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What Are The Most Impressive UFO Cases?

There are actually quite a few interesting and perhaps even impressive cases which are very little-known, often because of the reluctance of the witnesses to court publicity.

Here's another one of my favourites: a 1978 radar-visual from Wisconsin that was investigated by Allan Hendry, probably one of ufology's best and most careful researchers. It's also quite unusual in that it is very late for a 'radar' case, most of which disappeared with improvements in the technology:

http://www.nicap.org/rvwisc1.htm

As Hendry points out, the obvious astronomical explanations seem to be ruled out by the fact that the aircraft involved actually converged on and flew under the 'UFO', apparently confirmed by radar.
 
It's also interesting to look at ufologists' own lists of what they feel are 'top' cases, although what defines a 'top' case is quite subjective and doesn't always translate to 'most impressive'. One thing that seems clear is that 'most impressive' usually correlates with what people find most interesting about the phenomenon.

Two examples from ufologists whose work I respect are, firstly, David Clarke, whose 'top ten' are as follows (from https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/about/my-top-10-ufo-stories/)

1. Lakenheath-Bentwaters, 1956 (a really interesting and complicated case, though it might fit into the 'series of unremarkable events in a remarkable order' category)

2. Stan Hubbard's two sightings at Farnborough, 1950 (easily my favourite case of all)

3. Bob Taylor

4. The 1952 Mainbrace sightings, including Crofts/Swiney

5. Rendlesham (I think this one is explained albeit still a 'classic')

6. Alan Godfrey

7. Valentich

8. Milton Torres, 1956 (another puzzling aerial sighting)

9. The Darbishire photo, 1954 (seems an obvious hoax)

10. Alitalia jet sighting, Kent, 1991

I think this is a pretty solid list, albeit with some which are more 'classic' in terms of ufology itself as a sociological phenomenon.

An alternative perspective is that of James McDonald, whose paper 'Science in Default' focused on four radar-visual cases with mostly military involvement.

1. The RB-47 case, which might be another "series of unremarkable events in a remarkable order" case

2. Lakenheath-Bentwaters

3. Haneda AFB, 1952 (a fairly solid Blue Book era radar-visual, albeit from the period of greatest radar unreliability)

4. Kirtland AFB, 1957 (puzzling unless you accept the two witnesses were completely mistaken about what they saw)

I think all the above would remain high on the list of most US-style, nuts-and-bolts ufologists.
 
I remember from the past that a big splash in the news was Japan Airlines Cargo Flight 1628 on 11-17-1986 where Capt. Kenju Terauchi and crew while flying over Alaska were being escorted by two small UFOs and one huge UFO.

The FAA said it was Jupiter, even though later planes reported strange UFOs in the same area.
 
One thing that seems certain is that Terauchi had some awareness of and concern about UFOs and got quite rattled when he saw what he thought was a "gigantic spaceship" against the lighter sky to his west. Most pilots faced with these kind of situations have remained quite calm but it feels to me that his objectivity went out of the window a bit.
 
Another set of cases that I find quite impressive are the sightings by personnel from the General Mills balloon programme (the one that gave rise to Skyhook balloons, amongst others) in the early 1950s. These were by people who were usually in an active 'observing' role at the time and who often had an actual, known balloon on hand to compare the objects to. This is all particularly ironic given that the CIA allegedly planned to use the UFO sightings generated by the Skyhook programme as a 'cover' for when the balloons were actually used over Soviet territory.
 
Ah yes. One of the witnesses was Charles B. Moore, who is supposed to have launched the Mogul balloon that crashed at Roswell.

Whatever these sightings were, the witnesses seem to have entirely failed to identify them. Perhaps this is because they were using devices intended to observe slow-moving balloons, not rapid alien spacecraft. Or to accurately observe daylight meteors either, I expect.
 
Possibly, but there are certain aspects to several of the sightings (eg the Kaliszewski ones) which seem to argue against a 'bouncing' daylight meteor, if at all accurately reported.

the object was moving from east to west at a high rate and very high. We tried keeping the ship on a constant course and using the reinforcing member of the windshield as a point. The object moved past this member at about 50 degrees per second. This object was peculiar in that it had what can be described as a halo around it with a dark undersurface. It crossed rapidly and then slowed down and started to climb in lazy circles slowly. The pattern it made was like a falling oak leaf inverted, It went through these gyrations for a couple minutes and then with a very rapid acceleration disappeared to the east. This object Dick (Reilly) and I watched for approximately five minutes.
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There's a possible explanation for the earlier sighting at Artesia NM involving Moore (there was a Corporal missile test on the same day about 75 miles from Artesia) but either way the circumstances of the sightings are of unusual interest.
 
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the object was moving from east to west at a high rate and very high. We tried keeping the ship on a constant course and using the reinforcing member of the windshield as a point. The object moved past this member at about 50 degrees per second. This object was peculiar in that it had what can be described as a halo around it with a dark undersurface. It crossed rapidly and then slowed down and started to climb in lazy circles slowly. The pattern it made was like a falling oak leaf inverted, It went through these gyrations for a couple minutes and then with a very rapid acceleration disappeared to the east. This object Dick (Reilly) and I watched for approximately five minutes.
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If I read a witness account of this sort from the recent era, I'd suspect some sort of parallax error. That is probably what happened in David Fravor's case, and this seems possible here. To keep the object in sight for five minutes or so, they would probably need to change course a few times, making accurate estimations of distance and behaviour tricky.
 
There's a couple of options there; we could potentially look at a bird rather closer to the observers than they thought, another aircraft, or a curious mirage of their own balloon (Menzel's suggestion for some of the General Mills sightings).

The most obvious explanation to me, however, is some sort of missile test (as may be the case for the Artesia sighting earlier that year, but in this instance there are no matching tests we know about) or a misperceived, possibly military, aircraft.

Blue Book labelled Kaliszewski's first sighting as possible 'aircraft', which he disagreed with, and the second (the one quoted above) as 'unknown'. There was a third observation shortly after the second where he was able to get the ground observers to get their theodolite on it for a few seconds, revealing a grey, non-reflective cylinder.

Apparently the Project Sign Oral History Group interviewed Kaliszewski a few years back, but the interview transcript isn't online that I can see.
 
BS3 said:
the object was moving from east to west at a high rate and very high. We tried keeping the ship on a constant course and using the reinforcing member of the windshield as a point. The object moved past this member at about 50 degrees per second. This object was peculiar in that it had what can be described as a halo around it with a dark undersurface. It crossed rapidly and then slowed down and started to climb in lazy circles slowly. The pattern it made was like a falling oak leaf inverted, It went through these gyrations for a couple minutes and then with a very rapid acceleration disappeared to the east. This object Dick (Reilly) and I watched for approximately five minutes.
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That motion sounds descriptive of a missile spiral from a failed launch. Halo around it, climbing in circles.

2023_06_18_08_04_49_dn18262_1_300.jpg_300_229_.jpg
 
It does indeed sound very missile-like, the issue being that I can't find any evidence that missiles were tested near Minneapolis in that period (unlike the Artesia sighting, where an actual missile launch was pinpointed on the same day elsewhere in the state).
 
I noticed that Isaac Koi has produced a typically exhaustive survey of ufologists' "best" lists on his website:

https://www.isaackoi.com/best-ufo-cases/3-experts-short-lists.html

The whole essay also includes sections on various 'consensus' lists produced over the years (eg Ronald Story's 1979 list, Jacques Vallee's 1965 poll) as well as on various qualitative and quantitative criteria suggested. It's very informative if you like that sort of thing.

Note he hasn't got to the overall conclusion yet.
 
I'm not going to argue that Simonton has to be the most entertaining UFO story out there, along with Kelly-Hopkinsville.

Looking at the various lists on the above page, the Hills, Socorro, Father Gill, Cash-Landrum, Levelland, and Tehran seem universally popular. I think the Hill abduction has now been effectively explained, though Socorro, Cash-Landrum and Levelland remain intriguing cases for different reasons. I'm not sure what to make of Father Gill and Tehran seems a bit shaky.

There are a few other 'classics' that seem to crop up fairly regularly on that page but are perhaps less discussed these days, like Nash-Fortenberry, 1952, (https://www.project1947.com/fig/true_10_52.htm) or Red Bluff, CA, 1960, a multiple witness 'police chase' (https://www.saturdaynightuforia.com/html/articles/articlehtml/redbluff-1960.html).
 
BS3 said:
I'm not going to argue that Simonton has to be the most entertaining UFO story out there, along with Kelly-Hopkinsville.

Looking at the various lists on the above page, the Hills, Socorro, Father Gill, Cash-Landrum, Levelland, and Tehran seem universally popular. I think the Hill abduction has now been effectively explained, though Socorro, Cash-Landrum and Levelland remain intriguing cases for different reasons. I'm not sure what to make of Father Gill and Tehran seems a bit shaky.

There are a few other 'classics' that seem to crop up fairly regularly on that page but are perhaps less discussed these days, like Nash-Fortenberry, 1952, (https://www.project1947.com/fig/true_10_52.htm) or Red Bluff, CA, 1960, a multiple witness 'police chase' (https://www.saturdaynightuforia.com/html/articles/articlehtml/redbluff-1960.html).
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I think there is still a core of mystery at the heart of the Hill case. Debunked is not the same as explained.
 
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