What credible UFO evidence?

Some have claimed that the strongest UFO reports are too compelling to be dismissed as mere mistakes (e.g. Hanson, 2023). This has led others to ask what these strongest UFO reports are exactly. Hanson only provides two sources to back up his claim: a full-length documentary by James Fox, titled The Phenomenon (2020), and a full-length book by Leslie Kean, titled UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record (2010). Yet it is understandable if most people are skeptical toward these sources. After all, those who produce books and documentaries about UFOs may not be fully objective and dispassionate in their reporting. So it is only reasonable to ask for other sources of evidence.

As a skeptic toward Hanson’s claims myself, I have spent some time trying to see if I could find any instances of credible UFO reports. This post is meant to be a collection of the sources and reported observations I could find that seem to reach a certain threshold of credibility, at least in my view. To be clear, the threshold in question is not anything like “this is 100 percent trustworthy and true”, but more like “this seems credible enough to be worthy of further investigation/credible enough to cause us to take this issue more seriously”.

A general point that may be surprising to those who have not looked much into the UFO topic — and something that was quite surprising to me — is that a large number of UFO reports come from esteemed navy pilots with no pre-existing interest in UFOs. Likewise, there are many high-ranking US officials and former officials who take the issue seriously, and who have actively been pushing for further investigation. In other words, many of the key figures talking about UFOs are not the fringe conspiracy theorists that are commonly associated with UFOs in the public imagination, but instead surprisingly reputable people.

I share the following names and reports because I think it is helpful if people are better informed about them. After all, even if none of these reports pertain to any extraordinary phenomena, it still seems helpful if people are familiar with the alleged sightings and reports that arguably constitute the main basis for the modern UFO discourse, such that discussion about the issue can at least proceed in an informed manner.

For some preliminary background on the issue, and on how the discourse around it has changed over the last couple of years, it might be helpful to read the short NPR article “How UFO Sightings Went From Conspiracy Theory To A Serious Government Inquiry”.

People who have shared notable reports

The following are people who have shared what strikes me as fairly credible and update-worthy information:

Notable reports and events

The following are some of the more notable UFO stories:

High-profile people who consider the issue important

In addition to the stories and people listed above, it is worth noting that several high-profile US officials (both former and current ones) have taken the issue seriously. These include:

  • Kirsten Gillibrand, US senator
  • Marco Rubio, US Senator
  • Harry Reid, former US senator
  • John Brennan, former head of the CIA
  • John Podesta, White House chief of staff to Bill Clinton
  • Christopher Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations
  • Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have also made statements on the issue:
    • Obama: “There is footage and records of objects in the skies. We don’t know exactly what they are. We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern.”
    • Romney: “I don’t believe they are coming from foreign adversaries. If they were that would suggest they have a technology that is in a whole different sphere than anything we understand, and frankly China and Russia just aren’t there, and neither are we by the way.”

Likewise, it is worth noting that various academics and intelligence analysts have taken the issue seriously. Besides Robin Hanson mentioned above (who has done various podcasts on the issue), these include:

  • James E. McDonald, senior physicist at the Institute for Atmospheric Physics and a professor of meteorology at the University of Arizona (see e.g. his statement here)
  • J. Allen Hynek, professor of astronomy at Ohio State University, initial debunker who gradually changed his mind while serving as scientific advisor to various UFO studies conducted by the US Air Force
  • Peter A. Sturrock, professor emeritus of applied physics at Stanford University
  • Richard F. Haines, former researcher at NASA and associate professor of psychology at San Jose State University, creator of a large archive of UFO sightings
  • Kevin H. Knuth, associate professor of physics and informatics at University at Albany
  • Garry Nolan, professor at Stanford University School of Medicine
  • Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University
  • Alexander Wendt, professor of political science at Ohio State University
  • Marik Von Rennenkampff, former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation
  • Daniel Coumbe, research associate at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, author of Anomaly: A Scientific Exploration of the UFO Phenomenon (review)

More broadly, in a survey conducted among US academics spanning 14 disciplines and 144 universities, a majority of respondents said that they were at least moderately curious about the topic of UFO/UAP. The survey also asked people whether they or someone close to them had observed anything of unknown origin that “might fit the United States government’s definition of UAP”, to which 18.9 percent said ‘yes’ and another 8.7 percent said ‘maybe’. Yet it should be noted that the survey was sent to nearly 40,000 academics by email, of whom only 1,549 answered, so there are likely strong selection effects in these results.

Recurrent patterns

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that there are some striking commonalities across many of the reports mentioned above. Specifically, the objects that are reported are often claimed to be:

  • Almost or entirely silent
  • Able to fly and navigate without any visible means of propulsion or steering
  • Able to hover in a perfectly stationary position
  • Able to accelerate rapidly and to travel at very high speeds (often above 10,000 km/hour), yet without causing a sonic boom
  • Able to change direction near-instantaneously

From Iran and China to Peru and Brazil — and across time — these features are surprisingly recurrent in UFO reports (see also Knuth et al, 2019; Knuth, 2022). Another pattern is that the UFO reports are often connected to nuclear facilities (e.g. in Iran and in various incidents in the US, allegedly also in recent times). Moreover, the unidentified objects are frequently claimed to be orbs (in around 50 percent of recent reports), and they are typically reported to measure 1-4 meters in diameter.

It is difficult to know what to make of these patterns. Of course, there is good reason to be extremely skeptical of such a priori unlikely features, let alone the combination of many such features. But the fact that these features and abilities are often mentioned in UFO reports by professional aviators — people who are well aware that these are crazy unlikely and bizarre abilities — is arguably some reason to think that there really are objects that possess these abilities. At the very least, it raises the challenge of explaining why pilots across different nations and different eras would converge to report these same bizarre patterns. I myself am genuinely agnostic and puzzled.

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