Catalog
Catalog of phenomena
Every kind of phenomenon – from flying saucers to lake monsters – and the countries where they were recorded. Each page has a map and a chronological list of cases.
UFOs Unidentified flying objects · 111
Objects in the sky that witnesses – pilots, soldiers, police officers and ordinary passers-by – could not identify. Many were later explained as balloons, satellites, planets or military tests, but some reports still have no convincing solution. Today they are also called UAP – unidentified anomalous phenomena.
- Discs and flying saucers The classic UFO: flat, round objects with a metallic sheen, often moving silently and at tremendous speed.
- Black triangles and boomerangs Large, dark triangular or V-shaped objects with lights at the corners, gliding low and slowly.
- Orbs and foo fighters Glowing balls – alone or in formation – accompanying aircraft or crossing the night sky.
- Cigars and mystery airships Elongated cigar- or airship-shaped objects – from the 19th-century “airship” waves to modern sightings.
- UFO crashes and debris Places where, according to witnesses, an unknown object came down – and where, they claim, the debris quickly disappeared.
- Close encounters with beings Reports of landings and beings seen at close range – the so-called close encounters of the third kind.
- Abductions Witnesses claim they were taken aboard a craft – often remembering it only under hypnosis.
- Military and radar sightings Cases in which pilots or crews saw an object while radar tracked it – taken most seriously by the military.
- Sighting waves Periods when hundreds or thousands of people in one region saw unknown objects for days, weeks or months.
- Historical sky phenomena Chronicles, woodcuts and broadsheets from before the age of flight describing “battles in the sky”, fiery balls and strange shapes.
Cryptids Creatures unknown to science · 60
Animals and creatures whose existence rests on eyewitness accounts, footprints, blurry photos and local legends, but has never been confirmed by zoology. Cryptozoology collects these reports – some turned out to be hoaxes, others previously unknown species, and many still await an explanation.
- Yeti A humanlike creature of the Himalayas – the “abominable snowman”, known from footprints on glaciers.
- Bigfoot (Sasquatch) A huge, hairy humanlike creature of North American forests that leaves footprints 40 cm (16 in) long.
- Other wild men Wild men and ape-men from other parts of the world: Almas, Yeren, Yowie, Orang pendek.
- Lake and river monsters Long-necked creatures and giant serpents seen in deep, cold lakes – from Loch Ness to Patagonia.
- Sea serpents and sea monsters Giant sea serpents and strange carcasses washed ashore, described by sailors for centuries.
- Winged creatures Winged creatures with glowing eyes and giant birds seen at night – from Mothman to the Jersey Devil.
- Beasts and predators Mysterious predators attacking animals or people – from the Beast of Gévaudan to the chupacabra.
- Living fossils Animals thought to be extinct – or never described – that witnesses say still live in remote places.
- Strange humanoids Small, bizarre figures seen for a brief moment – unconnected to UFOs, but just as puzzling.
Mystery lights Mysterious lights and sky phenomena · 18
Lights that keep appearing in the same valleys, ball lightning and unusual atmospheric phenomena. Some have been studied with scientific instruments for decades, yet their nature is still debated.
- Ghost lights Glowing balls appearing regularly in the same places – in valleys, over marshes and rivers.
- Ball lightning Glowing balls the size of a football that appear during storms, drift into houses and vanish with a bang.
- Unusual sky phenomena Spirals, luminous clouds and “dancing suns” – phenomena seen by crowds, some explained, some still disputed.
Other anomalies Disappearances, crop circles, explosions and signals · 31
Events that fit no other category: vanished ships and aircraft, patterns in grain fields, powerful explosions without a crater and radio signals from space that were never received again.
- Crop circles Patterns flattened into grain fields overnight – from simple circles to complex fractals.
- Disappearances and tragedies Vanished ships, aircraft and people, and tragedies whose course could never be fully reconstructed.
- Explosions and falls from the sky Powerful blasts in the atmosphere and objects falling from the sky – including the largest explosion in recorded history.
- Unexplained signals Radio signals and sounds picked up by radio telescopes and hydrophones whose source could not be determined.
Countries
- Antarctica 1
- Argentina 3
- Australia 12
- Barbados 1
- Belgium 1
- Brazil 5
- Canada 8
- Chile 2
- China 3
- Costa Rica 1
- Finland 1
- France 7
- Georgia 1
- Germany 3
- Greenland 1
- Guernsey 1
- Iceland 1
- India 4
- Indonesia 2
- Iran 1
- Ireland 1
- Italy 1
- Japan 5
- Mexico 3
- Mongolia 1
- Nepal 3
- New Zealand 3
- North Korea 1
- Norway 2
- Papua New Guinea 2
- Peru 2
- Poland 8
- Portugal 1
- Puerto Rico 1
- Republic of the Congo 1
- Russia 10
- South Africa 2
- South Korea 1
- Spain 2
- Sweden 2
- Switzerland 2
- Thailand 1
- United Kingdom 28
- United States 67
- Venezuela 1
- Zambia 1
- Zimbabwe 1