UAP Case Archive

Shapes / Motherships

Motherships

Very large objects, or a large one with smaller ones leaving, circling or rejoining it. This page is defined by size and behavior rather than shape. Size is also the hardest thing for a witness to judge, and several giants rest on one person's later estimate.

    Over Labrador, 1954: one large shifting shape and six small ones beside it. Drawing for reference only.
    Each mothership is one case, colored by status. Select one to open it below.

    Start with BOAC.

    An airline crew, eighteen minutes of watching, sketches made at the time, a fighter scrambled, and an ending no one has explained.

    On the evening of June 29, 1954, a BOAC Stratocruiser flying from New York to London was cruising at 19,000 feet over Quebec and Labrador. Captain James Howard, First Officer Lee Boyd and navigator H. McDonnell saw one large dark object and six small globular ones keeping pace on their left, about five miles away. They watched for roughly 18 minutes and 80 miles.

    The large object slowly changed shape. Howard's log sketches show a pear, a shape like a telephone handset, and a delta. He compared the change to a jellyfish, or a swarm of bees altering its outline. The small ones moved around it but never above or below.

    Goose Bay sent an F-94 fighter. As it approached, McDonnell said, the small objects merged into the large one, which shrank and was gone. Howard told the BBC he was sure it was solid and "intelligently handled."

    What has been suggested

    • On recordA captain, first officer and navigator, with passengers, and sketches in the captain's log.
    • SuggestedThe solar eclipse of the next morning, as Howard recalled the Air Ministry suggesting.
    • ProposedA mirage.
    • OpenNo explanation has been accepted.

    What the record shows.

    Six cases on this page, from 1950 to 2007. Most famous mothership cases are filed by shape on other pages, and this page points to them.

    The release story is the core of it.

    Kit Carson, Pottstown, BOAC and Saint-Mathias all describe smaller objects coming from, circling or merging with a large one. So do Tehran and JAL 1628, filed on the Diamonds and Discs pages, and the French cigar motherships of 1952 to 1954.

    Aircrew dominate.

    F-94 crews, a BOAC captain and crew, and an Aurigny captain account for half the cases here. Pilots see more sky than anyone, and at night or above cloud they have the fewest landmarks for judging distance.

    Size is almost never measured.

    Only the Yukon case tried, using witnesses at known points, and still gave a range of about a third of a mile to well over a mile. At Alderney, Captain Bowyer first judged his object the size of a 737, then revised it to a mile wide when he decided it was farther away.

    Planets keep turning up in the explanations.

    Jupiter was proposed for Tehran and for JAL 1628. Bright planets low on the horizon are a known trap for pilots.

    Often told wrong.

    The biggest mothership stories have also grown the most.

    The story you may have heardWhat the record shows
    Radar confirmed JAL 1628's mothership in 1986.
    On review, the military returns were judged clutter and the FAA return a split image of the 747 itself. A United airliner and an Air Force C-130 nearby saw nothing.
    Jersey radar tracked the Alderney objects for 55 minutes.
    The controller's transcript records only a faint return he thought was weather.
    A mile-long craft flew over Stephenville in 2008.
    Of eight statements in MUFON's report, only pilot Steve Allen's gives that size.
    The Air Force stayed silent about Stephenville.
    It first said none of its aircraft were up, then said two weeks later that ten F-16s had been training in the area.

    All mothership cases.

    Listed oldest first. Each card notes what kind of evidence the case rests on.

      The size problem.

      A light in the sky has an angle, not a size. Its size depends entirely on how far away you think it is.

      Captain Ray Bowyer, flying to Alderney in 2007, first judged his object to be about the size of a 737 at ten miles. When he decided it was nearer forty miles away, the same view became something as much as a mile wide.

      Every giant on this page should be read with that in mind.

      737 at 10 milesa mile wide at 40 miles cockpit

      Left off this page.

      These famous mothership cases are filed by shape on other pages.

      • Tehran, 1976On the Diamonds page.
      • JAL 1628, 1986On the Discs page.
      • Stephenville, 2008On the Triangles page.
      • Oloron, Gaillac, Adamski and VernonCigar motherships, on the Cigars page.
      • Boianai, 1959On the Discs page.