Pre-Roswell (-1947)
Every record that shares this tag.
43 records tagged era
Incidents
29 incidents
Trinity Site Crash (1945)Evidence rated DebunkedTwo boys allegedly discovered a crashed avocado-shaped craft and small humanoid occupants on a ranch near the Trinity nuclear test site, five weeks after the first atomic bomb detonation — a claim that remained untold for nearly six decades.The Battle of Los AngelesEvidence rated ContestedIn the predawn hours of February 25, 1942, U.S. anti-aircraft batteries fired over 1,400 rounds into the sky above Los Angeles at unidentified targets that were never conclusively explained.Foo Fighters of World War IIEvidence rated DocumentedAllied pilots over Europe and the Pacific reported mysterious luminous orbs — red, orange, and white — that paced their aircraft at high speed, defied radar detection, and were never explained.1561 Nuremberg Celestial PhenomenonEvidence rated ContestedResidents of Nuremberg reported an aerial spectacle of spheres, cylinders, crosses, and a great black spear-shaped object battling across the dawn sky — documented in a famous woodcut broadsheet by Hans Glaser.Aurora Airship CrashEvidence rated ContestedDuring the Great Airship Wave of 1896–1897, a cigar-shaped craft allegedly crashed into a windmill in Aurora, Texas, and townspeople reportedly buried the non-human pilot in the local cemetery — a story that has been debated for over a century.The Marfa LightsEvidence rated ContestedMysterious luminous orbs observed over the Chihuahuan Desert near Marfa, Texas since at least 1883 — one of North America's oldest and most persistently documented anomalous light phenomena, partially but not fully explained by atmospheric refraction of automobile headlights.The Utsuro-bune IncidentEvidence rated ContestedA mysterious hollow vessel carrying a non-human woman washed ashore on the Japanese coast in 1803, documented in four historical texts.Ghost Rockets of ScandinaviaEvidence rated DocumentedApproximately 2,000 sightings of unidentified rocket- or cigar-shaped objects over Sweden, Finland, and Norway between May and December 1946, prompting serious Swedish government investigation and a covert U.S. intelligence mission led by General Jimmy Doolittle on behalf of CIG Director Hoyt Vandenberg.Tunguska ExplosionEvidence rated ContestedA massive explosion near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Siberia on June 30, 1908, remains the largest impact event in recorded history and a subject of UFO speculation.Cape Girardeau UFO Crash of 1941Evidence rated ContestedPre-Roswell UFO crash recovery with humanoid bodies reported by local clergyman, first publicly documented in 1991 through family testimony.The Bonilla Observation (1883)Evidence rated ContestedOn 12–13 August 1883, Mexican astronomer José Bonilla photographed more than 300 dark, fuzzy objects transiting the solar disk from the newly opened Zacatecas Observatory — producing what are widely regarded as the earliest known photographs of an unidentified aerial phenomenon.Churchill RAF UFO Cover-UpEvidence rated ContestedAlleged WWII RAF encounter with a UFO that Winston Churchill allegedly ordered suppressed for 50+ years to prevent mass panic and loss of faith in religion.New Zealand Airship WaveEvidence rated DocumentedMass UFO wave across New Zealand in winter 1909 featuring cigar-shaped and boat-shaped craft with occupants, generating hundreds of reports and consistent eyewitness descriptions.Fatima Miracle of the SunEvidence rated ContestedOn October 13, 1917, an estimated 30,000–70,000 people witnessed a spinning, multicolored luminous disk perform aerial maneuvers near Fátima, Portugal. The phenomenon, claimed as proof of a Marian apparition, later became a case study in mass UFO sightings.Basel Celestial Phenomenon (1566)Evidence rated DocumentedA series of celestial phenomena witnessed by hundreds of Basel residents in late July and early August 1566, documented in a contemporary broadsheet.Brown Mountain LightsEvidence rated ContestedA recurring nightly light phenomenon over Brown Mountain in western North Carolina, first reported around 1912 and investigated by the USGS in 1913 and 1922, which attributed the sightings to trains, car headlights and brush fires.Flight 19 (1945)Evidence rated ContestedFive U.S. Navy TBM Avenger bombers on a navigation training flight vanished over the Atlantic on 5 December 1945; a Mariner sent to search for them was also lost, and the case became the foundation of the Bermuda Triangle legend and a cultural touchstone for UFO-adjacent speculation.Great Airship Wave of 1896–1897Evidence rated ContestedA five-month wave of reported 'mystery airships' swept the western and then central United States from November 1896 to April 1897, generating thousands of newspaper reports and a mix of genuine misidentifications, hoaxes, and press-driven excitement.UFO over Mount Washington (1870 stereograph)Evidence rated DebunkedA cigar-shaped 'object' in a winter 1870 stereograph of Mount Washington, New Hampshire, was once called the earliest photograph of a UFO; it is now generally traced to a cropped scale ruler in a frost-formation photo.Nicholas Roerich Tibet Flying Object Sighting (1926)Evidence rated ContestedDuring the Roerich expedition across Central Asia, the Russian painter-philosopher Nicholas Roerich recorded in his diary an oval object in the sky that his party watched through field glasses before it vanished; the single, uncorroborated entry later became a frequently cited pre-Roswell 'flying saucer' reference.Dundy County Hoax (1884)Evidence rated DebunkedA June 1884 Nebraska State Journal story of a crashed cylindrical 'celestial visitor' on the Nebraska plains was a newspaper fabrication, admitted as a hoax in 1927, and is among the earliest American UFO-type stories still cited by ufologists.Frank Smythe's Everest Sighting (1933)Evidence rated ContestedEnglish mountaineer Frank Smythe reported two dark, pulsating objects hovering in the sky during the 1933 British Everest expedition; the claim survives mainly through a 1993 Himalayan Journal essay.Ängelholm UFO Landing Claim, 1946Evidence rated FringeRailway worker Gösta Carlsson said he saw a disc-shaped craft land in a forest near Ängelholm in May 1946 and met its crew; the claim, first made public in 1971 and memorialised in 1972, rests on his testimony alone.Gwanghaegun-era Sky Objects over Gangwon (1609)Evidence rated ContestedOfficials in four Gangwon Province counties reported bright, shape-shifting objects with thunder and drum-like sounds in 1609, entered in the Gwanghaegun Ilgi; a meteor explanation is considered persuasive.Min Min Light (Queensland outback)Evidence rated ContestedA recurring, unexplained light reported across Queensland's Channel Country since the early 1890s, most famously near the ruined Min Min Hotel, and widely attributed to a superior mirage of distant headlights or campfires.Tulli Papyrus (1953)Evidence rated DebunkedA purported ancient Egyptian papyrus, supposedly from the reign of Thutmose III, describing 'circles of fire' in the sky, surfaced in a 1953 issue of the Fortean Society's Doubt magazine. Scholars and ufologists alike have since treated it as a probable modern fabrication.Airship of Clonmacnoise (c. 743)Evidence rated ContestedMedieval Irish annals record “ships with their crews” seen sailing in the air around 743–749; later retellings add a fishing-spear or anchor, a drowning sailor and a bishop.South African Monoplane Wave (1914)Evidence rated ContestedBetween 11 August and 9 September 1914, thousands of South Africans reported a night-flying monoplane, or its headlights, in a wave that was widely attributed to German aircraft but was never identified and is now studied as a case of collective belief.Muroc Army Air Field sightings (1947)Evidence rated DocumentedOn 8 July 1947, several officers and engineers at the Army Air Field at Muroc, California, reported silver disc-like and oval objects over the base; sworn statements were taken and the case went to the Fourth Air Force, which left it pending.
Personalities
14 people
Michael BentineEvidence rated ContestedGoon Show comedian and former RAF intelligence officer whose later account of wartime debriefings of bomber crews made him a figure in early British UFO history.Jesse Marcel Sr.Evidence rated DocumentedFirst military investigator of Roswell debris, later claimed it was extraterrestrial; a key witness to the most iconic UFO incident in historyKenneth ArnoldEvidence rated DocumentedCivilian pilot whose 1947 Mount Rainier sighting launched the modern flying saucer era and inadvertently coined the term that defined a generation of UFO culture.Charles FortEvidence rated DocumentedPioneer anomaly researcher who documented unexplained phenomena and proposed early extraterrestrial hypotheses decades before the modern UFO era.Emanuel SwedenborgEvidence rated Documented18th-century Swedish scientist and mystic who documented visionary encounters with non-human intelligences from other planets.Tanaka KazuoEvidence rated DocumentedJapanese engineer and scholar who pioneered rigorous academic study of the 1803 utsuro-bune phenomenon.José BonillaEvidence rated DocumentedMexican astronomer and first director of Zacatecas Observatory who documented and photographed one of the earliest recorded UFO-like observations in 1883.Erich von DänikenEvidence rated FringeSwiss author and ancient astronaut theory pioneer whose 1968 bestseller 'Chariots of the Gods?' transformed public discourse on extraterrestrial contact and human origins.Zecharia SitchinEvidence rated ContestedRussian-born author who pioneered the ancient astronaut theory linking Sumerian civilization to extraterrestrial contact.W. Raymond DrakeEvidence rated FringeBritish disciple of Charles Fort who pioneered ancient astronaut theory in book form, publishing nine volumes on extraterrestrial contact with ancient civilizations years before Erich von Däniken's international breakthrough.Giordano BrunoEvidence rated DocumentedRenaissance philosopher who proposed an infinite universe populated by countless inhabited worlds, burned at the stake for heresy in 1600.Mihal GramenoEvidence rated ContestedAlbanian nationalist, guerrilla, journalist and independence delegate whose memoir passage is cited as the earliest UFO account in Albania.Nikola TeslaEvidence rated ContestedVisionary inventor whose advanced technology designs are frequently cited in UFO propulsion and alternative energy research circles.Ivan T. SandersonEvidence rated ContestedZoologist-turned-television naturalist who co-founded cryptozoology and spent his last decade cataloguing UFOs, USOs, and 'vile vortices' through his Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained.