Cases and themes
Sightings reported by police officers, sheriffs and constables, often from patrol cars. 77 events, newest first.
Media1978
After a mid-1970s run of local UFO reports, including a 1976 police officer account, the village of Elmwood began an annual UFO Days festival, one of the longest-running small-town UFO celebrations.
Photo: Unknown author, 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
GovernmentFeb 1975
J. Allen Hynek's article 'The UFO Mystery' in the February 1975 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin urged police to pass UFO reports to his Center for UFO Studies in Northfield, Illinois, which kept an unpublished toll-free hotline for police and official agencies.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Sightings17 Oct 1973
Falkville, Alabama police chief Jeff Greenhaw said he answered a call about a UFO in a field and found a tall figure in a foil-like suit, which he photographed before it outran his patrol car. The account rests on his word; he faced ridicule and resigned weeks later.
Photo: Brian Stansberry, CC BY 4.0
Close encounters11 Oct 1973
Shipyard workers Charles Hickson, 42, and Calvin Parker, 19, told the Jackson County sheriff that creatures took them aboard a glowing craft while they fished on the Pascagoula River. Deputies found them genuinely frightened; many people doubted the story.
Photo: SMG2019, CC BY-SA 4.0
Close encounters3 Dec 1967
Ashland police officer Herbert Schirmer said he saw a lighted, saucer-shaped craft over a highway before dawn and later could not account for about 20 minutes. The Condon Committee examined the case and said it had no confidence the experience was physically real.
Photo: Ammodramus, CC0
Sightings24 Oct 1967
Before dawn, Devon police constables Roger Willey and Clifford Waycott reported following a bright, cross-shaped light near Holsworthy for about 50 minutes, and a civilian motorist parked nearby said he saw it too. RAF Chivenor said it knew of no aircraft that matched.
Photo: SequenceDancer, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings4 Sep 1967
Six beeping metal-domed saucers were found in a line from the Isle of Sheppey to Somerset, drawing police, military and Ministry of Defence responders before they were revealed the same day as a charity stunt by Royal Aircraft Establishment apprentices.
SightingsSep 1967
A three-year-old Appaloosa called Snippy was found dead on a ranch north of Alamosa in the San Luis Valley, and claims of a missing-blood mutilation tied the case to UFOs. Sheriff's investigators and veterinarians disagreed on the cause; a shooting was among the explanations offered.
Photo: Jeffrey Beall, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings15 Nov 1966
Two couples told police they saw a man-sized winged creature with red eyes near the TNT area outside Point Pleasant; local papers covered it for weeks. John Keel's 1975 book later tied the reports to UFOs and the Silver Bridge collapse. It remains folklore.
Photo: USACE, Public domain
Sightings22 Apr 1966
Several residents and two police officers in Beverly, Massachusetts reported lights and a disc-like object over the high school field, one passing low over a witness. The Condon Report (Case 6) attributed most of the long observation to Jupiter but left the close encounter unexplained.
Photo: John Phelan, CC BY-SA 4.0
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
Sightings20 Mar 1966
Police and residents near Dexter and Hillsdale, Michigan reported glowing lights over swampy ground. Air Force consultant J. Allen Hynek suggested swamp gas, drawing ridicule, and Rep. Gerald Ford called for hearings, which the House Armed Services Committee held that April.
Photo: Gerald R. Ford / US Congress, Public domain
GovernmentMar 1966
After meeting Washtenaw County Sheriff Douglas Harvey about the Dexter sightings, Michigan Rep. Weston Vivian went to Washington planning to ask the Defense Department and the Air Force to investigate, according to a press report entered in the April 1966 House hearing record.
Photo: US Government Printing Office, 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
Media1966
Journalist John G. Fuller published 'Incident at Exeter', a book-length account of the 1965 police and civilian sightings around Exeter, New Hampshire, and of other reports from that period.
Photo: United States Air Force, Public domain
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
Sightings3 Sep 1965
Hitchhiker Norman Muscarello and Exeter police officers Eugene Bertrand and David Hunt reported a low object with bright red lights over fields near Kensington, N.H. Officers from Pease AFB investigated, and the policemen publicly disputed the Air Force's conventional explanations.
Photo: United States Air Force, Public domain
Sightings2 Aug 1965
After a sheriff's dispatcher reported an object near Wellington, Kansas, the Wichita Weather Bureau radar tracked several slow, erratic targets for over an hour. The Condon study judged them likely false radar returns from strong temperature inversions.
Sightings24 Apr 1964
Socorro police officer Lonnie Zamora reported a shiny oval object and a roaring flame in a gully, then found burned brush and ground marks. Blue Book chief Hector Quintanilla called it the best-documented case on record, and it stayed unidentified.
Photo: Project Blue Book, Public domain
Sightings21 Oct 1963
Members of the Moreno family and a household worker said several glowing objects hovered near their estate and the railway line for about 40 minutes, casting beams and leaving a sulfur smell. A police officer filed a report and a wire story reached foreign papers within days.
Photo: User:Ignaciogimenez, 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
Sightings26 Oct 1958
Phillip Small and Alvin Cohen said an egg-shaped object hovered over a bridge at Loch Raven Dam near Baltimore, their car died, and a flash and bang left their faces burning. Towson police found nothing; an Air Force investigator left it unidentified.
Photo: Acroterion, CC BY-SA 4.0
Close encounters21 Aug 1955
Eleven people at the Sutton farm near Kelly, Kentucky, reported small glowing creatures around the house through the night and fired guns at them. City and state police and military police from Fort Campbell searched and found shell casings but no other trace. Skeptics later proposed owls.
Close encounters29 Nov 1954
Delivery men Gustavo Gonzalez and Jose Ponce told Caracas police that in Petare they met a small, hairy, very strong being and that Gonzalez grappled with it; later retellings add several beings and a glowing craft. It became a noted episode of the 1954 Venezuela wave, with no physical evidence.
Photo: Andres Gerlotti agerlotti, CC0
