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The latest events on the record: hearings, official reports, releases and reported encounters. Each one links to its sources.
Military4 Nov 1957
CAA tower operators at Kirtland AFB reported a dark object with a white light below that crossed the field, appeared to reverse direction at low altitude and climbed into the overcast, with a radar return. The Air Force and the Condon Report concluded it was likely a small private aircraft.
Photo: USAF, Public domain
Military3 Nov 1957
Two U.S. Army patrols at White Sands reported a very bright light near the horizon and later a pulsating light, hours after the Levelland reports made national news. Project Blue Book concluded the first sighting was the setting Moon and the second was Venus.
Photo: Project Blue Book, Public domain
Sightings2 Nov 1957
Over about two hours, drivers near Levelland reported a large glowing object and said their engines and headlights failed as it passed. The Air Force attributed the reports to ball lightning; physicist James McDonald later told Congress no storms were near that night.
Photo: Leaflet, CC BY-SA 3.0
SightingsNov 1957
Project Blue Book logged 361 reports in November 1957, one of its busiest months, helping make 1957 the only year from 1953 to 1965 with over a thousand reports. The surge came days after Sputnik 2 and included Levelland, Texas and a White Sands report the Air Force publicly addressed.
Photo: U.S. Air Force, Public domain
Military4 Sep 1957
Four Portuguese Air Force F-84G pilots on a training flight from Ota reported a changing yellow, then red, sphere with smaller spheres around it over Cordoba for about 35 minutes. Formation leader Jose Lemos Ferreira, later armed forces chief, retold it in 2007; the crew filed a joint report.
Photo: Ricardo Reis from Lisboa, Portugal, CC BY-SA 2.0
MilitarySep 1957
An Army draftsman at Fort Belvoir photographed a black ring in the sky that turned into a white cloud, reportedly seen by about 15 people. The Air Force-funded Condon study identified it as a by-product of an atom bomb simulation demonstration on the base.
Military17 Jul 1957
The crew of a USAF RB-47H testing electronic countermeasures gear reported a light and a radar-emitting source that followed them from Mississippi into Oklahoma, with ground radar also reporting a target. The Condon study left it unidentified; skeptics later proposed an airliner.
Photo: U.S. Air Force photo, Public domain
SightingsJul 1957
NICAP published the first issue of its members' newsletter, The U.F.O. Investigator, in July 1957. The issue included a policy statement saying NICAP had no evidence to support contactee claims; the newsletter became the group's main outlet for case reports.
MediaJul 1957
Columbia released 20 Million Miles to Earth, in which a U.S. spacecraft returning from Venus crashes off Sicily carrying a creature that grows to giant size. Ray Harryhausen animated the creature frame by frame.
Photo: Columbia Pictures, Public domain
MediaJul 1957
Columbia released William Asher's 'The 27th Day', in which an alien gives five people from different nations capsules able to wipe out humanity, testing whether they keep the peace for 27 days. The film mirrored Cold War nuclear fears.
Photo: trailer screenshot (Columbia Pictures), Public domain
MediaApr 1957
Twentieth Century-Fox released Kurt Neumann's Regal Films production about a giant energy-draining alien machine that lands off Mexico and heads for California's atomic stockpile. The AFI Catalog lists an April 1957 release.
Whistleblowers16 Jan 1957
NICAP board chairman Delmer Fahrney, a retired rear admiral who once ran the Navy guided-missile program, told reporters that reliable reports showed fast objects entering the atmosphere under apparent intelligent guidance. The Air Force said most reports had ordinary explanations.
Close encounters1957
Brazilian farmer Antonio Villas Boas said small beings took him aboard a landed craft in 1957, examined him and coerced him into sex. Physician Olavo Fontes examined him in Rio; Flying Saucer Review spread the story worldwide in 1965. Skeptics note it followed magazine stories of alien attacks.
Close encounters1957
After founding director T. Townsend Brown was removed at the end of 1956, retired Marine Major Donald Keyhoe took charge of the civilian group NICAP. Under him it pressed Congress to scrutinize Air Force secrecy about UFOs.
Photo: CBS, "The Mike Wallace Interview" 1958 March 8, Public domain
Sightings1957
A Rio de Janeiro society columnist printed a letter with an illegible signature claiming a disc exploded over the sea near Ubatuba, with fragments said to be ultra-pure magnesium. Tested for the Condon Report, a sample was less pure than commercial magnesium and matched a 1940 Dow strontium batch.
Photo: Carla404, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media1957
American International Pictures released Edward L. Cahn's teen comedy-horror film about small, bulbous-headed aliens who land in a flying saucer. Designed by Paul Blaisdell, its creatures fed the popular image of big-headed saucer occupants.
Photo: American International Pictures, Public domain
Close encounters1957
Contactee George Van Tassel, host of the Giant Rock spacecraft conventions, began building the Integratron, a wooden dome near Landers, California. He said beings from Venus gave him the idea for a device to rejuvenate cells; its current owners say it is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Photo: Shamrox, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings1957
Ground Saucer Watch, a civilian UFO group of scientists, engineers and laypeople, formed in 1957 to study UFO reports with technical methods. It later pursued lawsuits and Freedom of Information Act requests for government UFO files before folding over money problems.
Close encounters24 Oct 1956
The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena was incorporated in Washington, D.C., organized by a group led by T. Townsend Brown. Donald Keyhoe became director in early 1957 and the group grew into a leading civilian UFO organization that pressed Congress for hearings.
Photo: Richard H. Hall / NICAP, Public domain
Military13 Aug 1956
Over the night of Aug. 13-14, 1956, USAF ground radars at RAF Bentwaters and Lakenheath tracked fast-moving targets, some with visual reports, and an RAF Venom night fighter was sent up and reported a radar lock. The Condon study rated a genuine UFO 'fairly high' in probability.
Photo: Bev Dickinson, CC BY-SA 2.0
