Culture and science
The books that shaped how the public sees UFOs. 176 events, newest first.
Media1960
The second edition of former Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt's The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects added three chapters reviewing later cases and ending with a far more skeptical view, closing on the phrase 'our Space Age Myth - the UFO'.
Photo: Associated Press, Public domain
Media1958
Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung published Ein moderner Mythus, later translated as Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. Jung set aside whether saucers were physical craft and treated the wave of sightings as a psychological and cultural response to an anxious era.
Photo: Francis Domiano, CC0
Media1958
French writer Aime Michel's 1958 book, published in English as Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery, argued that same-day sightings in the 1954 French wave fell on straight lines. Astronomer Donald Menzel later argued the alignments matched chance.
Military1958
Tuskegee Airman Robert Friend led the Air Force's Project Blue Book from 1958 to 1963. He tried without success to have the project moved to a civilian agency such as NASA.
Military3 Nov 1957
Two U.S. Army patrols at White Sands reported a very bright light near the horizon and later a pulsating light, hours after the Levelland reports made national news. Project Blue Book concluded the first sighting was the setting Moon and the second was Venus.
Photo: Project Blue Book, Public domain
SightingsNov 1957
Project Blue Book logged 361 reports in November 1957, one of its busiest months, helping make 1957 the only year from 1953 to 1965 with over a thousand reports. The surge came days after Sputnik 2 and included Levelland, Texas and a White Sands report the Air Force publicly addressed.
Photo: U.S. Air Force, Public domain
MediaJul 1956
Columbia released Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, a science fiction film with saucer effects by Ray Harryhausen. Its credits say it was suggested by Donald Keyhoe's book Flying Saucers from Outer Space.
Photo: american film trailer screenshot (Columbia Pictures), Public domain
Media1956
Edward Ruppelt, former head of the Air Force's Project Blue Book, published an inside account of its UFO investigations with Doubleday. In the book he wrote that he created the term 'UFO' to replace 'flying saucers'.
Photo: Associated Press, Public domain
Media1956
West Virginia writer Gray Barker's book retold Albert Bender's claim that three men in black suits silenced his saucer club in 1953, bringing the Men in Black idea to a wide audience. Researchers have since questioned how much of Barker's writing was in good faith.
Media1956
After Morris Jessup's 1955 book The Case for UFO's, a writer calling himself Carlos Allende sent him letters claiming the Navy made a ship invisible in 1943, and an annotated copy of the book reached the Office of Naval Research in 1956. ONR says no such experiment was ever conducted.
Photo: U.S. Navy, Public domain
Media5 Dec 1955
Retired Marine Maj. Donald Keyhoe's third UFO book, published by Henry Holt, charged that the Pentagon was keeping what it knew about UFOs from the public. Kirkus described it as his case for official secrecy, unexplained air crashes and sightings.
Photo: CBS, "The Mike Wallace Interview" 1958 March 8, Public domain
GovernmentOct 1955
Air Force Secretary Donald Quarles made public the Battelle statistical analysis of saucer reports (Special Report 14), saying the Air Force found no sign of technology beyond known science. Critics later argued the study's 'unknowns' were not resolved by the data.
Photo: United States Air Force, Public domain
Government5 May 1955
Blue Book Special Report No. 14, a statistical analysis of about 3,200 reports through 1952 carried out with Battelle Memorial Institute, judged it highly improbable that the unidentified cases reflected technology beyond known science. The Air Force made it public in October 1955.
Photo: US Air Force, Public domain
Media1954
A book credited to Cedric Allingham claimed its author met a Martian pilot near Lossiemouth in February 1954. In 1986 researchers argued it was a spoof: Peter Davies admitted revising it and posing as Allingham, and they named astronomer Patrick Moore, who never admitted a role, as author.
Photo: David Scanlan, Public domain
Media1954
Former Project Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt wrote an article for True magazine titled 'What Our Air Force Found Out About Flying Saucers', an early public account of his time running the Air Force investigation, two years before his book.
Photo: Associated Press, Public domain
Government26 Aug 1953
The Air Force issued AFR 200-2, 'Unidentified Flying Objects Reporting', setting how bases report and investigate sightings. Its 1954 revision let officials discuss a case with the press only once the object was identified as familiar; AFR 200-2 governed Project Blue Book into the 1960s.
Photo: United States Air Force, Public domain
Military12 Aug 1953
A Ground Observer Corps spotter near Rapid City reported a bright light that Ellsworth AFB radar then tracked; an F-84 pilot chased it and reported a radar lock before breaking off. Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt, who investigated in person, called it the best report in the Air Force files.
Photo: Staff Sgt. Marc I. Lane, U.S. Air Force, Public domain
Media1953
London publisher T. Werner Laurie issued a book pairing Desmond Leslie's history of sky sightings with George Adamski's claim of meeting a Venusian in 1952. It became a bestseller and a founding text of the contactee movement; Adamski's claims are widely regarded as hoaxes.
Media1953
Donald Keyhoe's second UFO book appeared, built on Air Force case reports released to the press and arguing for an extraterrestrial origin. It hit bestseller lists; a CIA review called it highly distorted, and Ruppelt said its sighting details were accurate but its interpretations were not.
Photo: CBS, "The Mike Wallace Interview" 1958 March 8, Public domain
Media1953
Harvard astrophysicist Donald Menzel published Flying Saucers through Harvard University Press, arguing that most reports were mirages and other optical effects. The Condon Report later called it an excellent book while noting its reputation as a debunking one.
Photo: Babette Whipple, CC BY-SA 3.0
Military1953
With Project Blue Book short of staff, its chief Edward Ruppelt arranged for the Air Defense Command's 4602nd Air Intelligence Service Squadron, a unit with field teams across the U.S., to investigate UFO reports. Blue Book would then analyze cases the teams could not explain.
Photo: U.S. government (NORAD Office of History), Public domain
Military1953
Capt. Edward Ruppelt, who had run the Air Force's UFO project through the 1952 wave, left Project Blue Book and the Air Force in 1953. His 1956 book says he asked for a transfer in December 1952, no replacement came, and he was again handling Blue Book cases in August 1953.
Photo: Associated Press, Public domain
Government31 Dec 1952
Project Blue Book's Status Report No. 8 summarized summer 1952 conferences its contract astronomer, J. Allen Hynek, held with 44 professional astronomers. Five had seen things they could not readily explain; most were neither hostile nor very interested in the subject.
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
Close encounters20 Nov 1952
George Adamski claimed he met a man from Venus beside a landed scout ship near Desert Center, California, after leaving six companions down the road. His 1953 book with Desmond Leslie told the story and sold widely; Blue Book chief Ruppelt recounted it with open skepticism.
Photo: Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0
MediaSep 1952
Writer J. P. Cahn's True magazine article showed that the crashed-saucer tale in Frank Scully's bestseller traced to Silas Newton and Leo GeBauer, the book's 'Dr. Gee'. Their 'alien' metal tested as ordinary aluminum, and both were arrested that fall in an oil-detector fraud case.
