1,600 UFO sightings in Nevada since 1947 — is it time to take them seriously?

In the span of a few months, belief in alien visitors has evolved from supermarket tabloid talk to the subject of congressional testimony.

A two-hour congressional hearing last month featured three former members of the military who either saw unidentified flying objects or believe they’ve directly witnessed a UFO cover-up.

And no, apparently these UFO sightings aren’t just civilians seeing our own top secret military technology.

“We have nothing that can stop in midair and go in the other direction,” David Fravor, former commanding officer of the Navy’s Black Aces Squadron, said at the hearing. “Nor do we have anything that can … come down from space, hang out for three hours and then go back up.”

Does the U.S. government have evidence of aliens? Have we actually made contact?

And now that such topics are being discussed on Capitol Hill, how do longtime UFOlogists feel now?

A little bit vindicated — at least according to the Mutual UFO Network, an organization dedicated to tracking and investigating UFOs and other unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).

“This landmark hearing marks an important step forward in bringing the truth about UAPs closer to the public’s understanding,” the organization wrote in a statement following the congressional hearings. “MUFON eagerly anticipates collaborating with the Biden administration and the Department of Defense to facilitate the disclosure of all UAP documents.”

Still, reporting a UFO sighting still is seen as something a bit nutty. Even during the “flying disc craze” of 1947 when hundreds of Americans reported objects in the sky, many were hesitant to give their names, lest they be subject to ridicule.

‘The kidding one takes is terrific’

A pilot flying over Washington state reported seeing “flying saucers” in the sky near Mt. Rainier on June 24, 1947, now recognized as the first modern-day UFO sighting. Over the next several weeks, people from across the country called in to newspapers and public officials to report their own sightings.

Nevada had its first recorded UFO sighting less than two weeks later on July 6. A man stopped by the Nevada State Journal offices in Reno to report “one of the contraptions” had crashed into the mountain near the Sparks “S” and sent up a cloud of dust when it hit. He said he wanted to remain anonymous, and added that he had no plans to go up the mountain to look for the object.

The following day, Journal city editor John Brackett and his wife reported a flying disc crossed the horizon over Reno twice “at an almost unbelievable speed” before disappearing over the eastern horizon near the mouth of the Truckee River Canyon.

He knew his story would have skeptics.

“At least eight other persons in Reno saw the same thing we did,” Brackett wrote in the July 8 edition of the Journal. “I’m glad of that, because the kidding one takes is terrific. I personally don’t think these hundreds of tales going around about them are so funny anymore.”

‘Not embarrassed or ashamed’

Since then, more than 1,600 UFO sightings have been reported throughout Nevada, according to the National UFO Reporting Center website. That puts Nevada among the top 30% of states reporting UFOs. But that number still seems low, considering the Silver State’s close ties with alien lore. Consider:

• The secretive military base commonly known as “Area 51” has been used by the Air Force since World War II, and has been the base of operations for testing aircraft. It’s also rumored to be where alien aircraft are stored, including the remains of the flying saucer that allegedly crashed at Roswell, New Mexico.
• John Lear, a onetime Nevada State Senate candidate, claimed in 1987 that the U.S. had made contact with space aliens and was promoting films like “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” to prepare the public for the introduction of aliens. He later claimed that the government had forged a treaty with the Gray aliens, a specific subset of extraterrestrials.
• “Coast to Coast AM,” a Pahrump-based syndicated radio broadcast focusing on the paranormal — including, yes, UFOs and aliens — debuted in 1988, with host Art Bell credulously interviewing “experts” and callers about their encounters.
• In May 1989, a man named Bob Lazar appeared on Las Vegas TV station KLAS to report that he had been hired to work at Area 51 to reverse-engineer a captured alien spacecraft. (George Knapp, the reporter who first interviewed Lazar, is currently one of the rotating guest hosts for “Coast to Coast AM.”)
• The state once had a registered lobbyist — David Venus Solomon, aka Ambassador Merlyn Merlin II — who claimed to represent the interests of space aliens at the Nevada Legislature in the late 1990s.
• Longtime Nevada Sen. Harry Reid used his position as U.S. Senate majority leader to push for the public release of Pentagon files on UFOs, telling the New York Times in 2017, “I’m not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this going.”

Rural southern Nevada has leaned in hard to UFO culture, designating a lonely stretch of State Route 375 the “Extraterrestrial Highway” due to its proximity to Area 51. Tiny Rachel, Nevada, to the north of Area 51 is home to the Little A’Le’Inn, an alien-themed motel, bar and restaurant. And in Amargosa Valley to the southwest, there’s the Area 51 Alien Center with an alien museum and gift shop. (Behind the gift shop is the extraterrestrial-themed Alien Cathouse Brothel.)

1,600 reports and counting

But despite congressional testimony and pop-culture references to UFOs, people are still tentative about reporting their own close encounters. The National UFO Reporting Center (nuforc.org), one of the internet’s largest databases of UFO sightings, assures those who file a report that their contact information “will not be published and will be kept strictly confidential.” Among the 1,600 anonymous reports from Nevada:

• Someone who said they were stationed at NAS Fallon in the 1960s said another man in his squadron reported a saucer-shaped craft with a white light. He entered the report into the night watch log. “The witness took a lot of flack over the sighting,” reads the report, “and the next day in the log someone wrote, ‘2100: no saucers sighted.'”
• Another report, this one from the mid-1980s, said “a giant silver ball-shaped object” was spinning in place over McCarran Boulevard near Idlewild Park, but it disappeared after it was approached by two jet fighters.
• On May 17, 2023, a NUFORC user said they saw “flashing red and blue emergency lights” along Highway 160 near Pahrump. “As the lights got closer I realize that there were no headlights or other forward facing white lights of any kind but what appeared to be a total of 8 red and blue flashing lights in the shape of a cross … it appeared to be hovering just above the road surface.”

And sometimes, the reports go beyond lights in the sky.

In late April, Las Vegas police officers investigated reports of two unknown entities falling from the sky on the same night that a family reported something “not human” in their backyard.

One officer drove to a home on the night of April 30 and interviewed the family who called 911 after making the sighting, according to body camera footage obtained by USA TODAY. One of the family members told the officer they saw “a big creature” that was “long, 10 feet tall.” 

“I’m not going to BS you guys. One of my partners said they saw something fall out of the sky, too, so that’s why I’m kind of curious,” the officer said. “It’s weird just the fact that our partner saw something at the exact time.”

Las Vegas Metro investigated the property for days following the alleged paranormal incident before closing the case, Las Vegas TV station 8 News Now reported.

What now?

Now that UFO sightings are being discussed in serious settings and a significant portion of the world population is walking around with smartphone cameras at all times, are we any closer to resolving things one way or another? Not likely. Many of the recent sightings filed with NUFORC are accompanied with photos, none of which show anything clear and definitive.

Still, those who claim to have seen something otherworldly may not feel quite so alone now. One NUFORC user in the late 1990s logged an encounter from the mid-1970s, and ended the post with a plea.

“If anyone else saw it too,” they wrote, “Please email me. It has haunted me for all these years.

“I just wish I could make anyone believe how important it was. No one will know what it’s like until it happens to them.”