Timeline of UFOs
 | This article may be unbalanced toward certain viewpoints. (November 2024) |
This is a timeline of key events surrounding unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
20th century
[edit]- 1947 - The Roswell Incident took place.
- 1950 - American aviator Donald Keyhoe published the book The Flying Saucers Are Real.[1]
- 1950 - The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence organized the Flying Saucer Working Party, an investigative committee for UFOs. They released a report in the following year which attributed UFO sightings to misidentifications, hoaxes or delusions.[2]
- 1952 - The United States Air Force started Project Blue Book, which was headquartered at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
- 1953 - The Robertson Panel, headed by American mathematician and physicist Howard P. Robertson, was formed to investigate the wave of UFO sightings reported to the Project Blue Book in 1952.
- 1956 - The US-based civilian research group, National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena, was founded by Thomas Townsend Brown.[3]
- 1958 - Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung published his book Ein Moderner Mythus: Von Dingen, die am Himmel gesehen worden (A Modern Myth: Of Things Seen in the Sky). It was translated into English in 1959 with the title Flying Saucers.[4][5]
- 1960 - Jacques Vallee published the book Challenge to science: the UFO enigma, where he discussed the extraterrestrial hypothesis of UFOs.
- 1960 - Edward J. Ruppelt published his book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects.
- 1962 - The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence started the UFO desk, a telephone hotline for collecting UFO sighting reports.[6]
- 1967 - The Falcon Lake Incident occurred, followed by investigations from various Canadian and US governmental agencies.[7]
- 1968 - An US public hearing, Symposium on unidentified flying objects, was held by the 90th United States Congress.[8]
- 1969 - Release of the Condon report.[9]
- 1969 - The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) was established by Allen R. Utke, Walter H. Andrus Jr., John F. Schuessler, and others.[10]
- 1970 - The first MUFON annual conference was held in Peoria, Illinois.[10][11]
- 1972 - J. Allen Hynek published his book The UFO Experience: A Scientific Enquiry, where he described the three types of close encounters between humans and UFOs.[12]
- 1973 - Carl Sagan and Thornton Page edited and published the book UFO's—A Scientific Debate, a collection of exchanges and articles derived from the namesake symposium organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1969.[13]
- 1973 - The Center for UFO Studies was founded by American astronomer J. Allen Hynek.[14]
- 1973 - The governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter filed an UFO report with MUFON from his personal experience.
- 1974 - The documentary film UFOs: Past, Present, and Future directed by Ray Rivas was released. It received a nomination for the 33rd Golden Globe Awards.[15]
- 1974 - The US-based National UFO Reporting Center was established in Davenport, Washington by Robert Gribble.[16][17]
- 1975 - Jacques Vallee published his book The Invisible College: What a Group of Scientists Has Discovered About UFO Influences on the Human Race.
- 1977 - J. Allen Hynek published The Hynek UFO Report.
- 1977 - The French Space Agency formed the research unit GEPAN, later renamed to GEIPAN (French: Groupe d'Études et d'Informations sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés) for the investigation of the UFO phenomena. The first director of the unit was Claude Poher.[18]
- 1978 - Italy experienced a wave of UFO sightings that were reported in news outlets. The Italian Air Force was orderd by the prime minister Giulio Andreotti to start documenting UFO cases.[19]
- 1979 - The Center for UFO Studies started publishing Journal of UFO Studies.[20][14]
- 1979 - American astronomer Allan Hendry published The UFO Handbook: A Guide to Investigating, Evaluating and Reporting UFO Sightings.
- 1986 - Wendelle C. Stevens and August Roberts published two volumes of UFO Photographs Around the World.
- 1987 - Timothy Good published his book Above Top Secret: The Worldwide U.F.O. Cover-Up.[21]
- 1994 - Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack published his book Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens.[22]
- 1996 - The Varginha UFO incident occured in Brazil, receiving extensive media coverage.[23]
- 1997 - The Phoenix Lights incident took place across the state of Arizona.[24]
- 1999 - The non-profit organization COMETA released the COMETA report, titled Les OVNI et la Défense: à quoi doit-on se préparer? (UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare For?).[25][26]
2000s
[edit]- 2002 April - David Clarke and Andy Roberts published their book Out of the Shadows: UFOs, the Establishment and Official Cover-Up.
- 2004 May - A former head of GEIPAN Jean-Jacques Velasco and journalist Nicolas Montigiani published their book Ovnis: L'Evidence (UFOs: The Evidence).
- 2004 November - The first of the Pentagon UFO videos was taken by pilots of the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group. It was released to the public in 2017 through a New York Times article.
- 2007 - The Chicago Tribune reported the 2006 O'Hare International Airport UFO sighting, causing widespread public attention.[27][28]
- 2007 March - The French agency GEIPAN publishes its UFO database online.[29][30][31]
- 2007 - The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was established by the United States Department of Defense. The information was only made public in 2017.
- 2008 January - Robert L. Hastings published the first edition of his work UFOs & Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites.
- 2008 May - UK National Archives started releasing past files on UFO investigations.[32][33]
- 2009 December - The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence closed its UFO desk.[34]
2010s
[edit]- 2010 January - Richard M. Dolan and Bryce Zabel published their book A.D. After Disclosure: The People's Guide to Life After Contact.
- 2010 August - Leslie Kean pubslished her book UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record.
- 2010 September - A press conference involving first-hand UFO witnesses was organized by Leslie Kean and others at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C..[35]
- 2012 July - Michael D. Swords and Robert Powell published the book UFOs and Governments: A Historical Inquiry.
- 2014 April - Nick Pope, Jim Penniston, and John Burroughs published the book Encounter in Rendlesham Forest: The Inside Story of the World's Best-Documented UFO Incident.
- 2014 July - The first edition of the CAIPAN (Collecte et l’Analyse des Informations sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés, or Collection and Analysis of Information on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena) international conference organized by the French Space Agency and GEIPAN took place in Paris.[36]
- 2015 January - John Greenewald Jr. released over 130,000 pages of declassified United States Air Force documents relating to UFOs.[37]
- 2015 October - The UFODATA project was announced.[38]
- 2017 October - To the Stars Academy was founded by Jim Semivan, Harold E. Puthoff, and Tom DeLonge.[39]
- 2017 December - The New York Times pubslished an article written by Leslie Kean, Ralph Blumenthal, and Helene Cooper in the front page of to expose the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.[40]
- 2019 February - Religious scholar Diana Walsh Pasulka published her book American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology.
- 2019 May - The History Channel aired the first season of its documentary series Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation, featuring Luis Elizondo as a main narrator and Tom DeLonge as one of the producers. In one episode, Elizondo introduced to the public the five observables of UFOs (or UAPs).[41]
2020 - 2025
[edit]- 2020 - Enigma Labs was founded by Alex Smith to collect UFO data.[42][43][44]
- 2020 April - Andrew McGrillen started That UFO Podcast on YouTube.[45]
- 2020 August - The United States Department of Defense announced the establishment of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. The move also called for the use of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena instead of UFOs.[46][47]
- 2020 October - James Fox released the documentary film The Phenomenon.
- 2021 May - The International Coalition for Extraterrestrial Research (ICER) was launched.[48]
- 2021 June - The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force released the report titled Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.[49]
- 2021 July - The Galileo Project was announced in a press conference and astrophysicist Avi Loeb became its director.[50][51]
- 2021 October - Australian journalist Ross Coulthart published his book In Plain Sight: A fascinating investigation into UFOs and impossible science.
- 2022 March - The Canadian government released 500 pages of UFO sightings report for the past 20 years.[52]
- 2022 May - United States House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation held the first public hearing on UFOs in 50 years. Scott Bray and Ronald Moultrie testified in the hearing.
- 2022 July - The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was established within the United States Office of the Secretary of Defense. Sean M. Kirkpatrick was named its first director.
- 2022 September - The Canadian Office of the Chief Science Advisor launched the Sky Canada Project.[53]
- 2022 December - The United States Department of Defense suggested to change the name of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena to account for unidentified submerged objects and trans-medium objects.[54]
- 2023 January - The National Geographic channel aired the docuseries UFOs: Investigating the Unknown.[55][44]
- 2023 February - The Society for UAP Studies held its inaugural symposium.[56]
- 2023 April - The Scientific Coalition For UAP Studies released its first report, UAP Pattern Recognition Study 1945-1975 US Military Atomic Warfare Complex.[57][58]
- 2023 May - A historical art exhibition, titled A UFO in 1665: The Air Battle of Stralsund, opened in the Kunstbibliothek Berlin, Germany.[59]
- 2023 June - American former intelligence officer and whistleblower David Grusch was interviewed by Ross Coulthart on NewsNation, where he claimed the existence of decades-long crash retrieval and reverse engineering program organized by the U.S. federal government.
- 2023 July - A congressional hearing on UAP was organized where David Fravor, Ryan Graves, and David Grusch testified their claims.[60]
- 2023 August - The Sol Foundation was established in California. It held its inaugural symposium in November, 2023.[61]
- 2023 November - American journalist Garrett Graff published his book UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here―and Out There.
- 2023 December - The nonprofit organization UAPx released its first results on its expedition in 2021.[62][63]
- 2023 December - The US National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 included a section on UFO/UAP disclosure, which directs the National Archives to collect government documents about "unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin and nonhuman intelligence."[64][65]
- 2024 January - Jeremy Corbell released the "jellyfish UFO" video captured in Iraq in 2018.[66]
- 2024 January - Limina: The Journal of UAP Studies from the Society for UAP Studies published its first issue.
- 2024 March - AARO released the Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, stating that no verifiable evidence that UAP sightings represented extraterrestrial activities.[67]
- 2024 June - A parliamentary group was established in Japan for UAP investigations with Yasukazu Hamada as its head.[68][69]
- 2024 June - American historian Greg Eghigian published his book After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon.[70]
- 2024 August - Luis Elizondo published his memoir Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs.
- 2024 October - US National Archives released the records of UFO investigations in the period of 1948 to 1968.[71]
- 2024 November - Subcommittees of the House Oversight Committee held a hearing under the title Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth. The experts who testified include Timothy Gallaudet, Luis Elizondo, Michael Shellenberger, and Mike Gold.[72]
See also
[edit]- Investigation of UFO reports by the United States government
- List of investigations of UFOs by governments
- UFO conspiracy theories
Further reading
[edit]- "UFO Timeline". UFO Timeline. Retrieved 2024-11-15.
- "What we know from decades of UFO government investigations". National Geographic. 2024-11-15. Retrieved 2024-11-15.
- "UFO Research Guide". public1.nhhcaws.local. Retrieved 2024-11-15.
- Paton, Callum (2019-04-17). "What Are the Most Credible UFO Sightings?". Newsweek. Retrieved 2024-11-15.
- Watters, Wesley Andrés; Loeb, Abraham; Laukien, Frank; Cloete, Richard; Delacroix, Alex; Dobroshinsky, Sergei; Horvath, Benjamin; Kelderman, Ezra; Little, Sarah; Masson, Eric; Mead, Andrew; Randall, Mitch; Schultz, Forrest; Szenher, Matthew; Vervelidou, Foteini (2023). "The Scientific Investigation of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Using Multimodal Ground-Based Observatories". Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation. 12 (1). doi:10.1142/S2251171723400068. ISSN 2251-1717.
References
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