Your neighbors have seen them.

Your friends have seen them.

Some have reported seeing them. Perhaps you have seen them, too. After all, more have seen UFOs than care to admit — never mind file a report. If the database held by the National UFO Reporting Center in Washington State (est. 1974) is any measure, the first official sightings in Illinois began in the mid-1920s, when a farm boy near Moline spotted an otherworldly “disc.” The Illinois chapter of the Mutual UFO Network (est. 1969 on the western border with Missouri) knows of stories of “airships” in the Midwest dating to 1896. But the majority of sightings are more recent.

You might even say, it’s a boom time for UFOs in Illinois.

During the past year alone, someone in Spring Grove reported a large flying Tic Tac-like craft traveling rapidly toward Wisconsin. In early June, a flashing, red-and-white flying something was reported high above Winnetka, at roughly the altitude of a plane, but then “started to descend before going below the tree line and out of sight.” In March, a “solid ball of white light” was seen moving fast over Dixon. In May, a diamond-shaped object was spotted above Chicago, stopping, changing course, vanishing. Around Easter, “two blue glowing triangles” were observed loitering over a Meijer in St. Charles.

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