Have you seen a UFO? In Michigan, you’re not alone. What to know about sightings – Lansing State Journal
- Michigan ranks 10th historically in UFO reports.
- On March 25, an object was spotted near Dundee and Petersburg.
- Some common objects are often mistaken for a UFO.
An object hovering over Green Cove Springs, Florida, March 22 left many wondering whether extraterrestrial aliens had decided to join the spring break crowd.
OK, maybe aliens weren’t looking for a week of fun in the Sunshine State, but there was plenty of speculation about the object.
On the night of March 25, two people in Michigan reported seeing a strange, fast-moving, airborne object near Dundee and Petersburg, about halfway between Monroe and Adrian. One person was driving on West Ida Road near Summerfield High School when they reported seeing a “a bright LED light to my left” flying through the sky.
“There was a green light on the bottom and this object was flying very fast to the west,” the report to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) said. “I got to look at it for a couple seconds, but it was gone within seconds.”
The sighting happened at 8:42 p.m. and lasted about 20 seconds. The object was larger than an airplane, the report said.
The other person saw a similar object at 8:44 p.m. while driving southwest on Petersburg Road. The object was twice the size of an airplane and was reported to be moving at more than 1,000 mph. It “appeared in the middle of the sky, extremely bright led like lights, flew to the right extremely fast until it disappeared. No sound,” the report to the NUFORC said.
“Flew faster than any plane or other aircraft I have seen,” the person reported.
Is Michigan a UFO hotspot? Here’s what to know about recent sightings.
UFO sightings in Michigan in 2025
Historically, Michigan ranks 10th in the U.S. for reports of “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP) to NUFORC with 3,794 since an incident in 1936. That’s just 24 behind North Carolina for ninth place. California ranks first, with 16,735. That is almost twice as many as the second-place state, Florida, which has 8,624 reported sightings.
So far in 2025, Michigan has had 11 sightings, from Au Train in the Upper Peninsula along the Lake Superior to Cassopolis in Southwest Michigan. Some of them are suspected to be drones.
Not every sighting is reported to the NUFORC. A search of X, formerly Twitter, for references to UFOs or UAPs in Michigan showed a few sightings in 2025 that are not in the NUFORC database. Most did not give an exact location in Michigan.
Where does Michigan fit into UFO history?
Multiple UFO sightings in southern Michigan made headlines in 1966 and led to the “swamp gas” explanation from the government.
On the night of March 20, 1966, near Dexter in Washtenaw County, Frank Mannor and his teenage son saw some lights outside their farmhouse and watched as an object appeared to land nearby and then hover over a marshy area, according to the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan.
Other objects had been seen on March 14 and March 16 by others including Washtenaw County sheriff’s deputies, according to an Ann Arbor News article archived by the Ann Arbor District Library.
The next night, March 21, 1966, Hillsdale College students reported seeing an unusual, aerial object between 9-10 p.m., according to the Hillsdale Historical Society. The women in MacIntyre Residence at Hillsdale College saw flashing lights hovering over the college’s Slayton Arboretum and called Hillsdale County’s civil defense director, William “Bud” VanHorn. He told them to continue to observe the object and to call again if it didn’t disappear. It didn’t, so they called, and VanHorn summoned a Hillsdale police car and two Michigan State Police units, then went to the dorm himself.
The women took VanHorn to the second-floor window through which they’d seen the lights.
“There they were, rising to a point just below the airport beacon and then settling down to earth again,” the Historical Society’s article said. “Word spread quickly — even without social media — and about 150 people observed the phenomenon. Saucer fever infected Hillsdale in the days that followed the newspaper report of the incident. Hundreds of people cruised the streets of Hillsdale hoping to catch a glimpse of the mysterious lights, and police were kept busy chasing down leads phoned in by the ‘saucer watchers.'”
Other reports of UFOs came in from near Monroe, in Lima Township in Washtenaw County and south into the Sylvania, Ohio, area. The reports brought J. Allen Hynek, an astrophysicist from Northwestern University and the director of the federal government’s Project Blue Book, to Michigan to examine the claims. At a news conference on March 25, 1966, he said the Mannor and Hillsdale sightings were caused by gases from rotting vegetation in lowland areas that had been released during the spring thaw — aka “swamp gases.”
“A dismal swamp is a most unlikely place for a visit from outer space,” Hynek said at the time.
Hynek also said photos taken by a police officer were just “trails made as a result of a camera time exposure of the rising crescent moon … and the planet Venus.”
The public and Washtenaw County Sheriff Douglas Harvey weren’t buying the explanation.
“With all due respect to Dr. Hynek,” Harvey told the Ann Arbor News, “I’m not ready to accept this weak excuse of gas from marshes.”
Over time, Hynek came to accept that the people reporting these sightings were not crazy or hallucinating. Former Monroe News reporter Bobb Vergiels recalled interviewing Hynek in the 1980s during a visit to Monroe County Community College.
“One of the quotations from Hynek at MCCC that night still echoes in my memory — ‘UFOs are incredible tales, told by credible people,'” Vergiels wrote.
How likely is Michigan to survive an alien invasion?
The website GIGAcalculator, which provides several online calculators, recently used a variety of factors to determine which states have the best odds of surviving an alien invasion. It used data such as population; UFO sightings per capita; number of caves; amount of land covered by forests or water; the number of military and law enforcement personnel per 1,000 people; the number of scientists, engineers and health care professionals; and the number of food and beverage manufacturing companies.
Virginia was determined to be the state most likely to survive an alien invasion, followed by Alabama and Massachusetts. Michigan came in 17th, ranking between two other Great Lakes states, Illinois and Ohio. Michigan had the most engineers per 1,000 people, which shouldn’t be surprising with all of the automotive companies being here, but there are no caves to hide in. Michigan also ranked high in food and beverage companies.
What was the first UFO sighting in Michigan?
The earliest known UFO sighting in Michigan, according to the National UFO Reporting Center, was reported in 2006 but occurred on or about July 15, 1936, in Alma.
The person reported what seemed like a childhood nightmare at the time seems more like an alien encounter.
“The more I think of it the more it seems it was not a dream. It was the most frighting thing in my life,” the report said.
The person reported they were 4 or 5 years old when two or three creatures came into their bedroom through a wall. The creatures to the child to their “car,” which was a shiny, polished metal, like aluminum, and it was flat on top and curved on the bottom.
This happened about four more times, and as a preteen and teenager the person reported being prone to nosebleeds. During one nosebleed, a bullet-shaped object, about an inch long, came out of their nose.
“I am now 72 years old and have never spoke of this to anyone,” the person wrote. “Am I nuts or imagining some thing??”
How do I report a UFO sighting?
Anyone can report an unusual light, object or shape in the sky to the National UFO Reporting Center on its website or through its phone hotline, 206-722-3000. File a report directly.
Common objects mistaken for UFOs or UAPs
The center asks people to check out these objects commonly mistaken for UFOs:
- Starlink satellites: If you see a line of lights, they are probably Starlink satellites.
- Venus and Jupiter: If you are seeing a very bright, intensely silver-white, stationary object near the horizon, it is likely Venus, and not a UFO. Jupiter may appear higher in the sky but can also be extremely bright. Several apps are available to help identify planets.
- Visible in photos, videos but not naked eye: If you see something in a photo or video you took that you did not see with your naked eye, it’s probably a camera anomaly or artifact such as a lens flare.
- Pulsating lights in video: Cellphone videos taken of lights in the night sky, planets or stars often appear to pulse, get brighter and dimmer, or appear as a “donut” or ring shape, due to the de-focusing and re-focusing of the phone’s lens.
What’s the difference between a UFO and a UAP?
UFO stands for “unidentified flying object,” a term for an aerial phenomenon whose cause or identity is unclear to the observer. The United States Air Force coined the term in 1952.
Today, the term UFO is colloquially used to refer to any unidentifiable sighting regardless of whether it has been investigated.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration uses the term “unidentified anomalous phenomena” to describe “observations of the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or as known natural phenomena.”
What is the National UFO Reporting Center?
Founded in 1974, the National UFO Reporting Center said its “primary function over the past five decades has been to receive, record, and to the greatest degree possible, corroborate and document reports from individuals who have been witness to unusual, possibly UFO-related events.
“Throughout its history, the Center has processed over 180,000 reports, and has distributed its information to thousands of individuals.”
The center noted it “makes no claims as to the validity of the information in any of these reports. Obvious hoaxes have been omitted, however most reports have been posted exactly as received in the author’s own words.”
Contributing: Clare Mulroy, USA TODAY; Dave Osborn, USA TODAY Network
