Between 1947 and 1969, at the height of the Cold War, more than 12,000 UFO sightings were reported to Project Blue Book — a small, top-secret Air Force team. Since then, UFO occurrences seem to happen on a regular basis. And apart from visual sightings of UFO’s – some involve “close encounters” and even a few involve “abductions” (which may explain the personalities of some of our politicians).

I wondered about UFO sightings pre-1947. Was anything going on in 1946? 1857? 196 A.D.? The quick answer? Darn tootin’. Soooooo . . . . fasten your seatbelts my fellow ufologists (those who study UFO’s). The ride apparently starts 3000 years ago. . . .

The earliest recorded UFO sighting purportedly took place in 1450 B.C. in Lower Egypt (Jebel Barkal). The Tulli Papyrus reports that a “star came down” to set fire the adversaries of Thutmose III. In 218 B.C. Livy recorded that “phantom ships” were seen cruising in the skies above Rome. In 7 B.C. Plutarch reported that the sky in the Roman Empire “burst asunder” with flames falling between two armies set to do battle.

Fast forward a millennium, in April 1561, residents of Nuremberg reported seeing a triangular object in the sky. Soon this object morphed into hundreds of spheres, cylinders and other objects that flew overhead. In August 1566, spherical objects appeared to fly out of the sun. In early 1803, a local fisherman reported finding a strange vessel with small windows adrift in the waters off Japan (Hitachi Province). And a woman emerged speaking a strange language. On August 12, 1883, the astronomer Jose Bonilla counted 400 UFO’s coming out of the sun (he allegedly took photos). And the list goes on.

I’m sure that all of these sightings can be explained as meteors or shooting stars. Then again. . . .