José Bonilla

José A. Y. Bonilla (1853–1920) was a Mexican astronomer, engineer and astrophotographer who, from 1882, served as Director of the Zacatecas Observatory. On 12 August 1883 he photographed through a telescope more than 400 dark objects crossing the face of the sun — one of the earliest photographic records of unidentified aerial objects, published in 1886 in the French journal L'Astronomie.

• Mexican astronomer, engineer and astrophotographer (1853–1920)
• Director of the Zacatecas Observatory from 1882
• On 12 August 1883 photographed more than 400 dark objects crossing the sun
• One of the earliest photographic records of unidentified aerial objects
• Observations published in the French journal L'Astronomie in 1886
• Photographs taken through a telescope in front of the sun
• Count among the earliest examples of UFO photography

For the UAP timeline, Bonilla is the early astronomical witness who, as early as 1883, photographically documented unidentified objects — some 60 years before Kenneth Arnold's sighting. His case shows that photographic UFO documentation in scientific literature began long before the modern UFO era.