Aviation cases — crashes, incidents, and aircraft mysteries examined against the flight record. 24 case files in the archive.
Two F/A-18F Super Hornets from the USS Nimitz strike group intercepted a smooth white object off Southern California. Radar, visual, and FLIR sensor data combined.
A man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305 on Thanksgiving eve 1971, parachuted with $200,000, and was never identified.
Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan vanished near Howland Island during their 1937 round-the-world attempt. Crashed-and-sank, Nikumaroro castaway, and Japanese-capture theories.
The classified USAF detachment officially acknowledged in declassified CIA history June 2013. U-2, A-12 OXCART, F-117 development.
The Mount Rainier sighting whose East Oregonian wire coverage coined 'flying saucer.' The event that opened the modern UFO era.
The FLIR videos from the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group's 2014-2015 East Coast deployment. Pentagon's 2020 official release.
Five US Navy TBM Avengers under Lt. Charles Taylor lost on a routine training mission off Fort Lauderdale; the PBM Mariner search aircraft lost on the same evening.
Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom intercepts of an unknown object over Tehran. Multiple instrumentation and weapons-systems failures during approach.
The allegations of a classified hypersonic reconnaissance program (USAF/DARPA/Lockheed Skunk Works, late 1980s-1990s).
Kentucky Air National Guard P-51 Mustang pilot Captain Thomas Mantell killed pursuing an unidentified object visible from Godman AAF.
~7,000 reports across Hudson Valley NY and adjoining Connecticut of a large boomerang/triangle object.
Allied military pilot reports of unidentified glowing aerial objects, late 1944-May 1945, across European and Pacific theaters.
Approximately 2,000 reports of unidentified cigar-shaped objects across Scandinavia between May and December 1946.
270 killed when a Semtex bomb destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The Camp Zeist trial; Megrahi's 2001 conviction and 2009 release. Libya's 2003 acknowledgment.
Dozens of independent witnesses across Erath, Comanche, and Hood Counties, Texas reported a large object with bright lights. The USAF's January 14 denial reversed January 23: F-16s had been on training flights in the area. FAA radar correlation near Crawford ranch's P-49 restricted airspace.
Multi-witness sighting at Gate C-17, O'Hare International. Twelve United Airlines ground-staff witnesses plus the UAL 446 cockpit crew. The FAA's weather phenomenon classification; the witnesses' continuing dissent.
The US Air Force's first UFO investigation, at Wright-Patterson. The post-Arnold 1947 wave, the Mantell and Chiles-Whitted cases, the disputed 'Estimate of the Situation' favoring an interplanetary origin, and General Vandenberg's rejection of it.
Project SIGN's debunking-oriented successor. The 1949 Grudge Report concluding UFOs posed no threat, the period of institutional neglect, and Edward Ruppelt's revitalization that produced Project Blue Book.
The July 1996 explosion of a 747 off Long Island that killed 230. The NTSB's center-fuel-tank conclusion, the eyewitness 'streak of light' reports and the missile and friendly-fire theories, the CIA animation, and the 2013 petition to reopen.
The large, silent, triangular craft reported since the 1980s. The overlap with UFO waves, the classified-aircraft and misperception explanations, and the unsupported TR-3B antigravity internet legend.
The French aviator-author who vanished on a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean in 1944. The discovery of his plane's wreckage off Marseille in 2000-2004, the German pilot's 2008 claim, and the unresolved cause.
The bandleader whose small aircraft vanished over the English Channel en route to Paris in 1944. The icing/mechanical-failure explanation, the jettisoned-bombs theory, and why the plane was never found.
The Australian pilot who radioed that a large unidentified aircraft was pacing his Cessna over Bass Strait moments before he vanished. The transcript, the UFO interpretation, and the spatial-disorientation explanation.
The July 1948 sighting in which two Eastern Air Lines pilots reported a torpedo-shaped craft with windows passing their DC-3 over Alabama. The sighting that shaped Project Sign Estimate of the Situation, and the bolide-meteor explanation.