UAP Case Archive

Shapes / Rings

Rings

Rings, donuts and wedding bands. This is the shape most often solved. Nearly every black ring in the sky has turned out to be a smoke ring from something burning nearby, and the method for finding it is simple enough to show.

    Grand Tower, Illinois, 1973: a "wedding band" with pulsing panels over the power plant. Drawing for reference only.
    Each ring is one case, colored by status. Select one to open it below.

    Start with Fort Belvoir.

    For years the Fort Belvoir photographs were published as an unexplained ring-shaped UFO. Then an investigator worked out where the ring came from.

    One morning in September 1957, a private at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, was called out of his barracks with about fifteen other soldiers to look at something in the sky. With a Kodak Brownie he photographed a black ring. He said it seemed solid, not like smoke, and not shiny. Between his second and third frames it was swallowed by white smoke. The six photographs were published in 1967 as "the amazing ring-shaped UFO."

    For the Air Force's Condon study, astronomer William Hartmann asked base officials about it. They told him the photos showed a smoke ring from an "atomic bomb simulation demonstration," a show often staged at the base. Hartmann estimated the ring at about 200 feet across and traced its drift back to the demonstration site.

    The Condon Report listed it as positively identified. Researcher Ann Druffel later noted that no document describing the simulator itself has been found.

    How the ring was solved

    • PhotographedSix photos from a Kodak Brownie, showing the ring and then white smoke.
    • Source foundBase officials described an atomic bomb simulation demonstration staged at the base.
    • TracedHartmann traced the ring's drift back to the demonstration site.
    • Still missingNo document describing the simulator itself has been found.

    What the record shows.

    Twelve cases from 1947 to 2025. These patterns run through them.

    The black ring is almost always smoke.

    A smoke ring forms when smoke is pushed hard through a round opening: a firework mortar, a smokestack, an exploding transformer. In still air it holds its shape for minutes and drifts like a solid object.

    The answer is the source, not the shape.

    Every confirmed case was solved by finding what was burning nearby: a castle fire show, a theme park, an Army demonstration ground.

    Older reports describe something different.

    The 1950s Air Force rings were bright or flaming, not black, made noise, and moved against the wind. Mount Vernon's donut gave off black smoke from its top, which could point either way.

    Ring cases come with photographs.

    Fort Belvoir, Leamington Spa, Disneyland and Zurich all exist because someone took pictures, and a photo can be checked against the weather and the location.

    A few stay open.

    Mount Vernon in 1952, Newburyport in 1954, Grand Tower in 1973 and the Zurich photographs of 2021 have no published answer.

    Often told wrong.

    Some ring stories are retold as mysteries long after they were solved.

    The story you may have heardWhat the record shows
    Lonnie Zamora saw a doughnut-shaped machine at Socorro.
    He described an egg or oval. The case is on the Eggs and ovals page.
    The 1947 Maury Island doughnuts are an early sighting to rely on.
    The FBI and Air Force investigator Edward Ruppelt judged it a hoax, though neither man confessed. It is filed as a disputed hoax.
    The Fort Belvoir ring photographs are unexplained.
    The Condon Report identified them as a smoke ring from an atomic bomb simulation, confirmed by base officials.
    No one knows what the Black Ring of Leamington Spa was.
    Within days, the BBC reported that nearby Warwick Castle had been testing fire effects that evening.

    All ring cases.

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

      How a smoke ring forms.

      Push a puff of smoke hard through a round opening and it rolls into a ring, spinning around its own core. The spin holds it together, so it can drift for minutes looking like a solid object.

      Fireworks mortars, smokestacks and exploding transformers all do this. To solve a black ring, look upwind for something that was burning or firing at that moment. At Disneyland in 2025, the park confirmed it was testing pyrotechnics before opening.

      drifts downwind for minutes launcher or stack

      Left off this page.

      These are sometimes counted as rings, but are filed elsewhere.

      • Heflin, 1965His fourth photo shows a smoke ring, but the case is a hat-shaped disc on the Discs page.
      • The 1952 F-86 "doughnut without a hole"A disc, not a ring.
      • Socorro, 1964An egg or oval, on that page.
      • Norway spiral, 2009On the Irregular page.