UFO Sightings in Florida
Declassified UAP files, famous historical sightings, and primary-source documentation for Florida.
Florida sits at the geographic intersection of two heavily-investigated UAP regions: the Atlantic-coast Navy operating areas off Jacksonville and Cape Canaveral (where multiple GIMBAL/GOFAST-era F/A-18 encounters occurred prior to formal declassification), and the Caribbean drug-interdiction airspace patrolled by the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection. While PURSUE Release 01 does not include any incidents geolocated specifically to Florida, the broader USS Theodore Roosevelt operating area off the East Coast is the source of the 2017 GOFAST clip (resolved by AARO in 2026 as a parallax artifact at ~13,000 feet altitude). Florida is also home to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral SFS, MacDill AFB (USCENTCOM HQ), and the 1979 Gulf Breeze photographs — a recurring Florida UAP photographic case in the 1980s widely debated as either a hoax or a genuine sighting.
PURSUE Release 01 coverage
Floridadoes not have any incidents publicly geolocated to it in PURSUE Release 01. The Pentagon's catalog covers 26 named incidents geographically; many “Western United States (undisclosed)” PURSUE entries — including the 2023 “Eye of Sauron” federal-agent encounter — may include Florida locations that were redacted to protect facility identity.
Famous historical sightings in Florida
Gulf Breeze photographs (1987–1988)
Series of photographs taken by Ed Walters in Gulf Breeze, Florida, showing a disc-shaped object near rooftops. The case generated extensive debate; later analysis by skeptics found a model UFO matching the photographs in a house Walters had previously occupied. Inconclusive but widely-cited civilian case.
USS Theodore Roosevelt East Coast operating area (2014–2015)
Multiple GIMBAL/GOFAST-era F/A-18 ATFLIR encounters occurred in the Atlantic Test and Evaluation Range off Florida and Virginia. The 2017 GOFAST clip is the marquee case, resolved by AARO in 2026.