From the "little green men" of rural Kentucky to the string of lights over Arizona spotted by thousands of people, these real UFO sightings suggest we may not be alone in the universe.
Ever since something crashed in the desert near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, the craze surrounding unidentified flying objects (UFOs) — or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), as the government officially classifies them — has seemingly never ended.
In fact, now more than ever, UFO sightings are being discussed in a truly academic manner, with government officials and military personnel coming forward and confirming there are indeed objects of unknown origin flying about in the sky.
What was once considered a fringe, conspiratorial belief has now become the focus of mainstream media attention and governmental consideration. With this newfound resurgence of interest in UFOs, it’s worth looking back at some real UFO sightings throughout history that might actually hold some weight.
The Phoenix Lights That Hovered Over Arizona For Three Hours
Public DomainThe string of bright orbs above Prescott, Arizona.
On March 13, 1997, thousands of people across Nevada, Arizona, and northern Mexico spotted a series of UFOs hovering in the night sky above. Witnesses reported several smaller objects that looked like floating orbs and a larger, V-shaped aircraft the size of several football fields over Phoenix, Arizona.
This incident is known as the Phoenix Lights, and it is one of the most hotly debated UFO sightings of all time.
The UFOs remained in the air for about three hours, from roughly 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., with thousands of civilians staring up at them in awe. Pilots in the region also reported what they were seeing to air traffic controllers — but none of them saw anything out of the ordinary on their radars.
Some estimates claimed the larger UFO was roughly the size of three football fields, but others believed it was more than a mile long.
A 31-year-old man named Dana Valentine saw the Phoenix Lights from his backyard and called his father, an aeronautical engineer, outside to see them. The two watched as the V-shaped craft passed them by, hovering just 500 feet above.
“We could see the outline of a mass behind the lights, but you couldn’t actually see the mass,” Valentine later said. “It was more like a gray distortion of the night sky, wavy. I don’t know exactly what it was, but I know it’s not a technology the public has heard of before.”
Another witness, 54-year-old Tim Ley, claimed he also saw the lights. Like Valentine, Ley said, “You couldn’t actually see the object. All you could see was the outline, as though something was blotting out the stars.”
Despite the high number of witnesses, the U.S. government was quick to try and discredit their testimonies. Officials claimed the orbs were nothing more than flares deployed as part of a military exercise, and then-Arizona governor Fife Symington III initially mocked the public’s concerns, unveiling someone dressed as an alien at a press conference.
However, Symington would later say that he, too, had seen the objects — and believed they were not of this world.
The Cash-Landrum UFO Incident That Caused Radiation Poisoning In Witnesses
Intercontinental UFO Galactic Spacecraft Research and Analytic Network ArchivesVickie and Colby Landrum standing with Betty Cash.
One of the most significant issues regarding the credibility of UFO sightings is often a lack of proof. Photographs and videos are fantastic when available, but skeptics are quick to disregard these as evidence. In the modern age, it is especially easy to fake or alter images, further complicating any claims of authenticity.
However, the Cash-Landrum UFO incident is notable because its evidence could not have been faked. The witnesses had nothing to gain from their story — and much to lose.
The encounter, as retold by Robert Sheaffer in the Skeptical Inquirer, took place on Dec. 29, 1980. Around 9 p.m., Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum, and Landrum’s seven-year-old grandson Colby were driving near Houston, Texas, when they spotted something in the sky above them.
At first, they thought they were seeing a helicopter or perhaps a low-flying plane. After all, there were airfields in the area — but the object didn’t look like anything they had ever seen. For starters, it was massive and shaped like a diamond, and it occasionally sent out flames toward the road below.
Cash felt a mix of fear and fascination as she pulled the car over to the side of the road and exited the vehicle. Suddenly, black helicopters surrounded the UFO.
“They seemed to rush in from all directions,” Cash recalled. “It seemed like they were trying to encircle the thing.”
The flames put out by the UFO were allegedly so hot they made the car impossible to touch — but that’s not all. Almost immediately, the witnesses began to experience severe health complications. All three suffered from nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, burning eyes, and pain similar to a sunburn.
Betty Cash’s symptoms continued to worsen over the next few days. She developed massive blisters, and by the time she went to the hospital on Jan. 3, 1981, the pain was so intense that she could barely walk. Cash was discharged after 12 days but soon returned to the hospital for another two weeks.
All three witnesses eventually recovered, but the incident stuck with them. Initial reports chalked their illness up to “ionizing radiation syndrome,” but experts later claimed that if they had indeed been suffering from radiation poisoning, the dose would have been lethal based on the symptoms they displayed.
Meanwhile, skeptics have pointed to the possibility that the entire event was a case of Munchausen syndrome, a psychiatric condition in which someone fakes a disease. The burn patterns on Betty Cash’s arms, for instance, were distinctly round in a way that radiation burns wouldn’t be.
Her medical records have also never been released. Critics argue that this is to avoid any mention of the term Munchausen syndrome, although that is just as much a theory as the actual UFO sighting itself.
