Topic
Civilian, police and airline reports, from single witnesses to mass sightings seen by thousands. 305 events, newest first.
Sightings1988
The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, a civilian UFO group founded in 1952 by Jim and Coral Lorenzen, wound down after Jim died in 1986 and Coral two years later; its board voted to disband shortly afterward.
Sightings25 Aug 1984
An August 1984 New York Times report said police had traced many Hudson Valley 'boomerang' sightings to light planes from Stormville Airport flying in tight night formation. Officials said no rule was broken; some witnesses rejected the explanation.
Photo: Indefatigable2, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings16 Jan 1984
Kenneth Arnold, the Idaho businessman and pilot whose June 1947 report of fast objects near Mount Rainier is generally considered the first widely reported modern UFO sighting in the U.S., died in January 1984.
Photo: Associated Press, Public domain
SightingsMar 1983
Starting in the early 1980s, many people in New York's Hudson Valley and nearby Connecticut reported a large V of lights moving slowly at night. Local reports traced some sightings to light-aircraft pilots flying in formation; some witnesses rejected that explanation.
Sightings21 Oct 1982
A man told the gendarmerie that a luminous object had hovered over his garden, and that amaranth plants nearby were found dried out. Gendarmes and GEPAN took plant samples; GEPAN Technical Note 17 (1983) analyzed them and discussed a possible strong electric field.
Sightings8 Feb 1982
The captain of a VASP Boeing 727 flying from Fortaleza to Rio de Janeiro reported a bright, color-changing light that seemed to follow the plane, and some passengers also saw it. Ground radar showed nothing; a 2014 journal analysis argued the light was Venus, possibly distorted by a mirage.
Photo: HELIO BASTOS SALMON, CC BY-SA 4.0
SightingsDec 1981
Residents of Norway's Hessdalen valley began reporting strange lights in December 1981, up to about 20 a week into 1984. Project Hessdalen ran an instrumented field study in 1984, and Ostfold University College set up an automatic measuring station in 1998. Their cause is still debated.
Photo: National Archives of Norway (Riksarkivet), CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings8 Jan 1981
A man near Trans-en-Provence in southern France told gendarmes a craft had landed briefly on his property and left marks on the ground. Gendarmes took samples, and GEPAN analyzed the soil and plants in a 1983 technical note. It remains one of France's most discussed cases.
Photo: Tredok, CC BY-SA 2.0
Sightings29 Dec 1980
Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum and Landrum's grandson said a fiery object hovered over their road near Houston and was then escorted by more than 20 helicopters, and later blamed illnesses on it. Their lawsuit against the U.S. was dismissed in 1986 after agencies said they had no such aircraft.
Sightings11 Jun 1980
Polish-born miner Zigmund Adamski, missing from his home near Wakefield since June 6, was found dead on a coal heap in Todmorden's railway goods yard. The coroner found he died of a heart attack but recorded an open verdict; the case was later woven into local UFO lore.
Photo: Richard Vince, CC BY-SA 2.0
SightingsMay 1980
A UFO enthusiasts' liaison office set up at Wuhan University in 1979 grew by May 1980 into the China UFO Research Association, which later claimed dozens of branches and thousands of members. It gained legal standing under a state-linked umbrella body in 1988 and lost it in 1997.
Photo: Howchou, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings1980
The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, the largest civilian UFO group of the 1950s and 1960s, stopped collecting reports in 1980. Its case files survive as one of the major collections now held by the National UFO Historical Records Center.
Sightings26 Aug 1979
Marshall County deputy Val Johnson said a brilliant light approached his patrol car on a rural highway before dawn and he woke in a ditch with eye burns. The windshield and a headlight were broken and antennas bent. Investigators reached no conclusion; the car is kept at the county museum.
Photo: Myotus, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings11 Jul 1979
NASA's Skylab space station broke up on reentry and scattered debris across southern Western Australia. Esperance residents reported sonic booms and several bright orange lights crossing the sky, and recovered fragments are held at the Esperance Museum.
Photo: Rycho626 at English Wikipedia, Public domain
Sightings5 Mar 1979
The Spanish Air Force's air operations command compiled a 234-page intelligence file on strange phenomena reported over the Canary Islands on 5 March 1979. The file was declassified in 1995 and is published by the Defence Ministry.
Sightings31 Dec 1978
A TV crew aboard a Safe Air Argosy cargo flight filmed lights off the Kaikoura coast, with returns reported on Wellington radar and the plane's own radar. An Air Force inquiry concluded natural but unusual phenomena; UN-post files released in 2021 show DSIR scientists left them unidentified.
Photo: Richard Goring, CC BY-SA 2.0
Sightings26 Oct 1978
RCMP Constable James Blackwood and about a dozen residents reported a lit object hovering over the water between Clarenville and Random Island for about two hours before it rose and vanished. Blackwood said it mirrored his cruiser's lights. The Royal Canadian Mint marked the case on a 2020 coin.
Photo: Rioux Photography Edmonton, AB, Public domain
Sightings21 Oct 1978
Pilot Frederick Valentich, 20, radioed Melbourne Flight Service that a large unidentified object was hovering over his Cessna 182 above Bass Strait, then the transmission ended. Neither he nor the plane was found; the Department of Transport report said the cause was not determined.
Photo: Australian Department of Transportation, Public domain
SightingsMay 1978
In May 1978 Bolivian and Argentine media reported that an unidentified object had fallen on a hill in southern Bolivia near the Argentine border, that the area was cordoned off and that Bolivia sought U.S. help to identify it. A U.S. press-monitoring compilation recorded the conflicting reports.
Photo: Ruditaly, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings24 Jan 1978
The Soviet reactor-powered satellite Cosmos 954 reentered over western Canada and scattered radioactive debris across the Northwest Territories. Residents of Yellowknife and Hay River described a burning object trailing pieces; a joint U.S.-Canadian search followed. An identified sky event.
Photo: Federal Government of the United States, Public domain
