ufo sout carolina
© Kennedy News and MediaThis ufo was spotted near the end of June, 2021 in Goose Creek, South Carolina
Do you ever feel like...somebody's watching you?

Or maybe multiple somebodies? Extraterrestrial somebodies, maybe?

For whatever reason — you can pick your own theory — the Myrtle Beach area has been a hotspot for UFO sightings for years.

Tracked in a government database that keeps the identities of witnesses anonymous, dozens of stories recount first-hand experiences with mysteries in the sky. Some narratives are from tourists. Others identify themselves as former military members, cosmos enthusiasts or retired law enforcement officers.

"I frequent airshows," one entry reads. "I am a fan of military aviation, and I can identify aircraft as I see them fly over. Not being able to explain this is irritating to me. I do not believe in UFOs. I still don't. However, there is video footage online that is very similar to what I saw."

Dozens of encounters in the Grand Strand have been recorded in the database, with 66 entries since 2019. Some sightings may be attributed to space launches, fireworks or drones, but we'll let you decide.

Here are some tales of UFO encounters over the last few years in the area. Summaries have been edited for length and clarity:

May 24, 2021

Location: Myrtle Beach

It was 9 p.m. and my whole family was sitting on the balcony at a resort. The sky was beautiful — it was almost a full moon. I looked up and noticed two orange (color of a fire) orb lights. I said to my husband, "Look! What is that?" When I told my husband to look, a third orb appeared. The first two lights would have made a horizontal line if you were to draw a line connecting them. The third was below the first two and off to the right slightly.

As soon as my husband saw them the third light disappeared, then the other two disappeared, as well.

I said to my family, "That was a UFO!" I can be very open-minded to things like that and like to watch shows about UFOs and Bigfoot sometimes when they are on. My husband is the total opposite! He can come up with a logical explanation for anything. We both have college educations and make a good living.

The point of saying that is to let anyone who reads this is...my husband even thought it was strange and was not trying to explain it away!

May 14, 2021

Location: North Myrtle Beach

Last night while watching Netflix I observed an orange light flash outside my beachfront condo. When it did it again, I got up and got my binoculars and my iPhone to take a picture. I could see many lights out over the ocean, but through the binoculars I could see that some of the lights were moving very erratically and changing color equally as fast.

I took a picture, and when you enlarge it you can see one of the lights is a red color and looks to have energy coming from it. The UFOs stayed there for more than 40 minutes.

January 20, 2021

Location: North Myrtle Beach

I was on the balcony of my oceanfront hotel room observing the Orion constellation in the northeastern sky when I saw four distinct orange orbs/spheres aligned within a haze/aura or opaque/cloudy background of a larger figure that appeared over the ocean. They eased through the sky and seemed to be approaching the beach when they quickly accelerated, darted to my left and its light was abruptly extinguished.

A few minutes later, they abruptly appeared again over the ocean, where they hovered and then streamed towards the beach before abruptly accelerating and turning. Their light was extinguished again. The vehicle made no sound.

I spent 10 years in the Navy working in the special intelligence and cryptology communities, and I also spent three years at sea on an aircraft carrier, so I am very familiar with military aircraft and Navy ships and vessels.

January 20, 2021

Location: Conway

I was driving east on Highway 501 when a large formation of bright orb-like balls formed a perfect elliptical shape. It rotated and maintained that shape while seeming to rotate along a perfect path. These orbs were about the distance of a low-flying helicopter. Much too large to be drones. As it rotated, each orb disappeared one by one and it was gone.

September 1, 2020

Location: Myrtle Beach

I was at the pool. Clear day, no clouds. I saw an object very high in the sky and got my binoculars.

I saw a large cylinder floating in the sky. It looked metallic and had a very bright flashing light on top, or a mirror reflecting the sun. I watched it for 20 minutes until it floated behind the trees. No exhaust, no strings, no wings, no sound.

July 26, 2020

Location: North Myrtle Beach

I was sitting on the balcony at a resort looking out over the ocean in North Myrtle Beach at 9:30 p.m. It was a perfectly clear night. The Moon and North Star seem tiny in comparison to what I witnessed.

A brilliant white starburst flashed on high in the sky out in the distance over the ocean. It had no sound. It flashed horizontally from left to right several times, leaving a bright white trail between where it started and stopped. It left a starburst on each side when it stopped at the exact same distance each time. I felt as though it was scanning something. Then it stopped exactly on the left where it first appeared with the same huge white brilliant starburst light, and disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Within seconds a falling star left a small burnout trail of red/blue/green.

June 22, 2020

Location: North Myrtle Beach

My family was on vacation watching fireworks from the balcony of an oceanfront condo when we saw a bright glowing red-orange light in the sky. It was a vertical cigar shape that pulsed. It was viewed for about 15 seconds, and then it slowly began to shrink until it disappeared. It was much larger than the stars and nothing appeared after its disappearance.

January 26, 2020

Location: Aynor

I saw an orange/fiery glowing object in the sky. I was driving home from work and I like to look at Venus. I noticed it was cloudy, so I couldn't really see many stars, but Venus gets pretty bright, so I look, anyway, and approached a big field.

As I'm driving, I notice a bright object that resembles a plane that's on fire, so I kind of freak out, but then I noticed the vehicle in front of me breaked hard as if they saw what I saw.

I look up and this thing is definitely moving towards my job, down 319, across the sky, so I had to focus on the road even though I slowed down from 55 mph to 35 mph to make sure I wasn't crazy. After that, I slowly sped up and looked behind me only to see that I couldn't see this object in the sky anymore. That's when I had to really think about what I had just saw because I didn't even hear noise from when I rolled my window down.