It’s a drone! It’s a shooting star! It’s a satellite! Nope—it’s an unidentified flying object. These are the most infamous UFO sightings in Michigan.
As the Trump administration has declassified files related to unidentified flying objects (UFOs), interest in potential extraterrestrial encounters has only grown. The administration released the sixth tranche of files in early September 2026, including reports and video evidence of flying saucers from the 1950s.
UFO reports and sightings have been around for decades, including some very famous UFO sightings in Michigan. Read on to learn more about some of the most interesting—and sometimes eerier—UFO sightings in Michigan. And if you’re curious about keeping up-to-date on the latest UFO sightings in Michigan, you can check the National UFO Reporting Center Michigan database—anyone can report a UFO sighting and add details of what they witnessed. The database is a public nonprofit, and it reviews claims and investigates based on evidence.
1. The 1966 “swamp gas” incident
The 1966 Dexter, Mich., UFO sightings may be just the state’s most famous. The report started at the farm of Frank Manor, who reported seeing a large brown saucer with pulsating lights and a “quilted” surface hover near a marsh in his field. The object hovered, then disappeared, then reappeared 500 yards away in an instant before finally appearing to float over them before disappearing out of sight again.
Dozens of witnesses in the area—including law enforcement—also reportedly saw disc-like objects moving swiftly in the sky, changing colors, and hovering, while students at Hillsdale College reported lights soaring above their dorms. The sightings caused such a frenzy that the U.S. government sent Air Force representative Dr. J. Allen Hynek to investigate.
The “official” U.S. government explanation was that the lights were caused by a release of methane gas from a nearby swamp, but controversy still swirls over the incident, as another retired Air Force Engineer, Ray Szymanski, allegedly interviewed pilots from the area and claimed the government was covering something up. Locals were so outraged at being dismissed that President Gerald Ford even called for a congressional investigation.
That investigation never happened, but a local sheriff who witnessed the flying saucers called them “the weirdest things” he had ever seen, and that’s still the story many stick to today. Some haven’t accepted the “official” government explanation, so it’s a UFO sighting that remains up in the air (no pun intended) for many Michiganders.
2. The 1994 Lake Michigan mass sightings
If you’re an extraterrestrial skeptic, this story might just make you change your mind. In March 1994, a shocking total of over 300 witnesses reported seeing strange, unexplained lights and sights in the sky over West Michigan. People in Holland, Ottawa, Muskegon, and Allegan counties all recounted sightings, and some even called emergency services over what they witnessed.
Holland Sentinel sports writer Lee Lamberts was the first to report a string of strange red and white lights accompanied by loud “humming” that he spotted over the local high school, followed by a woman 20 miles north who reported similar red and white lights. An investigative reporter assigned to look into the story went in as a skeptic—until he listened to the 911 calls made that night. The sheer volume of callers, along with the genuine fear and synchrony of accounts describing four or five lighted objects, made even the skeptic wonder what was going on.
Local meteorologist Jack Bushong was even tasked with checking the radar by the Ottawa County Dispatch after they became overwhelmed with calls. He found what he described as the “biggest airplane ever detected on radar,” moving directions and altitudes incredibly rapidly and, at one point, flying directly over the largest, iced-over portion of the Great Lakes.
Bushong recounted that he was banned from talking to the media at the time, brushed off by his superiors, and eventually even moved jobs to try to distance himself from the event. He later said he felt “vindicated” when the Pentagon eventually released the UFO files and footage from that night that corroborated his story.
3. Petoskey UFO sightings
Although we couldn’t find any official reports to corroborate it, one Redditor said an unexplained UFO incident occurred near Petoskey around 1978, when a man was enjoying Lake Manuka with his friend. Suddenly, the area around them went unnaturally and eerily silent. If you’ve ever spent time outdoors in Michigan, you know it’s never actually quiet—the bugs and animals and frogs are always loud—so the silence stood out.
As the silence fell around them, a sudden white light burst across the sky. As soon as it crossed, the silence resumed to the typical sounds of nature. According to Reddit, local news stations reported the incident the following morning, and it has never been explained.
4. The “moaning” UFOs
In 1966, a string of UFO reports flew in from the Pellston-Alanson area. Similar to some of the other reports of UFO sightings in Michigan, people described seeing red and white lights that rotated and moved in unusual directions. Strangely enough, they also claimed to have heard strange “moaning” noises accompanying the UFOs.
State police arrived on the scene to investigate, but the lights had moved on by the time they arrived, so no official investigation or explanation has ever been given.
5. The Thumb encounter
Michigan writer Jane Stein captured the firsthand account of an anonymous farm girl in Ruth, located in the Thumb, who claimed to have come eerily close to a UFO in 1951. The eyewitness, then eight years old and working in the field with her two brothers, witnessed what she described as a saucer that looked like “two pie plates fastened together.”
The saucer was round, gray, and hovered in the air with no sound or wind around it. There were no windows on the contraption, but it did have an antenna and flashing lights. At one point, the eyewitness claimed the craft also released a protruding ladder from the bottom of the saucer. You can read the story and others in Stein’s book, “Musings of a Country Girl: A Collection of Short Stories from Small-Town America.”
6. The strange Sanillac County craft
Four farmers in Sanillac County in 1953 described what looked like a “giant star” hovering near the treelines. The farmers were not associated with each other, reports said, and were very reluctant to even share what they saw, adding credibility to their accounts.
All the men shared similar reports of lights on the UFOs that changed colors, from green to white to red, and one farmer even followed it for over a mile, fearing it was an aircraft in distress, before it disappeared from sight.
7. The Lake Superior sighting
Also in 1953 (it’s strange how so many of the sightings line up, isn’t it?), a Michigan Air Force base sent an F-89 Scorpion jet after an unidentified flying object that appeared on the radar in restricted airspace over the Soo Locks. The jet followed the UFO through snowy weather for around 30 minutes before the two appeared to converge. The jet lost communication on both radar and radio as the UFO suddenly went in another direction, then vanished from sight completely.
Official reports claimed the UFO was a Royal Canadian aircraft, despite the Royal Canadian logs showing no aircraft flights that night. Conspiracies over the UFO swirled even further when wreckage from the American jet was never recovered, and divers found evidence of a metal “saucer” and what appeared to be an F-89 jet in the waters of Lake Superior. However, the site was reportedly quarantined, and no one was ever allowed to explore the area, adding to the controversy about what actually happened that snowy night.
8. The Holland hovercraft
Just a year later, in 1954, two parents looked out of their window in Holland, Mich., after their kids alerted them to something strange, only to be shocked by what they saw. The duo described a large, circular craft “just sitting there,” hovering near the trees. Unmoving but filled with lights that didn’t blink, the husband-and-wife pair watched for about 10 minutes as the object spun in place but didn’t move; then it slowly began to move south.
The National Weather Service later confirmed that its radar had picked up activity exactly where the family had described the craft, but no official explanation was ever given.
9. The “woo” of Wurtsmith
A UFO was spotted at the Wurtsmith Air Force Base on “Devil’s Night,” the night before Halloween in 1975. The UFO first appeared shortly after 10 p.m., and reports say it sounded like a helicopter but moved too erratically and was too low to be one.
The UFO also had no lights until it was farther out of sight, and no radio contact was ever made with the craft. One of the base’s captains, Captain Higgin-Botham, was questioned by the OSI and cautioned against discussing the incident. The event took place during a wave of other UFO sightings by the military.
10. The Lake Huron takedown
One of the most interesting yet-to-be-explained UFO sightings in Michigan was fairly recent, having only occurred in 2023. Following a string of UFO sightings in February, including two UFOs that were shot down by the United States, a third UFO was spotted and shot down in the Upper Peninsula.
The UFO was taken down by Air Force and National Guard pilots on Feb. 12, 2023. The military claimed the UFO’s low altitude posed a risk, but even after it was shot down, it was never fully recovered. The Pentagon stated that it believed the UFO was “benign,” but did not provide an exact explanation for any of the UFOs. Later findings from the Canadian government said some wreckage from the shot UFO had been found and confirmed to be from a weather surveillance company, but a full search was called off due to “weather conditions.”
