Government and military
Air Force investigations, bases and aircrew reports, from Project Sign to today. 216 events, newest first.
Military11 Nov 1979
A TAE Super Caravelle bound for the Canary Islands diverted to Valencia-Manises after its crew reported red lights closing on the aircraft. A Spanish Air Force Mirage F1 later chased lights without success; the declassified file records no radar contact. A deputy raised it in parliament.
Photo: Rob Hodgkins, CC BY-SA 2.0
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.
Military1979
Uruguay created CRIDOVNI, a commission within its Air Force to receive and investigate UFO reports. It was still active decades later, publicly explaining or rejecting viral sighting claims.
Photo: vectored by FOX 52, CC BY-SA 4.0
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
Media19 Feb 1978
NBC premiered Project U.F.O., a Jack Webb series in which Air Force investigators looked into sightings. Webb drew episode ideas from Project Blue Book files; the show ran until July 1979.
Photo: Photographer not credited, Public domain
MilitaryOct 1977
After residents of Colares and nearby Para coastal towns reported lights in the sky, a Brazilian Air Force team from Belem logged sightings and took photographs into 1978. The Air Force says the files went to the National Archives; no explanation covers every report.
Sightings4 Feb 1977
About 15 Broad Haven Primary pupils said they saw a silver cigar-shaped craft in a field behind the school; some described a figure in a silver suit. The MoD got their drawings but offered no explanation. An RAF officer suspected a prankster; a local man admitted a silver-suit prank in 1996.
Photo: Bob Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0
SightingsFeb 1977
Rancher Angel Maria Tonna said a very bright object descended over a corral at Estancia La Aurora in northern Uruguay, damaging fences and cutting power. The Air Force UFO commission CRIDOVNI, formed in 1979, says no element of such cases points to an extraordinary origin.
Photo: Despuesdelauna, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media1977
J. Allen Hynek, the Air Force's longtime scientific consultant on Project Blue Book, published The Hynek UFO Report, drawing on Blue Book material to criticize how the Air Force handled UFO reports. MUFON reissued it in 2020.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Sightings1977
Through 1977, residents around Broad Haven and Little Haven in Pembrokeshire reported lights, craft and silver-suited figures, a flap the press called the Dyfed or Broad Haven Triangle. MoD files show an RAF Brawdy officer checked a hotelier's report; a local man later admitted a silver-suit prank.
Photo: Celuici, CC0
Military19 Sep 1976
Iranian Air Force F-4 jets were sent after a bright light over Tehran overnight, and crews reported losing instruments and communications as they closed in. A U.S. Defense Attache report on the incident, circulated by the DIA, was later released under FOIA.
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
Government1976
The Air Force placed its Project Blue Book UFO files in National Archives custody in 1975. After witness names were redacted, the records opened to public research in spring 1976 and are read today on 94 rolls of microfilm (T-1206).
Photo: Steve Jurvetson, CC BY 2.0
Military7 Nov 1975
NORAD logs record Malmstrom AFB missile crews reporting a bright orange object over their sites until sunrise. A Pentagon memo describes height-finder radar returns and two F-106 interceptors scrambled that could not find the object. The objects were never identified.
Photo: U.S. Air Force photo, Public domain
Military30 Oct 1975
Security police at Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan, reported an unlit helicopter-like craft over the nuclear weapons storage area. A returning KC-135 tanker was sent to identify radar targets; a NORAD log says the crew saw and painted one before losing it over Lake Huron. It was never identified.
Photo: United States Geological Survey (USGS), Public domain
Military27 Oct 1975
On the evening of Oct. 27, 1975, a security airman at Loring AFB, Maine, reported a low aircraft with lights circling near the nuclear weapons storage area; tower radar showed an unknown target and the base went on alert. Thought from its flight to be a helicopter, it was never identified.
Photo: Air Force Base Conversion Agency, Public domain
MilitaryOct 1975
Air Force and NORAD records released under FOIA describe unidentified, low-flying objects, often likened to helicopters, over Loring, Wurtsmith and Malmstrom bases in late October and November 1975. Pursuit efforts failed; the Washington Post reported the files in 1979.
Photo: Unknown author (Library of Congress, HABS/HAER), Public domain
MediaOct 1974
NBC aired the TV movie The Disappearance of Flight 412, starring Glenn Ford. Two Air Force fighters vanish while intercepting radar UFOs, and the surviving crew is held at a remote base and pressed to deny what they saw. It dramatized the idea of an official UFO cover-up.
Photo: Alan Light, CC BY 2.0
Government1974
Lt. Col. Hector Quintanilla Jr., a former chief of Project Blue Book, wrote a book proposal titled 'UFOs: An Air Force Dilemma', dated 1974. A scan of the typescript, described as his proposal for a book, is publicly available online.
Photo: U.S. Air Force, Public domain
Media1974
Robert Emenegger's documentary, hosted by Rod Serling, presented a possible 1964 alien landing at Holloman AFB. Emenegger later said officials had promised him real footage that never arrived, so the film used illustrations; only his account supports the promise.
Photo: CBS Television, Public domain
Media1973
Donald Keyhoe, a longtime critic of Air Force UFO secrecy, published 'Aliens from Space: The Real Story of Unidentified Flying Objects', restating his long-held case that the Air Force withheld UFO evidence, after Project Blue Book had closed.
Photo: CBS, "The Mike Wallace Interview" 1958 March 8, Public domain
Close encounters1972
Northwestern astronomer J. Allen Hynek, long a scientific consultant to the Air Force's UFO projects, published The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry. It sorted reports into close encounters of the first, second and third kind, a scheme later echoed in Spielberg's 1977 film.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Military8 Sep 1970
USAF exchange pilot Capt. William Schaffner was lost when his RAF Lightning from Binbrook hit the sea at night during an exercise shadowing a slow RAF target aircraft; his body was never found. Claims from 1992 on that he chased a UFO conflict with the inquiry's accident findings.
Photo: Adrian S Pye, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government17 Dec 1969
Air Force Secretary Robert Seamans Jr. announced the end of Project Blue Book, citing the Condon study and its review by the National Academy of Sciences. The Air Force said no case it had studied showed a threat to national security or evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles.
Photo: United States Air Force Archive, CC BY-SA 4.0
Government20 Oct 1969
Brig. Gen. C. H. Bolender, Air Force deputy director of development, recommended ending Project Blue Book. It noted that UFO reports that could affect national security went through standard military channels and were not part of the Blue Book system. Researchers disagree on what that implies.
GovernmentJul 1969
Lynn E. Catoe of the Library of Congress compiled 'UFOs and Related Subjects: An Annotated Bibliography', listing more than 1,600 items, at the request of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to support the University of Colorado UFO study.
Photo: Carol M. Highsmith, Public domain
