{"type":"events","slug":"2023-las-vegas-backyard-ufo","title":"Las Vegas Backyard UFO Report","url":"https://disclosdex.com/events/2023-las-vegas-backyard-ufo","description":"A Las Vegas family claimed aliens appeared in their backyard after a real meteor, but evidence points to fabrication.","date":"2023-05-01T00:00:00.000Z","tags":["Sighting"],"updated":"2026-06-15T00:00:00.000Z","disclosureRating":2,"status":"resolved","connectionCount":1,"content":{"markdown":"On the night of April 30 into May 1, 2023, a genuine bright green fireball streaked across the skies of the American Southwest, captured on police bodycam footage and reported by witnesses across four states. Within forty minutes, a Las Vegas family called 911 claiming two eight-to-ten-foot non-human beings had appeared in their backyard. While the meteor was real, skeptical investigation thoroughly dismantled the alien encounter claim, revealing contradicted witness accounts, physical evidence that predated the incident by over a year, and descriptions that closely mirrored a popular science fiction film.[^1]\n\n## The Meteor Event\n\nAt approximately 11:49 p.m. on April 30, 2023, a bright green fireball was captured on a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer's body camera and witnessed across Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah.[^2] The American Meteor Society logged 23 formal witness reports for the event.[^3] NASA Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson subsequently confirmed the object was \"a bright meteor less than a meter in size\" that remained \"high in the atmosphere and hundreds of miles away from Las Vegas\" at the time of observation. Johnson explicitly stated the meteor did not land anywhere near Las Vegas.[^4] PolitiFact rated false any claims that the fireball represented an unprecedented UFO landing.[^5]\n\n## The 911 Call and Family Claims\n\nApproximately forty minutes after the fireball, Angel Kenmore, a sixteen-year-old, called 911 to report that two enormous creatures had appeared in the family's backyard. Kenmore told the dispatcher: \"There's like an eight-foot person beside it and another one is inside… it has big eyes and it's looking at us.\"[^6] Las Vegas Metropolitan Police responded to the call and conducted an inspection of the property. Officers found no physical evidence of any landing, craft, or non-human presence. Drone footage later released showed a circular mark in the backyard gravel that some initially claimed was a landing depression.\n\n## The Physical Evidence Examined\n\nInvestigator Kenny Biddle, writing for the Skeptical Inquirer, conducted a detailed analysis of the circular mark in the backyard. Examination of Google Earth satellite imagery dating back to April 2022 — a full year before the incident — showed the identical circular mark already present.[^1] The mark was consistent with tire tracks from vehicles stored in the yard and was not a depression; the interior sat at the same level as the surrounding ground. This single finding was decisive: a physical trace claimed as proof of an alien landing had existed on the property twelve months before any encounter was alleged.\n\n## Witness Accounts and Film Parallels\n\nKenmore's descriptions of the creatures changed substantially across multiple interviews, varying in height, color, and physical features in ways inconsistent with genuine traumatic memory. Biddle noted that the descriptions closely paralleled the extraterrestrial creatures depicted in M. Night Shyamalan's 2002 film Signs — tall, thin, gray-green, and naked with large eyes.[^1] This pattern mirrors how other modern folklore entities, including the chupacabra, were shaped by contemporaneous popular media. Bodycam footage from responding officers showed Kenmore's father stating he was only relaying what \"they see,\" not his own observation — directly contradicting Angel's later claims that his father had witnessed the beings. The mother similarly denied seeing anything during the police interview, which contradicted subsequent podcast appearances.[^7]\n\n## Official Findings and Skeptical Conclusion\n\nLas Vegas Metro Police publicly stated they did not believe the 911 call was a deliberate hoax, citing the family's apparent sincerity and distress. However, the department also confirmed it found no physical evidence of any landing or non-human presence, and the official investigation concluded that authorities were unable to determine what occurred.[^8] Some proponents, including a crime scene reconstruction specialist, claimed the video footage was authentic and unaltered — but the authenticity of a video does not confirm the presence of extraterrestrial beings, and no such analysis was subjected to peer review.[^9]\n\nThe consensus of skeptical investigators is that the incident was a prank layered onto a genuine astronomical event. The circular mark predated the encounter by over a year, witness descriptions evolved in ways inconsistent with reliable recollection, the described creatures mirrored a popular film, and key family members denied witnessing anything during the immediate police response. NASA formally ruled out any landing near Las Vegas. Biddle characterized the episode as \"a prank that backfired,\" noting that the primary witness eventually withdrew from social media as the contradictions in the account became public.[^1] The case illustrates a recurring pattern in which real and verifiable astronomical events are exploited as cover for fabricated close-encounter claims.[^10]\n\n## References\n\n[^1]: [Aliens in a Las Vegas Backyard — Skeptical Inquirer (Kenny Biddle)](https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/aliens-in-a-las-vegas-backyard/)\n[^2]: [Las Vegas family claims to see aliens after several report something falling from sky — 8 News Now](https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/las-vegas-family-claims-to-see-aliens-after-several-report-something-falling-from-sky/)\n[^3]: [American Meteor Society: Fireball Event 2023-2408](https://fireball.amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/event/2023/2408)\n[^4]: [Fireball above Las Vegas before alien 911 call was meteor, scientist says — 8 News Now](https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/fireball-above-las-vegas-before-alien-911-call-was-meteor-scientist-says/)\n[^5]: [PolitiFact: UFO? No. That bright light in Las Vegas was a meteor](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/jun/21/blog-posting/ufo-no-that-bright-light-in-las-vegas-was-a-meteor/)\n[^6]: [Aliens in Las Vegas? NASA says no — Seattle Times](https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/aliens-in-las-vegas-nasa-says-no/)\n[^7]: [Las Vegas alien 911 call not hoax, sources say; so what happened? — 8 News Now](https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/las-vegas-alien-911-call-not-hoax-sources-say-so-what-happened/)\n[^8]: [NASA Says 'UFO' Spotted Crashing in Las Vegas Was a Small Meteor — Vice](https://www.vice.com/en/article/nasa-las-vegas-ufo-crash-meteor/)\n[^9]: [Did night vision footage show '10ft alien' from Las Vegas UFO crash report? — Newsweek](https://www.newsweek.com/did-night-vision-footage-show-alien-las-vegas-crash-report-1806008)\n[^10]: [UFO spotted in Las Vegas just a meteor, alien sightings unexplained — Jerusalem Post](https://www.jpost.com/omg/article-746697)","readingTime":"5 min read"},"relatedRecords":[{"ref":{"type":"updates","slug":"2026-japan-uap-and-historical-expansion","title":"Japan UAP investigation, 2026 executive actions, and historical expansion","url":"https://disclosdex.com/updates/2026-japan-uap-and-historical-expansion"},"direction":"inbound","weight":2}],"citation":{"canonicalUrl":"https://disclosdex.com/events/2023-las-vegas-backyard-ufo","title":"Las Vegas Backyard UFO Report","publisher":"Disclosdex","retrievedFrom":"https://disclosdex.com/api/v1/events/2023-las-vegas-backyard-ufo","license":"CC-BY-4.0"}}