What are the most famous UFO incidents?

“The most-cited modern UFO/UAP incidents on the U.S. public record are Roswell (1947), the Apollo 17 lunar anomaly (1972), the Phoenix Lights (1997), the USS Nimitz Tic Tac (2004), GOFAST (2015), and the 2023 'Eye of Sauron' Western US orbs.”

The most-cited modern UFO/UAP incidents on the U.S. public record include: Roswell, New Mexico (July 1947) — the FBI Dallas memo on a recovered hexagonal object suspended from a balloon; the Apollo 17 lunar sky anomaly (December 1972) — three dots in triangular formation north of Grimaldi crater, witnessed by Astronaut Jack Schmitt; the Phoenix Lights (March 1997) — a V-formation of lights over Arizona; the USS Nimitz "Tic Tac" encounter (November 2004) — multiple radar locks and pilot eyewitness reports; the F/A-18 GOFAST clip (2015, resolved 2026); the 2023 Western US "Eye of Sauron" orange-orb case observed by federal agents; and the 1994 PanAm Tajikistan crew sighting at 41,000 feet, where the pilot recorded the object as "possibly extraterrestrial and under intelligent control."