Every case
All 100 entries in the field guide, from the 1896 airship wave to the 2026 file releases. Each one sets out what's documented, what's claimed and the best explanation so far, with links to the original records.
Before the Saucers
Phantom airships, wartime nerves and the first official worries.
The Great Airship Wave
Fifty years before 'flying saucers,' Americans saw mysterious airships.
The Battle of Los Angeles
Three months after Pearl Harbor, anti-aircraft guns fired into an empty sky for an hour.
Foo Fighters
Allied night-fighter crews reported glowing balls of light pacing their planes.
Ghost Rockets of Scandinavia
Thousands of reports of rocket-like objects streaking over Sweden.
The Flying Saucer Age
A new phrase, a national craze and twenty-two years of Air Force investigation.
Kenneth Arnold's Nine Objects
The sighting that gave the world the phrase 'flying saucer'.
The Maury Island Incident
A tale of falling slag, men in black and a deadly plane crash.
Roswell
A 'flying disc' press release, a weather balloon retraction and a legend that took 30 years to form.
The Twining Memo
A top general tells the Pentagon the saucer reports deserve serious study.
The Death of Captain Mantell
A National Guard pilot died chasing a bright object he could not catch.
The Chiles–Whitted Encounter
Two airline pilots describe a glowing, windowed cigar rushing past their DC-3.
The 'Estimate of the Situation'
A report said to conclude the saucers were interplanetary, then ordered destroyed.
The Gorman Dogfight
A pilot spent half an hour in a 'dogfight' with a small blinking light.
The Green Fireballs
Bright green lights over America's most secret nuclear sites. They came back in the 2026 files.
The Aztec Crash Hoax
A bestselling book about a crashed saucer, built on a con man's sales pitch.
The McMinnville Photos
Two farm photos of a disc that have been argued over for 75 years.
The Lubbock Lights
Texas Tech professors watched V-shaped groups of soft lights glide over town.
Projects Sign, Grudge & Blue Book
Twenty-two years of Air Force UFO investigation: 12,618 reports, 701 unidentified.
The Contactees
Friendly 'Space Brothers' from Venus, desert conventions and a new kind of UFO believer.
The Washington, D.C. Flap
Radar blips over the Capitol, jets scrambled and the biggest Pentagon press briefing since WWII.
The Tremonton Film
A Navy photographer's 16mm film of shining dots, reviewed by the CIA. It reappeared in 2026.
The Flatwoods Monster
A group of kids and adults meet a hissing, glowing figure on a dark hillside.
The Robertson Panel
The CIA asks top scientists if UFOs are a threat. Their answer shaped policy for decades.
Blue Book Special Report No. 14
The first big statistical study of UFO reports, and an argument still running.
The Kelly–Hopkinsville Goblins
A farm family's night-long standoff with small, glowing creatures.
APRO, NICAP and the Civilian Investigators
Ordinary citizens organize to investigate UFOs and push the government for answers.
The RB-47 Encounter
A spy plane's crew, its electronic sensors and ground radar all tracked something for hours.
The Levelland Sightings
Driver after driver reported a glowing egg that stalled their engines.
Betty & Barney Hill
The first widely publicized alien abduction story, recovered under hypnosis.
John Glenn's Fireflies
The first American to orbit Earth sees thousands of glowing specks dancing around his capsule.
Lonnie Zamora at Socorro
A respected police officer sees a landed egg-shaped craft and two small figures.
The Incident at Exeter
A teenager and two police officers watch pulsing red lights over a field.
The Kecksburg Acorn
A fireball, a crash in the woods and a story of an acorn-shaped object hauled away.
McDivitt's Gemini 4 Object
An astronaut photographs a cylinder with an arm sticking out of it. The photo NASA released showed something else.
The Gemini 7 'Bogey'
Frank Borman reports a 'bogey' and hundreds of little particles. The transcript reappeared in the 2026 file release.
Swamp Gas in Michigan
Two words from an astronomer led Congress to its first UFO hearing.
House Armed Services UFO Hearing
Congress's first public look at UFOs.
The Westall School Sighting
Hundreds of students and teachers watch an object descend near their school.
Malmstrom Missile Shutdown
Ten nuclear missiles went offline. Later witnesses said a UFO was overhead.
The Shag Harbour Incident
Lights hit the water off a fishing village, and the Canadian Navy came looking.
The Condon Committee
An independent scientific study concludes UFOs are not worth further study. Its own data was messier.
The 1968 House UFO Symposium
Scientists, including Carl Sagan, argue about UFOs before Congress.
Blue Book Closes
The Air Force gets out of the UFO business.
Apollo 11's Traveling Light
Buzz Aldrin sees a light pacing the spacecraft. A science fiction writer's hoax made the story much bigger.
Close Encounters
The government steps back. Civilian researchers, abduction stories and Hollywood step in.
The Apollo 12 & 17 Photos in the 2026 Files
The Pentagon's first PURSUE release circled bright specks in photos taken on the Moon.
The Pascagoula Abduction
Two shipyard workers say they were floated into a craft while fishing.
The Coyne Helicopter Incident
An Army helicopter crew says a gray craft pulled them upward.
Travis Walton
A logger vanishes for five days after his crew sees him struck by a beam.
The Tehran F-4 Chase
Iranian jets lose instruments as they approach a brilliant light. A U.S. intelligence memo followed.
GEIPAN: France's Official UAP Office
The longest-running government UAP office in the world publishes its cases online.
The Petrozavodsk 'Jellyfish'
A glowing jellyfish hangs over a Soviet city before dawn and sets off a state UFO program.
Operação Prato
Brazil's Air Force sends a team to a river island where residents say lights are attacking them.
The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich
A young pilot radios that something is hovering over him. Then he is gone.
The Kaikōura Lights
Cargo pilots see lights off the coast, radar tracks targets, and a TV crew films them.
Uruguay's Air Force UFO Commission
One of the longest-running official UFO investigation units in the world.
Rendlesham Forest
Britain's most famous case, with a deputy base commander's memo and audio tape.
The Cash–Landrum Incident
Three people say a fiery diamond, escorted by helicopters, made them sick.
Trans-en-Provence
The French government's scientists analyze a landing trace in a garden.
The Hessdalen Lights
A Norwegian valley where strange lights are studied with permanent instruments.
The Hudson Valley Boomerang
Thousands saw a huge, silent boomerang of lights. A group of pilots had a secret.
The Majestic 12 Documents
Supposed top secret papers about a secret UFO control group. The FBI called them bogus.
Japan Air Lines Flight 1628
A 747 cargo crew says a huge object followed them across Alaska.
Brazil's Official UFO Night
Radar tracks 21 objects, five fighter jets scramble, and the Air Minister says he has no explanation.
Gulf Breeze
Dramatic Polaroids of a glowing craft, and a model found in the attic.
Bob Lazar and S-4
A man on TV says he worked on alien craft near Area 51.
The Belgian Wave
Triangles over Belgium, F-16s scrambled, and a photo that turned out to be fake.
The STS-48 'Zigzag' Video
Shuttle video shows dots drifting, then darting away after a flash. It became a UFO classic.
The Air Force Roswell Reports
The Air Force reopens Roswell and names Project Mogul.
The Ariel School Encounter
Dozens of schoolchildren describe a landed craft and strange beings during recess.
The Alien Autopsy Film
Black-and-white footage of an autopsy on a Roswell alien, broadcast around the world.
The Varginha Creature
Three young women report a strange creature crouched by a wall. Rumors of captures follow.
The Phoenix Lights
Two separate events the same night, often merged into one mystery.
The CIA's Own UFO History
A CIA historian says spy planes explain many 1950s–60s sightings.
The COMETA Report
Retired French generals and experts publish a report taking UAP seriously.
Quiet Programs
Pilot encounters and a small, little-known Pentagon study.
The Disclosure Project Press Conference
Twenty witnesses call for hearings about secret UFO knowledge.
Peru's Air Force UFO Office
Peru's Air Force opens, closes and reopens an office dedicated to anomalous aerial phenomena.
The Nimitz 'Tic Tac'
Navy pilots chase a smooth white object that the radar ship had tracked for days.
The Mexican Air Force Infrared Video
A drug-surveillance plane films eleven glowing objects on infrared. They didn't move.
Lights from the Space Station
Astronauts on the ISS report and film strange lights. Each one has a down-to-earth answer.
Britain's UFO Files & Project Condign
A secret UK intelligence study and decades of Ministry of Defence files go public.
The O'Hare Airport Sighting
Airline workers watch a dark disc hover over a gate, then shoot up through the clouds.
AAWSAP and AATIP
A small Pentagon study, pushed by Senator Harry Reid, that nobody knew about.
The Stephenville Lights
A small Texas town sees a huge set of lights, and the Air Force changes its story.
Chile's CEFAA and the Navy Helicopter Video
Chile's official UFO committee releases a Navy video it calls unexplained. Online analysts found the airliner.
Gimbal & GoFast
Two Navy infrared videos that changed the conversation, and the analysts who picked them apart.
The UAP Era
Navy videos, new offices, sworn testimony and a flood of declassified files.
The New York Times Story
A front-page story reveals a secret Pentagon program and two Navy videos.
The 2019 'Pyramids' & Omaha Sphere
Leaked Navy footage of triangle-shaped lights and a sphere that seemed to enter the sea.
The Navy Videos Go Official
The Pentagon formally releases FLIR1, Gimbal and GoFast.
The ODNI Preliminary Assessment
The first official intelligence report on UAP: 144 cases, 1 explained.
The 2022 House Intelligence Hearing
The first public congressional UFO hearing in 54 years.
AARO Is Founded
The Pentagon creates the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
The 2023 Balloon Shootdowns
A Chinese spy balloon is shot down, followed by three more mystery objects in a week.
The Grusch Hearing
A former intelligence officer testifies under oath about crash retrievals and 'non-human biologics.'
NASA's UAP Study
A panel of scientists asks how to study UAP properly. The answer: better data.
The UAP Disclosure Act
Senators propose a JFK-style review of UAP records. Some of it becomes law.
AARO's Historical Record Report
AARO reviews 80 years of claims and finds no evidence of alien technology.
'Exposing the Truth' Hearing
Luis Elizondo and others testify about secrecy and UAP.
AARO's Annual Reports
Year by year: more reports, mostly balloons, drones and birds, and a handful of puzzles.
The New Jersey Drone Flap
Weeks of nightly drone sightings, flight bans and national panic.
The 2025 Task Force Hearing & the Yemen Video
Congress is shown a drone video of a Hellfire missile hitting an orb that keeps going.
PURSUE: The 2026 File Releases
A presidential directive sends hundreds of UFO files into public view in six releases.