Around the world
Cases and official studies across Europe, from Belgium to Scandinavia. 61 events, newest first.
Sightings19 Oct 2022
Bergen Airport, near Norway's main naval base, shut for about two and a half hours after drone sightings first reported around 4:15 a.m.; Forde airport also briefly closed. Police said they were sure of at least one drone, and Norway's security service took over the probe.
Photo: Varde / Avinor, CC BY 3.0
Sightings24 May 2019
A day after SpaceX launched its first 60 Starlink satellites, a Dutch satellite tracker filmed them crossing the sky as a line of lights. The Dutch reporting site UFOmeldpunt got more than 150 reports, an early case of satellite trains being mistaken for UFOs.
Sightings9 Nov 2018
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic crews told Shannon air traffic control they saw very bright, fast-moving lights off Ireland's southwest coast. Controllers saw nothing on radar. The Irish Aviation Authority opened a confidential occurrence review; one pilot suggested a meteor.
Photo: Rex and Fido, CC BY-SA 4.0
GovernmentOct 2016
Spain's Ministry of Defence published 80 Air Force UFO case files, about 1,900 pages covering 1962 to 1995, in its online Biblioteca Virtual de Defensa. The files had been declassified from 1991 and earlier could only be read in person at the Air Force library in Madrid.
Photo: Bartomeu Caldentey Vives, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings20 Jul 2015
The crew of a Lufthansa Embraer 195 from Munich reported a black object, possibly a drone, passing within about 100 meters of the jet at 760 meters on approach to Warsaw. The plane landed safely; police questioned a local drone owner but brought no charges.
Photo: PerpetualTraveler, CC BY-SA 4.0
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
Government25 Nov 2009
At a member's request, the Bundestag's research service wrote a paper on the search for extraterrestrial life and the UN decision on UFO observation. The Bundestag refused a 2010 freedom-of-information request for it; Germany's top administrative court ordered access in June 2015.
Photo: Jorg Braukmann, CC BY-SA 4.0
GovernmentJan 2009
Denmark's air force published 329 pages of previously classified UFO report files covering 1978 to 2002, after which a civilian group handled sightings. A spokesman said they were released because journalists kept asking; UPI reported the files include more than 200 unsolved cases.
Sightings2007
Ostfold University College and Italy's Institute of Radio Astronomy reported optical spectra of a Hessdalen light showing silicon, iron, scandium and titanium lines, suggesting ionized gas rather than a solid object. The researchers called the result preliminary.
Photo: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings2004
Italian astrophysicist Massimo Teodorani published 'A Long-Term Scientific Survey of the Hessdalen Phenomenon' in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, reviewing instrumented observations of the Norwegian valley lights. Later papers cite it as an early proposal of a geological origin.
Photo: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0
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
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
Sightings24 Mar 1994
Scientists met in Hessdalen, Norway, in March 1994 for the first international workshop on the valley's recurring unexplained lights. Organized from Ostfold University College, it launched the second phase of Project Hessdalen and plans for instrumented study.
Photo: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0
Government1992
Spain's Defence Ministry says a review of the Air Force's confidential UFO files began in 1991 and a physical copy of the released files was placed in the Air Force central library in Madrid in 1992. Releases continued through the decade and eventually covered 80 case files.
Photo: Zarateman, CC BY-SA 4.0
Military30 Mar 1990
On March 30-31, 1990, two Belgian F-16s were scrambled after ground radar contacts that matched visual reports; pilots saw nothing but recorded brief radar locks. The Air Force said it could not identify the phenomena; skeptics trace the locks to the other F-16 and false echoes.
Photo: Pedro Aragao, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings1990
A photo said to show a lighted triangle over Petit-Rechain became the best-known image of the Belgian wave and was analyzed by the Royal Military Academy and others. Its author later admitted it was a hoax.
Photo: J.S. Henrardi, Public domain
Sightings29 Nov 1989
Gendarme patrols near Eupen reported large, silent triangular objects with bright lights, starting months of similar reports across Belgium. On the night of 30-31 March 1990 the Belgian Air Force scrambled two F-16s after a radar contact; the pilots saw nothing and the object was never identified.
Photo: Ronnie Macdonald from Chelmsford, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0
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
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.
Close encounters6 Dec 1978
Security guard Pier Fortunato Zanfretta radioed in shortly after midnight near Marzano di Torriglia, above Genoa, saying he had met tall beings. Carabinieri logged ground marks and local glare reports; he later described more encounters under hypnosis. A magistrate closed the file as no crime.
Photo: Davide Papalini, CC BY-SA 3.0
Military12 Nov 1976
Three soldiers on guard at the Talavera la Real air base said they heard noises, then saw a glowing figure about three meters tall and fired at it; a search the next day found no casings or bullet marks. A Spanish analyst later blamed hallucination, fear and shared hysteria.
Photo: Franky sp, CC BY-SA 3.0
Military22 Jun 1976
Crew of the Spanish Navy corvette Atrevida off Fuerteventura, then a doctor, a taxi driver and residents of Gran Canaria, reported a luminous object. A Spanish military file found no explanation; it was later attributed to a U.S. submarine-launched Poseidon missile test.
Photo: Jose Juan Medina Cobacho, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings30 Nov 1973
Press reports said Turin-Caselle airport radar tracked an unidentified target while a private pilot and an Alitalia crew saw a bright, color-changing sphere. The airport's military commander was quoted confirming the sighting; no official explanation is on record in the loaded sources.
Photo: Paolo Cerutti, Public domain
