"...Of these (UFO) reports, the radar-visual sightings are the most convincing. When a ground radar picks up a UFO target and a ground observer sees a light where the radar target is located, then a jet interceptor is scrambled to intercept the UFO and the pilot also sees the light and gets a radar lock only to have the UFO almost impudently outdistance him, there is no simple answer..."

Edward J. Ruppelt, USAF Capt.,1956

For over fifty years, both civilian and military pilots have seen Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), also commonly called Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). This catalogue is a compilation of more than 1300+ such sightings, by military pilots, private pilots and airliners crews.

These cases are special for several reasons. Training and experience make pilots and crews much more reliable witnesses than others. They are used to unusual meteorological phenomenons. They have the added advantage of being able to approach the phenomenon. Sometimes they can even overfly the object, observing it between themselves and the earth below. Military pilots are trained to estimate distances, shapes and speed of flying machines.

Sometimes, pilots’sightings are confirmed by radar detection, observers on the ground (control tower personnel, Ground Observer Corps, civilians, ..) or other pilots in flight. In some cases electro-magnetic effects were noted (radios, radar, compasses, engines, ...). In a few rare cases the pilot or crew felt physical effects like heat, or blinding light.

This catalog contains 1305 cases : 606 Military aircraft cases, 444 Airliners cases, 193 private light planes (19 multiple aircraft, 43 cases with no mentionof type of aircraft). Among the 1305 cases, 702 are North American.

A detailed study and a database of the 200 radar-cases in this catalog (about 15%) is currently under developement at the French Space Agency (CNES) in France, as a SEPRA project led by Jean-Jacques Velasco. An initial evaluation of the most detailed radar-visual cases shows that the technical data indicated by radar (sizes, speeds, distances, maneuvers, locations . .) are quite close to those estimated by pilots.

Another study of the 57 cases involving electro-magnetic effects on the aircraft (about 4%) of this catalog is under development with Dr Richard F. Haines for the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP)

Dominique Weinstein
Paris, February 3, 2001

An unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) is the visual stimulus that provokes a sighting report of an object or light seen in the sky, the appearance and/or flight dynamics of which do not suggest a logical, conventional flying object and which remains unidentified after close scrutinity of all available evidence by persons who are technically capable of making both a full technical identification as well as a common-sense identification, if one is possible. (Dr Richard F. Haines 1980)
the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP), PO Box 140, Boulder Creek, California 95006.
www.narcap.org

Unfortunately we couldn't put the entire 80+ yrs Database on this page so please go to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena; Eighty Years of Pilot Sightings

And download directly from there

Thanks and sorry for any inconvenience caused