The 8 most convincing UFO sightings in Wisconsin history

If you’ve ever seen something light up in the sky and wondered what it could be, there’s a chance it’s a UFO, especially if you’re in Wisconsin. The state is a hotbed for UFO (unidentified flying object) sightings — with eyewitness reports dating back nearly a century, and more modern phenomena, captured on camera within the past few years.

While some might be fearful of these sightings, other communities throughout the state have taken it in pride, and find the opportunity to celebrate local sightings at UFO festivals, like at UFO Days in Elmwood, Wisc., or the similarly-named UFO Daze, near the Kettle Moraine State Forest.

If you’re looking to spot a UFO of your own, here are some of the state’s most convincing UFO sightings, and where you could potentially find one in the future.

Mayville crop circles

One of the state’s most interesting, and convincing, UFO stories doesn’t even involve an actual UFO sighting — instead, it centers around crop circles that were found in Mayville, a city located in southwestern Dodge County. 

In 2003, Mayville resident Arthur Rantala said that he watched three crop circles appear in a field near his home. Rantala said he first took notice when a strong wind picked up, and he saw trees in the cornfield violently moving around. Members from the Mutual UFO Network investigated the crop circles, and have said that they did not believe it was a hoax.

However, the legitimacy of the crop circles has been questioned — one Reddit user even claimed responsibility, and said that the crop circles were made in about an hour after he felt compelled to make them out of boredom.

Elmwood UFO sightings

In 1976, police officer George Wheeler witnessed what he thought was a fire in a quarry in Elmwood, Wisconsin. When he got a closer look, he reported back on his radio that it was a UFO instead — then his radio went dead.

Wheeler wasn’t the first person in Elmwood to spot something unexpected in the sky. Locals in the western Wisconsin village had been reporting UFO sightings for nearly a year before the police officer had his encounter. 

After his sighting, Wheeler was found sitting in his car, which had stopped working. The police officer said that he was zapped with a blue light from the UFO, and didn’t remember anything else until he was found. Adding to the mystery of his encounter, Wheeler died less than a year later.

To commemorate the UFO sighting and unexplained occurrences in the village, Elmwood is the home of UFO Days — a weekend-long festival that features a parade, a softball tournament and live music, among other events. The festival, which will be celebrating its 45th year in 2024, is held annually during the last full weekend in July.

Photo courtesy of UFO Days – Elmwood, WI – Last full weekend every July via Facebook.

Dundee Mountain UFO sightings

Mountains aren’t a common sight in the Midwest, but there’s something extra unusual about Dundee Mountain: Some nearby residents believe that the 270-foot formation has a UFO hiding underneath it. 

For decades, residents who live near the massive hill and surrounding lake have reported seeing glowing orbs near the top of Dundee Mountain, including resident Bill Benson, along with five others, who spotted an orange ball over the mountain in 1998.

For more than 30 years, residents of Dundee, and UFO enthusiasts gathered together at an annual event, UFO Daze, organized by Benson. The event, which was held annually in July, officially ended in 2021, after Benson passed away. But for three decades, it was an opportunity for the local community, and visitors who are passionate about UFOs to come together to discuss the unusual sightings in the area.

Photo courtesy of Benson’s Hide-A-Way via Instagram.

Coral Lorenzen’s 1934 sighting

Coral Lorenzen was a biographer, journalist and the co-founder of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization — but before any of that, she was a young girl in Barron, Wisconsin, who saw a UFO.

Barron, a small city in northeastern Wisconsin, was home to 9-year-old Lorenzen, who noticed something floating in the sky, and pointed it out to two of her friends. The soundless, saucer-like object appeared to Lorenzen as an open umbrella without ribs or spurs, according to Wisconsin Frights. The 9-year-old told her father about what she saw, but no other sightings of the object were recorded that year.

Flying Saucer spotted in Door County

The 1934 sighting wouldn’t be the last time that Lorenzen spotted a saucer in the sky. Nearly two decades later, in 1952, the journalist and Wisconsin resident, along with many other Door County residents, witnessed a large flying saucer over Sturgeon Bay. According to Lorenzen’s description, the UFOs were large, metallic flying saucers with red glows emerging from the bottom.

That wasn’t the last time that a UFO was reported to be spotted over Door County. Ellison Bay resident Ryan Mueller had seven UFO sightings within a year, according to Door County Pulse, and took pictures of a mysterious white light that he’s seen several times near his home. 

UFO pancakes

In numerous examples from pop culture, extraterrestrials normally demand to be taken to a leader, but in the case of Joe Simonton, a Wisconsin resident who claims he saw a UFO and then three small aliens emerge from it, all they wanted was pancakes.

According to Cult of Weird, a UFO landed at Simonton’s Eagle River home in 1961. When three extraterrestrials emerged, they gave the Wisconsin man a large container, which Simonton somehow interpreted needed to be filled with water. After he filled the container with water, the aliens proceeded to make pancakes with their concoction, which they left with Simonton before departing.

While the story sounds unbelievable, it was credible enough to be investigated by the United States Air Force, who concluded that the mysterious alien pancakes seemed to be buckwheat pancakes.

2022 western Wisconsin sightings

Many potential UFO sightings are able to be ruled out or explained by more realistic reasoning — like the lights of a bright city, or a plane in the sky, rather than an unidentified object. But there’s still plenty of mystery surrounding several sightings that happened in western Wisconsin in December 2022.

A woman in Howard, Wisc., a village near Green Bay, witnessed flashing and swooping multicolored lights in the sky. A few hours later, a West Bend resident saw a glowing white object swoop down in front of her while she was driving. The next day, a couple in Greenfield saw unexplainable lights in the sky over the Fox River.

The reason that these sightings are so convincing? There’s a ton of footage from them. A 2022 article from The Daily Mail has photos and videos from several of the sightings across the western part of Wisconsin, as well as multiple locations in Michigan. 

Hales Corner sighting

One of the state’s most eerie UFO stories is also one of its most recent. According to Wisconsin Frights, a married couple experienced a UFO sighting in Hales Corners in late 2023.

While the couple was driving, they initially noticed a bright light that looked as if it was on top of a pole — but then the shape took on more of a saucer form. But beyond the initial sighting, the couple has no recollection of the rest of the experience; they believe that the UFO caused them to lose their memory.

Despite, or maybe due to the bright lights of the state’s largest city, the Milwaukee area is a hotbed for UFO sightings, including a recent occurrence when residents mistakenly thought bright lights in the area could be a UFO. In early 2023, the same year as the Hales Corners sighting, bright lights were seen by Milwaukee residents — but those turned out to be Jupiter and Venus.

This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.