Culture and science
Movies, series and documentaries, from Close Encounters to Skinwalker Ranch on TV. 178 events, newest first.
Media19 Jun 2011
TNT premiered Falling Skies, an alien-occupation drama executive produced by Steven Spielberg, with Noah Wyle as a history professor leading resistance fighters. Variety reported the two-hour opener drew 5.9 million viewers, cable's top new series launch of the year so far.
Photo: starbright31, CC BY-SA 2.0
Media10 Jun 2011
Paramount released Super 8, written and directed by J.J. Abrams and co-produced by Steven Spielberg. Set in a 1970s Ohio town, it follows children filming a movie who witness a train crash that unleashes a mystery. Critics compared it to Close Encounters and E.T.
Media11 Mar 2011
Sony's alien-invasion film Battle: Los Angeles opened with marketing tied to the real February 1942 air raid false alarm over Los Angeles, when anti-aircraft guns fired at unidentified objects. The studio's press junket even included a UFO panel.
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
Media12 Nov 2010
Universal released Skyline, directed by visual-effects specialists Greg and Colin Strause, in which partygoers wake to find alien ships over Los Angeles drawing people up with pulses of light. Trade critics panned the story but noted its effects.
Photo: donabelandewen (Flickr), CC BY 2.0
Sightings13 Oct 2010
Crowds and TV cameras watched shiny objects over Chelsea in Manhattan on October 13, 2010, prompting calls to police and the FAA. A Mount Vernon school said they were balloons that blew away from a teacher's engagement party about an hour before.
Media15 Jul 2010
Syfy launched Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files, in which a team led by former FBI agent Ben Hansen tried to recreate viral photos and videos, including UFO footage, to judge whether they were hoaxes or unexplained.
Media4 Jun 2010
Rosie Jones's documentary Westall '66 premiered on the Sci Fi Channel on Foxtel. It follows teacher Shane Ryan as he tracks down former students and staff who say they saw an object land near a Melbourne school in April 1966.
Photo: Effluvium1, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media3 Nov 2009
ABC premiered a new version of V, the 1983 miniseries about outwardly friendly alien visitors. The first episode drew about 14.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen figures reported at the time.
Photo: Kristin Dos Santos, CC BY-SA 2.0
MediaNov 2009
Universal agreed to pay the Alaska Press Club after promotion for The Fourth Kind, a film about alleged abductions in Nome, used fabricated news stories attributed to real Alaska papers. The deal included removing the fake articles from the web.
Photo: Sir Mildred Pierce , from North Augusta, South Carolina , USA, CC BY 2.0
Media14 Aug 2009
TriStar released Neill Blomkamp's District 9 in the U.S., a film about stranded aliens confined to a Johannesburg camp. It received four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.
Photo: Natasha Baucas at https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdnatasha, CC BY 2.0
Sightings5 Jan 2009
Red lights over Morris County, New Jersey, drew many UFO reports and national TV attention in early 2009. On April 1 Chris Russo and Joe Rudy revealed they had launched road flares on helium balloons as a social experiment; they were fined $250 each for disorderly conduct.
Photo: Jared Kofsky, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media12 Dec 2008
20th Century Fox released a remake of the 1951 alien-visitor film The Day the Earth Stood Still, with Keanu Reeves as the visitor Klaatu. Critics such as the Christian Science Monitor found it weaker than the original.
Photo: Y! Musica's photostream, CC BY 2.0
Media25 Jul 2008
20th Century Fox released the second X-Files feature, which grossed about 21 million dollars in the U.S. Critics noted it set aside the alien-conspiracy arc for a stand-alone case, though its title echoed the series' 'I want to believe' poster slogan.
Photo: 20th Century Fox, Public domain
Sightings21 Apr 2008
Residents across north Phoenix reported a line of red lights that shifted formation and faded one by one; Luke Air Force Base said no aircraft of its were involved. Two days later a local man told a TV station he had tied road flares to helium balloons, and police declined to investigate.
Photo: Alan Stark, CC BY-SA 2.0
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 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
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.
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
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
