CFZ-USA

On This Day in Weird, January 19...

1809: Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston, Mass.

1910: Witnesses including the mayor, vicar, and a policeman watch a cigar-shaped UFO hover over Invercargill, New Zealand, at 100 feet altitude. A humanoid figure appears in a side door, shouting in an unknown language before the portal closes and the craft departs.

1953: Linda Hayden, British actress—known for roles in Taste the Blood of Dracula, The Blood on Satan's Claw, Old Drac and Queen Kong—is born in Stanmore, Middlesex.

1955: A U.S. military pilot sights a reddish-white UFO pacing his plane over the Pacific Ocean.

1965: A witness reports two circular UFOs hovering over an archery range at Brand's Flats, Va. The smaller craft lands 50 feet from the witness and disgorges three humanoid figures about three feet tall, jabbering unintelligibly before they return to their ship and lift off.

1966: A farmer watches a UFO rise from a marshy area near Tully, Australia, leaving behind reeds flattened in clockwise swirls, 32 feet in diameter.

1967: UFOs appear over Dunbar, W.Va., at 9:05 a.m.; Milan, Ind., at 3:00 p.m. (where 15-year-old Reed Thompson snaps a photo); and over Shamokin, Pa., at 6:00 p.m. (pursued by a local minister in his car).

1971: Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi plays the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" to establish motive at the Manson cult murder trial, in Los Angeles.

1972: Three police officers and four civilians watch a boomerang-shaped UFO hover over a high school in Phoenixville, Pa.

1976: Another boomerang-shaped UFO visits Heislerville, N.J., observed by multiple witnesses. Two watchers claim to see figures or "motion" inside the craft.

1977: Snow falls in Miami, Florida, for the first and only time in history (so far). Unprecedented flurries also dust the Bahamas.

1988: UFOs cause excitement in Foreman, Ark., and Benton, La.

1991: A Massachusetts respiratory therapist driving home from work sees a domed UFO with a large lighted window, hovering 25 feet above treetops in a residential neighborhood.