This is a preliminary, partial (and possibly erroneous) list of mystery aircraft (balloons, airships, aeroplanes, rockets) panics and related scares up to 1946. Entries in bold are major episodes (occurring over a wide area and/or long time); those in (brackets) either do not involve aircraft but are related episodes of widespread misperception or else are failed panics. Links are to posts elsewhere on this blog.

See also: a miscellany of Australian mystery aeroplanes, 1906-1947 and, more generally, all mystery aircraft posts. I have published on the 1913 British phantom airship panic (The Next War in the Air, 'The phantom airship panic of 1913') and the 1918 Australian and New Zealand mystery aeroplane panic ('Dreaming war', 'The enemy at the gates'); see my list of publications.