Culture and science
NICAP, APRO, MUFON, CUFOS, NIDS, To The Stars, the Sol Foundation and other private groups. 41 events, newest first.
Select any year above to see what happened that year.
Open Civilian research groups as a timeline
Media6 Jan 2026
Americans for Safe Aerospace, in a post by Ryan Graves, announced a white paper arguing that the regulatory framework for pilots keeps about 90 percent of pilot UAP sightings unreported, and that career risk is the main reason pilots stay silent.
Photo: U.S. House Committee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, Public domain
Whistleblowers24 Oct 2025
The Sol Foundation held its third UAP symposium on the shores of Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, October 24-27, 2025. Listed speakers included Karl Nell, Jacques Vallee, Garry Nolan, Tim Gallaudet, Beatriz Villarroel and Jake Barber.
Photo: Killarnee, CC BY-SA 4.0
Whistleblowers22 Nov 2024
The Sol Foundation, a UAP think tank founded by Stanford academics, held its second annual symposium on Nov. 22-23, 2024. Speakers included former NOAA head Tim Gallaudet, a former Senate Armed Services staffer, and scientists Garry Nolan, Avi Loeb and Jacques Vallee.
WhistleblowersMar 2024
Retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, a former Oceanographer of the Navy, published the Sol Foundation's first policy paper, 'Beneath the Surface', arguing that UAP research should look at the ocean and at reported objects that move between air and water.
Photo: United States Department of Commerce, Public domain
Whistleblowers17 Nov 2023
The Sol Foundation, a UAP research and policy group led by Stanford's Garry Nolan, held an invitation-only two-day symposium at Stanford. Speakers included former NOAA official Tim Gallaudet and Army Col. Karl Nell, and David Grusch appeared remotely. Lecture videos were later posted.
Photo: King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 3.0
Whistleblowers2023
Former Navy F/A-18F pilot Ryan Graves founded Americans for Safe Aerospace, a nonprofit that says it supports pilots who report UAP and pushes for better reporting. Graves says pilots began sending reports to the group because they lacked another channel.
Photo: U.S. House Committee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, Public domain
Whistleblowers2022
Stanford pathologist Garry Nolan and anthropologist Peter Skafish co-founded the Sol Foundation, a research institute and policy think tank on UAP that says it formed in 2022 after Congress received an intelligence report on the subject. It went on to hold annual symposia and publish policy papers.
Whistleblowers2020
Former Pentagon official Luis Elizondo and former intelligence official Christopher Mellon, who joined Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy in 2017, left the company at the end of 2020. They later said the firm's science mission was losing out to entertainment.
Photo: Max Moszkowicz, CC BY 3.0
Media31 May 2019
History premiered a six-part series following Luis Elizondo, Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy and former Pentagon official Chris Mellon. It featured Navy pilot David Fravor describing his 2004 encounter and other accounts tied to the Navy cases.
Photo: Max Moszkowicz, CC BY 3.0
WhistleblowersOct 2017
Luis Elizondo, who said he ran the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, left the Defense Department in October 2017, citing a lack of support for the work, and joined Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy.
Photo: Max Moszkowicz, CC BY 3.0
MediaAug 2017
To The Stars Academy's August 2017 SEC filing lists Christopher Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence and Senate Intelligence Committee staff director, on its advisory board. He was presented with the team at its October launch.
Photo: Max Moszkowicz, CC BY 3.0
Media14 Mar 2017
To The Stars Academy's 2017 SEC offering filing lists physicist Harold Puthoff, known for SRI remote viewing research, as a director from 14 March 2017 and its vice president for science and technology. The company later released Navy UAP videos.
Sightings10 Aug 2015
A volunteer group, the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, released an analysis of the 2013 Aguadilla infrared video arguing a wind-borne object could not explain it. In 2025 AARO assessed with moderate confidence that the objects were sky lanterns.
Photo: Miguelpr91 at English Wikipedia, Public domain
Media28 Feb 2014
A cable documentary series built on the Mutual UFO Network's archive of more than 70,000 case files premiered on Feb. 28, 2014, with MUFON members appearing as hosts. It ran two seasons and reflected UFO case material moving into reality-style TV.
SightingsJul 2008
MUFON released a 76-page analysis of FAA radar data obtained under FOIA for the Jan. 8, 2008 Stephenville sightings, saying it showed objects flying without transponders. Skeptics said it picked 187 points out of millions of noise returns and that F-16s dropping flares explain the lights.
Photo: CletusDitto, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings19 Jan 2008
Texas MUFON held a public meeting in Dublin, Texas, where investigators took statements from about 50 witnesses to the Stephenville-area lights. The group's journal estimated 200 to 600 attendees and said national media crews crowded in.
Photo: Renegomezphotography, CC BY-SA 4.0
Skinwalker Ranch2005
Former NIDS deputy administrator Colm Kelleher and Las Vegas reporter George Knapp published Hunt for the Skinwalker, describing incidents the authors say NIDS researchers recorded at the Utah ranch, including UFO sightings, unknown animals and cattle mutilations.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Skinwalker Ranch10 Mar 1997
NIDS researchers said a calf the ranch manager had just tagged was found dead about 45 minutes later, its body cavity empty and no blood on the carcass or ground. The account comes from NIDS scientist Colm Kelleher and was published years later; no independent investigation has confirmed it.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Skinwalker RanchSep 1996
Weeks after the Shermans went public, Robert Bigelow offered about $200,000 for the ranch and the sale closed in September 1996. His NIDS team set up an observation post; a spokesman said in 1997 that researchers had seen no flying craft.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Media1979
The Center for UFO Studies, founded by astronomer J. Allen Hynek, began publishing the Journal of UFO Studies in 1979 as a scholarly outlet. The first series ran to 1983 and a second series from 1989 to 2006.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Whistleblowers29 Jul 1978
At the MUFON symposium in Dayton, researcher Leonard Stringfield presented 'Retrievals of the Third Kind', relaying claims from informants he kept anonymous that the U.S. military had recovered crashed craft and alien bodies. The claims were never verified.
Media1977
J. Allen Hynek, the Air Force's longtime scientific consultant on Project Blue Book, published The Hynek UFO Report, drawing on Blue Book material to criticize how the Air Force handled UFO reports. MUFON reissued it in 2020.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
GovernmentFeb 1975
J. Allen Hynek's article 'The UFO Mystery' in the February 1975 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin urged police to pass UFO reports to his Center for UFO Studies in Northfield, Illinois, which kept an unpublished toll-free hotline for police and official agencies.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Close encounters31 May 1969
Walt Andrus and chemistry professor Allen Utke founded the Midwest UFO Network as a regional network of field investigators. As it spread beyond the Midwest it was renamed the Mutual UFO Network, keeping the MUFON acronym; Guinness lists it as the largest civilian UFO investigative group.
Close encounters1969
After a stormy board meeting, Donald Keyhoe gave up the directorship of NICAP and moved to its board; accounts cite money troubles. Jack Acuff took over as the civilian group declined in the years after the Air Force closed Project Blue Book.
Photo: CBS, "The Mike Wallace Interview" 1958 March 8, Public domain
