What are UFOs? Are they the flying vehicles of top secret projects from governments or corporations? Are they aliens visiting from another planet? Or from another dimension? Are they humans visiting from the future? Is there a spiritual aspect to it all?
While no one knows for sure what UFOs are, what we do know is that they exist…and the military has been involved in its fair share of cover ups and mysterious incidents involving them.
Here are the 20 weirdest U.S. military cover ups involving aliens and UFOs you have to read to believe:
1 – The 1947 Roswell Crash

We might as well start out with the most famous UFO incident of all involving the U.S. military: the 1947 Roswell crash. When a UFO crashed by a military base near the town of Roswell, New Mexico, the official story was that it was a crashed balloon intended to detect Soviet nuclear tests. But a host of conspiracy theories were generated due to many people in the area reporting that they had clearly seen a flying disc fall out of the sky instead, and debunked autopsy footage of an alien supposedly recovered from the crash site fueled these theories further. The actual town of Roswell has since become a major tourist attraction due entirely to the incident, like you’ll see with the sign above.
2 – The 1953 Disappearance of Felix Moncla

In November of 1953, the U.S. Air Defense Command detected a UFO flying over Lake Superior. Lieutenant Felix Moncla was dispatched in an F-89C Scorpion jet to intercept the UFO. On radar, there were two icons representing Moncla and the UFO. But when the two icons converged, they became one object and continued flying in the UFO’s trajectory! Moncla had completely disappeared without leaving a trace and the UFO escaped without being caught. The military claimed that Moncla accidentally crashed into the lake, but that hasn’t stopped there from being a host of conspiracy theories that Moncla and his plane had been abducted by aliens.
3 – 1942 Battle of Los Angeles

Months after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1942, the people of Los Angeles were suddenly awoken in the middle of the night to a barrage of anti-aircraft weapons firing at a UFO in the sky. While the military later claimed that it was a false alarm, many others believed at the time that the UFO was a Japanese aircraft and that the military didn’t want to scare the public about the possibility of an invasion of the U.S. mainland. Since then, however, many others have believed that the flying aircraft may not have been of this world…
4 – The 1997 Phoenix Lights

One night in 1997, thousands of people in Phoenix looked up and saw massive V-shaped formations of lights in the sky at two different periods. Some witnesses reported that they could see the lights were attached to a massive V-shaped aircraft. The military, however, claimed that the first group of lights were from a formation of A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft that were flying over Phoenix and that the second group were from flares launched during a training exercise. When the lights disappeared, however, some witnesses reported that they saw the supposed V-shaped object rapidly flying away into the sky.
5 – The 1948 Mantell Incident

On January 7th of 1948, Captain Thomas Mantell of the Kentucky Air National Guard was sent in a P-51 Mustang fighter in pursuit of a UFO over Franklin, Kentucky. Mantell pursued the UFO in a steep ascent, and when he got to a high enough altitude, he tragically blacked out from a lack of oxygen and crashed into the ground. The military claimed that Mantell chased a misidentified Skyhook balloon, but many people ardently believe that Mantell wouldn’t have so fervently ascended so high and sacrificed himself in pursuit of the craft if it wasn’t something so otherworldly or bizarre.
6 – 1980 Rendlesham Forest Incident

In what became known as the “British Roswell,” in December of 1980 U.S. Air Force personnel stationed at the Royal Air Force base in Bentwaters, UK, reported seeing a triangular-shaped craft and strange lights descending into the nearby Rendlesham Forest. While the official explanation was that the light was from a nearby lighthouse, many witnesses alike in the area claimed that they saw American and British personnel who were in direct contact with the craft on the ground. The UK government claimed that the incident did not represent a security threat and tried to drop the issue, but Rendlesham has remained one of the most talked about UFO incidents ever since.
7 – 1975 Loring Air Force Base UFO Sightings

In the fall of 1975, radar operators and security personnel who were stationed at the Loring Air Force base in Maine reported numerous sightings of UFOs in the sky over the base. Several of the personnel reported that they saw the craft approach and then circle around the base for a continuous duration of between thirty to forty minutes. This has led many people to believe that the base was being utilized by the military to communicate with extraterrestrials.
8 – 1947 Maury Island Sightings

No less than two weeks before Roswell occurred, several people claimed that they saw flying saucers flying at high speeds over Mt. Rainer and then hovering above Maury Island in Washington state, along with a strong presence of military units and ‘men in black’ in the area. The incident attracted widespread news attention but is widely considered a hoax today, but many conspiracy theories to this day allege that the entire thing was a government operation designed to help ingrain the idea of UFOs and extraterrestrials in the minds of the public (the idea being that the public would not become scared at the existence of real-life aliens if they were already used to the idea).
9 – 1967 Shag Harbour Incident

In the autumn of 1967, the residents of the tiny fishing village of Shag Harbor in Nova Scotia reported that they saw a UFO crash into the harbor. No wreckage was ever officially discovered, but the fact that a heavy presence of both Canadian and American military personnel created more questions than answers. The craft was widely reported as being rectangular in shape with a series of lights following it. Despite this, the sign commemorating the event at the harbor itself depicts a flying saucer (like you’ll see above).
10 – 1965 Kecksburg Incident

The Kecksburg UFO Incident occurred on December 9th of 1965. Citizens in Ontario and six U.S. states reported seeing a massive fireball streaking over the sky before it crashed into Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. While the official explanation is that the object was a meteor entering the atmosphere, many witnesses reported seeing a metallic object shaped like an acorn in the middle of the fireball as it descended. The fact that U.S. military personnel were shutting off the area of the meteor’s crash raised further suspicions that the object was really an alien UFO.
11 – The 1980 Cash-Landrum Incident

In 1980, Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum, and Vickie’s grandson Colby reported experiencing a terrifying encounter with a UFO that was shaped like a diamond near Dayton, Texas. According to their account, the flying craft was being followed by over twenty military helicopters, and when they stepped out of the car to investigate, the craft emitted such an intense heat that it caused Landrum’s hand to leave an imprint in the vinyl of the car’s interior material. The military denied any involvement in the counter, but the fact that there was video evidence of Landrum’s hand imprint in their car’s vinyl made many UFO researchers believe that their account was honest.
12 – 1952 Washington D.C. UFO Incident

In July of 1952, there are a series of UFO sightings reported over Washington D.C. These sightings were seen by radar operators, pilots, and civilians on the ground alike. The military claimed that the sightings were the result of temperature inversions, in which a layer of warm air covers a layer of cool air and can sometimes can mirages to appear in the sky. This explanation, however, was unsatisfactory to most of the witnesses who claimed to have clearly seen multiple flying saucers darting around at fast speeds in the air.
13 – 1987-1988 Gulf Breeze UFO Sightings

In 1987 to 1988, photographer Ed Walters took a number of photos showing UFO craft (one of which you see above) in Gulf Breeze, Mexico. The photos created a sensation because they weren’t taken far from Eglin Air Force Base, which had been associated with UFO sightings In the past. A few years later, however, styrofoam UFO models were found in Walters’ former home, which was used as proof that the photos were a hoax. Some conspiracy theorists, however, believe that the models were planted deliberately to discredit Walters.
14 – 2008 Stephenville Lights

In 2008, several people near Stephenville, Texas, reported seeing several strange lights in the sky that were moving and darting around far faster than normal aircraft. The U.S. Air Force claimed that the lights were caused from flares and training flights, similar to the explanation that was provided in Phoenix in 2008, but witnesses insisted that the lights were moving far more quickly than any known military jets were capable of.
15 – 1957 Gordon Cooper UFO Sightings

One of the original Project Mercury astronauts, Gordon Cooper, claimed to have witnessed a metallic flying aircraft without wings flying over Germany in 1957. Then later when he was at Edward Air Force base in California, Cooper claimed that two of this crew members photographed a very similar wingless aircraft while they were taking photos out in a dry lake bed. Cooper provided the photos his crew members took to the Pentagon, only to never see the photos again and for the military to remain totally silent on the issue. Cooper claimed for the rest of his life that the military had covered up a UFO program or experiment of some kind.
16 – 1973 Pascagoula Abduction

In 1973, two men named Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson claimed that they were abducted by aliens while they were fishing near Pascagoula in Mississippi. The men claimed that they were taken onboard an oval-shaped UFO craft and examined by aliens before being released. The two men later released drawings of what they claimed the aliens looked like, which you can see above. The U.S. military investigated the incident and claimed that nothing happened in reality, which led to allegations that they were trying to discredit the two men’s story.
17 – 1956 Lakenheath-Bentwaters Incident

Not far from where the Rendlesham forest incident would later occur in 1980, in August of 1956, both American and British radar operators working at military airbases in England reported seeing several UFOs zig zagging on their radar screens, which were followed up by eyewitness accounts of flying craft in the sky. The British government claimed that the sightings were misidentifications of normal military and civilian craft, but also refused to rule out that there could have been possible less conventional explanations as well. Further adding to the mystery is the fact that the whole area remains closed off like you’ll see in the above photo.
18 – 1986 JAL Flight 1628 Incident

In 1986, the Japan Airlines Cargo Flight 1628 took off from Paris to Tokyo only to encounter a giant UFO ship and two smaller UFO ships over Alaska. The UFOs were being tracked by military radar on the ground, and the crew of the aircraft were able to provide very detailed descriptions of the UFO as well. Most notably, they claimed that the big UFO was roughly the same size as an aircraft carrier. The U.S. military dismissed the sightings and claimed that the crew of Flight 1628 had misidentified the planets of Jupiter and Mars as UFOs.
19 – 1948 Chiles-Whitted UFO Encounter

In 1948, pilots Clarence Chiles and John Whitted reported a near-collision with a UFO that was shaped like a cigar while flying a commercial aircraft over Alabama. The same UFO was also witnessed by passengers on the flight. The Air Force investigated but ultimately dismissed the sighting as a weather balloon or meteor, despite the pilots and passengers providing detailed accounts to the contrary. The above drawing of the object was made by both Chiles and Whitted after the sighting, which many of the passengers corroborated.
20 – 1964 Lonnie Zamora Incident

In 1964, a police officer named Lonnie Zamora claimed that he saw two people standing beside a shiny craft in the desert of New Mexico. He then claimed that the craft rose into the air while making a loud roar and with blue and orange fire spewing out of it before disappearing into the sky. The U.S. Air Force investigated the incident and has listed the case as “unknown,” which has fueled speculation from UFO researchers that Zamora was telling the truth since they were unable to dismiss the case entirely. The above photo is an artist’s impression based on Zamora’s description.

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