Did aliens spy on our nuclear tests? Study finds signs of UFOs near US sites in 1950s

• Researchers at Stockholm University in Sweden and Vanderbilt University in Tennessee studied historic observatory photos to find signs of flashes of light.
• The researchers then drew a statistical connection between the timing of the flashes with the dates of above-ground nuclear weapons tests and anecdotal reports of UFOs.
• The research comes at a time of renewed heightened interest in the United States in UFOs amid 3 Congressional hearings since July 2023.

If you’re a UFO enthusiast, you’re probably already familiar with a question that crops up regularly in the slew of never-ending docuseries and congressional testimony: Are otherworldly visitors spying on humanity’s nuclear weapons programs?

Now, researchers claim they have found tangible evidence that there may be something to that notion. Studying historical photographs from the late 1940s and 1950s, researchers said they were able to spot unidentified flashes in the stars over the northern United States near where nuclear testing was being done.

The flashes, which the researchers described as “transient star-like objects,” were detected as several mysterious bright spots in the sky.

Intriguingly, the objects were captured in the images long before the first satellites were ever launched – ruling out a prime suspect. The dates of the photos also seem to correlate with the timing of many reports of UFOs, the researchers said in a news release announcing the findings.

The research, which was published in two separate peer-reviewed studies in October, comes at a time of renewed interest in UFOs in the United States. Congress has hosted public testimony three times since July 2023 on the strange sightings, which the government now refers to as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP.

Here’s everything to know about the research, as well as what has been unveiled about UAP in the halls of Congress.

Flashes of light appear correlated to nuclear tests, UFO sightings

Researchers at Stockholm University in Sweden and Vanderbilt University in Tennessee analyzed digitized historical photographs taken between 1949 and 1957 by the Palomar Observatory in California. Their goal? To spot short-lived flashes of light.

The flashes of light, or transients, look like stars appearing and disappearing within a single exposure.

“Today we know that short flashes of light are often solar reflections from flat, highly reflective objects in orbit around the Earth,” Beatriz Villarroel, an astronomer at Stockholm University who cowrote the research, said in a statement.

But because the photographs were taken before the first satellite was launched into orbit in 1957, it’s unclear just what could have been responsible for the flashes.

Though the researchers stop short of speculating on the exact nature of the flashes, they did draw a statistical connection between the timing of the flashes with the dates of above-ground nuclear weapons tests and anecdotal reports of UFOs. The idea that nuclear weapons have long attracted the interest of extraterrestrials is strongly ingrained within UFO mythology.

Of the 106,000 flashes of light they analyzed, researchers found that they were 68% more likely to occur the day after a nuclear weapons test than on days without. In addition, the number of flashes increases by an average of 8.5% for each report of a UFO sighting.

On days when UFO sightings and nuclear tests coincided, the flashes were twice as likely to occur, according to the research.

“The magnitude of the association between these flashes of light and nuclear tests was surprising, as was the very specific time at which they most often occurred ‒ namely, the day after a test,” study coauthor Stephen Bruehl, a Vanderbilt University Medical Center anesthesiologist with an interest in UFOs, said in a statement. “What they might represent is a very fascinating question that needs further investigation.”

The findings were published Oct. 20 in the journal Scientific Reports and Oct. 17 in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

What happened at the last UAP hearing in Congress?

The studies were released a little more than a month since a slate of witnesses last testified under oath to Congress about strange flying craft they claim can outmaneuver U.S. military vehicles.

One of the highlights of the hearing Sept. 9 was the release of a never-before-seen video purporting to show a U.S. military drone trying – and failing – to shoot down a mysterious object. Provided by a whistleblower to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, the video was said to have been taken Oct. 30, 2024, off the coast of Yemen.

The hearing was the third in as many years in the halls of Congress since fiery testimony in July 2023 reignited public fascination in UFOs – as well as the possibility that extraterrestrial are piloting them. Across the three hearings, several witnesses – including journalists and high-ranking military members – have testified about shadowy military programs to retrieve and study not only interstellar alien craft but the extraterrestrial pilots themselves.

The hearings have often spurred calls from advocates and lawmakers alike for transparency. Legislation is in the works that would compel the federal government to release more information about what has been uncovered.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com