The Ladakh Lights (2012)
From August 2012 to February 2013, Indian soldiers posted near Pangong Lake on the Chinese border logged 329 sightings of luminous objects rising slowly on the horizon then fading after several hours. At 4,000 metres, under one of the clearest skies in the world, the high command feared Chinese spy drones and had the area watched for six months.
Witnesses
Indian soldiers at border posts
Why it endures
Trained observers in a sensitive military zone kept a methodical log for six months without managing to identify what they were seeing. The episode also shows how far an army can commit resources to a misreading, and how much a high-altitude sky deceives even the best-trained eye.
Official version (contested)
The army called in two astronomers from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bangalore. By measuring the objects’ positions against the stars with a theodolite, they established that these were Jupiter and Venus, made exceptionally bright by the transparency of the air at high altitude. Reports stopped after the findings.