In honour of World UFO Day, we wanted to recap some of the most notable UFO sightings. The first reported UFO sighting occurred in New Zealand in 1909 and the most recent happened this May in Glasgow. Here are the top five from the 1940s to the 1960s.
The Kenneth Arnold Case (1947)
The pilot, Kenneth Arnold, was flying from Chehalis to Yakima, Washington, but made a brief detour when he learnt of a $5000 reward for the whereabouts of a US Marine Corps transport plane that had crashed near Mt. Rainer. That would be equivalent to around $58,000 today! Unfortunately, he had no luck in his search and headed back towards Yakima. On his return he saw a bright flashing light, that looked like sunlight reflecting off a mirror. Thirty seconds after the first flash he saw a series of bright flashes. He moved his airplane from side to side and removed his glasses to check that these weren’t just reflections off the plane window. They weren’t. These lights were coming from a row of unidentified objects flying in a chain and flipping erratically. He compared their movement to saucers skipping on water.
The Roswell Incident (1947)
The Levelland UFO Case (1957)
On November 2nd 1957, two farm workers, Pedro Saucedo and Joe Salaz, called the Levelland police department to report that they had seen a UFO. They told the officer that they had been driving west of Levelland when they saw a blue flash of light. Their truck’s engine suddenly died, and a rocket shaped object approached their vehicle. Saucedo said he jumped out of the truck and ran, but Salaz wasn’t fast enough. The object passed over the truck with a great rush of wind, and as the UFO moved away the truck’s engine restarted. A married couple also claimed to see a bright flash of light that night, reporting that their radio died for three seconds as it moved across the sky. Other road users contacted the police to share reports of a brightly lit object and brief engine failure, including Levelland’s Fire Chief, Ray Jones.
The Valensole UFO Encounter (1965)
On the 1st of July 1965, in the early hours of the morning, farmer Maurice Masse spotted an unidentifiable object in the sky. The object landed in a lavender field about 200 feet away, and assuming it was a helicopter, he walked towards it. He soon saw that it was not a helicopter but in fact an oval shaped object resting on four legs. Two figures emerged with large, slanted eyes. They pointed a device at Masse, paralyzing him, before entering the UFO and flying away. Masse stated it took him twenty minutes to regain mobility and that a deep moist area was left where the UFO had been, which soon hardened like concrete. A later analysis found higher amounts of calcium at the landing site than anywhere else in the area.
The Westall Sighting (1966)
In Melbourne, Australia on Wednesday 6th April 1966 at around 11am, a teacher from Westall High School reported seeing an unidentified flying object. She described the object as saucer like in shape and around twice as large as a family car, with a purple tinge. Students claim the UFO descended, flew over the high school, and then disappeared behind the trees. It appeared around twenty minutes later flying away at speed. Some say the UFO was being pursued by aircraft.