Military encounters (topic)

Military encounters (topic)

Type	Topic overview
Events	72
Years	1947–2022
Timeline	Show on the Timeline

Military encounters is one of the twelve topics on the UAP Timeline. It covers encounters reported by military pilots, radar operators and other service members. The Timeline lists 72 events on this topic, from 1947 to 2022.

Key people

• Leonard Stringfield — Former Air Force intelligence officer and NICAP researcher who collected anonymous crash-retrieval accounts from 1978 to 1994.
• Linda Moulton Howe — Journalist and filmmaker who runs the Earthfiles website and has reported many crash-retrieval claims.
• Robert Hastings — Researcher who has collected accounts of UFOs at nuclear weapons sites, author of UFOs and Nukes.
• Jacques Vallée — Computer scientist and astronomer, author of the Forbidden Science journals and a central figure in UFO research.
• Timothy Good — British author of books on UFO secrecy including Above Top Secret and Need to Know.
• Brad Sparks — UFO analyst known for his catalogue of Blue Book unknowns and work on the CIA lawsuit.
• Harold Puthoff — Physicist who co-founded the SRI remote-viewing research and later worked on AAWSAP and To The Stars Academy.
• Donald Keyhoe — Retired Marine officer, author and director of NICAP who campaigned against UFO secrecy.
• Morris K. Jessup — Astronomer and author of The Case for the UFO (1955), linked to the Varo edition and the Philadelphia Experiment.
• Carl Meredith Allen — Letter writer behind the Philadelphia Experiment story and the Varo edition annotations.
• Christopher Mellon — Former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence who helped release the Navy UAP videos.
• Steven Greer — Physician who founded CSETI and the Disclosure Project.
• David Fravor — Navy pilot who saw the 2004 Tic Tac object.
• Eric W. Davis — Physicist who worked on AAWSAP and has said the U.S. holds recovered craft.
• Christopher "Kit" Green — CIA physician and analyst who became a long-time contact of Jacques Vallée and studied UAP-related injuries.
• Gary Voorhis — Technician aboard the USS Princeton in 2004.

Programs, places and terms

• Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
• Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
• U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
• U.S. Navy — The U.S. naval service, whose pilots reported the UAP encounters revealed in 2017.
• Crash retrieval — The alleged recovery of crashed non-human craft by governments.
• Project Blue Book — The Air Force's public UFO investigation from 1952 until its closure in December 1969.
• Roswell — The New Mexico town at the center of the 1947 crash story.
• Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
• NORAD — The U.S.–Canadian air defence command.
• AARO — The Pentagon office set up in 2022 to investigate UAP.
• Freedom of Information Act — The 1966 U.S. law that lets the public request government records.
• Nimitz Tic Tac encounter — The November 2004 encounter between Navy pilots and a white Tic Tac-shaped object off California.
• NICAP — The leading U.S. civilian UFO group of the 1950s and 1960s.
• Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — The Ohio air base that housed Project Blue Book and is linked to the Hangar 18 legend.
• Roswell Army Air Field — The bomber base at Roswell, home of the 509th Bomb Group in 1947.
• NASA — The U.S. civilian space agency, created in 1958.

Events

• Selman Graves and the Paradise Valley crash claim (October 1947) — Pilot Selman Graves says he saw a crashed craft and two humanoid bodies recovered in Paradise Valley, Arizona.
• CIA–MIT talks on UFO study (1952) (2 December 1952) — A CIA science chief meets MIT leaders about studying UAP through Project Lincoln.
• Fort Monmouth desert-disc film (1953) — A radar technician says he was shown a film of a silver disc embedded in the desert at Fort Monmouth.
• Fort Polk crash claim (1953) (1953) — An Army source says he saw an egg-shaped craft crash-land at Fort Polk, Louisiana.
• Ed Balocco's night chase near Edenton (1953) (19 February 1953) — A Marine pilot scrambled near North Carolina reports a disc with red lights coming within 350 feet.
• Lockheed–Kelly Johnson sighting (1953) (18 December 1953) — Lockheed test crew members flying a Navy aircraft follow a flying saucer over the Pacific.
• JANAP 146(C) (10 March 1954) — Directive JANAP 146(C) covers UAP reports and bars civilian pilots from discussing them.
• Electrogravitics Systems report (1956) (25 February 1956) — A study of electrogravitics, the link between electricity and gravity, is delivered to Wright-Patterson.
• Varo edition of The Case for the UFO (April 1956) — Navy researchers receive an annotated copy of Morris Jessup's UFO book with strange handwritten notes.
• Allende letters and the Philadelphia Experiment (April 1956) — Morris Jessup receives letters claiming a secret Navy experiment at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
• Navy pilots' shoot-down orders claim (1956) (5 July 1956) — Unnamed Navy pilots claim standing orders to shoot down hostile UAP over the Pacific.
• Mach 3 radar target alert (1957) (24 September 1957) — The Air Force intelligence chief warns of a radar target crossing the U.S. at Mach 3.
• USS Franklin D. Roosevelt sighting (1958) (October 1958) — A Navy veteran says he saw an orange cigar-shaped object with figures inside near Cuba.
• Airline pilots and the "Big Brother" gag rules (1958) (21 December 1958) — About 50 airline pilots criticize the Air Force's UAP gag rules as 'Big Brother'.
• Ben Guerir guards' sighting (1960) (1960) — An airman in Morocco says glowing UAP prompted jet fighters to scramble.
• Navy reserve pilot's Wright-Patterson saucer claim (1962) (1962) — A Navy reserve pilot says he saw a saucer at Wright-Patterson in 1962.
• Jerome Nelson's Atlas missile site sighting (Late 1963) — An Atlas missile launch officer's affidavit describes a glowing round UAP over his site in New Mexico.
• Philip Moore's Atlas missile site sighting (Late 1964) — An Atlas launch officer reports a UAP near his missile site in New Mexico.
• Holloman landing and hangar claim (1964) (30 April 1964) — A claimed UFO under guard at Holloman AFB; the same day a pilot reports an egg-shaped object.
• Cedar Breaks radar site crash claim (1966) — A radar technician reportedly saw a disc crash at a Utah radar site linked to Area 51.
• Jack Pickett and the MacDill discs (1966-1967) — A retired pilot and a journalist say they saw Air Force-marked disc craft at MacDill AFB.
• House Armed Services Committee UFO hearing (1966) (5 April 1966) — The Blue Book chief tells Congress there are no unexplained radar cases, contradicted by records.
• F. Robert Naka and NORAD space tracks (14 February 1968) — A MITRE scientist tells the Condon study that NORAD radars have tracked UAP arriving from space.
• USS John F. Kennedy encounter (1971) (June/July 1971) — A Navy yeoman says the USS John F. Kennedy's systems failed during a UAP encounter in the Caribbean.
• Great Lakes shoot-down claim (1973) (June 1973) — A Navy instructor claims a UAP was shot down by a missile and secretly moved by rail to Great Lakes.
• Malmstrom Romeo-29 incident (1974) (March 1974) — A large glowing object hovers over a Minuteman launch facility at Malmstrom AFB, Montana.
• Army missile exercise phenomena (1973–74) (17 July 1974) — An Army spokesman says unexplained aerial phenomena were seen during missile exercises.
• Unmarked helicopter claim (1975) (14 March 1975) — An Air Force officer says unmarked helicopters are sent to UAP-related sites.
• Samuel Stratton and the SAC base overflights (20 December 1978) — Rep. Samuel Stratton raises concerns over unknown aircraft flying over Strategic Air Command bases.
• Sunnyvale hangar saucer claim (1979) — A Navy radar observer says he saw a large saucer in a hangar at Sunnyvale in 1950.
• Victor Marchetti's Second Look article (May 1979) — Former CIA official Victor Marchetti writes that the government is hiding alien contact.
• NSA Yeates affidavits (1980) (18 November 1980) — In a lawsuit, the NSA files a public and a secret affidavit about its UAP records.
• Fort Hood hidden opening claim (1982) — An Air Force captain describes a pilot seeing a hidden opening in the ground at a Texas airfield.
• John Mills and the Vandenberg warhead films (1984/1985) — An Air Force technician says he saw film of UAP interacting with test warheads.
• Wild Weasel UFO detections claim (22 June 1986) — A former contractor tells Vallée Vietnam-era aircraft detected UAP with special equipment.
• John Lear's ParaNet statement (1987) (29 December 1987) — Pilot John Lear claims the government has worked with gray aliens since the 1960s.
• Norton AFB diamond-shaped craft claim (1988) (12 November 1988) — A researcher claims a diamond-shaped craft was tested at Norton AFB.
• Cabo Rojo jet disappearance (1988) (January 1989) — A Navy sailor says F-14 pilots chased a UAP near Puerto Rico.
• Steven Greer's 1990s private meetings (Mid-1990s) — Steven Greer alleges he met wealthy and connected figures at a private San Francisco gathering about UAP.
• Aviation Week secret aircraft report (1990) (1 October 1990) — Aviation Week reports 45 sightings of craft in the Southwest that hover, then go supersonic.
• Kevin Thomas and the Nimitz black triangle (1991) — A Nimitz petty officer says he saw a huge black triangle rise out of the ocean.
• White Sands tracking-camera saucer claim (July 1991) — A retired sergeant says tracking cameras recorded a saucer resting on the White Sands range.
• Navy linguist and the Soviet crash report (July 1991) — A Navy linguist says he decoded a Soviet report of a crash split between England and Germany.
• Oliver Henderson and the Roswell flight (9 July 1991) — Oliver Henderson's widow swears he told her he flew Roswell crash debris and bodies.
• British embassy report on triangles (1992) (22 December 1992) — The British embassy reports on the U.S. reaction to triangular UAP sightings.
• Andrew Kissner and the 1947 crashes (1994) — A former New Mexico legislator says sources told him 1947 disc crashes caused deaths.
• Edward Dudgeon and the Philadelphia Navy Yard (1994) — A Navy veteran tells Vallée about his time at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
• Muskegon radar sightings (1994) (8 March 1994) — Weather radar in Muskegon, Michigan tracks three objects that residents also see.
• America West Flight 564 sighting (25 May 1995) — An airliner crew and an F-117 both see a huge cigar-shaped object over the Southwest.
• Las Vegas data-gathering meeting (1996) (28 January 1996) — Military, scientific and corporate figures meet in Las Vegas about gathering UAP data.
• Michael Smith's NORAD reporting account (30 August 1996) — An Air Force radar controller says UAP events were only to be reported to NORAD.
• The Day After Roswell (June 1997) — Philip Corso claims he helped seed recovered UAP technology into U.S. industry.
• Edgar Fouché and the TR-3B (1998) — An Air Force sergeant claims a secret facility lies beneath Groom Lake.
• Homer Rowlette deathbed account (March 1999) — A man says his father told him on his deathbed about the Roswell crash.
• Former TRW employee reverse-engineering claim (8 May 2000) — Vallée, Davis and Puthoff discuss a claim of a secret reverse-engineering project at a contractor.
• Kit Green's three landings briefing claim (8 May 2000) — They also discuss Kit Green's claim of a briefing on three alien landings.
• Will Miller's offer to Davis and Puthoff (25 April 2002) — A retired Navy commander offers his services researching crash retrievals.
• Jean Kisling's airline stranger (29 June 2002) — A French officer tells Vallée a stranger on a 1950s flight claimed to work on recovered craft.
• USS Princeton data recordings claim (14 November 2004) — USS Princeton radar staff say two men took the Tic Tac encounter data recordings.
• O'Hare Airport UFO sighting (01 Jan 2007) — The FAA calls a disc seen over O'Hare airport a weather phenomenon despite many reports.
• Fort Worth HFGW jamming claim (2008) — An anonymous website claims UAP communications jamming was tested near Fort Worth.
• Underwater Tic Tac near Haiti (January 2010) — A Navy sailor sees a Tic Tac-shaped object under the water near Haiti.
• F.E. Warren missile communications outage (2010) (23-24 October 2010) — F.E. Warren AFB personnel see a cigar-shaped UAP; 50 Minuteman missiles briefly lose contact.
• Podesta–McCasland emails (24 January 2016) — Two Air Force generals and a Skunk Works executive appear in emails with Podesta's team.
• Aircraft as pilot prosthetic (Forgotten Languages) (27 March 2017) — An anonymous website publishes an article about making aircraft an extension of the pilot.
• USS Russell drone swarm logs (30 July 2019) — Logs from the USS Russell UAP incident are heavily redacted.
• Karson Kammerzell's Tic Tac account (30 November 2020) — A Navy communications operator describes the Tic Tac event from the USS Princeton.
• ODNI Preliminary Assessment on UAP (25 June 2021) — The ODNI's preliminary UAP assessment is published (see the Library record).
• Mark Sokol and Falcon Space (29 June 2021) — A company founder says he built a device to detect gravity changes in light.
• USS Ronald Reagan orange orb (9 May 2022) — USS Ronald Reagan crew members report a fiery orange UAP above the deck.
• Death of Amy Eskridge (15 June 2022) — Scientist Amy Eskridge dies in Huntsville; a former UK officer makes claims about it.
• Grant Cameron's UFO pilot accounts (20 October 2022) — Grant Cameron publishes accounts of people who say they piloted a UFO.