Summary
Unusually rational accounts of a famous UFO sighting make for a reasonable level-headed mystery.
This recap of Unsolved Mysteries season 3, episode 2, “Something in the Sky”, contains spoilers.
The smartest thing about “Something in the Sky” is that it anticipates the usual reactions to stories about UFO sightings. In fact, the typical assumption that anyone who claims to have spotted aliens in the sky is a kook is brought up several times, both as a way to reassure the audience that these are accounts from rational people and as an excuse for why certain decisions weren’t made or were and didn’t end up being taken seriously. This episode of Unsolved Mysteries is far from incontrovertible proof of visitation, but it’s a more level-headed account than usual.
Unsolved Mysteries season 3, episode 2 recap
This supposed sighting, which occurred over Lake Michigan on March 8, 1994, is a well-known one. Hundreds of residents were witnesses, and the National Weather Service even confirmed the presence of large, unidentified objects over the lake, seeming to split apart, move in formation, defy the laws of physics, and then disappear.
It’s within the perspective of a NWS meteorologist that most of the episode is couched. This adds a sense of rationality to proceedings that is sometimes missing. There’s also a nice dramatic throughline. We begin with the earliest sightings and reactions, trace the events of the night, and then catch up with people trying to make sense of it in retrospect, especially considering semi-recent admissions from various U.S. agencies and organizations that there have indeed been multiple sightings of aerial phenomena that we are presently unable to explain.
What struck about the Lake Michigan incident, and what comes across in “Something in the Sky”, was the consistency of the reports. They all came in at around the same time, included the same details, and were largely made by people who were not just seemingly rational but were actually hesitant to report what they’d seen (there’s even a note made towards the end that only a fraction of those who must have seen the event actually reported it.)
And then there’s also the official backing from the NWS. It’s Jack Bushong, a meteorologist stationed at the office in Muskegon County working radar the night of the incident, who explains the majority of the details to us. It’s also Jack who explains how being seen to support the existence of UFOs was a no-go for the NWS, which led to Jack moving out of state. When he retired, he remained obsessed with the event, and towards the end of the episode, we see him meeting with some of the eyewitnesses, bringing the on-the-ground accounts and the objective reporting together.
Jack is an interesting narrator because he remains rational even while explaining things that defy explanation. Despite having developed a reputation as a kook in the years since he never gets so excited that you think he’s biased. He comes across, on the contrary, like a man who had his entire belief system utterly shaken and has been unable to get over it since; he comes across, in other words, like a scientist who saw UFOs.
We’ll never know, of course, or at least we probably won’t, but the episode itself implores people who saw something that night to come forward with it. Perhaps they will.
You can stream Unsolved Mysteries season 3, episode 2, “Something in the Sky”, exclusively on Netflix.
