Since the dawn of time, and all around the world, human beings have looked up to the sky in awe and wonder to find craft and objects that they could not identify.
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With Kenneth Arnold's ufo sighting over Mount Rainier, just a month before the Roswell crash in 1947, flying saucers or UFOs, as they had become known, had entered modern pop culture.
Science-fiction UFO image
In the decades since, a multitude of witnesses have come forward to relay their experiences, sometimes horrifying, sometimes wondrous, of unknown craft in the skies and the beings who pilot them.
Below, we’ll take a look at four examples of the world’s best UFO sightings ever.
1. The Incident in Rendlesham Forest
Known as Britain’s Roswell for the scope, magnitude, and witnesses involved in the case, the incident in Rendlesham Forrest began the evening after Christmas in 1980.
That's when a security patrol at the nearby Woodbridge Royal Air Force Base reported a series of lights descending into the forest. When the servicemen attempted to approach the initial light, now hovering above the forest floor, it darted through the trees, evading them, and terrifying the animals on a neighboring farm.
The Rendlesham forest incident (Reconstruction)
By the time local police showed up the lights had vanished but not before leaving a series of burns and indentions on the ground. That's not the end of the Rendlesham tale.
The lights returned just two days later, on December 28th 1980, during an early morning investigation of the previous events by deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt.
While taking radiation samples of the indentions left by the lights, Lt. Col. Halt reported spotting a flashing light across the open field that led to the neighboring farm house.
Three lights were reported by Lt. Col. Halt during the course of the incident, also stating that the brightest of the three shot down a beam of light from time to time. In total, the objects hovered for two to three hours, all of which is documented on Lt. Col. Halt’s personal recorder.
2. The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill
Not all stories of encounters with UFOs are solely with the craft themselves, and during the late 1950s a disturbing phenomenon began emerging throughout the world that seems to have been going on for as long as humanity has dwelled on Earth: abductions by the occupants of UFOs.
The case that would bring the abduction phenomenon into inspection by the public eye would be the September 1961 incident involving Betty and Barney Hill.
While driving back to their home in Portsmouth from a vacation to Niagara Falls, the Hills reported witnessing what they initially believed to be a shooting star but quickly realized was a massive UFO, when the craft repeatedly descended toward them, at one point forcing Barney to stop their car in the center of the road when the craft hovered 80 to 100 feet over the Chevrolet Bel Air, filling the entire windshield.
When Barney left the car and spotted a group of humanoid beings watching them from the craft’s windows, that's when he said he was overcome by the feeling they were about to beforcibly taken aboard the flying saucer. Racing back to the car and warning Betty of their impending capture, the couple tore away at high speeds, watching overhead for the UFO.
Soon after attempting their escape the Hill’s report hearing a series of rhythmic buzzing sounds and felt a tingling sensation throughout their bodies. A second series of beeps aroused the Hill’s froman altered state of consciousness they weren't aware they had entered, finding they had traveled 35 miles south with only vague memories of this portion of the road.
Ten days after the incident, Betty began having vivid dreams of the bizarre experiments the occupants of the UFO had conducted on them during their period of missing time. Through hypnosis, both Betty and Barney recall being placed under examination and physical study by the odd inhabitants of the flying saucer.
3. The Ariel School Landing
On a September morning in 1994, the students of the Ariel school in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, reported that a flying saucer had landed on campus. The students, ranging from 5-12 years old, reported that a series of three UFOs were seen in the area before one of them landed and a tiny being approached them.
The school officials were in a meeting at the time, leaving the majority of the students under the supervision of only one adult who was running the snack bar at the time, leading many to doubt the claims of the students.
However, when Cynthia Hind, known as Africa’s foremost UFO researcher, began investigating the case the next day, she was astonished to find the students reports identical and drawings of the craft and its occupants to be incredibly similar. Twenty years later, when a selection of students were interviewed about the incident their stories remained identical in nature.
4. The Strange Case of Travis Walton
In another odd tale of abduction by flying saucer, a logger from Arizona by the name of Travis Walton claims to have been taken aboard an unknown craft and experimented and tested on by theoccupants.
On the evening of November 5th, 1975, while riding with six co-workers, Travis reports the group of loggers encountered a UFO hovering approximately 100 feet away making a similar buzzing noise as that reported during the Hill’s abduction.
Walton claims he left the truck and approached the craft when he was hit with a beam of light, knocking him to the ground. The other six men reportedly fled in terror upon seeing the object strike down Walton.
After missing for five days, Walton reports finding himself walking naked along a highway with the flying saucer departing over him. The seven men, including Walton, all took, and passed, polygraph lie detectortests, and under hypnosis Travis began to remember the strange events that took place in his five days spent aboard the UFO.
Final considerations:
Even though the four outstanding cases discussed above are perhaps the best UFO sightings ever, and most renowned, thousands more, of varying degree of oddity, witnesses, and intensity, have continued to take place en masse, daily, around the world.
For our entire existence as a species we have gazed into the heavens to find unexplained craft staring back. Are these real sightings? And if so, where do they come from? What do they want? And when will the next astounding incident occur and take a place on the incredible list of best UFO sightings ever?
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