Culture and science
The books that shaped how the public sees UFOs. 176 events, newest first.
Select any year above to see what happened that year.
Government9 May 2025
AARO posted military infrared videos from the Middle East in 2023 and 2024 that it lists as unresolved. It says each shows an apparent thermal contrast but that without other sensor data it cannot tell whether it is a physical object or a sensor artifact.
Photo: U.S. Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Public domain
WhistleblowersAug 2024
Luis Elizondo, who says he led the Pentagon's AATIP effort, published Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs, arguing that UFOs are a serious national security issue the Defense Department withholds. The Pentagon said in 2019 he had no responsibilities for AATIP.
Photo: Luis Elizondo/HarperCollins/United States Department of Defense, Public domain
MediaJun 2024
Penn State historian Greg Eghigian published a global history of the UFO phenomenon with Oxford University Press, drawing on archives, old newspapers and interviews to trace how witnesses, scientists, governments and media responded to sightings and abduction reports.
Media14 Nov 2023
Journalist and historian Garrett M. Graff published 'UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here - and Out There' with Avid Reader Press. Reviewers noted it surveys decades of official investigations, debunks many cases and takes no firm stance on what UFOs are.
Photo: Rosiestep, CC BY-SA 4.0
MediaNov 2023
St. Martin's published 'Encounters', a book by UNC Wilmington religious-studies professor D. W. Pasulka on people who report experiences with nonhuman intelligences and the spiritual meaning they attach to them.
Government14 Sep 2023
NASA's independent UAP study team released its final report, urging better-calibrated sensors and data and a larger NASA role. It said the scientific literature holds no conclusive evidence of an extraterrestrial origin. NASA said it was appointing a director of UAP research.
Photo: NASA, Public domain
Media5 Jun 2023
Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal reported in The Debrief that ex-intelligence officer David Grusch told Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General that the U.S. holds craft of non-human origin. His statements were cleared for release by the Pentagon's prepublication review office.
Photo: U.S. House Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, Public domain
Sightings24 May 2023
Harvard's Galileo Project announced that its first seven peer-reviewed papers were online in the Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation, ahead of a special issue. They describe the project's methods and its multi-sensor ground observatories for recording and screening aerial phenomena.
Photo: Christopher Michel, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media2023
Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb published 'Interstellar' (HarperCollins), a popular book following his earlier 'Extraterrestrial' and tied to his search for interstellar objects and possible alien technology.
Photo: Aviloeb, CC BY-SA 4.0
MediaJul 2021
Australian investigative journalist Ross Coulthart's book 'In Plain Sight: An Investigation into UFOs and Impossible Science' came out from HarperCollins in Australia, with a U.S. edition that October. Reviewers were divided; Coulthart later conducted the 2023 Grusch interview.
Photo: Mosman Library, CC BY 2.0
SightingsJun 2021
The SIGMA2 commission of France's aeronautics and astronautics association 3AF, drawing on former CNES, ESA, DGA and ONERA staff, released a progress report on unidentified aerospace phenomena days before the US intelligence report on UAP.
Media15 Mar 2021
Former New York Times reporter Ralph Blumenthal published the first biography of Harvard psychiatrist John Mack, who studied people reporting alien abductions. The book drew mixed reviews, including criticism that it was uncritical of Mack's conclusions.
Photo: Becket01, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media26 Jan 2021
Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb's book argued that the interstellar object 'Oumuamua could be an artifact of another civilization. Reviewers called it provocative, but many scientists were unconvinced, noting the object can no longer be observed to test the idea.
Photo: Christopher Michel, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media19 Jul 2019
History launched The UnXplained, a nonfiction series on unexplained mysteries hosted by William Shatner and produced by Kevin Burns of Ancient Aliens. It joined a Friday block that included Unidentified and Project Blue Book.
Photo: Super Festivals from Ft. Lauderdale, USA, CC BY 2.0
Government4 Apr 2019
By Resolution 364/2019 the Argentine Air Force restructured its aerospace phenomena commission (CEFAE) as the Centro de Identificacion Aeroespacial (CIAE) from April 4, 2019. The center publishes annual case reports and says most sightings it receives have ordinary causes.
Media8 Jan 2019
History premiered a period drama from executive producer Robert Zemeckis, starring Aidan Gillen as astronomer J. Allen Hynek, with episodes drawn from Air Force Blue Book cases. It ran two seasons before History ended it in 2020.
Photo: U.S. Air Force, Public domain
Media2019
UNC Wilmington religious studies professor D. W. Pasulka published 'American Cosmic' with Oxford University Press. Based on six years of interviews with scientists and tech figures who believe in extraterrestrial contact, it treats UFO belief as a new, technology-centered form of religion.
Whistleblowers2016
Charles Halt, deputy base commander at RAF Bentwaters in 1980, published The Halt Perspective with former police officer John Hanson, setting out his own account of the Rendlesham Forest events. In press coverage Halt said he believed the objects he saw were extraterrestrial.
Photo: Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, Public domain
Media20 Jan 2015
John Greenewald's site The Black Vault posted about 129,500 pages of Air Force Project Sign, Grudge and Blue Book records as searchable PDFs. The files had long been viewable on microfilm at the National Archives but had not been fully online.
MediaJun 2013
Mirage Men, a documentary based on Mark Pilkington's book of the same name, premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest. The book argues that U.S. intelligence agencies promoted UFO stories for disinformation and cover purposes rather than simply hiding them.
Photo: Sheffdocfest, CC BY-SA 4.0
Whistleblowers2011
John B. Alexander, a retired Army colonel who had asked about UFOs inside intelligence and defense circles, published a book saying he found no secret government UFO program or cover-up, while still treating some sightings as real and unexplained.
Photo: US mil, Public domain
Media10 Aug 2010
Journalist Leslie Kean's book, published by Harmony Books with a foreword by John Podesta, collected first-person chapters by military pilots, generals and former officials from several countries, including France's Jean-Jacques Velasco and Belgium's Wilfried De Brouwer.
Close encountersSep 2009
As Yukio Hatoyama prepared to become Japan's prime minister, wide press coverage noted that his wife Miyuki had written in a 2008 book that her soul rode a triangular UFO to Venus while she slept. She said a former husband had called it a dream.
Photo: Lawrence Jackson, White House photographer, Public domain
Whistleblowers2007
Jesse Marcel Jr., son of Roswell intelligence officer Jesse Marcel Sr., published The Roswell Legacy, describing how as a 10-year-old he was shown debris his father brought home in 1947. The military has said the debris came from a balloon; his account rests on childhood memory.
Photo: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Public domain
Government2007
Yves Sillard, a former director-general of France's space agency CNES, published a 2007 book on unidentified aerospace phenomena. He told a regional daily the extraterrestrial idea should be weighed seriously and objectively but remained only a hypothesis.
