Topic
Civilian, police and airline reports, from single witnesses to mass sightings seen by thousands. 258 events, newest first.
Sightings25 Sep 2002
A bright bolide exploded about 30 km above the Vitim River near Bodaybo, seen by residents and detected by U.S. satellites. Russian Academy of Sciences expeditions found felled trees and tiny spherules but no craters or meteorite fragments.
Photo: Serj Kras, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings14 Jul 2001
Just after midnight, drivers pulled off the New Jersey Turnpike to watch orange and gold lights in a V formation over the Arthur Kill near Carteret. A Carteret police lieutenant counted 16 lights. Newark Airport and the Weather Service had nothing to explain them; no official cause was found.
Photo: Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings5 Apr 2001
Richard Haines and Dominique Weinstein of the civilian group NARCAP reviewed about 1,300 pilot reports and found 57 alleging electromagnetic effects, mostly radio and compass trouble, when UAP were nearby. They framed the reports as a possible flight-safety issue deserving study.
Sightings23 Mar 2001
Russia deliberately deorbited the Mir space station into the South Pacific. Witnesses in Fiji described white fireballs streaking across the sky and sonic booms, a planned reentry that produced a vivid light show rather than an unexplained event.
Photo: GW (Wikimedia Commons user), Public domain
Sightings2001
NARCAP issued French researcher Dominique Weinstein's catalog of UAP sightings by military, airline and private pilots from 1916 to 2000 as its Technical Report 4. It compiles pilot reports from many countries into a single reference list.
SightingsAug 2000
Scientists from Italy's CNR radio astronomy institute at Medicina and Ostfold College ran radio receivers in Hessdalen for 25 days to study its recurring lights. Their preliminary report described anomalous VLF signals and sightings, with any physical models offered as speculative.
Photo: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings6 May 2000
A daytime fireball over the Czech Republic was recorded by videographers, seismographs, an infrasound station and satellites, and meteorites were recovered. Scientists called it one of the best documented falls ever, a benchmark for analyzing bright sky events.
Photo: Czech Wikipedia user Packa, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings18 Jan 2000
A morning fireball brighter than daylight was seen across the Yukon and northern British Columbia. U.S. defense satellites recorded a 2-3 kiloton explosion, and a local guide found carbonaceous meteorites on the ice of Tagish Lake a week later.
Photo: Mike Zolensky, NASA JSC, Public domain
Sightings5 Jan 2000
Before dawn, a Highland business owner and police officers in Lebanon, Shiloh, Millstadt and Dupo, Illinois, reported a large, low, slow object with bright lights, which some described as triangular. The FAA suggested an advertising blimp; witnesses and some researchers dispute that.
Photo: Xing979 at English Wikipedia, Public domain
Sightings2000
Former NASA research scientist Richard Haines wrote NARCAP's first technical report, 'Aviation Safety in America: A Previously Neglected Factor', arguing that pilot encounters with unidentified aerial phenomena are under-reported and can affect flight safety.
Sightings1999
The National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena began collecting pilot and aircrew UAP reports as an aviation-safety matter. Its first technical report, by former NASA Ames scientist Richard Haines in 2000, argued pilots under-report sightings for fear of ridicule.
Sightings1998
Project Hessdalen set up an automated station, a container with cameras and sensors known as the Blue Box, to record the unexplained lights reported in the Hessdalen valley since the early 1980s. The project says the station has recorded since 1998 and streams camera footage around the clock.
Photo: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings13 Mar 1997
Many people across Arizona reported and videotaped bright lights in the night sky. In July 1997 the Maryland Air National Guard said its A-10 jets had dropped flares over a range southwest of Phoenix, though that does not account for every report. Former Gov. Fife Symington said in 2007 he saw it.
Sightings22 Jan 1997
A spent Delta II second stage reentered over Texas and Oklahoma before dawn on January 22, 1997, and parts survived to the ground in Texas. In Tulsa, Lottie Williams saw a bright streak and was then lightly hit by a small fragment that NASA linked to the rocket.
Photo: NASA/Regina Mitchell-Ryall & Jerry Cannon, Public domain
Sightings17 Nov 1996
Russia's Mars 96 probe, stranded in Earth orbit after a launch failure, reentered over the Pacific and northern Chile. Witnesses in the Atacama reported a fireball breaking up, and its roughly 200 g of plutonium in power units was thought to have reached the ground.
Photo: NASA, Public domain
Sightings20 Jan 1996
Three young women in Varginha, Minas Gerais, said they saw a strange crouching creature, and rumors of an army capture followed. A 1997 Brazilian Army military police inquiry found no military operation and concluded they had likely seen a local man; the files were made public in 2026.
Photo: Felipe Trombini, CC BY 3.0
Sightings31 Jul 1995
Capt. Jorge Polanco of Aerolineas Argentinas flight 674 reported a bright light pacing his Boeing 727 on approach to Bariloche during a power cut; Gendarmeria pilots also reported it. A 2018 Argentine Air Force report attributed it to a searchlight aimed at the clouds; files were released in 2020.
Photo: Nocturnogatuno, CC BY 3.0
Sightings25 May 1995
The crew of America West 564, flying from Tampa to Las Vegas, reported a row of strobe-like lights and a long dark object near Bovina, Texas. Controllers checked with NORAD; accounts of what radar showed conflict, and circulating ATC audio has not been officially authenticated.
Photo: Aero Icarus from Zurich, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0
SightingsJan 1995
The crew of British Airways flight 5061 from Milan reported a lit, wedge-shaped object passing very close at high speed as they descended over the Pennines toward Manchester. A Civil Aviation Authority airmiss review later could not establish what the object was.
Photo: G B_NZ, CC BY-SA 2.0
Sightings1 Dec 1994
Night-shift workers at a forest farm near Guiyang reported a roar, bright light and violent wind, and trees across a wide strip were snapped. A local UFO group proposed a hovering craft; academician Ouyang Ziyuan attributed the damage to a thunderstorm downburst.
Photo: Akira CA, CC BY-SA 3.0
