This is a list of notable alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects or UFOs in the UK. Many more sightings have become known since the gradual release of the MoD UFO sighting reports by the National Archives in 2008. 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. Project Condign, undertaken from 1997 to 2000, concluded that all the investigated sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena in the U.K. could be assigned to misidentified but explicable objects, or poorly understood natural phenomena. [1]
Black triangles are a class of unidentified flying object (UFO) with certain common features which have reportedly been observed during the 20th and 21st centuries. Media reports of black triangles originally came from the United States and United Kingdom.
The Cash–Landrum Incident was an alleged unidentified flying object sighting from 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; the case ended in a dismissal.
In late December 1980, there was a series of reported sightings of unexplained lights near Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England which have become 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 Phoenix Lights were a series of widely sighted unidentified flying objects or UFOs observed in the skies over the U.S. states of Arizona, Nevada, and the Mexican state of Sonora on March 13, 1997.
Identifying unidentified flying objects is a difficult task due to the normally poor quality of the evidence provided by those who report sighting the unknown object. Observations and subsequent reporting are often made by those untrained in astronomy, atmospheric phenomena, aeronautics, physics, and perception. Nevertheless, most officially investigated UFO sightings, such as from the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book, have been identified as being due to honest misidentifications of natural phenomena, aircraft, or other prosaic explanations. In early U.S. Air Force attempts to explain UFO sightings, unexplained sightings routinely numbered over one in five reports. However, in early 1953, right after the CIA's Robertson Panel, percentages of unexplained sightings dropped precipitously, usually being only a few percent in any given year. When Project Blue Book closed down in 1970, only 6% of all cases were classified as being truly unidentified.
This is a list of alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects or UFOs in Iran.
The Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter occurred on July 24, 1948 in the skies near Montgomery, Alabama. Two commercial pilots, Clarence S. Chiles and John B. Whitted, claimed that at approximately 2:45 AM on July 24 they observed a "glowing object" pass by their plane before it appeared to pull up into a cloud and travel out of sight. According to Air Force officer and Project Blue Book supervisor Edward J. Ruppelt, the Chiles-Whitted sighting was one of three "classic" UFO incidents in 1948 that convinced the personnel of Project Sign, Blue Book's predecessor, "that UFOs were real," along with the Mantell UFO incident and the Gorman dogfight. However, later studies by Air Force and civilian researchers indicated that Chiles and Whitted had seen a meteor, possibly a bolide, and in 1959 Project Blue Book formally stated that a meteor was the cause of the incident.
The Chicago O'Hare UFO sighting occurred on November 7, 2006, around 4:15 p.m. when a total of 12 United Airlines employees and Andres, a witness from Torreon outside the airport at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, reported a UFO sighting. The Federal Aviation Administration declined to investigate the incident because the UFO was not seen on radar and called it a “weather phenomenon”.
This article is a list of UFO sightings that were reported in Norway.
This is a list of alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects or UFOs in Brazil.
Below is a partial list of alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects or UFOs in Canada.
The 1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident, also known as the Washington flap, the Washington National Airport Sightings, or the Invasion of Washington, was a series of unidentified flying object reports from July 12 to July 29, 1952, over Washington, D.C. 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."
A flying saucer is a descriptive term for a supposed type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has generally been supplanted since 1952 by the United States Air Force term unidentified flying objects. Early reported sightings of unknown "flying saucers" usually described them as silver or metallic, sometimes reported as covered with navigation lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly, either alone or in tight formations with other similar craft, and exhibiting high maneuverability.
This is an incomplete list of alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects or UFOs in Argentina.
This is a list of alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects or UFOs in South Africa.
The Kirtland AFB UFO sighting could suggest either of two incidents, separated by a number of years, but initially refers to an observation of an unidentified flying object at Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico, late in 1957. The Air Force concluded the witnesses misidentified a conventional aircraft.
The Lakenheath-Bentwaters Incident was a series of radar and visual contacts with Unidentified flying objects (UFO) that took place 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.
Japan Airlines Flight 1628 was a claimed 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 obliged and 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 Mount Denali.
On 23 April 2007, captain Ray Bowyer was flying a routine passenger flight for the civilian airliner 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.
This is a list of alleged sightings of UFOs in India.