Topic
The books, broadcasts, films, podcasts and reporting that shaped what the public knows. 495 events, newest first.
Media1977
W. Todd Zechel, Brad Sparks and attorney Peter Gersten formed Citizens Against UFO Secrecy to press for release of government UFO records through FOIA requests and lawsuits. Its 1980 suit against the NSA ended with the agency withholding its records on national security grounds.
Media1977
Doubleday published The UFO Enigma by astronomer Donald Menzel and Ernest Taves, with an introduction by Fred Whipple. Appearing after Menzel's death in late 1976, it was his final book offering conventional explanations for UFO reports.
Photo: Fdavis99 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
MediaDec 1976
Astronomer Donald Menzel, a leading skeptic who explained UFO reports as natural and atmospheric effects, died in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Physics Today ran an obituary by Owen Gingerich in May 1977; his last UFO book appeared after his death.
Photo: Fdavis99 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
MediaNov 1976
The Center for UFO Studies began publishing the International UFO Reporter, its main news and feature magazine, with Volume 1, Number 1 dated November 1976. It ran until 2012, and CUFOS has since put the full run online.
Media30 Apr 1976
Philosopher Paul Kurtz launched the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal at an American Humanist Association meeting. Its journal, later the Skeptical Inquirer, became a main outlet for skeptical critiques of UFO claims, including books by Philip Klass.
Photo: RobertoTenore, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media18 Mar 1976
Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth premiered at the Leicester Square Theatre in London, with David Bowie in his first major film role as Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien visiting Earth.
Photo: Jean-Luc, CC BY-SA 2.0
Media1976
'Mysteries of the Gods', an English version of the West German documentary 'Botschaft der Gotter' based on Erich von Daniken's book Miracles of the Gods, was released in the U.S. in 1976 with William Shatner as host and narrator. Its ancient-astronaut claims are rejected by scientists.
Photo: Michal Manas, CC BY 3.0
Media20 Oct 1975
NBC broadcast The UFO Incident, a TV movie dramatizing Betty and Barney Hill's account of a 1961 abduction, based on John G. Fuller's book The Interrupted Journey. James Earl Jones played Barney Hill and Estelle Parsons played Betty Hill.
Media24 Mar 1975
Saturday Review Press/Dutton published John Keel's account of his 1966-67 investigation of 'Mothman' sightings, strange lights and visitors in West Virginia. Keel framed the events as 'ultra-terrestrial' rather than extraterrestrial; the book was loosely adapted into a 2002 film.
Photo: Jacket design by Peter Parnell, Public domain
Media21 Mar 1975
Walt Disney Productions' 'Escape to Witch Mountain', directed by John Hough, opened in Los Angeles. Two orphans with psychic powers learn they came to Earth by spaceship from a dying planet, and the film ends with a spaceship lifting them away.
Media20 Jan 1975
Claude Poher of the French space agency CNES and Jacques Vallee presented a statistical paper on patterns in UFO reports at the AIAA 13th Aerospace Sciences Meeting in Pasadena, placing the subject before a major engineering society.
Photo: Christopher Michel, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media1975
Former Blue Book consultant J. Allen Hynek and computer scientist Jacques Vallee published 'The Edge of Reality: A Progress Report on Unidentified Flying Objects', treating UFOs as a real but unexplained phenomenon and proposing a framework for further study.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Media1975
Jacques Vallee published The Invisible College (Dutton), describing an informal network of scientists he said had quietly traded UFO data for years, and asking whether the phenomenon acts on human belief. A French edition, Le college invisible, appeared the same year.
Photo: Cmichel67, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media1975
David M. Jacobs published The UFO Controversy in America with Indiana University Press, a history of the U.S. debate over UFO reports.
Photo: Hinata47d, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media1975
Arizona State University librarian Larry Kusche checked the records behind famous Bermuda Triangle disappearances one by one. His Harper and Row book found many losses happened in storms, outside the area, or had ordinary explanations, and it is widely credited with debunking the legend.
MediaOct 1974
NBC aired the TV movie The Disappearance of Flight 412, starring Glenn Ford. Two Air Force fighters vanish while intercepting radar UFOs, and the surviving crew is held at a remote base and pressed to deny what they saw. It dramatized the idea of an official UFO cover-up.
Photo: Alan Light, CC BY 2.0
MediaJan 1974
Aviation Week editor Philip J. Klass published UFOs Explained with Random House, arguing case by case that reports came from balloons, meteors, rocket debris, aircraft, radar effects, hoaxes and mistaken witnesses rather than alien craft. It became a standard skeptical reference.
Photo: Robert Sheaffer, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media1974
Robert Emenegger's documentary, hosted by Rod Serling, presented a possible 1964 alien landing at Holloman AFB. Emenegger later said officials had promised him real footage that never arrived, so the film used illustrations; only his account supports the promise.
Photo: CBS Television, Public domain
Media1974
At a ceremony marking an upgrade of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, scientists beamed a short pictorial radio message toward the globular cluster M13, about 21,000 light-years away. The SETI Institute notes a reply is unlikely ever to come.
Photo: Arne Nordmann ( norro ), CC BY-SA 3.0
MediaNov 1973
Bob Rickard started a small newsletter called The News in November 1973 to continue Charles Fort's cataloging of odd events. Renamed Fortean Times in 1976, it became a long-running magazine covering UFO reports alongside other anomalies.
Photo: TM/Diamond Publishing Ltd, Public domain
