Newest first
The latest events on the record: hearings, official reports, releases and reported encounters. Each one links to its sources.
Media1959
Warner Bros. released Tom Graeff's low-budget 'Teenagers from Outer Space', in which young aliens land a flying saucer to raise giant monsters on Earth and one of them rebels to protect a local girl.
Photo: Reynold Brown, Public domain
Media1959
Allied Artists released 'The Atomic Submarine', in which a nuclear sub investigating ships lost under the Arctic finds an underwater flying saucer piloted by a one-eyed alien scouting Earth for colonization.
Photo: Reynold Brown, Public domain
Media1959
Allied Artists released 'The Cosmic Man', in which a white globe-shaped craft hovers near a California resort and the military and scientists argue over the intentions of its shadowy alien visitor, played by John Carradine.
Photo: Allied Artists, Public domain
MediaDec 1958
BBC Television began Nigel Kneale's six-part serial Quatermass and the Pit just before Christmas 1958. In the story, London builders unearth an ancient Martian craft, and Professor Quatermass concludes Martians once altered early human ancestors. It is fiction, not a reported case.
Sightings26 Oct 1958
Phillip Small and Alvin Cohen said an egg-shaped object hovered over a bridge at Loch Raven Dam near Baltimore, their car died, and a flash and bang left their faces burning. Towson police found nothing; an Air Force investigator left it unidentified.
Photo: Acroterion, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media10 Sep 1958
Paramount opened I Married a Monster from Outer Space, in which a young bride finds that her new husband and other men in town have been replaced by aliens. It opened in Los Angeles the same day as The Blob, with general release in October 1958.
Photo: Paramount Pictures, Public domain
Media10 Sep 1958
The Blob, a low-budget film in which a jelly-like alien mass arrives inside a meteorite and terrorizes a small town, opened in Los Angeles ahead of its October 1958 general release by Paramount. Steve McQueen played the teenage lead.
Photo: Paramount Pictures, Public domain
MediaJun 1958
Paramount released Jack Arnold's film in which an alien presence on a California beach takes control of children at a missile project and uses them to sabotage a launch. The AFI Catalog lists a June 1958 release.
GovernmentApr 1958
An April 1958 CIA memo answering letters from Leon Davidson and NICAP's Donald Keyhoe recommended sending them a declassified Robertson Panel report written in late 1957 that omitted any CIA tie. The CIA kept refusing to release the full report until 1975.
Media8 Mar 1958
NICAP director Donald Keyhoe appeared on ABC's The Mike Wallace Interview, where Wallace pressed him on his claim that the Air Force was hiding the truth about UFOs. The kinescope survives in the Harry Ransom Center's Wallace collection.
Photo: CBS, "The Mike Wallace Interview" 1958 March 8, Public domain
Media22 Jan 1958
During the live CBS program 'UFO: Enigma of the Skies', the network cut the audio while NICAP director Donald Keyhoe spoke about material before Congress. CBS said he had departed from the approved script and denied censorship; UFO groups long cited the moment as a cover-up.
Photo: CBS, "The Mike Wallace Interview" 1958 March 8, Public domain
Military16 Jan 1958
Civilian photographer Almiro Barauna photographed an object over Trindade Island from the Brazilian Navy ship Almirante Saldanha, and Rio papers ran the photos in February 1958. A U.S. Naval Attache report and later Air Force correspondence judged the photos a hoax.
Photo: Project Blue Book, Public domain
Media1958
Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung published Ein moderner Mythus, later translated as Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. Jung set aside whether saucers were physical craft and treated the wave of sightings as a psychological and cultural response to an anxious era.
Photo: Francis Domiano, CC0
Media1958
French writer Aime Michel's 1958 book, published in English as Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery, argued that same-day sightings in the 1954 French wave fell on straight lines. Astronomer Donald Menzel later argued the alignments matched chance.
Military1958
Tuskegee Airman Robert Friend led the Air Force's Project Blue Book from 1958 to 1963. He tried without success to have the project moved to a civilian agency such as NASA.
Media1958
Raymond Veillith started Lumieres dans la Nuit, a bimonthly French journal that became a leading outlet for UFO reports in France. It was relaunched by Joel Mesnard in 1988, and researchers have since used its run as a database of French sightings.
Sightings17 Dec 1957
Skandinavisk UFO Information (SUFOI) formed in Denmark to collect UFO reports. It later became the body handling UFO inquiries made to Danish authorities and now says most reported sightings have ordinary explanations.
MediaDec 1957
Howco International released this low-budget science fiction film, in which a criminal alien brain from the planet Arous takes over a scientist's body and threatens Earth. The AFI Catalog lists a December 1957 release with a Los Angeles opening on Christmas Day.
Photo: Howco International, Public domain
Close encounters5 Nov 1957
During the November 1957 wave, grain buyer Reinhold Schmidt said a cigar-shaped craft stalled his car near Kearney and that he spoke with German-speaking occupants. Air Force investigators concluded the story was a hoax made for publicity.
Military5 Nov 1957
The Coast Guard cutter Sebago reported several fast-moving radar targets and a brief bright light before dawn during the November 1957 wave. The Condon study judged the light a meteor and most radar returns likely anomalous propagation.
Photo: Florida Department of Commerce, Public domain
