Kurt Russell Claims He Reported Most Witnessed UFO Event In History

06/14/2017 09:21 pm EDT

In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Kurt Russell gets to travel from one fictional planet to the next, exploring the vast reaches of space and encountering various lifeforms. While promoting the film, a host brought up the little-known anecdote that Russell himself experienced a potential extraterrestrial visitor in the late '90s.

On March 13, 1997, a pilot reported seeing a series of six lights in the sky while attempting to land a personal aircraft. Over the course of three hours, thousands of people reported seeing the strange lights in the sky before they mysteriously vanished without explanation. Russell explained he was the pilot who first reported those lights, but thought nothing of it.

Russell was apparently flying his son Oliver to see his girlfriend when the young boy pointed the lights out to his stepfather.

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The actor claims he was somewhat transfixed by the lights, which appeared to be in a V-formation. Oliver broke Russell's concentration by asking his dad what the lights were and questioned their safety, before Russell reassured him that everything was fine, despite not getting confirmation on what the lights were from the airport.

After landing the plane, Russell dropped off his son before entering the air once again to head back to Los Angles, thinking nothing of it.

Two years had passed before he ever thought of the event, with the only reminder coming from overhearing his partner Goldie Hawn watching a TV special about UFOs.

The information that the actor overheard at the time sounded familiar, so he began paying more attention to the program. He realized that the program was, in fact, reporting on the event he experienced two years ago while flying with his son.

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While watching the show, Russell compared his feelings to those of Richard Dreyfuss' character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which he witnesses a UFO and has familiar visions of where the UFO will show up next, but can't put his finger on how he knows this.

At one point in the program, the show acknowledged that it was a general aviation pilot that first reported the lights while landing, which is when it finally clicked for Russell that he was that pilot.

Russell then checked his own records against the information revealed in the program to discover that the date and time coincided with when he was in the air, but the initial experience was so underwhelming, he didn't make a note of it in his records.

More bizarre than experiencing the lights themselves, Russell revealed he was more shocked that, had he not walked in on Hawn watching the program, he never would have thought of the event again.

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