With the raid of Area 51 coming up (or maybe it’s already happened (depending on when this gets published)), it’s just the perfect time to write about UFO sightings. Now, I’m a firm believer that there are aliens out there. It would be very self-centered to think that in an infinite universe (with an infinite amount of galaxies and star systems), we’re the only life to have ever evolved. That being said, I’m not entirely sure that alien species have ever actually been to Earth.
But, here are 8 of history’s most famous (or infamous) UFO sightings!
Kenneth Arnold
The first UFO sighting we’re going to talk about occurred in 1947. In fact, a lot of the fascination with aliens and UFOs that we have today can be traced back to this first “encounter”.
While flying his small airplane near Washington’s Mount Rainier, pilot Arnold Kenneth saw something unusual in the sky. According to him, he saw nine big, blue glowing objects that were flying in a V formation. According to him they were flying at nearly 1,700 miles per hour (how he calculated that number without any special tools is beyond me).
Like any pilot, he assumed that these were just military planes, but this was far too fast for any human-made airplane.
His report made the national news, and soon after thousands of other people began claiming that they also saw alien aircrafts and, in some cases, actual aliens. This is a trend we’ve been seeing a lot ever since — whenever a UFO sighting makes the news, many people begin reporting to have seen UFO’s themselves.
Roswell
Another UFO sighting that took place in 1947! Coincidence? I don’t think so!
Unlike the story of Kenneth Arnold, the rancher William Brazel didn’t actually see any flying saucers in the sky. No, what happened to him was much more mysterious and unusual. When he was walking across some of his New Mexico pastures, he found metallic rods, metal and plastic scraps, and unusual “papery” chunks. Soon after he reported the wreckage that occurred in one of his fields, the Roswell Army Air Force arrived and retrieved all the materials.
Ever since then, conspiracy theorists have been sure that there was a real UFO crash, and that alien bodies were collected from those fields, dissected, and studied.
But, those are nothing but conjectures (according to the US government). The fact that there was a crash is true. That can’t be denied. However, what crashed wasn’t a UFO, but a military-grade air balloon that was created as part of a military project called Project Mogul.
Whether that’s true or there was an actual UFO crash in Roswell, the field has become a tourist attraction, and there’s even a spaceship-shaped McDonald’s there!
Lubbock Lights
A few years after Roswell, in August of 1951, three Texas Tech professors saw a semicircle of flying lights above them. As with Kenneth Arnold’s story — these lights were flying incredibly fast. They reported what they saw to the news, and over the next few days dozens of other people claimed to have seen these lights fly across the sky too. One Texas Tech student, a freshman named Carl Hart Jr. even took photos of the event. These got published in the newspaper.
The prevailing assumption as to the origins of these lights is that they were birds that were reflecting the luminescence from the street lamps. However, all the people who were there claimed that the flying objects were way too fast to be birds. They’re sure that what they saw was a UFO (or several).
Levellan
Another six years after the events in Texas, in 1957, dozens of citizens in Levellan, Texas (common theme here, with Texas, no?) reported seeing a rocket and that as they saw it fly by, their cars were interfered with (engines died, headlights stopped working, radios stopped playing music, etc.).
Even though the police initially suspected that all these reports were an elaborate prank, some officers actually came forward and said that they experienced the electrical interference as well!
Project Blue Book was assigned to investigate the case, and they concluded that an electrical storm caused the interference. But the suspicious thing here is that there were no reported thunderstorms in that area on that day… Suspicious?
Tehran
And, finally, we’ve come to the first UFO sighting story that didn’t take place in the United States. In 1976, tens of concerned citizens of Tehran, Iran called the police to report that they saw a bright light in the sky. Several fighter jets (F-4!) were sent out to investigate the airspace above Tehran, and as they approached the unidentifiable flying object, their instruments blacked out… So, with no other options, the pilots had to return to their base.
When a second F-4 was flown out to the location it was able to lock its radar on the objects. But then, according to the pilot, the object released a large beam of light that the pilot thought was a misfile. As he was preparing to launch missiles in a counter attack — his plane started malfunctioning. That’s two F-4 planes that malfunctioned because of a UFO.
The governments of the United States and Iran claim to have been able to come up with reasonable explanations for these occurrences after extensive investigations, however, neither government has made these records public.
Rendlesham Forest
In 1980 US Air Force pilots that were stationed in Rendlesham bases reported seeing, again, colorful lights flying in the sky. This was just 100 miles away from London, so naturally they had to investigate this. They claimed to have discovered a spacecraft, and on the following day others in the area confirmed that nearby trees were damaged by a falling object. To add to the mystery, the nearby area had a spike in the level of radiation.
When the British government investigated they found that no threat was detected to their country. So, what did they do? They just dropped the case.
Or did they?
The Belgium Wave
In late November of 1989, thousands of Belgian citizens reported seeing large, triangular flying objects in the sky. However, just as with the Rendlesham Forest occurrence, when the Belgian Air Forces investigated the air space, they found no threat and stopped the investigation.
Honestly, who has a chance to investigate UFOs and just drops the entire study because they can’t find anything? Something isn’t right here!
Area 51
And, of course, what kind of article about UFOs and aliens would this be if I didn’t mention Area 51?
Area 51 is the colloquial name of a classified United States Air Force facility located in Nevada. Nobody in the public knows what this station is for and what the military does there. All satellite images of the area are blurred for the public, and the security around Area 51 is higher than any other military base in America (including bases that are launch sites for nuclear missiles!
What do you think goes on there? What needs to be protected more than a nuclear arsenal?
If the Area 51 raid goes through — maybe we’ll find out!
