Newest first
The latest events on the record: hearings, official reports, releases and reported encounters. Each one links to its sources.
Sightings14 Aug 1992
A stony meteoroid broke up over Mbale, scattering fragments across a field about 3 by 7 km; about 150 kg was recovered. A small stone reportedly struck a boy on the head after being slowed by leaves, without serious injury.
Photo: Lothar Monshausen, CC BY-SA 2.0
Media17 May 1992
CBS aired Intruders, a two-part prime-time miniseries starring Richard Crenna and Mare Winningham about people who believe they were abducted by aliens. The network promoted it as drawn from hundreds of case histories; critics found it slow and exploitative.
Photo: John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Close encounters12 Mar 1992
Temple University historian David M. Jacobs published Secret Life with Simon and Schuster, drawing on hypnotic-regression sessions with more than 60 people who said they were abducted. He argued abductions were real and widespread; critics questioned his reliance on hypnosis.
Photo: Hinata47d, CC BY-SA 4.0
MediaMar 1992
Ballantine Books published Jacques Vallee's account of his 1990 trip to the Soviet Union, where under glasnost he met Soviet scientists and researchers and interviewed people reporting UFO encounters.
Photo: Christopher Michel, CC BY-SA 4.0
Government1992
Spain's Defence Ministry says a review of the Air Force's confidential UFO files began in 1991 and a physical copy of the released files was placed in the Air Force central library in Madrid in 1992. Releases continued through the decade and eventually covered 80 case files.
Photo: Zarateman, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media1992
Nuclear physicist turned UFO lecturer Stanton Friedman and Don Berliner published Crash at Corona (Paragon House), arguing the U.S. military recovered a crashed UFO in New Mexico in 1947 and hid it. Air Force reports in the 1990s instead tied the Roswell accounts to balloon projects.
Photo: AllenS, Public domain
Close encounters1992
A report funded through Bigelow Holding Corporation analyzed 1991 Roper poll questions written by Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs and Ron Westrum. It projected that about 3.7 million Americans might be abductees. Critics such as Susan Blackmore said the questions did not measure abduction.
Photo: Carol Rainey, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media1992
Jacques Vallee published Forbidden Science (North Atlantic Books), his personal journals from 1957 to 1969, recounting his early UFO research and why he felt mainstream science treated the topic as off-limits. Later volumes covered the following decades.
Photo: Cmichel67, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media1992
The International UFO Museum and Research Center opened in Roswell, founded by Walter Haut, the 1947 base public information officer, with Glenn Dennis and Max Littell. It became a fixture of the town's UFO tourism and its annual UFO festival.
Photo: AllenS, Public domain
Sightings1992
After a first reported sighting on the Falkirk Road in 1992, the Scottish village of Bonnybridge became known for frequent UFO reports, often relayed through local councillor Billy Buchanan, who repeatedly asked UK ministers and prime ministers to investigate.
Photo: Kevin Rae, CC BY-SA 2.0
Close encounters1992
University of Connecticut psychologist Kenneth Ring, known for near-death experience research, published The Omega Project, which set reports of near-death experiences alongside reports of UFO encounters and asked whether the two kinds of experiencer share traits.
Photo: Kenneth Ring, CC BY-SA 4.0
MediaOct 1991
Ballantine Books published Jacques Vallee's 'Revelations', the last book of his alien contact trilogy. Vallee argued that many UFO stories were deliberate hoaxes or manipulation by private groups or government psychological-warfare efforts, and that researchers had been misled.
Photo: Christopher Michel, CC BY-SA 4.0
MediaSep 1991
Two Englishmen, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, told the press in September 1991 that they had been making crop circles in southern England for years, starting as a joke about UFO 'saucer nests'. Their account undercut claims that the circles marked UFO landings.
Photo: Jabberocky, Public domain
Sightings11 Jul 1991
During the total solar eclipse over Mexico City, a number of residents reported seeing a strange hovering craft, in what has been called one of the largest mass UFO sightings; reports also came from other Mexican cities. A skeptic suggested viewers without eye protection were seeing spots.
Photo: Claudio Lelli 2, CC BY-SA 4.0
Close encountersJun 1991
Robert Bartholomew, Keith Basterfield and George Howard reviewed biographies of 152 people who reported abductions or ongoing contact with UFO occupants. They found little history of mental illness but traits of a fantasy-prone personality in most cases, and urged clinicians to test for it.
Sightings20 May 1991
Soviet TV's Vremya newscast on 21 May 1991 showed a glowing object filmed near the Mir station the previous evening. Cosmonaut Musa Manarov, who was filming a docking, said he saw it come off the spacecraft; the report said its nature was unclear.
Photo: UR3IRS at Russian Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings7 May 1991
Cameras of the European Fireball Network photographed a very bright bolide over what is now the Czech Republic. Early searches found nothing; after a 2011 reanalysis moved the predicted impact area, researchers recovered small meteorites there, about 20 years after the fall.
Sightings21 Apr 1991
Alitalia Capt. Achille Zaghetti reported a brown, missile-like object passing close to his Milan-London MD-80 near Lydd, Kent, and controllers saw an unknown radar target. MoD files released in 2008 show investigators ruled out missiles, balloons and rockets and left it unexplained.
Photo: G B_NZ, CC BY-SA 2.0
Sightings12 Apr 1991
A powerful midnight blast near Sasovo, Ryazan Oblast, broke windows across the town and left a crater about 28 m wide. Pravda reported theories from buried munitions to a meteorite or UFO; military visitors suggested stored ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded.
Photo: Max071086 at Russian Wikipedia, Public domain
Sightings7 Feb 1991
The derelict Soviet space station Salyut 7 reentered uncontrolled over Argentina in the early hours of February 7, 1991. Witnesses described a long fiery trail across the sky, and fragments fell in several provinces, the largest in a yard in Capitan Bermudez. No injuries were reported.
Photo: Carloszelayeta, CC BY-SA 4.0
