10 Historical UFO Encounters

Prominent UFO sightings from ancient times, to the Roswell Crash in 1947.

Published 10 years ago

Prominent UFO sightings from ancient times, to the Roswell Crash in 1947.

1
214 BC in Rome, Roman Republic - Livy records a number of portents in the winter of this year, including navium speciem de caelo adfulsisse ("an appearance of ships had shone forth from the sky").

2
74 BC in Phygia, Roman Republic - According to Plutarch, a Roman army commanded by Lucullus was about to begin a battle with Mithridates VI of Pontus when "all on a sudden, the sky burst asunder, and a huge, flame-like body was seen to fall between the two armies. In shape, it was most like a wine-jar, and in colour, like molten silver." Plutarch reports the shape of the object as like a wine-jar (pithos). The apparently silvery object was reported by both armies.

3
1561-04-14 in Nuremberg, Holy Roman Empire - At sunrise on the 14th April 1561, the citizens of Nuremberg beheld "A very frightful spectacle." The sky appeared to fill with cylindrical objects from which red, black, orange and blue white disks and globes emerged. Epicted in a 16th-century woodcut by Hans Glaser.

4
1609-09-26 over several different provinces in Korea - a shiny object resembling "a bowl" or "a washbasin", suddenly appeared over the skies, made "a thunderous sound" and flew "fast like an arrow", and that "heaven and earth shook". It looked "as if it would land", but then it "tilted and rose", and then "it disappeared into sparks", with a comment that "it looked as if it was in the air by some energy". From the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty.

5
1803 at Haratono-hama, Japan - On February 22 (or March 24) in 1803 local fishermen reportedly saw a vessel drifting in close-by waters. They say when they investigated it, "a beautiful young woman" they described as having red and white hair and dressed in strange clothes appeared. The fisherman claim she held a square box "that no one was allowed to touch" and she spoke to them in a language they never heard before.

6
1909 over Otago, New zealand - Strange moving lights and some solid bodies in the sky were seen around Otago and elsewhere in New Zealand, and were reported to newspapers.

7
1940s - Small metallic spheres and colorful balls of light repeatedly spotted and occasionally photographed by bomber crews during World War II.

8
1941 at Cape Girardeau, Missouri - First responders and Baptist minister allegedly view crashed spacecraft and alien bodies. Military arrives and swears witnesses to silence.

9
1947-06-21 at Puget Sound near Maury Island, Washington - Harold A. Dahl reported that his dog was killed and his son was injured by debris in an encounter with four to six flying doughnut-shaped objects. He also claimed that a witness was subsequently threatened by men dressed in dark suits.

10
1947-06 about 30 mi north of Roswell, New Mexico - United States Army Air Forces allegedly captured a crashed flying saucer and its alien occupants. The find was explained to be a weather balloon but regained attention since 1978 after S. T. Friedman, a civilian investigator of the crash, blew the whistle on what happened there.