Three anchor cases from the 1910 archive: the Invercargill, New Zealand CE-III — the Mayor, vicar, and constable witness a cigar with an occupant vocalizing in an unknown language from a lateral door (January 19, 1910, Vallée/Basterfield); the Chattanooga, Tennessee cigar wave opening — 1,000 witnesses on a city street (January 12, 1910, Poher/Edwards); and the Violetville, Maryland entity encounter — young Lawrence Crone and his mother observe approximately 20 pigeon-headed grey-furred beings watching from colored windows in a hovering 100-foot metallic cigar (Spring 1910, HUMCAT/NICAP).
1910: UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
1910 opens the new decade with the Invercargill, New Zealand case of January 19 — a named mayor, a vicar, and a policeman watched a cigar-shaped object hover at thirty meters, an occupant shout unfamiliar words from an open door, and the object depart at speed. The year also holds the Violetville, Maryland close encounter, one of the more morphologically detailed entity descriptions in the pre-war American record, and the Listowel, County Kerry encounter with two luminous human-form beings in December, documented by Paul Devereux. Alongside these, a Tennessee “wave” running January 12–20 is presented on this page as one of the largest mass-witness events of the year — but the sourcing behind three of its four entries repeatedly flags a probable conventional explanation, and that caveat is restored here rather than left out.
Date: 1910
Location: France
Time: Day
Summary: A rare photograph of entry number 5 in the Catalan Cup Race at a track in France. This picture also included a strange unidentified flying object seen over the treetops beyond the line of spectators watching this race. There is no indication whether the photographer saw this object and intended to get it in the picture. [Full Report]
Source: Galactic Info Service
Date: 1910
Location: Normandy, France
Time: Unknown
Hynek Classification: N/A — falling/aquatic object, ambiguous nature
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: The crew of a French fishing boat reported a large, black, bird-like object falling from the sky into the sea, bouncing back up, then falling again and disappearing beneath the waves.
Source: Unlisted — consistent with a broader maritime anomalous-object pattern documented elsewhere in this archive; primary source not yet identified
Date: 1910
Location: Alabama / Tennessee (general)
Time: Unknown
Hynek Classification: NL
Case Status: Insufficient Data — likely an undated summary of the dated January 12 entries below, not a separate event
Summary: A large cigar-shaped object reportedly hovered over Huntsville, Alabama and Chattanooga, Tennessee, playing a bright spotlight over both cities.
Source: Unlisted — flagged as a probable duplicate rather than merged, since it cannot be confirmed against the dated entries without a primary source
Date: 1910
Location: Konowalik, Guyana
Time: Unknown
Hynek Classification: N/A — cryptid/entity encounter, no craft
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: A local resident magistrate, prospecting for gold above the junction of the Potato River, encountered several short, reddish-brown, fur-covered creatures that retreated slowly into the jungle without breaking eye contact with him.
Source: Coleman, Loren. Curious Encounters — confirmed cryptid/Fortean researcher
Date: 1910
Location: St. Merryn, Cornwall, England
Time: Unknown
Hynek Classification: CE-III
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Two witnesses saw a red, ship-like object among the clouds, containing numerous small dwarf-like figures who appeared to be chattering, laughing, and pointing down at the witnesses.
Source: Bord, Janet and Colin. Modern Mysteries of Britain — confirmed researchers
Date: 1910
Location: Near Estella, Navarra, Spain
Time: Night
Hynek Classification: N/A — entity encounter, no craft
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Hunter and cow-herder Ricardo Jiménez, riding home late at night, was confronted by a short, child-sized figure making loud moaning sounds at the roadside. On dismounting to investigate, he found it had distorted features and unusually long limbs, wearing a white tunic. He fled; the figure reportedly tried to grab his horse’s reins with long, thin hands as he left. Others in the area reportedly encountered the same or a similar figure.
Source: Jiménez, Iker. El Paraíso Maldito (Cursed Paradise) — confirmed Spanish paranormal researcher and broadcaster
Date: January 12, 1910
Location: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Time: 09:00
Hynek Classification: DD
Case Status: Explained (Probable) — the cited source itself notes the object’s appearance and behavior most likely have a conventional explanation
Summary: An object was observed by roughly 1,000 witnesses for about five minutes.
Source: Poher, Claude. Études Statistiques Portant sur 1000 Témoignages — a real statistical UFO-witness study; likely part of a meteor procession event affecting multiple nearby Tennessee cities over several days, per the pattern below
Date: January 12, 1910
Location: Huntsville, Alabama
Time: 09:15
Hynek Classification: NL
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: An object was observed.
Source: Edwards, Frank. Flying Saucers — Serious Business, Lyle Stuart, 1966
Date: January 14, 1910
Location: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Time: 09:00
Hynek Classification: DD
Case Status: Explained (Probable) — the cited source itself notes the object’s appearance and behavior most likely have a conventional explanation
Summary: An object was observed by several thousand witnesses for about twenty minutes.
Source: Edwards, Frank. Flying Saucers — Serious Business, Lyle Stuart, 1966
Date: January 15, 1910
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee
Time: Unknown
Hynek Classification: DD
Case Status: Explained (Probable) — the cited source itself notes the object’s appearance and behavior most likely have a conventional explanation
Summary: An object was observed for a few minutes.
Source: Lore Jr., Gordon I. R. Mysteries of the Skies: UFOs in Perspective, Prentice-Hall, 1968
Date: January 15, 1910
Location: Paragould, Arkansas (Fulton County)
Time: Evening
Hynek Classification: DD
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Myrtle B. Lee later recounted a childhood sighting with her brother: “We saw a bright object hovering just above the trees about 50 yard from us. It was silver colored and shaped like a Zeppelin, but not quite as big. It had nothing hanging from the underside and there were no windows. When it took off we saw it start up, and it completely vanished before our eyes.” She noted that seeing a real balloon later convinced her what they’d seen was not one.
Source: HUMCAT, quoting a newspaper source
Date: January 19, 1910
Location: Invercargill, New Zealand
Time: 23:00
Hynek Classification: CE-III
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Several witnesses, including the vicar, the mayor, and a policeman, saw a cigar-shaped object hovering at roughly 30 meters altitude. A man appeared at a lateral door and was heard shouting words in an unknown language before the opening closed and the object accelerated out of sight. Full detail on this site’s dedicated report page. [Full Report]
Source: Vallée, Jacques. Magonia Database
Date: January 20, 1910
Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Time: Around 08:00
Hynek Classification: DD
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Multiple independent witnesses (Boyle) reported more than one object.
Source: Lucius Farish investigation files
Date: February 4, 1910
Location: Valencia, Spain
Time: 01:10
Hynek Classification: NL
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Nocturnal lights were reported.
Source: CEONI
Date: February 5, 1910
Location: Greer, Idaho
Time: 23:45
Hynek Classification: NL
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: A male witness (Whitney) on a river observed an object with appearance and performance beyond known aircraft capability of the era.
Source: Doubt Magazine
Date: Spring 1910
Location: Violetville, Maryland (now a Baltimore suburb)
Time: Morning
Hynek Classification: CE-III
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Decades later, ufologists Ted Bloecher and Thomas P. Deuley separately recorded testimony from Lawrence J. Crone, who was between four and seven years old (accounts vary) at the time. At a baseball field, he reported a brown, metallic, cigar- or blimp-shaped object roughly 100 feet long hovering with an oscillating motion over a nearby pine tree. The craft had a row of rectangular, variously colored windows; through one transparent pane he saw occupants with pigeon-like heads and necks, pointed heads or helmets, no nose or ears, a mouth slit, and two round eye-spots on flat, chinless faces, covered in a soft gray or light-colored fur-like covering. Several small groups took turns looking out, with an estimated twenty occupants total. He alerted two young men nearby, who reportedly screamed and fled; his mother also came out and witnessed the object as it moved away. Full detail on this site’s dedicated report page. [Full Report]
Source: HUMCAT: Catalogue of Humanoid Reports, compiled by David F. Webb and Ted Bloecher, circa 1977 — one of the more consistently documented entity descriptions in the pre-war American record, despite the age/date uncertainty in the witness’s own later recollections
Date: Spring 1910
Location: Market Parade, England
Time: Night
Hynek Classification: NL
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: An object was observed by one witness.
Source: Wilkins, Harold T. Flying Saucers on the Attack, Ace Star, 1967
Date: March 10, 1910
Location: Enniskillen, Northern Ireland
Time: 23:30
Hynek Classification: NL
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Nocturnal lights were reported.
Source: Devereux, Paul. Earth Lights Revelation
Date: May 4, 1910
Location: Cernäuţi (Chernivtsi), Ukraine
Time: 19:00
Hynek Classification: DD
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: An experienced male witness (Plemely) observed an object roughly 300 feet across for over three minutes, with unconventional appearance and performance.
Source: Hobana, Ion. UFOs from Behind the Iron Curtain, Bantam, 1975
Date: May 19, 1910
Location: Alma, Illinois
Time: Unknown
Hynek Classification: NL
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: A male witness (Craig, Myron) observed an object.
Source: Eberhart, George M. A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies, Greenwood Press, 1980
Date: June 1910
Location: Dalasagen, Vansbro, Sweden
Time: Unknown
Hynek Classification: DD
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: An 11-year-old male witness (Lindskold) observed a flying disc roughly 20 feet across for over two minutes; a noise was heard.
Source: UFO Information Sweden
Date: Summer 1910
Location: Vernal, Utah
Time: 22:00
Hynek Classification: CE-I
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: A man on horseback dismounted at night after his horse became disturbed and approached a woodland clearing, where he saw a low-hovering disc with a row of lights. As he approached, it emitted a buzzing sound, rose slowly, then streaked away.
Source: Hall, Richard H. The UFO Evidence, Volume II, 2000, p. 9
Date: Mid-1910
Location: Jewett, Texas
Time: 21:00
Hynek Classification: NL
Case Status: Explained (Probable) — the cited source itself notes the object’s appearance and behavior most likely have a conventional explanation
Summary: Six female witnesses (Hamilton, E.) observed a star-sized object in clear weather for over four minutes.
Source: Lorenzen, Coral E. UFOs: The Whole Story, Signet, 1969
Date: July 1910
Location: Normandy, France
Time: Unknown
Hynek Classification: NL
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: An object with appearance and performance beyond the capability of known aircraft of the era was observed.
Source: Rogerson, Peter. World-Wide Catalog of Type 1 Reports
Date: August 30, 1910
Location: New York, New York
Time: 20:45
Hynek Classification: NL
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Over 100 witnesses in the city observed an object with appearance and performance beyond known aircraft capability.
Source: FSR (Flying Saucer Review)
Date: August 31, 1910
Location: New York, New York
Time: 21:00
Hynek Classification: NL
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Several hundred witnesses observed an aircraft-like object in the city.
Source: FSR (Flying Saucer Review)
Date: September 21, 1910
Location: New York, New York
Time: Daytime
Hynek Classification: DD
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: A daytime disc was reported.
Source: FSR (Flying Saucer Review)
Date: September 22, 1910
Location: Dunkirk, New York
Time: Night
Hynek Classification: CE-II
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: An object reportedly landed remotely.
Source: FSR (Flying Saucer Review)
Date: October 27, 1910
Location: Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada
Time: 10:00
Hynek Classification: DD
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: A cigar-shaped object with red and green lights on the rear and a bright headlight flew overhead at roughly 600 feet altitude.
Source: Hall, Richard H. From Airships to Arnold: A Preliminary Catalogue of UFO Reports in the Early 20th Century (1900–1946), UFO Research Coalition, 2000
Date: December 1910
Location: Rehoboth (Route 118), Massachusetts
Time: 23:30
Hynek Classification: NL
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Five female witnesses (Varley, F.) on a highway observed an object twice the apparent size of the moon for a few seconds, with appearance and performance beyond known aircraft capability.
Source: Lore Jr., Gordon I. R. Mysteries of the Skies: UFOs in Perspective, Prentice-Hall, 1968
Date: Mid-December 1910
Location: Near Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland
Time: About midnight
Hynek Classification: CE-III
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Two men walking toward Listowel noticed a light roughly a mile ahead, at first assumed to be a house, but which moved up and down and shifted between a spark and an expanding yellow flame. As they drew closer, they could distinguish two such lights, which then each expanded into yellow luminous sheets roughly six feet by four feet, each containing a radiant, human-form figure. The two lights drew together so the figures appeared side by side within the combined glow. An intervening house blocked further view as the men continued walking. Full detail on this site’s dedicated report page. [Full Report]
Source: Devereux, Paul. Earth Lights
Date: 1910–1913
Location: West Yaroslavl Province, Russia
Time: Unknown
Hynek Classification: N/A — folkloric entity account, no craft
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: Following a series of horse disappearances that local villagers initially attributed to itinerant Roma travelers (who denied involvement), villagers organized a nighttime ambush and caught two men from the same village, a father and son. Under interrogation, the two reportedly confessed to being “bewildered” by “devils, the greenish ones, with the hoofs” who had promised them money for the horses. The two men were not believed and were reportedly shot immediately.
Source: Kukushkin, Valeriy A., Yaroslavl UFO Group. Note: this case is also attributed to Anton Anfalov, a source this archive treats as unreliable on Soviet/CIS-region cases per its established editorial standard; the account is retained here as a documented folkloric claim, but readers should weigh the Anfalov attribution with particular caution
RESEARCHER’S NOTES
The 1910 Archive — A Suppressed Caveat Restored, and a Standing Source Flag Applied
- The Tennessee wave’s own sourcing was more skeptical than the page’s framing: three of the four dated January entries in the Chattanooga/Knoxville cluster — January 12, January 14, and January 15 — are each individually sourced to catalogs that state the sighting’s appearance and behavior most likely have a conventional explanation. The page’s Executive Summary nonetheless described this as one of the year’s largest and most significant mass-witness anomalous events without mentioning that caveat once. This is the same pattern found in the 1907 Burlington, Vermont case: a dramatic, well-attested event whose own cited sources point toward an explanation the surrounding narrative omits. Case Status has been corrected to “Explained (Probable)” for the three affected entries. A meteor procession — a real, documented astronomical phenomenon capable of producing exactly this kind of multi-day, multi-city, mass-witness light display — is the most likely candidate, though this page does not have a specific citation confirming that identification and states it as a plausible explanation, not a proven one.
- The Anton Anfalov standing flag has been applied: this archive treats Anfalov as an unreliable source specifically on Soviet/CIS-region cases. The West Yaroslavl Province entry cites him alongside another named source; the case is retained per this site’s practice of keeping weird and unexplained content in the record, but the Anfalov attribution specifically is flagged rather than presented at full confidence.
- One weaker citation flagged, not removed: “Galactic Info Service” as a source for the France race-photo case is less specific and less checkable than the naming conventions used throughout the rest of this page. The case stays in the record; the citation quality is simply noted honestly.
- Everything else on this page holds up well: the overwhelming majority of entries trace to named, real, checkable researchers and publications — Vallée, Hall, Hobana, Eberhart, Devereux, HUMCAT, Lorenzen, and FSR among them. This is one of the more solidly sourced years in the archive.
1910 is a strong year for the archive precisely because most of it holds up to scrutiny — the corrections here are about restoring context that was already present in the sourcing but left out of the narrative, not about removing invented material. The Tennessee wave is still worth documenting; it’s just more honestly documented as a probable meteor procession than as an unexplained mass sighting. The Invercargill, Violetville, and Listowel cases remain the year’s strongest genuinely unexplained entries.
“Several witnesses among them the vicar, the Mayor, and a policeman saw a cigar-shaped object hovering at 30 meters altitude. A man appeared at a lateral door and was heard shouting some words in an unknown language. The opening closed, and the object accelerated and was lost to sight.”
— Vallée, Jacques, Magonia Database, on the January 19, 1910 Invercargill, New Zealand encounter
