Burritt College Campus – Tennessee
On June 1, 1853, a handful of students attending Burritt College in Tennessee caught sight of two luminous objects in the sky that led some to believe they had witnessed something that could possibly have come from outer space. Students were not the only witnesses to the strange sight in the sky a professor named A.C. Carnes interviewed the students and then reported the incident by writing a letter to Scientific American.
The sighting was described as a “small new moon” while the second object resembled a large star. The smaller object was reported to have disappeared, while the larger object changed shape a bit from a globe to an elongated shape that was parallel with the horizon. When the smaller light became visible once again, it rapidly increased in size, while the larger object grew smaller.
Over the course of 30 minutes, the two objects would continue to take turns growing and shrinking in size. The students wanted to know what caused such a sight in the sky, but no one could deliver an answer. The professor who wrote the letter theorized that the sight occurred because of atmospheric moisture, but to this day, the source of the incident is still a mystery.
New Jersey Turnpike
When a collection of yellow lights flew about the sky late in the evening in a suburb of New Jersey close to New York City more than one person reported the sight, including a local police officer who was not on duty. Around 12:30 in the morning, Carteret police Lt. Dan Tarrant received a call from his 19-year-old daughter who spotted strange lights in the sky while out with friends. Tarrent took a look outside and saw what he described as “16 golden-orange colored lights, several in a V-type formation. Others were scattered around the V.” The local newspaper reported Tarrent’s account of the incident stating that the odd lights flashed across the sky for around 10 minutes before they faded (one-by-one) into the darkness. This incident took place on July 14, 2001.
Phoenix, Arizona
When a rather large, V-shaped object with seven lights moved across the sky, it did not slip the eyes of thousands of people living in Nevada and Arizona. It was the evening of March 13, 1997 when reports started to roll in about orbs, triangles, and a strange craft in the sky. Residents flooded the lines of police departments in Phoenix, Tempe, Glendale and other cities throughout the state of Arizona. One of the witnesses said that he and his father watched the lights pass directly above them – only 500 feet in the air. The two men described seeing the outline of a mass behind the lights that stayed hidden as the object moved. To answer the questions regarding the incident, National Guard pilots said that they were to blame for the sightings as they caused the lights by releasing diversionary flares while on a training run. However, all did not accept this explanation, and some still believe that an unidentified flying object was to blame.
Washington, DC
When unexplainable objects seem to threaten the safety of the President and the White House, there is certainly cause for worry. On July 29, 1952, International News Service (INS) stated that the Air Force had ordered its jets to shoot down any flying saucers – an order that was confirmed by a spokesperson for the Air Force. Residents along the East Coast had reportedly seen flying saucers in the air and when something was picked up on a radar near Washington, DC, the order was placed for jets to intercept anything that seemed a threat.
It was July 29, 1947 when the Air Force assembled an emergency press conference to debunk the sightings and ease the minds of panicked residents. The press conference was the largest that had taken place since the Second World War. Important and influential figures of the government and military were present, including Generals John Samford, USAF chief of intelligence, and Roger Ramey, USAF director of operations (who was in charge of jet scrambles). Interestingly, it was Roger Ramsey who was in charge of debunking the Roswell crash incident theory that a weather balloon was a UFO craft. Together, Ramsey and Samford were known as the Air Force’s main experts on flying saucers.
Aurora, Texas
On the morning of April 17, 1897, a handful of residents in the small town of Aurora believed that they had witnessed a UFO crash in Texas. It was around 6 in the morning when people had awakened out of their slumber to see what a reporter for the Dallas Morning News described as an ‘airship.’ The account went onto say that the craft began to malfunction and stalled, where it then crashed into a windmill on property that belonged to a local judge. The debris from the crash reached across several acres. The news article went on to say that the only reported being onboard was the pilot of the ship who was so badly disfigured that he was described as not being of this world.
Skeptics dismissed the report and regarded it as a UFO hoax. However, many years later, the case still attracted interest and a reporter for the United Press International tracked down one of the residents of Aurora. By then, Mary Evans was now 91 years old, but still recalled the incident. She told the reporter that her parents had paid a visit to the crash site and told her that the body of the UFO pilot had been buried in the town cemetery.
Kecksburg, Pennsylvania
Numerous residents in a small village in Pennsylvania called Kecksburg reported to have seen an object described as streaking green fire across the sky before it crashed in a local field around 40 miles from Pittsburgh. On December 9, 1965, the craft was reported to have crashed before 6pm in the evening. A local resident named Bill Bulebush was working on his car when he spotted the object. He described it as looking like an acorn shape that was about two times the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. He said that the object slowly glided before making a U-turn and going down.
When a local fireman named James Romansky came upon the downed craft, he said that it had writing around the bottom ring that resembled the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians. He was only able to examine the craft for about 15 minutes before government and military officials arrived and ordered everyone to exit the scene. Armed guards were then placed around the perimeter to make sure that no one came onto the site.
Some said that the craft belonged to the Soviets and was a satellite, but a UFO researcher named Clifford Stone was able to speak with former Soviet officials and they insisted that the object did not belong to them. When an investigative journalist named Leslie Keen filed a Freedom of Information Act suit in 2009, NASA revealed that documentation associated with the case had gone missing.
Hudson Valley, New York
From 1982 to 1986, the UFO activity reported to have happened in the Hudson Valley region is astonishing – gaining the reputation of experiencing one of the largest clusters of incidents in history. The suburban area (located about an hour’s drive north of New York City) is believed to have had more than 5,000 UFO sightings within that time period. However, it was on March 24, 1983 that involved the highest number of people. More than 300 residents called the hotline for a local UFO organization to report seeing a large V-shaped collection of lights that slowly moved about the sky. They reported that the objects did not make any noise as they moved.
Some of the witnesses were able to get a close look at the sight describing the object as being a craft large enough to be called a ‘flying city.’ Another description of the sighting was a row of six or seven highly bright lights that blinked on and off. They were in different colors, such as red, blue, while and green. The lights were stationary and did not resemble any familiar aircraft. Some people were able to watch the object for up to five minutes or longer.