Cases and themes
Events where objects were tracked on radar, often alongside visual sightings. 56 events, newest first.
Select any year above to see what happened that year.
Open Radar cases as a timeline
Skinwalker Ranch3 Jun 2025
History began the sixth season of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, 14 episodes centered on what the show calls an invisible 'Bubble' anomaly, with drone and radar flights, rocket launches and tests of material found on the mesa. No independent confirmation of its claims has been published.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Military14 Feb 2023
Romania's defence ministry said radar picked up a small target resembling a weather balloon at about 11,000 m over the southeast on Feb. 14, 2023. Two NATO-assigned MiG-21 LanceR jets searched for about 30 minutes but found nothing visually or on radar.
Photo: claudiu_ne2000, CC BY-SA 2.0
Military2023
At the July 2023 House Oversight UAP hearing, Rep. Matt Gaetz said a member of an Eglin AFB flight crew showed him a photo of an orb a pilot saw near four craft in a diamond formation over the Gulf of Mexico. He asked that the image and radar data be given to the committee.
Photo: Ike Hayman, U.S. House Office of Photography/House Creative Services, Public domain
Government19 Oct 2021
In a University of Virginia Center for Politics talk with Larry Sabato, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said he had spoken with Navy pilots whose radars locked onto unknown objects. He said no one knew what they were and hoped they were not an adversary's technology.
Photo: Bill Ingalls, Public domain
MilitaryJun 2021
The South China Morning Post reported that Chinese military researchers, including Chen Li of the Air Force Early Warning Academy, proposed using AI to analyze a growing volume of unidentified aerial object reports from radar, pilots and observatories.
Sightings21 Feb 2021
A pilot on American Airlines Flight 2292 from Cincinnati to Phoenix radioed that a long cylindrical object had passed rapidly over the plane. The airline confirmed the call, the FBI said it was looking into it, and the FAA said controllers saw nothing on radar.
Photo: Colin Brown from St Ann, MO, USA, CC BY 2.0
Military19 Dec 2019
Chad Underwood, the Navy F/A-18 pilot who recorded the 2004 FLIR1 'Tic Tac' video off southern California, gave his first public interview to New York Magazine. He described locking the object on radar and infrared after a warning from David Fravor and said it did not behave like known aircraft.
Photo: United States Navy, Public domain
Sightings9 Nov 2018
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic crews told Shannon air traffic control they saw very bright, fast-moving lights off Ireland's southwest coast. Controllers saw nothing on radar. The Irish Aviation Authority opened a confidential occurrence review; one pilot suggested a meteor.
Photo: Rex and Fido, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings6 Feb 2017
A bright green fireball seen by hundreds of people around Lake Michigan at 1:25 a.m. CST was identified by NASA as an asteroid fragment of at least 600 pounds that broke apart over the lake. Weather radar tracked falling fragments, and police dash cams recorded it.
Sightings22 Apr 2012
A loud morning fireball over the Sierra Nevada was tracked by Doppler weather radar to rare carbonaceous meteorites near Coloma, site of the 1848 gold discovery. A 2012 Science paper reported a record entry speed of about 28.6 km/s.
Photo: Peter Jenniskens (SETI Institute) and Eric James (NASA Ames), Public domain
Sightings7 Jul 2010
Flights at Hangzhou's Xiaoshan airport were halted on the night of July 7, 2010, after an unidentified glowing object was reported, affecting about 18 flights. Chinese reports differed on radar detection, and suggested explanations ranged from sunlit aircraft to a military flight.
Photo: jo.sau, CC BY 2.0
Sightings14 Apr 2010
A bright fireball seen across four Midwest states broke up over southwest Wisconsin around 10 p.m. with a prolonged sonic boom. National Weather Service Doppler radar captured its smoke trail, which helped hunters recover meteorites near Mifflin.
Photo: Wikideas1, CC0
SightingsJul 2008
MUFON released a 76-page analysis of FAA radar data obtained under FOIA for the Jan. 8, 2008 Stephenville sightings, saying it showed objects flying without transponders. Skeptics said it picked 187 points out of millions of noise returns and that F-16s dropping flares explain the lights.
Photo: CletusDitto, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings7 Nov 2006
United Airlines employees reported a dark, disc-shaped object hovering over gate C17 at O'Hare before shooting up through the clouds. The FAA said radar showed nothing unusual and suggested a weather phenomenon. The Chicago Tribune broke the story in January 2007.
Photo: Payton Chung from Chicago, CC BY 2.0
MilitaryNov 2004
Navy F/A-18F crews from the USS Nimitz strike group, cued by the cruiser USS Princeton's radar, reported intercepting a smooth white object they could not identify. Another crew recorded the infrared video the Pentagon later released as FLIR1.
Photo: United States Navy, Public domain
Government28 Jul 1995
Answering Rep. Steven Schiff, the General Accounting Office reported finding only two 1947 records on the Roswell crash, an FBI teletype describing a balloon with a radar reflector and a base history. It found Roswell base outgoing messages from 1946-49 destroyed, with no record of who approved it.
Photo: Congressional Pictorial Directory, Public domain
Sightings25 May 1995
The crew of America West 564, flying from Tampa to Las Vegas, reported a row of strobe-like lights and a long dark object near Bovina, Texas. Controllers checked with NORAD; accounts of what radar showed conflict, and circulating ATC audio has not been officially authenticated.
Photo: Aero Icarus from Zurich, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0
Sightings28 Jan 1994
The crew of an Air France A320 flying Nice to London reported a large dark disk that changed shape and vanished near Coulommiers, while a military radar logged an unidentified 50-second track. GEIPAN ruled out a weather balloon and classes the case unexplained (D).
Photo: Aero Icarus from Zurich, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0
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
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
Military30 Mar 1990
On March 30-31, 1990, two Belgian F-16s were scrambled after ground radar contacts that matched visual reports; pilots saw nothing but recorded brief radar locks. The Air Force said it could not identify the phenomena; skeptics trace the locks to the other F-16 and false echoes.
Photo: Pedro Aragao, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings29 Nov 1989
Gendarme patrols near Eupen reported large, silent triangular objects with bright lights, starting months of similar reports across Belgium. On the night of 30-31 March 1990 the Belgian Air Force scrambled two F-16s after a radar contact; the pilots saw nothing and the object was never identified.
Photo: Ronnie Macdonald from Chelmsford, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0
Government5 Mar 1987
The FAA's Alaskan Region publicly released its file on the November 1986 JAL 1628 sighting: pilot-controller transcripts, crew and controller interviews, the captain's drawings and radar data. It said it could not confirm the event and attributed the radar returns to uncorrelated signals.
Government17 Nov 1986
The crew of a Japan Air Lines 747 cargo flight bound for Anchorage reported lights and a large object pacing their aircraft over interior Alaska. The FAA interviewed the crew and reviewed the radar data.
Photo: contri from Yonezawa, Yamagata, Japan, CC BY-SA 2.0
Military19 May 1986
Air Force radar and civilian and military witnesses reported about 21 unidentified objects over four Brazilian states, and five fighter jets were sent to intercept them. The air minister said days later there was no technical explanation; an Air Force report on the night was released in 2009.
