Topic
Official programs, reports, laws and hearings, from Project Blue Book to AARO and the National Archives. 366 events, newest first.
Government12 Oct 1992
NASA began its High Resolution Microwave Survey on Columbus Day 1992, with a targeted search of nearby Sun-like stars at Arecibo and a sky survey at Goldstone, California. Congress cancelled the program in 1993, about a year later.
Photo: H. Schweiker/WIYN and NOAO/AURA/NSF, CC BY 4.0
Government1992
Spain's Defence Ministry says a review of the Air Force's confidential UFO files began in 1991 and a physical copy of the released files was placed in the Air Force central library in Madrid in 1992. Releases continued through the decade and eventually covered 80 case files.
Photo: Zarateman, CC BY-SA 4.0
Government1991
By his own account, civil servant Nick Pope was given a Ministry of Defence desk handling unexplained cases in 1991, during a 21-year MoD career. He later became a public commentator on the subject.
Photo: David Howard, CC BY 2.0
Government27 Mar 1989
Contact with the Soviet Phobos 2 probe could not be restored on March 27, 1989, ending its mission at Mars; NASA's records attribute the loss to an on-board computer malfunction. An elongated shape in one of its last images was later promoted by some as a UFO.
Government1988
France's space agency CNES dissolved its UFO study group GEPAN and its scientific council, after years of shrinking resources, and replaced it with SEPRA, a service focused on atmospheric reentries. CNES later said SEPRA was left with a single staff member and no editorial authority.
Government21 Sep 1987
In an address to the UN General Assembly, President Reagan said that if humanity faced an alien threat from outside this world, its differences would quickly vanish. It was a rhetorical point about global unity, not a statement about UFOs, but it is often quoted in UFO discussions.
Photo: Reagan Library, CC BY 3.0
Government5 Mar 1987
The FAA's Alaskan Region publicly released its file on the November 1986 JAL 1628 sighting: pilot-controller transcripts, crew and controller interviews, the captain's drawings and radar data. It said it could not confirm the event and attributed the radar returns to uncorrelated signals.
Government1987
Papers describing 'Majestic 12', a supposed 1947 committee handling a Roswell crash, were published by UFO researchers in 1987. The FBI closed an inquiry after learning the document was 'completely bogus', and the National Archives found no record of it beyond an unrelated 1954 memo.
Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Public domain
Government1987
Stanford astrophysicist Peter Sturrock published a review of the Air Force-funded Condon Report in the first issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration. He argued the director's summary differed substantially from the staff's case findings, which stressed unanswered questions.
Government17 Nov 1986
The crew of a Japan Air Lines 747 cargo flight bound for Anchorage reported lights and a large object pacing their aircraft over interior Alaska. The FAA interviewed the crew and reviewed the radar data.
Photo: contri from Yonezawa, Yamagata, Japan, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government4 Dec 1985
Speaking at Fallston High School after the Geneva summit, President Reagan said he had told Gorbachev privately that a threat from another planet would make the two nations forget their differences, adding that they could not wait for an alien race to bring that about.
Photo: President (1981-1989 : Reagan). White House Photographic Office. 1981-1989, Public domain
Government1985
A 1954 memo from Robert Cutler to Gen. Nathan Twining mentioning an 'MJ-12' meeting turned up in Air Force records at the National Archives. NARA later said it could not verify it, citing a missing register number, wrong markings and paper, and Cutler being abroad on the date.
Government1985
Physicist Harold Puthoff founded the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, a lab studying the quantum vacuum, gravity and interstellar flight science in relation to space propulsion and energy. It was incorporated under EarthTech International in 1991.
GovernmentMay 1982
Australia's Bureau of Air Safety Investigation released its summary report on pilot Frederick Valentich, who vanished over Bass Strait in 1978 after radioing about an unidentified craft. It said the reason for the disappearance had not been determined and presumed it fatal.
Photo: Ulfl, Public domain
Government8 Mar 1982
Citizens Against UFO Secrecy sued the National Security Agency over withheld UFO-related records. The group lost in district court, the D.C. Circuit affirmed in November 1981, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case in March 1982.
Photo: National Security Agency, Public domain
Government1980
Retired FBI agent Kenneth Rommel, funded by a federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration grant through the New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney, investigated mutilation reports and concluded the damage matched normal predator and scavenger activity, finding no support for UFO theories.
Government20 Apr 1979
Sen. Harrison Schmitt and U.S. Attorney R. E. Thompson hosted a conference on livestock mutilations in Albuquerque attended by law officers and investigators from 11 states. Schmitt had been pressing the FBI to investigate; the later Rommel report attributed the deaths to predators.
Photo: U.S Government, Public domain
Government5 Mar 1979
FBI headquarters told its Albuquerque office to investigate livestock mutilations on Indian lands in New Mexico, including the Jicarilla Apache and Santa Clara reservations, where the Bureau had jurisdiction. Elsewhere it lacked jurisdiction and did not investigate.
Photo: awmcphee, CC0
Government18 Jan 1979
The Earl of Clancarty moved a House of Lords debate calling for an intra-governmental study of UFOs. Replying for the government, Lord Strabolgi said reports had ordinary explanations, denied any cover-up and saw no case for an official study. The motion was withdrawn.
Government18 Dec 1978
After Grenada's prime minister Eric Gairy pressed the issue, the UN General Assembly adopted decision 33/426 on unidentified flying objects. Grenada's draft resolution for a UN agency on UFOs was never put to a vote, and the decision led to no lasting UN body.
Photo: White House, Public domain
