Missouri is a top location for UFO sightings

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - July 2 marks "World UFO Day", and the day has meaning in the state of Missouri.

Missouri was put on the UFO map in the 1970's, when hundreds of people in Southeast Missouri reported seeing bright objects in the sky back in 1973. Over 500 sightings of UFOs were reported.

"It's commonly known as the Piedmont UFO Flap, but it really occurred all around Wayne County and up into Farmington," said Margie Kay, State Director for the Missouri chapter of the Mutual UFO Network on Total Information A.M.

Kay says Missouri is still a top location for sightings.

"Nationwide, (Missouri) is usually in the top 10 for citing reports, even though we have a smaller population than a lot of states," said Kay. "The main siting locations of course are in our bigger towns, bigger cities like Saint Louis and Kansas City, "But we do have sightings across the state and we have had several UFO flats where we would have sightings in a particular area."

One of the more recent reports has taken place in Liberty, Missouri (part of the Kansas City-area).

"A Navy photographer was taking pictures of his vehicle and he inadvertently got pictures of UFOs that he did not see with the naked eye, but we examined them later and determined that they were unidentified objects and they were moving at extremely high speeds," said Kay. "I believe it was somewhere around 8000 MPH that we were able to determine."

Kay says while many sightings remain unexplained, they are often something mundane like a balloon, a known aircraft, or a planet.