Case files

The case files

Nine cases, each with what was reported and what the evidence says. Every fact links to its source, checked 31 Oct 2026.

EXCLUSIVEUFOs and UAP

Saucers skip across Washington sky

Our artist’s impression of nine objects “like a saucer skipping on water”. A drawing, not a photograph: nobody photographed them.

What was reported

Source of the account: A private pilot, Washington State, USA, 1947 (as recorded by The National Archives)

In 1947 a private pilot reported seeing nine strange objects moving at speed across the sky over Washington State, USA, “like a saucer skipping on water”. It was the first report of “flying saucers”. [source]

What the evidence says

UFO stands for “unidentified flying object”, a US Air Force term. To the military it means something in the sky that can be seen but not recognised, not something from another world. [source]
NASA’s independent study team (2023) said that, to date, there is no conclusive evidence in the peer-reviewed scientific literature suggesting an extraterrestrial origin for UAP. [source]
Asked whether it has found any evidence of extraterrestrial technology, the US Department of Defense’s AARO answers: “No.” It adds that examination of sightings is ongoing. [source]
AARO says many cases stay “unidentified” simply because sensors could not collect enough information to say what they were. [source]
Things often reported as UAP include windborne plastic bags, mylar balloons and birds, high-altitude research balloons, and ordinary aircraft seen from unusual angles. [source]
Official reporting and recording of UFO sightings in the UK began in the early 1950s. [source]
Until 1967 the UK Ministry of Defence destroyed its UFO files every five years, so many records were lost. Most surviving files have since been reviewed for release at The National Archives. [source]
NASA’s team said eyewitness reports can be interesting and compelling, but they aren’t reproducible and usually lack the information needed to reach firm conclusions. [source]
By 2023 the US government’s UAP office, AARO, had collected more than 800 reported events. [source]
The US National Weather Service launches hundreds of high-altitude balloons every day, and worldwide thousands are launched daily. [source]

Our verdict: Unidentified means unidentified. The official studies on this page found no evidence of visitors from elsewhere, and said the data are often too thin to say what was seen.

MAP ENCLOSEDThe Bermuda Triangle

Ships and planes “vanish” in ocean triangle

Our artist’s map. No official map marks the Triangle’s edges, which is lucky, because our reporter is holding this one upside down.

What was reported

Source of the account: Many reports since the 19th century, and the popular legend of the Triangle (as described by NOAA)

The Bermuda Triangle is a region of the western North Atlantic where ships, planes and people are alleged to have mysteriously vanished. [source]

The USS Cyclops went missing in the area of the Bermuda Triangle in March 1918. There were no survivors, and the wreck has never been found. [source]

What the evidence says

According to NOAA, there is no evidence that mysterious disappearances happen more often in the Bermuda Triangle than in any other large, well-travelled area of ocean. [source]
The US Navy and US Coast Guard say there are no supernatural explanations for disasters at sea there. [source]
Everyday explanations include the Gulf Stream, which can bring rapid, sometimes violent changes in weather, and many areas of shallow water around the Caribbean islands. [source]
There is some evidence that in the Bermuda Triangle a magnetic compass sometimes points to true north rather than magnetic north. [source]
The US Board on Geographic Names does not recognise “Bermuda Triangle” as an official name, and no official maps mark its boundaries. [source]

Our verdict: A busy stretch of sea with tricky weather and shallows, not one that swallows more than its share.

SPECIAL REPORTCrop circles

Mystery rings flatten English fields

Our artist’s impression: one plank, one rope, a lot of patience.

What was reported

Source of the account: Farmers and researchers in southern England, from the late 1970s (as described by Britannica)

From the late 1970s simple crop circles began to appear regularly in fields in Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset and Gloucestershire. They were made at night and grew more complex over the years. [source]

Some people who studied crop circles thought the plants looked bent but not broken, so no human could have made them: either an unknown natural phenomenon or extraterrestrials must be at work. [source]

What the evidence says

In 1991 Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, of Southampton, confessed to making more than 200 crop circles since the late 1970s, using nothing more complex than ropes and boards. [source]
Bower and Chorley were first inspired by a 1966 report from near Tully, Queensland, Australia, of a flying saucer that supposedly landed in a lagoon and left a flattened patch of reeds. [source]
Many crop circles have been proved to be the work of humans. [source]
A crop circle is a large geometric pattern of flattened crops, most often found in fields in southern England. [source]

Our verdict: At least some were planks, rope and a long night out. Plenty have been proved to be made by people.

STILL OPENBall lightning

Glowing ball of light seen drifting about

Our artist’s impression of a glowing ball seen through a window. Real ones are rarely caught on camera.

What was reported

Source of the account: More than 10,000 written accounts (as counted by the Royal Meteorological Society)

The Met Office describes ball lightning as an incredibly rare form of lightning in which a glowing white or coloured sphere is seen, lasting and moving about. [source]

What the evidence says

It is estimated that only about one lightning strike in a million produces ball lightning, yet there are more than 10,000 written accounts of it. [source]
The Met Office’s leading hypothesis is that the glowing sphere could be a bubble of glowing soil particles, formed when lightning hits the ground. [source]
Some scientists have studied ball lightning for decades and still aren’t sure whether it exists. Sceptics suggest it may be an after-image left on the eye by an ordinary lightning flash. [source]
One theory, the atmospheric maser theory, would still need to be reproduced in a laboratory before it could be confirmed. [source]

Our verdict: Case still open. Very rare, very hard to study and not yet explained for certain.

FROM THE ARCHIVEGhost ships

Ship found abandoned with nobody aboard

Our artist’s impression of a two-masted ship with nobody on deck. Not the real Mary Celeste.

What was reported

Source of the account: The crew of the brig Dei Gratia, December 1872 (as described by Britannica)

The Mary Celeste, an American brigantine, was found abandoned roughly 400 nautical miles from the Azores on 5 December 1872. [source]

She had left New York on 7 November 1872 for Genoa, Italy, carrying more than 1,700 barrels of alcohol, with 10 people on board, including Captain Briggs, his wife and their two-year-old daughter. [source]

The crew of the British brig Dei Gratia boarded her and found her deserted. The cargo and belongings were mostly undisturbed, but a longboat was missing. [source]

What the evidence says

The Dei Gratia’s crew sailed the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar, where British authorities investigated and found no evidence of foul play. [source]
The sounding rod, used to measure water in the hold, was found on deck, and one pump had been taken apart. A faulty reading and a poor pump could have led Captain Briggs to think the ship was sinking and order everyone off. [source]
The story became famous in 1884, when Arthur Conan Doyle published a short story about a ghost ship he called the Marie Celeste. It was pure fiction. [source]

Our verdict: No foul play was found. One likely story is a false alarm about water in the hold and a hasty exit in the longboat.

SIGHTINGCryptids · Loch Ness

Enormous animal crosses car’s path at Loch Ness

Our artist’s impression of a long neck on a calm loch, not a photograph. Our reporter watched for six hours before noticing his binoculars were on back to front.

What was reported

Source of the account: A couple driving by Loch Ness, April 1933, and the “surgeon’s photograph” of 1934 (as described by Britannica)

In April 1933 a couple near Loch Ness reported seeing an enormous animal, which they compared to a “dragon or prehistoric monster”. It crossed their car’s path and disappeared into the water. The story was reported in a Scottish newspaper, and many more sightings followed. [source]

In 1934 an English doctor, Robert Kenneth Wilson, photographed the alleged creature. His picture, known as the “surgeon’s photograph”, appeared to show the monster’s small head and neck. [source]

What the evidence says

Several sonar searches of Loch Ness, notably in 1987 and 2003, failed to find the creature. [source]
In 1994 the famous 1934 “surgeon’s photograph” was revealed as a hoax: the “monster” was a plastic-and-wood head fixed to a toy submarine. [source]
In 2018 researchers carried out a DNA survey of Loch Ness to find out what lives in its waters. They found no sign of a plesiosaur (an extinct marine reptile) or any other such large animal, but they did find lots of eels. That left open the possibility that the monster is an oversized eel. [source]

Our verdict: Sonar searches came up empty, the famous photograph was a toy submarine, and a 2018 DNA survey found no sign of a large animal, just a lot of eels. Case closed? Not quite: an oversized eel has not been ruled out.

TRACKS FOUNDCryptids · Sasquatch

Hairy giant reported in northwest forests

Our artist’s impression of a tall figure among the trees and a 60 cm footprint. Our reporter stood in it for scale and has been washing off the mud ever since.

What was reported

Source of the account: Claimed sightings and footprint finds in the northwestern United States and western Canada, since 1811 (as described by Britannica)

Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, is described as a two-legged primate 2 to 4.5 metres (6 to 15 feet) tall. Sightings have been claimed in forests of the northwestern United States and western Canada. [source]

Alleged Sasquatch footprints have measured up to about 60 cm (24 inches) long and 20 cm (8 inches) wide. [source]

The British explorer David Thompson is sometimes credited with finding the first set of Sasquatch footprints, in 1811. Hundreds of alleged prints have been put forward since. [source]

In 1924 five gold prospectors claimed a violent encounter with “gorilla men” in a gorge on Mount St. Helens, Washington, now called Ape Canyon. [source]

In 1967 Roger Patterson filmed what some believe was Sasquatch, at Bluff Creek, California. [source]

What the evidence says

The 1924 prospectors’ account was later discredited by US forest rangers, who proved that the footprints were fake. [source]
None of the photographs, films or other purported evidence of Sasquatch has been verified, and no investigator has produced a body. [source]
Most scientists do not recognise that the creature exists. It is thought to be a hoax or an animal, possibly a bear. [source]

Our verdict: Hundreds of footprints, a famous 1967 film and plenty of claimed sightings, but no body and no verified evidence. Most scientists think it is a hoax or an animal, possibly a bear.

INVESTIGATIONHauntings

Witnesses report sudden chills and a strong sense of presence

Our artist’s impression of an old building at dusk. Drawn from imagination, not from any real haunted house.

What was reported

Source of the account: Witnesses at reputedly haunted places, and volunteers in a 2003 study (as published in the British Journal of Psychology)

In cases of alleged hauntings, many seemingly trustworthy witnesses report the same kinds of things in certain places: apparitions, sudden changes in temperature and a strong sense of presence. [source]

What the evidence says

In a 2003 study, volunteers walked round Hampton Court Palace and Edinburgh’s South Bridge Vaults and noted where they felt anything unusual. They reported more unusual experiences in areas with a haunted reputation, whether or not they knew that reputation. [source]
Where people had those experiences matched things in the surroundings, such as changes in local magnetic fields and lighting levels. The researchers concluded that hauntings could be, at least in part, people responding to ordinary factors around them. [source]

Our verdict: The study does not prove or disprove ghosts. It shows that places themselves, their light and magnetic fields, can shape what people feel.

LATE NEWSEarthquake lights

Strange glows reported near earthquakes

Our artist’s impression of glows over a shaking landscape, with a power line that may be to blame.

What was reported

Source of the account: Witnesses near earthquakes, and local stories of the Summerville Light, South Carolina (as described by the USGS)

Sheet lightning, balls of light, streamers and steady glows reported around the time of earthquakes are called earthquake lights. [source]

What the evidence says

Geophysicists disagree about them: some doubt any report is solid evidence, while others think at least some reports plausibly are real earthquake lights. [source]
Some reported earthquake lights turned out to be electricity arcing from shaking power lines. [source]
Local ghost stories say a strange light near Summerville, South Carolina, is a lantern carried by a ghost. A 2025 study by Susan Hough of the USGS Earthquake Science Center suggests many, if not all, of the sightings are natural, including earthquake lights from quakes too small to feel. [source]

Our verdict: Experts still disagree, which is exactly why it is in this paper.

Be your own reporter

Next time you spot something odd in the sky, write down the time, the direction you were looking, how long it lasted and what the weather was doing, before you tell anyone what you think it was. Investigators say the trouble with most sightings is missing information. [source]

Books and kit for young reporters

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