UFO and Skywatching Tools & Resources
Free tools for checking what was in your sky: the sky checker, live case archive, sighting alerts, satellite trackers, flight radar and reporting links.
On Track the Unknown
Everything here is free and needs no account except where noted.
- Sky checker — Answer a few questions about what you saw, when and where, and we check the real sky at that moment: planets, bright stars, ISS and satellite passes, meteor showers and live aircraft.
- Live sightings map — Every published case file plotted on a map, with filters by scope: global, national, regional and local.
- Case archive — Search the full database of case files by location, shape, year and status, including the historic cases from Roswell to Rendlesham.
- Sighting alerts — A free email when someone reports a sighting near your chosen area and radius. No account needed.
- Report a sighting — File a report with time, location and description. Weather, satellite passes and astronomy are checked automatically, and witnesses nearby can corroborate it.
- Meteor shower calendar — The major annual showers, peak dates and expected rates — the nights most likely to produce “UFO” reports.
- How to report a UFO — What to record while it is still in the sky, and where to file it afterwards.
- UAP glossary — Every acronym and programme name in the field, in plain English.
- UFO timeline — Eighty years of cases, studies and legislation, in order.
- Sightings by place — Regional guides: what gets reported where, notable local incidents and what usually explains them.
Check your sky yourself
The references behind the sky checker. Useful if you want to run the checks by hand.
- Heavens-Above — Satellite pass predictions for your location, including the ISS at magnitude -4 or brighter, plus star charts and planet positions. The standard reference for “what was that light”.
- Stellarium Web — A free planetarium in your browser: point it at your time and place to see exactly which stars, planets and satellites were where you looked.
- NASA’s Eyes — NASA’s solar system visualisation — useful for seeing where the planets were and how far away.
- Celestrak — Satellite orbital element data in human-readable form, including the Starlink constellation and its launch batches.
- Meteor Shower Calendar (IMO) — The International Meteor Organization’s shower calendar and radiant charts, the professional reference for peak dates.
What was moving overhead
Aircraft are the most common explanation for a “hovering” light. These show what was actually flying.
- Flightradar24 — Live aircraft positions. If a bright light is hanging in the sky near an airport, this usually explains it in seconds.
- ADS-B Exchange — Unfiltered aircraft tracking, including military traffic that commercial apps often omit.
Where sightings are reported
You can file with more than one organisation; none of them share reports automatically.
- Track the Unknown — Public case files with automatic weather, satellite and astronomy checks, plus corroboration from witnesses nearby.
- NUFORC — The National UFO Reporting Center: a long-running civilian database founded in 1974, mostly US reports.
- MUFON — The Mutual UFO Network: civilian volunteer field investigators, with a searchable case database for members.
- AARO reporting — The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. Its public reporting channel is for current and former US government employees, service members and contractors — most members of the public cannot use it.
- GEIPAN (France) — The French space agency’s open UAP database, with each case classified by how well it is explained. The most transparent national database anywhere.
- UK Ministry of Defence files — The National Archives’ released UFO files: 12,000+ reports spanning the 1950s to the closure of the MoD’s desk in 2009.