Topic
The books, broadcasts, films, podcasts and reporting that shaped what the public knows. 342 events, newest first.
Media6 May 2008
Political scientists Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall argued in the journal Political Theory that a taboo keeps states and science from taking UFOs seriously, and that this taboo serves modern sovereignty, which is organized around humans alone.
Photo: Rion Hiun, CC0
Media30 Jan 2008
History premiered UFO Hunters, a series following a UFO Magazine team investigating cases in North America and Europe, on 30 January 2008. The Sci Fi Channel launched an unrelated series with the same name the same night.
MediaAug 2007
Online videos of saucers flying over Haiti spread widely in August 2007. Within about a week the Los Angeles Times identified their maker as a French computer animator, who said he made the clips as a test for a film project and did not expect them to go viral.
MediaApr 2007
Videos posted to YouTube in April 2007 claimed to show a secret 'Apollo 20' mission finding an alien craft and a body on the Moon. No Apollo 20 ever flew (the mission was canceled), and French artist Thierry Speth later said he made the videos as fiction.
MediaApr 2006
Ahead of a 2006 comedy film about them, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield said the 1995 'alien autopsy' footage was a re-creation they staged, which they called a restoration of film they claimed to have seen. Sculptor John Humphreys said he made the alien body.
Media16 Sep 2005
CBS launched Threshold, a Friday-night drama starring Carla Gugino as a contingency planner leading a secret government team after a hostile alien first contact. The title was the plan's code name. Variety praised it but doubted it would draw beyond a cult audience.
Photo: Sidewalks Entertainment, CC BY 3.0
Media9 Aug 2005
Philip J. Klass, the Aviation Week editor who spent decades arguing that UFO reports had ordinary explanations, died at 85 in Florida. He wrote several skeptical books on the subject.
Photo: Robert Sheaffer, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media29 Jun 2005
Paramount released Steven Spielberg's remake of H.G. Wells' alien-invasion story in U.S. theaters on 29 June 2005. It grossed about $234 million in North America and about $604 million worldwide.
Photo: Mr Bullitt, CC BY 3.0
Media24 Feb 2005
ABC broadcast a two-hour prime-time special in which anchor Peter Jennings examined UFO reports from 1947 onward, interviewing pilots, police and military witnesses as well as skeptics. A syndicated preview called it measured and noted it offered no proof of a visiting spacecraft.
Photo: Sgt. John Queen, Public domain
Media2005
In a 2005 Science Channel documentary, Aldrin described a light that seemed to travel alongside Apollo 11. He later told the AP the interview was edited to omit his explanation: most likely sunlight off a panel shed by the spacecraft. The 1969 crew debrief records the sighting.
Photo: Neil A. Armstrong, Public domain
Media2005
Paradise Valley physician Lynne Kitei, author of a book on the 1997 Phoenix Lights, premiered her documentary on the sightings at a Phoenix-area cinema in 2005. She has said she witnessed the lights herself.
Media5 Jul 2004
The History Channel began UFO Files, a documentary series reviewing reported UFO sightings from the late 1940s onward. Episode guides list the first broadcast on July 5, 2004.
Media13 Sep 2003
A stainless-steel Mothman sculpture by retired welder Bob Roach was unveiled in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, with author John Keel as guest of honor. It became a tourist landmark for the town's 1966-67 creature reports.
Photo: Csassen13, CC0
Media8 Aug 2003
Rakesh Roshan's Hindi film Koi... Mil Gaya opened in India. Hrithik Roshan plays a young man who befriends a small blue alien, nicknamed Jadu, left behind by a spacecraft. Variety reported it as a runaway hit; critics noted its debt to E.T.
Photo: Bollywood Hungama, CC BY 3.0
Media2 Dec 2002
Steven Spielberg Presents Taken, a ten-part Sci Fi Channel drama following families entangled with alien abductions and government secrecy from the 1940s onward, premiered. It won the 2003 Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries.
Photo: Helene C. Stikkel, Public domain
Media22 Nov 2002
The Sci Fi Channel aired a two-hour special hosted by Bryant Gumbel on the dig it sponsored at the reputed 1947 crash site. University of New Mexico archaeologists led by William Doleman worked there for 10 days in September 2002; Doleman said they found items he could not yet identify.
Photo: Peabody Awards, CC BY 2.0
MediaNov 2002
Thai broadcaster iTV aired footage it said showed Lao soldiers firing tracer rounds across the Mekong during the yearly glowing-ball festival at Nong Khai. Thousands of residents protested the report, and Laos' ambassador objected; skeptics favor fireworks or tracers as the cause.
Photo: J A Forbes, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media2 Aug 2002
Disney's Touchstone released Signs, a thriller in which crop circles on a Pennsylvania farm herald an alien invasion. It grossed about $408 million worldwide, among the most successful alien-themed films of its decade.
Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media19 May 2002
Fox aired The Truth, the two-hour finale of The X-Files, ending its nine-season original run. Creator Chris Carter said it would close some storylines but not answer every question about the government-conspiracy plot. The series later returned in 2016.
Photo: David Shankbone, CC BY 3.0
MediaMar 2002
Universal re-released E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for its 20th anniversary with added scenes and digital effects. The guns carried by government agents chasing the boys were digitally replaced with walkie-talkies, a change Spielberg later called a mistake.
Photo: White House Photographic Office, Public domain
