Newest first
The latest events on the record: hearings, official reports, releases and reported encounters. Each one links to its sources.
Skinwalker Ranch1974
Utah State University plant scientist Frank Salisbury published The Utah UFO Display: A Biologist's Report, on reports from the Uintah Basin that teacher Joseph Junior Hicks had collected since the 1960s. Salisbury interviewed witnesses himself from 1968.
Government1974
Lt. Col. Hector Quintanilla Jr., a former chief of Project Blue Book, wrote a book proposal titled 'UFOs: An Air Force Dilemma', dated 1974. A scan of the typescript, described as his proposal for a book, is publicly available online.
Photo: U.S. Air Force, Public domain
Sightings1974
Farmer Edwin Fuhr said he saw five saucer-shaped objects hovering by a slough while swathing near Langenburg, then watched them leave at speed. An RCMP report recorded five circles of flattened crop where he said they had been. No explanation was established.
Photo: Madgelake at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media1974
Robert Emenegger's documentary, hosted by Rod Serling, presented a possible 1964 alien landing at Holloman AFB. Emenegger later said officials had promised him real footage that never arrived, so the film used illustrations; only his account supports the promise.
Photo: CBS Television, Public domain
Media1974
At a ceremony marking an upgrade of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, scientists beamed a short pictorial radio message toward the globular cluster M13, about 21,000 light-years away. The SETI Institute notes a reply is unlikely ever to come.
Photo: Arne Nordmann ( norro ), CC BY-SA 3.0
Close encounters13 Dec 1973
French motor-sport journalist Claude Vorilhon said a small being stepped from a craft that landed in a volcanic crater near Clermont-Ferrand and gave him a message. Renamed Rael, he built a UFO-based religion whose Clonaid company made an unproven 2002 human cloning claim.
Photo: Romary, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings30 Nov 1973
Press reports said Turin-Caselle airport radar tracked an unidentified target while a private pilot and an Alitalia crew saw a bright, color-changing sphere. The airport's military commander was quoted confirming the sighting; no official explanation is on record in the loaded sources.
Photo: Paolo Cerutti, Public domain
Close encountersNov 1973
A Gallup poll fielded Nov. 2-5, 1973 found 11 percent of U.S. adults said they had seen something they thought was a UFO. Gallup has repeated the question in later polls; in July 2026 the share was 17 percent.
MediaNov 1973
Bob Rickard started a small newsletter called The News in November 1973 to continue Charles Fort's cataloging of odd events. Renamed Fortean Times in 1976, it became a long-running magazine covering UFO reports alongside other anomalies.
Photo: TM/Diamond Publishing Ltd, Public domain
Military18 Oct 1973
A four-man Army Reserve UH-1H crew led by Capt. Lawrence Coyne reported that a gray, cigar-shaped object approached their helicopter near Mansfield, Ohio, bathed the cockpit in green light, and that the helicopter rose sharply during the encounter. Ground witnesses reported a red light.
Photo: InSapphoWeTrust from Los Angeles, California, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Sightings17 Oct 1973
Falkville, Alabama police chief Jeff Greenhaw said he answered a call about a UFO in a field and found a tall figure in a foil-like suit, which he photographed before it outran his patrol car. The account rests on his word; he faced ridicule and resigned weeks later.
Photo: Brian Stansberry, CC BY 4.0
Close encounters11 Oct 1973
Shipyard workers Charles Hickson, 42, and Calvin Parker, 19, told the Jackson County sheriff that creatures took them aboard a glowing craft while they fished on the Pascagoula River. Deputies found them genuinely frightened; many people doubted the story.
Photo: SMG2019, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings18 Sep 1973
Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter filed a sighting report with the International UFO Bureau describing a bright, color-changing light about the size of the moon that he said he and others saw in 1969 while waiting outside a Lions Club meeting in Leary, Georgia.
Photo: Georgia Secretary of State, Public domain
Media5 Jan 1973
NBC aired In Search of Ancient Astronauts, a U.S. version of the German Chariots of the Gods documentary narrated by Rod Serling. It promoted von Daniken's ancient-astronaut claims, which scholars regard as pseudoscience, and preceded the In Search of... series.
Photo: CBS Television; portrait by Gabor Rona, Public domain
Close encounters1973
Astronomer J. Allen Hynek, former scientific consultant to Project Blue Book, started the Center for UFO Studies, initially run from a room in his Evanston home. He led it as scientific director until his death in 1986; it continues as a research library and archive.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Sightings1973
After several hundred calls about strange lights around Piedmont in early 1973, Southeast Missouri State physics professor Harley Rutledge led his own team to investigate. He issued a paper that year and expanded it into a 1981 book. No government inquiry took place.
Photo: Drowzy at English Wikipedia, Public domain
Media1973
The Archives for UFO Research (AFU) was founded in Sodertalje, Sweden, moving to Norrkoping in 1979 and becoming a non-profit foundation in 1980. Renamed the Archives for the Unexplained in 2013, it says it holds over a million clippings and more than 50,000 original European UFO reports.
Media1973
Donald Keyhoe, a longtime critic of Air Force UFO secrecy, published 'Aliens from Space: The Real Story of Unidentified Flying Objects', restating his long-held case that the Air Force withheld UFO evidence, after Project Blue Book had closed.
Photo: CBS, "The Mike Wallace Interview" 1958 March 8, Public domain
Sightings12 Nov 1972
After residents of Rosmead in the Karoo reported a bright light moving across the sky, scorch marks and holes were found in the tar of the local school's tennis court. Police forensic head Lothar Neethling said samples showed nothing unusual and suggested vandals with pick-axes.
Photo: Michel Huhardeaux from Brussels, Belgium, CC BY-SA 2.0
MilitaryNov 1972
After residents reported periscope-like objects and engine noise from mid-November 1972, Norway's armed forces hunted a suspected foreign submarine in Sognefjord with ships and helicopters. The defence chief told a closed parliamentary session a submarine had likely been there; none was surfaced.
Photo: Acediscovery, CC BY 4.0
