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.

574 entries · page 6 of 12
Claimed sighting
The Baltic Sea anomaly
A shape on a side-scan sonar image of the Baltic seabed, reported in 2011 by Ocean X, a group of treasure hunters, and hailed in some quarters as a sunken UFO. A Stockholm geologist who examined rock samples from the site linked it to glacial processes.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Barmanou
A creature somewhere between ape and wild man, reported by shepherds in the mountains of northern Pakistan.
Something SeenObscurity 6 of 7
Disputed
The Battle of Los Angeles
An anti-aircraft barrage over Los Angeles on the night of February 24 to 25, 1942, fired at a rumored Japanese air raid. Five civilians died during the night.
Something SeenObscurity 2 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Beast of Bladenboro
In December 1953 and January 1954 dead dogs turned up around Bladenboro, and talk of a vampire-like beast spread.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Becker family haunting
Ed Becker's account of a haunted family home that led, in his telling, to an exorcism broadcast by NBC in 1971, the basis of his books and a Screen Gems film project.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 6 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Belgian UFO wave
From November 1989, starting near Eupen, people in Belgium reported large triangular objects flying low and silent, in a wave of sightings that ran until 1991.
Something SeenObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
The Bermuda Triangle
A stretch of the western Atlantic between Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico, described in a 1964 magazine article as a zone where ships and planes vanish. Losses linked to it include the five bombers of Flight 19 in 1945; the U.S. Coast Guard and NOAA say the losses there have ordinary physical causes.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Bernardo de Gálvez portrait
A painting of Bernardo de Gálvez, a Spanish general, that hangs in Galveston's Hotel Galvez in Texas. Local folklore says photographs of it fail unless you ask his permission first.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The Big Lake Park fireball
On 17 December 1977 three people in Council Bluffs, Iowa, saw a reddish fireball fall into Big Lake Park, where firefighters found molten metal.
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Black Prince's Ruby
A large red spinel, long called a ruby, set in the Imperial State Crown of England at the Tower of London, which Wikipedia's list of allegedly cursed objects says brings misfortune to its owners.
Something Left BehindObscurity 5 of 7
Folklore
The Blarney Stone
A limestone block set into the battlements at Blarney Castle near Cork, Ireland, which visitors kiss in the belief that it gives them a gift for persuasive speech.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
The Bloop
A loud underwater sound picked up by underwater sensors in the South Pacific in 1997. NOAA now attributes it to an icequake, the noise of a large iceberg cracking apart.
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The Bluff Creek footprints
On 27 August 1958 a bulldozer operator named Jerry Crew found oversized footprints beside his machine on a logging road in California's Six Rivers National Forest. In 2002 Wallace's family said Wallace had made them.
Something Left BehindObscurity 4 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Boianai UFO sightings
On the evenings of 26 and 27 June 1959, Father William Booth Gill and mission parishioners at Boianai, Papua, reported UFOs and human-like figures. A later study proposes bright planets seen through cloud.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 6 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Bothell Hell House
A house in Bothell, Washington, where Keith Linder says he lived with poltergeist activity from 2012 to 2016.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
The Boyington Oak
Charles Boyington was hanged on 20 February 1835 for the murder of his roommate Frost. Before his death he said an oak would grow from his grave as proof of his innocence.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 6 of 7
Disputed
The Brixton iron spheroid
After a violent thunderstorm on 17 August 1887, a round lump of iron about two inches across turned up in a Brixton garden. The chemist who tested it could not match it to meteorites.
Something Left BehindObscurity 5 of 7
Documented
The Brocken goat experiment
On 17 June 1932, psychic researcher Harry Price staged a ritual on the Brocken in Germany's Harz Mountains. The aim was a goat transformed into a young man, and reporters were invited.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall
A ghost said to walk Raynham Hall in Norfolk, known from 19th-century sightings and from a 1936 Country Life photograph of a veiled figure on the stairs.
Something SeenObscurity 2 of 7
Documented
The Brown v. Spofford mesmerism trial
In Salem, Massachusetts, in May 1878, a court heard a complaint that Spofford was using mesmerism to harm Lucretia Brown. Mary Baker Eddy and 21 followers came to testify.
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Busby Stoop chair
A chair shown at Thirsk Museum and linked by legend to Thomas Busby, who was hanged for murder in 1702, though a furniture historian dated it to 1840.
Something Left BehindObscurity 2 of 7
Disputed
The Bélmez faces
María Gómez Cámara said that on 23 August 1971 a human face formed on the concrete floor of her kitchen in Bélmez. More faces followed.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 3 of 7
Disputed
The Canterbury Moon sighting
Five witnesses from Canterbury told the chronicler Gervase that on 18 June 1178 the Moon's upper horn split and threw out fire. A later geophysicist proposed an impact on the Moon.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Hoax, proven
The Cardiff Giant confession
On 10 December 1869 Hull told the press that the Cardiff Giant was a fake. Yale's Othniel C. Marsh had already denounced it, but visitors still turned up.
Something Left BehindObscurity 3 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Carl Higdon encounter
Carl Higdon, an oil well driller, said he met a being named Ausso while elk hunting in Wyoming on 25 October 1974, and was taken to another planet.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 3 of 7
Disputed
The Carroll A. Deering
A five-masted schooner found aground on Diamond Shoals, off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in January 1921 with her sails set and no one aboard. Five U.S. government departments investigated and reached no official explanation.
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Cash-Landrum incident
Betty Cash, Vicki Landrum and Landrum's young grandson said a diamond-shaped object spouting flames hovered over a Texas road near Dayton in December 1980. They later reported illnesses they linked to it.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
The Cecil Hotel
A downtown Los Angeles hotel known above all for the 2013 death of guest Elisa Lam, which the coroner ruled an accidental drowning.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 2 of 7
Disputed
The Chiles-Whitted encounter
Two airline pilots reported a glowing object passing their plane near Montgomery, Alabama, at about 2:45 am on 24 July 1948.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The Chinese seals of Ireland
J. Huband Smith described to the Royal Irish Academy a set of Chinese seals found in Ireland, all alike, each a cube with a seated animal on top.
Something Left BehindObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
The Christmas Eve 1909 airship and Lovecraft's Venus
The mystery airship drew reports across eastern Massachusetts near Christmas Eve 1909. In Providence, H. P. Lovecraft said a crowd was watching Venus.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Christmas Tree Ship Rouse Simmons
The schooner Rouse Simmons, carrying Christmas trees to Chicago, was lost with her crew on 23 November 1912.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
The Cock Lane ghost trial
On 10 July 1762 five people stood trial at the Guildhall in London, on a conspiracy charge brought by William Kent, over the Cock Lane ghost affair.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Folklore
The Cocoanut Grove fire and its ghost stories
The Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston on 28 November 1942 killed 492 people. Later ghost stories about the site are told as local legend.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 3 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Colares UFO wave (Operação Prato)
In 1977 residents of Colares, in the Brazilian state of Pará, reported lights in the sky said to suck people's blood. The Brazilian Air Force sent a team to investigate in what became known as Operação Prato.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Documented
The Condon Report
A University of Colorado study of UFOs, paid for by the Air Force and led by the physicist Edward Condon, with results out by 1968. It found that UFO research had added nothing to science.
Something Left BehindObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
The Conjured Chest
A hand-carved chest held by the Kentucky Historical Society since 1976, which one family said carried a curse laid after the enslaved man who made it was beaten to death.
Something Left BehindObscurity 4 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Conjuring House
A farmhouse outside Burrillville, Rhode Island, where the Perron family said they lived with apparitions and physical attacks from 1970 or 1971. Ed and Lorraine Warren's investigation of it became the basis for the film The Conjuring.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 1 of 7
Folklore
The Count of St Germain's death record
A church register in Eckernforde records the Count of St Germain's death on 27 February 1784. Later writers say he never died.
Something ToldObscurity 3 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Coyne helicopter incident
On 18 October 1973 the crew of an Army helicopter near Mansfield, Ohio, reported a red light converging on them. Philip Klass later said the object was a fireball from the Orionid meteor shower.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 6 of 7
Folklore
The Crying Boy painting
Prints of a painting of a weeping child, sold in department stores, that were blamed for house fires in the 1980s, including one in Rotherham reported by The Sun.
Something Left BehindObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
The Culloden anniversary ghosts
The Battle of Culloden was fought on 16 April 1746 on Culloden Moor, and press accounts say reenacting ghosts gather there each anniversary. Reports also describe a Highlander who whispers "defeated".
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 6 of 7
Folklore
The Curupira
The curupira is a forest guardian of Brazilian folklore, said to have backward-turned feet that throw off anyone tracking it. It has become a conservation symbol, most recently the mascot of COP 30 in Belém.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The Davenport Brothers riot in Liverpool
At a show in the small concert room of St George's Hall, Liverpool, in February 1865, the audience tied the Davenport Brothers into their cabinet. A riot followed and the cabinet was smashed.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 5 of 7
Hoax, proven
The Davenport Tablets
On 10 January 1877 Jacob Gass dug two engraved slate tablets from a mound at Cook Farm near Davenport, Iowa. A later study concluded that Academy members likely planted them as a joke on him.
Something Left BehindObscurity 6 of 7
Folklore
The Dead Mother by Edvard Munch
A single 1899 version of Edvard Munch's Death and the Child, also titled The Dead Mother, which an urban legend says is cursed.
Something Left BehindObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
The Defenestration of Prague survival legend
On 23 May 1618 Protestant nobles threw Catholic officials from a window of Prague Castle. Each side later gave rival explanations for why they survived.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
The Demon House of Gary, Indiana
A rental house on Carolina Street in Gary, Indiana, where tenant Latoya Ammons said demons had possessed her and her three children. The Indianapolis Star reported its demolition in 2016.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 4 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Denison saucer report
On 25 January 1878 the Denison Daily News printed a farmer's account of a flying object near Denison, Texas, said to look like a saucer.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Hoax, proven
The Depok babi ngepet hoax (2021)
In April 2021 a video of a wild boar being put into a cage drew crowds of residents in Bedahan, Sawangan, Depok, as a babi ngepet. Police declared it a hoax and arrested the organiser, a local religious teacher, whom a court sentenced to four years in prison.
Something ToldObscurity 1 of 7