More than 200 UFO sightings reported in Fresno County since 1950s. Is it a hotspot?
On a clear December night in 2011, something strange appeared in the sky above Fresno.
'I was driving home when my family and I noticed three bright orange lights shaped in a triangle,' an observer recalled in an anonymous report to the National UFO Reporting Center.
As they got closer, 'another bright orange light' showed up ahead of the trio of lights, the observer wrote. 'The strange thing about it (was) they were all moving at the same time and pace. ... It was clear it wasn't a plane.'
Then, they wrote, the lights 'just vanished. It was pretty cool.'
As of Thursday, March 27, a total of 16,735 sightings of unidentified flying objects had been reported in California since the 1970s, according to The National UFO Reporting Center.
In January, there were more than 40 UFO sightings reported in California, including one in Fresno, the National UFO Reporting Center said.
More than 20 UFO sightings were reported across the state in February, according to the center, and 18 had been reported so far in March.
Fresno ranked No. 6 in terms of California cities with the most UFO sightings, according to the National UFO Reporting Center, trailing San Jose and San Francisco.
That should come as no surprise, given Fresno-area residents' fascination with the paranormal, otherworldly and just plain weird.
After all, Fresno County has its own famous cryptid, the Fresno Nightcrawler, and was once home to one of the most haunted places in the nation, Wolfe Manor.
In 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold attracted national attention when he reported seeing nine objects, glowing bright blue-white and flying in a 'V' formation over Washington's Mount Rainier, according to the History Channel.
Arnold compared the objects' motion to 'a saucer if you skip it across water,' the History Channel said.
Contemporary newspaper reports misinterpreted this as meaning that the objects were shaped like saucers, the History Channel explained, 'leading to the popularization of the term 'flying saucer' as a synonym for UFO.'
Since then, UFO sightings have become an American obsession, with many television shows, movies and music focusing on visitors from beyond the stars. Works inspired by extraterrestrials range from Radiohead's song 'Subterranean Homesick Alien' to 'The X Files,' the hit TV series about FBI special agents investigating the unexplained that spawned comics, novels and two films.
'People are obsessed with topics like UFOs (because) they deal with that age-old question: 'Are we alone in the universe?' ' Michael Banti, founder of Weird Fresno, told The Fresno Bee. 'If UFOs are indeed from outer space, then that question is answered and a new one is brought up. What is our purpose in the universe?'
As of Thursday, March 27, a total of 189 UFO sightings had been reported in Fresno from 1953 to 2024, according to the National UFO Reporting Center.
That's in addition to 52 UFO sightings in Clovis reported since 1968, National UFO Reporting Center records showed.
In comparison, more than 500 UFO sightings had been reported in Los Angeles since 1942, the center said.
According to the center, the earliest sighting of a UFO in Fresno was in June 1953.
An unidentified person reported hearing an 'extremely loud whirring, rotating sound' accompanied by a disc-shaped UFO with 'white fluorescent-type light completely around the middle of it.'
Since then, Fresno-area residents have reported at least one UFO sighting per month, according to center data, with the most sightings reported on the month of April.
The discussion about UFOs has spread to social media.
'Is anyone aware of any spots in the Central Valley where UFO sightings have occurred?' a Reddit user asked in 2021.
'I've never seen anything but have friends and family who swear they have seen unusual things in the sky here,' Reddit user bravo2505 wrote.
A Selma resident shared a similar experience in a comment.
'I was looking up in the sky and saw a dot of light, like an airplane but a little bigger, as bright as a star, zigzag fast in the sky, then zoom off and disappear,' Reddit user tubesocks111111 wrote in 2021. 'It was going faster then any aircraft I've ever seen fly.'
Even celebrities have gotten in on the act.
NBA star Shaquille O'Neal recalled spotting something strange in the sky in Madera in 1997.
'Right when we passed the fairground, I could swear I saw a flying saucer come down with all the lights and it was spinning and then it took off,' O'Neal told late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' in 2021. 'We all looked at each other and it was like, I know it was a UFO. I don't care what anybody says.'
Fresno television station KMPH-TV, also known as Fox 26 News, said it caught 'unusual aerial phenomena' on camera in mid-January, when a tower camera recorded footage of a light appearing to hover over downtown Fresno.
A day later, Fox 26 photojournalist Anthony Guevara said he captured footage of a similar object.
Earl Grey Anderson of the Mutual UFO Network said he could 'technically call (the object) a UFO.'
'We've seen a few odd things ... strange lights over the horizon at strange times of the day,' said Keith Quattrocchi, founder of Sierra Remote Observatories, a five-acre facility for hobbyist astrophotographers and others near Auberry in eastern Fresno County.
'By definition, some of the things that we've seen are unidentified flying objects, because they're flying, and we don't know what they are,' Quattrocchi said.
Sam Miller, a technician at Sierra Remote Observatories, said he first got interested in UFOs in 2021, when he saw some odd objects in the sky.
Since then, Miller said, he's set up extra-sensitive cameras at his Auberry home and worked to compare findings. He also has a YouTube channel where he posts videos of unusual aerial sights.
'These strange lights look like satellites, but the frequency and orientation does not match satellite behavior,' Miller wrote in the caption for one of his videos.
The U.S. Department of Defense releases a yearly report of 'unidentified anomalous phenomena.'
'Airborne unidentified anomalous phenomena continue to dominate reporting,' according to the federal agency's latest report, released in November.
Of the 757 reports the agency logged from May 1, 2023, to June 1, a total of 708 involved objects in the 'air domain,' the report said, including balloons, satellites, aircraft and unmanned aircraft systems.
Quattrocchi said he's received emails from people misidentifying everything from drones to planets as UFOs.
When Venus is visible overhead, he said, 'They tell me they've seen an orb that's standing still in the sky. ... It's a very bright planet that is amazingly bright, and (if) it's on a really good evening, it really looks strange.'
He said it's getting harder to discern if UFOs are fact or hoax as technology advances.
'Naval pilots ... have seen things that really we cannot explain in our radar systems,' Quattrochi said. 'These things were making very strange maneuvers.'
People can argue, 'Well, maybe they're mistaken with what they're seeing,' ' he added, but 'our radar operators ... (are) saying these things are doing pretty much what the pilots are able to visually see. It's starting to become a little harder to discern.'
Have you spotted something strange in the sky? You can report a UFO sighting through the National UFO Reporting Center's website.
You'll be asked about the date and location of the sighting, as well as how long the phenomenon lasted.
You'll also be asked:
Where were you when you saw the unidentified flying object? On land? In a boat or aircraft?
What did you see?
What did the object look like? How did it behave?
Where there any witnesses?
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