Topic
Official programs, reports, laws and hearings, from Project Blue Book to AARO and the National Archives. 366 events, newest first.
GovernmentOct 2008
The UK National Archives released a batch of Ministry of Defence UFO files that included the MoD record of a 1991 near miss reported by an Alitalia crew over Kent, which officials said had no clear explanation. The captain spoke publicly about it after the release.
Photo: G B_NZ, CC BY-SA 2.0
GovernmentSep 2008
The Defense Intelligence Agency contracted Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies of Las Vegas for the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, officially a study of future aerospace threats. It produced dozens of technical papers; funding of about $22 million ended in 2012.
Photo: Bill Ingalls, Public domain
Government14 May 2008
The UK Ministry of Defence began releasing its UFO files through The National Archives website, starting with sighting reports and MoD assessments dating back to the 1970s. The program ran until a tenth and final release in June 2013.
Photo: Christine Matthews, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government20 Dec 2007
Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba told reporters, as his personal view, that there were no grounds to deny UFOs exist, and mused on how the pacifist constitution would let the military respond to an alien arrival. The remarks followed a cabinet colleague's similar comment that week.
Photo: Cabinet Public Relations Office, Japan, CC BY 4.0
Government18 Dec 2007
Answering a question from opposition lawmaker Ryuji Yamane, Japan's cabinet formally stated it had not confirmed any UFOs believed to come from outer space. Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura then told reporters he personally believed they exist, and the defense minister weighed in.
Photo: Cabinet Public Relations Office, Japan, CC BY 4.0
GovernmentOct 2007
Settling journalist Leslie Kean's federal FOIA lawsuit, NASA agreed to search its archives again for records on the 1965 Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, incident and to pay her legal fees. The court-supervised search ended in 2009 without resolving what fell; many files were missing.
Photo: NASA, Public domain
Government12 Apr 2007
The records site Footnote.com (later Fold3) said it had begun posting scanned Project Blue Book case files free online, with a little over half of roughly 130,000 pages up and the rest of the National Archives microfilm set to follow.
GovernmentMar 2007
France's space agency CNES opened its UFO study unit's case files to the public online, starting with about 400 of roughly 1,600 cases and promising the rest later. Press reports called France the first country to publish its official UFO archive this way.
Photo: GEIPAN / Wizly-08, Public domain
Government2007
Yves Sillard, a former director-general of France's space agency CNES, published a 2007 book on unidentified aerospace phenomena. He told a regional daily the extraterrestrial idea should be weighed seriously and objectively but remained only a hypothesis.
GovernmentMay 2006
After a Freedom of Information request, Britain's Ministry of Defence released Project Condign, a Defence Intelligence Staff study of UFO reports completed in December 2000. It said sightings could be explained by natural causes such as meteors and unusual atmospheric conditions.
Photo: ArildV, CC BY-SA 3.0
GovernmentSep 2005
Paul Hellyer, a former Canadian defence minister, became a public UFO advocate when he spoke at a Toronto symposium in September 2005. He later urged governments to disclose alleged alien technology; an astronomer quoted in the press said there was little evidence of visits.
Photo: Government of Canada, Public domain
GovernmentAug 2005
Library and Archives Canada launched 'Canada's UFOs: The Search for the Unknown', an online collection of digitized UFO files from the Departments of Transport and National Defence, the RCMP and the National Research Council, covering reports from 1947 to the early 1980s.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons user (own work), CC BY-SA 3.0
Government2005
Following an audit, CNES restructured its UFO service as GEIPAN, adding public information to its mission and placing it under a steering committee with gendarmerie, police, air force and weather service members. The committee first met in September 2005; GEIPAN later put its case archives online.
Photo: GEIPAN / Wizly-08, Public domain
Government2004
The Brazilian Commission of Ufologists, coordinated by Revista UFO editor A. J. Gevaerd, launched a 2004 campaign asking the government to open its UFO files. Organizers say it led to meetings with Air Force and Defense Ministry officials and to later document releases to the National Archives.
Government2004
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson wrote the foreword to The Roswell Dig Diaries, a book on a Sci Fi Channel-funded 2002 dig at the alleged crash site, saying the mystery had never been adequately explained. In 2007, as a presidential candidate, he said he would consider releasing Roswell files.
Photo: U. S. Department of Energy, Public domain
Government22 Oct 2002
Former White House chief of staff John Podesta appeared at a Washington news conference with a Sci-Fi Channel-backed coalition seeking release of government UFO records. He said he was personally skeptical but that it was time to open the books.
Photo: NHD-INFO [1], CC BY 2.0
Government1 Jul 2002
After a wave of cattle 'mutilation' reports, Argentina's national animal-health agency SENASA said a university-led study found the animals died of natural causes and the wounds came from predators, chiefly a red-nosed mouse (Oxymycterus) and foxes.
GovernmentDec 2001
In late December 2001 the Peruvian Air Force set up an Office for the Investigation of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (OIFAA), reportedly after a televised sighting over Lima's La Molina district. The office later lapsed and was relaunched as DIFAA in 2013.
Photo: Sodacan, CC BY-SA 4.0
Government1999
In the summer of 1999 the Cosmic Call project broadcast deliberate messages toward nearby stars from the RT-70 radio telescope near Yevpatoria, Ukraine. Canadian astrophysicists Yvan Dutil and Stephane Dumas designed its main coded message; a second set followed in 2003.
Photo: Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0
Government5 Apr 1998
NASA's Mars Global Surveyor photographed the Cydonia feature known as the 'Face on Mars' at ten times the resolution of the 1976 Viking image. The camera's operator, Malin Space Science Systems, describes the feature as one hill among the region's buttes and mesas that happened to resemble a face.
