Lesser-Known UFO Sightings And Encounters With Multiple Witnesses

Perhaps what makes UFO sightings with multiple witnesses intriguing is that it makes it harder to dismiss such incidents as mis-sightings, hallucinations, or even hoaxes. Indeed, many of these sightings are well-known outside of UFO circles. There are, though, many that are not as well-known, even in the UFO community.

From encounters involving groups of people in the woods to sightings over residential areas involving large numbers of residents, there have been many incidents involving UFOs that have been witnessed by large groups from all around the world and that stretch across the decades.

We explored many of these multi-witness sightings before – such episodes as the Phoenix Lights or the many sightings of the Belgian Wave. With that in mind, then, what we will examine here are multi-witness sightings that are not as well known, even in UFO circles.

The Offutt Air Force Base Incident

At around 6:40 pm on September 8^th, 1958 at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, Major Paul Duich was just about to eat dinner at the Officers Club at the Strategic Air Command Headquarters. ^[1] After ordering his food, he excused himself from the table to purchase a newspaper from the lobby across the road. As he crossed the street, however, something in the sky caught his attention. As he turned his attention upward, he noticed a “short vapor trail in an otherwise clear, blue sky”.

For reasons he couldn’t explain to himself, there was something “peculiar” about it. So much so that he turned his attention to it once more. As he did so, the vapor trail suddenly glowed brightly and “became a brilliant source of light”, describing it as looking similar to a magnesium flare. By this point, he stopped walking and kept the aerial display in his sight. After watching the glow for around two minutes – fully expecting it to dissipate as any other vapor trail would – he finally called out to another officer and pointed upward.

He and several others also now turned their attention to the sky, perplexed as to what this motionless glow might be. The more they watched and discussed with each other what the glow could be, it was determined that it was likely something solid as it was reflecting the last of the day’s sunlight.

At this point, Duich contacted the control tower and asked him to look to the west. He did so, responding that he could see what appeared to be a “short vapor trail” that was “very odd”. As this was taking place, the object began to grow dimmer, as well as taking on a red-orange color. Even more amazing, as it did so, it began to appear much like a solid object in the shape of a cigar.

A Mothership Sighting?

By now, around 20 people had ventured outside to see what the commotion was about. All of them witnessed what appeared to them to be “a swarm of black specks” emerge from the object and move around it independently, appearing “like a swarm of gnats”. These smaller, black objects continued this for several minutes before disappearing. We can only assume that these “black specks” were smaller scout ships or even drones.

As the small crowd of officers looked on in amazement, the object then moved into an upright position. It then moved towards the west at a relatively slow pace. As it moved, while it remained an orange-red color, the tone of the exterior changed a little (this correlation between movement and an object’s color comes up a lot in UFO reports). The group continued to watch for several minutes as the object continued in the same direction and eventually faded into the distance.

One last detail of interest in the encounter is that Duich offered that during the incident, a colonel at the base had set up a tripod and camera and had seemingly managed to capture several color photographs of the object. Although Duich asked him on several occasions about the pictures, he simply denied that any of them came out clear. We have to ask, do those photographs still exist somewhere deep within the files of the military?

Ultimately, the incident remains unexplained. Did multiple officers witness a mothership-type vehicle? And if so, just what were the smaller objects that emerged from it?

UFO Pursuit Over Utah Central Airport

A particularly intriguing encounter unfolded on the morning of October 2^nd, 1961 over Utah Central Airport in Salt Lake City, Utah. ^[2] According to a NICAP case report, on the day in question, private pilot, Waldo Harris was preparing to take off in his Mooney Mark 20A when noticed something bright in the sky over the Salt Lake Valley.

Assuming it was simply another aircraft, he proceeded with his take-off. However, by the time he was in the air, he noticed that the object was in the exact same place as it was when he had first seen it. Although he was now curious, he still believed that the object was simply the sun reflected off another airplane. He continued to pay attention to the object, and once he was satisfied that it was simply hovering motionless, he turned his plane in its direction. And the closer he got, the more he could see that the object was not another airplane.

The first thing he noticed was that the object had “no wings nor tail nor any other exterior control surfaces protruding from what appeared to be a fuselage”. It appeared disc-shaped and seemed to have a “rocking motion” about it as it hovered. He estimated it was around 50 feet across and around 10 feet tall at its tallest point in the middle. He further added that he couldn’t make out any windows or doors anywhere on the object, or any kind of landing gear.

At this point, he estimated he was around two miles away from the object. As he got closer, it rose to around 1000 feet above him. Then, the next thing he realized, it was in motion, eventually coming to another hovering stop around 10 miles from his aircraft. Once more, he turned his aircraft in its direction and began to close in once more. However, as he did so the object shot off into the distance and was “completely out of sight in two or three seconds”.

As the incident was playing out, not only were the control monitoring the events and in communication with Harris, but around 10 people could see the object and his approaching airplane from the ground. In fact, it was because of this communication that Harris witnessed the object again following its disappearance.

As he was preparing to return to the airport, the control tower informed him that they had the object on their screens once more. To begin with, he couldn’t locate the object in the sky. Then, at a much greater distance than before, he could see it, only for a couple of seconds before it vanished for good. Those who were watching the events from the ground would later inform Harris that the object simply shot straight up into the sky.

The Sunnyvale Disc Sighting

Just under two years later, a similar object was witnessed by several police officers in Sunnyvale, California. ^[3] In the early morning hours of September 26^th, 1963, at around 4:20 am, Officer Galen Anderson was driving his patrol car when the radio suddenly burst into life. Other patrolling officers claimed to have seen a bizarre object overhead. Anderson brought his vehicle to a stop and looked skyward.

When he did, he could immediately see a large, bright object that appeared larger than a full moon would appear, moving from east to west. The longer he looked at the object, the more he could tell that it was a solid, disc-shaped vehicle that was gray in color with the edge “brightly illuminated”. The object was traveling at a similar pace to a helicopter and was at an altitude of between 4000 to 6000 feet.  As he watched, the object made a turn in the air toward the northwest in a perfectly straight line and then disappeared from view.

Anderson later stated that the object appeared as large as the full moon appeared to those on Earth. Furthermore, for the majority of the sightings, it appeared as though the object was traveling on its edge, with three-quarters in sight and a quarter of it, essentially, invisible. Interestingly, one of the police officers who also witnessed the object – Officer Haag – stated that in this “invisible” quarter of the object, he could see what appeared to be “heat waves”. In total, the object was visible for around 45 seconds.

Only five minutes before Anderson’s sighting, a supervisor at the Permanente Cement Company, George Scott, was alerted to a strange object by his work crew. When he looked skyward, he immediately noticed an object that appeared to pulse as it moved across overhead. They all watched as the object headed toward the west and disappeared into the distance toward the coastal mountains.

The sighting remains unexplained over half a century later.

The Redlands Multi-Witness UFO Sighting

On the evening of February 4^th, 1968, also in California, this time in Redlands, around 200 local residents reported seeing a huge disc-shaped object moving over the city. ^[4] The incident unfolded around 7:20 pm when residents began noticing something strange in the early evening sky.

According to a timeline arrived at by investigators, the object appeared above a residential street (Columbia Street), moving at a steady pace at an altitude of around 300 feet. After several minutes, the object came to a sudden stop. It hovered overhead before jerking forward, then hovered in place. Then, it simply shot straight upward and disappeared into the night in a matter of seconds.

It was later determined from witness statements that the object was around 50 feet across and appeared to have lights of some kind around the base which expelled several jets of bright orange light. There were also around 10 lights on the top of the object that were red and green. The way the lights were alternating gave the impression that it was rotating.

Investigators would also contact nearby Norton Air Force Base to determine if they had picked the object up on radar. However, they responded that they hadn’t, but also admitted that the radar on the base was one that would not have picked it up anyway. They did confirm, however, that no known aircraft was in the area at the time, and certainly not scheduled to fly that low. No explanation was ever offered for the bizarre events that evening, and the incident remains a complete mystery.

Disc-Shaped Object Hovers Over Omaha

According to a report submitted to the National UFO Reporting Center, on the evening of May 12^th, 1968, another disc-shaped object was reported by multiple people in Omaha, Nebraska. ^[5] The person who submitted the report had arrived in Omaha from Indianapolis as part of a campaign volunteer for the Democratic Presidential Primary election.

On the night in question, the witness was eating dinner with two other election volunteers and spent much of the evening discussing such things as the paranormal and UFOs. By the time they had finished eating and were leaving the restaurant it was around 9 pm. As they walked out onto the street, they noticed a school bus parked outside with several students inside screaming and pointing upward through the windows.

The trio turned in the direction the students were pointing and were shocked to see a curious craft hovering overhead, approximately 100 feet above the ground. The object was round or disc-shaped, with a particularly flat underside and a dome on the top.

They estimated that it was around 35 to 50 feet across and was completely silent. They could also see a “steady white light” coming from the domed section, and around the edge were rectangular white lights that “flashed around the rim in a counter-clockwise like lights on a theater marquee”. They could see no windows or portholes anywhere on the object.

As the sky was clear they all could see the object perfectly, and they could all tell that it was most definitely not a hot air balloon, not least as it was “absolutely motionless”.

By this time, more and more people had arrived on the street out of the restaurant and various buildings, all of whom had clearly also seen the aerial anomaly. Some were, like them, standing and looking up at the object in awe. Others, on the other hand, were running to their cars, clearly frightened by what they were seeing and looking to flee.

After several minutes, the object began to move, slowly, at a speed of barely four or five miles per hour, and remained completely silent as it did so. All of the witnesses watched the object until it disappeared into the distance.

The main witness made some intriguing points in his report. For example, the witness pointed out that Omaha, at the time, was home to the Strategic Air Command. However, despite this, there appeared to be no other aircraft in the skies at the time of the sightings. The witness stated that he found it hard to believe that the object was not detected and that some kind of aerial response was not ordered.

An Extraterrestrial Drone Over Connecticut?

On the afternoon of July 28^th, at around 3:45 pm in Winsted, Connecticut, 14 hikers witnessed a huge saucer-shaped object while walking up Blueberry Hill. ^[6] On the afternoon in question, the group of hikers stated that the object was “silvery” and “metallic”, and because of the changes in reflections on the surface, they could tell that the object was rotating.

A high-pitched screeching sound had alerted the group to the object’s presence before it hovered. After around 15 to 25 seconds, the high-pitched noise returned before the object ascended directly upward and disappeared within a second or two. One of the witnesses stated that the object was “faster than anything they had ever seen”.

The president of the Northwest Connecticut Chapter of APRO, Paula Holmes, would investigate the area, as well as speaking to each of the witnesses. Although she would find no physical evidence of the UFO’s presence, she would determine that they had almost certainly seen something out of the ordinary. She also suspected that what they might have seen could have been a “robot-controlled disc”.

Another point of interest was that the hill that the hikers were on had a composition of metal magnesium, which is a lightweight element that is commonly used in space technology. Holmes contemplated whether this might have been the reason the UFO was in the area in the first place, pointing out that a UFO that had apparently crashed in South America had been found to have also contained metal magnesium. She further considered whether the object – if it was some kind of drone – had come from a mothership that was most likely nearby.

The Patapsco State Park Encounter

At around 11 pm on March 22^nd, 1978 several people reported seeing a bizarre aerial object while camping in Patapsco State Park in Maryland. ^[7] On the night in question, 24-year-old Gary Oickle and his 22-year-old brother, David, along with 22-year-old Barry Smith and 25-year-old Ken Cabot were near the campfire when Barry and David noticed a strange object moving across the night sky. Although it was only visible for several seconds, they could tell that it was “flat-looking”.

After the object had disappeared from sight, the two men walked back to the campfire to inform two other men what they had seen. As they were doing so, all four of them were amazed to see a second object, almost identical to the first, appear from behind a ridge and hover directly over the top of them and an approximate altitude of around 200 to 250 feet. What’s more, they could hear a strange sound, similar to a “quiet wind” or a “quietly rushing waterfall”.

All of four of them could see that it was a triangular object with “large windows and three white lights at the corners”. They estimated the size of the object to be approximately “a quarter the size of a football field”. The object remained overhead for around 15 to 20 seconds before it moved toward the trees. When it did move, it did so very slowly.

There were some interesting details reported by the witnesses. For example, two of the witnesses claimed they could definitely tell that the object was of a metallic exterior and had a blue-gray color to it. Two other witnesses stated that following the object disappearing, they could see a strange star-like object in the distance that changed colors from blue to green to yellow and then red.

Perhaps even more intriguing, three of the witnesses claimed they could see the silhouette of a humanoid-like figure through what appeared to be a window. Ultimately, the entire episode remains unexplained.

The Levittown UFO Photograph

Although there is very little detail about the encounter, an incident witnessed by Levittown in Puerto Rico at some point in 1980 is very much worth examining here, not least as it resulted in a photograph. ^[8] According to the report, hundreds of local residents would report seeing a large disc that was “illuminated by bright lights” that was moving across the sky at a low altitude.

Many of those who witnessed the object would make official reports to the local police, resulting in a patrol car arriving at the town center in order to investigate. One of the officers, Jose Cordero, even reported seeing the object for himself. In fact, he managed to capture 10 pictures of it with his Polaroid camera, one of which you can see below.

The photograph was examined by several photographic experts, with all suggesting that whatever the object was, it appeared to be a genuine picture that had not been tampered with. What’s more, based on the witness statements, it was determined that the object must have been of a considerable size.

The 1982 Messel UFO Encounter

On the evening of March 13^th, 1982 in Messel, Germany, several teenagers were queuing to get into a disco and witnessed three groups of lights flashing in different colors outside. ^[9] Each group of lights consisted of four sets of lights, each of which was flashing. Each set of lights appeared to move independently of each other.

The first, after moving slowly, came to a stop overhead, hovering over the top of the group. This was followed by the second, which moved and stopped very much in the same way. The third set of lights, however, moved overhead extremely quickly.

At this point, 20 minutes later, at around 9:30 pm, several friends came to the group, telling them that there was a strange “bright blue flash” that was coming from the sky that appeared very much like a spotlight. By the time the group had ventured back outside, a “blue luminous disc with a dome on top” was visible just above the treetops of the nearby woods.

Then, with the group watching on, the object began to head toward the witnesses, descending to a very low altitude. As it came closer, the group could see that the dome section was divided into “multi-colored segments”, while inside, it appeared as though something was rotating “like a beacon”. On the edge of the domed section yellow, green, and red lights glowed and flashed, one after the other.

The object continued to descend, doing so in a spiraling motion before coming to a sudden stop. Then, a moment later, it suddenly rose into the air once more and disappeared into the distance.

High Altitude Pursuit Over Changzhou

A sighting of a strange aerial object that featured hundreds of witnesses, including the crew of a military aircraft, as well as several readings from radar stations occurred on the evening of October 19^th, 1998, over Changzhou in China. ^[10] The initial report featured in the November 1998 edition of the UFO Roundup Newsletter, and stated that after the object was spotted by authorities, a Jianjiao 6 jet fighter was scrambled from a flight training school to intercept it.

To begin with, to those on the ground, the object appeared to be a star. However, it grew steadily larger, possibly as it descended. By the time it was at low altitude, it was described as a “mushroom-shaped” object with a dome on the top and a particularly flat underside. On the edge of the underside was a set of bright rotating lights.

To the pilots in the air – a pilot and a radar officer – they recalled that the object appeared just like spaceships are depicted in the movies. They would eventually close into around 13,000 feet. However, before they could get any closer, the object shot up into the air with great speed. Although the fighter jet attempted to keep u with it, it was unable to do so, with the pilot suggesting that the object – or the intelligence behind it – was “toying” with them.

After several attempts at closing in on the object, the pilot requested permission to open fire on it – a request that was denied. Instead, he was asked to continue his attempts to pursue. However, after several further attempts, with the plane running low on fuel, it broke off the chase at an altitude of just under 40,000 feet and returned to base. Two more jets were scrambled, but by the time they had arrived, the object had disappeared.

A satisfactory explanation was never reached regarding the sighting, and it remains a complete mystery a quarter of a century after it occurred.

The Multiple Witness Black Oval UFO Sighting

One of the most recent sightings with multiple witnesses (relatively speaking) occurred in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada at some point in 2002. ^[11] According to the report, the witnesses were driving along the highway when they noticed a large back rugby ball-shaped object in the clear afternoon sky.

Whatever the object was, it remained hovering overhead perfectly still at an approximate altitude of around 2000 feet. The witnesses estimated that it was around the size of a 747.

As well as the witnesses who sent the report of the sighting, multiple other motorists pulled their vehicles to the side of the road in order to get a better view of the aerial anomaly, including two police officers.

Following the incident, the witnesses rushed back home, fully expecting to see breaking news of the sighting. However, much to their surprise there was no mention of it whatsoever. In total, the main witness estimated that at least 25 people witnessed the object from the highway, and we might imagine that many others in the region witnessed it also.

The picture below is photoshopped in order to show what the witnesses saw that afternoon.

Many More Multi-Witness Encounters Than We Think

The encounters we have examined here are just a small number of UFO incidents involving multiple witnesses. And these encounters stretch back to the start of the Modern UFO Era right into our contemporary times. Given the sheer number of these multi-witness sightings, we might question why the idea of UFOs has not been treated much more seriously for a lot longer.

When we put these sightings alongside others with lone witnesses, assuming at least some of those are also genuine, then it appears as though the UFO presence – whatever they might be – is not real, but extremely active.

Indeed, while there is a focus right now on UFO sightings of our contemporary era – particularly those with video footage to back them up – by reminding ourselves of the sightings of the past, we are perhaps better placed to assess any sort of disclosure that may or may not happen in the coming years.

The short video below examines some of the best UFO encounters on record.