Sara Jane Osborn had been taking pictures of a rainbow over Anchorage when something small and dark appeared in her view. A mosquito was her first thought. She looked away from the phone and realised she was seeing something farther out, above the trees. It had a dark upper shape and what looked like hanging extensions. In her description, those lower parts appeared to move separately. The rainbow had been reason enough to stop. Now she was pointing the camera at something for which she had no immediate name.

At 5.46 on the evening of 6 January 2025, security staff at Louisiana's River Bend nuclear station reported approximately five black, rectangular objects flying over the reactor building. They saw no lights. The estimated height was a hundred feet above the building, and the objects were lost from view to the south four minutes later. The plant heightened its security posture and notified outside authorities. In the incident record, the objects were called drones. Whoever was flying them was not identified there.

In August 1978, a 13-year-old attending an overnight summer camp in Hillsboro, New Hampshire, awoke shortly after midnight to unfamiliar sounds outside his cabin. He described what seemed to be a conversation between two unseen sources just feet away. According to his account, a letter from his fath...