Topic
The books, broadcasts, films, podcasts and reporting that shaped what the public knows. 495 events, newest first.
Media5 Jan 1985
Science writer Ian Ridpath argued in The Guardian that the Rendlesham Forest lights of 1980 were a bright fireball followed by the flashing Orford Ness lighthouse seen through the trees. It became the leading skeptical explanation; witnesses such as Col. Charles Halt rejected it.
Photo: David Merrett, CC BY 2.0
Media1985
The Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici, a volunteer research association based in Turin, was formed at the end of 1985. It says it investigates sighting reports with a written methodology, archives Italian UFO documentation and rejects conspiracy and alien-cult beliefs.
Media1985
Mike Hodges's British comedy, written by and starring Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, has four dim, human-looking aliens crash a rented spaceship on the M1, are freed from a secret government prison and end up as pop celebrities. It flopped at the box office.
Media14 Dec 1984
Columbia Pictures released John Carpenter's Starman, in which a stranded alien takes human form and travels with a widow to reach a pickup site. Jeff Bridges was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for the role.
Media20 Nov 1984
Thomas Pierson and astronomer Jill Tarter founded the SETI Institute, a nonprofit to research life beyond Earth. After Congress ended NASA's SETI program in 1993, the institute carried the radio search on with private funds as Project Phoenix.
Photo: Eugene Zelenko, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media1984
Astronomer J. Allen Hynek moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, drawn by a potential benefactor for his UFO research. The hoped-for revival of his work did not materialize, and he died in Scottsdale in 1986.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Media1984
Daniel Kagan and Ian Summers published 'Mute Evidence', a nationwide study of cattle mutilation reports. They traced the reports to poor observation and unfounded rumor rather than any unknown agent; a later reference work called it the definitive account.
Media16 Sep 1983
Michael Laughlin's Strange Invaders, a pastiche of 1950s saucer films, opened in U.S. theaters. A professor tracks his ex-wife to a small Illinois town that aliens have secretly occupied since 1958.
MediaMay 1983
NBC aired Kenneth Johnson's two-part miniseries V on consecutive nights, about friendly-seeming visitors who are secretly reptilian invaders. The premiere drew about a 40 share and led to sequels and a 2009 remake.
Photo: ArquiWHAT, Public domain
Media11 Apr 1983
At the 55th Academy Awards, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial won four of its nine nominations: original score for John Williams, sound, sound effects editing and visual effects.
Photo: White House Photographic Office, Public domain
Media1983
Prometheus Books published Philip Klass's argument that claims of a government UFO cover-up misread the record and that the public had been misled by promoters and credulous media. The Skeptical Inquirer reviewed it in 1984.
Photo: Robert Sheaffer, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media1983
Mike Gray's low-budget New World Pictures film Wavelength follows a woman who traces telepathic cries to child-like aliens held at a military installation in the Los Angeles hills. In 1985 critics said Starman borrowed its spherical spaceship.
Media12 Oct 1982
PBS's NOVA broadcast 'The Case of the UFOs', which its listing presents as a scientific television inquiry sorting genuine reports from fiction and hoaxes. The program drew on film and eyewitness testimony, astronauts among them, and weighed arguments on both sides.
MediaOct 1982
Carl Sagan and 68 other scientists, among them seven Nobel laureates, published a petition in Science urging a coordinated worldwide radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence, arguing the question could only be settled by observation.
Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media25 Jun 1982
Universal released John Carpenter's The Thing, which opens with a flying saucer crashing to Earth and follows an Antarctic research team menaced by a shape-shifting alien. Critics savaged it on release, but it later came to be regarded as a classic.
Photo: Kyle Cassidy, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media11 Jun 1982
Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial opened across the U.S. after closing the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. Its story of a gentle stranded alien befriended by a boy became a huge box office success and cemented a benevolent image of aliens in popular culture.
Media1982
British researcher Paul Devereux's book Earth Lights argued that some unexplained light reports are natural geophysical phenomena linked to stresses in the earth's crust. Critics, including a 1983 Magonia review, disputed the tectonic link.
Media1982
Space engineer and writer James Oberg published 'UFOs and Outer Space Mysteries: A Sympathetic Skeptic's Report' with Donning. Reviewers noted he examined astronaut and space-related UFO stories and hoax photos and concluded the evidence did not convince him.
Photo: RobertoTenore, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media2 Dec 1981
Jean Girault's La Soupe aux choux, adapted from Rene Fallet's novel, opened in France. Louis de Funes and Jean Carmet play elderly farmers visited by an extraterrestrial; it drew just over 3 million admissions.
Photo: Marisa Rastellini (Mondadori Publisher), Public domain
Media1981
Skeptic Robert Sheaffer, a longtime Skeptical Inquirer columnist, published The UFO Verdict: Examining the Evidence (Prometheus Books), reviewing well-known UFO cases and arguing they had ordinary explanations.
Photo: Sgerbic, CC BY-SA 3.0
