Newest first
The latest events on the record: hearings, official reports, releases and reported encounters. Each one links to its sources.
Government4 Dec 1985
Speaking at Fallston High School after the Geneva summit, President Reagan said he had told Gorbachev privately that a threat from another planet would make the two nations forget their differences, adding that they could not wait for an alien race to bring that about.
Photo: President (1981-1989 : Reagan). White House Photographic Office. 1981-1989, Public domain
Media29 Sep 1985
Physicist Paul Horowitz's Project META, an 8.4-million-channel receiver listening for radio signals from other civilizations, came online at Harvard's Oak Ridge field station. Steven Spielberg gave $100,000 for the equipment, and The Planetary Society sponsored the search.
Photo: ServiceAT, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media12 Jul 1985
Paramount released Joe Dante's Explorers, starring Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix as boys who build a small spacecraft and meet aliens whose idea of Earth comes from its TV broadcasts.
Photo: nicolas genin, CC BY-SA 2.0
Media3 Jul 1985
After years on the shelf, John Binder's 'UFOria' opened in Los Angeles. Cindy Williams plays a desert-town checkout clerk sure a flying saucer is coming for the faithful, with Harry Dean Stanton as a fake evangelist who tries to cash in and Fred Ward as a drifter.
Photo: John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Media21 Jun 1985
Twentieth Century Fox released Ron Howard's Cocoon, in which visitors from the planet Antarea retrieve cocoons off St. Petersburg, Florida, and residents of a retirement community are rejuvenated by them. Don Ameche won a supporting-actor Oscar and the film won for visual effects.
Media5 Jan 1985
Science writer Ian Ridpath argued in The Guardian that the Rendlesham Forest lights of 1980 were a bright fireball followed by the flashing Orford Ness lighthouse seen through the trees. It became the leading skeptical explanation; witnesses such as Col. Charles Halt rejected it.
Photo: David Merrett, CC BY 2.0
Government1985
A 1954 memo from Robert Cutler to Gen. Nathan Twining mentioning an 'MJ-12' meeting turned up in Air Force records at the National Archives. NARA later said it could not verify it, citing a missing register number, wrong markings and paper, and Cutler being abroad on the date.
Government1985
Physicist Harold Puthoff founded the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, a lab studying the quantum vacuum, gravity and interstellar flight science in relation to space propulsion and energy. It was incorporated under EarthTech International in 1991.
Media1985
The Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici, a volunteer research association based in Turin, was formed at the end of 1985. It says it investigates sighting reports with a written methodology, archives Italian UFO documentation and rejects conspiracy and alien-cult beliefs.
Media1985
Mike Hodges's British comedy, written by and starring Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, has four dim, human-looking aliens crash a rented spaceship on the M1, are freed from a secret government prison and end up as pop celebrities. It flopped at the box office.
Media14 Dec 1984
Columbia Pictures released John Carpenter's Starman, in which a stranded alien takes human form and travels with a widow to reach a pickup site. Jeff Bridges was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for the role.
Media20 Nov 1984
Thomas Pierson and astronomer Jill Tarter founded the SETI Institute, a nonprofit to research life beyond Earth. After Congress ended NASA's SETI program in 1993, the institute carried the radio search on with private funds as Project Phoenix.
Photo: Eugene Zelenko, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings25 Aug 1984
An August 1984 New York Times report said police had traced many Hudson Valley 'boomerang' sightings to light planes from Stormville Airport flying in tight night formation. Officials said no rule was broken; some witnesses rejected the explanation.
Photo: Indefatigable2, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings16 Jan 1984
Kenneth Arnold, the Idaho businessman and pilot whose June 1947 report of fast objects near Mount Rainier is generally considered the first widely reported modern UFO sighting in the U.S., died in January 1984.
Photo: Associated Press, Public domain
Military1984
Copies of Lt. Col. Charles Halt's audio tape, recorded as he and airmen searched Rendlesham Forest for lights in December 1980, were released to UFO researchers in 1984 by base commander Col. Sam Morgan. Astronomer Ian Ridpath says it reached wide circulation in 1985.
Photo: Taras Young, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media1984
Astronomer J. Allen Hynek moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, drawn by a potential benefactor for his UFO research. The hoped-for revival of his work did not materialize, and he died in Scottsdale in 1986.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Media1984
Daniel Kagan and Ian Summers published 'Mute Evidence', a nationwide study of cattle mutilation reports. They traced the reports to poor observation and unfounded rumor rather than any unknown agent; a later reference work called it the definitive account.
Media16 Sep 1983
Michael Laughlin's Strange Invaders, a pastiche of 1950s saucer films, opened in U.S. theaters. A professor tracks his ex-wife to a small Illinois town that aliens have secretly occupied since 1958.
MediaMay 1983
NBC aired Kenneth Johnson's two-part miniseries V on consecutive nights, about friendly-seeming visitors who are secretly reptilian invaders. The premiere drew about a 40 share and led to sequels and a 2009 remake.
Photo: ArquiWHAT, Public domain
Media11 Apr 1983
At the 55th Academy Awards, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial won four of its nine nominations: original score for John Williams, sound, sound effects editing and visual effects.
Photo: White House Photographic Office, Public domain
