Paranormal

MUFON Report: 1971 & 1988 UFO Sightings

I’m a big fan of retro UFO sightings. Maybe it’s the way those old pictures look, or the fact that – in my opinion – the most famous and intriguing “extraterrestrial” encounters seem to have occurred before the millennium. Well, with some exceptions, of course.

Anyway, here are two sightings from 1971/2 and 1988 that recently appeared on the MUFON database.

1971/72 Los Banos, California

Case number 73498. Submitted 12/31/2015. Sighting occurred in 1971 or 1972 in Los Banos, California.

The witness was on his way over to visit his neighbor around midnight one evening when an unidentified craft appeared in the sky above him. It hovered in the air, and lit up the surrounding area. The witness stood frozen in awe as his neighbor rushed out of his house to see what was causing the intense light.

As they watched, they saw the object “teeter very slowly” above the neighbor’s house for several minutes, before finally “swooping” off into the distance, leaving only what appeared to be a “mist or vapor” behind.

After it had gone, they immediately ran into the house and phoned the nearby US Air Force base. If anything, doing so only added to the mystery. As the report states, “Five unmarked cars showed up within the hour. They took me in the house and asked questions with a very large recorder. Then they took me outside where the Air Force men had telescopes set up and were looking at the sky. They let me look, and we saw a few of the UFO’s playing tag with each other. They looked like stars, but were not.”

What did they see that night? And did the men who arrived from the Air Force know the truth? To this day, the witness is unsure, but there may be more to this story than is revealed: “I really need to talk to someone about what happened to me after this incident,” reads the end of the submission, “It is a story like no other I have ever heard.”

October 3, 1988 Brookeville, Indiana

Case number 73477. Submitted 12/30/2015. Sighting occurred 10/03/1988 in Brookeville, Indiana. Two images accompany this one: Image 1, Image 2 (images no longer available).

The witness and his brother were camping on his father’s property, watching Monday Night Football on a portable television, when something truly odd happened. The reception on the radio began to fade in and out, before they noticed a “dim glowing object” in the sky above them. It appeared to dance around, moving in “strange directions” for nearly two minutes, after which is “shot out of the night sky.”

Afternoon on the following day, the witness snapped a photo of his brother standing in the camp, preparing to pack up. When he later developed the film, he noticed the strange object in the sky.

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Rob Schwarz

Writer, blogger, and part-time peddler of mysterious tales. Editor-in-chief of Stranger Dimensions.