Topic
The books, broadcasts, films, podcasts and reporting that shaped what the public knows. 342 events, newest first.
Media25 Jan 2002
Screen Gems released a thriller starring Richard Gere loosely adapted from John Keel's 1975 book about strange sightings around Point Pleasant, West Virginia. It renewed public interest in the Mothman reports and the 1967 Silver Bridge collapse.
Photo: Jacket design by Peter Parnell, Public domain
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
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
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
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
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
Media13 Aug 1997
Comedy Central premiered South Park with 'Cartman Gets an Anal Probe,' in which aliens probe Cartman and abduct a younger child. The crude pilot lampooned familiar abduction tropes and launched a long-running series.
Photo: Comedy Central, Public domain
Media27 Jul 1997
Showtime premiered Stargate SG-1, a series sequel to the 1994 film starring Richard Dean Anderson as an officer leading teams through an alien gateway. It ran ten seasons, moving to the Sci-Fi Channel for the last five.
Photo: Falashad, CC BY 2.0
Media11 Jul 1997
Warner Bros. released Contact, Robert Zemeckis's adaptation of Carl Sagan's novel, starring Jodie Foster as a radio astronomer who detects a signal from the star Vega. It framed alien contact through radio searches rather than saucers.
Photo: NASA, Public domain
Media2 Jul 1997
Sony released Men in Black, a comedy about agents who police aliens living secretly on Earth, drawing on UFO lore about mysterious men who silence witnesses. It earned about $589 million worldwide and launched a franchise.
Photo: Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Public domain
MediaJul 1997
Roswell, New Mexico, staged a celebration for the 50th anniversary of the 1947 debris recovery, with tens of thousands of visitors expected. It came days after the Air Force released 'The Roswell Report: Case Closed', which attributed alien-body stories to test dummies.
Photo: J Dykstra, Public domain
Media23 Jun 1997
TIME's June 23, 1997 issue put Roswell on its cover, with a story by Leon Jaroff arguing that mundane debris found in 1947 grew, through retelling, into a far larger legend of a recovered flying saucer.
Media26 Mar 1997
San Diego County authorities found 39 members of the Heaven's Gate group dead in a Rancho Santa Fe mansion after a planned mass suicide. Officials and people who knew the group said members believed a UFO trailing Comet Hale-Bopp would take them away.
Photo: Heaven's Gate, Public domain
