The War Department dumped 162 declassified files on Friday that show thousands of “flying saucers” reported in our skies since the 1940s.
From military brass to commercial pilots, these reports describe metallic, disc-shaped aircraft that can pull 90-degree turns while staying without making a sound.
Here are 10 eerie encounters described in the documents:
Long before drones, Pan Am Captain Alpheus Powell was cruising toward La Guardia when he spotted a bright orange, “fuselage-sized” cylinder pacing his plane. His navigator, W. White, saw a deep gold, elliptical craft doing 175 mph. He described it as about 15 feet long and 2-5 feet deep.
Officer Lonnie Zamora thought he was chasing a speeder in New Mexico, but he found something much weirder.
A mystery craft touched down, leaving behind four rectangular indentations in the dirt and three patches of charred grass before blasting off.
3. Swedish splashdown (reported in files covering 1948–1955)
Sweden’s version of “Men in Black” spent years investigating a UFO that took a dive into a local lake. Intelligence was so convinced that they sent down naval divers, who found a massive, uncharted crater on the lake floor they attributed to a crashed saucer.
Near a Soviet missile base, seven military members watched three glowing disks pull a “Houdini.” When a Soviet fighter jet tried to close in, the UFOs hit the gas so hard that the supersonic jet looked like it was standing still.
A French student pilot during a solo night flight saw a “comet-tailed” green sphere envelope his jet.
The object grazed his wing before vanishing. Ground radar saw absolutely nothing.
A French Mirage IV crew nearly collided with a glowing craft at 31,000 feet. When they reported the supersonic maneuvers to the ground, the controller’s only response was to ask if their oxygen masks were leaking.
The crew of Air France Flight 3532 saw an 800-foot-long behemoth hanging in the sky. The craft morphed from a “brown bell” into a “lens” before vanishing instantly. This time, radar confirmed the bogey was right where the pilots said it was.
A metallic, “rugby ball” shaped craft sparked a city-wide blackout in Antananarivo. While the lights went out, the local livestock went wild—experiencing a level of “animal anxiety” that locals say never happens with normal planes.
Last November, a solid unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) was caught on camera over Syria.
It zipped along at 424 knots for seven minutes, moving with the erratic rhythm of a “bouncy ball” and showing zero interest in our military observers.
10. High-altitude high-jinks (1994)
Three veteran pilots over Kazakhstan watched a light show for 40 minutes as a UFO pulled high-G corkscrews. The object left contrails at a staggering 100,000 feet—an altitude where no human aircraft could possibly leave a footprint.
