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New Compelling Sightings

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nikki630

Skilled Investigator
Is anyone aware of any new compelling sightings? By new I mean within the last five years. I know about the Chicago O'Hare sighting and the latest one from the UK, but there must be more than that.

If you look on the internet for recent sightings, they all seems to be of the 'flashing light in the sky' variety. I don't mean to disparage those types of sightings, they are just not very compelling.

It seems that all the programs I watch or books I read reference and rehash sightings that are ten, twenty, thirty or more years old . I know this phenomenon is still going on today, it just seems like we don't hear about the newer 'real' sightings. So where HAVE all the sightings gone ?
 
nikki630 said:
Is anyone aware of any new compelling sightings? By new I mean within the last five years. I know about the Chicago O'Hare sighting and the latest one from the UK, but there must be more than that.

If you look on the internet for recent sightings, they all seems to be of the 'flashing light in the sky' variety. I don't mean to disparage those types of sightings, they are just not very compelling.

It seems that all the programs I watch or books I read reference and rehash sightings that are ten, twenty, thirty or more years old . I know this phenomenon is still going on today, it just seems like we don't hear about the newer 'real' sightings. So where HAVE all the sightings gone ?

There are actually hundreds and hundreds of new sightings, but as always, only a few get most of the attention.

In general, all it should take are a few compelling reports to demonstrate something weird is going on. But there's a lot more.

Listeners? What have you seen and heard?
 
Gene Steinberg said:
There are actually hundreds and hundreds of new sightings, but as always, only a few get most of the attention.

In general, all it should take are a few compelling reports to demonstrate something weird is going on. But there's a lot more.

I am sure there is something weird going on out there. I am also sure there are hundreds and hundreds of sightings that occur, but how many of them go beyond the flashing light variety ? I am thinking along the lines of David's experience, or the more recent Chicago O'Hare incident. Of the hundreds that are out there how many are THAT compelling and , and how do we find out about them ?

I guess where I am going with this is that flashing lights are easy to dismiss as simply misidentified swamp gas or the like.

Let me use David's sighting as an example of what I mean. David's case can not be dismissed as misidentified anything, it was daytime and he had a clear view. So that leaves three possibilities:
1) The observer is lying
2) The observer is crazy
3) The observer is telling the truth.

I have no reason to suspect that David is a liar or crazy, and at least parts of his story should be verifiable. That being the case, David is telling the truth. Since David is telling the truth, then he experienced something of high strangeness, that (to me) proves that there is, as you say, something weird going on out there and is worthy of serious investigation.

These are the kind cases I would like some groups or individual to focus on and make that information available to to the general public. I think these kinds of studies would go a long way in moving the study of UFOs out of the realm of fringe science and into the world of mainstream science.
 
New member here though I'm more into reading at boards rather than posting. I've had two sightings worth mentioning though ('least to me!) But I want to preface my sighting reports with some background that seems related in some way to those sightings.

Though I'd always been interested in paranormal events and UFO tales, I'd never really incorporated them into my belief system until a few years ago. After reading so many accounts of sightings by seemingly credible people, I finally got off that fence and decided they must be the real deal. (Well, as real as the human psyche can perceive.) Only after that initial incorporation did I finally see a UFO, actually about a month later. That aspect of background is what rocked me, not the actual sightings. Does belief create? Was I receiving confirmation? Was the Trickster at work making me just a little more crazy? Whaaat?

So my husband and I were sitting on the porch of a condominum on Lake Travis in Austin, Texas about eight in the evening. The sun was still shining brightly and we were watching cranes, turkey buzzards and planes in the sky over the lake. An old fashioned one propeller plane buzzed our condo twice just before we saw a white, bullet-like cylander flying by in the middle of our 180 degree view of the sky It was perfectly round, probably flying at or under ten thousand feet, had no wings, was silent and had no windows or markings of any kind. More stunning, the portion we considered the "front" of the craft seemed cloaked because it was the only part we couldn't see clearly due to a sort of heat signature. It looked like the mirage one sees on hot day in the country over the road ahead, but the wavy heat lines appeared to show a distorted blue sky rather than the white craft.

We watched it for thirty seconds or more and it finally flew into the one and only cloud in the sky. As a matter of fact, the cloud hadn't been there only a minute before our sighting so it must have formed very quickly. Just before entering that cloud we could see the very round rear of the craft.

Because I was the first to spot the craft and because I'm accused by my family members as being weird, I asked my husband to look up and tell me what I was seeing. His comment after gazing at it was, "I think we've seen our first UFO." We were very calm and I asked him to describe to me what he was seeing. Our versions matched, but since that time, he's nearly completely forgotten the episode or describes a disc rather than the cylander. I'm left to guess that he either didn't incorporate the sighting or he simply doesn't want to accept it. I wrote all of it down so I could report it to Peter Davenport and did so when we returned from our vacation.

On December first of the same year, we were driving back to Houston on a country road in what most people would deem "cotton" country. The fields were bare of course and the land very flat. It was about 6:30 in the evening and completely dark outside as we passed through a small town. The sky was ominous as an approaching cold front was heaving water laden clouds toward it off the nearby Gulf and they rushed by at a low altitude in a constant stream.

There was another small town about 15 miles away from our location and my gaze was drawn to it because something seemed out of place. We should only have been able to barely see the night sky lit up a bit, but instead there were five rows of lights, banked, hanging over the town, mostly obscured by the rushing clouds. I stopped the car to measure the lights and found it was about four inches long at arm's length. That's big. I grew up in this country and knew there was nothing taller than a cotton gin and I shouldn't have been able to see it or any lights on the gin at fifteen miles. But each of the lights was a little smaller than the head of a tack held at arm's length. They were stacked from top to bottom, five, seven, nine, seven and five. Too many lights to be the standard UFO, right?

We tried to imagine a Christmas display, but it was simply too high in the sky. The lights actually made the glow from the town's lighting show up even more. And the low ceiling of cloud cover may have amplified the effect the lights had, I don't know. I just know they didn't move for the entire time we watched which was about ten minutes. I had to wait a long time to be able to count the nine lights because the moving clouds didn't allow for much. All the clouds rushing by were lit by the phenomenon though. That's what drew my gaze in the first place.

So I'm trying to get my husband to describe what he's seeing when I notice a "sick" look on his face. He's obviously very disturbed by what we are seeing and he keeps looking back at the road we're on rather than staring at the lights. In fact, he never answered me so I just tried to describe to him what I was seeing. After that, I drove away and soon trees obscured our view. He couldn't talk about the incident and heaves a big sigh if I mention it today. Looks irritated in fact, and doesn't want to talk. But when we watched Spielberg's TAKEN, my husband said, upon seeing one of the big UFOs in the series, "That's what we saw." I agreed, but the lights weren't right at all. The size, but not the lights.

I corresponded with Peter Davenport about this sighting too, but he thought it was probably Russian rocketry that had streaked across the U.S. on that date. When he told me there should have been tails to the lights I knew we weren't talking about the same phemonenon as my lights were stationery for a prolonged period. But I've never seen them over that town again and I've had several opportunities to be in the same spot at the same time of night, even the same time of year. We made the same trip at roughly the same time of night later that month and the lights weren't there. It was before Christmas. Never saw them beforehand. But I think my husband is the weird person in the family now. I was curious. He was rather devastated.
 
Hi, I mentioned this sighting several months back but a few people here have asked me about it since so this seems like a good thread to mention it again. Here it is, quoted from my report to NUFORC:

03/09/07-
"My girlfriend and I were driving to our 7:30 dinner reservation, which we were late for, and as I was going along my street I saw a bright star off to my left. I'm always looking out for ufos so I made some comment about this star to my girlfriend, and she replied to stop looking at it and look where I was driving.

At the next intersection I turned left, and now the object was in the sky in front of us (and slightly left of the road). The light had grown and now it was no longer a star, but many blinking lights. Its altitude in the sky was much lower than a plane, maybe between 500 and 1000 feet up. My first thought was "Damn that thing has lots of lights" but I actually wrote it off as a plane because my eyesight is poor and I couldn't see any detail. Then a few seconds later my girlfriend (whose eyesight is better than mine) said "What IS that thing?" I looked over at it again and I asked her to tell me what she was seeing. She could actually see the solid object and said it was grey and egg shaped, and covered with blinking lights. It was flying about as fast as a plane or a helicopter, but erratically. I could see the blinking lights, which were multicolored (there were at least a dozen lights to my reckoning), but my eyesight was not good enough to discern the shape.

By this time it had flown further to our left. I said "screw the reservation!" and I took the next left to follow it. The trees obscured our view temporarily but I drove in the direction that it was in the sky. As soon as we got to a clearer view, the object was nowhere to be seen. We were both very baffled, because it should've been visible in the sky."
 
That's pretty exciting. I find myself more interested in the stories that describe something other than typical discs. Discs seem to be part of our mythology now though I'm not saying the craft aren't real. But we've been encouraged to accept typical grays and their discs when I believe the phenomenon is much weirder than we can really imagine.
 
My screen name is based on a mass sighting in Fort Smith Arkansas that occurred on two consecutive nights in August 1967. Structured glowing craft were observed for hours by hundreds, reported live by radio AND television. These objects displayed physics defying flight characteristics for over four hours the first night, returning for an encore the next evening that lasted almost as long. These things performed (and it did seem like a performance) flying in formations, hovering, and streaking out of sight at incredible speeds; pretty much the entire UFO playbook. How compelling do you need? Yet I'll wager no one on these boards has ever heard of or read about this event. The official air force explanation: swamp gas.
 
Poi, when you mentioned Lake Travis it reminded me of a ghost photo someone posted in the Ghost part of the forums. Just a search or something (sorry, I am just too lazy to go find it). When the image is lightened you can see something pretty bizarre...it might be reflections on the water, but it's cool.

PS I am in Houston too. Looks like that makes 3 of us.
 
Brian Now said:
Poi, when you mentioned Lake Travis it reminded me of a ghost photo someone posted in the Ghost part of the forums. Just a search or something (sorry, I am just too lazy to go find it). When the image is lightened you can see something pretty bizarre...it might be reflections on the water, but it's cool.

PS I am in Houston too. Looks like that makes 3 of us.

Hehe we now have enough people to form the Paracast Houston Chapter. I nominate myself as Treasurer.
 
67fortsmithufos said:
My screen name is based on a mass sighting in Fort Smith Arkansas that occurred on two consecutive nights in August 1967. Structured glowing craft were observed for hours by hundreds, reported live by radio AND television. These objects displayed physics defying flight characteristics for over four hours the first night, returning for an encore the next evening that lasted almost as long. These things performed (and it did seem like a performance) flying in formations, hovering, and streaking out of sight at incredible speeds; pretty much the entire UFO playbook. How compelling do you need? Yet I'll wager no one on these boards has ever heard of or read about this event. The official air force explanation: swamp gas.

You are right -- I have never heard about this sighting, and it is just the kind of thing I am asking about. But again, and no offense meant, that was 40 years ago.

So,where are these kind of sightings today. If they are happening today and are being under reported, how do we find out about them? Because if we, who are interested in this topic, aren't hearing about these kind of experiences, you can bet the general public isn't.
 
You are right -- I have never heard about this sighting, and it is just the kind of thing I am asking about. But again, and no offense meant, that was 40 years ago.

So,where are these kind of sightings today. If they are happening today and are being under reported, how do we find out about them? Because if we, who are interested in this topic, aren't hearing about these kind of experiences, you can bet the general public isn't.

The O'Hare sighting generated the most hits ever on the Chicago Tribune Website, yet for the most part media ignores the whole issue, in effect turning their backs on profits. I find that very strange. You have to ask yourself, "Who owns the media?" and "What's the motivation?"
 
67fortsmithufos said:
The O'Hare sighting generated the most hits ever on the Chicago Tribune Website, yet for the most part media ignores the whole issue, in effect turning their backs on profits. I find that very strange. You have to ask yourself, "Who owns the media?" and "What's the motivation?"

Anyone who follows any kind of alternative media sources knows the mainstream media is very selective about what they print and how prominent any story is, UFO related or otherwise.

I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, but I try to keep things in perspective. The O'Hare incident may have been ignored simply because of the stigma attached to the UFO phenomenon. Of course it could be being ignored for more nefarious (I have always wanted to use that word) reasons as well.

But I don't actually expect to find credible compelling UFO sightings such as yours, in the mainstream press whatever the reason. However I would expect respectable researchers and groups such as Mufon, to display them prominently and make them easy to find and therefore easy to disseminate. But as best as I can see they don't. If they are happening, they are buried in with less compelling reports. Which brings me back to my original question -- how do we find out about recent compelling sightings ?
 
Thanks, Brian. I'll try to find the ghost photo soon.

Since you and Brandon are in Houston, I can tell you that during our second sighting, we were sitting on a Farm Road just outside of East Bernard, Texas and looking at the huge craft sitting over Rosenberg. I've never found going to Rosenberg compelling or fun so it's kind of hard for me to imagine what on earth was going on there, (LOL) but I checked local news at the time and found no reports. I even thought about calling the local police to see anything if strange occurred that night, but I opted to not do that. There was some large part of me that didn't want to know we really saw what we think we saw.

Which is why I think we don't see reports of the compelling sightings sometimes. I think there are numerous reasons, but one is indeed because the media is complicit in covering them up. With the internet there is certainly and avenue for instantaneous reporting, but those individuals who saw the O'Hare bugger didn't seem to get on the internet media bandwagon very quickly themselves. I don't know when the first report came out, but others were slow to respond until the mainstream media finally picked up on it. It's my guess that most people, even those who wish to actually see UFOs, have to confront their belief systems full in the face when they actually do see them. No one walks away unaffected and it takes time to process.

The first two friends we mentioned our Lake Travis sighting to laughed in our faces. These were really good friends who knew we weren't fanciful conjurers of exotic tales. But their derision probably said something about their ability to accept a new paradigm. So in a way, I think we hinder ourselves as much as the media does. Something tells me that sightings are meant to be of a personal nature in the end. If that's the case, it doesn't matter whether they come before a crowd or an individual. They are whatever they are, they come to whomever they do, and each person is left to open his head to the infinite.

Fortsmith, I never heard of your sighting either. Must have been incredible.

Nicole, I can't answer your question. I think we're just left to slog through whatever we can find through Peter Davenport, Brian Vike and others like them. They do try to highlight what they feel is compelling through radio interviews and clearing house reports at different sites.
 
nikki630 said:
67fortsmithufos said:
The O'Hare sighting generated the most hits ever on the Chicago Tribune Website, yet for the most part media ignores the whole issue, in effect turning their backs on profits. I find that very strange. You have to ask yourself, "Who owns the media?" and "What's the motivation?"

Anyone who follows any kind of alternative media sources knows the mainstream media is very selective about what they print and how prominent any story is, UFO related or otherwise.

I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, but I try to keep things in perspective. The O'Hare incident may have been ignored simply because of the stigma attached to the UFO phenomenon. Of course it could be being ignored for more nefarious (I have always wanted to use that word) reasons as well.

But I don't actually expect to find credible compelling UFO sightings such as yours, in the mainstream press whatever the reason. However I would expect respectable researchers and groups such as Mufon, to display them prominently and make them easy to find and therefore easy to disseminate. But as best as I can see they don't. If they are happening, they are buried in with less compelling reports. Which brings me back to my original question -- how do we find out about recent compelling sightings ?

Nicole,
I regularly do a Google News search for "ufo". There are anywhere from a couple to several new stories every day, some compelling, some not. Most of the reports are out of the UK or other countries and tend to be written in a serious journalistic style. The occasional story from domestic sources is almost always penned in that comically derisive style that we've all grown accustomed to. Case in point: Every story I have read about the O'Hare sighting (you want compelling!) included the ridiculous quote by the clown in the tower, who wasn't even an eyewitness. Enough said, compelling reports are being filed daily, you just have to dig a little.
 
67fortsmithufos said:
Nicole,
I regularly do a Google News search for "ufo". There are anywhere from a couple to several new stories every day, some compelling, some not. Most of the reports are out of the UK or other countries and tend to be written in a serious journalistic style. The occasional story from domestic sources is almost always penned in that comically derisive style that we've all grown accustomed to.

Well Duh!!!! why didn't I think of Google news? I Google almost everything else in my life. I will give that a try. Thanks

67fortsmithufos said:
Case in point: Every story I have read about the O'Hare sighting (you want compelling!) included the ridiculous quote by the clown in the tower, who wasn't even an eyewitness. Enough said, compelling reports are being filed daily, you just have to dig a little.

LOL -- of course they do. We all know the reason for this as well: "UFOs are silly and no matter how credible the sighting may or may not be, they are at best only worthy of ridicule" But lets spend fifteen minutes talking about something IMPORTANT -- Paris Hilton . SIGH !! could we be more closed minded ????? Oh well -- I will check out the Google news idea and maybe start compiling a collection of what I consider compelling reports.

I would still be interested in hearing other ideas about finding compelling reports about UFOs.
 
I'm of the mind, that with the prevelance of cellphones, and the fact that most now have cameras, we should be seeing a deluge of cellphone captured UFO sightings.

Unfortunately, the quality stinks, and of course nobody can see anything, or really analyze the footage properly.
 
There are a ton of UFO videos on YouTube and of course the quality is terrible.

I also tend to wonder where all the spectacular UFO videos are, what with the prevalence of video cameras and video-equipped cell phones. However, now that I've had some first hand experience videotaping an aerobatics show I can understand why there is no deluge of quality videos.

My brother graduated Florida Tech earlier this year as a flight/airport management major and he wanted to show the family what he had learned in his aerobatics class and requested that I videotape it.

He flew in a single engine plane over the Florida coast in the sunny afternoon and did a routine that kept him below approximately 2500 feet.

I had a horrible time trying to track him with my Canon miniDV, and this was following something that I could identify and knew where it was supposed to be! The bright ambient light of the beach made the LCD screen useless and the small viewfinder was not much better. I've heard that in nighttime scenarios the light output of the viewfinders causes a similar effect in that it makes a person's night vision difficult.

I still wonder where the great UFO videos are, but now I realize that it's probably not as difficult as it sounds.

-todd.
 
tommyball said:
He flew in a single engine plane over the Florida coast in the sunny afternoon and did a routine that kept him below approximately 2500 feet.

I had a horrible time trying to track him with my Canon miniDV, and this was following something that I could identify and knew where it was supposed to be!

-todd.

Yeah, it's hard to do by hand. That's why NASA and the aircraft testing companies use lasers and reflectors on test aircraft to track them with telescopes, as well as television systems that can track objects by contrast.
Some of the better cameras have an anti-shake feature that can help a little, but it has its limits.
 
I would have to say that what I experienced last year was by far the best thing i've ever been witnessed to in my entire life: If i'd had a camera & filmed it, it would have been some truly incredible footage....

This is taken from a post I made over in the 'Youth & UFO's' category.

'I've experienced a few unusual things in my time & in all honesty my strangest experience would have to be something I 'saw' traversing the night skies early last year. It is as follows:

Around 10:00pm I was heading home from my good mates house about 250 metres from my house heading roughly North-East. The night sky visibility was unbelievably clear considering my neighbourhood is littered with street lights...anyhow to the sighting.
By now I'm walking with my head pointed directly up to the stars and bathing in the awe of it all when passing very fast through my field of vision is this anomaly: 'It's a 'ball' of a golden/bronze coloured- extremely-brightly luminating light travelling at a very, very fast pace & oscillating between 2 points which would be about a 'foot' apart if you held your arms up 30 centimetres apart. Due to it's oscillating manner it looked asthough it was 'zig-zagging' through the sky! This object was brighter than any star or planet currently visible & may well have been moving at an estimated altitude of around 30,00feet or so...Hard to tell.
I was so excited I chased it (yeah I ran quite fast) down the road towards my house gawking & grinning as this was by far the coolest thing i'd ever seen in my life! It disappeared over the trees behind my house which was disappointing, but my guess is from spotting the anomaly to it's disappearance was a total of about 2 1/2 minutes.'


The fact in my opinion that this object was very very bright, appeared to be in our earths atmosphere & was travelling extremely fast in a zig-zagging fashion leads me to believe that I witnessed something absolute in reality; I am not a liar & have absolutely no reason to contribute falsified information into this field.

I guess i'll never know....but 1 thing is for sure: It was UNIDENTIFIED.
 
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