According to the National UFO Reporting Center State Report Index For Delaware, there have been four reported UFO sightings in the state in 2019, including a fireball seen over New Castle in mid-June, a report of three rectangular crafts seen over Millsboro in February, and a triangular object seen near Dover Air Force Base in January.

Were they drones, weather balloons or military tests? In many cases, the questions remain unanswered.

Whether you’re a SETI watcher who believes first contact has yet to happen, a believer that the mysterious objects spotted and reported around the world are aliens from other planets or a flat-out skeptic, World UFO Day (July 2) is the holiday for seekers of truth everywhere.

Delaware has had its share of UFO sightings over the years, most run-of-the-mill, some jaw-dropping. Here’s a roundup of 10 of them:

Black Triangle Sightings

Triangle-shaped UFOs with white, orange and.or red lights have been spotted fairly frequently in Kent and Sussex Counties, including multiple sightings in 2009 and 2014. Excerpt from a 2014 report to the UFO Reporting Center:

“A friend called me tonight and he is working over on the Nanticoke River and what he saw has haunted me for years because I saw this exact thing back in 2009. I think he saw the black triangle hovering over the wall. I remembered it had 6 white lights and 1 red when I saw it. This time it has 6 orange lights and 1 white light. Then another friend saw an orange long shape above a tree line headed for Seaford and disappeared. There was a long low glow line in the sky that slowly disappeared so we think it may have been remnant of this anomaly. Black helicopters have been all over the place, but we don’t know why. I am guessing that it has something to do with these sightings. We need help in figuring out what we are seeing. Please help.”

The Pulsating Square

A Wilmington couple captured video footage of a square-shaped object, dated March 2016. Open Minds has enlarged photos of the object, along with a witness report.

8-Mile Diamond

A silent, low-flying diamond-shaped object described by witnesses as eight miles long has been near Dover AFB. They ruled out the possibility of an airplane due to its size and silence. An excerpt from testimony in Case 82603 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database:

“We live next to Dover AFB and see C5 airplanes all the time and this was not that. Plus, I come from a family of airplane enthusiasts. I’d say from its altitude, it was about eight miles in total length and width. There is no plane that big and it was completely quiet. I stared at it for about one minute and then it disappeared into the clouds. I know what I saw and I know for an absolute fact this was not an airplane. MUFON or someone needs to send an investigator to Delaware. This is my third report within four months. Plus, lots of other people’s reports. Something is happening in Delaware.”

The Half Moon

In March 2018, there was another strange sighting near Dover. In testimony in Case 90968 from the MUFON witness reporting database, a witness stated:

“I noticed what I first thought was a half-moon until I realized that it was would have been the bottom half of the moon. That is a view that we do not see on this planet. Looking closer I saw that it had a silvery surface that seemed to give off its own light. Judging from where I was, the object looked as if it was directly over what would be the town of Marydel, DE, right on the Maryland/Delaware border. Next, I noticed several small, white lights, (maybe three or four), one of which was pulsating, maneuvering around the large, bowl-shaped object.”

DiGiacomo sighting

Musician Carla DiGiacomo of Rehoboth Beach spotted a strange object near Dover in May 2014, as reported in Delaware Beach Life:

“The way it hovered was what caught my eye, and honestly, it creeped me out a little,” DiGiacomo says. “I didn’t know what I was photographing, but I figured my husband would get a kick out of it since he always watches ‘Ancient Aliens’ on TV.”

Lopuski sighting

In 2012, Drew Lopuski, a chef at Matt’s Fish Camp south of Indian River Inlet, reported a sighting to The Cape Gazette:

“Lopuski said the unidentified flying object (UFO) was a big disk with lights all the way around its edge.  ‘It was at least the size of several football fields,’ said Lopuski.  ‘At first I thought it must be a bunch of helicopters, but that time of night? Maneuvers then? All I know is it was big and it was spinning and rotating and hovering.  And it was intelligent maneuvering – turning and maneuvering in different ways.  And it was solid.  It was blacking out the stars behind it as I watched it moving.'”

Happy New Year sighting

Matt Zelewsky, a military veteran who worked for the Department of Defense, saw something he couldn’t explain shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day 2014. He told Delaware Beach Life:

“There were nine lights flying north of the canal, and they were going east to west,” he says. “They were flying at different speeds and I could tell they weren’t Chinese lanterns or anything like that. It was kind of surreal.”

U.S. Navy sighting

Most UFO sighting stories are found in UFO Reporting Center and MUFON case files. This one was reported by WDEL and national news outlets. In March 2018, the U.S. government released footage from 2018 of a Navy pilot off the East Coast intercepting what was described as “unidentified aerial phenomena.” This major UFO story wasn’t entirely specific to Delaware, but it happened in our general airspace.

That’s No Weather Balloon

One of Delaware’s most famous UFO sightings happened long before Dover Air Force Base, drones or weather balloons. On July 13, 1860, The Wilmington Tribune reported an incident that has never been decidedly explained. Via HowStuffWorks:

“On July 13, 1860, a pale blue light engulfed the city of Wilmington, Delaware. Residents looked up into the evening sky to see its source: a 200-foot-long something streaking along on a level course 100 feet above. Trailing behind it at 100-foot intervals cruised three ‘very red and glowing balls.’ A fourth abruptly joined the other three after shooting out from the rear of the main object, which was ‘giving off sparkles after the manner of a rocket.’ The lead object turned toward the southeast, passed over the Delaware River, and then headed straight east until lost from view. The incident — reported in the Wilmington Tribune, July 30, 1860 — lasted one minute.”

Futuro!

OK, these aren’t unidentified, and they don’t fly, but we can’t do a roundup of Delaware UFO sightings without mentioning the flying saucer-shaped houses in Milton (pictured in the header) and Houston, Delaware, rated “worth a detour” by Roadside America. These well-maintained homes are actually prefabricated houses, designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in 1968. Only 98 were ever made. Bummer.