Explained and disputed
Reports later explained as balloons, rockets, satellites, planets, aircraft or other ordinary causes. 122 events, newest first.
Military31 Mar 1993
Police and military witnesses, including a patrol at RAF Cosford, made more than 30 reports of bright lights across central England over about six hours. MoD radar replays showed nothing unusual; most sightings were traced to the re-entry of the Russian rocket that launched Cosmos 2238.
Photo: N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0
Media1992
Nuclear physicist turned UFO lecturer Stanton Friedman and Don Berliner published Crash at Corona (Paragon House), arguing the U.S. military recovered a crashed UFO in New Mexico in 1947 and hid it. Air Force reports in the 1990s instead tied the Roswell accounts to balloon projects.
Photo: AllenS, Public domain
Sightings21 Apr 1991
Alitalia Capt. Achille Zaghetti reported a brown, missile-like object passing close to his Milan-London MD-80 near Lydd, Kent, and controllers saw an unknown radar target. MoD files released in 2008 show investigators ruled out missiles, balloons and rockets and left it unexplained.
Photo: G B_NZ, CC BY-SA 2.0
Sightings5 Nov 1990
Around 7 p.m. a bright luminous formation crossed much of France, and CNES's SEPRA received more than 1,100 witness reports and police statements. A NASA telex let SEPRA identify it as the reentering third stage of the Soviet rocket that launched the Gorizont 21 satellite.
Photo: NASA, Public domain
Sightings8 Feb 1982
The captain of a VASP Boeing 727 flying from Fortaleza to Rio de Janeiro reported a bright, color-changing light that seemed to follow the plane, and some passengers also saw it. Ground radar showed nothing; a 2014 journal analysis argued the light was Venus, possibly distorted by a mirage.
Photo: HELIO BASTOS SALMON, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings11 Jul 1979
NASA's Skylab space station broke up on reentry and scattered debris across southern Western Australia. Esperance residents reported sonic booms and several bright orange lights crossing the sky, and recovered fragments are held at the Esperance Museum.
Photo: Rycho626 at English Wikipedia, Public domain
Government1978
After the 1977 Petrozavodsk reports, the Soviet Union added two parallel studies of anomalous phenomena to its state research plan, one under the Defense Ministry and one under the Academy of Sciences. Participants later said most cases were explained by rocket launches and balloons.
Government19 Sep 1976
A U.S. Embassy Rabat cable relayed Royal Gendarmerie reports of a silent, luminous disc or tube seen from Agadir to Fez early on Sept. 19, 1976, and King Hassan II's request for information. A satellite watcher later matched it to a reentering Soviet rocket stage.
Photo: Christian Lambiotte, CC BY 4.0
MediaJan 1974
Aviation Week editor Philip J. Klass published UFOs Explained with Random House, arguing case by case that reports came from balloons, meteors, rocket debris, aircraft, radar effects, hoaxes and mistaken witnesses rather than alien craft. It became a standard skeptical reference.
Photo: Robert Sheaffer, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media1968
Aviation Week avionics editor Philip J. Klass published his first UFO book, arguing that many reports, including the Exeter sightings, could be explained by corona discharge and other plasma effects akin to ball lightning. It began his long career as a leading UFO skeptic.
Photo: Robert Sheaffer, CC BY-SA 3.0
Government20 Feb 1967
Condon and four committee members visited the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center, which agreed to give technical help on UFO photos as long as the work was never identified as CIA work. In May 1967 NPIC briefed them on an analysis that debunked photos from Zanesville, Ohio.
Sightings17 Apr 1966
Portage County deputies Dale Spaur and Wilbur Neff said they chased a bright object from near Ravenna about 85 miles into Pennsylvania before dawn; officers elsewhere reported it too. Blue Book chief Hector Quintanilla attributed it partly to Venus, an answer the deputies and others disputed.
Photo: Project Blue Book, Public domain
Sightings11 Jan 1966
Police, a reservoir guard, the mayor and dozens of callers in Wanaque, New Jersey reported a very bright white light over the reservoir on two evenings. The New York Times covered it, and an Air Force statement said the New Jersey sightings were probably Venus and Jupiter.
Photo: Mckdawg08, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings23 Oct 1965
Jerry Townsend, a 19-year-old KEYL radio announcer, said his car died on Highway 27 near Long Prairie beside a tall rocket-like object and small figures. The sheriff reported odd marks on the road. Project Blue Book listed the case as 'psychological', apparently without a field investigation.
Photo: Myotus, CC BY 4.0
Close encounters23 Apr 1965
George Adamski, the best-known 1950s contactee, died of a heart attack in Maryland at 74. His claims of meeting Venusians and his saucer photographs had been dismissed by investigators, including Blue Book consultant J. Allen Hynek, who called the photos crude fakes.
Photo: Unknown (likely a Buffalo Evening News or press photo), Public domain
Media1963
Harvard astronomer Donald Menzel and Lyle Boyd published 'The World of Flying Saucers' with Doubleday, Menzel's second skeptical UFO book. It argued that reports from Kenneth Arnold onward could be explained by natural phenomena, misperception and atmospheric effects.
Photo: Fdavis99 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings5 Sep 1962
A fiery reentry over Wisconsin before dawn left a roughly 20-pound metal chunk in a Manitowoc street, found by two police officers. Laboratory analysis tied it to Sputnik 4, a Soviet test spacecraft, making it a well-documented case of space debris rather than a UFO.
Photo: Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0
GovernmentDec 1960
A Brookings Institution study done for NASA proposed research on the social effects of space activities, including how the public might react to discovering intelligent life or artifacts on the Moon, Mars or Venus, and whether such news might be presented to or withheld from the public.
Photo: Gryffindor, Public domain
MilitaryFeb 1960
The Navy's new Dark Fence space-surveillance radar detected an unidentified object in orbit, prompting speculation about a Soviet spy satellite. The Defense Department said it was part of a stray U.S. Discoverer satellite. The episode was later folded into the 'Black Knight' satellite legend.
Photo: Unknown US Air Force member, Public domain
Military3 Nov 1957
Two U.S. Army patrols at White Sands reported a very bright light near the horizon and later a pulsating light, hours after the Levelland reports made national news. Project Blue Book concluded the first sighting was the setting Moon and the second was Venus.
Photo: Project Blue Book, Public domain
MilitarySep 1957
An Army draftsman at Fort Belvoir photographed a black ring in the sky that turned into a white cloud, reportedly seen by about 15 people. The Air Force-funded Condon study identified it as a by-product of an atom bomb simulation demonstration on the base.
MediaJul 1957
Columbia released 20 Million Miles to Earth, in which a U.S. spacecraft returning from Venus crashes off Sicily carrying a creature that grows to giant size. Ray Harryhausen animated the creature frame by frame.
Photo: Columbia Pictures, Public domain
Media25 Jul 1956
American International Pictures released Roger Corman's It Conquered the World, in which a scientist in radio contact with Venus helps a creature from that planet try to take over Earth. Paul Blaisdell designed and wore the alien costume.
Photo: American International Pictures, Public domain
Media24 Oct 1954
Hermann Oberth, a founder of rocket science, wrote in The American Weekly that flying saucers were real spacecraft from another solar system, possibly crewed by observers who had been studying Earth for a long time.
Photo: Unknown (Mondadori Publishers), Public domain
Government26 Aug 1953
The Air Force issued AFR 200-2, 'Unidentified Flying Objects Reporting', setting how bases report and investigate sightings. Its 1954 revision let officials discuss a case with the press only once the object was identified as familiar; AFR 200-2 governed Project Blue Book into the 1960s.
Photo: United States Air Force, Public domain
