Table of Contents
Virginia UFO Sightings Analysis
We analyzed all 108 UFO sighting reports in Virginia from 2020 to identify possible patterns and gain insight into the phenomenon:
- The most commonly reported UFO shape or appearance is "light" (32 reports, 29.63% of total).
- July is the month with the most reported UFO sightings (19 reports, 17.59% of total).
- Wednesday is the weekday with the most reported UFO sightings (23 reports, 21.30% of total).
- 04/27/20 is the single date with the most UFO sightings reported (4 reports, 3.70% of total).
- Sightings occur more often during the night, between the hours of 20:00 - 23:59 (49 reports, 45.37% of total).
Virginia UFO Sighting Reports in 2020
This is a sampling of 20 Virginia UFO reports from 2020, presented as they were submitted other than paragraph breaks added for easier readability where necessary.
You can click the 'Report' link to view the original report along with any photos that may have been submitted to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC).
Full Report Text:
My name is ((name deleted)) and for the last couple of weeks me and my wife and grandkids have been watching this flashing light in the ski planes have past it and seems to be quite a ways up in the ski have pics on my phone where it has gotten closer and videos of it on my phone when I take pics of it seems to stop flash and move I don’t have away to explain it but it seems to keep coming back and shows interest in watching me take pics and talk to my grandson when I talk to my grandson it flashes more and moves around as to show my grandson it’s real I swear if you come look you will believe my email is ((deleted)) ithank you for your time hope to show you in person.
Full Report Text:
Very bright blinking white object in early morning western sky on 12/26/2020 Early in the morning today (the 26th) when going to my car to get my morning coffee, I was able to see a very bright flashing white light in the western sky. It was extremely bright when blinking, but when it wasn't blinking I could not see anything since it was still dark out. It looked like a very bright pulsing star.
Plus was about 1 second on, 2 seconds off it seemed. also, object didn't move. when I left to get a better view, I saw it one more time on the way to get coffee, then I lost it as it got bright out.
Full Report Text:
Cannot come up with another excuse for what I saw. Driving down the interstate around 3 in the morning headed towards DC there was no one around I was the only one awake in the car it was between the interstate Lanes in the median and it was at the very end of a strip of trees approximately 4250 ft off the ground with lights all the way around it and that is my description from just driving past it and looking back I cannot think of anything else that would fit that description in the middle of nowhere.
Full Report Text:
A bright light appeared, three colored lights in back . It zigzagged, dropped to the ground behind hill. Come over hill in alien for fast to my building, in 1:21 minutes.
Full Report Text:
My sister called five minutes ago and told me to go outside and look up to see a triangluar vechicle moving through the sky with red and white flashing lights. I have never seen anything like that before. I googled the discription and found nothing to suggest what it is and might be doing.
We do live in an area with a large military presence as well: Cheatam Accex, Northrup Grummon, Naval Weapons Shipyard,, Navy Base in Norfolk, Langley/ Fort Eustus etc. So was it a spy plane; if not what was it?.
Full Report Text:
Strange flashing lights hovering and the sound of whales singing from all around me in the sky What I really want to report are the sounds I heard for a short time while the craft was present. There was a strange craft that was only a few miles from the tree tops about 2 miles from me. It had strange flashing lights and kept hovering straight up and down.
When it got very high in the sky, it would almost look like it was trying to mask itself as a star except that I could tell the lights were flashing and I had been following it since it was close to the tree tops. It kept going up and down and hoovering, and my attention was first brought to it by my dog and many other dogs in the neighborhood barking at it. I do live near naval bases and DC, so it could have been something military related.
I did see at least one jet "flying dark" above my head with all its lights off except for a blinking red light. I cannot be sure of what the craft was except that it stayed in the sky for a very long time, but at a much higher altitude to mask itself as! a star maybe, but it's not part of our normal night sky. It seemed that it could mask itself to look like a star if no one really looked at it, knew that it isn't part of the night sky, or saw it at a lower altitude like I did.
I felt like it might have been a form of camouflaging itself. I take all of that with a grain of salt. What I truly want to report about the incident is that at one point I walked outside and could hear what sounded like whales or dolphins speaking to each other from all around me in the sky.
The sounds were not in any pattern or rhythm. It sounded organic and fluid, and it sounded like a beautiful conversation. It felt like it was all around me, just as if I were under water listening for the origin of a sound.
The best I can describe it as the sound of whales singing songs, but in the sky. That lasted about 5 minutes. That part was roughly probably at about 11pm.
Full Report Text:
I was out in my back yard walking the dog around 8:00pm. The moon is bright and it's a clear night, I can see the stars every well. I'm looking up and notice theses solid white lights.
They seem to circle some stars and then they stay still. Kinda like if they notice me looking at them. There's not just one of these solid lights sometimes they move in groups of two or more.
They change directions very quick.I thought I was seeing things so I went in the house and I grabbed a flash light. I flashed it at the night sky.
Probably 5 or 6 times. Next thing that happened was amazing and scary at the same time. Only way I can explain it.
Was about 15/20ft from me and about 15ft high was a orange circle something shot out of it looked like a big bright light of energy that was orange and very beautiful odd shape and shot back into some type of circle. This happen so fast. If I blink my eyes it would have been gone.
I've never seen anything like this. Very amazing. I! work full time been there 15 plus yrs.
Full Report Text:
Glowing sphere, silently climbs to great height at a constant speed and in a straight line On Nov 17,2020 at 7:01PM EST. I took my dog outside. It was a clear night, windy at 21.
9mph. Looking to the South I saw 2 stars and at first, what I thought to be a plane but through further observation, I knew it wasn't a plane. I am a veteran, worked in the airline industry and have hundreds of hours worth of flight time, I have also lived in a military town for most of my life next to an airbase and civilian airport, this was NOT an airplane,a helicopter,a flare, a later or a drone.
I watched as the circular glowing object, making no noise ascend straight up at a constant speed. I watched the object for a few minutes as it continued to climb and then it just blacked out or disappeared at a great height.
Full Report Text:
While standing on my porch, a helicopter flew over my house and I didn’t pay attention to it until it came to a stop. It was hovering in one spot for a about 10 seconds when I started to focus on it. I noticed a bright white light above the helicopter which I thought was a star at first glance, but it suddenly got brighter and grew a little in size while at the same time it started to slowly move.
After watching it slowly move and go from dim to bright for about 20 more seconds, it suddenly just dimmed out and disappeared. It looked to be at the same height that a passenger plane would fly at. The sky was blue as can be without a cloud in it.
My question is if the helicopter saw it because, the only reason I noticed the star looking craft was because the helicopter came to a stop, which I have never seen a helicopter do while flying over in my area.
Full Report Text:
Disc like craft with 3 lights and blinked hovers and lands on street 200 yards behind house by soccer field From my 2nd story bedroom window, my wife sees a craft hovering from the window. She stares for 30 seconds saying "what the." before I get curious.
She then tells me a craft us hovering in our soccer field 100 yards further than the back yard. We start taking pictures of the 3 lights showing the shape. A blinker like a air craft blinking red is in the center (which throws me off).
Then as I switch phone to different setting for better picture, we witness the craft hover straight down onto the street that hangs above the soccer field goal. I freak out and don't want to stop staring ad it seems to sit there like a car, until other cars finally pass and confirm it is there. See run out back on our deck to take more pictures but it appeared to "morphe" into a car.
Or it simply evaporated or disappeared on landing and was never there after touching down. This is the 3rd or 4th time (second with pics and video) so I wanted to write about it a! fter seeing the number of sightings in my area this year.
Full Report Text:
There were bright orange lights side by side moving very slowly. Sometimes there was one lone light. One bright light followed with another then another.
The light from the glow made it appear the object was a triangle at certain points.There was no sound and it did not look like a meteor, definitely wasn't an airplane. I have never seen anything in the sky like what I saw.
Full Report Text:
2 lights following each other at high speed. No blinking lights and no engine noise. They kept the same distance apart and went across the entire horizon in about 2 minutes in a straight line.
Unable to discern the shapes, they just appeared as 2 single dots of light, similar to Mars which is our sky tonight.
Full Report Text:
Seen a light in western sky traveling east as it got closer it was 2 dots i took pictures.
Full Report Text:
I was at my local basketball courts with some friends and we saw lights moving in the sky in ways that didn’t seem normal. There was another group of 4 there at the time who also saw what we witnessed. There were 2-4 UFOs that we saw but it was hard to tell how many there really were because a few times we saw light zap from one light to another almost like a shooting star over a short distance.
The lights were bright and white and were not flashing.
Full Report Text:
White ball-shaped light heading East along the Potomac River toward Washington, DC (not a plane or helicopter) Travelling East along the Potomac River the object appeared to come to a stop over the Mall area over Washington, DC and hover at about 3,000 feet. The light appeared to travel along the approach path to Reagan National Airport but much higher than planes usually fly and had no blinking navigational aids. The object also did not descend as if it was going to land at National.
Instead it maintained its altitude until it slowed down over the Mall area and began to make a slow but sharp turn back in the direction it came from. It did this twice and came to a stop. It remained stationary for the next fifteen minutes or so.
While holding its position it continuously made small moves in a left-right motion and occasionally up and down. As the sun rose, the light slowly became less visible and then just disappeared. It appeared initially to be a white light (ball shaped) when we first noticed it then with binoculars noticed that it had subtle blue and yellow overtones.
Full Report Text:
Brightly illuminated large object above Warrenton, Va. I was walking the dog on a clear night, and noticed the Western sky was very bright. I looked up, and saw the approach of a large object that had bright white lights completely around its perimeter.
It was so bright, that I couldn't tell if it was pentagonal or hexagonal in shape, but I believe it was one of those shapes. It was definitely not rectangular, triangular, round, or oblong. It made no noise as it moved slowly across the sky to the northeast.
I observed this from a residential neighborhood about 2 miles from The Warrenton Training Center.
Full Report Text:
Star like lights, stationary, but occasional red light flashing from them, on the East sides of the lights. I live in Rural Retreat, VA. I have been seeing a light I first thought was a plane, for it has occasional quick blink of red light.
It does not move though. On the compass on my phone, it is at 210 degrees, ssw. My husband has been watching it also.
Then noticed another light, blinking once, red, every little bit. Perhaps 10 seconds apart. It is at 120 degrees eew.
We have been watching for about 15 minutes. Sometimes it seems like it would move a bit to the left of right, then maintain that position, or go back to first one. They look a lot like stars, but for the red blinking lights.
The red lights seem to be on the south (L) side of the the light. The lights are brighter than the few stars I can see. They are also lower a little in the sky.
I We opened a window to see if we could hear anything, like noise from a plane, But there was no sounds but for distant traffic on I-81, which is usual for us.
Full Report Text:
On 10/31/20 at 12:03am a brightly lit triangle passed silently over my car.Entire structure lit from inside. Clear night.
I saw a bright light off in the distance to my right while driving NE on US rt 66. I thought it was an airliner on its way to Dulles airport, with its landing lights on, pointed in my direction. After a few minutes I noticed it was just as bright, which I thought was strange as when jets turn, you can’t see their landing light as bright.
This thing stayed bright, and held my attention as I exited rt 66 onto east bound Prince William parkway. Driving eastbound on PW prkwy, I realized the light was going to cross my path, as it was traveling in a northerly direction. As I got closer, my first impression was it was an aircraft on fire.
It had no navigation lights, and as it got closer, I realized it was the shape of an equilateral triangle. The light was coming from inside the entire structure of whatever it was. It was very bright, multi colored, and the light was constantly changing, and moving from the leading point of the structure to the trailing edge very, very quickly.
The best way I can describe it is to say it looked like a clear triangle with charged plasma, or neon filling the inside. Again, it was very bright! The thing crossed my path far enough in front of me, that I could clearly see it through my windshield. I estimate it was flying at between 750-1500 ft.
It was moving slower than a fixed wing aircraft. I estimate it’s size at approximately 60 ft long, and 20-30 ft wide. On the trailing edge was a small triangle shape in the center pointing towards the rear.
I couldn’t tell if the small triangle on the rear was structural or not, could have been glare in my eye because of the brightness. As it passed, I rolled down my window, slowed down to about 20 mph (from the speed limit of 55) and snapped the included picture while driving. It made no noise that I could hear, but again, I was in a moving car.
If it was a plane/helicopter, I would definitely have heard it. This sighting took place just after midnight (picture is time stamped 12:03 am) on October 31st of 2020. I would like to know if similar objects have been reported.
Full Report Text:
2 Navy Jets being followed by what??? While driving home in the afternoon, I watched two Navy Jets making their approach to Oceana that appeared to be followed be a pencil shaped object. Jets don’t tow pencil shaped objects. I lost sight of all three over a tree line as they made a turn towards air base.
Full Report Text:
Bright lights, white and red and green. Maybe 6 lights at bottom of disc. Very clear night.
High in the southwest sky above the mountain. Lights were so bright, it felt to hurt eyes.
Virginia UFO Sightings From 2020 By Shape
This is a standardized set of shapes a UFO report can be filed under.
Shape / Appearance | Sightings | % Of Total |
---|---|---|
Light | 32 reported sightings | 29.63% of all reports |
Other | 10 reported sightings | 9.26% of all reports |
Circle | 10 reported sightings | 9.26% of all reports |
Unknown | 9 reported sightings | 8.33% of all reports |
Oval | 7 reported sightings | 6.48% of all reports |
Triangle | 6 reported sightings | 5.56% of all reports |
Disk | 5 reported sightings | 4.63% of all reports |
Changing | 4 reported sightings | 3.70% of all reports |
Cigar | 3 reported sightings | 2.78% of all reports |
Sphere | 3 reported sightings | 2.78% of all reports |
Cylinder | 3 reported sightings | 2.78% of all reports |
Chevron | 2 reported sightings | 1.85% of all reports |
Fireball | 2 reported sightings | 1.85% of all reports |
Diamond | 2 reported sightings | 1.85% of all reports |
Flash | 2 reported sightings | 1.85% of all reports |
Cross | 1 reported sightings | 0.93% of all reports |
Rectangle | 1 reported sightings | 0.93% of all reports |
Formation | 1 reported sightings | 0.93% of all reports |
Virginia UFO Sightings From 2020 By Month
This data point is an aggregation of all UFO reports by the month the sighting occured in.
Month | Sightings | % Of Total |
---|---|---|
July | 19 reported sightings | 17.59% of all reports |
September | 11 reported sightings | 10.19% of all reports |
November | 11 reported sightings | 10.19% of all reports |
January | 9 reported sightings | 8.33% of all reports |
June | 9 reported sightings | 8.33% of all reports |
March | 9 reported sightings | 8.33% of all reports |
August | 8 reported sightings | 7.41% of all reports |
April | 7 reported sightings | 6.48% of all reports |
February | 7 reported sightings | 6.48% of all reports |
May | 6 reported sightings | 5.56% of all reports |
October | 6 reported sightings | 5.56% of all reports |
December | 6 reported sightings | 5.56% of all reports |
Virginia UFO Sightings From 2020 By Weekday
This data point is an aggregation of all UFO reports by the day of the week the sighting occured on.
Weekday | Sightings | % Of Total |
---|---|---|
Wednesday | 23 reported sightings | 21.30% of all reports |
Monday | 22 reported sightings | 20.37% of all reports |
Saturday | 18 reported sightings | 16.67% of all reports |
Tuesday | 14 reported sightings | 12.96% of all reports |
Sunday | 14 reported sightings | 12.96% of all reports |
Friday | 12 reported sightings | 11.11% of all reports |
Thursday | 5 reported sightings | 4.63% of all reports |
Virginia UFO Sightings From 2020 By Date (Top 5)
This data point is an aggregation of all UFO reports by the date the sighting occured on, limited to the top 5 dates with the most sightings.
Date | Sightings | % Of Total |
---|---|---|
04/27/20 | 4 reported sightings | 3.70% of all reports |
11/13/20 | 3 reported sightings | 2.78% of all reports |
06/13/20 | 3 reported sightings | 2.78% of all reports |
02/05/20 | 2 reported sightings | 1.85% of all reports |
11/02/20 | 2 reported sightings | 1.85% of all reports |
Virginia UFO Sightings From 2020 By Time
This data point is an aggregation of all UFO reports by the time of day the sighting occured during. We took logical 4 hour windows in order to split the day into early morning, morning, afternoon, evening, night, and late night buckets for this analysis.
Time Of Day | Hours | Sightings | % Of Total |
---|---|---|---|
Night | 20:00 - 23:59 | 49 reported sightings | 45.37% of all reports |
Evening | 16:00 - 19:59 | 18 reported sightings | 16.67% of all reports |
Late night | 00:00 - 03:59 | 15 reported sightings | 13.89% of all reports |
Early morning | 04:00 - 07:59 | 11 reported sightings | 10.19% of all reports |
Morning | 08:00 - 11:59 | 9 reported sightings | 8.33% of all reports |
Afternoon | 12:00 - 15:59 | 6 reported sightings | 5.56% of all reports |
All Virginia Cities with reported UFO sightings in 2020
These are running counts of how many UFO sighting reports were filed per city in Virginia, in 2020
Other Years with Reported UFO Sightings in Virginia
These are running counts of how many UFO sighting reports are filed per year in Virginia.