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Shape / form From year To year Country Time of day Witnesses Evidence Status Duration Sound Colour Motion Lights Sources include Min photos Min videos Min sources Min score

3D model Narrated

“St. Elmo's fire”

Stories5

The Uintah Basin UFO Wave

c. 1965 · Uintah Basin (Roosevelt to Vernal corridor), northeastern Utah

United States

UAP · Sphere · 27 sources

34Partially documented

The Levelland UFO Case

November 2, 1957 · Levelland, Hockley County, Texas

United States

UAP · Egg · 56 sources

44Partially documented

Foo Fighters of World War II

November 1944 · Rhine valley north of Strasbourg, Alsace, with reports across the European and Pacific theatres

France

UAP · Orb / light · 76 sources

50Partially documented

The Egryn Lights: Mary Jones and the Welsh Revival Lights

December 5, 1904 · Capel Egryn, Tal-y-bont, Dyffryn Ardudwy, Merionethshire (now Gwynedd), Wales

United Kingdom

UAP · Orb / light · 25 sources

37Partially documented

The HMS Caroline "Chinese Lanterns" off Quelpart (Jeju)

February 24, 1893 · At sea, sixteen to seventeen miles south of Quelpart (Jeju Island), North China Sea

South Korea

UAP · Orb / light · 19 sources

24Thinly documented

Names3

ball lightning Term · 29 stories
A rare glowing atmospheric discharge.
Robertson Panel Programme · 8 stories
January 1953.
Nature Organisation · 3 stories
A scientific journal that kept turning up in strange cases.

Documents16 · see all

Air Force Request to Declassify CIA Material on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) FOIA release

Central Intelligence Agency· 2001-04-30· 53 pages· 2 pages mention it
- p. 13 …They were believed to be electrostatic (similar to St. Elmo's fire) or electromagnetic phenomena or possibly light reflections from…
- p. 33 …They were believed to be electrostatic (similar to St. Elmo's fire) or electromagnetic phenomena or possibly light reflections from…
Comments and Suggestions of UFO Panel (PUBD Unknown) FOIA release

Central Intelligence Agency· 1953-01-21· 21 pages· 1 page mentions it
- p. 2 …They were believed to be electrostatic (similar to St. Elmo's fire) or electromagnetic phenomena or possibly light reflections from…
Condign volumes 1 to 3 Document

Internet Archive· 258 pages· 3 pages mention it
- p. 30 …have been made when the ball makes no sound, while others have: - Hissed (hence confusion with St. Elmo's fire)
- p. 180 …Elmo's Fire and Ball/Bead lighting is that the latter has motion. The exception is when St. Elmo's…
Comments and Suggestions of UFO Panel (PUBD Is Unknown) FOIA release

Central Intelligence Agency· 1953-01-03· 22 pages· 1 page mentions it
- p. 3 …They were believed to be electrostatic (similar to St. Elmo's fire) or electromagnetic phenomena or possibly light reflections from…
Report of Meetings of the Office of Scientific Intelligence Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, January 14-18, 1953 FOIA release

Central Intelligence Agency· 1953-02-16· 32 pages· 1 page mentions it
- p. 10 …They were believed to be electrocatalytic (shallow to St. Elmo's fire) or electromagnetic phenomena or possibly light reflections from…
Project Blue Book case file: Levelland, November 2-3, 1957 (81 pages) Document

USAF / National Archives via The Black Vault· 82 pages· 3 pages mention it
- p. 41 …a natural electric phenomenon called ball lightning or St. Elmo's fire." Apparently the technical investigators who conducted this particular…
- p. 47 …Elmo's fire." Supporters of the saucer theory seized on this ambiguity to protest, correctly, that ball lightning and St…

All 16 documents →