The Most Profound UFO Sighting Stories in History (with Pictures)
How It All Began: The History of UFOs and How People Came to Believe in Alien Life
UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) are often identified with alien life form from outer space. Some believe it to be true, others think it’s nothing but a hoax. Whatever you believe, UFO sightings have been reported for years and years now. Here are some of the craziest UFO sightings in history, tracing back to 1947, where it all started.
Kenneth Arnold – The First UFO Sighting (1947)
The origin of today’s UFO beliefs trace back to a recreational pilot, Kenneth Arnold, who while flying his small airplane near Washington’s Mount Rainier in 1947 saw nine blue glowing objects flying fast at an estimated 1,700 mph in a V formation.
He thought the objects were a new military aircraft, in fact his sighting was only two years after WWII and the first year of the Cold War. But the military confirmed there were no tests being conducted near Mount Rainier that day. Arnold described the motion of the aircrafts similar to “a saucer if you skip it across water”. This coined the term “flying saucer.”
Soon after Arnold’s reports, various reports of a group of nine UFOs came up across the region, including a prospector on Mount Adams as well as a crew of a commercial flight in Idaho. The government never gave credible explanation for the sightings. They simply claimed Arnold had been hallucinating. But it was already too late, UFO mania had already set in and more people were claiming UFOs around the country.
Roswell – Pasture Field Crash Site (1947)
The Roswell sighting is said to be the mother of all UFO sightings. Yet, no object was actually observed flying. During the summer of 1947, rancher William Mac Brazel discovered mysterious debris in one of his pastures, including metallic rods, chunks of plastic and “unusual papery scraps.” After Brazel reported the materials, Roswell Army came and retrieved the wreckage. News headlines suggested a “flying saucer” crashed in his pasture, but military officials said it was simply a weather balloon that crashed.
Since that day, theorists have tried “debunking” the truth. A man named Ray Santilli even released a video of an alien dissection in 1995, but later in 2006 admitted the film was staged…yet he maintained it was based on actual footage.
Turned out, the government was truly trying to hide something though. The downed weather balloon was actually a confidential secret mission called Project Mogul, which launched high-altitude balloons carrying equipment to detect Soviet nuclear tests. The military even reported a 231-page paper in 1997 called “Final Report on the Roswell Crash” explaining everything. Now Roswell is home to the International UFO Museum and Research Center, as well as a spaceship-shaped McDonald’s.
Lubbock Lights – Birds or Lights? (1951)
Levelland – The Incident that Inspired Close Encounters (1957)
In the classic sci-fi movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, there’s a famous scene where a UFO makes the electronics in a car malfunction. The inspiration for that scene actually comes from this incident in 1957. Dozens of citizens in Levelland, Texas, each reported individually seeing a rocket or strange lights that interfered with their vehicles. Some citizens’ car engines died, for others their lights cut off.
The police at first thought it to be a prank, but soon they saw the mysterious lights and decided to investigate it. The military which deals with UFO sightings came into play and found it was an electrical storm and ball lightning caused lights and mechanical malfunctions. The weird thing is, there were no reports of any signs of thunderstorms in that area that night.
Tehran – Fighter Jet Malfunctions (1976)
In September of 1976, an incident in Tehran, Iran started much like other UFO sightings and interference, with phone calls and reporting of bright lights in the sky.
An F-4 fighter jet investiagted the reported area, but as it neared the object, all of its instruments blacked out, forcing the pilot to return to base. A second pilot went up in the sky and as it neared the light, it achieved radar lock. According to the second pilot, the UFO released a glowing object and the pilot reacted, thinking it was a missile fired straight at him. As he readied to fight back, the jet experienced malfunctions and he witnessed another bright light released from the initial light that beamed straight to the ground. The second pilot safely returned to base.
After the incident, Iran touched base with the United States to aid them in the investigation. An unclassified memo by U.S. Air Force section chief Lieutenant Colonel Olin Mooy detailed the events of the night: There are explanations for nearly all of them.
Their findings: “First, the bright light seen by civilians (and possibly the pilots) might have been Jupiter, which was visible in the sky that night. Second, as author Brian Dunning notes in his podcast “Skeptoid,” the second F-4 jet had a long history of electrical problems, meaning the instrumentation might have failed regardless of possible UFO interference. It also could explain the radar lock—it might simply have been a malfunction. The first F-4, reports Dunning, was never turned in for maintenance following the incident, so there’s no official indication that its instrumentation failed. And finally, as for the “alien missiles,” there was a meteor shower that night, which could easily account for the sightings.” via History
