As World UFO Day Approaches, See What’s Been Spotted In PA Skies

Everything supernatural and mysterious is celebrated on World UFO Day on July 2, but for those who have witnessed unexplained phenomena over the skies of Pennsylvania, it's also cause for reflection.

Unknown objects in the sky became the center of national attention in late 2024, as residents reported seeing swarms of unexplained drones in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and elsewhere. State and federal leaders called for a full investigation into the sightings, which turned up no concrete answer.

The National UFO Reporting Center takes thousands of reports a year from people who can’t explain what they’re seeing, whether a bright light, a peculiarly shaped object, or an aircraft that rapidly accelerates and decelerates just as quickly, seemingly exceeding current understanding of propulsion.

Sightings In Pennsylvania

This year alone, 5,262 reports have been made about strange sightings in the skies over the Keystone State. Some examples:

• In Bryn Mawr on May 5: "Large object the size of a blimp or larger flying slowly over highway then disappeared behind trees."
• In Allenwood on March 27: "Saw narrow triangle rising in the sky, triangle shifted to horizontal position and moved NE, moved to front deck to see it leaving."
• In Steelton on March 5: "The object has multi flat sides with something that resembles maybe an antenna."
• In Phillipsburg on Feb. 18: "For around 7 minutes a loud humming sound above our home. Came suddenly and left suddenly. After silence I heard a series of bell notes."
• In Quakertown on Christmas night, 2024: "Seven sphere-light orbs that were hovering that seemed to materialize out of thin air."

‘Summer Of The Flying Saucers’

World UFO Day 2025 commemorates the 78th anniversary of what became known as the “summer of the flying saucers.”

On June 24, 1947, civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying near Mount Rainier, Washington, when he saw nine crescent-shaped objects flying in formation at about 10,000 feet at about a nearly impossible speed for the times of 1,200 to 1,700 mph.

It wasn’t the first sighting of a UFO, but the public quickly became fascinated — and slightly terrified — after Arnold’s sighting was reported worldwide. News coverage often included references to a “flying saucer,” a play on Arnold’s statement that the object moved “like a saucer would if you skipped it over water.”

More reports followed during what became known as the “summer of the flying saucers,” including the Roswell incident. The Roswell Army Air Field announced in a July 8, 1947, news release that it had recovered the wreckage of a “flying disc” from W.W. “Mac” Brazel’s ranch about 75 miles north of Roswell.

The release was straightforward, noting:

“The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff's office of Chaves County.

“The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff’s office, who in turn notified Major Jesse A Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office.

“Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher’s home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters.”

The Roswell Army Air Field mentioned nothing in its press release about alien life, but people were already growing uneasy about what might be circling overhead. Brazel was among them.

He thought the object he found on his ranch was similar to what Arnold had seen, or to the objects described in stories about flying saucers and discs, so he gathered some of the material from the wreckage, including rubber strips, tinfoil and thick paper, and deposited them with Sheriff George Wilcox, who in turn turned it over to the commanding officer of the Roswell Army Air Field.

Government denies knowledge

Within 24 hours of the original press release, the military backtracked and said a mistake had been made and the “flying disc” was in reality a crashed weather balloon.

The story was widely accepted, and the Roswell incident might have become a forgotten chapter in history if not for a 1978 conversation between physicist and ufologist Stanton T. Friedman and Marcel, by then retired, according to an account in BBC’s Sky At Night Magazine.

Marcel said the weather balloon story had been a cover, the photos had been staged, weather balloon debris had been substituted for the real wreckage, and that everyone involved in the retrieval believed it to be an extraterrestrial craft. The story was corroborated by a number of other retired military personnel who had been at Roswell at the time.

Some skeptics dismissed it as a tall tale, saying Marcel and others were seeking attention or writing themselves into the story. Regardless, Roswell became embedded in pop culture books, documentaries and movies.

One story that captured the attention of conspiracy theorists was that the wreckage had been seized by the military to reverse-engineer an extraterrestrial flight at Area 51 — a highly classified Air Force military installation in the Nevada desert primarily known for its role in developing and testing experimental aircraft and weapons systems. And a fake film clip purported to show “an alien autopsy” connected to Roswell.

Bowing to public pressure about the incident in the 1990s, the government launched a retrospective investigation that concluded the object that crashed was a Project Mogul weather balloon carrying top-secret equipment designed to search the atmosphere for evidence of Soviet nuclear tests.

Renewed conspiracy theory

2025 brings an interesting new twist to the story.

According to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal published on June 6, the government fueled the UFO conspiracy theories, especially during the Cold War, to hide its true mission at Area 51. Specifically, the Pentagon wanted to conceal the development of advanced aircraft, such as the otherworldly-looking F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter, according to the report.

The disinformation campaign was uncovered by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, established by the Pentagon in 2022, to investigate UAP reports. A report last year dismissed the notion that the government covered up the existence of extraterrestrial life But, The Journal reported, “public disclosure left out the truth behind some of the foundational myths about UFOs: the Pentagon itself sometimes deliberately fanned the flames, in what amounted to the U.S. government targeting its own citizens with disinformation.”

As an investigation of the possibility of deliberate misinformation to hide secret programs continues, the government continues to take UAP and other unexplained phenomena seriously, The Associated Press reported.

• Related: Pentagon Again Rejects Extraterrestrial Life; Tests ‘Gremlin’ UFO Kit