“That thing isn’t us, dude. Look at that thing!”

“It’s rotating!”

That exchange took place between two Navy jet pilots who stumbled upon a fleet of strange, spinning aircraft. The U.S. Department of Defense released video of their encounter last week.

It’s part of a massive New York Times story that unearthed the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Identification Program: a secretive, scarcely funded arm of the DOD that studied unidentified flying objects.

The program was defunded in 2012, but the fact it ever existed confirms a belief to which I’ve long clung: “The X Files” is a documentary.

It also bolsters the suspicions of several Evansville residents.

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A lot of us have UFO stories. Some area sightings are famous, including the “Hopkinsville Goblin-Kelly Green Men” incident from 1955, in which the Sutton family waged an hourslong gun battle with an army of four-foot tall green men who dashed from the trees and swarmed their farm.

The National UFO Reporting Center keeps meticulous track of the thousands of strange sightings sent to them since 1974. And luckily for us, they break it down by location.

NURC has records of about 50 Evansville sightings collected from anonymous reporters over the years. Here are some of the creepier encounters.

Aug 21, 2017

Report of 18 “large and disk-like” crafts lumbering across the sky. They were silver with orange lights and emitted a “low-tune” hum.

“… When they left it was like they vanished. Just popped out of existence. I could see them very well,” the reporter said. “Also, all of the gas in our cars started leaking out. My watch stopped.”

Dec. 28, 2015

A Marine veteran let his German Shephard outside to do its business when the dog started barking and growling.

“As I walked outside, I noticed two disc shapes hovering close by at least 25 yards from my house, and one started to circle where I was at,” the reporter said. “These were no military aircraft.”

“… Strange enough, thought I had seen something move in yard and was ready with side arm,” the reporter told NURC. “Crazy thing is that I see them all the time.”

May 22, 2015

The reporter saw an abundance of red orbs randomly appear and disappear in the sky above their house. They grew closer and closer together until two more appeared above the line and fired beams of light toward their brethren.

Then they vanished.

“My region has an abundance of owls,” the reporter said. “They started howling.”

July 18, 2014

Titled “Fire in the Sky” on the website, this account concerns a fiery ball that appeared over Green River Road near Washington Avenue.

“There was no sound and I have taken several pictures of this very strange craft,” the reporter said. “I know that it wasn't any aircraft we have. It was doing things that our aircraft cannot do.”

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March 9, 2008

A large white ball soundlessly shot through the clouds above Darmstadt before disappearing altogether.

The reporter had one request.

“If you post this, you can call me realwolf.”

Jan. 1, 2000

A person standing in his driveway noticed lights shimmering off his garage door. Then he heard a loud “whoosh” directly over his head.

A cigar-shaped aircraft, about 30-feet long, hovered in the sky. It flew behind a tree and then disappeared.

At first, the stunned reporter thought it might have been some deranged hang-glider.

“(But) there are too many power lines for it too (sic) have been … plus it was dark. That would have been suicide,” the reporter said.

“Maybe some new Govt aircraft.”

March of 1987

A college student was asleep in their dorm when blinding light filled the room. The student thought the neighboring apartment was on fire.

“Then I felt a static electric feeling and the red light covered my body moving from my feet upwards toward my head,” the reporter said. “I was paralyzed and could hardly breathe. It seemed to last forever, but it was really only a few seconds.”

The student called a friend, who said the student was just dreaming. Or maybe it was a streetlight. Or a car tooling through the parking lot. Or just stress.

Before long, the dreams began. Objects would swoop in and dart around the student’s head, and when the student awoke, they would be screaming and slapping at objects that weren’t there.

The student started conjuring painful, repressed memories from childhood.

“I'm not sure the memories are real, but the feelings that go along with them are very real. Has anyone else ever experienced anything similar? I've not told anyone about this incident, other than my friend because no one would believe me.”

Contact columnist Jon Webb at jon.webb@courierpress.com.