Whidbey Island remains a hot spot for UFO sightings

Whidbey Island’s reputation for strange lights got fresh attention after Washington was ranked second in the nation for UFO sightings, and five North Whidbey residents reported a hovering disk in the Cornet Bay area earlier this year. For Island County, the story is less about novelty than pattern: the island keeps surfacing in reports because its skies are watched closely, its airspace is busy and its residents have long been willing to log what they see.

Naval Air Station Whidbey Island is a major part of that picture. The Navy says the base is home to 12 operational EA-18G Growler squadrons, plus VAQ-141 forward deployed in Japan, and describes the Growler as an all-weather electronic attack aircraft used to suppress enemy air defenses. That concentration of military aviation gives Whidbey an obvious earthly explanation for some sightings, especially when aircraft appear under unusual light or weather conditions.

The National UFO Reporting Center has become the main clearinghouse for those accounts. It describes its databank as the largest independently collected set of UFO and UAP sighting reports available online, and says staff review reports and assign tiers while omitting obvious hoaxes. Most reports are published as received. Its location index lists 7,635 reports for Washington, a figure that helps explain why the state keeps landing near the top of national UFO lists.

The island’s paper trail runs back decades. A January report from a North Whidbey resident described a disk with red and green lights hovering for about 30 minutes above the eastern part of Deception Pass State Park. A 2019 account noted that Washington had more than 200 sightings reported in the prior year and that Whidbey had logged 30 cases since 2005, most originating in Oak Harbor. That same history also pushed the timeline back to at least 1893, underscoring how deep the state’s UFO archive runs.

Federal attention has added another layer. The White House and the Pentagon have taken unidentified aerial phenomena more seriously in recent years, and the Department of War says its Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters began releasing records on May 8, 2026, with a third tranche posted June 12. The department says the project involves reviewing tens of millions of records across dozens of agencies.

Whidbey’s recurring role in that larger conversation is part mystery, part military reality. The island remains a place where residents keep looking up, and where strange lights continue to move between folklore, aviation traffic and the official record.