Speakers describe the classic disc as a flat, round, metallic object, frequently with a raised dome, and frequently paired with the words no wings. Jesse Michels dates the modern form to Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 sighting near Mount Rainier and notes that the press coined “saucer” from Arnold’s description of the objects’ motion; Peter Levenda adds that Arnold described the craft “like saucers flying” and that one of them looked crescent-shaped. A 1947 letter read aloud in another episode says the objects “didn’t have wings” and “were saucer shape”.
Cold War witnesses keep the shape in play. Mario Woods, a former Air Force security responder, describes a formation of “white silver craft standard saucer configuration” moving in synchrony near Ellsworth AFB. Greg Rogers, a former NASA flight surgeon, describes a “pearly white” saucer in a hangar in 1992 and reaches for an egg with the offset removed as the nearest comparison. Daniel Sheehan says he saw a photograph of “a classic saucer like 40 ft wide” stuck in an embankment, with symbols around the base of its dome, while reviewing microfiche in 1977. Tim Alberino relays Pacific islanders’ accounts of “two mini flying saucers” with lights around the rim.
The description has thinned over time. Clas Svahn says his archive of Scandinavian reports “shows that the saucer shape is so scarce” now and that most modern reports are lights. Jason Jorjani reads the disc as a designed object, citing wartime German saucer projects with “rotating rockets” under the hull, and the corpus gives the Avrocar and Bob Lazar’s S-4 disc their own records.
Explanations offered: misidentified aircraft, balloons and bright planets (the position Mick West holds through the debates); classified disc-shaped test vehicles, human or recovered; a press template from 1947 shaping how later witnesses described ambiguous lights; and a genuinely unknown craft. The corpus does not settle which reading fits which case.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Flat round body, usually with a central dome; sometimes described as two plates rim to rim, or as an egg with the offset removed.", "size": "Reports range from roughly double a car (Sheehan’s 40 ft photograph) to formations of small discs; base witnesses say tens of feet.", "lights": "Some accounts give a pearly white or silver skin with no lights; island witnesses describe lights around the bottom rim.", "sound": "Silent in nearly every account.", "motion": "Hovering, formation flight “all synchronized”, and departure without wings or exhaust.", "era": "1947 onward; corpus witnesses cluster 1947–1992, and Svahn says the shape is now rarely reported." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Misidentified aircraft, balloons or bright planets", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Classified disc-shaped test vehicles (Avro-type programmes) or recovered craft", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "A 1947 press template shaping how later witnesses described ambiguous lights", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "well-supported" }, { "text": "Genuinely unidentified craft of non-human origin", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" } ], "first_year": 1947, "last_year": 1992, "band": "well-supported", "events": [ "1947-kenneth-arnold", "1947-roswell", "1950-mcminnville" ], "sites": [ "wright-patterson-afb", "roswell" ], "people": [ "jesse-michels", "peter-levenda", "mario-woods", "greg-rogers", "daniel-sheehan", "clas-svahn", "jason-jorjani", "tim-alberino", "mick-west" ], "footage": [ "mcminnville-1950" ], "documents": [ "project-blue-book" ], "crafts": [ "lazar-sport-model", "avrocar", "roswell-object", "egg-shaped" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-SPECIES-0101", "N-SPECIES-0102", "N-CRAFT-0053" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1iaH1a3A4Lk", "ts": "1:52:35", "quote": "19 April 1947, this is months before um Kenneth Arnold's sighting, which kicked off the flying saucer uh craze, if you want to call it that. Four months prior to that, two Weather Bureau employees uh observed four metallic discs flat on the bottom, domed on the top.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels", "note": "debate presentation on the 1947 wave" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "N6Cu-d75yAM", "ts": "0:23:31", "quote": "he sees a flight of weird craft going at impossible speeds and he describes them like like saucers flying", "speaker": "Peter Levenda", "speaker_slug": "peter-levenda" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "2-GeTxXi670", "ts": "1:47:20", "quote": "they didn't have wings. They were saucer shape. And we never could get as high or as fast as they were. So, it's really positively identify them, but they were metallic looking and saucer in shape.", "note": "1947 letter read aloud on the show" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "73YBwFvcmF8", "ts": "2:17:59", "quote": "they were white silver craft standard saucer configuration with a dome on top and a dome on the bottom but they had these lights that went around the outer rim of it and they were all in they were all synchronized", "speaker": "Mario Woods", "speaker_slug": "mario-woods" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "TNtlzEnl8rA", "ts": "0:40:24", "quote": "it was a saucer that was shaped, you know, an an egg is a little offc center. If you could modify the egg to where it wasn't offc center, that's sort of what it would look like.", "speaker": "Greg Rogers", "speaker_slug": "greg-rogers", "note": "describing a craft he says he saw in a hangar in 1992" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "2SQXAPCdmPE", "ts": "1:24:06", "quote": "it was a classic saucer like 40 ft wide and it was stuck in the embankment and that I could see around the base of the Dome on the the saucer this these symbols that were all around the base of the of the Dome", "speaker": "Daniel Sheehan", "speaker_slug": "daniel-sheehan", "note": "describing a photograph he says he saw on microfiche in 1977" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "CiQTBOQ1dTg", "ts": "4:39:17", "quote": "they would see like two mini flying saucers hovering in the air, right? Just these little saucers with a series of lights around the bottom.", "speaker": "Tim Alberino", "speaker_slug": "tim-alberino" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "ERiwHz_Gw3Q", "ts": "1:11:56", "quote": "shows that the saucer shape is so scarce >> is not very much reported. >> Yes. Still people talk about flying saucers sometimes and think that it should be saucer like >> but it's only a fraction of all the observations", "speaker": "Clas Svahn", "speaker_slug": "clas-svahn" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "9cPi6oek6zc", "ts": "0:39:04", "quote": "They had rotating rockets underneath these saucer shaped craft. >> Rotating rockets. >> Yeah. Like like um a series of jet jets >> like put in a in like in a fan formation >> uh to basically maneuver these saucers shaped craft in various directions.", "speaker": "Jason Jorjani", "speaker_slug": "jason-jorjani" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "8Rr_nE65KkI", "ts": "0:13:09", "quote": "they consistently report seeing tic tacs, saucers, orbs, things flying around in our most sensitive airspace and often tampering with the nuclear weapons in a way that we'd never do to our own nukes.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/flying-saucer-disc.svg", "beings": [] }, { "slug": "black-triangle", "name": "Black triangle", "aka": [ "triangular craft", "flying triangle", "TR-3B (claimed)", "Belgian triangle", "Langley triangle" ], "summary": "A large, dark, silent triangle with a light at each corner, reported hovering low over bases and towns. Witnesses in the corpus place it at Langley AFB, Rendlesham Forest, Phoenix and Belgium, and David Grusch says aircrew have described triangles hovering over them. Several speakers read it as a classified American platform; others leave it open.", "body_html": "Witnesses describe the triangle as very large, very dark and very quiet. Jeremy Corbell relays Dylan Borland’s Langley account of “a large triangular shaped craft” at about 200 feet that “had zero sound”, and Borland himself, in a clip, calls it “one to two stories thick, equilateral triangle” with edges “90°” and a black “metallic flake paint” hull over which something like gold lava seemed to flow. A former Vandenberg AFB security responder says he “talked to five shaken witnesses who described a massive triangular craft larger than a football field” that “hovered silently for about 45 seconds” over their entry control point. An archival witness clip describes an object “larger than a football field” with “very very unusual lights”.
The shape runs through the best-known cases. Jesse Michels and Robert Hastings retell Rendlesham 1980, where James Penniston “approached a triangular Black Metallic craft”; James Fox describes Phoenix witnesses reporting “six lights in the shape of a triangle”; UAPGerb says leaked retrieval-programme descriptions were “many times triangular airframes”. David Grusch says pilots have described “large, you know, triangular crafts” that “hovered over them”. Peter Levenda observes that he now expects a triangle with lights whenever he hears a report — the triangle displaced the saucer as the default shape from the late 1980s.
Explanations split three ways. Corbell, Borland and others point to a classified US aircraft, the rumoured TR-3B, and Corbell says he was told the government has platforms that behave like this; Mick West and Ryan Graves treat aircraft formations, flares and misjudged distance as sufficient for the night-time cases, and West recalls a V-shaped object of his own that “turned out it was a flock of geese”; a third group treats the triangles as genuinely unknown. The corpus does not resolve which applies to which sighting.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Equilateral triangle with sharp or slightly rounded corners; described as one to two stories thick, sometimes with a curved top.", "size": "Frequently compared to a football field; Borland gives a 200 ft altitude and says he could not see the top.", "lights": "A light at each corner, often a red or pulsing light at the centre; hull otherwise dark, matte or “metallic flake”.", "sound": "“Zero sound” or a low hum in every corpus account.", "motion": "Slow, low glide and long hovers, then abrupt departure.", "era": "1980 (Rendlesham) through the 1989–90 Belgian wave, 1997 Phoenix and a 2003 Vandenberg account to Borland’s Langley account." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Classified US aircraft (the rumoured TR-3B or a similar test platform)", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Aircraft in formation, flares or birds misread as one object at night", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "well-supported" }, { "text": "Genuinely unidentified craft", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" } ], "first_year": 1980, "last_year": 2008, "band": "well-supported", "events": [ "1980-rendlesham-forest", "1989-belgian-wave", "1997-phoenix-lights", "2008-stephenville" ], "sites": [ "rendlesham-forest", "phoenix", "langley-afb", "vandenberg-afb" ], "people": [ "jeremy-corbell", "dylan-borland", "david-grusch", "james-fox", "robert-hastings", "peter-levenda", "mick-west", "uapgerb" ], "footage": [ "phoenix-lights-1997" ], "crafts": [ "boomerang-chevron", "aurora", "diamond" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-SPECIES-0107", "N-SPECIES-0108", "N-CRAFT-0054" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "-XdvIrexF08", "ts": "1:15:29", "quote": "there was a large triangular shaped craft that was near the NASA hangar. It moved over towards him. It had zero sound.", "speaker": "Jeremy Corbell", "speaker_slug": "jeremy-corbell", "note": "relaying Dylan Borland’s Langley AFB account" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "-XdvIrexF08", "ts": "1:15:29", "quote": "It was between one to two stories thick, equilateral triangle. I could never see the top of it and the edges were 90°", "speaker": "Dylan Borland (archival clip)", "speaker_slug": "dylan-borland" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "u7g5Sn1DJF4", "ts": "0:19:46", "quote": "The craft itself was this black metallic flake paint, but on top of the craft was this gold lava, plasma, some type of fluid going over and around the craft.", "speaker": "Dylan Borland (archival clip)", "speaker_slug": "dylan-borland" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "Qe8br8yYEDM", "ts": "1:20:41", "quote": "I talked to five shaken witnesses who described a massive triangular craft larger than a football", "note": "former Vandenberg AFB security responder reading his account" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "Qe8br8yYEDM", "ts": "1:21:13", "quote": "hovered silently for about 45 seconds over their entry control point before shooting away at impossible", "note": "same account, next transcript block" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "mOWwdIuyaQA", "ts": "1:14:29", "quote": "It was just a tremendous object. It was anywheres from wing tip to wing tip about four 50 or 60 yards. These were very very unusual lights.", "note": "archival witness clip" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "fzvwBBSmWYA", "ts": "0:50:11", "quote": "peniston says he approached a triangular Black Metallic craft that was approximately the size of a pickup truck and was emitting bright lights and a strange energy", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels", "note": "retelling Rendlesham 1980" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "kRO5jOa06Qw", "ts": "0:07:12", "quote": "large, you know, triangular crafts, you know, football field size that, you know, hovered over them.", "speaker": "David Grusch", "speaker_slug": "david-grusch" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "bVhSPH2A5Vw", "ts": "1:23:38", "quote": "six lights in the shape of a triangle going back right over the airport", "speaker": "James Fox", "speaker_slug": "james-fox" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "zMOQ8n6WvL8", "ts": "0:16:13", "quote": "So these were many times triangular airframes uh saucer shaped airframes.", "speaker": "UAPGerb", "speaker_slug": "uapgerb" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "N6Cu-d75yAM", "ts": "2:53:07", "quote": "I'm expecting to hear, you know, the really loud rotor blades. I hear nothing. So, I open the car door and I stand up and look at it. I'm looking at a triangle with the lights.", "speaker": "Peter Levenda", "speaker_slug": "peter-levenda" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/black-triangle.svg", "beings": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "tic-tac", "name": "Tic Tac", "aka": [ "Nimitz object", "white pill", "capsule-shaped object", "smooth cylinder" ], "summary": "A smooth white capsule with no wings, exhaust or seams, named by Cmdr. David Fravor after the 2004 Nimitz encounter. The corpus quotes Fravor’s clip and a written pilot report, Mick West’s acceptance that Fravor saw “some kind of tic tac-shaped object”, and older witnesses who now apply the word to what they once called cigars or eggs.", "body_html": "The name comes from November 2004. In a clip the corpus plays, David Fravor says “We saw this little white Tic Tac looking object and it’s just kind of moving above the white water area”; a report read aloud in another episode describes a “small, solid, white Tic Tac object” moving “very abruptly”. Jesse Michels adds that a similar object was reported around the 2010 F.E. Warren missile incident, and that pilots “consistently report seeing tic tacs, saucers, orbs” over sensitive airspace.
Speakers stress what is missing rather than what is present: no wings, no exhaust, no seams, no sound. Even the corpus’s main sceptic concedes the shape — Mick West says “what Fravis saw was some kind of tic tac-shaped object” that “appeared to be moving around”, while arguing the later videos show ordinary aircraft. In a debate exchange the same word is pressed on a FLIR frame that West says is only “a white tic tac shape” because of the lighting.
The label has spread backwards. Gary McKinnon says the Malmstrom-era objects were “what they now call a tic tac but what we used to call cigar-” shaped, “just like a very smooth cylinder”; Charles Hall describes 1960s Nellis-range objects as “Like tic tacs” and “eggshaped”; Carlos de Souza, describing the 1996 Varginha object, says “It was like a cigar, a cylinder. Today, it’s known as a tic tac.” The corpus therefore records one word absorbing older cigar and egg reports.
Explanations offered: a classified US or adversary test vehicle (rejected by Fravor and Graves on performance grounds), sensor or perception artefacts for the video (West), and an unknown technology. Because the 2004 sighting is corroborated by several aircrew and radar operators, the report pattern is banded documented.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Smooth elongated capsule with rounded ends; “a very smooth cylinder”; no fins, wings, windows or seams reported.", "size": "About the length of an F/A-18 (roughly 40–45 ft) in the Nimitz accounts; “small” in the written pilot report.", "lights": "None; a uniform white or matte surface.", "sound": "Not audible from the cockpit.", "motion": "Hovering over churning water, erratic darting, then near-instant acceleration; abrupt changes of direction.", "era": "2004 Nimitz; the word then applied to 2010 F.E. Warren and retroactively to 1960s–1990s cigar and egg reports." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Classified US or adversary test vehicle", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Sensor artefact, camera glare or misjudged size and distance (for the FLIR video)", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Genuinely unidentified craft", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" } ], "first_year": 2004, "last_year": 2015, "band": "documented", "events": [ "2004-nimitz-tic-tac", "2014-2015-roosevelt-gimbal-gofast", "1967-malmstrom-shutdown" ], "sites": [ "nimitz-carrier-group-2004", "nellis-range", "malmstrom-afb" ], "people": [ "david-fravor", "ryan-graves", "mick-west", "charles-hall", "gary-mckinnon", "luis-elizondo", "jesse-michels" ], "footage": [ "flir1", "gimbal", "gofast" ], "documents": [ "aatip-dia-papers", "2017-nyt-aatip-disclosure" ], "crafts": [ "cigar-cylinder", "egg-shaped", "cube-in-sphere", "varginha-craft" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-SPECIES-0103", "N-CRAFT-0062" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "_bM9eAtCOGw", "ts": "0:01:03", "quote": "We saw this little white Tic Tac looking object and it's just kind of moving above the white water area.", "speaker": "David Fravor (archival clip)", "speaker_slug": "david-fravor" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "OOr98r51Sj0", "ts": "1:14:15", "quote": "Look down at small, solid, white Tic Tac object with a longitudinal axis pointing north-south and moving very abruptly", "note": "pilot report read aloud" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1iaH1a3A4Lk", "ts": "0:34:30", "quote": "what Fravis saw was some kind of tic tac-shaped object. Yeah. Uh and it's it was it was it appeared to be moving around.", "speaker": "Mick West", "speaker_slug": "mick-west" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1iaH1a3A4Lk", "ts": "1:02:59", "quote": "You're saying that it's a white tic tac shape. You an actual tic tac shape. Yeah, absolutely it is. And you're saying that it's got all is this funny weird shape. Yeah, we we because of the lighting.", "note": "debate exchange over a FLIR frame" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "8Rr_nE65KkI", "ts": "0:25:10", "quote": "In the 2010 case at FY War, it was this tic tac flying around.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "2ttdlCa5ZCI", "ts": "0:31:38", "quote": "what they now call a tic tac but what we used to call cigar- >> object. And this thing was admittedly it's low resolution. It's coming down slowly. But this thing looked very kind of smooth >> on the outside. There was no lines whether we'd be like plates fixed or screws and bolts", "speaker": "Gary McKinnon", "speaker_slug": "gary-mckinnon" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "2ttdlCa5ZCI", "ts": "0:33:15", "quote": "Just like a very smooth cylinder. The geodic domes.", "speaker": "Gary McKinnon", "speaker_slug": "gary-mckinnon" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "QgxjtDS2sIQ", "ts": "0:14:11", "quote": "Like tic tacs. >> Yeah, like like eggs. Like white eggs. They were eggshaped.", "speaker": "Charles Hall", "speaker_slug": "charles-hall" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "UkKwa4jU0fc", "ts": "0:23:21", "quote": "It was like a cigar, a cylinder. Today, it's known as a tic tac.\" The same shape.", "speaker": "Carlos de Souza (translated)", "speaker_slug": "carlos-de-souza" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/tic-tac.svg", "beings": [] }, { "slug": "cigar-cylinder", "name": "Cigar / cylinder", "aka": [ "cylindrical object", "cigar-shaped UFO", "school-bus-shaped object", "octagonal cylinder (Herrera)" ], "summary": "A long, wingless cylinder — “cigar-shaped” in older reports — described hovering horizontally or zooming past. Corpus accounts include a Cold War naval sighting relayed by Richard Dolan, a NASA whistleblower’s 800-foot underwater object, Michael Herrera’s 300-foot Indonesian craft, Varginha witnesses’ “school bus” cylinder, and Tim Alberino’s list of Pacific sightings.", "body_html": "The cigar is the elongated cousin of the disc. Richard Dolan retells a naval account in which sailors were ordered to face forward and “what they see is this long cigar- shaped object zooming by horizontally”. A former NASA contractor says a carrier group “had an 800 ft long USO following it” that “drained all the batteries” of a submarine, and another guest describes “this cigar shaped object” performing “90° angles”. Tim Alberino lists “the saucers, the cigar- shaped craft” among the metallic objects reported in the Pacific.
The most detailed modern account is Michael Herrera’s: describing a 2009 Sumatra deployment he says “I estimated that this thing was probably about 300 ft” and later corrects the shape to an octagon. In Brazil, James Fox says the witnesses he interviewed described the 1996 Varginha object as “cylindrical shaped like a school bus, like a cigar”, and Carlos de Souza, in a translated clip, compares it to a submarine. Jesse Michels notes that Gary McKinnon’s base sources described “tic tacs or cigar- shaped objects” acting as a mothership for smaller lights.
The vocabulary has shifted: several speakers say what was called a cigar in the 1960s–1990s is now called a tic tac. Explanations offered are the standard ones — airships, aircraft or rockets seen end-on, submarines for the underwater reports, classified vehicles — plus Herrera’s specific claim that his craft belonged to a human black programme. None of the cylinder cases in the corpus carries independent corroboration.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Long cylinder or cigar with rounded ends and no control surfaces; Herrera describes an octagonal cross-section with panels.", "size": "From “school bus” size (Varginha) to a stated 300 ft (Herrera) and 800 ft (underwater report).", "lights": "Bright or glowing in the naval account; matte panelled hull in Herrera’s; smoking wreckage at Varginha.", "sound": "Little or none reported.", "motion": "Horizontal passes at speed, right-angle turns, hovering; one underwater object said to pace a carrier group.", "era": "Cold War naval and base cases, 1996 Varginha, 2009 Herrera." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Airship, aircraft or rocket seen end-on", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Submarine or towed array (for the underwater report)", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "thin" }, { "text": "Classified human black-programme vehicle (Herrera’s reading)", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" }, { "text": "Genuinely unidentified craft", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" } ], "first_year": 1965, "last_year": 2009, "band": "contested", "events": [ "1996-varginha", "1967-malmstrom-shutdown", "2009-herrera-indonesia" ], "sites": [ "varginha", "malmstrom-afb", "nellis-range" ], "people": [ "michael-herrera", "richard-dolan", "james-fox", "carlos-de-souza", "tim-alberino", "gary-mckinnon" ], "crafts": [ "tic-tac", "varginha-craft", "mothership" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-SPECIES-0109" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "GQlWf54K_7Y", "ts": "0:52:31", "quote": "what they see is this long cigar- shaped object zooming by horizontally, and that's all he saw.", "speaker": "Richard Dolan", "speaker_slug": "richard-dolan" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "IWui5cBkwoE", "ts": "0:24:48", "quote": "had an 800 ft long USO following it and it was about 2 km behind the ship and actually closed that distance in 25 seconds and went under the ship and drained all the batteries.", "note": "former NASA contractor relaying a Navy account" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "Rjr3Yq-dMUE", "ts": "1:03:40", "quote": "they see over the treetops this cigar shaped object moving like like this. Uh so they are running down into the radar equipments and look and they can see the object on their radar screens and it's doing 90° angles like this.", "note": "guest relaying a witness account" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "D2tKCFmJjks", "ts": "0:09:24", "quote": "I estimated that this thing was probably about 300 ft.", "speaker": "Michael Herrera", "speaker_slug": "michael-herrera" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "UkKwa4jU0fc", "ts": "0:43:18", "quote": "it was cylindrical shaped like a school bus, like a cigar, had no control services", "speaker": "James Fox", "speaker_slug": "james-fox", "note": "summarising Varginha witnesses he interviewed" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "hBrfe4hFuM0", "ts": "0:04:33", "quote": "It was the size of a school bus. dogs and no noise at all. We kept watching it because there was smoke, a light smoke wrapped around it. But I even joked with her. What is that? Is it a submarine?", "speaker": "Carlos de Souza (translated clip)", "speaker_slug": "carlos-de-souza" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "2ttdlCa5ZCI", "ts": "0:36:23", "quote": "he talks about um tic tacs or cigar- shaped objects often being sort of like a mother ship and saucers flying out of the the tic tacs.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "CiQTBOQ1dTg", "ts": "2:08:39", "quote": "the metallic objects, the saucers, the cigar- shaped craft, you know, darting around in the sky, moving at impossible speeds.", "speaker": "Tim Alberino", "speaker_slug": "tim-alberino" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/cigar-cylinder.svg", "beings": [], "footage": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "orb-sphere", "name": "Orb / sphere", "aka": [ "metallic sphere", "silver sphere", "ball of light", "orbs", "foo fighter" ], "summary": "The most frequent shape in the corpus: a metallic or glowing ball, seen singly or in formation, hovering or pacing aircraft. Mario Woods describes a sphere “the size of a Walmart building” over an Ellsworth silo in 1977; the Allagash witnesses estimate theirs at 80 feet; Ryan Graves, Brandon Fugal and Ross Coulthart add Navy, Skinwalker and Australian reports.", "body_html": "Spheres run through the corpus more than any other shape. Mario Woods, a former Air Force security responder, says the 1977 object over a missile silo “was huge and it was a sphere”, with “an energy source that moved around it” like the boiling surface of the sun and “no tail sections”, “no wings”. The Allagash witnesses say their 1976 object was “still spherical” and “80 feet in diameter”, and describe a “neon blue” cone of light from its underside. Brandon Fugal says “You see orbs and spheres often around the mesa” at Skinwalker Ranch, sometimes passing through rock. Ross Coulthart relays a night watch in Australia where “up comes this beautiful golden orb, gigantic. It pulses.”
Military reporting adds texture. Ryan Graves says about half his squadron’s ready room raised their hands when asked who had seen the objects; a congressman relays a pilot’s description of “blacker than black sphere”; Jesse Michels notes that a 1940s memo already listed “metallic spheres, silver spheres, metallic spheres flying in formation, V-shaped formations” and that Eisenhower knew of the wartime “foo fighters”.
Explanations divide sharply. Sceptics point to balloons, drones and out-of-focus aircraft or planets; several guests propose plasma or ball lightning, which the corpus records under its own plasma record; some witnesses describe behaviour they read as controlled. Because spheres are reported across decades, by trained observers and in official summaries, the report pattern is well supported even though individual cases remain contested.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "A complete sphere; some accounts describe it flattening or changing shape as it moves.", "size": "From basketball-sized metallic balls to 80 ft (Allagash) and “the size of a Walmart building” (Woods).", "lights": "Metallic silver by day; glowing white, golden, pulsing or “blacker than black” at night; a boiling energy layer in Woods’ account.", "sound": "Silent in every corpus account.", "motion": "Hovering over silos and lakes, pacing aircraft, formation flight, sudden departure; Skinwalker orbs said to pass through rock.", "era": "WWII foo fighters onward; corpus witnesses span 1976 to the 2020s." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Balloons, drones, or out-of-focus aircraft and celestial lights", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "well-supported" }, { "text": "Plasma or ball-lightning phenomena", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Controlled craft or probes of unknown origin", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" } ], "first_year": 1944, "last_year": 2023, "band": "well-supported", "events": [ "1976-allagash", "1977-ellsworth-afb", "2014-2015-roosevelt-gimbal-gofast" ], "sites": [ "ellsworth-afb", "skinwalker-ranch", "allagash-maine" ], "people": [ "mario-woods", "jim-weiner", "charlie-foltz", "brandon-fugal", "ross-coulthart", "ryan-graves", "tim-burchett", "jesse-michels" ], "documents": [ "twining-memo-1947", "aaro-historical-record-report-2024" ], "crafts": [ "plasma-light", "cube-in-sphere", "anderson-sphere" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-SPECIES-0105", "N-SPECIES-0106" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "73YBwFvcmF8", "ts": "0:19:26", "quote": "it was huge and it was a sphere it had an energy source that that moved around it like like you'd see pictures of the Sun how it's just like boiling I don't want to call it plasma but I don't know what what really to call it but there were no tail sections", "speaker": "Mario Woods", "speaker_slug": "mario-woods" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "73YBwFvcmF8", "ts": "0:19:56", "quote": "no wings tail SE nothing that we would associate anything in the air with it was a complete sphere but on a magnitude that is just hard to even comprehend", "speaker": "Mario Woods", "speaker_slug": "mario-woods" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "OCZSKkvmLh4", "ts": "0:44:05", "quote": "It was still spherical. It was still spherical. It was still spherical. It was still And it was still like maybe two and a half story a house Give us a sense of the diameter. Yeah. Triple decker stuck 80 feet in diameter.", "speaker": "Allagash witnesses (Jim Weiner / Charlie Foltz)", "speaker_slug": "jim-weiner" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "OCZSKkvmLh4", "ts": "0:37:45", "quote": "cone of light, blue light, like a neon blue, but it looked like a a giant glass straw. You know, it looked like it was open, a void in the center of it or something. And this light starts from the bottom of the sphere coming out across the lake toward the canoe. And that was when I realized the sphere was coming with it", "speaker": "Allagash witnesses (Jim Weiner / Charlie Foltz)", "speaker_slug": "jim-weiner" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "Feo3OIdCL5o", "ts": "0:05:59", "quote": "You see orbs and spheres often around the mesa, sometimes going through the mea, going through rock", "speaker": "Brandon Fugal", "speaker_slug": "brandon-fugal" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "V00WcEiKRAY", "ts": "0:00:01", "quote": "up comes this beautiful golden orb, gigantic. It pulses. It's plasmatic.", "speaker": "Ross Coulthart", "speaker_slug": "ross-coulthart" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "A2-y_HasHEw", "ts": "1:12:17", "quote": "this thing was blacker than black sphere that was floating and it just gave this sense of just complete eat evil and darkness is the way he described it.", "note": "congressman relaying a pilot’s account" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "6WC4o2yY9Ws", "ts": "0:23:28", "quote": "about half the room raised their hand like oh yeah the cubes and fears you know we saw those.", "speaker": "Ryan Graves", "speaker_slug": "ryan-graves" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1iaH1a3A4Lk", "ts": "1:35:32", "quote": "these metallic spheres, silver spheres, metallic spheres flying in formation, V-shaped formations.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/orb-sphere.svg", "beings": [], "footage": [] }, { "slug": "egg-shaped", "name": "Egg-shaped object", "aka": [ "egg", "ovoid craft", "ellipsoid", "Barber egg", "Socorro object" ], "summary": "A smooth ovoid, white or metallic, seen in flight or reported recovered. Charles Hall describes 1960s Nellis objects “rounded like an egg”; Jake Barber says he slung a 20-foot egg beneath a helicopter; James Fox and UAPGerb relay a Peru crash claim. Mick West notes a video egg may be a blurred point of light.", "body_html": "The egg has a small but persistent set of reports. Charles Hall, describing objects over the Nellis ranges in the 1960s, says “everything rounded like an egg … It was ellipsoidal”, with no sharp edges. Jake Barber, a former helicopter pilot, says the object he lifted “looked like a 20 feet longitudinally” egg with a “rounding shape to it”; Jesse Michels opens an episode on “an enormous egg-shaped, teardrop-shaped craft”, and UAPGerb notes Barber “retrieved an eggshaped craft”. James Fox relays a Peruvian account of an egg buried at a 45-degree angle in a cliff, and an anonymous guest lists “an eightgone shaped” craft and “an eggshaped craft” among objects described to him.
The shape is elastic. Greg Rogers compares his hangar saucer to “an egg” with the offset removed; the Allagash witnesses’ sphere became “more like an oval”; Mick West, analysing the Barber footage, sees “an egg-shaped object on the end of a rope” and concludes “it’s not like a tic tac … It’s it’s an egg” — while warning that a defocused light on camera also reads as an egg. The 1964 Socorro object, an egg on legs in the case file, is cited here as an external event.
Explanations offered: camera blur turning a point light into an ovoid, a landed experimental vehicle or balloon, a staged or embellished recovery story, and a genuinely unknown craft. The Barber claim rests on one first-person account and a short video, so the modern pattern is banded contested.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Smooth ovoid or ellipsoid with no edges; sometimes a teardrop; an “eightgone” and an egg are listed together by one guest.", "size": "About 20 ft long (Barber); train-engine-sized in Hall’s account; car-sized at Socorro.", "lights": "White or metallic by day; Hall’s objects self-luminous at night.", "sound": "None in the corpus accounts.", "motion": "Low hover and slow rise; Hall says small eggs climbed and merged into a larger object; the Barber egg is described only as cargo.", "era": "1960s Nellis reports, 1964 Socorro, revived by the 2024–25 Barber account." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Camera blur turning a point light into an egg outline", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "well-supported" }, { "text": "Experimental lander or balloon (Socorro)", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Staged or embellished recovery account (Barber)", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Genuinely unidentified craft", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" } ], "first_year": 1964, "last_year": 2025, "band": "contested", "events": [ "1964-socorro", "2025-barber-egg" ], "sites": [ "nellis-range", "socorro" ], "people": [ "charles-hall", "jake-barber", "james-fox", "uapgerb", "mick-west", "greg-rogers", "jesse-michels" ], "footage": [ "barber-egg-2025" ], "crafts": [ "tic-tac", "orb-sphere", "bell-shaped", "flying-saucer-disc" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-SPECIES-0104", "N-CRAFT-0053" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "QgxjtDS2sIQ", "ts": "0:14:45", "quote": "everything rounded like an egg. There were no sharp edges, no sharp protrusions, just smooth and round like a round. It was ellipsoidal.", "speaker": "Charles Hall", "speaker_slug": "charles-hall" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "dnnpyNuPdXs", "ts": "0:39:20", "quote": "It looked like a 20 feet longitudinally. Yeah, 20 feet longitudinally, spherical with a little bit of an asymmetrical three-dimensional rounding shape to it.", "speaker": "Jake Barber", "speaker_slug": "jake-barber" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "u7g5Sn1DJF4", "ts": "0:00:02", "quote": "There's an enormous egg-shaped, teardrop-shaped craft embedded in the cliff face, and there seemed to be a hatch open with an arm hanging out with four fingers.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "nTiFs8LudUo", "ts": "0:02:06", "quote": "claiming firsthand knowledge saying that he retrieved an eggshaped craft", "speaker": "UAPGerb", "speaker_slug": "uapgerb" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "hBrfe4hFuM0", "ts": "1:30:43", "quote": "this eggshaped craft crashed into dripping something dripping from it. He had telepathic communication with it. It was it was buried about a 45 degree angle into the side of the uh into the into the side of the the cliff there.", "speaker": "James Fox", "speaker_slug": "james-fox", "note": "relaying a Peru account" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "PiFbeWfA3LM", "ts": "1:14:56", "quote": "One was an eightgone shaped. It had eight different sides. And the other uh was uh an eggshaped craft.", "note": "anonymous guest" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1iaH1a3A4Lk", "ts": "3:15:07", "quote": "kind of like a an egg-shaped object on the end of of a rope of some sort.", "speaker": "Mick West", "speaker_slug": "mick-west" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1iaH1a3A4Lk", "ts": "3:15:37", "quote": "it's not like a tic tac. It's not like a flying saucer. It's it's an egg.", "speaker": "Mick West", "speaker_slug": "mick-west" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "TNtlzEnl8rA", "ts": "0:40:24", "quote": "an an egg is a little offc center. If you could modify the egg to where it wasn't offc center, that's sort of what it would look like.", "speaker": "Greg Rogers", "speaker_slug": "greg-rogers" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/egg-shaped.svg", "beings": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "boomerang-chevron", "name": "Boomerang / chevron", "aka": [ "V-shaped craft", "chevron", "flying wing", "Phoenix boomerang" ], "summary": "A wide V or boomerang, usually seen at night as a row of lights along each arm, gliding slowly and silently. James Fox describes the 1997 Phoenix object as “this Boomerang shaped” craft said to be a mile across; a pilot reports a daylight boomerang below pattern altitude; Arnold’s 1947 objects are recalled as “little chevrons”. Mick West offers geese.", "body_html": "The boomerang is defined as much by lights as by hull. In the Phoenix case, Jesse Michels narrates that “thousands of people in Phoenix Arizona witnessed a massive v-shaped formation of Lights”, and James Fox says witnesses described “this Boomerang shaped” object — “some people say it was a mile across” — passing overhead, with one man saying he could see “compartments in the metal”. In another episode Fox recalls interviewees “all describing this massive boomerang shaped craft”.
Daylight and earlier reports exist. A pilot guest describes “A boomerang shaped craft below traffic pattern altitude” with a “boot heel type shape”; a historian recalls that Kenneth Arnold in 1947 “sees uh these little chevrons flying about”, about half a dozen. Michels also describes the Gimbal video’s companion objects as “a V-shaped formation” that turns with “no radius of turn”, which is where the chevron shades into the formation reading.
Explanations offered: aircraft in formation whose lights make a false single outline, a classified flying-wing platform, birds — Mick West says a V-shaped shiny object he once chased “Turned out it was a flock of geese” — and an unknown object. The corpus carries no witness who saw the hull of a night-time boomerang in daylight, so the shape rests mainly on light patterns.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Wide V or boomerang; sometimes a chevron or “boot heel”; the Phoenix object also described as a triangle.", "size": "“A mile across” in some Phoenix accounts; witnesses concede they could not judge distance at night.", "lights": "A row of steady lights along each arm; the Phoenix formation described as amber lights.", "sound": "Silent.", "motion": "Slow, low glide over cities; daylight object reported below pattern altitude; Gimbal companions turn as one.", "era": "1947 (Arnold’s chevrons), 1980s Hudson Valley, 1997 Phoenix, 2015 Gimbal." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Aircraft in formation whose lights read as one outline", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "well-supported" }, { "text": "Birds in formation catching light", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Classified flying-wing or stealth platform", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Genuinely unidentified craft", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" } ], "first_year": 1947, "last_year": 2015, "band": "contested", "events": [ "1947-kenneth-arnold", "1997-phoenix-lights", "2014-2015-roosevelt-gimbal-gofast" ], "sites": [ "phoenix" ], "people": [ "james-fox", "jesse-michels", "mick-west", "fife-symington" ], "footage": [ "phoenix-lights-1997", "gimbal" ], "crafts": [ "black-triangle" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-SPECIES-0110" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "bVhSPH2A5Vw", "ts": "1:22:03", "quote": "thousands of people in Phoenix Arizona witnessed a massive v-shaped formation of Lights moving silently across the sky known as the Phoenix Lights the phenomenon sparked widespread speculation about UFOs while some officials claimed the lights were military flares", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "bVhSPH2A5Vw", "ts": "3:06:16", "quote": "this Boomerang shaped apparently it was some people say it was a mile across some people say it was two miles across it was colossal and it flew over people's homes silently and like made no noise and they could see compartments in the metal", "speaker": "James Fox", "speaker_slug": "james-fox" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "hBrfe4hFuM0", "ts": "0:14:57", "quote": "they were all describing this massive boomerang shaped craft and I realized, [ __ ] this thing's coming right my way.", "speaker": "James Fox", "speaker_slug": "james-fox" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "wuJncM8HhRQ", "ts": "0:57:54", "quote": "A boomerang shaped craft below traffic pattern altitude. Uh looked kind of like halfway boomer boomerang halfway heel boot heel type shape", "note": "pilot guest" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "bM18PJY6_Zc", "ts": "2:27:43", "quote": "Kenneth Arnold sees uh these little chevrons flying about and they were kind of moving freely and you know half a dozen of them.", "note": "historian guest on the 1947 sighting" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1iaH1a3A4Lk", "ts": "2:10:02", "quote": "he's recreated this and it's kind of a a V-shaped formation. uh when the object does this very bizarre kind of reversal of direction with no radius of turn", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels", "note": "on the Gimbal companion objects" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "8Rr_nE65KkI", "ts": "2:04:40", "quote": "one of them looked like a V-shaped uh shiny object out in the desert. Turned out it was a flock of geese.", "speaker": "Mick West", "speaker_slug": "mick-west" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/boomerang-chevron.svg", "beings": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "cube-in-sphere", "name": "Cube in a sphere", "aka": [ "cube inside a clear sphere", "east-coast Navy object", "Graves object", "sphere inside a cube (transcript variant)" ], "summary": "A dark grey or black cube suspended inside a translucent sphere, reported by Navy F/A-18 crews off the US east coast from 2014. Ryan Graves says the objects were 5 to 15 feet across, sat stationary in hurricane-force winds for hours, and one passed between two jets in formation. Elizondo lists cubes among recurring shapes.", "body_html": "Ryan Graves gives the defining description: a pilot who saw one up close “described it as a dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere”. He puts the size at “About 5 to 15 ft in diameter” and says they could stay “out there all day”, “sometimes completely stationary” in “hurricane type winds” at altitude — endurance and wind tolerance his colleagues took to rule out ordinary drones. He adds that the geometric shape itself was the puzzle.
The most cited incident is a near miss: Jesse Michels retells how “the object almost hit the the pilot” when one passed between two aircraft, and notes the pilots first assumed the Navy was “red teaming our system”. Charles Hall, asked about Graves’ reports, describes “a ball inside and then stuff outside like a cube”, and Luis Elizondo lists “Cube jellyfish flowing red triangular craft” among shapes that behave “better than our airplane”.
Explanations offered: an adversary drone or balloon carrying a radar reflector (the geometry resembles a corner reflector), a classified US surveillance platform, and an unknown technology. Graves leaves the origin open while insisting the objects are real and a flight-safety hazard; because the reports come from multiple aircrew and were filed through official channels, the pattern is banded documented.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "A cube with its corners touching the inside of a transparent or translucent sphere.", "size": "“About 5 to 15 ft in diameter” (Graves).", "lights": "None reported; the cube dark grey or black, the sphere clear.", "sound": "Not audible from the cockpit.", "motion": "Stationary loitering in hurricane-force winds at 20,000–30,000 ft; hours of endurance; one fast pass between two jets.", "era": "2014–2015 off Virginia Beach and Jacksonville; similar descriptions continue in later Navy testimony." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Adversary drone or balloon carrying a radar reflector", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Classified US surveillance platform", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Genuinely unidentified technology", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" } ], "first_year": 2014, "last_year": 2019, "band": "documented", "events": [ "2014-2015-roosevelt-gimbal-gofast" ], "sites": [ "nas-oceana" ], "people": [ "ryan-graves", "luis-elizondo", "charles-hall", "jesse-michels" ], "footage": [ "gimbal", "gofast" ], "crafts": [ "tic-tac", "orb-sphere" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-SPECIES-0111" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "6WC4o2yY9Ws", "ts": "0:00:31", "quote": "he described it as a dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere.", "speaker": "Ryan Graves", "speaker_slug": "ryan-graves" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "6WC4o2yY9Ws", "ts": "0:00:31", "quote": "About 5 to 15 ft in diameter. Oh, by the way, they're out there all day.", "speaker": "Ryan Graves", "speaker_slug": "ryan-graves" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "6WC4o2yY9Ws", "ts": "0:12:29", "quote": "They were sometimes completely stationary, 0.0 Mach over a piece of the ground, very high winds, category 3 hurricane type winds.", "speaker": "Ryan Graves", "speaker_slug": "ryan-graves" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "6WC4o2yY9Ws", "ts": "0:19:16", "quote": "being able to withstand extreme amounts of wind and stay stationary. That's not obviously normal. The shape, the geometric shape.", "speaker": "Ryan Graves", "speaker_slug": "ryan-graves" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1iaH1a3A4Lk", "ts": "2:32:24", "quote": "the object almost hit the the pilot and it was this uh spear inside a cube and uh and he was like they're not going to put us in danger if they're kind of red teaming our system.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels", "note": "transcript renders the shape as “spear inside a cube”" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "QgxjtDS2sIQ", "ts": "1:22:50", "quote": "you have like a ball inside and then stuff outside like a cube or something. You might ask, is that really one craft or is it the center ball is the real craft and the outside is some something", "speaker": "Charles Hall", "speaker_slug": "charles-hall" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1f16VvXaSSE", "ts": "0:00:32", "quote": "Cube jellyfish flowing red triangular craft better than our airplane", "speaker": "Luis Elizondo", "speaker_slug": "luis-elizondo" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/cube-in-sphere.svg", "beings": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "mothership", "name": "Mothership", "aka": [ "mother ship", "carrier craft", "mile-wide object", "aircraft-carrier-sized object" ], "summary": "A very large object from which smaller lights or craft are seen to emerge or return. Corpus versions include Gary McKinnon’s Malmstrom-era “mother ship kind of configuration”, Christopher Mellon’s remark relayed by Jesse Michels about 30–50 objects over Langley, and an abductee’s “gray mother ships” at altitude. Single-source and thinly evidenced.", "body_html": "The mothership idea rests on witnesses seeing a hierarchy of objects. Gary McKinnon says the Malmstrom material he read described “tic tacs or cigar- shaped objects” acting “like a mother ship” with smaller objects “flying out of the the tic tacs”, and calls it “definitely a mother ship kind of configuration”. Jesse Michels, discussing 2023 drone swarms over Langley, relays Christopher Mellon’s comment that there seemed to be a “mothership dynamic going on”, with “30 to 50” objects “flying independently of each other” and “hovering for hours”; elsewhere he summarises it as “Chris Melon said there’s a mother ship.”
Other uses are looser. An abduction witness says “gray mother ships” orbited at altitude and “launched the smaller” craft; a former NASA contractor’s 800-foot underwater object pacing a carrier group is read by some guests as a carrier of smaller vehicles. Avi Loeb’s proposal that interstellar objects could be motherships releasing probes is discussed as a hypothesis, not a sighting. The corpus therefore records two things under one word: a large witnessed hull, and a theoretical carrier.
Explanations offered: misjudged distance making a nearby object seem enormous, tankers or motherships in the literal drone sense (a large drone releasing smaller ones), and a genuinely large unknown object. The reports are few and rarely corroborated, so the pattern is banded thin.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Elongated hull, cylindrical or lens-shaped, with smaller lights leaving or joining it.", "size": "From “800 ft” to “a mile wide”; witnesses concede they could not judge distance.", "lights": "A large glow with a ring or row of smaller lights.", "sound": "Silent.", "motion": "Slow hover or drift while smaller objects manoeuvre around it; hours-long loitering in the Langley reports.", "era": "1960s–1970s base cases; the word re-used for 2023 drone-swarm reports and interstellar-object hypotheses." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Misjudged distance inflating the apparent size of an ordinary object", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Large drone or aircraft releasing smaller drones", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Carrier craft releasing probes (Loeb-style hypothesis)", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" } ], "first_year": 1967, "last_year": 2023, "band": "thin", "events": [ "1967-malmstrom-shutdown", "2023-langley-drone-swarm" ], "sites": [ "malmstrom-afb", "langley-afb" ], "people": [ "gary-mckinnon", "christopher-mellon", "avi-loeb", "jesse-michels" ], "crafts": [ "cigar-cylinder", "tic-tac", "orb-sphere" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-SPECIES-0112" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "2ttdlCa5ZCI", "ts": "0:36:23", "quote": "often being sort of like a mother ship and saucers flying out of the the tic tacs.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "2ttdlCa5ZCI", "ts": "0:36:55", "quote": "definitely a mother ship kind of configuration.", "speaker": "Gary McKinnon", "speaker_slug": "gary-mckinnon" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1iaH1a3A4Lk", "ts": "3:10:59", "quote": "30 to 50 flying independently of each other with a larger quote mother ship hovering hovering for hours.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels", "note": "on the 2023 Langley drone incursions" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1iaH1a3A4Lk", "ts": "3:10:59", "quote": "Chris Melon, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence under both Clinton and Bush. Yeah. Uh said that there was this mothership dynamic going on", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "8TYMQOUDQBo", "ts": "1:45:48", "quote": "Chris Melon said there's a mother ship.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "3IiFksZBCIE", "ts": "0:40:39", "quote": "gray mother ships or orbited about that altitude then they launched the smaller", "note": "abduction witness" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "IWui5cBkwoE", "ts": "0:24:48", "quote": "had an 800 ft long USO following it and it was about 2 km behind the ship and actually closed that distance in 25 seconds and went under the ship and drained all the batteries.", "note": "former NASA contractor relaying a Navy account" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/mothership.svg", "beings": [], "footage": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "bell-shaped", "name": "Bell / acorn shape", "aka": [ "acorn", "Kecksburg object", "Die Glocke", "Nazi Bell", "jello mold" ], "summary": "A rounded body wider at the base than the top — acorn, bell or “jello mold” — known from the 1965 Kecksburg recovery story and the wartime Die Glocke legend. Tim Alberino describes an acorn-shaped craft on Guadalcanal; Matthew Pines and Steven Greer say acorn-shaped vehicles sit in hangars. Nick Cook treats the Bell as a rumour.", "body_html": "Two stories give this shape its place. The first is Kecksburg, December 1965: Jesse Michels says the craft in the Netflix drama was “incorrectly portrayed” and “should look like a bell or acorn”, and UAPGerb describes the object as “a jello mold with half a ping pong ball at the top”. The second is Die Glocke: Nick Cook recounts “this idea of Die Glocke” and its supposed “torsion field”, and Colonel Bill McConnell repeats the legend that the “Nazi bell” created a “high energy torsion field” inside the bell.
First-hand flight reports are rarer but exist. Tim Alberino says a Guadalcanal witness “saw an almond shaped uh rather a acorn-shaped craft” lying on its side, and another who had one of these craft “30, 40 feet above him”. Matthew Pines says the vehicles he has heard described are “bell-shaped or acornshaped vehicles” that look “as if they’ve been flown”, and Steven Greer, in conversation with Michels, refers to “mama bear and papa bear acornshaped” UFOs.
Explanations offered: the Soviet Kosmos 96 probe re-entering (the mainstream reading of Kecksburg), a US re-entry vehicle, a misremembered fireball, and — for Die Glocke — a post-war legend with no primary documents. The corpus treats the Kecksburg recovery as contested and the Bell as thin.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Acorn or bell: a domed top narrowing to a flared base, sometimes with a raised band of markings around the bottom.", "size": "Kecksburg accounts say about the size of a small car; Die Glocke described as roughly 3 m across.", "lights": "Kecksburg object seen as a fireball on descent, then dull metal; the Bell said to glow in legend.", "sound": "None reported after landing.", "motion": "Controlled descent and impact (Kecksburg); Alberino’s island accounts describe low hovering.", "era": "1944–1945 (legend), December 1965 (Kecksburg), WWII-era Guadalcanal accounts." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Re-entering Soviet Kosmos 96 probe or US re-entry vehicle (Kecksburg)", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "well-supported" }, { "text": "Post-war legend without primary documents (Die Glocke)", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "well-supported" }, { "text": "Recovered non-human craft", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" } ], "first_year": 1944, "last_year": 1965, "band": "thin", "events": [ "1965-kecksburg" ], "sites": [ "kecksburg", "wright-patterson-afb" ], "people": [ "nick-cook", "uapgerb", "tim-alberino", "matthew-pines", "steven-greer", "bill-mcconnell", "jesse-michels" ], "crafts": [ "egg-shaped", "roswell-object" ], "graph_ids": [], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "ScE9FaDy-mE", "ts": "0:43:06", "quote": "the craft at Kexsburg in the movie was incorrectly portrayed as a flying saucer when in reality it was shaped like a bell or acorn.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "nTiFs8LudUo", "ts": "1:22:54", "quote": "It looks like a jello mold with half a ping pong ball at the top. Yep. And so sort of a typical saucer shape or maybe what you would see in the Kexsburg crash of 1965 is like a dome on top and then", "speaker": "UAPGerb", "speaker_slug": "uapgerb" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "CiQTBOQ1dTg", "ts": "4:42:56", "quote": "saw an almond shaped uh rather a acorn-shaped craft, but like prone like on its side.", "speaker": "Tim Alberino", "speaker_slug": "tim-alberino" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "CiQTBOQ1dTg", "ts": "4:43:28", "quote": "30, 40 feet above him is one of these craft almond shaped um, I keep saying almond shaped, acorn shape craft.", "speaker": "Tim Alberino", "speaker_slug": "tim-alberino" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "G7Ns4Aq1tVc", "ts": "0:21:26", "quote": "this idea of Die Glocke, this sort of bell that at the time it was rumored to have a sort of torsion field", "speaker": "Nick Cook", "speaker_slug": "nick-cook" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "KGD1nuM4MR8", "ts": "0:27:04", "quote": "this Nazi bell would you'd create this high energy torsion field around it. It would slow down the inertial reference frame of what's inside the bell.", "speaker": "Bill McConnell", "speaker_slug": "bill-mcconnell" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "LpLFWdsIU7M", "ts": "0:51:31", "quote": "these are bell-shaped or acornshaped vehicles. There are three of them. They actually seem to have wear and tear on them as if they've been flown.", "speaker": "Matthew Pines", "speaker_slug": "matthew-pines" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "areO7Mej44E", "ts": "3:02:08", "quote": "you have the mama bear and papa bear acornshaped uh UFOs.", "note": "exchange with Steven Greer" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/bell-shaped.svg", "beings": [], "footage": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "diamond", "name": "Diamond / rhombus", "aka": [ "diamond-shaped craft", "rhombus", "Calvine object", "Cash-Landrum object" ], "summary": "A faceted, diamond-like object with smooth rather than sharp angles. Tim Alberino gives the corpus’s one close description — stubby protrusions in place of wings, “very smooth”; James Fox recalls the 1990 Calvine hikers’ silent diamond; David Grusch mentions a crew that saw a diamond-shaped formation of orbs. Otherwise the record leans on external case files.", "body_html": "The diamond appears in the corpus mainly as a category. Tim Alberino, describing an object he says he saw, gives the fullest account: “It had little stubby protrusions in the place of wings”, and the angles “were not sharp” — “It was very smooth.” James Fox retells the Calvine case, in which “two witnesses were out hiking” in Scotland in 1990 and photographed a large diamond-shaped object that hovered without “making any any noise”. David Grusch refers to “a crew that had seen kind of a diamond shaped formation of orbs”, which is a formation rather than a hull.
Outside the corpus, two cases anchor the shape. In December 1980 Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum and Colby Landrum reported a large diamond-shaped object venting flame over a Texas road, followed by illness; the Calvine photograph, taken in August 1990 and released in 2022, shows a diamond with a jet apparently nearby. These are cited as external sources.
Explanations offered: an experimental lifting body or aircraft seen obliquely, a reflection or suspended object (for the Calvine photograph), sensor artefacts producing a faceted outline on FLIR, and an unknown craft. With one close corpus witness, the record is banded thin.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Faceted rhombus or diamond; Alberino says the angles were smooth, not sharp, with stubby protrusions where wings would be.", "size": "Cash-Landrum witnesses estimated the size of a water tower; Calvine object judged tens of feet.", "lights": "Cash-Landrum object glowing with flame from the base; Calvine object dark and unlit.", "sound": "A roar in the Cash-Landrum account; silent at Calvine.", "motion": "Slow hover and drift; the Cash-Landrum object said to have been escorted by helicopters.", "era": "1980–1990 in case files; Alberino’s account undated in the corpus." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Experimental lifting body or aircraft seen obliquely", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Reflection, model or suspended object (Calvine photograph)", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Sensor or lens artefact producing a faceted outline", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Genuinely unidentified craft", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" } ], "first_year": 1980, "last_year": 1990, "band": "thin", "events": [ "1980-cash-landrum", "1990-calvine" ], "sites": [ "calvine-scotland", "huffman-texas" ], "people": [ "tim-alberino", "james-fox", "david-grusch" ], "footage": [ "calvine-1990" ], "crafts": [ "black-triangle" ], "graph_ids": [], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "CiQTBOQ1dTg", "ts": "1:35:20", "quote": "It had little stubby protrusions in the place of wings. And it was kind of shaped like a diamond >> and um and it it it was it it didn't really have sharp angles. It was very smooth.", "speaker": "Tim Alberino", "speaker_slug": "tim-alberino" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "hBrfe4hFuM0", "ts": "0:16:35", "quote": "two witnesses were out hiking. They then saw a large diamondshaped craft hovering. It didn't move. It just hovered in the air without making any any noise.", "speaker": "James Fox", "speaker_slug": "james-fox", "note": "retelling Calvine 1990" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "kRO5jOa06Qw", "ts": "0:14:54", "quote": "a crew that had seen kind of a diamond shaped formation of orbs.", "speaker": "David Grusch", "speaker_slug": "david-grusch" }, { "kind": "external", "title": "Mystery UK UFO photo revealed after 32 years", "url": "https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/mystery-uk-ufo-photo-revealed-after-32-years", "publisher": "University of Sheffield", "date": "2022-08-11", "note": "Calvine 1990 diamond-shaped object photograph" }, { "kind": "external", "title": "Cash–Landrum incident", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash%E2%80%93Landrum_incident", "publisher": "Wikipedia", "note": "1980 Texas diamond-shaped object and injury claims; secondary summary" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/diamond.svg", "beings": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "plasma-light", "name": "Plasma / ball of light", "aka": [ "ball of light", "ball of plasma", "foo fighter", "glowing orb", "light phenomenon" ], "summary": "A self-luminous light with no visible hull — described as a ball of plasma, a pulsing golden orb or a fractal “crystal sphere” — that changes colour, splits and moves in ways witnesses say aircraft cannot. Speakers cite WWII foo fighters, Skinwalker Ranch orbs, a congressman’s 3-metre plasma spheres and Dylan Borland’s gold “lava” flowing over a triangle.", "body_html": "Some witnesses see no craft at all, only light. Ross Coulthart relays an Australian watch where “up comes this beautiful golden orb, gigantic. It pulses. It’s plasmatic.” Congressman Tim Burchett, relaying briefings, describes objects “like 3 meters in diameter” that glow in different colours, “some type of spherical nebulous, what’s described as like a ball of plasma”, and wonders whether “you see the plasma sphere before the orb”. An anonymous experiencer describes a light that is “fractalized”, “swirling”, “emitting its own light source”, inside a “crystal sphere”.
Plasma also appears as a skin on solid objects. Dylan Borland says that on the Langley triangle “on top of the craft was this gold lava, plasma, some type of fluid going over and around the craft”; Mario Woods says his Ellsworth sphere had an energy source moving around it that he hesitates to “call it plasma”. Michael Herrera and UAPGerb, pressed for a man-made comparison, say the objects look “at most like a plasma orb”. Jesse Michels traces the report back to the wartime “Foo Fighters issue from 42 to 45” with some 200 allied pilot witnesses, and Brandon Fugal describes orbs at Skinwalker Ranch passing through rock.
Explanations offered: atmospheric plasma and ball lightning, geological “earthlights”, aircraft or satellite lights misjudged, a propulsion glow around an otherwise unseen craft, and claims that the lights respond to observers. The existence of unexplained lights is well supported by the volume and spread of reports; what they are remains open.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "No fixed outline: a glowing ball or diffuse blob; sometimes a ring or halo; sometimes a luminous layer over a solid hull.", "size": "From fist-sized to “3 meters” (Burchett) to “gigantic” (Coulthart); distance is rarely judged.", "lights": "White, golden, orange, red or colour-shifting; pulsing, swirling, splitting into several lights.", "sound": "Silent in the corpus accounts.", "motion": "Hovering, sudden acceleration, splitting and merging, passing through rock; some witnesses say it reacts to them.", "era": "WWII foo fighters onward; Hessdalen since 1981; Skinwalker Ranch since the 1990s." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Atmospheric plasma, ball lightning or geological “earthlights”", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Aircraft, satellite or celestial lights misjudged", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "well-supported" }, { "text": "Propulsion glow around an otherwise unseen craft", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" }, { "text": "Phenomenon that responds to observers", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" } ], "first_year": 1942, "last_year": 2023, "band": "well-supported", "events": [ "1942-1945-foo-fighters", "1977-ellsworth-afb" ], "sites": [ "skinwalker-ranch", "hessdalen", "langley-afb", "ellsworth-afb" ], "beings": [ "plasma-light-being" ], "people": [ "ross-coulthart", "tim-burchett", "brandon-fugal", "dylan-borland", "mario-woods", "michael-herrera", "jesse-michels" ], "crafts": [ "orb-sphere", "black-triangle" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-SPECIES-0105" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "V00WcEiKRAY", "ts": "0:00:01", "quote": "up comes this beautiful golden orb, gigantic. It pulses. It's plasmatic.", "speaker": "Ross Coulthart", "speaker_slug": "ross-coulthart" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "A2-y_HasHEw", "ts": "0:55:16", "quote": "they're like 3 meters in diameter, sometimes smaller, sometimes bigger, and they have different shades of color that they glow in, but they are some type of spherical nebulous, what's described as like a ball of plasma.", "speaker": "Tim Burchett", "speaker_slug": "tim-burchett" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "A2-y_HasHEw", "ts": "0:57:18", "quote": "maybe they you see the plasma sphere before the orb", "speaker": "Tim Burchett", "speaker_slug": "tim-burchett" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "PiFbeWfA3LM", "ts": "0:53:04", "quote": "It's fractalized. It's swirling and it's emitting its own light source. Wow. Right. So, there's this it's fixed defined shell, crystal orb, crystal sphere.", "note": "anonymous experiencer" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "u7g5Sn1DJF4", "ts": "0:19:46", "quote": "on top of the craft was this gold lava, plasma, some type of fluid going over and around the craft.", "speaker": "Dylan Borland (archival clip)", "speaker_slug": "dylan-borland" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "73YBwFvcmF8", "ts": "0:19:26", "quote": "it had an energy source that that moved around it like like you'd see pictures of the Sun how it's just like boiling I don't want to call it plasma but I don't know what what really to call it", "speaker": "Mario Woods", "speaker_slug": "mario-woods" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "D2tKCFmJjks", "ts": "0:23:50", "quote": "It looks at most like a plasma orb if you had to like, you know, compare it to something that is man-made.", "note": "Michael Herrera / UAPGerb exchange" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1iaH1a3A4Lk", "ts": "1:35:32", "quote": "Eisenhower was aware of the Foo Fighters issue from 42 to 45. You had around or possibly over 200 uh uh fighter pilot witnesses", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "Feo3OIdCL5o", "ts": "0:05:59", "quote": "You see orbs and spheres often around the mesa, sometimes going through the mea, going through rock", "speaker": "Brandon Fugal", "speaker_slug": "brandon-fugal" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/plasma-light.svg", "footage": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "lazar-sport-model", "name": "Lazar “Sport Model” saucer", "aka": [ "S-4 saucer", "sport model", "Lazar disc" ], "summary": "The disc Bob Lazar says he worked on at S-4 near Papoose Lake in 1988–89: about 50 feet across, seamless, three seats too small for adults, a reactor and three amplifiers below, lifting off “silently” with a wobble. Lazar says nine hangars held nine craft and that the Navy has the sport model. No second witness appears in the corpus.", "body_html": "Lazar’s description is the most specific saucer account in the corpus. Jesse Michels summarises it as “a flying saucer 53 ft in diameter” with no “wiring, or controls”; Lazar himself says of the seats “There were three of those” and that they were child-sized, that during a test “the craft began to lift off the ground silently”, and that in flight “The craft sort of wobbles.” He says “there were nine hangars” at the site and, asked who holds the craft now, that “the Navy” has “the sport model”.
The account changed public expectation. Jeremy Corbell says “Wednesday was the famous night nights that they would fly the sport model”, referring to the Groom Lake watch parties Lazar organised in 1989; Matthew Pines notes that Lazar “would describe the sports model” with a consistent “level of detail and lucidity”; an abduction witness in another episode says a craft he saw “was about 50 ft in diameter” and compares it to the “Lazar Sport model”, showing the description feeding back into later reports.
Explanations offered: that Lazar saw a recovered craft (his claim); that he was shown a classified human vehicle and misread its origin; that the account is invented or embellished (critics cite his disputed education records). The corpus carries corroboration only for peripheral details — the Element 115 discussion, the existence of S-4 as a place name — so the record is banded contested.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Squat disc with a shallow dome and a lip; three internal levels; described as seamless with no visible fasteners.", "size": "About 50–53 ft in diameter (Lazar’s figure as relayed).", "lights": "None; a dull metallic surface.", "sound": "Lifted off “silently” during the test Lazar describes.", "motion": "Hover and a wobble at low altitude during tests; no long flights claimed.", "era": "Said to have been seen 1988–1989 at S-4; described publicly from 1989." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Recovered non-human craft under reverse engineering (Lazar’s claim)", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Classified human test vehicle misunderstood by the witness", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" }, { "text": "Invented or embellished account", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" } ], "first_year": 1988, "last_year": 1989, "band": "contested", "events": [ "1989-lazar-s4" ], "sites": [ "s4-papoose-lake", "area-51-groom-lake" ], "people": [ "bob-lazar", "jeremy-corbell", "george-knapp", "matthew-pines", "jesse-michels" ], "documents": [ "element-115" ], "crafts": [ "flying-saucer-disc" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-CRAFT-0052", "N-CRAFT-0003" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "d9tdJ2SkBKQ", "ts": "0:00:32", "quote": "a flying saucer 53 ft in diameter, no seams, rivets, panels, buttons, wiring, or controls.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "d9tdJ2SkBKQ", "ts": "0:57:11", "quote": "There were three of those. We know those to be the amplifiers. They work with the with the reactor. It amplifies the the gravity wave and it's, you know, channeled to the emitter, which is right under the amplifiers. Again, we just called them seats cuz they looked like seats.", "speaker": "Bob Lazar", "speaker_slug": "bob-lazar" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "d9tdJ2SkBKQ", "ts": "1:00:53", "quote": "the craft began to lift off the ground silently at a little corona discharge glow on the bottom and lifted off", "speaker": "Bob Lazar", "speaker_slug": "bob-lazar" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "d9tdJ2SkBKQ", "ts": "1:21:15", "quote": "The craft sort of wobbles. Wobbles. Yeah. But when it switches to delta, as soon as the two other amplifiers come on online, um that thing locks in space and time and then it's, you know, able to focus in any direction and move there", "speaker": "Bob Lazar", "speaker_slug": "bob-lazar" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "d9tdJ2SkBKQ", "ts": "0:42:23", "quote": "there were nine hangars, so and they're fairly big, so that explains why the corridors were so long.", "speaker": "Bob Lazar", "speaker_slug": "bob-lazar" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "d9tdJ2SkBKQ", "ts": "1:10:45", "quote": "got the sport model", "speaker": "Bob Lazar", "speaker_slug": "bob-lazar" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "-XdvIrexF08", "ts": "0:47:17", "quote": "Wednesday was the famous night nights that they would fly the sport model.", "speaker": "Jeremy Corbell", "speaker_slug": "jeremy-corbell" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "9QMrhcpJq8I", "ts": "1:09:53", "quote": "he would describe the sports model. So this saucers shaped craft and he describes certain frameworks like gravity A and gravity B as far as working on the craft and it's with remarkable like level of detail and lucidity", "speaker": "Matthew Pines", "speaker_slug": "matthew-pines" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "3IiFksZBCIE", "ts": "0:09:43", "quote": "it was about 50 ft in diameter. Um similar to Lazar Sport model", "note": "abduction witness comparing his object to Lazar’s" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/lazar-sport-model.svg", "beings": [], "footage": [] }, { "slug": "aurora", "name": "Aurora (rumoured hypersonic aircraft)", "aka": [ "Lockheed Aurora", "SR-91 Aurora", "Mach 5 black aircraft" ], "summary": "A rumoured Mach-5 Lockheed reconnaissance aircraft, named from a 1985 budget line and blamed for unexplained sonic booms and triangular sightings in the 1990s. Nick Cook says he chased the story at Jane’s and found engineering evidence but no aircraft; Michael Herrera and Matthew Pines invoke it as the human explanation for advanced-looking craft.", "body_html": "Aurora is discussed as an explanation rather than a sighting. Jesse Michels introduces Nick Cook’s work as having uncovered “some pretty strong circumstantial evidence of the long-rumored Mach 5 Lockheed Aurora aircraft”. Cook recalls that Lockheed’s Skunk Works “were always coming up with concepts for … interesting, weird flying crafts” and that one was “called Aurora”; he says his colleague Bill Sweetman “ran then a story piecing together the evidence for Aurora uh with all the engineering evidence”, tied to the NASP X-30 programme. Michels adds the “unattributable sonic booms” over the California desert that were “not the SR-71”.
Witnesses use the name to normalise what they saw. Michael Herrera says the Indonesian craft “confirmed that we had this technology because it was man-made”, and reaches for “the Aurora for example” as a known hypothesised programme, while insisting it was not anti-gravity. Matthew Pines lists “the Aurora or the Astra” among rumoured platforms. No corpus speaker claims to have seen the aircraft itself.
Explanations offered: a real but cancelled or never-built programme (the budget line was later attributed to B-2 funding), a classified hypersonic aircraft that did fly, or a convenient label for unrelated sightings. The corpus leaves it as inference.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Sharp delta or triangle in artists’ sketches; Cook describes drawings, not sightings.", "size": "Comparable to an SR-71 (about 100 ft) in most descriptions.", "lights": "Dark; a pulsing exhaust described in 1990s contrail lore.", "sound": "Unattributable sonic booms over the California desert.", "motion": "Very high speed at altitude; not associated with hovering.", "era": "Rumoured 1985 onward; Cook’s reporting 1990s; still invoked by 2009–2024 witnesses." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Cancelled or never-built programme; budget line re-attributed to the B-2", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "well-supported" }, { "text": "Classified hypersonic aircraft that flew", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Label applied to unrelated UAP sightings", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" } ], "first_year": 1985, "last_year": 2009, "band": "contested", "events": [ "2009-herrera-indonesia" ], "sites": [ "area-51-groom-lake", "lockheed-skunk-works-helendale" ], "people": [ "nick-cook", "michael-herrera", "matthew-pines", "bill-sweetman", "jesse-michels" ], "crafts": [ "black-triangle", "cigar-cylinder" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-CRAFT-0050" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "G7Ns4Aq1tVc", "ts": "0:03:08", "quote": "some pretty strong circumstantial evidence of the long-rumored Mach 5 Lockheed Aurora aircraft", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "G7Ns4Aq1tVc", "ts": "0:56:44", "quote": "they were always coming up with concepts for, you know, interesting, weird flying crafts. there called Aurora.", "speaker": "Nick Cook", "speaker_slug": "nick-cook" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "G7Ns4Aq1tVc", "ts": "0:58:20", "quote": "unattributable sonic booms uh in the desert of California uh that, you know, it's clearly not the space shuttle, it's not the SR-71.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "G7Ns4Aq1tVc", "ts": "1:01:28", "quote": "Bill ran then a story piecing together the evidence for Aurora uh with all the engineering evidence.", "speaker": "Nick Cook", "speaker_slug": "nick-cook" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "D2tKCFmJjks", "ts": "0:23:20", "quote": "so that day confirmed that we had this technology because it was man-made", "speaker": "Michael Herrera", "speaker_slug": "michael-herrera" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "D2tKCFmJjks", "ts": "0:23:20", "quote": "like the Aurora for example, which was something that was hypothesized which is very interesting. Yeah. But it's just like spy planes like that but nothing anti-gravidic or anything.", "speaker": "Michael Herrera", "speaker_slug": "michael-herrera" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "LpLFWdsIU7M", "ts": "0:51:31", "quote": "the Aurora or the Astra. These are sort of, you know, famed possible locked prototypes that like uh uh were were commissioned for like a year or two and then they were kind of taken out", "speaker": "Matthew Pines", "speaker_slug": "matthew-pines" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/aurora.svg", "beings": [], "footage": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "avrocar", "name": "Avrocar (Avro Canada VZ-9)", "aka": [ "Avro car", "VZ-9 Avrocar", "Project Y", "Project Silver Bug" ], "summary": "A real 1950s disc-shaped vehicle built by Avro Canada for the US military, with a central fan and a saucer planform. Nick Cook calls it “a bit of a dog of a machine”; Peter Levenda remembers a plastic model of it; Jesse Michels and Jason Jorjani trace it to engineer Henri Coandă and ask whether Project Y fronted something deeper.", "body_html": "The Avrocar is the corpus’s one saucer with a maker’s name. Jesse Michels describes footage of “an Avro car in 1961 in an NASA wind tunnel” and says the programme “went nowhere”; Nick Cook agrees that “It really was a bit of a dog of a machine”, hovering only a few feet before becoming unstable. Peter Levenda says that “when I was a kid in the in the 19 late 1950s” you could buy “a plastic model of the Avro” — the project was public enough to be a toy.
Speakers use it two ways. For some it explains 1950s saucer imagery: a real disc that looked like the newspapers’ flying saucers. For others the publicised Avrocar was the unclassified face of a larger effort. Michels and Levenda discuss whether “project Y was a front for something deeper”, and Michels and Jorjani trace the design to “Henry kwanda a Romani engineer” — Henri Coandă — who filed an early saucer patent and “worked with the Americans on the Avro car project”.
Existence is not contested: the vehicle was built, tested and survives in museums. What is contested is meaning — a failed VTOL experiment, a deliberate cover story, or a stepping-stone to classified craft. The record is banded documented on the object and contested on interpretation.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Flat circular disc with a central intake and a ring of nozzles; two cockpit bubbles.", "size": "About 18 ft in diameter and 3 ft thick.", "lights": "None; bare metal skin.", "sound": "Loud turbojet whine at tests.", "motion": "Low hover in ground effect; unstable above a few feet; top speed around 35 mph.", "era": "Designed 1952–1958; flown 1959–1961; cancelled 1961." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Failed VTOL experiment with documented engineering flaws", "class": "FACT", "band": "documented" }, { "text": "Public cover for more advanced classified disc designs", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" } ], "first_year": 1952, "last_year": 1961, "band": "documented", "events": [ "1959-avrocar-first-flight" ], "sites": [ "wright-patterson-afb", "avro-canada-malton" ], "people": [ "nick-cook", "peter-levenda", "jason-jorjani", "jesse-michels" ], "crafts": [ "flying-saucer-disc" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-CRAFT-0051" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "G7Ns4Aq1tVc", "ts": "0:05:42", "quote": "an Avro car in 1961 in an NASA wind tunnel. And I know the Avro car kind of nominally, at least, went nowhere", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "G7Ns4Aq1tVc", "ts": "0:05:42", "quote": "It really was a bit of a dog of a machine", "speaker": "Nick Cook", "speaker_slug": "nick-cook" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "N6Cu-d75yAM", "ts": "2:15:00", "quote": "the Avro car project which was an attempt to build a flying saucer >> and it originally was in Canada but then it moved over to right pad as project Y", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "N6Cu-d75yAM", "ts": "2:15:32", "quote": "project Y was a front for something deeper but it was there were there are videos of them trying to like fly this flying saucer just had a you know radial gas turbine engine", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "N6Cu-d75yAM", "ts": "2:15:32", "quote": "when I was a kid in the in the 19 late 1950s, you could buy a plastic model of the Avro.", "speaker": "Peter Levenda", "speaker_slug": "peter-levenda" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "RTEWLSTyUic", "ts": "0:59:05", "quote": "Henry kwanda a Romani engineer who had invented his own designs for a lenticular aerodyme Flying Saucer kowanda was a consultant on Project y out of right field", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "ABw7EsWh2Us", "ts": "0:53:48", "quote": "A guy named Henry Kanda who was Romanian, but eventually he was, you know, overtaken by by the Nazis and bec and started to work with them. And then and then and then he went over to Reich Pat and worked with uh the Americans on the Avro car project", "speaker": "Jason Jorjani", "speaker_slug": "jason-jorjani" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/avrocar.svg", "beings": [], "footage": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "anderson-sphere", "name": "Anderson sphere (NSWC Crane display)", "aka": [ "levitating metallic sphere", "Crane sphere", "off-world technology sphere" ], "summary": "A basketball-sized metallic sphere that Randy Anderson, a former Air Force security policeman, says he saw levitating above a podium in an underground room at Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane in March 2014, introduced to him as off-world technology. It is a displayed object, not a sighting in flight, and rests on his account alone.", "body_html": "Randy Anderson says that in March 2014 he was taken to a secret underground facility at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Crane, Indiana, and shown a series of objects. “the first object was a metallic basketball siiz sphere” that “looked like it was just levitating above the podium so there was space” between it and the surface. In the episode’s opening he describes the same sphere as producing a “mirage type of effect” in the air around it.
Jesse Michels frames the visit as the beginning of Anderson’s account of an “off-world technology division”, and in a later episode recalls Anderson “who came on my show earlier this year” describing objects covered in “alien looking hieroglyphics”. The sphere is therefore one exhibit in a longer claimed tour rather than a craft seen in the sky; the corpus carries no second witness and no document.
Explanations offered: a magnetic-levitation demonstration or other conventional display misread as exotic, a staged briefing, an embellished or invented account, and — Anderson’s reading — a genuine non-human object. With a single witness the record is banded thin.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "A complete metallic sphere.", "size": "“basketball size”.", "lights": "None; a metallic surface with a mirage-like shimmer around it.", "sound": "None reported.", "motion": "Stationary levitation above a podium indoors; no flight claimed.", "era": "March 2014 (Anderson’s account)." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Magnetic-levitation or other conventional display misread as exotic", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Staged briefing or embellished account", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Genuine non-human object (Anderson’s reading)", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" } ], "first_year": 2014, "last_year": 2014, "band": "thin", "events": [ "2014-anderson-crane-visit" ], "sites": [ "nswc-crane" ], "people": [ "randy-anderson", "jesse-michels" ], "crafts": [ "orb-sphere" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-CRAFT-0055" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "Sct30Qijfv8", "ts": "0:39:32", "quote": "the first object was a metallic basketball siiz sphere and it was above a podium and it was looked like it was just levitating above the podium levitating above the podium so there was space", "speaker": "Randy Anderson", "speaker_slug": "randy-anderson" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "Sct30Qijfv8", "ts": "0:00:31", "quote": "metallic basketball size sphere looked like it was just levitating above the podium it looked unnatural I'm looking at it and and it almost looked like a mirage type of effect", "speaker": "Randy Anderson", "speaker_slug": "randy-anderson" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "Sct30Qijfv8", "ts": "0:01:36", "quote": "in March of 2014 Randy was taken to a secret underground facility called the offworld technology division at Naval surface Warfare Center crane", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "-0g3lLGxNfc", "ts": "1:54:07", "quote": "Randy Anderson, who came on my show earlier this year to expose a possible off-world technology division at Naval Surface Warfare Crane in Indiana. He described seeing a levitating orb and a gauntlet emitting alien looking hieroglyphics.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/anderson-sphere.svg", "beings": [], "footage": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "roswell-object", "name": "Roswell object (1947)", "aka": [ "Roswell disc", "Roswell debris", "Foster ranch wreckage", "memory metal" ], "summary": "Whatever fell near Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947. The Army first announced a “flying disc”, then a balloon; later witnesses described foil that returned to shape. The corpus records Jesse Marcel’s memory metal, a former CIA officer’s guarded view that “something happened”, Jesse Michels’ note that Roswell held the 509th bomb group, and the official Mogul explanation.", "body_html": "The Roswell object enters the corpus mostly as history. Jesse Michels retells that the Army said “they had retrieved a a flying saucer or disc uh from the Roswell crash in 1947” before the story changed, and that Roswell was “the site of the 509th atomic bomber squadron” — the only nuclear-armed unit in the world at the time. Physical descriptions come second-hand: Michels compares later claims to “the Roswell crash material”, “impossible to deform”, and to what Jesse Marcel felt — “memory metal”.
A former CIA officer, asked directly, says “I suspect something happened, right?” while allowing that it may have been “development of new aircraft”, and repeats the rumour that “there were beings that came out of” the craft, “one surviving or something”, without endorsing it. Michels notes that whistleblower testimony in 2023–24 again described Roswell as real with occupants emerging.
The description has changed over decades: foil, rubber and sticks in 1947; an intact craft and small bodies by the 1980s; Wright-Patterson storage and reverse engineering by the 2000s. Explanations offered: a Project Mogul balloon train with radar reflectors (the Air Force’s 1994–97 position, treated as well supported), a classified test, and a crashed non-human craft. The event is documented; the object is not.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Debris field of foil, beams and struts in 1947 accounts; a disc or lens-shaped hull in later testimony.", "size": "Debris scattered over hundreds of yards; later accounts describe a craft 25–30 ft across.", "lights": "None (recovered wreckage).", "sound": "Ranch witnesses reported an explosion during a storm.", "motion": "None; crash debris. Foil said to unfold itself after crumpling.", "era": "July 1947." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Project Mogul balloon train with radar reflectors", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "well-supported" }, { "text": "Classified aircraft or test with human or animal subjects", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "thin" }, { "text": "Crashed non-human craft with occupants", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" } ], "first_year": 1947, "last_year": 1947, "band": "contested", "events": [ "1947-roswell" ], "sites": [ "roswell", "wright-patterson-afb" ], "people": [ "jesse-marcel", "jesse-michels", "david-grusch" ], "documents": [ "roswell-report-1994", "gao-roswell-1995", "twining-memo-1947", "grusch-testimony-2023" ], "crafts": [ "flying-saucer-disc", "bell-shaped", "varginha-craft" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-CRAFT-0007" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "5udx_SDdL3Y", "ts": "0:27:35", "quote": "they had retrieved a a flying saucer or disc uh from the Roswell crash in 1947 that's kind of the most famous story those crash materials reportedly made their way down to Dallas Fort Worth to Fort Hood originally", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1iaH1a3A4Lk", "ts": "2:59:34", "quote": "Roswell Well, itself the site of the 509th atomic bomber squadron, the first bomber squadron in the US.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1zRWi_r3HRM", "ts": "0:16:19", "quote": "Roswell was the site of the most nukes in the US in 1947 at the time of the Roswell crash.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "08ZHuYQVCHU", "ts": "0:51:11", "quote": "Sounds a lot like the Roswell crash material. Foilike, weightless, and impossible to deform.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "2ttdlCa5ZCI", "ts": "0:37:26", "quote": "he felt the material just like in Roswell with Jesse Marcel. He feels the material and it's it feels like uh you know memory metal.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1bS0tdT8edA", "ts": "3:19:19", "quote": "I suspect something happened, right? And and so the the question is is something we created and contained like experimental uh flights or or development of new aircraft.", "note": "former CIA officer" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "1bS0tdT8edA", "ts": "3:21:56", "quote": "there were beings that came out of I think they say four beings that came out of this craft >> you know I think they even mentioned one surviving or something", "note": "former CIA officer" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "08ZHuYQVCHU", "ts": "0:02:50", "quote": "saying that Roswell was real. saying candidly that yeah, a saucer probably did crash in New Mexico and beings probably did emerge from it.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/roswell-object.svg", "beings": [], "footage": [] }, { "slug": "varginha-craft", "name": "Varginha craft (1996)", "aka": [ "Varginha object", "Brazilian cigar craft", "submarine-shaped object" ], "summary": "The object said to have come down near Varginha, Brazil in January 1996. Carlos de Souza, an ultralight pilot, says it was “the size of a school bus”, cigar-shaped “like a submarine”, punctured, with foil-like material that returned to shape. James Fox and Jesse Michels retell his account; the Brazilian military cites a balloon and a homeless man.", "body_html": "The craft account comes mainly through Carlos de Souza and James Fox. In a translated clip de Souza says “It was the size of a school bus” and asks himself “Is it a submarine?”; elsewhere he says “It was like a cigar, a cylinder. Today, it’s known as a tic tac.” Fox summarises the witnesses he interviewed as describing an object “cylindrical shaped like a school bus, like a cigar” with no control surfaces. Jesse Michels adds that “this cigar- shaped tic-tac craft seemed to have some sort of puncture”, that de Souza “held the material in his hands” and watched it return to its “original form”, and that soldiers arrived and made him leave.
Michels calls the case “literally a modern Roswell but in Brazil in 1996” and notes the parallel with the Roswell material. The craft is inseparable from the creature story: three girls reported a brown, oily-skinned being with red eyes the same week, and Fox’s film argues the two are linked. The being has its own record.
Explanations offered: a balloon and a misidentified person (the Brazilian government’s account), a crashed non-human craft with recovered occupants (Fox and de Souza), and a case inflated by later retelling. The record is banded contested: many witnesses, no physical evidence in the corpus.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Cigar or submarine-shaped cylinder with no control surfaces; hull punctured and crumpled after impact.", "size": "“The size of a school bus.”", "lights": "None described in flight; smoke from the wreckage.", "sound": "A rushing sound as it passed, by de Souza’s account.", "motion": "Low, unstable flight followed by a descent into a field.", "era": "January 1996." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "Balloon and a misidentified person (Brazilian government account)", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Crashed non-human craft with recovered occupants", "class": "SPECULATION", "band": "contested" }, { "text": "Case inflated by later retelling", "class": "INFERENCE", "band": "contested" } ], "first_year": 1996, "last_year": 1996, "band": "contested", "events": [ "1996-varginha" ], "sites": [ "varginha" ], "beings": [ "varginha-being" ], "people": [ "james-fox", "carlos-de-souza", "jesse-michels" ], "crafts": [ "cigar-cylinder", "tic-tac", "roswell-object" ], "graph_ids": [ "N-SPECIES-0109" ], "sources": [ { "kind": "corpus", "video": "hBrfe4hFuM0", "ts": "0:04:33", "quote": "It was the size of a school bus. dogs and no noise at all. We kept watching it because there was smoke, a light smoke wrapped around it. But I even joked with her. What is that? Is it a submarine?", "speaker": "Carlos de Souza (translated clip)", "speaker_slug": "carlos-de-souza" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "UkKwa4jU0fc", "ts": "0:23:21", "quote": "It was like a cigar, a cylinder. Today, it's known as a tic tac.\" The same shape.", "speaker": "Carlos de Souza (translated)", "speaker_slug": "carlos-de-souza" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "UkKwa4jU0fc", "ts": "0:43:18", "quote": "it was cylindrical shaped like a school bus, like a cigar, had no control services, that kind of thing.", "speaker": "James Fox", "speaker_slug": "james-fox" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "08ZHuYQVCHU", "ts": "0:48:24", "quote": "this cigar- shaped tic-tac craft seemed to have some sort of puncture in it. Gas was coming out of the back. It crashed on something called the Myolini farm. An ultralight pilot named Carlos Dooza, who's also a geography teacher, held pieces of the craft in his hands.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "8Rr_nE65KkI", "ts": "2:50:50", "quote": "This uh ultralight pilot and geography teacher Carlos Doza finds it. Uh he picks up part of the material. This whole military crew comes from the Issa base which is right nearby. They confiscate the material from him.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "d9tdJ2SkBKQ", "ts": "2:51:48", "quote": "he held the material in his hands and it went he would kind of mess with it and then it would go back into its original form.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" }, { "kind": "corpus", "video": "UkKwa4jU0fc", "ts": "0:01:07", "quote": "It is literally a modern Roswell but in Brazil in 1996.", "speaker": "Jesse Michels", "speaker_slug": "jesse-michels" } ], "silhouette": "assets/crafts/varginha-craft.svg", "footage": [], "documents": [] }, { "slug": "c-shaped", "name": "C-shaped / open-sided", "kind": "Reported image-form comparison", "aka": [ "C-shaped UFO", "horseshoe-shaped object", "open-sided outline", "notched outline", "crescent-shaped object" ], "summary": "Open-sided and notched forms reported in the Busan video, Baltic survey imagery and released Yukon image. This visual family connects source cases by appearance while keeping their dates, image types and interpretations distinct.", "body_html": "The comparison starts with three source images: the Busan video, a Baltic sonar reproduction and the image associated with the February 2023 Yukon interception. Each shows a rounded form with an apparent inset on one side.
The research question is whether that inset is part of a physical form, a shadow or overlapping structure, or a product of imaging and reproduction. Consecutive frames and independent viewpoints can distinguish those hypotheses.
Sky Canada’s June 2025 report describes the Yukon object as a smaller balloon. The Korean sequence and Baltic feature retain their own source histories.
", "reported_characteristics": { "shape": "Rounded or flattened appearance with an apparent one-sided opening or inset.", "size": "Baltic diameter is reported as about 60 m. The selected Korean and Yukon images do not establish physical dimensions.", "image_types": "Optical video, sonar reproduction and released-image reproduction.", "sequence": "Korean frames show changing aspect; Yukon supplies a still; Baltic provides a seabed-survey representation.", "occupants": "The source cases in this comparison do not identify occupants or a species." }, "explanations_offered": [ { "text": "A physical open-sided or annular form.", "class": "SPECULATION" }, { "text": "A closed form appears open because of lighting, overlap, focus or reconstruction.", "class": "INFERENCE" }, { "text": "Sky Canada describes the Yukon object as a smaller balloon; that case-specific characterization does not identify the other images.", "class": "FACT", "sources": [ { "kind": "external", "title": "Sky Canada report, June 2025", "url": "https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/science/sites/default/files/documents/sky-canada-report.pdf", "publisher": "Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada", "date": "2025-06" } ] } ], "first_year": 2011, "last_year": 2024, "events": [ "2011-baltic-sea-anomaly" ], "sites": [ "baltic-sea-anomaly" ], "beings": [], "people": [], "footage": [], "documents": [], "crafts": [], "graph_ids": [], "sources": [ { "kind": "external", "title": "UFO over Busan, South Korea — original upload", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gErvRESQZg8", "publisher": "xxxdonutzxxx / WorldPix", "date": "2012-07-27" }, { "kind": "external", "title": "Busan clip — circulating 2024 repost", "url": "https://x.com/theblackvault/status/1838964977954169192", "publisher": "John Greenewald / The Black Vault", "date": "2024-09-25" }, { "kind": "external", "title": "Ocean X discovery announcement", "url": "https://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/ocean-explorer-dennis-aasberg-dutrix/pressreleases/ufo-or-anomaly-baltic-sea-670075", "publisher": "Ocean Explorer / Dennis Åsberg", "date": "2011-08-15" }, { "kind": "external", "title": "Baltic sonar image reproduction", "url": "https://www.livescience.com/34010-sunken-ufo-baltic-seafloor-images.html", "publisher": "Live Science", "date": "2012-06-18" }, { "kind": "external", "title": "Image released of object shot down over Yukon in 2023", "url": "https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/image-released-of-mysterious-object-shot-down-over-yukon-in-2023-1.7049241", "publisher": "CTV News; DND image via access to information", "date": "2024-09-24" }, { "kind": "external", "title": "Sky Canada report — subsequent Yukon characterization", "url": "https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/science/sites/default/files/documents/sky-canada-report.pdf", "publisher": "Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada", "date": "2025-06" }, { "kind": "external", "title": "UFOB comparison discussion and linked reports", "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOB/comments/1fotv09/the_ufo_shot_down_over_the_yukon_shows/", "publisher": "Reddit / r/UFOB", "date": "2024" }, { "kind": "external", "title": "NUFORC report 180548", "url": "https://nuforc.org/sighting/?id=180548", "publisher": "National UFO Reporting Center", "date": "2024-03-13" } ] } ] }