The craziest UFO sightings of all time: These will make you believe in aliens
UFOs are hot right now, with the release of new life-affirming info about the potential existence of the legendary objects. We’re going to assume you know about the super fancy & official Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Taskforce, and if you don’t, please go read the one piece of news that won’t leave you sad, frustrated, angry, and concerned for the future and will instead leave you feeling free, sexy and a little bit dangerous.
When you’re done, take a look at some of the craziest, most legit sightings of UFOs in American history.
Kenneth Arnold sightings
The notion of flying saucers in popular imagination can be traced back at least to 1947. During a flight nearby Mt. Rainier in Washington state, pilot Kenneth Arnold reportedly perceived nine unusual objects in the sky, “flat like a pie pan” and moving “like a fish flipping in the sun” at speeds surpassing 1,000 mph.
Arnold’s claims are widely credited as sparking the initial boom of UFO interest in the public. After his story was published, reports across the country swelled to the point that a government-sanctioned investigative team called Project SIGN was implemented to downplay the accounts. Yes, governments really do engage in disinformation propaganda campaigns!
McMinnville photographs
In May 1950 near small Oregon town McMinnville, farming couple Paul & Evelyn Trent noticed something strange in the sky. According to the report later given by the couple, Evelyn was headed back to the house after feeding the rabbits when she noticed “a slow-moving metallic disk” in the sky. She hollered for Paul, who snapped two photographs before the object disappeared.
Initially scared to publish the photos out of fear they showed a secret military aircraft, Paul didn’t develop the roll of film for an entire month after he took the photos – as if you could wait even five minutes to upload to Insta.
Over the years, the photos and the couple’s story have been under intense scrutiny with accusations of hoaxes. Nevertheless, on several occasions the images have been cleared of any evidence of tampering and Paul & Evelyn continued insisting their story was true until their respective deaths in 1997 & 1998.
“Saucers over Washington” (Comic)
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The Washington, DC Flap
By 1952, the UFO investigative agency was renamed Project Blue Book, while films like The Day the Earth Stood Still had entered the zeitgeist and brought with them a swirl of interest in UFOs.
During the summer of 1952, when Washington, DC was fuming from its most sweltering temperatures, concerning radar alerts originated from Andrews & Bolling Air Force bases. They purportedly showed a series of mysterious objects flying near the capitol. Several Air Force jets tried to tail the saucers to investigate, only to have them accelerate away at incredible speed.
The reports kept coming in from around the area, and soon enough newspapers printed eye-catching front page headlines like “‘Saucer’ Outran Jet, Pilot Reveals” and “Saucers Swarm Over Capital”. The U.S. Air Force tried to dissuade public panic by claiming the reports were caused by humid weather messing up the radar detector and inverting the findings.
The Shag Harbor Incident
After Betty & Barney Hill made claims of their reported alien abduction public in 1961, alien-centric reports became commonplace around America. But in Canada, things were different. There had been a handful of eyewitness accounts of unidentified objects with increasing numbers since 1951, but nothing that came close to the events at Shag Harbor just after the Summer of Love.
Dubbed “Canada’s Roswell”, the Shag Harbor incident occurred on October 4th, 1967 in Nova Scotia near a tiny fishing village on the Atlantic coast. Around 11:20 pm, it was reported that a “low-flying lit object” had crashed into the waters of the harbor. At least eleven people claimed to have seen it, and even more heard a noise “like a bomb”.
Initially assuming it was an aircraft, rescue efforts were dispatched to the area of the crash and every plane & aircraft was sought and accounted for by the Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax. By morning, no bodies nor wreckage of any kind were reported, and to this day the mystery is still unsolved.
O’Hare International Airport Saucer
Since the 1980s, the fascination with UFOs has ramped up to a staggering height. Every day a new claim comes out, and with the popularity of smartphones & social media, most theories are easily debunked. But one sighting in 2006 has continued to stump experts and even the most hardened skeptics.
At around 4:15 pm on November 7th, federal authorities at Chicago O’Hare International Airport received a report that at least twelve airport employees had witnessed a “metallic, saucer-shaped craft” hovering over Gate C-17. The occurrence was witnessed by pilots, airline management, and mechanics, but no air traffic controllers saw the object – and it did not show up on radar.
While the Federal Aviation Administration asserts the sighting was caused by a “weather phenomenon” and therefore would not be investigated, UFO researchers and other concerned citizens consider the occasion at the very least a “possible security breach” at “one of the busiest airports in the world” – and deem that it should be taken seriously.
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What do you think? Genuine UFOs or hoaxes? Let us know in the comments and check out Strange Arrivals, a new podcast from Grim & Mild network that delves into the history of Betty & Barney Hill & UFO phenomena from all over the United States.
