UFO Sightings are increasing across the U.S. — and in Michigan where 36 sightings have been reported in the Great Lakes state this year.
Most recently, on June 29, a person reported seeing a mass group of reflective objects near Detroit.
“Mass grouping of high altitude random pattern reflective objects — dozens,” the report to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) said. “Dozens of highly reflective high altitude objects moving north at extremely high altitude. Captured on video — iPhone. Not the best. No aircraft visible. Daylight clear skies. Original sighting as they dispersed was a mass clustering that began to drift. Star link said not visible here for days. No sound. No signs of propulsion.”
The sighting happened at 7:40 p.m. and lasted about 10 minutes, the report.
Just a day earlier, on June 28, an individual near Port Huron reported seeing “a cylinder shape white craft hovering for about 5 seconds then slowly went behind clouds.” The person said they were about a quarter mile away from the object.
“I looked out kitchen window and noticed a big, long white cylinder shaped craft hovering high in sky,” the person told NUFORC. “It started moving slowly and went behind a cloud! It appeared to be white yet glowing very bright! I feel up close it would have been at least the size of a School bus.”
Is Michigan a UFO hotspot? Here’s what to know about recent sightings.
UFO sightings in Michigan in 2025
Historically, Michigan ranks 10th in the U.S. for reports of “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP), according to NUFORC, with 3,794 sightings since an incident in 1936. That’s just 24 behind North Carolina. California ranks first, with 16,735, almost twice as many as the second-place state, Florida, which has 8,624 reported sightings.
Father-son duo report Bigfoot sighting: Where they say they saw the creature in Michigan
So far in 2025, Michigan has had 36 sightings, from Au Train in the Upper Peninsula, along the Lake Superior, to Cassopolis in Southwest Michigan. Some of them are suspected to be drones.
Not every sighting is reported to the NUFORC. A search of X, formerly Twitter, for references to UFOs or UAPs in Michigan showed a few sightings in 2025 that are not in the NUFORC database. Most did not provide an exact location in Michigan.
Where does Michigan fit into UFO history?
Multiple UFO sightings in southern Michigan made headlines in 1966 and led to the “swamp gas” explanation from the government.
On the night of March 20, 1966, near Dexter in Washtenaw County, Frank Mannor and his teenage son saw lights outside their farmhouse and watched what they believed was an object land nearby and then hover over a marshy area, according to the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan.
A drawing of a cylinder shape white craft reported near Port Huron on June 28, 2025, that was provided to NUFORC.
Other objects had been reported on March 14 and March 16 that year by others, including Washtenaw County sheriff’s deputies, according to an Ann Arbor News article archived by the Ann Arbor District Library.
The next night, March 21, 1966, Hillsdale College students reported seeing an unusual, aerial object between 9-10 p.m., according to the Hillsdale Historical Society. The women in MacIntyre Residence at Hillsdale College saw flashing lights hovering over the college’s Slayton Arboretum and called Hillsdale County’s civil defense director, William “Bud” VanHorn. He told them to continue to observe the object and to call again if it didn’t disappear. It didn’t, so they called, and VanHorn summoned a Hillsdale police car and two Michigan State Police units, then went to the dorm himself.
The women took VanHorn to the second-floor window through which they’d seen the lights.
“There they were, rising to a point just below the airport beacon and then settling down to earth again,” the Historical Society’s article said. “Word spread quickly — even without social media — and about 150 people observed the phenomenon. Saucer fever infected Hillsdale in the days that followed the newspaper report of the incident. Hundreds of people cruised the streets of Hillsdale hoping to catch a glimpse of the mysterious lights, and police were kept busy chasing down leads phoned in by the ‘saucer watchers.'”
Other reports of UFOs came in from near Monroe, in Lima Township in Washtenaw County and south into the Sylvania, Ohio, area. The reports brought J. Allen Hynek, an astrophysicist from Northwestern University and the director of the federal government’s Project Blue Book, to Michigan to examine the claims. At a news conference on March 25, 1966, he said the Mannor and Hillsdale sightings were caused by gases from rotting vegetation in lowland areas that had been released during the spring thaw — aka “swamp gases.”
“A dismal swamp is a most unlikely place for a visit from outer space,” Hynek said at the time.
Hynek also said photos taken by a police officer were just “trails made as a result of a camera time exposure of the rising crescent moon … and the planet Venus.”
The public and Washtenaw County Sheriff Douglas Harvey weren’t buying the explanation.
“With all due respect to Dr. Hynek,” Harvey told the Ann Arbor News, “I’m not ready to accept this weak excuse of gas from marshes.”
Over time, Hynek came to accept that the people reporting these sightings were not crazy or hallucinating. Former Monroe News reporter Bobb Vergiels recalled interviewing Hynek in the 1980s during a visit to Monroe County Community College.
“One of the quotations from Hynek at MCCC that night still echoes in my memory — ‘UFOs are incredible tales, told by credible people,'” Vergiels wrote.
How likely is Michigan to survive an alien invasion?
The website GIGAcalculator, which provides several online calculators, recently used a variety of factors to determine which states have the best odds of surviving an alien invasion.
It used data such as population; UFO sightings per capita; number of caves; amount of land covered by forests or water; the number of military and law enforcement personnel per 1,000 people; the number of scientists, engineers and health care professionals; and the number of food and beverage manufacturing companies.
Virginia was determined to be the state most likely to survive an alien invasion, followed by Alabama and Massachusetts. Michigan came in 17th, ranking between Illinois and Ohio. Michigan had the most engineers per 1,000 people, which shouldn’t be surprising with all of the automotive companies being here, but there are no caves to hide in. Michigan also ranked high in food and beverage companies.
What was the first UFO sighting in Michigan?
The earliest known UFO sighting in Michigan, according to the National UFO Reporting Center, was reported in 2006 but occurred on or about July 15, 1936, in Alma.
The person reported what seemed like a childhood nightmare at the time seems more like an alien encounter.
“The more I think of it the more it seems it was not a dream. It was the most frighting thing in my life,” the report said.
The person reported they were 4 or 5 years old when two or three creatures came into their bedroom through a wall. The creatures to the child to their “car,” which was a shiny, polished metal, like aluminum, and it was flat on top and curved on the bottom.
This happened about four more times, and as a preteen and teenager the person reported being prone to nosebleeds. During one nosebleed, a bullet-shaped object, about an inch long, came out of their nose.
“I am now 72 years old and have never spoke of this to anyone,” the person wrote. “Am I nuts or imagining some thing??”
How do I report a UFO sighting?
Anyone can report an unusual light, object or shape in the sky to the National UFO Reporting Center on its website or through its phone hotline, 206-722-3000. File a report directly.
Common objects mistaken for UFOs or UAPs
The center asks people to check out these objects commonly mistaken for UFOs:
Starlink satellites: If you see a line of lights, they are probably Starlink satellites.
Venus and Jupiter: If you are seeing a very bright, intensely silver-white, stationary object near the horizon, it is likely Venus, and not a UFO. Jupiter may appear higher in the sky but can also be extremely bright. Several apps are available to help identify planets.
Visible in photos, videos but not naked eye: If you see something in a photo or video you took that you did not see with your naked eye, it’s probably a camera anomaly or artifact such as a lens flare.
Pulsating lights in video: Cellphone videos taken of lights in the night sky, planets or stars often appear to pulse, get brighter and dimmer, or appear as a “donut” or ring shape, due to the de-focusing and re-focusing of the phone’s lens.
What’s the difference between a UFO and a UAP?
UFO stands for “unidentified flying object,” a term for an aerial phenomenon whose cause or identity is unclear to the observer. The United States Air Force coined the term in 1952.
Today, the term UFO is colloquially used to refer to any unidentifiable sighting regardless of whether it has been investigated.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration uses the term “unidentified anomalous phenomena” to describe “observations of the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or as known natural phenomena.”
What is the National UFO Reporting Center?
Founded in 1974, the National UFO Reporting Center said its “primary function over the past five decades has been to receive, record, and to the greatest degree possible, corroborate and document reports from individuals who have been witness to unusual, possibly UFO-related events.
“Throughout its history, the Center has processed over 180,000 reports, and has distributed its information to thousands of individuals.”
The center noted it “makes no claims as to the validity of the information in any of these reports. Obvious hoaxes have been omitted, however most reports have been posted exactly as received in the author’s own words.”
Contributing: Clare Mulroy, USA TODAY; Dave Osborn, USA TODAY Network, David Panian, Daily Telegram
Jalen Williams is a trending reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at jawilliams1@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan UFO sightings are common. How many have been reported this year?