13 Alien Encounters That Will Make You Believe

The truth is out there!

1. The Abduction of Barney and Betty Hill

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In September 1961, married couple Barney and Betty Hill of Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, experienced something totally out of the ordinary — a three-hour lapse of memory before awaking in a seemingly "magnetized" car. After both underwent therapy, they seemed to recall similar visions of being abducted and probed by little gray men. Under hypnosis, Betty drew a map of the constellation that the aliens claimed to be from, which first appeared as nonsense, until some statisticians noticed its resemblance to the Zeta Reticuli system in the southern constellation of Reticulum — a system largely unknown in the 1960s.

2. The Bermuda Triangle

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Also known as the Devil's Triangle, this notorious spot of roughly 500,000 square miles off the southern tip of Florida is where dozens of ships and aircraft have mysteriously disappeared, leading some to believe that the location may be some kind of portal to another world. When sailing through the region, Christopher Columbus wrote of strange lights off in distance, as well as erratic compass readings. But perhaps no tale is more unexplainably eerie as the mystery of Flight 19, when a group of five war-hardened U.S. Navy torpedo bombers suddenly disappeared, never to be heard from again.

3. The Roswell Crash

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In July 1947, a rancher named W.W. “Mack” Brazel set out on horseback to check on his sheep after a major lightning storm. What Mack supposedly encountered was the wreckage of a crashed flying saucer, along with the bodies of its alien pilots (note: not actually pictured above). His story would become legend and solidified Roswell, New Mexico, as ground zero for extra-terrestrial contact. Today, Roswell wholeheartedly embraces the E.T. lore and hosts an annual UFO festival that draws hundreds of curious humans longing for alien contact.

4. The Bytktha Mountain Gateway

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For years, UFO watchers have claimed Sochi, Russia, to be a galactic hub from which alien spacecraft can be regularly observed with the naked eye. Some enthusiasts have even suggested that the nearby summit of Bytkha Mountain functions as a sort of gateway between worlds. True or not, Sochi has built a reputation as major UFO destination for ET enthusiasts.

5. The Nazca Lines

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Believed to have been created by the Nazca people between 500 BCE and 500 CE, the Nazca Lines are colossal geoglyphs that are only observable from the sky. As they were only discovered after the advent of modern commercial airliners in the 1920s, the location has been frequently cited by UFO enthusiasts as an ancient spacecraft landing zone.

6. The Levelland UFO Case

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In 1957, two terrified migrant workers called the Levelland sheriff's office to report a close encounter, claiming that moments before their truck unexplainably shut down, a rocket-shaped UFO hurled itself in the direction of their vehicle in a cosmic game of chicken. Needless to say, the sheriff took their story as a laughing matter — until varying reports across the region flooded in with the exact same story.

7. The Phoenix Lights

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On March 13, 1997, thousands of people across the city of Phoenix and nearby areas reported strange, glowing lights that slowly moved across the night sky in the shape of a V. As there has never been a clear explanation of what took place that evening (though many suspect flares or Chinese lanterns), many UFO enthusiasts believe that this event is one of the best-documented examples of a UFO sighting.

8. The Northern Territory Hotbed

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In recent years, Australia's Northern Territory has been a hotbed of UFO activity, with one Australian man claiming to have documented upwards to 500 UFO sightings on camera.

9. The McMinnville UFO Photographs

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Several years before the term "UFO" made its way into popular culture, Evelyn Trent was feeding her rabbits when she noticed a flying saucer hovering above her Oregon farm on May 11, 1950. Her husband Paul quickly grabbed his 35-mm camera and was able to snap two black-and-white pictures. The resulting images have since become the most famous and controversial photographic evidence of alien visitors to date.

10. The Aurora Cemetery

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Aurora, Texas, is the only town in the world that claims to have an actual alien buried in their local cemetery. According to the story, in 1897 an unidentified object crashed into a local farmer's windmill, and several residents discovered a dead creature "not of this world." The townsfolk supposedly saw fit to bury the creature in the local cemetery. Since then, the local residents have engaged in a push-and-pull fight with UFO enthusiasts who have sought to excavate the grave for proof of alien existence.

11. The Warminster Thing

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Since the 1950s, Warminster, England, has been the site of some rather odd occurrences, including crop circles, UFO sightings, and cars unexpectedly shutting down in their tracks. The strange phenomena has been dubbed the "Warminster Thing."

12. The Marfa Lights

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Since the 1800s, residents of Marfa, Texas, have witnessed strange, ghostly apparitions of light dancing across the west Texas desert. Dubbed "the Marfa Lights," these mysterious orbs have dazzled tourists and elicited wonder in even the staunchest of skeptics.

13. The Broad Haven Visitor

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In 1977, a group of 14 schoolchildren were reported to have witnessed a cigar-shaped spacecraft land in an open field near the Broad Haven primary school; several other locals also claimed to have witnessed the same craft in flight. Since then, the events of that evening reignited controversy after the Mirror Online revealed that England's Ministry of Defense had allegedly attempted to cover up an investigation into the incident.