In April 2020, the Pentagon declassified videos showing pilots running into unidentified flying objects (UFOs). These disclosures vindicated those who believe extraterrestrials visit us. Former Senator Harry Reid tweeted that the videos only scratch the surface of research and materials available. Now, think of crop circles. Not all of them may have been the work of pranksters trying to poke fun at the UFO crowd. But the Pentagon claims it does not have evidence of UFOs being extraterrestrial. A few months later, Netflix revived the once-popular documentary series Unsolved Mysteries. Most episodes are not so mysterious, and many so-called mysteries cannot be dubbed unsolved. But one particular creepy story is keeping people awake at night. It is about the Berkshire UFO encounters of 1 September 1969.

Four unrelated families claime to have been picked up by a UFO and moved by a ray of light on that fateful day. Apart from a few personal accounts, there hardly is any recorded evidence this happened. Not even a local newspaper reported it. The documentary compensates for the omission. Indeed, this is a mystery worthy of being labelled unsolved. The stories of the people involved appear credible because they confirm each other. Thomas Reed, who was nine when it happened, claimed he and his family missed more than two hours of their lives while driving in their car. Reed said his family saw an amber glow on both sides of the road. Then everything got calm. After that, they found themselves back inside the car, but his mother and grandmother had changed places.¹

Reed also noted that he saw the then-14-year-old Melanie Kirchdorfer aboard the UFO. She confirms his story. Tommy Warner was a child when it happened. He also claimed to have been abducted that evening. His babysitter, Debbie, confirms his account, saying that she saw him vanish into a bright ray of light. The people involved were not eager to tell their stories. That could turn them into a laughing stock. This Unsolved Mysteries episode has left many viewers feeling anxious.²

On 16 September 1994, 62 schoolchildren aged between six and twelve saw a UFO outside Ruwa, Zimbabwe. Some children saw aliens dressed in black and claimed these aliens gave them a telepathic message saying we should respect the planet and not depend too much on technology. Dozens of other children who were also present stated they had not seen any UFO or anything unusual. Sceptics, who believe every observation science cannot explain must be a delusion, argue it was a mass delusion. However, the children who saw the UFO consistently told the same story and only differed on the details. Many children believed the beings were not aliens but tikoloshes, creatures of local folklore.³ If it was not a delusion, there is no objective reality as many children saw a UFO and many did not.

For five months after October 2007, hundreds of people saw UFOs over Texas. On 8 January 2008, 19 witnesses saw a massive UFO speeding from Dublin to Stephenville, pursued by F16 fighter jets. One witness guessed the object was 1,600 metres (a mile) long and 800 metres (half a mile) wide. It hovered and then speeded away at 5,000 kilometres per hour without causing any disturbance like a gust of wind, suggesting the object was not material. But radar data confirmed what some of the witnesses had said. The local newspaper Empire-Tribune (ET) was the first to write about the mysterious object. Steven Spielberg, the director of ET, made a documentary about it.⁴ That is a noteworthy coincidence.

The psychiatrist John Edward Mack investigated the mental state of those who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. He initially suspected these persons had mental illnesses. Mack interviewed them and came to believe that was not the case. Many of those he interviewed said their encounters had affected their views, creating a sense of spirituality and environmental concern. Mack was cautious about explaining these experiences but believed there was a powerful phenomenon. There is a worldwide history of visionary experiences. And alien abduction accounts can be part of this tradition, Mack noted.⁵

Many UFO sightings lack a credible explanation. In other words, they are not evidence of aliens visiting us. A few people claimed to have seen aliens. What is suspicious about these aliens is that they often resemble humans. They stand upright and have arms, legs, and heads with eyes. Alien life, if it exists, likely differs from Earth life, and aliens could take any form, for instance, jellyfish or plants, or, more likely, something we cannot think of, suggesting human imagination created the aliens people saw. And an advanced species warning us of advanced technology? They could share it with us. Perhaps the aliens don’t have a high opinion of us. And what about telepathy if we are beings made of carbon and water, and our minds are just brain chemistry? That is most peculiar.

Unidentified flying objects can be anything. Another US government report claims many UFO sightings are weather balloons, surveillance drones, airborne clutter, or optical illusions. Still, many sightings remain unexplained. The UFO incidents in Berkshire, Zimbabwe and Texas are mysterious. They are not mere delusions, nor can a weather balloon be 1600 metres long and 800 metres wide and hare off at 5,000 kilometres per hour, leaving the F16 pilots chasing them biting the dust. UFOs and alien abduction stories are part of an array of mysteries, including evidence suggesting reincarnation, ghosts, meaningful coincidences, and premonitions. And there is an explanation that doesn’t involve aliens. This universe could be a simulation created by an advanced civilisation, and that civilisation likely is humanoid rather than alien.

Latest revision: 23 March 2024

Featured image: Declassified Pentagon UFO footage

1. 1969 Berkshire UFO Event Gains Recognition. Jim Levulis (2015). WAMC. [link]
2. Berkshire UFO sightings: Unsolved Mysteries episode is spooking viewers – but what happened next? Jacob Stol (2020). The Guardian. [link]
3. Ariel School UFO incident. Wikipedia. [link]
4. Spielberg-produced UFO doc has more than 300 witnesses for a mile-long spaceship. Lauren Sarner (2023). New York Post. [link]
5. John E. Mack. Wikipedia. [link]