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 8 of 12
Claimed sighting
The Kaikōura lights
Lights filmed off Kaikōura, New Zealand, at the end of December 1978 from a newspaper plane carrying a television crew, after earlier sightings from an aircraft that radar also tracked. Officials suggested fishing-boat lights and planets but gave no firm answer.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Kattenau luminous bodies
Half an hour before sunrise on 22 March 1880, a great many bright points of light rose over Kattenau, Germany, and crossed the sky east to west in a narrow band.
Something SeenObscurity 5 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 Cahill encounter
Kelly Cahill said she saw a hovering craft and beings on a road near Melbourne on the night of 7-8 August 1993. Sources give both dates.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 4 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
Claimed sighting
The Knowles family Nullarbor encounter
A family said a glowing object lifted their car on the Nullarbor Plain in January 1988. Sources differ on whether the date was 20 or 21 January.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Koh-i-Noor diamond
A 105.6-carat diamond in the British Crown Jewels, said to bring bad luck to men who wear it, whose ownership is disputed.
Something Left BehindObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
The Kyshtym disaster
A 1957 accident at the Mayak nuclear facility in the Southern Urals that spread radioactive fallout and led to mass evacuations. It was kept secret, and the regional press guessed that the glow seen in the sky on 29 September was the northern lights.
Something SeenObscurity 7 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 Lagarfljót Worm
The Lagarfljót Worm is a creature said to live in Lagarfljót lake in northeast Iceland. Annals first mention it in 1345; in 2012 a video of it was published and the local municipality set up a committee to decide whether it is real.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The Lakenheath-Bentwaters radar incident
On the night of 13 August 1956, radar operators at RAF Bentwaters and RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk tracked fast targets. Much of the detailed account comes from a later letter by a watch supervisor.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 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 Little Girl in Red (Taiwan)
A Taiwanese urban legend that began with a home video of a family outing in Taichung in March 1998, broadcast on a TV paranormal show. A figure in red at the back of the group later became the subject of a 2015 film.
Something SeenObscurity 5 of 7
Folklore
The Livonian Christmas werewolves
Men changed into wolves gather on Christmas night, attack people and animals, and lay siege to houses standing alone in the woods.
Something ToldObscurity 2 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
Folklore
The Lydian Hoard (Karun Treasure)
A treasure dug illegally from burial mounds in Uşak Province, Turkey, bought for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and said by some in Uşak to carry a curse on the men who dug it up.
Something Left BehindObscurity 6 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Mande Burung
A large, hairy, ape-like creature said to live in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya. A tourism society was looking into new reports in 2007.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Manises UFO incident
On 11 November 1979 a Spanish airliner carrying 109 passengers made an emergency landing at Manises, Valencia, after its crew reported being pursued by unidentified objects.
Something SeenObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The Mansi Champ photograph
Sandra Mansi took a photograph on 5 July 1977 that shows what looks like a long-necked animal rising from a lake, the picture behind the Champ story.
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 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
Folklore
The Mapinguari
The mapinguari is a large, hairy forest monster of Amazonian folk belief. The zoologist David Oren argued it may preserve a memory of giant ground sloths, an idea other scientists opposed.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Marlborough skeleton ship report
In October 1913 newspapers reported that the ship Marlborough had been found with the skeletons of her crew on board. The reports placed the find near Cape Horn or in the Strait of Magellan.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Marseilles round body on the sun
Two observers some distance apart in Marseilles each saw an unknown round body at the same point on the sun's edge.
Something SeenObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The Mary Celeste
A brigantine found drifting in the Atlantic off the Azores on 4 December 1872 with nobody aboard. None of the ten who sailed on her, the captain's wife and two-year-old daughter among them, was seen or heard of again.
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 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 Maya 2012 doomsday prediction
The date 21 December 2012 drew predictions of cataclysm, because a cycle of the Maya Long Count calendar ended then. NASA said the idea of a Maya prophecy of the world's end rested on a misconception.
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 Mercy Brown exhumations
On 17 March 1892, relatives and neighbours of the Brown family dug up family graves in a church graveyard, looking for a vampire they believed was harming the living.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 2 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Min Min light
A light reported by people in the Australian outback. Stories about it exist in several Aboriginal cultures, and in 2003 a University of Queensland scientist said he had worked out its cause.
Provenance · Living tradition
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Mjosa ghost rocket
In July 1946 witnesses in Norway reported a rocket-like object crashing into Lake Mjosa. Accounts differ on whether it happened at night or at noon on 18 July.
Something SeenObscurity 6 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Moberly-Jourdain Trianon adventure
Two English women, C. A. E. Moberly and E. F. Jourdain, said that a strange experience befell them on 10 August 1901 in the grounds of the Petit Trianon, Versailles. They published their account in 1911 as An Adventure.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Moffitt family haunting
A haunting the Moffitt family says they lived with from 1987 to 1992, told publicly by Jessica Moffitt in a 2022 essay and since bought for adaptation by Blumhouse.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
The Molebka anomalous zone
An area near the village of Molyobka in Perm Krai, Russia, built up by the tabloid press in 1989 and 1990. Ufologists say paranormal events happen there and visitors can make contact with aliens.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Mongolian death worm
The Mongolian death worm, or olgoi-khorkhoi, is a deadly worm described to the zoologist Roy Chapman Andrews on his Mongolian expedition, in an account first printed in English in 1922. Expeditions to the Gobi have looked for it and found nothing.
Something ToldObscurity 1 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Monkey Man of Delhi
In 2001 residents of New Delhi reported a monkey-like attacker roaming at night. Wikipedia counts over 350 reported sightings and about 60 injuries.
Something SeenObscurity 3 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
Disputed
The Muhnochwa
In 2002 a rumoured face-scratching prowler caused panic in northern India. Doctors called it mass hysteria, and riots and lynchings followed.
Before you read on. More than a dozen people were killed in the riots and lynchings that followed the attacks, according to Outside magazine.
Something SeenObscurity 6 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
Disputed
The Naga fireballs of the Mekong
The Naga fireballs are glowing balls said to rise from the Mekong River, between Thailand and Laos, on the night Buddhist Lent ends. Many believers hold them sacred, and they draw tourists every year.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 5 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Nanjing fireball picture
A Qing picture by Wu Youru, titled Chiyan Tengkong, shows crowds on Nanjing's Zhuque Bridge watching a red ball of fire cross the evening sky. Its inscription says several hundred people saw it.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The Naples lapstone fall
A stone of plainly artificial shape was said to have fallen at Naples in November 1885. Two professors treated it as unexplained; Nature's correspondent took it for a shoemaker's lapstone of Vesuvian lava.
Something Left BehindObscurity 5 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
Folklore
The Nazca Lines
The Nazca Lines are huge figures and lines scratched into the desert of southern Peru by pre-Inca people, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Archaeologists tie them to ritual and pilgrimage; Wikipedia says Joe Nickell refuted Erich von Däniken's ancient-astronaut claim by reproducing figures.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 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