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The latest events on the record: hearings, official reports, releases and reported encounters. Each one links to its sources.
Media2 Dec 2002
Steven Spielberg Presents Taken, a ten-part Sci Fi Channel drama following families entangled with alien abductions and government secrecy from the 1940s onward, premiered. It won the 2003 Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries.
Photo: Helene C. Stikkel, Public domain
Media22 Nov 2002
The Sci Fi Channel aired a two-hour special hosted by Bryant Gumbel on the dig it sponsored at the reputed 1947 crash site. University of New Mexico archaeologists led by William Doleman worked there for 10 days in September 2002; Doleman said they found items he could not yet identify.
Photo: Peabody Awards, CC BY 2.0
MediaNov 2002
Thai broadcaster iTV aired footage it said showed Lao soldiers firing tracer rounds across the Mekong during the yearly glowing-ball festival at Nong Khai. Thousands of residents protested the report, and Laos' ambassador objected; skeptics favor fireworks or tracers as the cause.
Photo: J A Forbes, CC BY-SA 4.0
Government22 Oct 2002
Former White House chief of staff John Podesta appeared at a Washington news conference with a Sci-Fi Channel-backed coalition seeking release of government UFO records. He said he was personally skeptical but that it was time to open the books.
Photo: NHD-INFO [1], CC BY 2.0
Sightings25 Sep 2002
A bright bolide exploded about 30 km above the Vitim River near Bodaybo, seen by residents and detected by U.S. satellites. Russian Academy of Sciences expeditions found felled trees and tiny spherules but no craters or meteorite fragments.
Photo: Serj Kras, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media2 Aug 2002
Disney's Touchstone released Signs, a thriller in which crop circles on a Pennsylvania farm herald an alien invasion. It grossed about $408 million worldwide, among the most successful alien-themed films of its decade.
Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0
Close encountersAug 2002
Harvard psychologists Susan Clancy, Richard McNally and colleagues reported that people with recovered or suspected memories of alien abduction made more false recall and recognition errors in a word-list test than controls, with no difference in correct recall.
Photo: Donna McNally, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media3 Jul 2002
Sony released 'Men in Black II', the sequel to the 1997 hit that turned the Men in Black of UFO lore into a comic secret agency policing aliens living on Earth.
Photo: Randall A. Golden, CC BY-SA 3.0
Government1 Jul 2002
After a wave of cattle 'mutilation' reports, Argentina's national animal-health agency SENASA said a university-led study found the animals died of natural causes and the wounds came from predators, chiefly a red-nosed mouse (Oxymycterus) and foxes.
Media21 Jun 2002
Disney released the animated film Lilo and Stitch, in which a destructive, genetically engineered alien escapes captivity, lands in Hawaii and is adopted as a pet by a young girl. Roger Ebert called it a jewel.
Photo: Disney Enterprises, Inc., Public domain
Military6 Jun 2002
U.S. early-warning satellites saw a small asteroid explode over the Mediterranean with an estimated 20 to 30 kilotons of energy. Brig. Gen. Simon Worden later told a House subcommittee that a similar blast over India or Pakistan, then in a nuclear standoff, could have been mistaken for an attack.
Photo: US Air Force, Public domain
Media19 May 2002
Fox aired The Truth, the two-hour finale of The X-Files, ending its nine-season original run. Creator Chris Carter said it would close some storylines but not answer every question about the government-conspiracy plot. The series later returned in 2016.
Photo: David Shankbone, CC BY 3.0
MediaMar 2002
Universal re-released E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for its 20th anniversary with added scenes and digital effects. The guns carried by government agents chasing the boys were digitally replaced with walkie-talkies, a change Spielberg later called a mistake.
Photo: White House Photographic Office, Public domain
Media25 Jan 2002
Screen Gems released a thriller starring Richard Gere loosely adapted from John Keel's 1975 book about strange sightings around Point Pleasant, West Virginia. It renewed public interest in the Mothman reports and the 1967 Silver Bridge collapse.
Photo: Jacket design by Peter Parnell, Public domain
Whistleblowers2002
Walter Haut, who issued the 1947 Roswell 'flying disc' press release, signed an affidavit to be opened after his death claiming he saw alien-like bodies at the base. It was first published in a 2007 book. The claim is uncorroborated, and a 1993 Haut affidavit mentioned no bodies.
Photo: US Govt (Roswell Army Air Field staff), Public domain
GovernmentDec 2001
In late December 2001 the Peruvian Air Force set up an Office for the Investigation of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (OIFAA), reportedly after a televised sighting over Lima's La Molina district. The office later lapsed and was relaunched as DIFAA in 2013.
Photo: Sodacan, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings25 Jul 2001
Red and other coloured rain fell over parts of Kerala for weeks from late July 2001, and the state's Centre for Earth Science Studies investigated. Physicist Godfrey Louis later argued the red particles were cells from a comet, a claim most researchers rejected.
Sightings14 Jul 2001
Just after midnight, drivers pulled off the New Jersey Turnpike to watch orange and gold lights in a V formation over the Arthur Kill near Carteret. A Carteret police lieutenant counted 16 lights. Newark Airport and the Weather Service had nothing to explain them; no official cause was found.
Photo: Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media8 Jun 2001
Ivan Reitman's comedy Evolution, starring David Duchovny and Orlando Jones, opened in U.S. theaters. In the story a meteor lands in the Arizona desert carrying single-celled organisms that rapidly evolve into alien creatures, and two college teachers try to stop them.
Photo: Jose Galvez, Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0
Whistleblowers9 May 2001
Steven Greer's Disclosure Project presented about 20 former military, government and security workers at the National Press Club who said they had witnessed UFO evidence, and called for congressional hearings. Their claims of a secret program were not substantiated.
Photo: Emadmoussa, Public domain
