Government and military
Reports at missile bases, weapons storage areas, test sites and nuclear plants. 41 events, newest first.
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
Media9 Aug 1989
20th Century Fox released James Cameron's The Abyss, in which oil-rig divers helping the U.S. Navy reach a lost nuclear submarine encounter a non-human intelligence living deep in the ocean, an early big-screen take on underwater unidentified craft.
Photo: Towpilot, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings24 Jan 1978
The Soviet reactor-powered satellite Cosmos 954 reentered over western Canada and scattered radioactive debris across the Northwest Territories. Residents of Yellowknife and Hay River described a burning object trailing pieces; a joint U.S.-Canadian search followed. An identified sky event.
Photo: Federal Government of the United States, Public domain
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
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
Military24 Oct 1968
Missile-site maintenance and security crews near Minot AFB reported a glowing object for over three hours, and a returning B-52 crew tracked a target on radar that paced the bomber while its radios failed to transmit. Project Blue Book attributed the reports to a natural phenomenon.
Photo: Project Blue Book, Public domain
Military16 Mar 1967
All ten Minuteman missiles of Malmstrom's Echo Flight went offline within about half a minute, an event recorded in declassified unit histories. Former launch officer Robert Salas and others later said guards reported glowing objects at the time; their decades-later accounts are disputed.
Photo: U.S. Air Force photo, Public domain
Military9 Jul 1962
The U.S. detonated a thermonuclear warhead about 250 miles above Johnston Atoll. In Hawaii a bright flash was followed by a red, aurora-like glow for hours, some streetlights failed and Kauai's inter-island links were cut: a man-made sky display, not an unknown object.
Photo: Unknown, Public domain
MediaJul 1959
Ed Wood's low-budget film, in which saucer-flying aliens raise the dead to stop Earth's nuclear weapons, was released by Distributors Corporation of America. Long mocked, it became a cult emblem of 1950s flying-saucer cinema.
Photo: Distributors Corporation of America, Public domain
Whistleblowers16 Jan 1957
NICAP board chairman Delmer Fahrney, a retired rear admiral who once ran the Navy guided-missile program, told reporters that reliable reports showed fast objects entering the atmosphere under apparent intelligent guidance. The Air Force said most reports had ordinary explanations.
MilitaryMar 1950
Cmdr. Robert McLaughlin, who had led the Navy's guided-missile unit at White Sands, wrote in True that tracked objects there were flying saucers, possibly from another planet. The Navy's guided-missile chief and the Defense Department said no service had such craft.
Photo: NASA, Public domain
MilitaryMar 1949
From March to June 1949, soldiers guarding the nuclear weapons storage site at Killeen Base, Camp Hood, reported unexplained moving lights. Army observers tried to triangulate them on 17 March, and Project Blue Book later listed that case as unidentified.
Sightings12 Feb 1947
A brilliant daytime bolide broke apart over the Sikhote-Alin mountains north of Vladivostok, leaving over 100 pits. Soviet scientist E. L. Krinov investigated; a historian later suggested his mistaken flight path may have led U.S. meteor expert Lincoln LaPaz to suspect a missile.
Photo: H. Raab ( User:Vesta ), CC BY-SA 3.0
