- Many things that are reported as UFOs turn out not to be extraterrestrial at all.
- The Lockheed F-117 and the SR-71 Blackbird jets both had designs that looked otherworldly.
- A natural phenomenon called ball lightning has also led witnesses to think they’d seen something alien.
- Mundane objects such as paper lanterns and party balloons have been reported as UFOs.
It’s a familiar and intriguing story: A strange craft appears in the sky, performs seemingly otherworldly aerobatics, baffles onlookers, and then is gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving us to question our eyesight and sanity.
But the reality is, many foreign things seen in the sky — also known as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs — are revealed to be anything but extra-terrestrial. Most of these sightings turn out to be experimental planes, atmospheric phenomena, or merely everyday objects that slip from our hands and head skyward.
By definition, UFOs are enigmatic, which is why people love to speculate about what strange sights in the sky could be. But just because an airborne object’s origin is mysterious does not mean that it comes from another planet. An airliner that doesn’t announce itself to a control tower qualifies as a UFO, for example.
Here are 10 “UFOs” that turned out to be very much from this world.
