4 Mysterious UFO Sightings in Southern Skies
These regional tales, from the Gulf Breeze buzz to Jimmy Carter’s sightings, reveal the South’s decades-long history of spotting strange objects in the night skies.
Story by Lance Hanlin
When people think UFOs, their minds usually drift to desert heat and tumbleweeds. Roswell grabs the headlines. Nevada has the dusty roadside museums. But down South, the stories take root in darker soil. Trade cactus for cypress and sand for kudzu, and you’ll find strange lights weaving through the moss and whispers that never quite die out. Some encounters left behind weathered markers. Others left entire towns buzzing. Whether it was swamp gas, sleepless imagination or something unearthly, the South has its share of mysteries written across the night sky.
An artistic rendering of the night Parker and Hickson say they were taken aboard a craft from beyond. ©Jason Gleaves
The Pascagoula incident
October 1973. Two shipyard workers headed out for a night of fishing on the Pascagoula River in Mississippi. They came back with a story that would shake the town and, later, the nation. Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker claimed they were lifted aboard a glowing craft by three gray, claw-handed beings. After a round of tests and prodding, they were set back on the bank as if nothing had happened. They ran straight to the sheriff’s office, still trembling. Investigators called it stress. Others called it imagination. But the story has held water for 50 years, and there’s now a historical marker by the river to prove the legend never really left.
Related Reading
- “Pascagoula: The Closest Encounter” by Calvin Parker
- “UFO Contact at Pascagoula” by Charles Hickson and William Mendez
On Screen
- “Alien Contact: The Pascagoula UFO Encounter” (Plex, Tubi, YouTube)
- “Files of the Unexplained: Pascagoula Alien Abduction (Netflix)
- “Pascagoula 73” (The Roku Channel)
Clarence Chiles sketched what words couldn’t capture: the blazing, windowless craft that streaked through the Alabama night. ©The Project Blue Book Archive / U.S. Air Force
The Chiles-Whitted incident
July 1948 brought a sight pilots still debate. Clarence Chiles and John Whitted, both veterans of the skies, were flying a DC-3 near Montgomery, Alabama, when a fiery, cigar-shaped object tore past their cockpit window. No wings. No windows. Just light and heat. The Air Force called it a meteor, but the men swore it was something else, a craft unlike anything built on Earth. Their account still appears in nearly every serious history of UFO sightings.
Related Reading
- “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects” by Edward J. Ruppelt
- “The UFO Experience” by J. Allen Hynek
On Screen
- “Project Blue Book: Declassified – The True Story of the Chiles-Whitted Incident” (YouTube)
The Pensacola News Journal’s March 11, 1990, front page captured the height of the Gulf Breeze craze.
©Pensacola News Journal
In the late 1980s, Gulf Breeze turned into ground zero for UFO fever after Ed Walters’ now-famous photos of glowing discs spread worldwide.
The Gulf Breeze UFO flap
Late 1980s, Gulf Breeze, Florida. A local contractor, Ed Walters, began sharing photos of disc-shaped craft hovering over his neighborhood. For months the small beach town was swarmed with UFO hunters, TV crews and true believers. Then someone found a model in Walters’ attic made from two Styrofoam plates and drafting paper. Skeptics called it a hoax, but plenty of locals swore they had seen the lights themselves. Real or not, Gulf Breeze became the South’s unofficial UFO capital for a time, glowing brighter than any porch light along the panhandle.
Related Reading
- “The Gulf Breeze Sightings” by Ed and Frances Walters
- “UFOs Are Real: Here’s the Proof” by Ed and Frances Walters
- “Aliens in America” by William J. Birnes
On Screen
- “UFO Hunters” (Apple TV)
- “UFO Cover-Up?: Live!” (YouTube)
Years before his presidency, President Carter witnessed an unexplained light over Leary, Georgia. The moment sparked a lifelong fascination with what lies beyond, fitting for a leader who would later champion science and space exploration.
In 1977 President Carter sent a three-paragraph message aboard the Voyager Golden Records, a hopeful note to any civilization that might one day find it, blending humility with humanity’s enduring wish for peace.
The Jimmy Carter sighting
Before the White House, Jimmy Carter was just another Georgian staring up at the night sky. In 1969, in the small town of Leary, he spotted a bright light as intense as the moon hovering silently, shifting from white to blue to red before drifting away. Intrigued, he filed a formal report with the International UFO Bureau, describing every detail. Later he laughed about it, saying he didn’t believe in little green men but stood by what he saw. The sighting followed him into the national conversation, making Carter part of both political and extraterrestrial history.
Related Reading
- “Jimmy Carter: Paranormal and UFO Tales” by Grant Cameron
- “The Presidents and UFOs: A Secret History from FDR to Obama” by Larry Holcombe
- “UFOs and the National Security State” by Richard M. Dolan
On Screen
- “Ancient Aliens: Aliens and the Presidents” (History)
- “Unsolved Mysteries: Something in the Sky” (Netflix)
