“I could feel it resonating through my entire body and the hair on my body just stood up.” (Bath, New Hampshire)

“I felt heat against my face like I was getting a sunburn.” (Raymond, New Hampshire)

“I experienced jaundice, severe weakness, and sharp pains in my side.” (Canastota, New York)

Each of these witnesses saw something unusual in the sky, and each describes what it did to their body. They are among similar accounts submitted to Enigma, which include a tingle that arrives before the object does, a body that will not move and a headache that outlasts the sighting by days.

These reports cannot establish what caused the effects, and many have ordinary explanations, from adrenaline to a bad night’s sleep. Read together, they show which sensations witnesses describe, when those sensations begin and how long they last.

What do witnesses feel during an encounter, and what stays with them afterward?

Historical Context

Reports of bodily effects are nearly as old as modern UFO research. In 1972, astronomer J. Allen Hynek, scientific consultant to the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book, published a scale for classifying close encounters. His second category covered encounters that left physical effects, including effects on witnesses such as heat, discomfort and temporary paralysis.

In May 1967, prospector Stefan Michalak said he approached a landed craft near Falcon Lake, Manitoba, and touched its hull. He said a blast of hot gas from a grid-like vent set his shirt on fire and left a pattern of burns on his chest. In the weeks that followed, he reported nausea, headaches and weight loss. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian military and the University of Colorado's government-funded UFO study all looked into the case. None established what he encountered.

In 1977, residents of fishing villages around Colares, in Brazil's Pará state, reported lights that fired beams at people, leaving burn-like marks and weakness. Local health workers said they treated patients, and the Brazilian Air Force sent a team to investigate, an operation later known as Operação Prato.

On December 29, 1980, Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum and Landrum's 7-year-old grandson, Colby, were driving near Huffman, Texas, when they saw a diamond-shaped object venting flames above the road, followed by a group of helicopters. All three reported symptoms in the following days. Cash was hospitalized with blisters, hair loss and vomiting. Their lawsuit against the U.S. government was dismissed in 1986.

The question has also reached government research. A 2010 paper commissioned under a Defense Intelligence Agency program and written by physician Christopher "Kit" Green reviewed reported injuries from close encounters, including burns and neurological symptoms. It was made public in 2022.

Researchers have proposed ordinary explanations for many of these effects. Fear and adrenaline can cause a racing heart, shaking and tingling hands. Rapid breathing can cause lightheadedness and pins and needles. Sleep paralysis can leave a person awake but unable to move. Staring at a bright light can cause eye pain and afterimages, and low-frequency sound can cause unease and nausea. A person who falls ill the day after a sighting may simply be ill.

What Enigma's Data Shows

Bodily effects are rare in the database as a whole: 195 out of nearly 42,000 approved user-submitted sightings, fewer than one in 200. Within the collection, four kinds of effect account for nearly two-thirds of reports: nausea or dizziness, being unable to move, electrical or tingling sensations, and missing time or loss of consciousness.

About one in eight reports describes missing time or a blackout. Those accounts overlap with Missing Minutes, so this piece focuses on the other effects.

Three in four of these events took place at night, and more than half list more than one witness. No single shape dominates. Lights, spheres and circles together account for about a third of reports. Disks and saucers make up 14%, and triangles 9%.

Most reports come from the United States (73%), followed by the United Kingdom and Canada. Witnesses in 18 countries are represented in all.

The Stories

A charge in the air

The most common sensation in the collection is electrical: static in the air, a tingle across the skin, body hair standing on end. Witnesses often tie it to a single moment, when the object was closest.

• In DeLand, Florida, a witness stepped outside at about 4 a.m. in November 2014 and saw a massive, matte-black chevron pass silently overhead at two to three times the speed of a passenger jet. "The most unsettling part was physical: right as it flew overhead, I felt a distinct static-like charge pass through my entire body." The witness describes "an electric tingle from head to toe, like the air itself was charged or ionized." It lasted a second or two, "coinciding exactly with the object's closest approach". The witness kept the sighting mostly to themselves for more than a decade. (#329196 )

• On the last day of a backwoods camping trip in Loring, Ontario, a witness heard their partner screaming their name from the river and ran down expecting a bear. Across the water, a brilliant white orb about the size of an SUV hung just above the treetops. The witness "was frozen in place as my body was filled with some kind of electrical energy and my body hair stood on end." They say time seemed to slow down before the orb accelerated and vanished. (#287243 )

• In a park in Troy, Michigan, a cyclist stopped to rest and felt "a slight sense of unease or dread as if being observed or watched" before looking up at a silent, diamond-shaped object circling closer. "When it was at its closest to me, I could feel the vibration of it in my skin and bones." The object also gave the witness a headache and "deep anxiety." (#320105 )

Static and tingling sensations have a familiar ordinary cause: adrenaline. But several witnesses here say the sensation arrived before they felt any fear, or before they had seen the object at all.

Awake, but unable to move

In about one in six reports, the witness says they could not move. Some attribute it to shock. The accounts in this section do not: the witnesses describe being alert, thinking clearly and unable to act.

• On a remote dairy farm in New Zealand's South Island, a farmer rode a quad bike to round up the cows for 4 a.m. milking and found a glowing green orb, about the size of a small car, resting in the trees without disturbing a branch. "Upon seeing it I felt completely paralyzed but not out of fear but something else, I heard a voice echo from inside my head out "we mean you no harm, you are safe"." The farmer says it felt like slow motion, that their hearing "was like I was under water" and that "I felt like I had no control over anything in that situation." The cows, which normally had to be woken, were already standing. (#281902 )

• In Cincinnati, a witness taking a cat outside watched a red light make a sharp right angle. Then came "a light and it came from everywhere and nowhere." The witness recalls: "I couldn't move my head, only my eyes. And I remember thinking to myself, I see you." Then a thought arrived: "I see you too." The light was gone, the witness could move again, and the cat was right there. (#287194 )

• In eastern France, a 15-year-old lying in bed at 2 a.m. saw a silent sphere of white-blue light flash past the window, lighting the entire room. "I couldn't move for a few seconds even though I didn't feel any fear." The teenager compares it to sleep paralysis, with one difference: "I had the impression to make a mini paralysis of the sleep nevertheless I was awake!" They never told anyone. (#279704 )

Sleep paralysis is a well-documented state in which a person wakes but cannot move. What sets these accounts apart is that the witnesses say they were already awake and standing, sitting or riding when it began.

Something in the sound

About one in 16 reports centers on the ears: ringing, pressure or a sound the witness says they felt as much as heard. In several, a sound is the first sign that something is wrong.

• Camping at Fenton Lake, New Mexico, with their children, a witness was woken between 2 and 3:30 a.m. by "a strange resonance sort of mechanical sound with a subtle bluish to teal glow" through the tent. The object, which looked triangular through the fabric, "was audibly silent except for the resonant sort of infrasound coming from it." "The reverberation honestly made me feel nauseous & somewhat panicked so I held onto my kids and never exited my tent". (#314265 )

• In Deep Run, North Carolina, three friends on their way to breakfast saw a glowing, almost blinding orb, and the driver nearly crashed watching it. "After about 20 seconds, me and my friends all start hearing this high pitched buzzing, then feeling the worst headaches of our lives, at the same exact time." Afterward, the witness says, they were exhausted, "almost as if we went through a full day of work just by looking at that thing." (#315290 )

• In Federal Way, Washington, a witness setting up a camera to photograph the moon first felt something like "an old TV set being on in the room but not hearing anything, more feeling it like infrasound." Then a spiraling rod-shaped object, almost 2 feet long, passed less than a foot from their face. "It made both ears ring like a soft tinnitus sound and it was loudest when directly in front of my face then dissipated as it moved away." (#320112)

• On an early-morning jog in Lubbock, Texas, a witness heard a hum that grew until "the sound was unbearable". They looked up and saw an object hovering high above them, snapped one photo, and watched it take off. "I threw up on the spot, went home and threw up again before passing out immediately and slept for almost 24 hours." The witness reports a fever since that day and planned to see a doctor. (#322003 )

Low-frequency sound is known to cause unease and nausea in some people, and two witnesses use the word infrasound unprompted. In each of these accounts, the sound comes first and the symptoms follow.

The next morning

For some witnesses, the effects appear or continue after the object is gone: the next morning, over several days or, in one case, for years.

• In June 2015, a hotel guest in White River Junction, Vermont, watched a pulsing light approach to within about 200 yards. Up close, "it sounded like being under power-lines". The witness slept 12 to 13 hours and woke with what they describe as severe jet lag. "This encounter for whatever reason blinded me for 30 to 40 minutes the next day when I woke up". They also describe "significant orbital bone pain" and facial discomfort: "I had the feeling like I was severely sunburnt, but when I looked in the mirror, my skin was not red." The fatigue and pain lasted two to three days. The witness told no one until 2023. (#308381 )

• In Shreveport, Louisiana, a witness let the dog out late at night and watched a blue triangle of light hover above a golf course for at least 20 minutes. "I noticed my face felt really hot and almost like I had a sunburn but I looked and felt normal when I woke up the next morning." (#327995 )

• Outside work in Lewistown, Montana, a witness watched a silent metallic object "like a skyscraper" float across the sky for 30 seconds. "I had a headache immediately during the sighting and my headache continued for 48 hrs." (#302458 )

• In Westbury, England, in January 2011, a witness, their wife and their 16-year-old daughter watched a silent triangle "about the size of a football pitch" tilt in the sky over a field. "the air felt strange, can’t describe it and the silence was ominous." Afterward, "I developed a skin rash which took several years to dissipate". (#289227 )

These are the hardest accounts to connect to a sighting. Illness, sun exposure and poor sleep can all produce the same symptoms. But the witnesses describe a sequence that is easy to follow: they saw something, and their body changed afterward.

What the Stories Have in Common

Enigma’s reports echo the historical cases: heat and burns that leave no visible mark, and illness in the days after a sighting.

• The effect peaks at closest approach. Witnesses often say the sensation was strongest when the object was nearest and faded as it moved away.
• The mind stays on. Witnesses who could not move describe being fully aware, and several say time seemed to slow.
• Companions feel it too. In several accounts, two or more people describe the same effect at the same moment.
• It is not always fear. Several witnesses say they felt none, or that the sensation came before they saw anything.
• It stays private. Some witnesses kept their experience to themselves for years.

Whether these effects reflect something about the phenomenon or how the body responds to stress, light and sound remains an open question. These accounts record what witnesses felt, in their own words.

Explore the sightings in this collection below. If you’ve had an experience like these, submit your sighting . The more people share their accounts, the easier it becomes to identify patterns, compare experiences, and ask better questions.