Topic
The books, broadcasts, films, podcasts and reporting that shaped what the public knows. 495 events, newest first.
Media8 Jun 2001
Ivan Reitman's comedy Evolution, starring David Duchovny and Orlando Jones, opened in U.S. theaters. In the story a meteor lands in the Arizona desert carrying single-celled organisms that rapidly evolve into alien creatures, and two college teachers try to stop them.
Photo: Jose Galvez, Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0
Media30 Mar 2001
Nickelodeon premiered Jhonen Vasquez's animated series Invader Zim, about an incompetent alien invader from the planet Irk who tries to conquer Earth from a suburban house. It developed a cult following after its short original run.
Photo: Super Festivals from Ft. Lauderdale, USA, CC BY 2.0
MediaOct 2000
Astronomers Ivan Almar and Jill Tarter proposed a 0 to 10 scale for rating the importance and credibility of any announced evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, at a 2000 congress in Rio de Janeiro. The IAA SETI committee adopted it in 2002.
Photo: Attila Magyar - Kossuth kiado, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media1 Apr 2000
Historian Richard Dolan published the first volume of 'UFOs and the National Security State', a history of U.S. government handling of UFOs from 1941 to 1973 built on declassified records, which argues the government hid what it knew.
Photo: David Maluenda, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media2000
Journalist Leslie Kean wrote about a 1999 French report on UFOs by retired officers and experts (the COMETA report) for the Boston Globe, which ran it after about six months of pitching. Kean later said the paper heavily edited it. She went on to co-write the 2017 New York Times story.
Media2000
Rancher Judy Messoline built a small viewing platform and campground in Colorado's San Luis Valley, an area with sighting reports since the 1960s. She told NPR it began as a joke to draw highway traffic; it now logs visitor-reported sightings.
Photo: Plazak, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media25 Dec 1999
DreamWorks released 'Galaxy Quest', a Star Trek parody in which aliens called Thermians, who received broadcasts of an old TV show and took it as fact, recruit its has-been cast to save them from an invading warlord. It won the Hugo for best dramatic presentation.
MediaNov 1999
Stanford astrophysicist Peter Sturrock published 'The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence', built on the 1997 Pocantico review in which scientists heard case evidence. It concluded some cases merit study and called for systematic data collection.
Media6 Oct 1999
The WB premiered Roswell, a teen drama based on Melinda Metz's Roswell High novels in which a small-town high schooler learns that a classmate is an alien tied to the alleged 1947 crash in Roswell, New Mexico.
Photo: 20th Television, Public domain
Media17 May 1999
UC Berkeley's SETI@home project went public, letting volunteers' home computers search Arecibo radio telescope data for narrow-band signals that might come from another civilization. About a million people joined quickly; no confirmed signal was found.
Photo: Alberthuang2 ( talk ), CC BY-SA 3.0
Media12 Feb 1999
Walt Disney Pictures released a film remake of the 1960s sitcom about a Martian stranded on Earth, directed by Donald Petrie, with a cast including Jeff Daniels, Christopher Lloyd and the series' original star Ray Walston. It was poorly reviewed and lost money.
Photo: Gabriel Tyner, CC BY 2.0
Media1999
Distributor BKN launched an animated series named for the 1947 Roswell crash legend, in which aliens are behind myths such as werewolves and vampires. Trade press said BKN pitched it to ride the X-Files wave, with a U.S. run on its Bulldog TV block from late August 1999.
Media28 Dec 1998
Fox, which aired 'Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?' in 1995, broadcast 'World's Greatest Hoaxes: Secrets Finally Revealed,' hosted by Lance Henriksen. The special presented the autopsy footage as staged and was made by the same executive producer, Robert Kiviat.
MediaDec 1998
Photos of a dark, oddly shaped object taken during shuttle mission STS-88 were later promoted online as an ancient alien 'Black Knight' satellite. Astronaut Jerry Ross and former NASA engineer James Oberg identified it as a thermal blanket that drifted away during a spacewalk.
Photo: NASA, Public domain
Media19 Jun 1998
20th Century Fox released the first X-Files feature film, which carried the TV series' story of a government cover-up of alien activity to a theatrical audience between the show's fifth and sixth seasons. It grossed about $189 million worldwide.
Photo: Fox Broadcasting Company, Public domain
Media25 Mar 1998
Hon-Ming Chen, leader of the Taiwanese group Chen Tao, had predicted God would appear on TV channel 18 and then in person on March 31 at his Garland home, arriving by flying saucer. When nothing aired on March 25, Chen told reporters his predictions could be treated as nonsense.
Media20 Jan 1998
UPN aired the mock documentary Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County, a TV remake of Dean Alioto's 1989 McPherson Tape. Many viewers took it as real and some local papers ran notices that it was fiction, while some UFO researchers, including Stanton Friedman, argued it reflected a real tape.
MediaOct 1997
Earth: Final Conflict, developed from concepts left by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, began in U.S. first-run syndication. The series imagined aliens arriving openly on Earth and a human resistance that suspects their motives.
Photo: Beth Madison, CC BY 2.0
Media14 Sep 1997
Gillian Anderson won the Primetime Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a drama series for playing FBI agent Dana Scully on The X-Files.
Photo: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0
Media11 Sep 1997
During an open-line night on Coast to Coast AM, a frantic caller claiming to be a former Area 51 worker began describing alien beings when the show's satellite feed failed. Host Art Bell returned on a backup system; the caller's identity and claims were never verified.
