Topic
Official programs, reports, laws and hearings, from Project Blue Book to AARO and the National Archives. 366 events, newest first.
Government2012
Dedicated funding for the program began in 2008 and ended in 2012, the Pentagon said in 2017, because other priorities merited the money. A later Pentagon statement said DIA found the contractor's reports of limited value; people who worked on it say UAP study continued informally.
Photo: MSGT KEN HAMMOND, Public domain
GovernmentNov 2011
Answering 'We the People' petitions seeking UFO disclosure, Phil Larson of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy wrote that the government had no evidence of life beyond Earth or of extraterrestrial contact, and no credible information that such evidence was being hidden.
Photo: U.S. Government, Public domain
Government6 May 2011
Argentina's air force set up CEFAe, a commission of military and civilian experts, to study reported aerial phenomena. Press accounts say it examined few cases at first; in 2019 it was restructured as the CIAE, which reports that the cases it analyzed were identified as ordinary objects.
GovernmentApr 2011
The FBI launched The Vault, an online reading room for released records, including its UFO file and a 1950 memo by agent Guy Hottel relaying a secondhand saucer-crash story. Some outlets called it Roswell proof; the FBI later said it never investigated the claim and saw no Roswell link.
Photo: Guy Hottel, Public domain
GovernmentApr 2011
The 42-dish Allen Telescope Array, built by UC Berkeley and the SETI Institute largely with Paul Allen's money, was put into hibernation in April 2011 when funding ran out. Private donations let it resume observing in December 2011.
Photo: brewbooks from near Seattle, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government3 Mar 2011
A National Archives release of MoD UFO files showed that Defence Intelligence UFO files for 1980-82, which would have covered the Rendlesham Forest case, had been found destroyed in a 2000 search. Archives consultant David Clarke said the main Rendlesham file was already public.
Photo: N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government23 Jan 2011
A farmer found a roughly 70 m circular pattern in a rice field at Berbah, Sleman, in January 2011, prompting talk of a UFO landing. After examining it and a second circle in Bantul, Indonesia's space agency LAPAN said both were made by people using a stake and boards.
Photo: Daddy Hidayat, CC BY-SA 3.0
Government2011
Interviewees told AARO that KONA BLUE was a DHS compartment for retrieved non-human material. AARO found it was a 2011 proposed special access program, pushed by people from DIA's AAWSAP/AATIP, that DHS's deputy secretary disapproved; it never got funding or material.
Photo: U.S. Coast Guard, Public domain
GovernmentDec 2010
New Zealand's Defence Force released thousands of pages of previously secret UFO reports dating from 1952, including material on the 1978 Kaikoura lights. Most were reports of lights in the sky, and the military did not draw conclusions about them.
Photo: Daderot, CC0
Government9 Aug 2010
Brazil's Air Force commander signed Portaria 551/GC3, limiting the Air Command's UFO role to registering reports and forwarding them to the National Archives. Air defense command catalogs reports and the Air Force documentation center sends originals to the archive.
Government5 Aug 2010
A National Archives release of MoD UFO files included a second-hand account that Winston Churchill ordered a wartime encounter between RAF bombers and a UFO kept secret to avoid mass panic. The claim came via a relative of one of Churchill's bodyguards and is unconfirmed.
Photo: Sgt. J. Mapham, No. 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit, Public domain
Government18 Feb 2010
The UK National Archives released 24 Ministry of Defence UFO files, over 6,000 pages covering 1994 to 2000. Highlights reported included a 1952 Churchill memo asking about flying saucers and a 1997 triangle report near Michael Howard's Folkestone home, which the MoD found no evidence for.
Photo: Christopher Hilton, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government25 Jan 2010
The Royal Society opened a two-day meeting in London on detecting extraterrestrial life and its consequences for science and society. Speakers included Frank Drake, Paul Davies and Christian de Duve, with NASA, ESA and UN representatives. Papers appeared in Philosophical Transactions A.
Photo: Basher Eyre, CC BY-SA 2.0
GovernmentDec 2009
The Ministry of Defence closed its UFO desk, hotline and email address after officials advised that no UFO report in over 50 years had shown a threat to the UK. The MoD stopped investigating sightings; files on the closure were released in 2013.
Photo: ArildV, CC BY-SA 3.0
Government25 Nov 2009
At a member's request, the Bundestag's research service wrote a paper on the search for extraterrestrial life and the UN decision on UFO observation. The Bundestag refused a 2010 freedom-of-information request for it; Germany's top administrative court ordered access in June 2015.
Photo: Jorg Braukmann, CC BY-SA 4.0
Government6 Nov 2009
The Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences hosted scientists at the Casina Pio IV from November 6 to 10, 2009, for a study week on astrobiology, covering the origin of life, habitable planets and the search for life and intelligence beyond Earth.
Photo: Jean-Pol GRANDMONT, CC BY-SA 3.0
GovernmentAug 2009
The National Archives put online a fourth batch of Ministry of Defence UFO files: 14 files, about 4,000 pages, spanning 1981-1996. Highlights included Rendlesham Forest correspondence, the 1989-90 Belgian wave and London sightings the MoD traced to an advertising airship.
Photo: Eirian Evans, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government24 Jun 2009
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wrote to Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn asking for a restricted special access program for parts of the DIA aerospace study he called AATIP, citing sensitive findings. A November 2009 DIA review found no justification for the protection.
Photo: United States Congress, Public domain
GovernmentMar 2009
The UK National Archives opened a third batch of Ministry of Defence UFO files, mostly late-1980s and early-1990s reports. Highlights included the Calvine photographs, Tornado crews' 1990 report later traced to Soviet rocket debris, and a 1992 advertising airship mistaken for a UFO.
GovernmentJan 2009
Denmark's air force published 329 pages of previously classified UFO report files covering 1978 to 2002, after which a civilian group handled sightings. A spokesman said they were released because journalists kept asking; UPI reported the files include more than 200 unsolved cases.
