John Lennon UFO incident

Last updated

The John Lennon UFO incident refers to an alleged UFO sighting reported by former Beatles member John Lennon and May Pang.

Contents

Sighting

In August 1974, John Lennon was going through his Lost Weekend period, wherein he and Yoko Ono had temporarily split up and Lennon was engaged in an affair with their personal assistant May Pang. [1] During the separation, Lennon was living with Pang in a Manhattan penthouse where the sighting took place. [2]

On the night of August 23, 1974, Lennon was inside of his house "lying naked in bed" when he noticed a light anomaly in the sky originating from outside. [3] The encounter was also witnessed by Pang. According to Pang:

As I walked out onto the terrace, my eye caught this large, circular object coming towards us...It was shaped like a flattened cone, and on top was a large, brilliant red light, not pulsating as on any of the aircraft we’d see heading for a landing at Newark Airport. When it came a little closer, we could make out a row or circle of white lights that ran around the entire rim of the craft – these were also flashing on and off. There were so many of these lights that it was dazzling to the mind. [4]

Personal impact

Lennon immediately documented the incident in the linear notes of his 1974 album Walls and Bridges . Lennon would also reference the event in his 1983 single "Nobody Told Me" with the line: "There's UFOs over New York, and I ain't too surprised". [5]

Related Research Articles

The term foo fighter was used by Allied aircraft pilots during World War II to describe various UFOs or mysterious aerial phenomena seen in the skies over both the European and Pacific theaters of operations.

<i>Walls and Bridges</i> 1974 studio album by John Lennon

Walls and Bridges is the fifth studio album by English musician John Lennon. It was issued by Apple Records on 26 September 1974 in the United States and on 4 October in the United Kingdom. Written, recorded and released during his 18-month separation from Yoko Ono, the album captured Lennon in the midst of his "Lost Weekend". Walls and Bridges was an American number-one album on both the Billboard and Record World charts and included two hit singles, "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" and "#9 Dream". The first of these was Lennon's first number-one hit in the United States as a solo artist, and his only solo chart-topping single in either the US or Britain during his lifetime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">May Pang</span> American former music executive

May Fung Yee Pang is an American former music executive. She worked for John Lennon and Yoko Ono as a personal assistant and production coordinator, and when Lennon and Ono separated in 1973, Pang and Lennon began a relationship that lasted more than 18 months. Lennon later referred to this time as his "Lost Weekend". Pang subsequently produced two books about their relationship—a memoir called Loving John and a book of photographs, Instamatic Karma. A documentary about their relationship, The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, was produced in 2022.

<i>A Toot and a Snore in 74</i> 1992 studio music album

A Toot and a Snore in '74 is a bootleg album consisting of the only known recording session in which John Lennon and Paul McCartney played together after the break-up of the Beatles in 1970. First mentioned by Lennon in a 1975 interview, more details were brought to light in May Pang's 1983 book, Loving John, and it gained wider prominence when McCartney made reference to the session in a 1997 interview. Talking with Australian writer Sean Sennett in his Soho office, McCartney said the "session was hazy... for a number of reasons".

The Cash–Landrum Incident was an unidentified flying object sighting in the United States in 1980, which witnesses claimed was responsible for causing health and property damage. Uncharacteristically for such UFO reports, this resulted in civil court proceedings, though the case ended in a dismissal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rendlesham Forest incident</span> Series of UFO sightings in England, 1980

The Rendlesham Forest incident was a series of reported sightings of unexplained lights near Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, England in late December 1980 which became linked with claims of UFO landings. The events occurred just outside RAF Woodbridge, which was used at the time by the United States Air Force (USAF). USAF personnel, including deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt, claimed to see things they described as a UFO sighting.

The Lubbock Lights were an unusual formation of lights seen over the city of Lubbock, Texas in August and September 1951. The Lubbock Lights incident received national publicity in the United States as a UFO sighting, and was investigated by the U.S. Air Force. According to Ruppelt, Officially all of the sightings, except the UFO that was picked up on radar, are unknowns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phoenix Lights</span> 1997 light phenomenon over Arizona, USA

The Phoenix Lights were a series of widely sighted unidentified flying objects observed in the skies over the southwestern states of Arizona and Nevada on March 13, 1997.

The Levelland UFO case occurred on November 2–3, 1957, 4 miles west of the small town of Levelland, Texas. At 3206 west hwy 114 79336 Levelland, which in 1957 had a population of about 10,000, is located west of Lubbock on the flat prairie of the Texas South Plains. The case is considered by ufologists to be one of the most impressive in UFO history, mainly because of the large number of witnesses involved over a relatively short period of time. However, both the US Air Force and UFO sceptics have described the incident as being caused by either ball lightning or a severe electrical storm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1976 Tehran UFO incident</span> Radar and visual sighting of a UFO over Tehran, Iran

The 1976 Tehran UFO Incident was a radar and visual sighting of an unidentified flying object (UFO) over Tehran, the capital of Iran, during the early morning hours of 19 September 1976. During the incident, two Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom II jet interceptors reported losing instrumentation and communications as they approached the object. These were restored upon withdrawal. One of the aircraft also reported a temporary weapons systems failure while the crew was preparing to open fire. An initial report of the incident was relayed to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff on the day of the incident.

The Kaikoura lights is a name given by the New Zealand media to a series of UFO sightings that occurred in December 1978, over the skies above the Kaikoura mountain ranges in the northeast of New Zealand's South Island. The first sightings were made on 21 December when the crew of a Safe Air Ltd cargo aircraft began observing a series of strange lights around their Armstrong Whitworth AW.660 Argosy aircraft, which tracked along with their aircraft for several minutes before disappearing and then reappearing elsewhere. The UFO was very large and had five white flashing lights that were visible on the craft. Some people say that they could see some little disks drop from the UFO and then disappear. The pilots described some of the lights to be the size of a house and others small but flashing brilliantly. These objects appeared on the air traffic controller radar in Wellington and also on the aircraft's on-board radar.

This is a list of notable alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the United Kingdom. Many more sightings have become known since the gradual release, between 2008 and 2013, of the Ministry of Defence's UFO sighting reports by the National Archives. In recent years, there have been many sightings of groups of slowly moving lights in the night sky, which can be easily explained as Chinese lanterns. Undertaken between 1997 and 2000, Project Condign concluded that all the investigated sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena in the UK could be attributed to misidentified but explicable objects, or poorly understood natural phenomena.

Below is a partial list of alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects or UFOs in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1952 Washington, D.C., UFO incident</span> 1952 UFO incident occurring in Washington, DC

From July 12 to 29, 1952, a series of unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings were reported in Washington, D.C., and later became known as the Washington flap, the Washington National Airport Sightings, or the Invasion of Washington. The most publicized sightings took place on consecutive weekends, July 19–20 and July 26–27. UFO historian Curtis Peebles called the incident "the climax of the 1952 (UFO) flap" - "Never before or after did Project Blue Book and the Air Force undergo such a tidal wave of (UFO) reports."

The Exeter incident or Incident at Exeter was a highly publicized UFO sighting that occurred on September 3, 1965, approximately 5 miles (8 km) south of Exeter, New Hampshire, in the neighboring town of Kensington. Although several separate sightings had been made in the area by numerous witnesses in the weeks leading up to the specific incident, it was the September 3 sighting which eventually became by far the most famous, involving a local teenager and two police officers. In 2011, Skeptical Inquirer offered an explanation of the incident, based on details reported by the eyewitnesses.

The Lakenheath-Bentwaters Incident was a series of radar and visual contacts with unidentified flying objects over airbases in eastern England on the night of 13–14 August 1956, involving personnel from the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Air Force (USAF). The incident has since gained some prominence in the literature of ufology and the popular media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1628 incident</span> Reported UFO sighting

Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1628 was a UFO incident that occurred on November 17, 1986, involving a Japanese Boeing 747-200F cargo aircraft. The aircraft was en route from Paris to Narita International Airport, near Tokyo, with a cargo of Beaujolais wine. On the Reykjavík to Anchorage section of the flight, at 17:11 over eastern Alaska, the crew first witnessed two unidentified objects to their left. These abruptly rose from below and closed in to escort their aircraft. Each had two rectangular arrays of what appeared to be glowing nozzles or thrusters, though their bodies remained obscured by darkness. When closest, the aircraft's cabin was lit up and the captain could feel their heat on his face. These two craft departed before a third, much larger disk-shaped object started trailing them. Anchorage Air Traffic Control requested an oncoming United Airlines flight to confirm the unidentified traffic, but when it and a military craft sighted JAL 1628 at about 17:51, no other craft could be distinguished. The sighting lasted 50 minutes and ended in the vicinity of Denali.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2007 Alderney UFO sighting</span> Alleged UFO sighting

On 23 April 2007, Captain Ray Bowyer was flying a routine passenger flight for the civilian airline company, Aurigny Air Services, when he and his passengers gained progressively clearer views of two UFOs during a 12- to 15-minute period. Bowyer had 18 years of flying experience, and the 45-minute flight was one that he had completed every working day for more than 8 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UFO sightings in outer space</span> UFOs reported by astronauts while in space

UFO sightings in outer space are sightings of unidentified flying objects reported by astronauts while in space that they could not explain at the time. These sightings have been claimed as evidence for alien visits by ufologists.

References

  1. Bertram, Colin. "Inside John Lennon's 'Lost Weekend' Period". Biography.
  2. Zap, Claudine. "You could own the NYC rooftop where John Lennon claimed to spot a UFO". MarketWatch.
  3. "John Lennon Sees a UFO in New York City, 1974". Andy Warhol's Interviewer. November 1974.
  4. Potter, Jordan. "John Lennon and his extra terrestrial experience". Far Out. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  5. Shewfelt, Raechal. "John Lennon believed in flying saucers. Here's how you can buy his drawing of a UFO". Yahoo. Retrieved March 22, 2023.