Strangest UFO Mystery of the Vietnam War

While American soldiers fought the Viet Cong in the jungles below, another mysterious presence watched from above during the Vietnam War. These encounters with unidentified craft would challenge military explanations and leave witnesses with accounts that persist decades later.

The Military’s Hidden Interest

During the Vietnam War , the US military maintained a keen interest in UFO sightings, not out of scientific curiosity, but for tactical advantage. According to former Air Force intelligence officer Captain George Filer, who served with top secret clearance, these objects displayed capabilities far beyond anything in known military arsenals. Filer provided daily briefings to General George S. Brown, deputy commander for air operations, which frequently included reports of UFOs that defied conventional explanation. The military’s interest was simple: if they could understand and harness this technology, the war could be over by tomorrow.

George Filer

The DMZ Incident: A Night of Terror

The most dramatic encounter occurred on the night of June 15–16, 1968, in what became known as the DMZ incident. Patrol boat PCF12 (Patrol Craft Fast), commanded by Lieutenant Pete Snyder, received a frantic distress call from another vessel claiming attack by “enemy helicopters” — strange, since North Vietnamese forces were not known to operate combat helicopters. As PCF12 rushed to assist, crew members spotted two cylindrical bright lights surrounded by an eerie glow hovering in the sky.

The horror escalated when patrol boat PCF19 was allegedly destroyed in a flash of light, leaving only two survivors. The mysterious lights then approached PCF12, positioning themselves 300 yards away on both sides of the vessel, about 100 feet above the water. When headquarters confirmed no friendly aircraft were in the area, Lieutenant Snyder ordered his crew to open fire. Crew member Jim Steffes described seeing what appeared to be two beings sitting side by side in an observation area of one craft. Most remarkably, witnesses reported that the bullets they fired at the UFOs were somehow returned to their boat — a merciful yet terrifying display of superior technology.

Demilitarized Zone between North and South Vietnam

International Waters, International Mystery

The encounter expanded beyond American forces when an F4 Phantom fighter jet arrived at 3:20 a.m. to assist the patrol boats. The UFOs quickly departed toward the China Sea, where they encountered the HMAS Hobart, a Royal Australian Navy destroyer patrolling near Tiger Island. The Australian vessel reported observing up to 30 slow-moving lights hovering in the night sky. At 3:30 a.m., while maintaining radio silence and blacked-out operations, the Hobart’s radar detected a fast-approaching aircraft that registered as friendly on their identification systems.

What followed was a devastating attack. Air-to-air missiles struck the destroyer’s starboard side, killing two sailors and wounding several others. Official investigations concluded the attack was friendly fire from a US Air Force F4 Phantom responding to UFO reports. However, many present that night questioned this explanation, especially given the precise nature of the attack and the unusual circumstances surrounding the UFO sightings.

The Special Operations Nightmare

Perhaps the most disturbing encounter involved a special operations team in August 1968. After successfully infiltrating North Vietnam and assassinating a high-ranking communist official, the team found themselves pursued by enemy forces during their withdrawal. Seeking cover between two hills, they heard the distinctive chatter of AK-47 assault rifles firing from an adjacent position, with enemy tracers shooting straight up into the sky.

March of 1965

The team initially thought the enemy was targeting their extraction helicopter, but instead witnessed a large semi-circular object appear over the hill. The craft displayed no recognizable markings and continuously changed color from light blue to bright red while making no sound. When enemy tracers approached the object, it stopped mid-air and emitted a streak of light toward the enemy position. Complete silence followed as the hostile fire ceased.

After waiting thirty minutes, the team investigated the enemy position and made a horrifying discovery. There were no bodies, only weapons that had been melted down to almost nothing, leaving behind a terrible smell that lingered for hours. When one team member reported the incident to higher authorities, he was never seen again by his colleagues. The surviving members faced interrogation by mysterious civilians using unusual methods, including blindfolding and mouth-taping, conducted by hooded figures in undisclosed locations. Most disturbing, after bright flashes of light during questioning, team members lost all memory of both the interrogation and the UFO encounter — except for one individual who retained his recollection and chose to remain silent for his own safety.

Official Records and Disappearing Evidence

The military’s documentation of these events reveals a pattern of official acknowledgment followed by mysterious disappearances of evidence. The Chu Lai Defense Command recorded an egg-shaped object floating slowly to the ground with internal illumination on January 6, 1969, observed by multiple witnesses from different positions. This incident was particularly significant because it was documented in official military records in real time, not reconstructed from memory years later.

However, these records mysteriously vanished, leaving only witness testimony. This pattern of disappearing documentation echoes the experiences of Edward Ruppelt, former director of Project Grudge, who reported that UFO-related audio recordings and documents were sometimes deliberately destroyed during Pentagon meetings.

Edward Ruppelt

Military Explanations and Cover Stories

Throughout these encounters, military officials consistently explained away UFO sightings using conventional rationales. General George S. Brown, intimately familiar with Vietnam UFO reports, revealed during a 1973 press conference that these objects “weren’t called UFOs. They were called enemy helicopters.” This labeling strategy mirrors modern explanations where mysterious aerial phenomena are dismissed as “mysterious drones” or other conventional aircraft.

General George S. Brown

The most common official explanation was “shell shock” or combat exhaustion, suggesting that traumatized soldiers were hallucinating or misidentifying conventional objects. This explanation was also used during World War II’s Los Angeles UFO incident, where military forces fired hundreds of rounds at an unidentified object over the city, only to have the event officially dismissed as the result of panicked, exhausted personnel.

The Continuing Pattern

These Vietnam War encounters represent part of a larger historical pattern of UFO appearances during military conflicts. From the Foo Fighters of World War II to modern drone incursions over sensitive installations, unidentified craft consistently appear during times of human conflict. The witnesses describe objects with capabilities far exceeding known technology, often displaying what appears to be defensive rather than aggressive behavior — returning bullets harmlessly, disabling weapons without casualties, and observing rather than engaging.

Sources

UFOs in Wartime: What They Didn’t Want You To Know by Mack Maloney Military Encounters with Extraterrestrials by Frank Joseph https://listverse.com/2016/03/10/10-ufo-stories-from-the-vietnam-war-era/ https://www.loc.gov/resource/afc2001001.62808.pm0002001/?sp=1&st=image