On 5 November 1975 a logging crew was driving down from a cut in the Arizona mountains when, by every man's account, a glowing disc appeared over the road. Twenty-two-year-old Travis Walton got out and walked towards it; a flash threw him backwards and the others fled. He was searched for over five days, on the ground and from the air. Six witnesses took polygraph tests — five passed clearly, one was inconclusive. After five days Walton rang from a phone box in a nearby town, exhausted, and described waking on a table among figures with enormous eyes. Sceptics note that the crew was behind on its contract and escaped the penalty. Walton and his crewmates have held to the account for half a century.

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Mount Adams and the Watchers' Ranch

A volcano in southern Washington at whose foot the ECETI ranch has operated since the 1980s — a site people come to specifically in order to watch the sky. In summer dozens camp here with binoculars and cameras, and reports of lights come in every night. It is a rare case on this list of a place known not for one incident but for a continuous practice of watching. The explanation is simple and takes nothing away: the mountain stands well clear of any town, the sky is dark, and low-orbit satellites are visible to the naked eye in their hundreds after sunset. That suits the people who come: there genuinely is a great deal to look at.