Topic
Encounter and abduction accounts, and the researchers who studied them. 88 events, newest first.
Close encounters1969
After a stormy board meeting, Donald Keyhoe gave up the directorship of NICAP and moved to its board; accounts cite money troubles. Jack Acuff took over as the civilian group declined in the years after the Air Force closed Project Blue Book.
Photo: CBS, "The Mike Wallace Interview" 1958 March 8, Public domain
Close encounters3 Dec 1967
Ashland police officer Herbert Schirmer said he saw a lighted, saucer-shaped craft over a highway before dawn and later could not account for about 20 minutes. The Condon Committee examined the case and said it had no confidence the experience was physically real.
Photo: Ammodramus, CC0
Close encounters29 Aug 1967
Two children watching cattle in Cantal said they saw four small dark figures and a bright sphere that rose away. Gendarmes visited that day. GEPAN re-investigated in 1978 and called it unexplained; skeptics have argued for a misperceived helicopter.
Photo: Sancta floris, CC BY-SA 4.0
Close encounters22 Apr 1967
University of Arizona atmospheric physicist James E. McDonald told the American Society of Newspaper Editors that the UFO problem had been mishandled for years. He blamed a 1953 CIA-sponsored panel's recommendation for a debunking effort and said Project Blue Book had been downgraded.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Close encounters25 Jan 1967
Betty Andreasson said small beings entered her home on a January 1967 evening after a power loss and a glow outside. Her detailed account emerged years later under hypnosis in a study led by Raymond Fowler, whose 1979 book popularized it. Skeptics suggest fantasy; no physical evidence was produced.
Photo: John Phelan, CC BY-SA 3.0
Close encounters21 Oct 1966
J. Allen Hynek, the Air Force's own scientific consultant on UFOs, published a letter in the journal Science urging scientists to give unexplained reports serious, scholarly study rather than dismissing the subject.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Close encounters25 Oct 1965
The Boston Traveler began a five-day series by reporter John H. Luttrell, opening on its front page, on the Hills' claim that they were taken aboard a craft in 1961. The Hills had not consented; the series made them nationally known and preceded John G. Fuller's book on the case.
Close encounters1 Jul 1965
A farmer reported a dark craft and two small figures in his lavender field at dawn, and showed ground marks afterward. The gendarmerie took his statements and documented the traces; GEIPAN, with no other witnesses, classes the case unexplained (D).
Photo: Pampuco, CC BY 4.0
Close encounters23 Apr 1965
George Adamski, the best-known 1950s contactee, died of a heart attack in Maryland at 74. His claims of meeting Venusians and his saucer photographs had been dismissed by investigators, including Blue Book consultant J. Allen Hynek, who called the photos crude fakes.
Photo: Unknown (likely a Buffalo Evening News or press photo), Public domain
Close encounters1964
Over months of weekly sessions in 1964, psychiatrist Benjamin Simon hypnotized Betty and Barney Hill about their 1961 drive. Under hypnosis they described being taken aboard a craft. Simon concluded Betty had dreamed it and Barney absorbed her story, though he found them honest.
Close encounters1962
Several British UFO research groups and individuals came together at an inaugural meeting in Kensington, London, to form the British UFO Research Association, which describes itself as a non-cultist, scientifically evaluative body.
Close encounters19 Sep 1961
Betty and Barney Hill said a bright object followed their car on a night drive through New Hampshire's White Mountains, and under hypnosis in 1963-64 described being taken aboard a craft. Their story drew wide coverage from 1965 on, and a state historical marker now stands in Lincoln.
Close encounters18 Apr 1961
Wisconsin resident Joe Simonton said a saucer landed in his yard and its occupants handed him pancakes after he gave them water. The Air Force and NICAP looked into the report; the pancakes were analyzed and found to be ordinary, and the story was largely dismissed.
Photo: United States Air Force, Public domain
Close encounters26 Jun 1959
Anglican missionary William Gill and about three dozen people at the Boianai mission reported a large lit object with human-like figures on top over two evenings; Gill said the figures waved back. An RAAF officer who interviewed Gill months later suggested planets seen through moving cloud.
Photo: Project Blue Book, 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.
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
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
Close encounters1956
Festinger, Riecken and Schachter published their study of a Chicago-area group whose leader predicted a cataclysm and rescue by flying saucer in December 1954. It became a foundation of cognitive dissonance theory; a 2025 paper drawing on Festinger's unsealed papers disputes its account.
Close encounters21 Aug 1955
Eleven people at the Sutton farm near Kelly, Kentucky, reported small glowing creatures around the house through the night and fired guns at them. City and state police and military police from Fort Campbell searched and found shell casings but no other trace. Skeptics later proposed owls.
