Topic
The books, broadcasts, films, podcasts and reporting that shaped what the public knows. 495 events, newest first.
Media1996
Researcher Jacques Vallee published FastWalker, a novel written in collaboration with screenwriter Tracy Torme. The Library of Congress catalogued it under the subject 'Unidentified flying objects -- Fiction'.
Photo: Christopher Michel, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media1996
The X-Files aired Jose Chung's From Outer Space, an episode about aliens. Its art direction, by Graeme Murray and Shirley Inget, drew a 1996 Emmy nomination but lost to Murder One.
Photo: Marcin Wichary from San Francisco, U.S.A., CC BY 2.0
Media1996
David Twohy's The Arrival starred Charlie Sheen as a SETI radio astronomer who detects an alien signal, is fired, and uncovers aliens disguised as humans who are secretly warming Earth. It was overshadowed by Independence Day, released soon after.
Photo: Angela George, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media6 Oct 1995
At a conference in Florence, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva announced 51 Pegasi b, a Jupiter-mass planet orbiting a Sun-like star. Their Nature paper followed in November 1995, and the find earned a share of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Photo: L. Weinstein/Ciel et Espace Photos, CC BY 4.0
Media28 Aug 1995
Fox broadcast a special built around Ray Santilli's black-and-white film said to show a 1947 alien autopsy, hosted by Jonathan Frakes. In 2006 Santilli admitted the film was a staged recreation, while still claiming it was based on genuine footage he had seen; no such footage has been produced.
Media28 Aug 1995
Star Trek: Voyager opened its second season with 'The 37's', in which the crew finds Amelia Earhart and other people abducted from Earth in 1937 by aliens called the Briori and held in stasis on a distant planet.
Photo: Underwood & Underwood (active 1880 - c. 1950) [1], Public domain
Media19 May 1995
Fox aired 'Anasazi', the X-Files season 2 finale. A hacker leaks Defense Department files on UFOs, written in Navajo code, and Mulder finds a buried boxcar full of alien-looking bodies in New Mexico before it is set on fire with him inside.
Photo: Fox Broadcasting Company, Public domain
Media26 Mar 1995
Showtime premiered a revival of the 1963 anthology series The Outer Limits. It ran seven seasons and 152 episodes, the last on Syfy, and its stories included alien encounters such as a woman possessed by an alien entity.
Photo: MGM Television, Public domain
MediaFeb 1995
After Congress ended NASA's SETI program in 1993, the SETI Institute continued its targeted search with private donations as Project Phoenix, starting at the Parkes telescope. Through 2004 it examined about 800 nearby stars and reported no extraterrestrial signals.
Photo: division, CSIRO, CC BY 3.0
Media21 Jan 1995
At the 52nd Golden Globe Awards, The X-Files won best television series, drama, over ER, NYPD Blue, Chicago Hope and Picket Fences. It won the category again in 1997 and 1998, marking the show's move from cult hit to mainstream success.
Photo: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0
Media28 Oct 1994
MGM released Roland Emmerich's Stargate, starring Kurt Russell and James Spader, which builds on the ancient-astronaut idea that an alien posed as an Egyptian god. It launched a long-running TV and film franchise.
Photo: Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media14 Oct 1994
Fox aired the X-Files episode 'Duane Barry', in which a former FBI agent who believes he was abducted takes hostages and Mulder is brought in to negotiate. Barry later abducts Scully, and the follow-up 'Ascension' a week later leaves Mulder convinced she was taken by aliens or the government.
Media1 Oct 1994
TNT aired a two-hour live special, 'The UFO Cover-Up? Live From Area 51', with Larry King broadcasting a few miles from the base. A preview listed guests including Carl Sagan, Barry Goldwater and William Shatner, with debunkers alongside believers.
Photo: Simon Johansson, Public domain
MediaJul 1994
Showtime aired Roswell, a TV film directed by Jeremy Kagan with Kyle MacLachlan as an Air Force intelligence officer revisiting the 1947 events and Martin Sheen in support. It dramatized claims that a flying saucer was recovered and the story covered up.
Photo: Roswell Daily Record, Public domain
MediaApr 1994
Aerospace historian Curtis Peebles published 'Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth' with the Smithsonian Institution Press, a skeptical history arguing UFO reports stem from misidentifications, hoaxes and an evolving cultural myth.
Media20 Nov 1993
The Sci-Fi Channel aired 'Official Denial', its first made-for-TV movie, filmed in Australia. Parker Stevenson plays a man whose abduction claims are dismissed until a secret government team shoots down an alien craft and holds its sole survivor.
Photo: ABC Television, Public domain
Media10 Sep 1993
Fox premiered Chris Carter's drama The X-Files, in which a skeptic and a believer investigate unexplained phenomena. It ran to 2002, and its 1996 Peabody citation said it prompted viewers to discuss unexplained phenomena and the motives of government officials.
Photo: Marcin Wichary from San Francisco, U.S.A., CC BY 2.0
Media23 Jul 1993
Paramount released Coneheads, a comedy based on the Saturday Night Live sketch, starring Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin as stranded aliens passing as suburban Americans while immigration agents pursue them.
MediaMar 1993
Director Robert Lieberman's film Fire in the Sky, starring D.B. Sweeney as Travis Walton, opened in March 1993. It dramatized Walton's claim that he vanished for five days in 1975 after a UFO encounter in Arizona, and the suspicion that fell on his co-workers.
Photo: SMG2019, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media1993
Art Bell's overnight talk show Coast to Coast AM, broadcast from his home studio in the Nevada desert, became syndicated nationwide and turned into a leading outlet for listener calls about UFOs and the paranormal. Bell died in 2018.
