UFO Case Review is a series devoted entirely to encounters with UFOs and their unknown occupants. It ran as its own channel from 2012 - 2015, and is now presented on Think Anomalous. Videos are written and narrated by Jason Charbonneau, and feature illustration by V.R. Laurence (https://vrlaurence.com) or Colin Campbell, music by Josh Chamberland, Animation by Brendan Barr, and Sound design by Will Mountain. To see older episodes, click here.
Playlist:
Carl Higdon Abduction, 1974In October of 1974, a man named Carl Higdon had a series of bizarre experiences while hunting elk in southern Wyoming. He was taken aboard a strange, transparent craft before being literally dropped back down to earth in a state of utter confusion. Carl’s case is significant not just for its fantastic narrative elements, but for the fact that it appears to have been an aborted disappearance. In this way, it may tell us something not just about UFO abduction experiences, but about a subset of missing persons cases with which they might share a cause. (continue reading)
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O'Hare Airport UFO, 2006In November 2006, a UFO encounter took place over Chicago’s O’Hare airport that involved multiple trained observers, including pilots, flight controllers, and airport personnel. The sighting is one of many to involve aviation workers, and adds to the body of evidence proving that pilots and other trained observers see UFOs more often than public confessions would tend to indicate. The case of the O’Hare UFO also reveals the extent to which airlines, airports, and regulatory authorities still intervene to stop these sightings from reaching the general population. (continue reading)
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Abduction of Antônio Vilas-Boas, 1957In October of 1957, a Brazilian farmer named Antônio Vilas-Boas had an experience that’s now considered the first documented “UFO abduction” case in the post-war era.(1) Four months after the unusual events, Vilas-Boas shared his experience with a doctor and a journalist.(2) At a time when stories of UFO landings and entity encounters were dismissed out-of-hand, Antônio’s experience was widely overlooked, at first. But more than 60 years later, we see that his narrative contains many of the same elements as the common “alien abduction” experiences of the 80's and the 90's, and it was the first to suggest a rather alarming agenda on the part of the abductors.(3) (continue reading)
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Japan Airlines 1628 UFO Encounter, 1986Although it's not uncommon for pilots to witness UFOs, the case of Japan Airlines flight 1628 is remarkable for involving a prolonged and dramatic close encounter corroborated by multiple radar systems. The witnesses’ story attracted both media and government interest, and the resulting investigation unearthed a wealth of supporting evidence, including extensive radar data and radio transcripts that document official handling of the situation. The case is a stand-out example of an airline UFO encounter, and it tells us a lot about the ways in which the FAA, the airlines, and even the US intelligence community, work behind the scenes to manage what we hear about UFOs. (continue reading)
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"Foo Fighters" of World War IIAfter the famous Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting of 1947, the U.S. Air Force established the first-ever government office for investigating UFOs. However, it was not the first time that a U.S. government body had encountered reports of airborne anomalies. Throughout the Second World War, both Allied and German air crews saw strange, moving lights in the sky that they called “foo fighters.” The many extant reports of these things suggest that military brass was anything but unfamiliar with UFOs by the summer of 1947, and may have already had a plan in place to manage public perception of the UFO phenomenon. (continue reading)
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Travis Walton Abduction, 1975Though UFO experiencers are often visited alone, Travis Walton was apparently taken by a UFO for five days after it was seen up-close by six of his friends and co-workers. Despite the efforts of police, debunkers, and journalists to discredit their account of events, neither Walton nor any of his co-workers have ever admitted to a hoax, and all seven tell the same story today. The men’s testimony is considered some of the best evidence for extraterrestrial visitation to date, and Walton's fantastical experiences during his abduction - since dramatized in film and television - are now deeply embedded in the public imagination. (continue reading)
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Ariel School UFO Landing - Zimbabwe, 1994In September of 1994, more than 60 children at the Ariel primary school in Zimbabwe witnessed a strange silver object land outside the playground, and were approached by small, black beings with large, entrancing eyes. The children’s stories alarmed their teachers, and aroused the curiosity of the BBC, and the esteemed Harvard Psychiatrist, John E. Mack. While the common elements in the children’s stories suggest that the object and the beings were physically real, the many divergent details, and the kids’ highly personal reactions, suggest that there are many subjective elements to UFO and entity encounters that we don’t yet understand. (continue reading)
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Hudson Valley UFO Sightings, 1982 - 86It’s often claimed that ufology is not a science because UFO sightings don’t follow any patterns, or obey any “rules” that could be tested scientifically. But a string of sightings in the suburbs north of New York City demonstrate that UFOs are also far from random: over several years in the early 1980s, thousands of people saw V-shaped and circular formations of lights over the Hudson Valley, many as large as football fields. The sightings came in waves, often recurring in the same few areas, and frequently on the same few days of the week. Though these patterns are difficult to explain, they suggest that there is some logic to UFO activity that may one day be explained by science. (continue reading)
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The Strange Case of Dr. X: UFOs and "Miracle" HealingsIn 1968, an anonymous French physician saw two luminous UFOs from his living room window, and watched them merge into one. He was immediately healed of two serious injuries, and had a range of other anomalous experiences in the following years, first documented by the famed ufologist, Aimé Michel. Though typically associated with faith healers and miracle claims, spontaneous healings are alleged in hundreds of UFO reports, and claims of other anomalous phenomena are very common as well. The case of Dr. X suggests that these anomalies - and the effects that they have on witnesses - may actually be as important to understanding UFOs as the UFOs themselves. (continue reading)
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Tehran UFO Incident, 1976: Iranian Fighter Jets Chase a UFOAlthough there are many UFO sightings among pilots and air traffic controllers, one case in particular serves to shatter the myth that trained observers don't see UFOs. In September of 1976, the Iranian Air Force scrambled two Phantom jets to intercept a luminous, shape-shifting object drifting over the capital city of Tehran. But every time the jets approached it, their equipment failed, and the object darted away. The case is exemplary for involving a mix of radar data, physical effects, and multiple independent witnesses, and a classified report proves that it drew attention from the highest levels of the US government - despite official insistence to the contrary. (continue reading)
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Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter, The Goblin "Invasion" of 1955In the mid-1950s, two families in rural Kentucky made headlines across the country when they told police that their home had been approached by small, metallic creatures that could not be killed or scared away. The media coverage of the incident helped draw attention to neglected reports of UFO landings and entity encounters, and the strange, goblin-like creatures excited the public imagination. At the same time, however, hostile and sensationalized reporting on the incident served to discredit stories of contact with anomalous entities, and helped erect the veil of ridicule that now surrounds them. (continue reading)
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Maury Island UFO Incident and the First Men In Black, 1947Several weeks after Kenneth Arnold had his historic UFO encounter in June of 1947, he investigated a sighting in Washington state that would prove to be just as influential in UFO lore. The principal witness claimed to see a group of circular UFOs from his patrol boat in Puget Sound, and the next day, he was visited by what ufologists would now refer to as a "man in black." Many researchers have concluded that the sighting was a hoax, but the media coverage - especially after a fatal plane crash carrying two army investigators - convinced the world that the US government was hiding the truth on UFOs, and would kill to keep it secret. (continue reading)
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J. Allen Hynek: the Man behind UFO "Project Blue Book"For nearly forty years after “flying saucers” began making the news, one man dominated the search for an explanation: J. Allen Hynek, astronomer and scientific consultant to the US Air Force UFO Research group. Hynek began his career as a debunker, but gradually changed his mind on UFOs, becoming the foremost advocate for their scientific study. More than anyone else, he helped convince both scientists and laymen that there was a genuine mystery in the UFO data, and he showed the world how to solve it with the tools of modern science. (continue reading)
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"Mystery Airship" Sightings, 1896 - 1897In 1896 and 7, hundreds of western American newspapers reported mass sightings of fantastic, winged airships performing maneuvers years ahead of the technology of the time. In some cases, the airships landed, and their pilots talked to witnesses. Most Americans assumed a secret inventor would soon take credit for the sightings, but no one who did so could prove ownership of a functional flying machine. The “mystery airships” remain unidentified, constituting an early wave of UFOs before flying saucers, and almost before flight itself. (continue reading)
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Flatwoods Monster, 1952By the early 1950s, claims of contact with alien-like entities began to appear alongside stories of UFOs and “flying saucers.” In the fall of 1952, a group of local boys saw a fiery, red object fly across the sky near the small town of Flatwoods, West Virginia and appear to touch down on a nearby farm. There, the group found a large, glowing object, and a monstrous, mechanical entity that sent them running for their lives. The group’s remarkable story captured the public imagination, and preceded a rise in UFO entity encounters around the world. (continue reading)
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Zanfretta Abductions, 1978 - 1981Beginning in December 1978, an Italian private security guard named Piero Fortunato Zanfretta had a series of bizarre experiences with tall, green giants that rank amongst the most fantastic stories of all UFO contactees. Important elements of Zanfretta’s account were confirmed by physical evidence and corroborating witnesses, and the unfolding drama was thoroughly documented in Italian media. Zanfretta’s dramatic story exemplifies many common features of UFO contact narratives, and serves as a vivid testament to their wholly “alien” nature. (continue reading)
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Washington D.C. UFO Sightings, 1952The summer of 1952 had the greatest wave of UFO sightings since the first flying saucers of the late 1940s, and the Air Force was under mounting pressure to produce an explanation. Then, for two nights in July, a group of UFOs entered restriced airspace over Washington D.C. and triggered a media frenzy. The public reaction to the Washington sightings proved that the global fascination with UFOs would not go away, and prompted the Air Force to retreat from its responsibility to answer to the public on this enduring mystery. (continue reading)
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Condon Report (Scientific Study of UFOs), 1969In 1966, the U.S. Air Force commissioned what it intended to be the definitive study on the UFO phenomenon. The report, which concluded that there was no scientific value to UFO research, provided the Air Force with the justification to halt more than two decades of public investigative work, and solidified the current intellectual culture of UFO debunking. But a critical review of the report’s history shows that its scientific objectivity was compromised from the very beginning, and exposes the rigorous controversy behind Condon’s façade of scholarly consensus. (continue reading)
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Kenneth Arnold Sighting, 1947On June 24, 1947, a private pilot named Kenneth Arnold spotted a group of lustrous, delta-shaped objects flying around the Cascade mountains in Washington state. Arnold’s story made headlines across the country, inspiring a world-wide fascination with “flying saucers” and over twenty years of US government research. Arnold’s wasn't the first anomalous aerial sighting in human history, or even the first in 1947, but it captured the public imagination like few sightings before, and it birthed a new mythology of extraterrestrial visitation. (continue reading)
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Before Think Anomalous
Before it became a series on Think Anomalous, Jason Charbonneau started the channel UFO Case Review to upload videos for school projects to practice audio editing. Between late 2012 to early 2015 he created 20 case summaries, released for free with no advertising, and has now garnered over 750,000 views. Many episodes are still available on the YouTube channel, and some cases have already been covered again with the full Think Anomalous high-quality treatment they deserve.