A Mokulele Airlines passenger has described a startling encounter over Hawaii, where pilots reportedly had to swerve to avoid a mysterious white object that appeared suddenly as the plane exited a cloud bank. The incident occurred on July 9, during a flight between Molokai and Maui.

Tami Dixon, a passenger on the flight, stated that the object, described as a "white something," caused a scare for those on board. "Both pilots looked at each other and veered to the right," Dixon recounted, adding, "It scared the hell out of me."

Mokulele Airlines stated they have no record of a near-miss incident on that date. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) also could not confirm the presence of another aircraft or craft in the vicinity at the time of the reported event.

Dixon speculated that the object might have been a drone, but experts in drone operation suggest that under normal flight conditions, such a close encounter between a drone and a commercial aircraft would be unlikely. Timo Sullivan of Aloha Aina Drones explained that the FAA assigns specific flight paths, akin to lanes on a highway, to ensure separation between aircraft and drones. "They should never actually interact or you should never have one car or aircraft entering another car’s lane," Sullivan told Hawaii News Now.

Dixon indicated that the object did not resemble a bird and appeared too small to be another airplane. The commuter plane had been flying through clouds that reduced visibility to zero before the object was sighted.

The reported near-miss occurred just one day before the Pentagon released a new batch of declassified UFO files on July 10. Among these released documents was video evidence of a different unidentified object narrowly avoiding a collision with a U.S. military aircraft at extreme speed.

While Hawaii is not typically considered a primary hub for reported UFO activity, the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) has logged nine such sightings in the state this year. Since 1960, over 700 UFO incidents have been publicly reported to NUFORC from Hawaii, ranging from sightings of strange lights to objects described as orbs, triangles, diamonds, and rectangles.

In a separate account from July 2025, singer Lukas Nelson recalled witnessing orb-shaped UFOs over Hawaii in 2006. He described seeing an orange orb hovering less than 200 yards above Maui, which he said moved at an incredible speed, disappearing "out of the atmosphere."

The declassified UFO files released in July included footage from a 2015 incident over the eastern United States, showing a small object moving at speeds comparable to a missile or jet aircraft, exceeding the capabilities of known human technology.