Explained and disputed
Reports later explained as balloons, rockets, satellites, planets, aircraft or other ordinary causes. 122 events, newest first.
Government3 Feb 2023
China's Foreign Ministry said the object over the U.S. was a civilian airship for mainly meteorological research, blown off course by westerly winds, and expressed regret over its unintended entry. The Pentagon rejected this, saying it was a surveillance balloon.
Photo: Jeanne, Public domain
Military3 Feb 2023
Colombia's Air Force said it detected an object with balloon-like features above 55,000 feet, moving about 25 knots, and tracked it out of the country's airspace, judging it no threat. The Pentagon had reported a Chinese balloon over Latin America; China called it a stray civilian craft.
Photo: Fuerza Aerea Colombiana, CC0
Military1 Feb 2023
A high-altitude balloon seen over Billings halted flights at the city's airport for about two hours. The Pentagon said it was tracking a Chinese surveillance balloon over sensitive sites in Montana, home to Malmstrom AFB's ICBM fields, and chose not to shoot it down over land.
Photo: Department of Defense, Public domain
GovernmentFeb 2023
After an F-22 downed the Chinese balloon off South Carolina, recovered debris went to the FBI laboratory at Quantico, where officials said specialists in 20-plus forensic disciplines focused on its electronics. The White House said the debris included electronics and optics from the payload.
Photo: U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Public domain
Government12 Jan 2023
ODNI's first annual UAP report, written with the new AARO, counted 366 reports beyond the 2021 preliminary assessment, for 510 in total. Initial review characterized 163 as balloon-like, 26 as drone-like and 6 as clutter, leaving 171 uncharacterized.
Photo: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Public domain
Government28 Oct 2022
The New York Times reported, citing unnamed defense officials, that a classified government review attributed many recent UAP incidents to foreign surveillance, some to Chinese drones, and others to airborne clutter such as weather balloons. Officials did not release the underlying analysis.
Sightings30 Jul 2022
The spent core stage of China's Long March 5B fell back uncontrolled on July 30, 2022. NASA's administrator faulted China for not sharing trajectory data. Debris was later found in Malaysia and the Philippines, a case where fiery lights in the sky had a known cause.
Sightings2 Apr 2022
A streak of light crossed several Maharashtra districts on the evening of April 2, 2022, and a hot metal ring about 3 m across and a sphere were found in Sindewahi, Chandrapur. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell linked the streak to the reentry of a Chang Zheng 3B third stage.
Photo: Ganesh Dhamodkar, CC BY-SA 4.0
MediaJan 2022
A cube-like shape seen by China's Yutu 2 rover on the Moon's far side, dubbed a 'mystery hut' by a CNSA-affiliated outreach account in December 2021, turned out to be a rock when the rover drove close in January 2022. The team nicknamed it 'Jade Rabbit'.
Photo: CNSA, CC BY 4.0
Sightings3 Dec 2021
A moving line of lights puzzled residents of Pathankot in Punjab and parts of Jammu and Kashmir. Indian media cited defence sources calling it a satellite and linked it to a batch of SpaceX Starlink satellites launched from Florida the day before.
Photo: Dktue, CC0
Media20 Aug 2021
A Gallup poll taken in July 2021, weeks after the ODNI's preliminary UAP assessment, found 41 percent of U.S. adults thought some UFOs were alien spacecraft, up from 33 percent in 2019. Half said all sightings could be explained by human activity or natural phenomena.
Government25 Jun 2021
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a preliminary assessment of military UAP reports from 2004 to 2021. It explained one case with high confidence, a deflating balloon, and said limited data left the rest unresolved.
Photo: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Public domain
Government25 Jun 2021
Responding to the ODNI preliminary UAP assessment, Senate Intelligence chair Mark Warner called the report rather inconclusive and said the U.S. must understand and mitigate threats to its pilots, whether from adversary technology, drones or balloons.
Photo: Ryan Donnell, Public domain
Media11 Jan 2021
French pay channel Canal+ began airing OVNI(s), a period comedy created by Clemence Dargent and Martin Douaire. Set in the 1970s, it follows a CNES rocket engineer reassigned to run GEPAN, the real French space agency office that studied UFO reports.
Military12 May 2020
The Naval Safety Center released eight aviation hazard reports to The War Zone under FOIA. Seven described 2013-2014 encounters between Super Hornets and unidentified objects in training airspace off Virginia and North Carolina; one 2019 report concerned a balloon.
Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Daniel J. McLain, Public domain
Sightings11 May 2020
The U.S. military reported that China's Long March 5B core stage reentered uncontrolled over the Atlantic. Long metal pieces then reported in the villages of Mahounou and N'guinou, Ivory Coast, were attributed by astronomer Jonathan McDowell and others to the rocket; no injuries were reported.
Photo: China News Service, CC BY 4.0
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.
Sightings1 Feb 2019
Residents of Vinales in western Cuba reported a bright flare and explosions, and small black stones fell around the town without causing damage. State media first denied a plane crash, and Cuba's science ministry confirmed a meteorite fall as its geophysics institute sent a team to collect samples.
Photo: James St. John, CC BY 2.0
Sightings22 Dec 2017
A Falcon 9 carrying 10 Iridium satellites lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base at dusk, leaving a sunlit plume seen across Southern California. Drivers stopped to watch and many people posted UFO fears; the Los Angeles Fire Department said the light came from the rocket launch.
Photo: U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Jim Araos, Public domain
Sightings29 Jun 2017
A NASA sounding rocket launched from Wallops before dawn released blue-green and red vapor tracers to test a new canister system. The glowing clouds were seen from New York to North Carolina, and NASA received nearly 2,000 reports and photos.
Photo: NASA/Terry Zaperach (Wallops Flight Facility), Public domain
Government26 Sep 2016
Objects that fell in Sumenep on Madura island on Sept. 26, 2016 were identified by Indonesia's space agency LAPAN as debris from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. LAPAN handed the pieces over to SpaceX in Bandung on Oct. 7, 2016.
Sightings2016
UK Airprox Board figures show near-miss reports involving drones, balloons, model aircraft and unidentified small objects rose from 40 in 2015 to 94 in 2016, then a record. The board notes pilots often see such objects only fleetingly, so many are logged simply as unknown objects.
Media2015
In 2015 Mexican TV personality Jaime Maussan championed the 'Roswell Slides', photos claimed to show an alien body. The figure was identified as the mummified body of a two-year-old boy, and the slides are now counted among the hoaxes he promoted.
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.
Military2012
Indian army border troops in Ladakh reported about 100 sightings of yellowish glowing objects drifting from the Chinese side over several months in 2012. Astronomers later sent by the army reportedly identified many as Jupiter and Venus, though earlier cases had been blamed on Chinese lanterns.
Photo: Stanzin1945, CC BY-SA 4.0
