The Kecksburg UFO incident occurred on December 9, 1965, at Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, USA. A large, brilliant fireball was seen by thousands in at least six U.S. states and Ontario, Canada. It streaked over the Detroit, Michigan/Windsor, Ontario area, reportedly dropped hot metal debris over Michigan and northern Ohio, starting some grass fires and caused sonic booms in Western Pennsylvania. It was generally assumed and reported by the press to be a meteor after authorities discounted other proposed explanations such as a plane crash, errant missile test, or reentering satellite debris. The Incident (as reported) However, eyewitnesses in the small village of Kecksburg, about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, claimed something crashed in the woods. A boy said he saw the object land; his mother saw a wisp of blue smoke arising from the woods and alerted authorities. Another reported feeling a vibration and “a thump” about the time the object ...

Betty and Barney Hill were an American couple who claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrials in a rural portion of New Hampshire on September 19–20, 1961. The couple’s story, called the Hill Abduction, and occasionally the Zeta Reticuli Incident, was that they had been kidnapped for a short time by a UFO. Theirs was the first widely publicized claim of alien abduction, adapted into the best-selling 1966 book The Interrupted Journey and the 1975 television movie The UFO Incident. Many of Betty Hill’s notes, tapes, and other items have been placed in a permanent collection at the University of New Hampshire, her alma mater. As of July 2011, the site of the alleged craft’s first close approach is marked by a state historical marker. BackgroundThe Hills lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Barney (1922–1969) was employed by the U.S. Postal Service, while Betty (1919–2004) was a social worker. Active in ...

The 1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident, also known as the Washington flap or the Washington National Airport Sightings, was a series of unidentified flying object reports from July 12 to July 29, 1952, over Washington, D.C. The most publicized sightings took place on consecutive weekends, July 19–20 and July 26–27. Events of July 19–20 Washington National Airport,on the Potomac RiverAt 11:40 p.m. on Saturday, July 19, 1952, Edward Nugent, an air traffic controller at Washington National Airport (today Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport), spotted seven objects on his radar. The objects were located 15 miles (24 km) south-southwest of the city; no known aircraft were in the area and the objects were not following any established flight paths. Nugent’s superior, Harry Barnes, a senior air-traffic controller at the airport, watched the objects on Nugent’s radarscope. He later wrote: “We knew immediately that a very st...

The Mantell UFO incident was among the most publicized early UFO reports. The incident resulted in the crash and death of 25-year-old Kentucky Air National Guard pilot, Captain Thomas F. Mantell, on 7 January 1948, while in pursuit of a UFO. Historian David Michael Jacobs argues the Mantell case marked a sharp shift in both public and governmental perceptions of UFOs. Previously, mass media often treated UFO reports with a whimsical or glib attitude reserved for silly season news. Following Mantell’s death, however, Jacobs notes “the fact that a person had died in an encounter with an alleged flying saucer dramatically increased public concern about the phenomenon. Now a dramatic new prospect entered thought about UFOs: they might be not only extraterrestrial but potentially hostile as well.” OVERVIEW Mantell was an experienced pilot; his flight history consisted of 2,167 hours in the air, and he had been honored for his part in...

The 1947 Maury Island incident is one of the lesser-known Washington State UFO occurrences, but it should be better known for several reasons. It is probably the first incident where a witness claimed that a “man in black” intimidated him into silence, and it took place before the famed Roswell Crash, yet there were many similarities between the two. Moreover, the two military intelligence officers investigating the sighting died in a tragic air crash before they could complete their investigation. Unfortunately, the two principal witnesses, Harold Dahl and Fred Crisman, became objects of suspicion and controversy as the investigation continued. THE INCIDENT (AS REPORTED) In 1947, a common hazard in the waters of Puget Sound was the logs that floated on its surface. They escaped from “jams” waiting to be turned into lumber at nearby mills on the shore. Several men worked as an informal harbor patrol, snagging these logs and taking them to the mills for a salvage...