Sightings

A Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon was tracked across the continental U.S. before being shot down by an F-22 Raptor with an AIM-9X Sidewinder over the Atlantic Ocean. Widely visible from the ground; precipitated subsequent shootdowns of unidentified objects over Alaska, Yukon, and Lake Huron in the following week. Source: DoD briefings, FBI debris analysis.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection DHC-8 Dash 8 aircraft recorded an unidentified spherical object on FLIR thermal imager. The object entered the ocean briefly, then re-emerged and continued flight at low altitude near Rafael Hernández Airport. The 3-minute footage was analyzed by the Scientific Coalition for UFOlogy (SCU) in a 161-page 2015 report. Source: SCU report, CBP records.