Newest first
The latest events on the record: hearings, official reports, releases and reported encounters. Each one links to its sources.
MediaNov 1976
The Center for UFO Studies began publishing the International UFO Reporter, its main news and feature magazine, with Volume 1, Number 1 dated November 1976. It ran until 2012, and CUFOS has since put the full run online.
Military19 Sep 1976
Iranian Air Force F-4 jets were sent after a bright light over Tehran overnight, and crews reported losing instruments and communications as they closed in. A U.S. Defense Attache report on the incident, circulated by the DIA, was later released under FOIA.
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
Government19 Sep 1976
A U.S. Embassy Rabat cable relayed Royal Gendarmerie reports of a silent, luminous disc or tube seen from Agadir to Fez early on Sept. 19, 1976, and King Hassan II's request for information. A satellite watcher later matched it to a reentering Soviet rocket stage.
Photo: Christian Lambiotte, CC BY 4.0
Government30 Jul 1976
The labeled-release experiment on NASA's Viking 1 lander returned a positive reading for gas released from nutrient-dosed Martian soil. NASA concluded it reflected soil chemistry, not life, after no organics were found; its designer Gilbert Levin long argued it detected life.
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
Government25 Jul 1976
NASA's Viking 1 orbiter photographed a mesa in Mars's Cydonia region whose shadows looked like a human face; NASA's 1976 caption called it an illusion. NASA says geologists attribute the landform to natural processes, and Mars Global Surveyor imaged it at ten times the resolution in 1998.
Photo: Viking 1, NASA, Public domain
Military22 Jun 1976
Crew of the Spanish Navy corvette Atrevida off Fuerteventura, then a doctor, a taxi driver and residents of Gran Canaria, reported a luminous object. A Spanish military file found no explanation; it was later attributed to a U.S. submarine-launched Poseidon missile test.
Photo: Jose Juan Medina Cobacho, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media30 Apr 1976
Philosopher Paul Kurtz launched the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal at an American Humanist Association meeting. Its journal, later the Skeptical Inquirer, became a main outlet for skeptical critiques of UFO claims, including books by Philip Klass.
Photo: RobertoTenore, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings22 Apr 1976
Elmwood officer George Wheeler, who had reported an earlier sighting in 1975, said a large domed craft near a quarry hit his squad car with a beam; his radio went dead and he was found barely conscious. The town's sightings later drew a proposed UFO landing port that was never built.
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
Media18 Mar 1976
Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth premiered at the Leicester Square Theatre in London, with David Bowie in his first major film role as Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien visiting Earth.
Photo: Jean-Luc, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government1976
The Air Force placed its Project Blue Book UFO files in National Archives custody in 1975. After witness names were redacted, the records opened to public research in spring 1976 and are read today on 94 rolls of microfilm (T-1206).
Photo: Steve Jurvetson, CC BY 2.0
Government1976
During his 1976 presidential campaign, Jimmy Carter, who had filed a report of his own 1969 sighting, said he would make government UFO information available to the public and scientists. After taking office he did not follow through, citing possible defense implications.
Photo: Jack R. Thornell, Public domain
Media1976
'Mysteries of the Gods', an English version of the West German documentary 'Botschaft der Gotter' based on Erich von Daniken's book Miracles of the Gods, was released in the U.S. in 1976 with William Shatner as host and narrator. Its ancient-astronaut claims are rejected by scientists.
Photo: Michal Manas, CC BY 3.0
Military7 Nov 1975
NORAD logs record Malmstrom AFB missile crews reporting a bright orange object over their sites until sunrise. A Pentagon memo describes height-finder radar returns and two F-106 interceptors scrambled that could not find the object. The objects were never identified.
Photo: U.S. Air Force photo, Public domain
Close encounters5 Nov 1975
Logger Travis Walton went missing after his crewmates said a glowing object struck him in a clearing in Arizona's Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. He reappeared days later saying he had been taken aboard a craft; many have questioned the story, which he still defends.
Photo: SMG2019, CC BY-SA 4.0
Military30 Oct 1975
Security police at Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan, reported an unlit helicopter-like craft over the nuclear weapons storage area. A returning KC-135 tanker was sent to identify radar targets; a NORAD log says the crew saw and painted one before losing it over Lake Huron. It was never identified.
Photo: United States Geological Survey (USGS), Public domain
Military27 Oct 1975
On the evening of Oct. 27, 1975, a security airman at Loring AFB, Maine, reported a low aircraft with lights circling near the nuclear weapons storage area; tower radar showed an unknown target and the base went on alert. Thought from its flight to be a helicopter, it was never identified.
Photo: Air Force Base Conversion Agency, Public domain
Media20 Oct 1975
NBC broadcast The UFO Incident, a TV movie dramatizing Betty and Barney Hill's account of a 1961 abduction, based on John G. Fuller's book The Interrupted Journey. James Earl Jones played Barney Hill and Estelle Parsons played Betty Hill.
MilitaryOct 1975
Air Force and NORAD records released under FOIA describe unidentified, low-flying objects, often likened to helicopters, over Loring, Wurtsmith and Malmstrom bases in late October and November 1975. Pursuit efforts failed; the Washington Post reported the files in 1979.
Photo: Unknown author (Library of Congress, HABS/HAER), Public domain
Close encounters14 Sep 1975
Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, later leaders of Heaven's Gate, spoke on UFOs and salvation at a Waldport inn; about 20 local people gave up their belongings and left with them. The departures became national news that fall, including on CBS's evening newscast.
Photo: James St. John, CC BY 2.0
Sightings3 May 1975
Mexican private pilot Carlos Antonio de los Santos radioed Mexico City airport's control tower that three unidentified objects were flying around his light Piper aircraft and that his controls moved on their own. He landed safely. A recording said to be his call circulated widely in 2023.
Photo: Jonmallard, CC BY-SA 4.0
