Cases and themes
Reports from airline, military and private pilots, air traffic controllers and aviation agencies. 136 events, newest first.
SightingsMar 1950
Capt. Jack Adams and First Officer G. W. Anderson, flying a Chicago and Southern DC-3 from Memphis to Little Rock, reported a fast object with a row of glowing ports near Stuttgart, Arkansas. They told United Press they believed it was a secret aircraft; the Air Force reached no firm answer.
Photo: RuthAS, CC BY-SA 3.0
Military24 Apr 1949
A Navy-led crew readying a Skyhook balloon at White Sands Proving Ground said they followed a whitish, elliptical object through a theodolite for about a minute and later worked out an extreme altitude and speed. Astronomer Donald Menzel argued they saw a refracted image of their own balloon.
Photo: Office of Naval Research, Public domain
Military5 Dec 1948
From late 1948, pilots, security staff and others near Albuquerque and Los Alamos reported bright green fireballs. Meteor expert Lincoln LaPaz doubted they were ordinary meteors; the Air Force's Project Twinkle camera effort photographed nothing and faded out.
Sightings24 Jul 1948
Eastern Air Lines pilots Clarence Chiles and John Whitted reported a glowing, wingless, cigar-shaped object with rows of lit windows passing their DC-3 near Montgomery at about 2:45 a.m. Ruppelt said it prompted the Air Force's 1948 'Estimate of the Situation'; the case was later relabeled a meteor.
Photo: Lestocq, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings30 Jan 1948
British South American Airways Tudor IV Star Tiger disappeared with 31 people aboard on its flight from the Azores to Bermuda. A UK public inquiry could not determine the cause, and the unexplained loss was later folded into Bermuda Triangle lore.
Photo: RuthAS, CC BY 3.0
Military1948
Large plastic Skyhook research balloons, about 100 feet across, were flown in secret for the Navy, unknown to most Air Force pilots. Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt and the Condon report later cited them as the likely cause of many reports, including Capt. Thomas Mantell's fatal 1948 chase.
Photo: US Navy, Public domain
Military8 Jul 1947
Test pilots, officers and a crew of technicians at Muroc air base in California's Mojave Desert reported round, silvery objects on the morning of July 8, 1947. Edward Ruppelt, later head of Project Blue Book, wrote that this was the first sighting to make the Air Force take a deep interest.
Photo: U.S. Navy, Public domain
Sightings4 Jul 1947
Shortly after leaving Boise, the crew of a United Air Lines flight reported five flat-bottomed objects silhouetted against the sunset and followed them for about 45 miles. Ten days after Kenneth Arnold's report, it was one of the first airline crew sightings and is cited in a 1952 CIA briefing.
Photo: Crookall, James, Public domain
Sightings4 Jul 1947
During the July 1947 wave, Portland police officers, a harbor patrol crew and residents reported groups of fast, wobbling disks over the city, with sheriff's deputies across the river in Vancouver, Washington, reporting more. Ruppelt summarized the reports from Air Force files.
Sightings24 Jun 1947
Private pilot Kenneth Arnold reported nine fast objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Press coverage of his account set off the first U.S. wave of flying saucer reports, and the Air Force later carried the case as unexplained.
Photo: Kenneth Arnold, Public domain
Military5 Dec 1945
Five Navy TBM Avengers with 14 men vanished on a training flight from NAS Fort Lauderdale after the leader reported being lost; a PBM Mariner sent to search was also lost with 13 aboard. The planes likely ran out of fuel at sea. The case later fed Bermuda Triangle and UFO lore.
Photo: U.S. Navy, Public domain
