About
Along a quiet stretch of road outside Elmwood along the quarry, a simple roadside marker stands where something far less ordinary once unfolded. The Elmwood UFO Sightings Sign commemorates one of the most intense clusters of UFO encounters in Wisconsin history, a wave of sightings that erupted across the area in the 1970s and turned this small farming community into what many still call the “UFO Capital of Wisconsin.”
The sign marks the location tied to one of the most chilling incidents: a local police officer who reported a glowing object streaking across the sky before being found disoriented in his squad car, his radio dead and memory fractured. His encounter was only one of dozens reported in the surrounding countryside – hovering craft, silent lights, and more unexplained phenomena that drew national media attention and even sparked talk of building a UFO landing site nearby.
Today, the sign itself is modest, but the story it marks lingers and is celebrated at the annual Elmwood UFO Days, one of three famous Wisconsin UFO festivals.
