Uncanny Atlas
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Everything in the atlas

Every published entry, A to Z. Each one says what kind of claim it is.

179 entries · page 3 of 4
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Documented
The Heaven's Gate house in Rancho Santa Fe
On 26 March 1997 police found 39 members of Heaven's Gate dead in a house near San Diego, timed to a comet's approach.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 1 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Hillsdale swamp gas sighting
On 21 March 1966, residents of a Hillsdale College dormitory in Michigan reported flashing lights over the campus arboretum, and the sighting drew the interest of Congressman Ford.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Hollywood Sign and Peg Entwistle
The Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles, where British actress Peg Entwistle died by suicide in 1932. Hikers and others have since said they saw her ghost near it.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
The Island of the Dolls
A small island in the Xochimilco canals just outside Mexico City where Julian Santana Barrera hung dolls by the hundreds. Many people say it is haunted.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 3 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Jersey Devil sightings of 1909
Newspapers reported hundreds of Jersey Devil encounters across South Jersey and around Philadelphia in the week of 16 to 23 January 1909, including one in Camden.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 1 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Kecksburg UFO
On December 9, 1965, a fireball crossed the sky and witnesses in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, said an object came down in the woods near town. Searchers reported finding nothing; Skeptoid's Brian Dunning says the fireball was a natural meteor.
Something SeenObscurity 1 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter
A report from August 1955, from a farmhouse at Kelly, near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where the family said small beings attacked them for hours.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 1 of 7
Disputed
The Kelso B-25 crash
On 1 August 1947 a B-25 carrying two Army Air Forces officers crashed near Kelso, Washington. Both died. They had been investigating the Maury Island sighting.
Something ToldObscurity 3 of 7
Disputed
The Kentucky meat shower
In March 1876 flakes of what looked like beef fell from a clear sky near Olympian Springs, Bath County, Kentucky, over a strip of ground about 100 yards long.
Something Left BehindObscurity 1 of 7
Folklore
The KiMo Theatre ghost
A ghost story told about the KiMo Theatre on Central Avenue in Albuquerque, New Mexico, built around a six-year-old boy who died there in a 1951 explosion.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
The Kinross incident
On 23 November 1953 a US Air Force jet sent to check an unknown radar target over Lake Superior merged with it on radar and the jet disappeared.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Documented
The L-8 ghost blimp
The Navy airship L-8 lifted off from Treasure Island on 16 August 1942 with two crewmen and came down in Daly City, California, with both men gone.
Something SeenObscurity 6 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Levelland UFO sightings
On the roads around the small town of Levelland, drivers reported a glowing object and dead engines through the night of 2 to 3 November 1957. Officials blamed ball lightning.
Something SeenObscurity 4 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Lubbock Lights
Lights in formation seen over Lubbock in 1951, first by three Texas Tech professors and later by a young photographer, Carl Hart.
Something SeenObscurity 3 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Mantell UFO incident
Captain Thomas Mantell, a Kentucky Air National Guard pilot, died on 7 January 1948 when his fighter crashed while he was chasing an unidentified object over Kentucky.
Something SeenObscurity 3 of 7
Disputed
The Mattoon gasser
On 31 August 1944 a Mattoon, Illinois couple reported a strange smell, sickness and a paralysed wife, the first of the gasser incidents.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
The Menehune
In Hawaiian tradition the Menehune are a small, very active people who finished any work in a single night. Old stonework, including the Kīkīaola ditch on Kauaʻi, is credited to them.
Provenance · Living tradition
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Moran gang garage shooting, Chicago
Seven men were shot dead in a Chicago garage on 14 February 1929. After the building came down in 1967, stories grew up around its bricks.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 3 of 7
Hoax, proven
The Morristown UFO hoax
Red lights floated over Morristown, New Jersey, from 5 January 2009. Two local men later said they had launched them as a hoax.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Mothman sightings at Point Pleasant
On 15 November 1966 two couples from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, told police they had seen a large winged creature near a former munitions plant.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 1 of 7
Folklore
The Myrtles Plantation mirror
A mirror at the Myrtles Plantation said to trap Sara Woodruff and two children, part of a poisoning story that Wikipedia and Troy Taylor say the records don't support.
Something Left BehindObscurity 1 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Nash-Fortenberry sighting
Two Pan American pilots reported eight objects flying in formation over Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, on the night of 14 July 1952.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Nimitz Tic Tac UFO
An object Navy pilots from the USS Nimitz say they saw and filmed off Southern California in November 2004. The Department of Defense officially released the video in 2020.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 2 of 7
Claimed sighting
The O'Hare Airport UFO sighting
On 7 November 2006, United Airlines workers at O'Hare Airport in Chicago reported a spinning disk hanging below the clouds over Concourse C.
Something SeenObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
The Palatine Light of Block Island
A ship carrying emigrants from Rotterdam wrecked on Block Island, Rhode Island, in December 1738. A ghost-ship legend grew from the wreck, and tellers say a burning ship appears each year.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 6 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Pascagoula abduction
Two shipyard workers, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, said they were taken aboard a craft while fishing on the Pascagoula River in Mississippi on 11 October 1973.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 2 of 7
Disputed
The Patterson-Gimlin film
Bob Gimlin and Roger Patterson say they filmed a Bigfoot near Bluff Creek on 20 October 1967, in a clip of 59.5 seconds.
Something SeenObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
The Philadelphia Experiment
A story says the Navy made a destroyer escort vanish around 28 October 1943. It traces to letters written after 1955.
Something ToldObscurity 1 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Phoenix Lights
Hundreds of witnesses reported lights over Phoenix, Arizona, on the night of March 13, 1997. Skeptics trace them to Air National Guard training flights.
Something SeenObscurity 1 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Pictou Harbour yellow fall
On a still June night a yellow substance fell by the bucketful onto a ship in Pictou Harbour, Nova Scotia. Tests reported in the American Journal of Science suggested to one Mr. Blake that it might be insect eggs.
Something SeenObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The RB-47 radar encounter
On 17 July 1957 a six-man Air Force crew flying an RB-47 reported an unidentified object that followed the aircraft for over 700 miles from Mississippi to Oklahoma. The Condon Committee listed the case as unidentified.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Roswell incident
In June 1947 rancher W. W. "Mac" Brazel found a field of wreckage on his land northwest of Roswell, New Mexico. Stories of a crashed saucer and its crew grew around it; two later Air Force reports traced the debris to balloon research.
Something Left BehindObscurity 1 of 7
Disputed
The SS Cotopaxi distress call
The coal steamer SS Cotopaxi sailed for Havana on 29 November 1925 and sent a distress call on 1 December. A wreck identified in 2020 places its loss off Florida, away from the Bermuda Triangle.
Something ToldObscurity 6 of 7
Disputed
The Salem Coast Guard UFO photograph
On 16 July 1952 two Coast Guard men at Salem reported bright lights outside a window, and one photographed them. Investigators later blamed reflections.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Sallie House
A house in Atchison, Kansas, where tenants Tony and Debra Pickman reported strange events after moving in during 1993. A local story links it to a 6-year-old girl called Sallie.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 1 of 7
Disputed
The Seaford poltergeist
From 3 February 1958, a family in Seaford, Long Island, reported broken objects and bottles opening and spilling in their home. Police, reporters and parapsychologists looked into it.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 5 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Shag Harbour UFO
Witnesses at Shag Harbour, Canada, reported lights they took for a crashing plane and called the RCMP. Searchers later found that no aircraft was missing.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 1 of 7
Disputed
The Silver Bridge collapse and Mothman
On 15 December 1967 the Silver Bridge at Point Pleasant, West Virginia, collapsed into the Ohio River in rush-hour traffic and 46 people died. Author John Keel later tied the collapse to the Mothman sightings.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
The Skookum cast
On 22 September 2000, members of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization found a large body imprint in mud at Skookum Meadows, Washington. They read it as a Bigfoot; skeptics read it as an elk.
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The Smurl haunting
Jack and Janet Smurl said demons tormented their family in a duplex in West Pittston, Pennsylvania. They went public in 1986 and drew in Ed and Lorraine Warren. A critic, Kurtz, called the affair a hoax.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 2 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Socorro UFO (Lonnie Zamora)
Socorro, New Mexico, police officer Lonnie Zamora reported a flame overhead and a landed object outside town on April 24, 1964.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 2 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Stanley Hotel
A hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, opened in 1909, where guests say they sense a former housekeeper in room 217. Mental Floss ties a 1974 night Stephen King spent there to The Shining.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 1 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Stephenville lights
On 8 January 2008, dozens of Stephenville, Texas, residents reported bright lights overhead after dark. The Air Force later said F-16s had been flying in the area.
Something SeenObscurity 4 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Stratford knockings
From 10 March 1850, the house of Eliakim Phelps in Stratford, Connecticut, was the scene of disturbances that his family reported for eight months.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 6 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Sunnyvale Toys "R" Us ghost
A Toys "R" Us store in Sunnyvale, California, where staff told of items flying off shelves and taps running on their own. Psychic Sylvia Browne said she contacted a farmhand's ghost there.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 4 of 7
Hoax, proven
The Tonawanda ghost hoax
In 1920 ghost reports in Tonawanda and North Tonawanda drew crowds. On 14 June police said local business people had invented them.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Travis Walton abduction
In November 1975 forestry worker Travis Walton was picked up at a phone booth in Heber, Arizona, days after a reported abduction, and later described being aboard a spaceship.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 1 of 7
Folklore
The Tuniit
In Inuit oral history, the Tuniit are a people who lived in the Arctic before the Inuit. The Canadian Encyclopedia says many take them to be the Dorset, a people known from archaeology.
Provenance · Living tradition
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Documented
The U.S. government UAP reports
Reports by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (2021) and the Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (2024) on unidentified aerial phenomena, mostly seen by military aviators.
Something Left BehindObscurity 2 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Wanaque Reservoir sightings
On 11 January 1966 police and residents around the Wanaque Reservoir in New Jersey reported a glowing object that hovered and circled for over an hour.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 6 of 7