Disney’s world‑renowned resorts welcome hundreds of millions of guests each year, and they’re famous for staying open 365 days a year. Yet, on a handful of occasions, extraordinary circumstances have forced the company to pull the plug and shut its doors. Below we explore the ten rare events that compelled Disney to close its parks, each one a reminder that even the happiest place on earth isn’t immune to the world’s turbulence.

10 Rare Events That Shook Disney

10 September 11th, Disneyland & Disney World, 2001

On the morning of September 11, 2001, the United States was rocked by the deadliest terrorist attacks in its history. Nearly 3,000 lives were lost and more than 25,000 people injured, sending shockwaves of fear across the nation. In the immediate aftermath, Disney executives decided to close both Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida, fearing the resorts could become targets themselves.

Employees were instructed to announce over the public‑address system, “Due to circumstances beyond our control, the park is now closed.” Restaurants, snack stands, rides, and shops halted operation, and cast members escorted guests to the nearest exits. Staff were told to keep the reason private unless asked. By the following morning, the parks reopened their gates to the public.

9 Hurricane Frances, Disney World, 2004

Just weeks after Hurricane Charley battered Florida, Hurricane Frances arrived and added further devastation. The storm damaged citrus crops, forced schools, airports, and businesses to shut, and even canceled college football games. In total, Frances claimed 50 lives and caused more than $10 billion in damage.

Disney World’s Orlando resorts were forced to close for the entire weekend—Saturday and Sunday—before reopening on Monday with a reduced schedule. The closure struck during Labor Day weekend, typically one of the busiest periods for the parks, resulting in a significant loss of tourism revenue. By Tuesday, the parks were fully operational, with only minimal damage reported.

8 Yippies Protest, Disneyland, 1970

The Youth International Party—better known as the Yippies—was a radical counter‑culture group famous for its free‑speech and anti‑war activism. In 1970 they plotted a takeover of Disneyland, distributing leaflets and rallying supporters. Anaheim police responded with riot‑training, and every city‑wide law‑enforcement agency was dispatched to the park.

Disneyland staff were assigned special duties, and managers roamed the grounds reminding Yippies to respect other guests. The day remained mostly calm, but around 5 p.m. several Yippie groups marched toward Tom Sawyer’s Island and stormed Fort Wilderness. After the disturbance, Disneyland announced an early closure. Police escorted the protestors down Main Street, where heated exchanges ensued, an American flag was pulled down, and several participants were arrested. Property damage was minor, and the situation proved less chaotic than anticipated.

7 Hurricane Matthew, Disney World, 2016

In 2016, Walt Disney World shut all four of its major theme parks—Epcot, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom—after Hurricane Matthew battered the Atlantic Coast. Disney also closed Disney Springs, the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, miniature golf courses, and both water parks, Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon. The closures began Thursday night, with parks remaining shut until Saturday morning.

While Disney closures are rare, Matthew’s impact was severe: the storm had already devastated Haiti and other Caribbean regions before striking Florida with sustained winds exceeding 100 mph. In the United States, Matthew caused 12 deaths and more than $2 billion in damages. Disney World emerged with only minor damage, but the forced shutdown underscored the vulnerability of even the most resilient resorts.

6 Hurricane Charley, Disney World, 2004

When Hurricane Charley slammed Florida’s coastline in 2004, several theme parks, including Walt Disney World, were forced to close early for the day. Animal Kingdom never opened its gates, marking only the third instance in Disney World’s history where a park shut its doors to the public.

Charley was the first of four hurricanes to strike Florida that year and became the strongest storm to hit the United States since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The hurricane resulted in nine direct fatalities, 20 indirect deaths, and numerous injuries across the state.

Property damage across Florida topped $5 billion, yet Disney World suffered only minor setbacks. Crews worked through the night to ready the parks for guests, ensuring a swift return to the magic the following day.

5 Earthquake, Tokyo Disney, 2011

In March 2011, a massive 8.9‑magnitude earthquake rattled Japan, causing widespread devastation in the country’s northern regions. Guests at Tokyo Disney Resort and Tokyo DisneySea were initially instructed to shelter in place, with cast members guiding them to safe zones within the parks.

Following the tremor, the resort closed for five weeks due to a power shortage caused by the Fukushima Dai‑ichi nuclear plant crisis. When the parks finally reopened, roughly 10,000 eager visitors lined up before sunrise. However, the parks continued to close early at 6 p.m. to conserve electricity, and DisneySea remained partially closed for a short period.

4 Terrorist Attacks, Disneyland Paris, 2015

On November 13, 2015, Paris was struck by a series of coordinated terrorist attacks that left more than 130 people dead and over 400 injured. Suicide bombers detonated explosives near a football match, while gunmen opened fire at restaurants and a concert venue.

In response, Disneyland Paris closed its two parks—Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park—from November 14 to November 17 as part of a national three‑day mourning period. The parks reopened on November 18, resuming normal business hours and offering a symbolic gesture of solidarity with the French people.

3 Pres. John F. Kennedy Assassination, Disneyland, 1963

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, a tragedy that shook the nation. The following day, Disneyland in California closed its gates in observance of national mourning. Interestingly, Kennedy had visited Disneyland once as a United States Senator in 1959, making the closure a poignant tribute to the fallen leader.

2 Hurricane Irma, Disney World, 2017

Hurricane Irma, a Category 4 storm, made landfall in Florida and passed just west of Orlando. The hurricane caused more than 80 deaths and billions of dollars in damage across the state. Although Disney World escaped catastrophic damage, the parks were closed for a couple of days as a precaution.

The resort retained power, but high winds and heavy rain felled trees, caused roof leaks, and even led to transformer explosions near Disney’s Contemporary Resort. The parking lots served as staging areas for utility crews restoring electricity. All four theme parks and Disney Springs reopened to guests on the Tuesday following the storm.

1 COVID‑19, All Parks, 2020

The novel coronavirus pandemic erupted in early 2020, quickly becoming a global health crisis. By June 2020, more than 7 million people worldwide had contracted COVID‑19, and over 400,000 had died. Governments worldwide imposed stay‑at‑home orders, forcing most businesses, including theme parks, to shut their doors.

Disney was compelled to close every park across the globe. Tokyo Disneyland halted operations at the end of February, while Disney World and Disneyland Paris closed on March 15, and Disneyland in California shut its gates on March 16. Earlier in the year, Shanghai Disney Resort and Hong Kong Disneyland Resort had already closed; Shanghai Disney later reopened in phases, while the other resorts prepared phased reopenings with limited capacity for guests and staff.

As the world adapts, Disney continues to develop safety protocols and phased reopening plans, aiming to bring the magic back safely for millions of fans worldwide.

Now that the US government has acknowledged UFOs exist, modern skeptics and others with a faith in mediocrity may want to reexamine ‘ancient aliens’ evidence. The following 10 classical close encounters range from lights in the sky to craft on the ground and even sightings of the pilots. And most of them were identified by a NASA scientist as the least explainable by weather, meteorites, and so on… 

10. Golden balls – Central Italy, 91 BC

One morning in 91 BC, Romans up early would have seen “about sunrise a ball of fire [shining] forth from the northern region”. Accompanied by a “loud noise” (perhaps a sonic boom), this event is thought by modern astronomers to have been a bolide—an unusually bright meteor that explodes in the atmosphere.

But it might have been something else entirely. The same year, near Spoletium (modern-day Spoleto, 126 kilometers north of Rome), traveling Romans saw a golden ball roll down from the sky to the ground, where it increased in size. It then ascended toward the rising sun, which it was large enough now to block out. Although ball lightning has been suggested to explain this encounter, the object was clearly much larger than ball lightning’s average diameter of 23 centimeters

In any case, there are striking similarities between this golden ball and those associated with crop circle formation. Not only have they been seen descending on fields and leaving crop circles behind, but in Wiltshire—the crop circle capital of the world—several places mysteriously have “golden ball” in the name.

9. Shining white men – Northern Italy, 214 BC

In 214 BC, over the Estruscan city of Hadria (modern-day Adria), an ara (altar) was seen overhead with “men dressed in shining white.” Similar forms had been seen at Amiternum four years earlier. In neither case, apparently, did they approach anyone.

What’s interesting about these encounters is their similarity to a 1959 report from Papua New Guinea. Missionary Father Gill, along with 25 others, watched four “human” figures on top of a UFO with two more craft nearby. According to Gill, two of them seemed to be making adjustments to something out of view, while another stood with hands on the rail. The figures knew they were being observed; when the people on the ground started waving, the figures in the air waved back.

8. UFO battle – Bavaria, 1561 AD

One morning at the height of the German Renaissance, the skies above Nurnberg (Nuremberg)—one of the most important cities of the Holy Roman Empire—were ablaze with a spectacular display. UFOs of various shapes, sizes, and colors were engaged in a ferocious battle. Spherical objects, rods, arcs, and crosses whizzed about fighting each other, some in formation, others alone. 

It started at 4:00 a.m. with the appearance of two blood red arcs in the middle of the Sun and continued for over an hour. Eventually the objects, apparently “fatigued” (according to the broadsheet report), crashed outside the city with “immense” billowing smoke. But the spectacle wasn’t over. There followed the arrival of a huge black spear-like craft pointing east to west. And five years later over Basel, Switzerland, a similar scene played out on three separate days.

Inexplicable as these encounters seem at first, they have been “debunked” as just weather. Setting aside the sensational religious interpretations of the time, the scene may be consistent with sun dogs (prisms of ice in the atmosphere), halos, and fall streaks (smoke-like ice crystals accompanying cirrus clouds). Even the huge black spear at the end could be explained as either a crepuscular ray or the shadow of a fall streak—all of which phenomena tend to occur together. Still, this explanation is only a theory.

7. Peacekeeping pithoi – Phrygia, 74 BC

The Roman historian Plutarch recorded one of the most convincing classical encounters. In Phrygia (an important region in modern-day Turkey, thought by the ancients to have been the cradle of civilization), a battle was about to commence between Roman and Pontic forces. Suddenly “the sky burst asunder” and a huge object touched down between the two armies. Resembling a pithoi (storage jar) but of a color “like molten silver,” it so astonished the soldiers on both sides that they separated.

Given the credibility and sheer number (thousands) of witnesses, including the Roman general Lucullus and King Mithridates VI, there’s no doubt about the encounter’s occurrence. But there’s no mention of any noise suggesting the impact of a meteorite—which, in any case, would be black not silver. Even if there had been a noise, and the object was indeed some kind of space rock, its impact would have been catastrophic. It was after all large enough to be seen from a distance.

Also, meteorites were revered in the ancient world—and in Phrygia especially. The magna mater, for example, a specimen the size of a fist, was worshiped as the mother of the gods and transported to Rome with great pomp and ceremony. Yet this much larger, silver object is not among the meteorite records. So what was it?

6. Multicolored beast – Central Italy, 150 AD

Between Rome and Capua in AD 150, Pope Pius I’s brother Hermas saw what may have been a large UFO—or even a huge ET. Arriving in a “cloud of dust,” it resembled a beast “like some sea-monster” 100 feet in length—but with a “head” as if of ceramos (pottery) and multicolored. “From its mouth fiery locusts issued forth” noted Hermas, leading modern ufologists to think he saw “fiery rays.”

Although the beast was fearsome, when Hermas got close, it merely stretched on the ground and stuck out its tongue.

This encounter, described in detail in Hermas’s Shepherd, is thought to have been just another of his mystical visions. The text is replete with encounters and conversations with angels and emissaries of God. However, there’s an eerily convincing quality to some of these “visions” that sets them apart as something else—something more like true close encounters. Once he’s away from the beast, for example, he continues to fret about whether it might be behind him. And his response to another encounter bears similarities to abduction reports: “a fit of trembling seized me, and my hair stood on end; and a fit of shuddering came upon me.”

5. Circle of fire – Egypt, 1440 BC

The most ancient encounter on this list is also, understandably, the least reliable. Only scant, unverifiable details remain of the so-called ‘Tulli papyrus’, named for the Vatican scholar who owned it before he died, at which point the papyrus was lost. But the only known translation, by one Prince Boris de Rachewiltz, is compelling and warrants a mention.

“In the year 22, in the third month of winter, in the sixth hour of the day, the scribes of the House of Life noticed a circle of fire that was coming from the sky.” The object was apparently silent (“it had no voice”) but “from the mouth it emitted a foul breath.” The scribes, confused, threw themselves to the ground then, coming to their senses, informed the pharaoh Thutmose III. After a few days, more and more of these objects were seen, coming and going in such numbers that they “extended to the limits of the four angles of the sky.” Eventually, with the pharaoh and his army watching, they ascended higher and flew off to the south. In their wake came a shower of fishes and birds.

4. Silver rain – Rome, 196 AD

Some close encounters are more subtle. In AD 196, for example, the ancient Roman historian Cassius Dio found a strange silvery substance that had fallen from a clear sky on the Forum of Augustus. After plating some bronze coins with it, he said it disappeared after three days.

What links this report to UFOs is that it could be referring to ‘angel hair’. Variously described as cobweb-, gossamer-, or jelly-like in texture, it is sometimes said to fall to the ground after UFO sightings. Although it’s said to be slightly radioactive, it disappears without a trace shortly after.

Earlier mentions of “rains of chalk” (one at Cales in 214 BC and one at Rome in 98 BC) may also have been describing this phenomenon.

3. Sky army – Judea, 65 AD

In 65 AD over Judea, “there appeared a miraculous phenomenon.” Before sunset, “chariots” and “armed battalions” swarmed across the sky, “hurtling through the clouds and encompassing the cities.“

Calling to mind the battle over Nuremberg 15 centuries later, this encounter happened just before sunset and was seen “throughout all parts of the country.” The event has been unconvincingly “debunked” as a case of fata morgana—the mirage effect where ships in the distance look like they’re floating just above the horizon. While it could have been, as Nuremberg could have been, a case of sun dogs et cetera, in this case the record seems credible. The Nuremberg battle was recorded in print in the era’s equivalent of a tabloid; but in Josephus’s account, there’s a reluctance to share the experience. Describing it as fable-like and “passing belief,” he feels it necessary to add there were many other eyewitnesses.

Then again, this was a time and place—just before the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD—when eyewitnesses were primed to see portents. A cow giving birth to a lamb was another from around the same time (though ETs do allegedly tamper with cattle…).

2. Flying shields – various

Classical sources often likened UFOs to familiar objects. Hence we find numerous references to flying shields—especially round metal ones like parmas and clipei—the ancient flying saucers. In one report from Rome in 100 BC, a clipeus emitted sparks as it zipped across the sky from west to east around sunset. In another, from Lanuvium in 173 BC, a whole fleet was seen in the sky. It ought to be noted that the ancients were capable astronomers. The Greek philosopher Posidonius, writing in the first century BC, observed of the clipei flagrantes (burning shields) that they persisted longer than shooting stars.

Another thing to note about these and the many similar reports is the rigorous way they were gathered. At great expense, Roman authorities took the time to investigate each report. Sort of like the ancient ‘men in black’, this meant interviewing witnesses and examining any physical evidence. This may be why the overwhelming majority of reports are from in and around the capital Rome. It also suggests there may be something in them. After all, there were no “weather balloons” back then.

1. Sky sailors – Ireland, 748 AD

According to the Annals of Ulster for 748 AD, the monks of Clonmacnoise had their prayers interrupted when a flying ship appeared in the air above them. This was no flying saucer but an otherwise typical sailing ship, complete with a human crew. It even had an anchor—which, dragging along the ground, hooked into the altar rail of the oratory and rocked the hull to a standstill. This was apparently not part of the plan; a crewman “shinned and grappled” down the rope to try and release the anchor, but to no avail. The abbot on the ground, realising the sailor wasn’t just struggling with the anchor but drowning in the air as though underwater, rallied his monks to help. Wasting no time, they dislodged the anchor and watched the ship sail off into the sky.

This strange encounter, believe it or not, was not so unique back in those days—or in the following millennium. In the late 1800s, they were said to be especially frequent around Land’s End at the south-western tip of England, with ships frequently flying inland through the valleys of Cornwall.

These “folk tales” as skeptics see them have been linked to the old idea that the ocean curves like a Moebius strip, so that ships sailing one way would eventually “shoot the gulf” as it was known and come back around in the sky. It’s a concept that dates back to Babylon.

But, assuming the physics of nautical navigation were the same then as they are now, it may be that what people were seeing were extraterrestrial craft. Perhaps, like the Romans and their chariots, shields, and indeed ships (navium) of their own day, contemporary sailing ships were just the closest semi-rational likeness.