Center for UFO Studies

06/01/2026

ON THIS DAY IN 1950. June 1, 1950. A pilot on patrol from RAF Tangmere in West Sussex, England, sights a “bright circular metallic object” that speeds past his Gloster Meteor jet fighter at 20,000 feet. As he undergoes a debriefing by squadron intelligence, he finds out that four RAF controllers at the radar station at RAF Wartling near Eastbourne have, at the same time, tracked an “unusual response” that vanishes from their screens, moving at terrific speed. Sources:https://cufos.org/PDFs/pdfs/UFOsandIntelligence.pdf =240

05/31/2026

ON THIS DAY IN 1969. May 31, 1969. The Midwest UFO Network (later Mutual UFO Network) is founded in Quincy, Illinois, by Walter H. Andrus Jr., who leaves APRO and takes many of its members with him. It is conceived as a grassroots organization with state and local leaders overseeing activities and investigations. Allen R. Utke, associate professor of chemistry at Wisconsin State University, is selected as the first MUFON Director.https://cufos.org/PDFs/pdfs/UFOsandIntelligence.pdf =731

05/30/2026

ON THIS DAY ON 1626. May 30, 1626. Morning. A catastrophic explosion takes place at the Wanggongchang Armory about 2 miles southwest of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, that reportedly kills around 20,000 people. The armory is one of the six gunpowder factories administered by the Ministry of Works in the Beijing area, and also one of the main storage facilities of armor, fi****ms, bows, ammunition, and gunpowder for the Shenjiying military division defending the capital.

Suddenly a loud roaring rumble is heard coming from northeast, gradually reaching southwest of the city, followed by dust clouds and the shaking of houses. Then a bright streak of flash containing a “great light” follows and a huge bang that “shattered the sky and crumbled the earth” occurs. The sky turns dark, and everything within about 1.5 square miles is utterly obliterated. The streets are unrecognizable, littered with fragmented pieces and showered with falling roof tiles.

The force of the explosion is so great that large trees are uprooted and found to be thrown as far as the rural Miyun district on the opposite side of the city, and a stone lion weighing about 3 metric tons is thrown over the city wall. The noise of the blast is heard as far as Tongzhou to the east, Hexiwu to the south, and Miyun and Changping to the north, and tremblings are felt over 93 miles away in Zunhua, Xuanhua, Tianjin, Datong, and Guangling. The ground around the immediate vicinity of the armory sinks more than 21 feet, but there is a notable lack of fire damage.

The clouds over the epicenter are reported to be strange: Some look like messy strands of silk, some are multicolored, while some resemble a black lingzhi mushroom (Ganoderma) rising into the sky. The clouds do not disperse until hours later. The cause of the explosion has never been conclusively determined, and some historians suspect that the account is exaggerated. Hypotheses include a gunpowder explosion, a meteoric air burst, a natural gas explosion, and even a volcanic eruption. Sources:https://cufos.org/PDFs/pdfs/UFOsandIntelligence.pdf =5

05/29/2026

ON THIS DAY IN 1985. May 29, 1985. 2:10 a.m. S. Gallaway, Chief Officer of the tanker Entalina, observes the onset of a strange bioluminescent display surrounding the ship in the Java Sea about 90 miles north of Bali. He first perceives it as bands of pulsing light moving rapidly in multiple directions, giving the impression that the vessel is being “attacked” from all sides. The light appears as a dull, strobe-like effect flashing through a mist, with a grainy, dirty white to gray coloration rather than a smooth glow. The bands are roughly 6½ feet wide and spaced about 6½ feet apart, moving at high speed.

At first, it is unclear whether the lights are in the water or just above the surface, as there is no visible reflection or distortion against the ship’s hull, though he ultimately concludes the phenomenon is waterborne since nothing appears in the ship’s wake. The most intense activity occurs on the starboard side, where the bands stretch out to the horizon in a vast, non-localized field of interacting light.

As he continues observing, Gallaway becomes aware that the pulses seem to match the rhythm of the ship’s engine—about two pulses per second. He has the ship’s radar and echo sounder temporarily switched off to test for interference, but the phenomenon remains unchanged. The water depth at the time is about 210 feet. Shortly afterward, the ship passes a more localized formation about 500 feet away. This appears as a rotating system resembling a spinning firework wheel, casting out angular waves of light. The formation seems to rotate clockwise along the ship’s path, with at least three radiating “spokes,” though the exact number is difficult to determine due to the rapid pulsations. No central hub is visible, only a dark, inactive area at its center. Additional similar rotating systems are faintly visible farther out to starboard. Sources:https://cufos.org/PDFs/pdfs/UFOsandIntelligence.pdf =1037

05/28/2026

ON THIS DAY IN 1948. May 28, 1948. 3:00 p.m. USAF Reserve 1st Lt. Alexander Kokolonis is flying a C-47 at 6,000 feet six miles east of Monroe, Michigan, when he sees out of the navigator’s window three discs 2 miles to the left. He estimates they are 300–400 feet in diameter, silvery-gold, and traveling well over 500 mph. They are seen for only 10–15 seconds. Shortly afterwards, Kokolonis sees two similar objects and he alerts M/Sgt Ernest Davis Jr., who also sees them. Sources:https://cufos.org/PDFs/pdfs/UFOsandIntelligence.pdf =191

05/27/2026

ON THIS DAY IN 1949. May 27, 1949. 2:25 p.m. Pilot and businessman Joseph Shell, ferrying an SNJ trainer for North American Aviation from Red Bluff, California, to Burns, Oregon, sees 5–8 oval objects, twice as long as wide and one-fifth as thick, around Hart Mountain, Oregon. They fly in trail formation, with an interval equal to 3–4 times their length, except that the second and third are closer together. Sources:https://cufos.org/PDFs/pdfs/UFOsandIntelligence.pdf =215

05/27/2026

A couple independent researchers have noted that the Department of Defense quietly replaced as many as 70 of the files in the first release of PURSUE documents, some of them getting renamed in the process. The replacements may have been for benign reasons (standardization, classification review, technical corrections, or duplicate removal), but the procedure was not announced. https://usaherald.com/the-government-published-161-ufo-files-three-days-later-some-were-gone-what-was-in-the-ufo-files-before-they-were-quietly-replaced-overnight/

05/26/2026

ON THIS DAY IN 1987. May 26, 1987. 9:30–10:15 p.m. More than 100 people around Newtown and Southbury, Connecticut, see a low-flying, silent, circular formation of lights that passes over Interstate 84, causing many cars to pull over for a look and some to lose power. Commercial airline pilot Randy Etting sees the lights as he is driving along I-94. He pulls off the road and snaps a photo of the formation. He is sure there is a solid object behind the lights. Sources:https://cufos.org/PDFs/pdfs/UFOsandIntelligence.pdf =1050

05/25/2026

ON THIS DAY IN 1971. May 25, 1971. 10:45 p.m. Eunice Rose, a 36-year-old housewife from Hinckley, is driving alone from Odstone, Leicestershire, England, back to her home. As she travels along a country road near Belchar’s Bar, she sees a glowing light in the sky. At first, she assumes it’s headlights from a vehicle in a ditch—but the glow persists. After she turns right onto the A447 toward Hinckley, about half a mile down, her car begins to lose power. The engine sputters, the headlights dim, and her transistor radio cuts out completely. At the same time, a large bright object—about the size of a double-decker bus (roughly 30–35 feet long)—crosses over the road directly above her car, lighting up the interior but not the surrounding landscape. Rose describes the object as moving smoothly and silently. As it passes overhead, she feels the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Once the object moves about 330 feet away, her car’s systems return to normal: the headlights brighten, the radio comes back on, and the engine starts running properly again. Sources:https://cufos.org/PDFs/pdfs/UFOsandIntelligence.pdf =751

05/25/2026

And now for something completely different: the poetry of Gray Barker.

Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.