List of UFO sightings
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From the 1561 Nuremberg celestial phenomenon onward, UFO sightings have been catalogued in the following chronological list, which documents notable reports of unidentified flying objects — a term historically used to label alien vehicles, reconnaissance craft, alien drones, or deep-black project craft developed by humans. Some cases involve non-human beings or direct interactions with beings, while others have been linked to advanced secret space program craft, sometimes with alleged alien technological assistance.
For simplicity and historical continuity, the term "UFO" may be used throughout this article, even though what were once called UFOs are now often understood to be specific types of vehicles such as alien transmedium vehicles, or classified military craft. Separate articles, such as List of in-person interactions with nonhuman intelligent beings, List of UFO retrievals, and the UFO retrieval programs, cover related topics like alleged interactions and crash recoveries.
Antiquity and pre-modern era
| Date | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| c. 1450 BC | Jebel Barkal, Egypt | Egyptian stele describes "a star came down" and set fire to the pharaoh's adversaries.[1] |
| 218 BC | Roman Republic, Italia | During the Second Punic War, "phantom ships had been seen gleaming in the sky," according to Livy.[1] |
| 76 BC | Asia (Roman province) | A spark from a star was reported to grow during descent, appear moon-sized, and transform into a torch.[1] |
| 73 BC | Phrygia, Asia | A flame-like body shaped like a wine-jar fell between Roman and Mithridatic armies.[1] |
| AD 65 | Judaea (Roman province) | Chariots "hurtling through the clouds" were reported in Josephus before the First Jewish–Roman War.[1] |
| AD 196 | Rome, Italia | "Fine rain resembling silver" descended on the Forum of Augustus, according to Cassius Dio.[1] |
| c. 740 AD | Ireland (Clonmacnoise/Teltown) | Irish annals record "ships with their crews were seen in the air."[1] |
| April 14, 1561 | Nuremberg, Bavaria | An aerial battle was reportedly witnessed; hundreds of spheres and cylinders were described moving erratically overhead, depicted in a contemporary broadsheet.[1] |
| August 7, 1566 | Basel, Switzerland | Numerous spherical objects were described as appearing from the Sun, depicted in a broadsheet.[1] |
| September 22, 1609 | Gangwon Province, Korea | A halo or washbowl dividing in two was observed in the sky by multiple witnesses.[1] |
| August 12, 1883 | Zacatecas, Mexico | Astronomer José Bonilla photographed hundreds of dark objects crossing the Sun.[1] |
| 1896-11-17 to 1897-04-23 | California/Midwest, USA | Newspapers reported strange airships with bright lights and cigar shapes.[1] |
| April 17, 1897 | Aurora, Texas, USA | An airship allegedly crashed piloted by an alien; the pilot was reportedly buried in the town cemetery.[1] |
1900s–1940s
| Date | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1907 | Albania, Ottoman Empire | A "shiny object flew in front of us, stood suspended in air," per witness accounts.[1] |
| 1909 | Otago, New Zealand | Moving and whirring lights were reported, with multiple sightings across the country.[1] |
| August 13, September 13, October 13, 1917 | Fátima, Portugal | Thousands witnessed bizarre solar activity during the Marian apparitions.[1] |
| c. 1926 | Tibet | Russian theosophist Nicholas Roerich reported an oval in the sky above his caravan.[1] |
| June 1, 1933 | Mount Everest, China-Nepal border | Two hovering, pulsating spots were witnessed during a mountaineering expedition.[1] |
| 1933 | Magenta, Italy | A disc-shaped craft reportedly crashed near Magenta and was recovered by Benito Mussolini's government.[2] |
| c. 1940s | World War II theaters | Allied pilots reported colorful balls of light following aircraft.[1] |
| c. 1941 | Cape Girardeau, Missouri, USA | Local legend of a crashed flying saucer whose crew was administered last rites.[1] |
| February 24–25, 1942 | Los Angeles, California, USA | The Battle of Los Angeles (the "Great Los Angeles Air Raid"): US Army anti-aircraft units fired approximately 1,440 rounds at unidentified aerial objects over Los Angeles less than three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor; no enemy aircraft or wreckage were ever found, and leaked Majestic documents indicate two craft were recovered. |
| 1945 | Trinity Site, New Mexico, USA | Two young men reported an avocado-shaped craft with insectoid aliens near the Trinity test site.[3] |
| 1946 | Scandinavia/Europe | Thousands of UFO sightings prompted governments to investigate recovered German technology.[1] |
| May 18, 1946 | Ängelholm, Sweden | A Swedish entrepreneur attributed business success to a UFO encounter.[1] |
| June 24, 1947 | Mount Rainier, Washington, USA | Private pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine crescent-shaped objects flying at high speed, leading to the coining of the term "flying saucer." |
| June–July 1947 | USA (nationwide) | The 1947 flying disc craze produced at least 800 documented reports of anomalous aerial objects across the United States, peaking on July 7 before largely subsiding by July 10. |
| July 4, 1947 | Boise to Pendleton, USA | United Airlines crew witnessed nine unidentified objects in flight.[1] |
| July 7, 1947 | Phoenix, Arizona, USA | An inventor photographed a silent grey object; the Air Force concluded it was swept paper.[1] |
| July 8, 1947 | Roswell, New Mexico, USA | The Roswell incident: a crashed object was initially described as a "flying disc" by the U.S. Army before being explained as a weather balloon/Project Mogul. |
| July 29, 1947 | Maury Island, Washington, USA | An account of six flying doughnut-shaped objects; a dog was allegedly killed by falling slag.[4] |
| c. 1948 | New Mexico/Southwest, USA | Green flares streaked the sky; investigation was inconclusive.[1] |
| January 7, 1948 | Godman Army Air Field, Kentucky, USA | Captain Thomas F. Mantell died while pursuing a large metallic object described as "of tremendous size" — the first well-documented fatality connected to a UFO intercept mission. |
| March 25, 1948 | Hart Canyon, near Aztec, New Mexico, USA | The 1948 Aztec UFO crash: a disc-shaped craft approximately 99.9 feet in diameter, carrying 14 to 16 humanoid occupants, reportedly came down and was recovered under Vannevar Bush. |
| July 24, 1948 | Montgomery, Alabama, USA | Commercial pilots reported a near-collision with a craft having "two rows of windows."[1] |
| October 1, 1948 | Fargo, North Dakota, USA | Air Force pilot pursued a UFO for 27 minutes.[1] |
1950s
| Date | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| May 11, 1950 | McMinnville, Oregon, USA | Farmer Paul Trent took "flying saucer" photographs (the first widely reproduced since the term was coined).[1] |
| August 15, 1950 | Great Falls, Montana, USA | Baseball team manager Nicholas Mariana filmed two UFOs; footage was extensively analyzed.[1] |
| January 20, 1951 | Sioux City, Iowa, USA | Pilots and an officer were buzzed by an unidentified aircraft.[1] |
| August 25, 1951 | Lubbock, Texas, USA | V-shaped light formations were spotted; professors witnessed and a student photographed the lights.[5] |
| January 29, 1952 | Wonsan/Sunchon, Korea | Military personnel reported an orange globe-shaped light during the Korean War.[1] |
| July 12–29, 1952 | Washington, D.C., USA | The Washington, D.C. UFO incidents: bright objects flew over the capital and were detected on radar, prompting the Robertson Panel response. |
| July 14, 1952 | Norfolk, Virginia, USA | Airline pilots radioed reports of eight large, glowing red objects.[1] |
| September 12, 1952 | Flatwoods, West Virginia, USA | Local boys followed a bright object into the forest; a tall figure with claws was described.[6] |
| May 21, 1953 | Kingman, Arizona, USA | The 1953 Kingman UFO crash: a 30-foot metallic oval craft was recovered along with up to four humanoid occupants in silver suits; the craft was transported to S-4 via a Dragon Wagon tank hauler. |
| September 10, 1954 | Quarouble, France | Metalworker Marius Dewilde became a contactee, reporting small humanoid figures landing.[1] |
| October 27, 1954 | Florence, Italy (stadium) | A football game was disrupted when 10,000 spectators witnessed cigar-shaped UFOs.[1] |
| August 21–22, 1955 | Hopkinsville, Kentucky, USA | Eleven people witnessed creatures; gunfire was exchanged and police investigated.[7] |
| July 24, 1956 | Suffolk, England | USAF and RAF radar detected up to 15 objects during the Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident; an RAF pilot observed a luminous object.[1] |
| August 13, 1956 | Drakensberg, South Africa | Meteorologist Elizabeth Klarer photographed a supposed UFO; she claimed an alien lover relationship.[1] |
| May 3, 1957 | Edwards Air Force Base, California, USA | Mercury astronaut witnessed a wingless craft with retractable legs.[1] |
| May 20, 1957 | East Anglia, England | Fighter pilot was ordered to intercept and fire on a UFO.[1] |
| October 15, 1957 | Minas Gerais, Brazil | Law student Antônio Vilas-Boas described an abduction, confinement in a small room, and forced intercourse.[1] |
| November 2, 1957 | Levelland, Texas, USA | Motorists reported their vehicles stalling after encountering a glowing, egg-shaped craft, investigated by Project Blue Book. |
| November 4, 1957 | Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA | Tower operators reported an egg-shaped object emitting white light.[1] |
1960s
| Date | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| September 19–20, 1961 | Lancaster, New Hampshire, USA | The Betty and Barney Hill abduction: Betty and Barney Hill reported being taken aboard a craft and subjected to medical examination by short, grey-skinned beings — the first fully documented American alien abduction account and the case that established the Grey alien physical template. |
| 1963 | Kurvelesh region, Albania | A bright object was reported; authorities attributed the sighting to new jet aircraft.[1] |
| April 24, 1964 | Socorro, New Mexico, USA | Police officer Lonnie Zamora investigated a roaring sound; witnessed a craft with ground impressions.[8] |
| May 23, 1964 | Cumbria, England | A fireman photographed his daughter with a mysterious "spaceman" figure in the background.[1] |
| September 1964 | Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, USA | The Big Sur UFO incident: during a routine Atlas-F ICBM test, a film crew captured footage of an unidentified craft intercepting and apparently disabling the dummy warhead before the film was confiscated by the CIA. |
| September 18–24, 1964 | Surabaya, Indonesia | Military pilots reported dark, mango-shaped craft with colored lights.[1] |
| June 4, 1965 | Above Hawaii | Astronaut James McDivitt spotted a white cylinder with a protruding arm in orbit during Gemini 4.[1] |
| July 1, 1965 | Valensole, France | The Valensole encounter: French farmer Maurice Masse discovered a landed craft in his lavender field and encountered two small beings who paralyzed him with a device. |
| September 3, 1965 | Exeter, New Hampshire, USA | Numerous people reported pulsating UFOs in the Exeter incident, later the subject of a John G. Fuller book.[1] |
| December 9, 1965 | Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, USA | The Kecksburg incident: a brilliantly lit fireball was tracked across Canada and six U.S. states before an acorn-shaped metallic object bearing hieroglyphic-like markings was found partially embedded in woods and removed by military personnel. |
| March 20, 1966 | Dexter/Hillsdale, Michigan, USA | The mass sightings were dismissed by J. Allen Hynek as "marsh gas."[1] |
| April 6, 1966 | Clayton South, Victoria, Australia | The Westall UFO incident: more than 200 students and teachers at Westall High School witnessed a disc-shaped craft descend, hover, and depart, leaving a circular ring of flattened grass. |
| May or June 1966 | Near Hawaii | Crew of the USS Tiru reported a metallic, football-field-sized object tumbling between the ocean and the sky.[9] |
| August 20, 1966 | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Two deceased men were found wearing lead masks in the Lead Masks Case; a "scientific spiritualists" connection was alleged.[1] |
| March 16, 1967 | Montana, USA | A missile facility malfunction was claimed linked to a UFO report.[10] |
| March 24, 1967 | Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana, USA | A glowing red object hovered near a nuclear missile silo; witnesses reported the base's missiles temporarily becoming non-operational. |
| May 20, 1967 | Falcon Lake, Manitoba, Canada | Prospector Stefan Michalak attributed burns to a UFO; radiation tests were negative.[1] |
| August 29, 1967 | Cussac, France | A 13-year-old and his sister witnessed a brilliant sphere with four black occupants.[1] |
| September 4, 1967 | Southern England | Apprentices constructed and dropped six fake flying saucers filled with flour.[1] |
| October 4, 1967 | Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada | The RCMP and civilians reported an illuminated object crash; the search found no evidence.[11] |
| January 6, 1969 | Leary, Georgia, USA | Future president Jimmy Carter filed a report of a "luminous, not solid" light.[1] |
| April 12, 1969 | Pori, Finland | A pilot overheard a radio conversation describing discs accelerating against the wind.[1] |
| September 1, 1969 | Berkshire County, Massachusetts, USA | Four families reported a beam of light; they lost several hours of time.[1] |
| September 8, 1969 | Pudasjärvi, Finland | A taxi driver and passengers observed a dozen football-sized flying bright lights.[1] |
1970s
| Date | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| October 11, 1973 | Pascagoula River, Mississippi, USA | Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker reported being abducted by gray, wrinkled beings with claw-like hands; the craft was described as a glowing oval. |
| January 23, 1974 | Llandrillo, North Wales | An alleged crash with lights was later revealed as a 3.5 magnitude earthquake (the Berwyn Mountain UFO incident).[1] |
| August 23, 1974 | New York City, USA | Musician John Lennon reported a color-changing craft above his Manhattan penthouse.[1] |
| January 12, 1975 | North Bergen, New Jersey, USA | A dark object with lit windows was reported near the Stonehenge apartments building.[1] |
| November 5, 1975 | Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, Arizona, USA | Logger Travis Walton disappeared for 5+ days; he claimed a spacecraft abduction.[12] |
| September 17, 1976 | Tehran, Iran | Radar and visual sightings; F-4 Phantom jets lost instrumentation when approaching the object.[13] |
| September 20, 1977 | Petrozavodsk/Baltic countries | A giant glowing "jellyfish" of light was reported, later attributed to Kosmos 955 satellite launch.[1] |
| 1977–1978 | Colares, Pará, Brazil | Residents reported aerial lights causing bodily scars; a military investigation was launched (Operação Prato).[14] |
| May 10, 1978 | Emilcin, Poland | Farmer Jan Wolski reported green-faced humanoid entities boarding his cart.[1] |
| October 21, 1978 | Cape Otway, Victoria, Australia | Pilot Frederick Valentich disappeared while reporting a strange craft.[15] |
| December 6, 1978 | Torriglia, Italy | A night watchman perceived a red oval object; he was reportedly attacked by non-human creatures.[1] |
| December 21–30, 1978 | South Island, New Zealand | The Kaikoura lights: aircraft crew spotted lights above the Kaikoura Ranges that were also tracked on radar and recorded on television. |
| August 27, 1979 | Marshall County, Minnesota, USA | A sheriff attributed injuries and a shattered windshield to a light beam.[1] |
| November 9, 1979 | Livingston, West Lothian, Scotland | Forestry worker Robert Taylor witnessed a flying dome and was approached by floating spheres.[1] |
| November 11, 1979 | Valencia, Spain | A commercial pilot radioed a report of red lights; an emergency landing was made (Manises UFO incident).[1] |
1980s
| Date | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| April 11, 1980 | Arequipa, Peru | A fighter pilot fired 30mm shells at an object; the object ascended to 19,200 meters.[1] |
| December 26–28, 1980 | RAF Woodbridge/Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England | USAF personnel reported strange lights and a metallic craft in Rendlesham Forest — often referred to as "Britain's Roswell." |
| December 29, 1980 | Dayton, Texas, USA | Two women sued the U.S. government over a diamond-shaped UFO encounter.[1] |
| January 8, 1981 | Trans-en-Provence, France | Retired contractor Renato Nicolai reported a landing; GEPAN investigated ground impressions.[1] |
| c. 1983 | Hudson Valley, New York, USA | Hundreds reported a massive object during the Hudson Valley flap; it was later identified by skeptics as pilots flying in formation.[16] |
| December 26, 1985 | Wappingers Falls, New York, USA | The Whitley Strieber abduction: author Whitley Strieber was taken from his cabin by non-human beings he termed "the Visitors"; the account, published as Communion (1987), became one of the bestselling UFO accounts of the twentieth century. |
| May 19, 1986 | Multiple states, Brazil | Radar and visual contacts with objects during the Official Night of the UFOs; fighters failed to intercept.[1] |
| November 17, 1986 | Alaska, USA | Japanese Boeing 747 crew witnessed rectangular arrays of glowing objects.[17] |
| November 11, 1987 | Off the coast of Puerto Rico | Fishermen claimed to see a large, disc-shaped craft submerging into the ocean and causing intense water turbulence. |
| December 1, 1987 | Ilkley Moor, England | A retired police officer photographed a strange being and reported a domed craft's departure.[1] |
| 1987–1988 | Gulf Breeze, Florida, USA | A contractor photographed spacecraft; a model was later found in his attic.[18] |
| November 12, 1988 | Norton Air Force Base, San Bernardino, California, USA | The Norton Air Force Base ARV demonstration: aerospace contractor Brad Sorensen witnessed three operational Alien Reproduction Vehicles — disc-shaped antigravity craft reverse-engineered from recovered non-human technology. |
| September 27, 1989 | Voronezh, Soviet Union | TASS reported a "three-eyed creature" landing; hematite specimens were described.[1] |
| November 1989 – Spring 1990 | Belgium | The Belgium UFO wave: hundreds of civilians, police officers, and military personnel reported large silent triangular craft flying at low altitude; the Belgian Air Force scrambled F-16 fighters on March 30–31, 1990, and former Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations, General Wilfried De Brouwer, publicly confirmed the reality of unidentified structured craft. |
1990s
| Date | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| August 4, 1990 | Calvine, Perthshire, Scotland | A UFO sighting and photography near Calvine, submitted to the Ministry of Defence.[1] |
| April–May 1992 | Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, USA | The Greg Rogers 1992 Cape Canaveral UFO sighting: USAF flight surgeon Greg Rogers viewed a hovering disc-shaped craft bearing "U.S. Air Force" markings via closed-circuit television inside a locked contractor facility. |
| March 8, 1994 | Western Michigan, USA | Hundreds reported flickering lights; the National Weather Service detected unusual radar blips.[1] |
| September 16, 1994 | Ruwa, Zimbabwe | Over sixty students at the Ariel School witnessed a silver craft landing with black-clad occupants and reported telepathic communication. |
| October 1994 | Nellis Test Range, Nevada, USA | The Nellis Test Range UFO sighting: an unidentified craft was observed by at least ten personnel and recorded by the range's radar-linked automated cameras; the footage was subsequently leaked to the media. |
| January 20, 1996 | Varginha, Minas Gerais, Brazil | The 1996 Varginha UFO incident (the "Roswell of Brazil"): a craft crashed on farmland, multiple civilians encountered non-human beings, and the Brazilian military conducted recovery operations before at least one entity was transported to the United States via US Air Force aircraft. |
| August 15, 1996 | Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, USA | The Reed family incident: psychologist Jonathan Reed reported discovering a small non-human intelligent being and a large black obelisk-shaped object floating in a forest. |
| March 13, 1997 | Phoenix, Arizona, USA | Hundreds of witnesses observed the Phoenix Lights, a series of lights in V-formation moving silently across the sky; some estimated the craft at over a mile wide. |
| March–April 1997 | Peruvian Amazon, Peru | The 1997 Peru UFO crash retrieval: during Operation Laser Strike, U.S. Marine Jonathan Weygandt encountered a crashed egg-shaped craft in the jungle before a Department of Energy recovery team secured it. |
2000s
| Date | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| October 5, 2000 | Bonsall, Derbyshire, England | A resident filmed a luminous object; various others reported strange lights.[1] |
| March 5, 2004 | Campeche, Mexico | The Mexican Air Force filmed infrared lights; the sighting was later identified as oil platform flares.[1] |
| October 31, 2004 | Tinley Park/Chicago, Illinois, USA | The Tinley Park lights: on Halloween night, thousands witnessed and filmed a formation of red lights.[1] |
| November 14, 2004 | Off the coast of San Diego, California, USA | The USS Nimitz incident ("Tic Tac"): F-A-18 Super Hornet pilots led by Commander David Fravor intercepted a white, featureless, oblong craft approximately 40 feet long; the USS Princeton had tracked similar objects on radar for two weeks prior, and the Department of Defense formally authenticated the FLIR1 infrared footage in April 2020. |
| November 7, 2006 | Chicago O'Hare, Illinois, USA | United Airlines employees reported a saucer-shaped craft at O'Hare International Airport.[1] |
| April 23, 2007 | Alderney, Guernsey | Airline pilots reported a "sunlight-coloured" object off the coast.[1] |
| November 28, 2007 – December 13, 2011 | West Midlands, England | A series of black triangle sightings, dubbed the "Dudley Dorito," were reported.[1] |
| June 20, 2008 | Wales | A South Wales Police helicopter took evasive action from a saucer-shaped UFO.[1] |
| January 5, 2009 | Morristown, New Jersey, USA | Red lights were sighted; a hoax was announced three months later.[1] |
| December 10, 2009 | Trøndelag/Northern Norway | A failed Russian missile test produced the massive Norwegian spiral anomaly visible across the region.[1] |
2010s
| Date | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| January 25, 2010 | Harbour Mille, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada | Three missile-like UFOs were spotted, emitting no noise.[1] |
| July 7, 2010 | Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China | An airport was shut down for one hour due to an alleged UFO near the airport.[1] |
| June 2, 2014 – March 10, 2015 | East Coast, USA | Navy pilots noticed unexplained radar objects; some captured the video footage later released publicly.[1] |
2020s
| Date | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| c. 2020 | Los Angeles, California, USA | The FBI and FAA investigated "jetpack man" reports; the object was likely a balloon or drone.[1] |
| January 28 – February 13, 2023 | Multiple countries (North/South America) | Multiple airborne objects were observed and shot down; many were identified as balloons.[1] |
| April 19, 2023 | Middle East | AARO presented an MQ-9 infrared clip showing a small metallic orb.[1] |
| May 1, 2023 | Las Vegas, Nevada, USA | The 2023 Las Vegas alien sighting: following a bright green fireball captured by multiple police dashcams across Nevada, Utah, and California, a family reported two tall non-human beings approximately 8 to 10 feet in height appeared on their property; LVMPD officers confirmed the family's distress on scene. |
| May 31, 2023 | Western U.S. range | A NASA meeting featured a 2021 infrared clip; the objects were identified as distant airliners.[1] |
| July 26, 2023 | Washington, D.C., USA | The 2023 UAP Congressional Hearing: David Grusch, David Fravor, and Ryan Graves testified under oath before the House Oversight Committee — the first congressional hearing to feature sworn testimony from witnesses alleging personal knowledge of non-human intelligence and government possession of non-human craft. |
| November 20, 2024 | RAF bases, England | Unauthorized drones were reported near four U.S. Air Force bases, including RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall.[1] |
| December 2024 | New Jersey/Northeastern USA | A large number of drone sightings were reported across the Northeastern United States, with thousands reported overall.[19] |
| September 9, 2025 | Yemen, off coast | A U.S. House member presented MQ-9 footage of a missile allegedly striking a bright orb.[1] |
See also
- List of UFO retrievals
- List of in-person interactions with nonhuman intelligent beings
- List of UFO sightings involving military personnel
- UFO retrieval program
- Mystery airship
- Foo fighters
- Ghost rockets