Boomerang and V-shaped UFOs

Boomerang UFOs are V-shaped or chevron-shaped objects, or formations of lights in a V, often described as enormous, silent and slow. Witnesses often cannot tell whether they are seeing one dark craft with lights on its edges, or separate lights moving together.

In 1951 residents and college professors in Lubbock, Texas saw a V of glowing lights cross the night sky several times. From 1983 to 1984 thousands of people in New York's Hudson Valley and western Connecticut reported a football-field-sized boomerang of coloured lights. Police later found that pilots in light Cessnas were flying in tight formation as a prank, though some witnesses insist that wasn't what they saw. On 13 March 1997 the Phoenix Lights, a mile-wide V of lights, crossed Arizona in front of thousands.

Formations of birds lit by streetlights, aircraft in formation and military flares explain many cases.

Browse 10,622 US Air Force Project Blue Book case files on the map or by state.

What witnesses report

• Lights arranged in a V or chevron
• A dark shape between the lights blocking stars
• Silent and slow
• Huge apparent size

Famous cases

1. 1951Lubbock Lights
   Lubbock, Texas
2. 1983Hudson Valley boomerang wave
   Westchester County, New York
3. 1997Phoenix Lights
   Phoenix, Arizona