7:06 pm, he began reporting a strange craft to Melbourne air traffic control. Valentich's last words were, "That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again … it is hovering and it's not an aircraft."[133] Neither the pilot nor the plane were ever found.[134]
1978-12-6	Zanfretta UFO Incident	•EUEU, Italy; Torriglia, Genoa	Italian nightwatchman Pier Fortunato Zanfretta perceived a red, oval object and phoned his supervisor. During the call, he described non-human creatures that he said were attacking him. He was later found in a state of shock and his experience was adapted into a stage play.[135]
1979-11-11	Manises UFO incident	•EUEU, Spain; Valencia, Valencian Community	En route to Las Palmas, commercial pilot Francisco Javier Lerdo de Tejada radioed air traffic control regarding a pair of red lights approaching his TAE Supercaravelle. Neither air traffic control in Barcelona nor the military identified the object. Tejada made an emergency landing at the nearby airport in Manises.[136]
1980-4-11	Arequipa UFO incident	•SASA, Peru; Arequipa Region	Early in the morning of April 11, La Joya Air Force Base ordered fighter pilot Oscar Santa María Huertas to intercept an object in restricted air space. Huertas pursued the object in a Sukhoi Su-22 and fired a barrage of 30mm shells into it. According to Huertas the object did not seem damaged and rose to 19,200 meters. He described it as similar in shape to an incandescent lightbulb with a much wider circular silver base and said that it "lacked all the typical components of aircraft. It had no wings, propulsion jets, exhausts, windows, antennae, and so forth".[137][138][139][140]
1980-12-24 to 1980 -12-24	Rendlesham Forest incident	•EUEU, United Kingdom; Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England	United States Air Force personnel reported various unusual observations at RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters, two American air bases located in England. Their reports included lights in the sky, a metallic triangular object in the forest, multi-colored lights moving through the forest, and higher levels of radiation.[141]
1981-1-8	Trans-en-Provence case	•EUEU, France; Trans-en-Provence, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur	Retired contractor, Renato Nicolai reported the landing of a flying object near his home to local police. Renato believed it to be a military craft. Groupe d'Étude des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés (GEPAN), a branch of French Space Agency created to investigate UFOs, conducted an investigation, photographed circular impressions on the ground, and took samples of the area.[142] Skeptics have been critical of the GEPAN investigation which took place 40 days after the initial sighting.[143][144]
1983 c. 1983	Hudson Valley Sightings	•NANA, United States; Hudson Valley, New York	State police discovered that widespread reports of a massive object—described by one observer as a "city of lights" hanging silently above their home—were caused by a group of pilots flying small aircraft in formation. The events were the subject of an Unsolved Mysteries episode and Night Siege, a posthumous collaboration between ufologists including J. Allen Hynek.[145][146][147][148]
1986-5-19	"Night of the UFOs" in Brazil	•SASA, Brazil; São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Goiás	Radar and visual contacts were obtained with multiple 'bright colorful objects' in the sky across several states. Mirage IIIE and F-5 fighters were scrambled but failed to intercept, with pilots describing the objects as capable of impossible maneuvers and rapidly accelerating to as much as Mach 15 once approached.[149]
1986-11-17	Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1628 incident	•NANA, United States; Alaska	While piloting a Japanese Boeing 747-200F cargo aircraft on a polar route from France to Narita International Airport in Japan, the flight crew witnessed several unidentified objects over eastern Alaska. Captain Kenju Terauchi (寺内謙寿, Terauchi Kenju), co-pilot Takanori Tamefuji (為藤隆憲, Tamefuji Takanori), and flight engineer Yoshio Tsukuda (佃善雄, Tsukuda Yoshio) reported rectangular arrays of what Captain Terauchi described as glowing nozzles or thrusters.[150][151]
1987-12-1	Ilkley Moor UFO incident	•EUEU, United Kingdom; Ilkley Moor	Retired police officer, Philip Spencer, took a photograph of what he said was a strange being on the moor. According to Spencer, the being fled after being photographed and left in a domed craft.[152][153]
1990-8-1	Shkoder UFO incident	•EUEU, Albania; Shkodër	Gëzim Dapi and five other soldiers reported a series of lights arranged in a diamond-like pattern in the sky, moving at high speed with minimal noise. They were questioned by their superiors, and the incident was reported by the Labour Youth Union of Albania's biweekly newspaper, "Zëri i Rinisë".[154]
1993-7-12	Cerrik UFO incident	•EUEU, Albania; Cërrik, Elbasan	Around 8:00 pm, a glowing flying object appeared in the sky of Cërrik, Elbasan. According to eyewitness accounts, the illuminated object made sudden and quick movements. The news that a UFO was flying around quickly spread throughout the town. Law enforcement was notified, and they tried to limit the spread of panic among the population. The glowing object disappeared from the sky around 10:00 pm, according to eyewitness accounts.[154]
1994-7-16	Meng Zhaoguo incident	•ASAS, China; Heilongjiang, Wuchang	A Chinese woodcutter reported being taken aboard foreign entites' spaceship where he was made to witness the collision of a comet into Jupiter.[155]
1994-9-16	Ariel School UFO incident	•AFAF, Zimbabwe; Ruwa	Over sixty students reported seeing a silver craft land in a field near the school. They described occupants dressed in all black that exited the silver object.[156]
1996-01-20	Varginha UFO incident	•SASA, Brazil; Varginha, Minas Gerais	In 1996, various individuals reported possibly unrelated incidents with what they described as UFOs, creatures, and the Brazilian military.[157] The events are the inspiration for saucer-shaped Varginha water tower, the Nave Espacial de Varginha; the 1998 Brazilian video game Incidente em Varginha; and 1996, a film by director Rodrigo Brandão.[158][159]
1997-3-13	Phoenix Lights	•NANA, United States; Phoenix, Arizona	Many residents photographed lights in a "V" pattern moving through Arizona.[160]

21st century

Date	Name	Location	Description
2000-10-5	Bonsall UFO sighting	•EUEU, United Kingdom; Bonsall, Derbyshire	Resident, Sharon Rowlands, filmed a luminous object in the night sky starting around 9:15 pm and continuing for several minutes. Various other residents reported strange lights including a man who described a "pink glow, vertically shaped like a shoe box".[161][162][163]
2004 c. 2004	Tinley Park Lights	•NANA, United States; Illinois	On Halloween night (2004), residents were outside trick-or-treating on the streets of Tinley Park and other Chicago suburbs, when thousands of people watched, photographed, and filmed a formation of red lights above them.[164][165][166]
2004-3-5	2004 Mexican UFO incident	•NANA, Mexico; Campeche	Mexican Air Force pilots filmed (initially unidentified) lights in the sky using infrared cameras while searching for drug-smuggling planes. Multiple subsequent investigations identified these as massive burn-off flares from a cluster of off-shore oil platforms in the Bay of Campeche.[167][168][169]
2004-11-14	USS Nimitz UFO incident	•NANA, United States; Off the coast of San Diego, California	Several pilots from VFA-41 squadron flying Super Hornets from the USS Nimitz, were directed by the USS Princeton to intercept one of several unidentified flying objects detected by radar. The pilots reported a visual encounter and recorded an infrared video. The Navy has verified that the video was taken by Navy personnel and has stated that it has not yet identified the nature of the sightings which they classify as unexplained aerial phenomena.[170][171][172]
2006-5-4	Roskovec UFO Landing	•EUEU, Albania; Roskovec	Eyewitnesses and village residents reported a UFO sighting on May 4 around 7:00 pm. An unidentified object landed, leaving three double-banded black circles in the asphalt which Alim Çepele photographed. Witnesses described a sudden darkness, mist, bent tree branches, and a cold wind. A 10-year-old boy saw a disc-shaped object with a gray color and a thin blue line on the ground for a few seconds. The incident left the boy in shock for about three months. Other residents claimed to have seen the marks on the asphalt and observed that rose petals were burned when placed on the landing site.[173][174]
2006-11-7	2006 O'Hare International Airport UFO sighting	•NANA, United States; Chicago, Illinois	United Airlines employees and pilots reported sightings of a saucer-shaped, unlit craft hovering over a Chicago O'Hare Airport terminal, before appearing to leave with a rapid vertical rise.[175]
2007-4-23	2007 Alderney UFO sighting	•EUEU, Bailiwick of Guernsey; Alderney	On separate flights, two airline pilots and multiple passengers reported a "sunlight-coloured" object off the coast of Alderney. One of the pilots, Ray Bowyer, filed a report with Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority upon landing.[176][177][178]
2007-11-28 to 2011-12-13	Dudley Dorito	•EUEU, United Kingdom; West Midlands conurbation	The "Dudley Dorito" refers to a series of black triangle sightings reported in the West Midlands conurbation.[179][180]
2008-6-20	Wales UFO sightings	•EUEU, United Kingdom; Various cities, Wales	Over the Bristol Channel, a South Wales Police helicopter took evasive actions to avoid what the crew described as a saucer-shaped UFO.[181][182][183][184]
2009-1-5	Morristown UFO hoax	•NANA, United States; Morristown, New Jersey	In the evening, citizens in Morristown and other town in Morris County, New Jersey saw five red lights in the sky. After three months, two men from the Morristown area announced that they had organized a UFO hoax, meant as a "social experiment".[185]
2010-1-25	Harbour Mille incident	•NANA, Canada; Harbour Mille, Newfoundland and Labrador	At least three UFOs that looked like missiles but emitted no noise were spotted over Harbour Mille.[186]
2014-6-2 to 2015-3-10	USS Theodore Roosevelt UFO incidents	•NANA, United States; East Coast of the United States	Navy pilots from the Theodore Roosevelt began to notice unexplained objects on their radar after an equipment upgrade. Some pilots were unable to see the objects. Others captured video footage, later released to the public. The pilots reported these incidents to the then-obscure Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program resulting in new guidelines regarding unexplained aerial phenomena sightings.[187]
2023-1-28 to 2023-2-13	List of high-altitude object events in 2023	•ICIC, United States, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Venezuela	Multiple airborne objects, sometimes reported as UFOs, were observed and shot down by military aircraft. Many of the objects were identified as meteorology or espionage balloons.[188][189][190]

By location

The lists below contain UFO reports mentioned above, along with less notable UFO reports from the specific areas.

See also

Claimed sightings

General	List of reported UFO sightings Sightings in outer space
Pre-20th century	Ezekiel's Wheel (circa 622–570 B.C.) Air ship of Clonmacnoise (740s) 1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg 1566 celestial phenomenon over Basel 1665 celestial phenomenon over Stralsund José Bonilla observation (1883) Airship wave (1896-7) Aurora (1897)
20th century	Los Angeles (1942) Ängelholm UFO memorial (1946) Kenneth Arnold (1947) 1947 craze Flight 105 (1947) Roswell (1947) Rhodes (1947) Mantell (1948) Chiles-Whitted (1948) Gorman Dogfight (1948) Mariana (1950) McMinnville photographs (1950) Sperry (1950) Lubbock Lights (1951) Nash-Fortenberry (1952) Washington, D.C. (1952) Flatwoods monster (1952) Kelly–Hopkinsville (1955) Lakenheath-Bentwaters (1956) Antônio Villas Boas (1957) Levelland (1957) Barney and Betty Hill abduction (1961) Lonnie Zamora incident (1964) Solway Firth Spaceman (1964) Exeter (1965) Kecksburg (1965) Westall (1966) Falcon Lake (1967) Shag Harbour (1967) Jimmy Carter (1969) Finnish Air Force (1969) Pascagoula Abduction (1973) John Lennon UFO incident (1974) Travis Walton incident (1975) Tehran (1976) Petrozavodsk phenomenon (1977) Operação Prato (1977) Zanfretta incident (1978) Valentich disappearance (1978) Kaikoura Lights (1978) Robert Taylor incident (1979) Val Johnson incident (1979) Manises (1979) Cash–Landrum incident (1980) Rendlesham Forest (1980) Trans-en-Provence (1981) Japan Air Lines (1986) Ilkley Moor (1987) Voronezh incident (1989) Belgian UFO wave (1990) Ariel School (1994) Varginha (1996) Phoenix Lights (1997)
21st century	USS Nimitz UFO incident (2004) Campeche, Mexico (2004) O'Hare Airport (2006) Alderney (2007) Norway (2009) USS Theodore Roosevelt UFO incidents (2014) Jetpack man (2020–21) High-altitude object events (2023) David Grusch claims (2023)
Confirmed hoaxes	Maury Island hoax (1947) Twin Falls, Idaho hoax (1947) Aztec, New Mexico hoax (1949) Southern England (1967) Majestic 12 (1985) Gulf Breeze (1987–88) Alien Autopsy (1995 film) Morristown (2009)

Sightings by countryTypes of UFOsTypes of alleged
extraterrestrial beingsStudiesHypothesesConspiracy theoriesInvolvement

Abduction claims	History Entities Claimants Narrative Perspectives Insurance
Other	Implants Cattle mutilation Close encounter Contactee Crop circles Government responses GEIPAN Organizations Ufologists

CultureSkepticism