--- title: UFO Sighting Photos: 10 Unexplained Pictures From History description: These images from the 1950s and 1960s captured the public imagination canonical: https://time.com/4232540/history-ufo-sightings/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-25T13:00:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:46:41.903Z article:section: History og:title: See 10 Mysterious 'UFO Sighting' Photos From History og:description: These images from the 1950s and 1960s captured the public imagination og:url: https://time.com/4232540/history-ufo-sightings/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9634958b121672de/69887e85ab6d77b60d6a8872/150222-ufo-sightings-06.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: UFO Flying Low Over Trees og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See 10 Mysterious 'UFO Sighting' Photos From History twitter:description: These images from the 1950s and 1960s captured the public imagination twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9634958b121672de/69887e85ab6d77b60d6a8872/150222-ufo-sightings-06.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # See 10 Mysterious 'UFO Sighting' Photos From History > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/) and [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) Feb 25, 2016 1:00 PM UTC  The Amalgamated Flying Saucer Club of America, which headquarters in Los Angeles, released this photo taken by a member reportedly showing a flying saucer on June 16, 1963. The Amalgamated Flying Saucer Club of America, which headquarters in Los Angeles, released this photo taken by a member reportedly showing a flying saucer on June 16, 1963.Bettmann—Corbis by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/) and [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) Feb 25, 2016 1:00 PM UTC After confusion swept Los Angeles early on Feb. 25, 1942, the report from Western Defense Command was vague: “Unidentified aircraft were reported in the Los Angeles area.” What was experienced on the ground on that day 74 years ago, however, was very specific. As TIME [reported the following week](http://time.com/vault/issue/1942-03-09/page/16/), “Los Angeles citizens crawled out of beds and goggled at the moon. The city had been blacked out. Suddenly, from dozens of Army anti-aircraft posts, searchlights lanced the dark. Orange bursts blossomed in the sky. The city shook with the concussion of ack-ack guns. For almost two hours, except for one 15-minute interval of scary silence, batteries coughed steadily, spewed 1,430 rounds of ammunition into the night.” For residents for whom the memory of Pearl Harbor was fresh, the possibility of an attack—later dubbed the “Battle of Los Angeles”—seemed very real. But the shot-down plane that the L.A. _Times_ reported on was never found, and the Secretary of the Navy announced that the whole thing had been a false alarm, though Army officials [maintained](http://time.com/vault/issue/1943-04-05/page/73/) that enemy planes had in fact been sighted in the area. Whatever did cause the air raid procedure to be launched, it’s no wonder that the Battle of Los Angeles is also [a favorite event for UFO conspiracy theorists](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2011/03/tv-skeptic-fact-or-faked-paranormal-files-the-real-battle-of-la.html). _Read more:_ [This Is Why People Think UFOs Look Like ‘Flying Saucers’](http://time.com/3930602/first-reported-ufo/) In fact, it wasn’t until years later, [in 1947](http://time.com/3930602/first-reported-ufo/), that the common flying saucer image of a UFO would begin to sweep through American popular culture. But, in the years that followed, the reports poured in. Here are a few of the early images that captured the imaginations of those who wished—or feared—to discover that we Earthlings might not be alone.  The Mar. 25, 1950, issue of Dublin's TeenAge Times claimed that these mysterious objects were flying saucers. Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone—Getty Images  A picture of a flying saucer photographed by farmer Paul Trent, over his farm in Minnville, Ore., on May 11, 1950. Paul Trent—Bettmann/Corbis  Guy B. Marquand, Jr., who made this picture on Nov. 23, 951, in Riverside, Calif., said the object above the skyline was a "flying saucer." Marquand claimed that he and two friends saw the object fly past at a very high rate of speed, and when it came back, he had his camera ready to Guy B. Marquand, Jr.—Bettmann/Corbis  This picture, taken through the window of a laboratory by a 21-year-old U.S. coastguard, shows four unidentified flying objects as bright lights in the sky on Aug. 3, 1952, in Salem, Mass. Popperfoto—Getty Images  This light was photographed on Oct. 16, 1957, when it hovered for 15 minutes near Holloman Air Development Center in New Mexico. Bettmann—Corbis  The Amalgamated Flying Saucer Club of America, which headquarters in Los Angeles, released this photo taken by a member reportedly showing a flying saucer on June 16, 1963. Bettmann—Corbis  This March 1966 photo was released on May 16 of that year by William Van Horn, the civil defense director of Hillsdale County, Mich., as part of a 24-page report challenging an Air Force conclusion that "swamp gas" caused supposed UFO sightings in the area. Van Horn said conditions at the time were too windy for swamp gas to form. Bettmann—Corbis  A New Mexico State University student took this photo of what he said was a UFO, while photographing land formations for a geology class on Mar. 12, 1967. Bettmann—Corbis  This is one of three photos of a supposed UFO taken by Rex Heflin, on Aug. 3, 1965, near Santa Ana, Calif. Rex Heflin—AP Photo  Robert Rinker, a field technician at the mountain laboratory weather station on Chalk Mountain in Colorado, discovered this unidentified object on a March 22, 1966, negative after he processed it. "I haven't said it's a flying saucer yet," Rinker said when he released the image. 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