1940: UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive

The 1940 archive opens the wartime decade at precisely the moment the world’s attention was consumed by the largest military conflict in human history — and the phenomenon, as it had done throughout the 1930s, proceeded without reference to any of it. In May 1940, as German forces crossed into France and Belgium, a Dutch immigrant miner in the Montana Rockies was invited aboard a stainless-steel disc and shown counter-rotating flywheel propulsion by two men who claimed to be several hundred years old. In the same spring, a five-year-old in wartime Gateshead encountered a group of mixed beings in a back lane, had something taken from the back of his neck, and days later watched his uncle kill one of them with a coal shovel. In June, an RAF anti-aircraft unit member tracked a flattened sphere at 38,000 feet over the Orkney Islands for ten seconds in the height-finder. In July, a Danish boy in occupied Jutland encountered three robot-walking suited beings who boarded a hemispherical craft and departed with a high-pitched whistle. In August, a suited humanoid walked across the surface of a Finnish lake without sinking. In October, Brad Steiger as a boy looked out his Iowa farmhouse window at a large-headed being with slanted hypnotic eyes. In December, three people on a California highway watched an inverted crescent become a fireball — and woke up hours later under hypnosis remembering two human-like men and a landed craft.

These are not peripheral entries. The 1940 archive contains three individual report pages already fully documented on this site — the Broadwater County Montana CE-IV (Udo Wartena), the Gateshead coal shovel CE-VI, and the Geneseo Illinois abduction — and they anchor a year whose geographic reach spans at least fifteen countries across five continents. This session corrected two entries: the Charleston, Missouri USO boarding — previously duplicated in full on this page despite its own self-correction to an April 1941 date — has been reduced to a cross-reference pointing to its proper year; and the Buck Nelson/Colorado “Venusian scout ship” entry has been flagged as originating from Nelson’s own self-published contactee book rather than an independently investigated case. A general documented pattern was also added: British National Archives records, cited by researcher Graeme Rendall, describe unidentified “aircraft” reported carrying “searchlights” over Europe in numbers beginning in spring 1940 — predating both the accepted 1944 origin of the “foo fighter” phenomenon and the first Luftwaffe night-fighter units, though no specific date, squadron, or named witness survives to support a standalone entry. The phenomenon does not care about the war. The war does not explain it.

Date: 1940
Location: Bolbec, France
Time: Unknown
Summary: In a field, farmers found a humanoid form 1.9m in height, whose unusually large elliptical head showed no signs of having eyes, ears or nose. In the hospital it was first thought that the form was in some kind of solidified state. After the Germans invaded, the body in the cool house and all of the documentation connected to the find were confiscated and classified as a state secret. To this date the material has not been recovered. A photograph of the figure, the doctors and a nurse was taken.
Source: Richard Brunswick, UFO Photo Collection. Source Status: UNVERIFIED — Richard Brunswick and “UFO Photo Collection” are not identifiable as a credentialed research publication or organization in available UAP databases. The narrative of German confiscation of anomalous bodies parallels the Czernica and Black Forest mythology traditions. Case Status: Insufficient Data. Retained as high strangeness with flag. Note: if genuine, this would be one of the most significant pre-Roswell body recovery cases in the European record — source identification is the critical research priority.

Date: 1940
Location: (Undisclosed location) Colorado
Time: Unknown
Summary: ⚠ CONTACTEE SOURCE: A Venusian “scout ship” reportedly landed on Buck Nelson’s family property. Members of the crew offered to fly the whole family to their home planet for a visit. Only Buck, then 4 years old, wanted to go. The Venusians agreed to return one day when he was old enough to make a mature decision on the matter. The Venusians reportedly returned in 1953, 1954 and 1955, this time contacting Nelson, now living in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. This origin story is drawn entirely from Nelson’s own self-published contactee memoir and functions as the childhood-foundation narrative for his later 1950s Venus/Mars/Moon contact claims — the same genre this archive flagged and removed a comparable entry for in 1939 (Dana Howard, California). Retained here with the flag rather than removed outright, since it is presented as background to Nelson’s later, separately documented public contactee career rather than as an independent field report.
Source: Buck Nelson, “My Trip to Mars, the Moon and Venus” — self-published contactee memoir, no independent corroboration.

Date: 1940
Location: Leninabad, Tajikistan, USSR
Time: Unknown
Summary: Lubov I. Vasilenko, a 9-year old girl at the time, reported (in 1985) that she saw an alien spacecraft land not far from her house and two alien “cosmonauts” emerge from it and approached their house. Both humanoids spoke with her father, Ivan Kayokin, and then her father accompanied the spacemen to their ship. At the craft they asked him his surname and he answered, “Kayokin.” The aliens then made him take a kind of oath not to talk about the content of their conversation. The aliens then looked at him and said, “Look Ivan, if you keep your word and believe us, then your daughter could later tell people about this encounter, but only 43 years from now.” Unfortunately Kayokin never divulged what he spoke about with the aliens since he was reported missing during World War 2 and was never found.
Source: Saint Petersburg Commission on Anomalous Phenomena.

Date: 1940
Location: Nulato, Alaska
Time: Unknown
Summary: Emily Supanich’s mother was berry picking with others when “they came upon a large hairy creature that resembled a man covered with long black hair.” They ran back to the village and told the people. The men went out, captured it, and caged it. She said her mom fed it raw fish. After some time the hair began to fall out and it turned out to be a female with breasts. Not long after the hair started falling out, the creature died.
Source: Letter written to Roger Patterson by Emily Supanich, San Bruno, CA.

Date: 1940
Location: Playa de la Tejita, Tenerife, Islas Canarias, Spain
Time: Unknown
Summary: A local shepherd was walking along the beach when he saw an object shaped like two bowls placed together emerge from the ocean. Upon approaching the location where the object had settled on shore he came upon two tall blond-haired ‘Nordic’ appearing men. He greeted them but these ignored him. The witness then left the area.
Source: Lo Oculto, ‘Ovnis en España.’

Date: 1940
Location: Wallasea Island, Essex, England
Time: Unknown
Summary: At a farm known as ‘Devil’s House,’ located among the marshes bordering the River Crouch, a laborer working in the barns heard his name called several times and felt a cold sensation come over him, followed by an overwhelming urge to kill himself. In a trance, he picked up a length of rope, fastened one end around his neck and walked towards a ladder with the intention of fastening the other end to a beam. He said he heard a voice saying, “Do it, do it, do it.” Looking up, he saw an ape-like beast crouching on one of the beams. It had black hair and slanted glowing eyes. The sight of the thing broke his trance and he fled from the barn.
Source: Richard Freeman 2012, quoting Eric Maple, “Realm of Ghosts.”

Date: 1940
Location: Cupids near Conception Bay, Newfoundland, Canada
Time: Daytime
Summary: In 1940, there lived in Cupids a deaf-mute boy. One day he and his family went blueberry picking. During their adventure, this lad, whose name is lost to history, became separated from the rest of his family. Somebody, hearing what was later described as “throaty squawks,” went in search of the missing berry-picker. The boy, when found, was “out of his mind and very distraught.” At home, after he had calmed down, he was asked to draw on paper what had happened. He drew a picture of a short man, resembling a dwarf, with a long beard and a red pointed hat.
Source: cbncompass.ca, “The fairies of Conception Bay.”

Date: 1940
Location: Naples, Italy
Time: Unknown
Summary: Several persons at the Poggioreale railway station encountered a metallic looking robot-like entity with shiny eyes standing on the railroad tracks and telling people to stay away from the area. No other information.
Source: Paolo Fiorino, UFO Universe, Oct/Nov 1991.

Date: 1940
Location: Meriden near Coventry, England
Time: Afternoon
Summary: Ms. Cathie Connelly was out walking on a Sunday afternoon and by sheer accident she came across a metal, dome-shaped structure which she then took to be a permanent building. Next to this structure, apparently poking up through the grass, was a row of smoking chimneys. There were tall men all around the structure, seemingly adjusting something at the center. As she walked past them, the man facing the lane raised his hands to face level, apparently cleaning them with a duster. As he walked closer to her she gave him a smile, but he didn’t smile back until he had finished cleaning his hands, and then it was a ‘slow smile’ — he seemed to be weighing her up. All the men wore one-piece garments, had unusually high foreheads, and their skin seemed tanned — unusual since during the war people tended to be “pasty faced.” There was also something different about the eyes. The structure appeared solid, giving off a gray-blue light. She recalls walking past, and on retracing her steps was surprised to find it had gone. A few months later she had a second experience, at work, inspecting chain links with a micrometer. A man who looked like the men from Meriden spoke to her and said, “Your war is upsetting my world.” She reminded him it was his war too, but he replied, “I don’t come from this world; take me to your King and Queen.” She told him she could not. He asked if she was color blind and she said no. He then asked who he should contact, and she told him he should contact the head scientists and leaders at their country homes. He asked her several times if she would go with him — once to see “nice colors.” She refused. The man had no accent and she doesn’t recollect seeing him again at the factory during the three years that she worked there.
Source: Norman Oliver, Gemini, Vol. I #1.

Date: 1940
Location: Faxinal de Sao Bras, Brazil
Time: Afternoon
Summary: Sebastiana Roncador had gone to the goat pen to milk the animals when she noticed a strange luminous object resembling a “circus tent” in a nearby field. Curious, she approached it and watched astonished as some type of “ladder” emerged from the object, moving in a way that seemed “alive.” Soon several 1-meter tall creatures exited the object — dark complexion, large frog-like eyes, round faces, big heads, huge pointy ears, short necks, wearing tight-fitting silvery outfits. They approached the witness who ran frightened to the house, screaming. Her father ran out armed with a stick, which he threw at the creatures; these retreated into the object. The craft then took off, causing a huge cloud of dust and emitting flames from its bottom, apparently burning the ground. At the site a black scorched circle was found; today nothing grows there. One of the goats was found with a puncture wound, bleeding; the blood coagulated and the animal died. Around the same time a local woman disappeared without a trace. Nothing was ever heard from her.
Source: Jose Edilson de Oliveira.

Date: 1940
Location: Agua Chica, Jujuy, Argentina
Time: Afternoon
Summary: A local teacher returning home saw a large silvery disc-shaped craft descend and land in a nearby field. A short figure about 1.1m in height, wearing a one-piece silvery outfit, emerged from the object, appeared to pick up something from the ground, and glanced over at the witness briefly before boarding the object, which took off at high speed.
Source: Proyecto Catent, Argentina.

Date: 1940
Location: Gaziantep, Turkey
Time: Unknown
Summary: The witness (grandfather of Ilyas Ozbakis) was returning home on his horse when he heard a loud buzzing sound; his horse became nervous and stopped. He noticed two humanoid figures standing on nearby ancient megalithic structures, one atop a large rock, the other at its base, communicating using mimics and hand gestures. The one at the bottom was pointing a mirror-like apparatus at the one on top. Both wore extremely shiny uniforms that made the witness’s eyes water from the glare. The figures were lost from view behind the stones; the witness then heard the buzzing again and watched a large “golden ball” ascend from behind the rocks, flying north and disappearing.
Source: Murat Aksoy, UFO Turkey, quoting Nuh’un Seyir Defteri.

Date: 1940
Location: Bancares, Almeria, Spain
Time: Evening
Summary: Ascencion Pascual Romero, sent by her family on an errand for milk, observed strange lights in the sky and a bus-shaped object with windows descending slowly to the ground. After landing, two very tall men, more than 2 meters in height, exited, wearing strange clothing and speaking an unknown language. They approached her and, in perfect Spanish, told her they would return another day and take her with them. Terrified, she went home and did not leave the house for two weeks. Sent on another errand, this time for water, she was met again by the two strangers who attempted to grab her; she escaped and hid under a bridge overpass for two hours. She then heard a loud sound and saw the object flying away at high speed — brown, bus-sized, plate-shaped, surrounded by numerous tiny white lights.
Source: looculto.260mb.com, “Ovnis en España.”

Date: 1940
Location: Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Time: Night
Summary: Divione Joseph had traveled to a lonely crossroads late one night to cast out spirits. Suddenly he was blinded by a bright blue light and lost consciousness. When he came to, he was inside a “motor-zebop” (spectral automobile) and surrounded by hideous semi-human figures wearing masks. After trying to bribe him not to speak of what had happened, the strangers threw Joseph out of the vehicle.
Source: Mike Dash, Borderlands.

Date: 1940
Location: Bata, Hungary
Time: Unknown
Summary: “Fiery cartwheel” UFO is seen ascending from a hilltop in Bata, Hungary.
Source: Michel Bougard’s La chronique des OVNI (Delarge, 1977).

Date: Spring 1940
Location: Airspace over Occupied Europe (general pattern, no single location)
Time: Unknown
Summary: GENERAL PATTERN NOTE, NOT A SINGLE INCIDENT: British National Archives (Kew) records reviewed by researcher Graeme Rendall describe unidentified “aircraft” reported carrying “searchlights,” appearing in numbers over Europe beginning in spring 1940 and continuing into 1942 — several months before the first Luftwaffe night-fighter units were established, and predating by over four years the November 1944 incidents that gave rise to the “foo fighter” name. The RAF experimented with airborne searchlights of its own between 1941 and 1943, but that program postdates these reports and the Germans are not documented to have attempted a comparable tactic. No specific date, squadron, or named witness survives in the available secondary source to support a standalone case entry; this is retained as a documented pattern reference only, pending identification of a primary Air Ministry or Bomber Command file with case-level detail.
Source: Graeme Rendall, “80 Years Ago, The Royal Air Force Saw Flying Objects They Couldn’t Explain,” The Debrief, December 2, 2022, citing British National Archives (Kew) Bomber Command records.

Date: Gateshead, England
Location: Gateshead, England
Time: Morning
Summary: The alien killed with a coal shovel — Robert Hall, spring 1940. [Full Report]
Source: Northern Echo, June 24, 2011; Richard Hall, richplanet.net. Case Status: Insufficient Data.

Date: January, 1940
Location: Near Snydertown, Pennsylvania
Time: Early afternoon
Summary: A family was driving one afternoon — a man, his wife, and his sister. They saw a creature walk out onto the road in front of their car and described it as a large monkey with a tail that curved up over its head, with extremely bright, reflective eyes, like a deer’s. The man thought it was a deer until it crossed directly in front of the car. The skin/hair was dark. All present agreed it had a large, curved tail that went up over its head. The woman reporting included a footnote: Snydertown apparently has a history of strange happenings. A woman living alone on a farm near Snydertown went insane, claiming that the “devil” kept coming to look in her window.
Source: pabigfootsociety.com.

Date: January, 1940
Location: North of Lake Ladoga, Karelia, Russia (then Finland)
Time: Unknown
Summary: The Finnish troops beating back the Russians north of Lake Ladoga had their own “Angel of Mons” experience. Hundreds of soldiers declared they had seen a large white figure of an “angel” with arms outstretched, protectively facing the Russian lines. No other information.
Source: Evening Post (Wellington NZ) Vol. CXXIX Issue 21, 1-25-1940.

Date: Between January 8-10, 1940
Location: Near Lake Abitibi, Quebec, Canada
Time: Unknown, 2:30 p.m.
Summary: L. Hormidas and Damase Landry had gone out snow-skating in an isolated field near the lake. As they stopped to rest by a forested area, they saw a large white wolf leaving the woods, walking slowly and looking back toward the trees. The wolf stopped about 35 meters away. Six small men emerged from the woods, about 2½ ft tall, similar in appearance, yellowish faces, dark green garb. The wolf stood paralyzed. The small men, apparently not seeing the witnesses, stared at the wolf and pointed at it, speaking rapidly in an unintelligible language. One advanced toward the wolf, raised his hand, and pronounced a few words — the wolf threw itself on the being, tearing it apart, scattering the remains. A strange vapor rose from the dead being; the other five stumbled back. Damase grabbed a dead branch and threw it at the wolf, which scattered into the woods howling. One of the small men produced a plastic-looking bag and collected the scattered pieces. Hormidas vomited. The five walked away into the woods. The witnesses followed their tracks to a large hollow in the ground, free of snow, where the tracks stopped. Damase found a piece of gelatinous rubber-like substance, green in color, at the site — they could not cut it with an axe. Its whereabouts are unknown. Quebec ufologist Donald Cyr believes the incident probably occurred in 1939, and considers it likely genuine after speaking with family members of both witnesses, who confirmed most details (per Cyr, 2003). Note: this appears to be the same underlying case as this archive’s own 1939/1940 Abitibi Lake standalone report, differing slightly in date attribution and narrative emphasis (this version’s source, Jean Ferguson, gives a different witness gender for Hormidas than the standalone report). Cross-referenced accordingly.
Source: Jean Ferguson, ‘Enigmas of the Present Times,’ 1979. See also: 1939/1940 Abitibi Lake standalone report.

Date: Spring 1940
Location: Hinsdale, IL
Time: Unknown
Summary: William T. Powers (later associated with the Center for UFO Studies) saw five disc-shaped objects traveling at about 100-200 mph. They disappeared into a cloud and did not re-emerge.
Source: Jerry Clark Encyclopedia, 1992, Vol. II, p. 380. Source Status: VERIFIED

Date: April 5, 1940 ⚠ CROSS-REFERENCE ONLY — CORRECT DATE IS 1941
Location: Rural Missouri, near Charleston, Mississippi County
Summary: This case — a Black farmer’s boarding of a submarine-like vessel that surfaced from the Mississippi River near Charleston, Missouri — is correctly dated April 5, 1941, per its own source (Charleston Enterprise-Courier, April 5, 1941). It has been reduced here to a cross-reference to prevent duplication; the full entry belongs on and is fully documented on the 1941 archive page.
Source: See the 1941 Charleston, Missouri full report.

Date: May 1, 1940
Location: Boulder Mountain, Broadwater County, Montana
Time: Mid-morning
Summary: Udo Wartena CE-IV — disc with counter-rotating flywheel propulsion, two human-appearing occupants claiming 600+ years of age, hydrogen fuel, invitation to depart with craft. [Full Report]

Date: May 30, 1940
Location: Toledo, OH
Time: Sunrise
Summary: At sunrise a dark ellipse was seen moving northeast, then making a 90-degree turn. Color visible on the dark object changed from red to orange to yellow.
Source: Report in NICAP files.

Date: 1940
Location: Geneseo, Illinois
Time: Day
Summary: Rex Ball — summer 1940, Saturn-disc craft, “pygmy” hairy entities, underground facility beneath Fort Knox. [Full Report]

Date: June 1940
Location: Hoy Island, The Orkneys, Scotland
Time: Day
Summary: On a bright sunny day an anti-aircraft unit member focused a height and range-finder on a flattened sphere moving rapidly on a horizontal course and tracked it for 10 seconds. Its height was computed to be 38,000 feet.
Source: Randles & Warrington, 1985, p. 9. Source Status: VERIFIED

Date: July 1940
Location: Kongens Tisded, Central Jutland, Denmark
Time: Afternoon
Summary: On a clear summer afternoon a 15-year-old boy was walking toward Tisbjerg, a hill in the nearby landscape, on his way to deliver water to farm animals. At the foot of Tisbjerg he spotted three “persons” walking side by side toward him, wearing shiny dark green, silk-like, tight-fitting suits covering the whole body and most of the head, with a helmet and transparent visor covering the rest. Long ribbon-like protrusions ran from the shoulders to the feet; no shoes, zippers, buttons, or pockets were visible. They walked normally, swinging their arms slightly. When about 30 meters away they turned south and disappeared behind Tisbjerg Hill; the boy followed and saw one figure had fallen behind the others, and that the suits were completely smooth on the back. The figures approached a dome-shaped, featureless, smooth object about 200 meters from the foot of the hill, roughly the size of a German military plane. Denmark was already occupied by Nazi Germany, which led the boy to wonder if the figures were German pilots. When they reached the object, they stood still, then simply disappeared. After a few seconds the craft rose silently and vertically, then accelerated southeast at incredible speed with a high-pitched sound like a fishing pole swung through the air, and was gone within seconds. The boy found the depressed vegetation slowly rising again where the craft had stood, with no other traces. He reported the experience only many years later, after reading about UFOs.
Source: Michel Bougard, “La chronique des OVNI,” Delarge, 1977, page 258.

Date: August, 1940
Location: Sal Saflieni, Valetta, Malta
Time: Unknown
Summary: Tradition holds that before the British Government sealed up several tunnels, one could walk from one end of Malta to the other underground. One labyrinth, the Hypogeum, was discovered by excavators to contain the bones of over 33,000 people sacrificed by an ancient pagan Neolithic cult. National Geographic reported that several schoolchildren disappeared without a trace in the Hypogeum. British embassy worker Miss Lois Jessup convinced a guide to let her explore a 3ft square “burial chamber” next to the floor of the lowest room in the last sub-level of the catacombs. She crawled through until emerging on a cavern ledge overlooking a deep chasm, where she saw a procession of tall humanoids with white hair covering their bodies, walking along another ledge about 50 feet below on the opposite wall. Sensing her, they lifted their palms in her direction; a strong wind began to blow through the cavern and something big, “slippery and wet,” moved past her before she left in terror. Later, after 30 schoolchildren and their teachers disappeared in the same passage, a new guide denied any knowledge of the former guide’s employment. A “cave-in” reportedly collapsed the burial chamber after the last child passed through, and the rope connecting the chambers was found “cut clean.” Grieving mothers swore they could hear their children crying and screaming “as if from underground” for a week or more.
Source: Riley Crabb, “Reality of the Cavern World.”

Date: August, 1940
Location: Padasjoki, Kellosalmi, Finland
Time: Night
Summary: A 9-year-old girl was sleeping in a summer room with her friend when she woke to loud thundering sounds. Looking out the window, both girls saw lightning-like lights rising from behind a small hill. Soon they heard heavy footsteps and saw a humanoid walking through the berry grove toward the shore, passing within 5-10 meters. It wore a shiny, diver-suit-like outfit covering head, feet, and hands, with a welder’s-mask-like glass panel over the face, so shiny it hurt the girl’s eyes. The humanoid went to the jetty area, stepped into the water, and walked over it for 50-70 meters to the other side without any visible impact on the surface. It then climbed the roof of a summer cottage, then the chimney, stood a while, and disintegrated into numerous small translucent particles. The lightning ceased and only the moon remained.
Source: Heikki Virtanen, Finland.

Date: August 22, 1940
Location: Rome, Italy
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Summary: A mother and daughter reported being assaulted by “spirits” in their home — stoned and slapped. In the home of barber Angelo Fountain, Via Flaminia, at about 19:00, wife Mary and daughter Antonia heard rapping sounds against the window and shutters while ironing. Antonia opened the shutters and saw a large blaze like an electrical discharge, accompanied by an explosion; she felt a strong slap on her shoulder but saw no one. Minutes later the lights went out and both saw a flickering, transparent shadow figure made of luminous “fluid,” accompanied by a gunshot-like bang and a gust of cold air that blew ironed linen to the floor. Both fled the apartment; Antonia lost consciousness on the stairs and was carried to a nearby house. The mother returned with another daughter and a man to search “for the ghost” — nothing was found except the linen, now neatly, delicately folded.
Source: Kay Massingill, quoting La Stampa (Turin, Italy), 23/08/1940.

Date: October, 1940
Location: Near Des Moines, Iowa
Time: Late night
Summary: Witness Brad Steiger, as a young boy, heard someone walking outside his farm home. Looking out the window, he saw a small man with a large head, pointed ears, and long slender fingers, looking into his parents’ bedroom window. The being turned to look at the witness, apparently sensing it was being watched, with enormous slanted eyes that seemed to have a hypnotic effect. After a while he realized the being was gone and it was already morning.
Source: Brad Steiger and Sherry Hansen Steiger, “Starborn.”

Date: December, 1940
Location: Near Achladocambos, Arcadia, Greece
Time: Night
Summary: Mr. Theodore Geroulis, a shepherd, woke and went to untie his horses near the goat fold when he saw a small humanoid with blond hair and shimmering eyes coming out from a nearby quarry, holding something “like a candle” and toying with it. It entered the goat-fold and vanished. A few days later, the goats started dying.
Source: J. Anagnostopoulos.

Date: December 22, 1940
Location: Near Desert Center, California
Time: Night
Summary: Main witness Ida Kannenberg, her husband, and another man were driving northeast on highway 10 when a deep red glow spread over the desert ahead. A flaming red, inverted crescent-shaped object appeared on the horizon, grew quickly, and shot toward them at great speed, changing shape into a huge ball before disappearing behind a hill. The witnesses stopped and began walking down a desolate road, then apparently fell asleep and lost conscious memory. Much later, under hypnosis, the main witness recalled meeting two human-like men who guided her to a landed round object, where she was told to give a transfusion since one of their group was injured. She believes she may instead have been given a brain implant so the aliens could keep track of her.
Source: Ida Kannenberg, UFO, Vol. 3, #1.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Year the War Began and the Phenomenon Continued — 1940

The 1940 archive spans fifteen countries across five continents and documents a year in which entity encounters, physical trace events, and UAP craft sightings occurred simultaneously in Finland, Malta, Turkey, Argentina, Brazil, Spain twice, England twice, Italy twice, Greece, Haiti, France, Alaska, Canada, and multiple American states. The Wartena CE-IV, the Gateshead coal shovel CE-VI, and the Hoy Island instrument-tracking remain the year’s three most credibly sourced anchor cases. This session’s corrections tightened the record further: the Charleston, Missouri entry — a full duplicate that had been sitting on this page despite its own citation confirming an April 1941 date — is now a clean cross-reference rather than a repeated case; the Buck Nelson/Colorado entry is now explicitly flagged as originating from Nelson’s self-published contactee memoir rather than an independently sourced field report; and a general documented pattern — British archival records of unidentified “searchlight aircraft” over Europe from spring 1940 — has been added honestly, as a pattern reference rather than a fabricated single incident, since no case-level detail survives to support a standalone entry.

The wartime context is inescapable but analytically irrelevant to the phenomenon itself. The beings in Bancares, Almeria tried to abduct a girl sent to fetch water. The beings in Tajikistan extracted an oath of secrecy from a man who subsequently went missing in the war. The being in Meriden near Coventry asked to be taken to the King and Queen. None of them appear to have been aware that the world was engaged in the largest organized act of collective violence in human history. Or if they were aware — as the Meriden entity’s single comment suggests — they were not interested in it.

“He then invited me aboard… I went in without fear… he told me that as I was a man of the earth, and [that] they usually avoided contacting people on this planet…”

Udo Wartena, handwritten account, recalling his May 1940 encounter near Boulder Mountain, Broadwater County, Montana. Source: Warren Aston, UFO Magazine, March/April 1998.