Pentagon: Most common UFO looks like a translucent silver ball

In 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold saw several “flying saucers” and since then the public has imagined a UFO as a disk-shaped object.

In fact, the most common type of UFO looks different. At least in the last few decades. A recent document published by the US Department of Defense reveals the most commonly observed type of UFO: It is round (spherical) in shape, white or silver (metallic) in color, and often translucent.

The sizes generally range from 1 meter (3.2 ft) to 4 meters (13 ft) in diameter. It often flies at high altitudes up to several kilometers, but below the altitude of commercial passenger airliners.

These characteristics of Pentagon experts are based on eyewitness reports of UFOs between 1996 and 2023. The document was published on a new dedicated UFO site recently opened by a team from AARO – the Office of All Areas Anomaly Resolution, created by the US Department of Defense in 2022.

According to this document, 28% of the UFOs seen were flying at an altitude of about 6 km, and 10% at an altitude of one and a half km. The rest are even lower.

47% of the UFOs seen were spherical, and the famous Tic-Tac-shaped UFOs (oval and white) were noticed by only 1% of eyewitnesses. The disc-shaped UFO turned out to be not at all as often observed as the spherical one, and was seen by only 2% of eyewitnesses, as well as a triangular, cylindrical or square UFO.

In second place (19%) are UFOs of indeterminate shape, and 16% saw only some flying lights.

The Pentagon also recently released a global map of UFO hot spots, according to which, from 1996 to 2023, UFOs were most often seen over the United States, in the Middle East (especially Iraq and Syria) and in Japan.

In Japan, in particular, UFOs are mainly interested in places associated with nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, these are Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Iinomachi community, in Fukushima Prefecture. UFO sightings are so common in Iinomachi that it has even been given the nicknames “UFO City” and “Alien City.”

“We’re seeing these metal balls all over the world, and we’re seeing them doing some very interesting maneuvers,” Sean Kirkpatrick, director of AARO, said in a statement.