List of reported UFO sightings

This is a list of UFO sighting including cases of alleged alien sightings and abductions. Some cases are popularly known, and have become folklore. Others are more obscure, and known mainly to ufologists and enthusiasts.

Countries

Below is a list of UFO sightings by country.

• Australia
• Belarus
• Brazil
• Canada
• Canary Islands
• China
• France
• Germany
• Iran
• Iraq
• Italy
• Libya
• Mexico
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Portugal
• Russia
• Scotland
• Spain
• Sweden
• Turkey
• United Kingdom
• United States

Close Encounters of the First Kind

Close Encounters of the First Kind are defined by J. Allen Hynek as any UFO reported to have been within a maximum of 500 feet from the witness.

• 593 BC - Disputed encounter of Ezekiel. Josef Blumrich, former chief of the systems layout branch of NASA, set out to disprove such suggestions, however, from a careful analysis of the data available, he concluded that the vehicle described in the Bible actually was a UFO.
• 329 BC - Central Asia, (Reign of Alexander the Great, 356-323 B.C.) A historian of the reign of Alexander the Great allegedly tells of two strange craft that dived repeatedly at his army, until the war elephants, the men, and all the horses panicked and refused to cross the river where the incident occurred... The historian describes the objects as "great shining silvery shields, spitting fire around the rims... things that came from the skies and returned to the skies." (Frank Edwards: 'Stranger Than Science' (Pan Books, London), p. 198.)
• 1235 - Kyoto, Japan September 24 General Yoritsume and his army watched many unusual lights in the sky for several hours.
• 1271 - Kamakura, Japan September 12 - Buddhist priest Nichiren was to be beheaded, when an object appeared in the sky and the beheading was called off.
• 1492 - October 11, From Christopher Columbus' Journal Logs - 5 hours before the discovery of the New World - While patrolling the deck of the Santa Maria at about 10:00 PM on October 11, 1492, Columbus thought he saw "a light glimmering at a great distance." He hurriedly summoned Pedro Gutierrez, "a gentleman of the king's bedchamber," who also saw the light. After a short time it vanished, only to reappear several times during the night, each time dancing up and down "in sudden and passing gleams, like the flickering wick of a candle" The light, first seen four hours before land was sighted, was never explained."
• 1561 - Nuremberg, Germany April 4 UFO's "swarm" over the city of Nuremberg
• 1566 - Basel, Switzerland August 7 Black globes flooded the sky above the town of Basel. Theories today say it most likely was an atmospheric occurrence but some still doubt.
• 1800 - March 29, Prediger Fritsch saw in Quedlinburg a tiny spot crossing the sun in 6 hours.
• 1802 - February 27, Prediger Fritsch saw in Quedlinburg a tiny spot crossing the sun in northwestern-direction and accelerated thereby.
• 1839 - October 2, Cupper saw transit of unidentified object in front of the sun.
• 1849 - March 12, Sidebotham saw transit of tiny spot on the sun.
• 1859 - March 26, Lescarbault saw transit of unknown body in front of the sun. Liais in Brasilia saw no such thing.
• 1862 - March 20, Lummis, ingenieur of Manchester, saw transit of unknown object in front of the sun.
• 1868 - July, The investigators of this phenomenon define the "first official modern documented sighting" as having happened in Copiapo city, Chile.
• 1913 and later - The Brown Mountain Lights, made famous via a bluegrass song.
• 1919 - June 19, UFO sighting at Docking, Norfolk in England.
• 1926 - Nicholas Roerich, Russian explorer and artist, while travelling with his companions through Central Asia reported in his travel diary that one them spotted a silver metallic disc above the Himalayas. The entire group then watched the disc through binoculars for some time until it disappeared beyond mountain peaks.
• 1942 - Hopeh Incident, a UFO was spotted and photographed over Hopeh, China.
• 1942 - 1945 - UFO's and other unexplained aerial phenomena were sighted during World War II.
• 1942 - February 24 and February 25, the West coast air raid; unidentified aerial objects trigger the military to fire thousands of anti-aircraft rounds into the sky and raised the wartime alert status.
• 1944 - Foo fighters, colorful spheres repeatedly spotted by military air crews around the world.
• 1946 and later - Ghost rockets, objects with characteristics of cruise missiles sighted repeatedly all over Scandinavia—Swedish Defense Staff expressed concern.
• 1948 - So-called green fireballs were reported over several United States military bases; an official investigation followed.
• 1949 - Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh reported a strange sighting.
• 1950 - The Mariana UFO Incident over Great Falls, Montana.
• 1952 - Carson Sink Case over western Nevada, USA.
• 1952 - Washington flap, a series of sightings with radar contacts in Washington, DC, USA. This resulted in the implementation of the Robertson Panel by the CIA.
• 1953 - Ellsworth UFO Case UFO seen as a red glowing light and is witnessed by forty-five people in Bismarck, North Dakota. The sighting takes place over a two night period on August 5 & August 6.
• 1954 - French flap, Hundreds of sightings.
• 1954 - Unknown orbiting satellites reported, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh involved.
• 1965 - Exeter incident, a UFO was seen by a teenager and two police officers in Exeter, New Hampshire.
• 1966 - Portage County UFO Chase several Ohio police officers chased a UFO for 30 minutes.
• 1966 - 1967 - Point Pleasant, West Virginia A wave of sightings occur, believed to be connected to a set of other mysterious events (See: The Mothman Prophecies)
• 1970s - Somerset County Sheriff Barry A. DeLong witnessed a UFO, "They were hovering about 15 feet from my cruiser, late at night. It had fixed lights that were spinning. It was huge, and oval-shaped. I knew it wasn't a jet fighter. It slowly started backing off toward Sugarloaf, and then at a terrific speed."
• 1972 - Salt Lake City, Utah Daytime UFO appears on tourist photograph as he took pictures of the city skyline, when he find a bright round object travels over him in the sky.
• 1976 - 1976 Canary Island UFO Sighting
• 1978 - Valentich Disappearance, an Australian pilot reported a UFO to air traffic control before vanishing without a trace.
• 1978 - Kaikoura Lights, a series of sightings by a Safe Air freight plane flying off the coast of Kaikoura, New Zealand is escorted by strange lights of changing color and size.
• 1979 - Manises UFO Incident, three large UFOs forced a civil flight to made an emergency landing in Manises airport. (Valencia, Spain)
• 1980 - Rendlesham Forest Incident, a sighting in United Kingdom taken at first as a downed aircraft.
• 1981 - 1986 - Hudson Valley UFO Sightings, where it resulted in many thousand reports of similar shaped UFOs. The first sighting was made by a retired policeman in Kent, New York late New Year's Eve 1981. The "Incident at Indian Point", a nuclear power plant, in 1984 was one of the Hudson Valley Sightings.
• 1985 - Tbilisi-sighting, Soviet commercial airliners crew and passengers observed a strange light during a flight from Tbilisi in Georgia to Tallinn in Estonia in January 1985.
• 1986 - November 16, Japan Air Lines Flight 1628, a group of UFOs flew with Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 in northeastern Alaska for 50 minutes. One of the objects was detected by military radar trailing behind the Boeing 747.
• 1987 - January 30, Alaska. U.S. Air Force KC-135 inbound from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, to Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks, reports a UFO incident similar to that reported by Japan Airlines 1628. The UFO was reported to have moved to within 40 feet of the aircraft.
• 1987 - January 31, Alaska. Alaska Airlines Flight 53 reported a bright, disc-like object following the plane. The UFO was reported to have followed the plane, then pulled ahead and disappeared at a high rate of speed.
• 1995 - May 25. America West Flight 564, en route from Tampa, Florida to Las Vegas, Nevada reported a UFO below the plane at 30,000 feet. A short time later, a U.S. Air Force F-117 Nighthawk, asked to investigate by Air Traffic Control, observed the UFO pass in close proximity to its left wing.
• 1997 - A strange set of lights are seen over Nevada and Arizona and possibly New Mexico and has been called the Phoenix Lights.
• 1997 - Mexico City on a hazy day an amateur cameraman with a digital camera captured astounding footage of a UFO passing behind and above several buildings. Air traffic was restricted that day except for two helicopters.
• 1997 - August 9, Boston, Massachusetts. Swiss Air Flight 127, flying at 23,000 feet, reports that a UFO moving at a high rate of speed in the opposite direction, barely misses colliding with the plane by 200 to 300 feet.
• 2000 - In the early morning several people including police officers saw a strange set of lights over Illinois. Many also recall seeing it as a triangle that changed shapes
• 2000 - Residents in North western Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan claimed to have sen strange lights in the sky.The then-ruling Taliban regime suspected that the United States was targeting Al-Quaida training camps or that Pakistan was testing new missiles.This suspicion was discounted after the lights were seen heading back towards the sky.They were seen again within two weeks.Both the US and Pakistan government denied the use of missiles at the reported time.
• 2002 - China, mysterious light-emitting UFO was seen by many Chinese. It flew over Jiangsu, Henan, Xiaxi, and Sichuan. The object, as the Chinese media reported, appear in various shapes, such as like a flaming arrow and a spiral.
• 2005 - April 27, White House evacuated as UFO enters restricted air space, then disappears. It was explained as "probably a cloud or several birds."
• 2005 - Rockaway Beach, Queens A UFO was sighted over the water near what looked like aircraft carriers. It disappeared as quickly as it came.
• 2005 - Woodside, Queens Five Flying Saucers appeared over Woodside, Queens in November 2005. They were seen throughout the whole Queens and Manhattan area. They disappeared one at a time.
• 2005 - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Boy sees oval of bright light flying at very high speed, then disappeared.
• 2006 - Kent, England on May 25, Oval orb observed hovering above a location in Kent at some distance. Then moved off in a westerly direction.
• 2006 - London, England on June 17, at around half 10 at night, 5 red orbs flew at a fast speed across a town near London, England named Baldock, the first one splitting into 3 white lights and vanishing, the second had lights spinning round it and it flew off into a distance. the third was slow and the light went, but you could still see a black figure. the fourth and fifth flew together, and they disappeared at the same time.
• 2006 - June 24, Vatican City, a Polish tourist photographed a UFO hovering near the Vatican Basilic's Cuppola.
• 2006 - August 17, 2006 Nanjing UFO Incident - A UFO was recorded hovering over an apartment building in Nanjing, China.
• 2006 - Chicago O'Hare International Airport UFO Sighting Nov 7th,2006, A group of United Airlines employees, including pilots, profess to seeing a mysterious, saucer-shaped craft, that did not have lights and hovered over a Chicago O'Hare Airport terminal before shooting up through the clouds. The FAA initially denied having received such reports; through the Freedom of Information Act, it was revealed otherwise. (Wikinews)
• 2006 - Fremont, California, United States on December 29th, An orb floats for couple minutes, stationary for 5 minutes; approx. 200 yards above the ground, it abruptly explodes in the air, where many people stood in awe.
• 2007 - Charlotte, North Carolina on January 26, A turquoise colored UFO was reported by locals and an officer. (Wikinews)
• 2007 - Islington (north London), England on February 2, 10-15 UFOs are spotted. (Wikinews)
• 2007 - February 16, Kaliningrad, Russia, A student records a UFO on his video camera.
• 2007 - March 7, New Delhi, India, 2 UFO's were detected very close to the prime minister's residence.
• 2007 - March 26, Gurgaon, India, An orange colored UFO was reported by few locals and a builder. The UFO moved in increasing circular path and vanished abruptly.

Close Encounters of the Second Kind

Close Encounters of the Second Kind are defined by J. Allen Hynek as a UFO that leaves markings on the ground, causes burns or paralysis, frightens animals, or interferes with engines or TV or radio reception.

• mid 1800s-onwards - Jersey Devil, sightings and encounters of a flying horse-like creature.
• 1886 - October 18, the US consul of Venezuela in Maracaibo reports to Scientific American that a bright object, accompanied with a humming noise, appeared over a hut near Maracaibo. The people in the hut showed afterward symptoms of a sickness, which one would today interpret as radiation disease. The trees surrounding the hut withered after nine days.
• 1897 - April 19, Aurora Texas UFO Incident is an alleged UFO crash.
• 1947 - June 23, Maury Island incident, a highly controversial story, where a dog was killed, a boy injured by UFOs, and the witness threatened by Men in Black.
• 1947 - June 24, Kenneth Arnold's sighting, the incident that sparked the name flying saucers.
• 1947 - June 14 or July 4, Roswell UFO incident, US Air Force on July 8 - captured flying saucer.
• 1948 - Petra, Jordan, ground trace, UFO left an obscure impression.
• 1948 - Mantell UFO Incident, US Air Force sent a fighter pilot to check a UFO sighting— the pilot crashed and was killed while chasing the supposed "UFO". Afterwards there were rumors that Mantell's plane had been shot down by a laser-like weapon fired by the UFO.
• 1948 - Kapustin Yar Incident, where supposedly a "cigar" shaped UFO was shot down by a Russian MiG.
• 1953 - U.S Air Force Pilot Felix Moncla disappears while pursuing a UFO.
• 1957 - November 2, Levelland UFO Case, numerous motorists around the town of Levelland, Texas report seeing a strange egg-shaped object which caused their engines to shut off. When the object flew away, their vehicles would restart and work normally.
• 1965 - Northeast Blackout of 1965 UFOs were allegedly sighted and was theorized as the cause of the blackout.
• 1967 - Falcon Lake Incident, according to the story, a UFO's exhausts burnt a man.
• 1971 - Delphos ground trace, UFO left an obscure impression.
• 1976 - September 19, 1976 Tehran UFO Incident, UFO over Tehran, Iran knocked out two F-4 interceptor and ground controller electronics. Well-documented in U.S. DIA report and other documents. Iranian generals involved went on public record that object was extraterrestrial.
• 1977 - Colares flap, a bewildering account of a Brazilian island swamped by harmful UFOs—35 injured, island evacuated.
• 1979 - Val Johnson Incident, a deputy sheriff spotted a strange bright light which seems to have collided with, and damaged, his patrol car. The deputy also suffered temporary eye damage from the "light".
• 1980 - Rendlesham Forest Incident, a sighting in United Kingdom taken at first as a downed aircraft.
• 1980 - December 29, The Cash-Landrum Incident, a huge diamond-shaped UFO irradiates three witnesses near Dayton, Texas. They had to be treated for radiation poisoning and have since sued the US government, as military helicopters were seen with the UFO.
• 1982 - Baikonur Cosmodrome Raid, the launching site was temporarily shut down after having been supposedly raided and sabotaged by UFOs in June.
• 1986 - Brazil, Noite oficial dos OVNIs(UFO's Official Night), more than 20 UFOs are seen and captured in radar in various parts of the country. Colonel Ozires Silva, former Embraer and at the time Petrobras President, flying a Xingu PT-MBZ aircraft near the place, is informed and tries to pursue the UFOs, later declaring “The lights were primary targets in the radar, positive targets, a concrete thing”. Two Northrop F-5 and three Mirage III are ultimately sent to intercept the UFOs. After radar and visual sightings, the objects disappeared. In the aftermath, Brigadier Otávio Júlio Moreira Lima, at the time the Ministry of Aeronautics, public declared]] - "Between 20:00 (19/05) and 01:00 (20/05) at least 21 objects have been detected by Brazilian radars.[...]We can only give technical explanations and we do not have them.[...]It’s fantastic, the radar signals were very clear." (in Portuguese)
• 1987 - November 11, Gulf Breeze UFO incident
• 1993 - Carp, Ontario, Canada An anonymous video of a UFO landing in a wheat field, followed by black and white photographs of an alleged alien from the spacecraft. Had official Canadian investigation, claimed to be a hoax, but many believers not convinced.
• 2001 - Kirkby Liverpool, UK Several crowds of people across the small town of Kirkby spot a luminous yellow ring moving quickly across the daytime sky.
• 2003 - North America Blackout UFOs allegedly sighted before the blackout.
• 2004 - Mexican air patrol sighting, a drug-smuggling air patrol recorded what are claimed by some to be UFOs on infrared camera (footage released by Jaime Maussan), while others have claimed the objects to be oil platform burn-off flares.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Close Encounters of the Third Kind are defined by J. Allen Hynek as including a purported sighting of the occupants of a UFO. The movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind helped popularize this phrase.

• 1915 - August 12 - Mutual vanishing of First-Fourth Norfolk at Gallipoli.
• 1946 - May 18, Ängelholm UFO-landing - Gösta Karlsson claimed observing a UFO landing near Ängelholm in Sweden. On the site, a model of a flying saucer was erected.
• 1952 - July 9, Gleimershausen UFO-landing, Oskar Linde, the former mayor of Gleimarshausen (Germany), saw a disc-shaped object on a forest clearing near Hasselbach, Thuringia with two strange looking men, who worked around it. He took them for Russian military staff. The object, which was seen by several witnesses, left a trace on the ground.
• 1955 - Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter, a group of strange, goblin-like creatures bullied a family, while the family shot at them.
• 1964 - Lonnie Zamora, a police officer in Socorro, New Mexico, US, reports a close encounter.
• 1978 - June 19 - a family driving through Oxfordshire, United Kingdom are intercepted by a UFO and a book follows.
• 1980 - Rendlesham Forest Incident, a sighting in United Kingdom taken at first as a downed aircraft.
• 1981 - January 8, Trans-en-Provence Case, a mutual UFO-landing, which left interesting traces.
• 1985 - Whitley Strieber, Alleged abductee and paranormal writer, Strieber wrote on his experiences in his national best-seller novel Communion. In a 1996 Larry King interview, Strieber denied the event and stated that it never happened. He currently hosts a nighttime radio show Dreamland which is similar to the Coast To Coast AM radio show in its format.

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind are defined as events where a human is abducted by a UFO.

• 1957 - Antonio Villas Boas claimed to have been abducted in Brazil.
• 1961 - Hill Abduction, the first widely publicized alien abduction experience.
• 1967 - Schirmer Abduction, Sergeant Herbert Schirmer claimed that he was abducted.
• 1973 - Pascagoula Abduction, a well-publicized alien abduction experience.
• 1975 - Travis Walton abduction, a man went missing for days—came back with a story of an abduction, wrote a book which was adapted into a film.
• 1979 - Robert Taylor Incident, a man witnessed a UFO landing, was pulled towards the craft, and blacked out for several days. Unexplained physical evidence found on the site.
• 1978 - May 10, Emilcin abduction - a man at Emilcin in Poland is said to be abducted by grays. On the site, where this should have taken place, there is now a memorial.
• 1994 - June, Meng Zhaoguo Incident - Meng claimed to have had sexual intercourse with an alien and to have been later abducted.

Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind

Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind are defined by Steven M. Greer's CSETI organization as encounters that are joint, bilateral contact events produced through the conscious, voluntary and proactive human-initiated or cooperative communication with ETI.

• 1996 - Varginha incident, multiple sightings of strange creatures in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
• 1997 - The Area 51: The Alien Interview of a supposed video of an alien interview.

UFO Sightings

These are UFO sightings that occurred where the witness was more than 500 feet away from the UFO.

• 1957 - 1957 flap, multiple car stallings by large UFOs in Levelland Texas and New Mexico, sightings over New Mexico military areas
• 1965 - December 9, Kecksburg incident, mass sighting of a falling UFO followed by an alleged isolation of the crash site.
• 1965 - Frank Borman's photo, a UFO picture by an astronaut. The UFO followed the Gemini 7 flight.
• 1966 - April 6, A sighting by hundreds of people in the Melbourne suburb of Westall. This incident is also known as "The Clayton Incident" after the adjoining suburb, apparently the incident occurred on th boundary. Witness's gather for infrequent reunions
• 1967 - October 4, Shag Harbor Nova Scotia UFO crash, object seen crashing into Shag Harbor followed by Canadian naval search; officially referred to as a UFO crash.
• 1969 - Jimmy Carter's sighting, a UFO officially reported by a President.
• 1969 - Neil Armstrong's sighting, a UFO reported by an astronaut, he saw two UFOs after the Apollo 11 landed on the moon.
• 1974 - Berwyn Mountain Incident, a sighting in United Kingdom taken at first as a downed aircraft.
• 1980 - Rendlesham Forest Incident, a sighting in United Kingdom taken at first as a downed aircraft.
• 1986 - January 29, Height 611 UFO Incident, a UFO crash claim in Dalnegorsk, USSR, followed by a UFO landing claim in 1989.
• 1990 - Belgian flap, several mass sightings of triangular UFOs—Belgian Air Force intercepted a radar-visual contact and released footage see Black triangles.
• 1990 - Montréal, Québec, Canada UFO - November 7, 1990, More than 40 people, including policemen, observe a UFO for more than 3 hours above a hotel in downtown Montréal
• 1995 - November 18, Long Island, New York. Lufthansa Airlines Flight 405 and British Airways Flight 226 both observe a cylindrically-shaped UFO traveling at a high rate of speed within 3,000 feet of the Lufthansa plane.
• 1996 - February 28. Midwestern United States. Air Shuttle 5959 enroute to Cleveland, and Mesaba 3179 flying from Detroit, Michigan reported a UFO with a bright, pulsating light between cloud layers at 10,000 feet. Incident recorded on Air Traffic Control radio.
• 2006 - August 21, Ajax, Canada, a UFO was photographed 8-10 kilometers west from the Pickering Nuclear Power Plant.
• 2007 - Honolulu, Hawaii, United States on January 29th,a mysterious light appears above Waikiki Beach. (Wikinews)
• 2007 - California on February 6, a massive UFO (multi-colored: red, blue, green) was sighted.
• 2007 - January 20, 17 to 18 UFOs were spotted over Poland.
• 2007 - March 10, UFO seen over a Cleveland peace rally.
• 2007 - April 23, Two airline pilots on separate flights spot UFOs off the coast of Alderney.

References

• Day, Marcus, Aliens: Encounters with the Unexplained CLB. 1998
• Emenegger Robert, UFO's Past, Present & Future, Ballantine Paperbacks, 5th Printing, July, 1978, Pages 52 & 53 (source for the above listed Bismarck, ND UFO sighting).
• Campbell, Steuart, The UFO Mystery Solved, Explicit Books 1994. ISBN 0-9521512-0-0

See also

• Robertson Panel
• Project Blue Book
• Brookings Report

External links

• [1] UFO Video Footage in Costa Rica
• MUFON - UFO sightings plus pictures and videos
• UFO Casebook - UFO sightings plus pictures and videos
• UFO Seek - UFO sightings
• UFO Evidence - UFO photos
• Artilife - UFO photos
• Alien Hub - UFO videos and photos
• UFO Waves by Richard Hall (Includes notable UFO sightings sorted by decade)
• Australian UFO Sightings
• www.coasttocoastam.com
• List of major UFO sightings with geographic coordinates