The case files
Events with a paper trail
A case is one event; its references are every place that event surfaces in the record — a Blue Book file, a FOIA release, a wire story, a reporting-center log. The same sighting in multiple archives is linked here, not duplicated. Dispositions are recorded as the investigating body gave them.
24 JUNE 1947
The Kenneth Arnold sighting
A private pilot searching for a downed Marine transport watched nine crescent objects skip past Mount Rainier at an estimated 1,700 mph. A reporter's paraphrase — 'flying saucer' — named the era.
0 references
ContestedJULY 1947
The Roswell incident
An Army airfield announced it had recovered a 'flying disc' from a ranch northwest of Roswell, retracted it within hours, and spent fifty years watching the retraction fail. The Air Force's own answer, when it came, was a classified balloon train.
0 references
Identified19–27 JULY 1952
The Washington, D.C. radar incidents
On two consecutive weekends, radar at National Airport and Andrews AFB tracked unknown targets over the capital while airline crews reported lights; jets were scrambled, and the Air Force gave the largest press conference since the war to explain it.
0 references
Contested2–3 NOVEMBER 1957
The Levelland vehicle interference cases
Over two and a half hours, at least a dozen drivers around one Texas town independently reported a glowing egg-shaped object that stalled their engines and killed their headlights — restored the moment it left.
0 references
Contested24 APRIL 1964
The Socorro landing (Lonnie Zamora)
A police sergeant chasing a speeder broke off to investigate a roar and flame, and watched an egg-shaped craft with two small figures beside it rise from an arroyo. Blue Book investigated and left it unidentified — its most famous unknown.
0 references
Unexplained3 SEPTEMBER 1965
The Exeter incident
A teenager and two police officers watched a massed bank of pulsing red lights maneuver over a field at close range. The Air Force offered a training exercise; the Pentagon eventually conceded in writing it could not identify the object.
0 references
Unexplained6 APRIL 1966
The Westall school sighting
More than two hundred students and staff at a Melbourne high school watched a low, silver, saucer-like object cross their oval, descend behind trees, and climb away pursued by light aircraft. No official file has ever been located — an absence that is itself part of the record.
0 references
As reported4 OCTOBER 1967
The Shag Harbour impact
Witnesses including RCMP officers watched lights descend into Nova Scotia waters with a flash and a whistle; a glowing object floated offshore, then submerged. The military searched, found only foam, and its own log — every conventional candidate eliminated — filed the incident as a UFO.
0 references
Unexplained19 SEPTEMBER 1976
The Tehran F-4 incident
Two Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantoms pursued a brilliant object over Tehran; both reported instrument and weapons failures at close approach. The DIA's own evaluation sheet called it an outstanding report meeting all criteria for a valid study.
0 references
UnexplainedOCTOBER–DECEMBER 1977
The Colares wave (Operação Prato)
For months, islanders at the mouth of the Amazon reported beams of light from low-flying objects that left burns — the 'chupa-chupa.' The Brazilian Air Force sent a field team that watched, photographed, and filed for four months, then closed the operation without a published conclusion.
0 references
Contested21 OCTOBER 1978
The Valentich disappearance
A young pilot crossing Bass Strait described an unknown aircraft with four lights orbiting above him — 'it is hovering, and it's not an aircraft' — before seventeen seconds of metallic scraping and silence. Neither he nor his Cessna was ever found; the official finding is that the reason for the disappearance has not been determined.
0 references
Unexplained26–28 DECEMBER 1980
Rendlesham Forest
USAF security personnel at the twin bases RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge twice entered the forest to investigate lights, one patrol reporting a small triangular craft at ground level. The deputy base commander's memo to the MoD is titled, simply, 'Unexplained Lights.'
0 references
Contested29 DECEMBER 1980
The Cash–Landrum encounter
Two women and a boy on a Texas back road met a flame-belching diamond at treetop height, escorted minutes later by a swarm of Chinook helicopters. Their subsequent illnesses, and their failed lawsuit against the government, are the case.
0 references
Contested8 JANUARY 1981
The Trans-en-Provence trace case
A retired farmer watched a lead-colored saucer land on his terrace for less than a minute. The gendarmerie sampled the ground within twenty-four hours, and France's official investigation put the resulting laboratory work on the record — mechanical pressure, heating, and biochemical changes in the plants — without finding a cause.
0 references
Unexplained17 NOVEMBER 1986
Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 over Alaska
A JAL 747 freighter crew tracked lights and a silhouetted giant over eastern Alaska for half an hour, with intermittent radar returns from ground control. The FAA investigated, released everything, and confirmed only that it could not confirm.
0 references
ContestedNOVEMBER 1989 – APRIL 1990
The Belgian wave
Thousands of Belgians, gendarmes among them, reported low, slow, silent triangles over five months; one March night the Air Force scrambled F-16s whose radars briefly locked something they could not hold. The Air Force put its general on stage with the civilians.
0 references
Contested16 SEPTEMBER 1994
The Ariel School encounter
During morning break at a school outside Harare, some sixty children reported a landed craft at the edge of the schoolyard and small dark-suited figures beside it — accounts they have maintained, in remarkable agreement, into adulthood. No official body ever investigated.
0 references
As reported13 MARCH 1997
The Phoenix Lights
Two events one evening: a silent V of lights that crossed Arizona at 8 p.m. before thousands of witnesses, and a 10 p.m. arc of lights over the Sierra Estrella that the Air National Guard identified as flares. The second explanation is documented; the first is still argued.
0 references
Contested14 NOVEMBER 2004
The Nimitz 'Tic Tac' encounter
After a week of anomalous radar tracks, two F/A-18 crews from USS Nimitz were vectored onto a white, wingless object maneuvering over a disturbance in the sea. The Navy's FLIR video of the follow-up intercept is one of three the Pentagon has officially released as unidentified.
0 references
Unexplained7 NOVEMBER 2006
The O'Hare Airport disc
A dozen United Airlines employees, ramp workers to pilots, reported a grey disc hovering over gate C17 before it shot upward, punching a crisp hole in the overcast. The FAA declined to investigate, attributing it to weather.
0 references
ContestedJANUARY 2015
The Roosevelt encounters (GIMBAL and GOFAST)
F/A-18 crews from USS Theodore Roosevelt recorded two infrared videos of objects off the Atlantic coast during a period of near-daily radar tracks. The Pentagon released both as unidentified; its analysts have since argued one is an illusion of geometry — pilots on the record disagree.
0 references
Contested15 JULY 2019
The USS Omaha sphere
Night-vision footage from a littoral combat ship shows a dark sphere pacing the ship before appearing to descend into the sea; no wreckage was recovered. The Pentagon confirmed the video was taken by Navy personnel and folded it into the UAP Task Force review.
0 references
Contested