Topic
Civilian, police and airline reports, from single witnesses to mass sightings seen by thousands. 258 events, newest first.
Sightings4 Mar 2013
An Alitalia pilot approaching JFK radioed that he had seen a drone about 1,500 feet up, a few miles from the airport. The FBI described a small black four-rotor craft and asked the public for tips; the FBI and FAA investigated, and no operator was publicly identified.
Photo: formulanone, CC BY-SA 2.0
Sightings2 Dec 2012
An Airbus A320 crew on final approach to Glasgow reported an object passing about 300 feet below them and rated the collision risk high. The UK Airprox Board could not identify it, judging aircraft or a balloon unlikely.
Sightings25 Oct 2012
A Televisa camera clip showing a long luminous object dropping toward the Popocatepetl crater went viral as a UFO. Mexico's disaster agency CENAPRED said it was most likely a bolide from the Taurid meteor shower, noting no impact or tremor was recorded at the volcano.
Photo: Luisalvaz, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings22 Apr 2012
A loud morning fireball over the Sierra Nevada was tracked by Doppler weather radar to rare carbonaceous meteorites near Coloma, site of the 1848 gold discovery. A 2012 Science paper reported a record entry speed of about 28.6 km/s.
Photo: Peter Jenniskens (SETI Institute) and Eric James (NASA Ames), Public domain
Sightings2012
Winnipeg-based Ufology Research's annual Canadian UFO Survey counted 1,981 UFO reports in Canada for 2012, about double 2011 and above the prior 2008 record. It judged about 7.5 percent of the 2012 reports unexplained, down from 11 percent the year before.
SightingsNov 2011
After residents near Onamatunga reported loud bangs, police recovered a hollow 6 kg metal ball near a small crater. Namibia's forensic institute said it was a known alloy used in spacecraft and ruled out anything extraterrestrial; no space agency claimed it.
Photo: Oshilumbu5, Public domain
Sightings18 Jul 2011
Several people near Tata in southern Morocco reported a bright fireball that turned from yellow to green around 2 a.m. Stones recovered afterward were verified by meteorite scientists as coming from Mars, the first witnessed Martian meteorite fall since 1962.
Photo: the paleobear from Lontananza, Loreto, Peru, CC BY 2.0
Sightings14 Jan 2011
Over the mid-Atlantic, the first officer on an Air Canada Boeing 767 first took Venus for an aircraft, then misjudged real oncoming traffic and pushed the nose down. Canada's Transportation Safety Board found 14 passengers and 2 flight attendants were injured.
Photo: Jean-Philippe Boulet, CC BY 3.0
Sightings8 Nov 2010
A KCBS news helicopter filmed a billowing trail rising over the Pacific northwest of Catalina Island that many viewers took for a missile launch. The Pentagon first called it unexplained, then said it was most likely an airplane contrail distorted by camera angle and the setting sun.
Sightings28 Oct 2010
Michigan Tech students in the university's SPIE chapter reported that the Paulding Light, a long-reported mystery light in the Upper Peninsula, is vehicle headlights on US-45. A telescope showed cars, and logged traffic times matched the sightings.
Photo: Flivver 99 at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0
Sightings13 Oct 2010
Crowds and TV cameras watched shiny objects over Chelsea in Manhattan on October 13, 2010, prompting calls to police and the FAA. A Mount Vernon school said they were balloons that blew away from a teacher's engagement party about an hour before.
Sightings11 Sep 2010
Chinese media reported that airline flights bound for Baotou in Inner Mongolia were diverted on September 11, 2010, after an unidentified object was reported over the airport. No official cause was given, and the story drew wider notice abroad weeks later.
Sightings7 Jul 2010
Flights at Hangzhou's Xiaoshan airport were halted on the night of July 7, 2010, after an unidentified glowing object was reported, affecting about 18 flights. Chinese reports differed on radar detection, and suggested explanations ranged from sunlit aircraft to a military flight.
Photo: jo.sau, CC BY 2.0
Sightings14 Apr 2010
A bright fireball seen across four Midwest states broke up over southwest Wisconsin around 10 p.m. with a prolonged sonic boom. National Weather Service Doppler radar captured its smoke trail, which helped hunters recover meteorites near Mifflin.
Photo: Wikideas1, CC0
Sightings28 Feb 2010
An exceptionally bright fireball crossed eastern Slovakia at night with loud explosive sounds. Clouds blocked the science camera networks, but three security cameras in Hungary filmed it, letting researchers compute its path and orbit and recover meteorites west of Kosice.
Photo: Jon Taylor, CC BY-SA 2.0
Sightings2010
Physicists G.S. Paiva and C.A. Taft proposed in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics that the Hessdalen lights are clusters of Coulomb crystals in a plasma made by radon decay ionizing dusty air. It is a theoretical model, not an observation.
Photo: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings9 Dec 2009
A large white spiral with a blue tail was seen and photographed over northern Norway on the morning of Dec. 9, 2009. Russia's Defense Ministry said the next day a Bulava missile test had failed in its third stage; analysts widely tied the spiral to it, though Russia did not confirm the link.
Photo: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, CC BY 4.0
Sightings8 Oct 2009
Residents near Bone in South Sulawesi reported a loud blast and fireball. NASA's NEO office said an undetected asteroid of about 5-10 m exploded in the atmosphere with roughly 50 kilotons of energy, recorded by 11 international infrasound stations.
Photo: Midori, CC BY 3.0
Sightings25 Sep 2009
Seven all-sky cameras of Western University's Southern Ontario Meteor Network recorded a fireball about 100 times brighter than the full Moon at 9:03 pm. Analysis pointed to the Niagara Peninsula, and a 46 g fragment was found on the hood of an SUV with a cracked windshield in Grimsby.
Sightings15 Feb 2009
A daylight fireball with a sonic boom was seen across central Texas days after the Iridium-Cosmos satellite collision. The FAA first suggested space debris, then said it was a natural object, and U.S. Strategic Command said it was unrelated to the collision.
Photo: Jon Taylor, CC BY-SA 2.0
