Explained and disputed
Famous fakes and claims that did not hold up, and how they were exposed. 53 events, newest first.
Close encountersAug 1947
Weeks after Kenneth Arnold's report, a Gallup poll released in August 1947 found that about 90 percent of Americans had heard of flying saucers. Asked what they were, the largest groups gave no answer or called them illusions; others guessed U.S. secret weapons or hoaxes.
Government11 Jul 1947
A 30-inch metal disc with a plastic dome turned up in a Twin Falls yard during the 1947 saucer wave. An FBI agent alerted his office and Army officers flew in to take it, but police then said four local teenagers had confessed to building it from radio and phonograph parts as a prank.
Photo: Albert William Stevens, Public domain
SightingsJun 1947
Two Tacoma men claimed six doughnut-shaped objects appeared over Puget Sound and one dropped slag-like debris. Two Army Air Forces intelligence officers who looked into it died when their B-25 crashed on the way back. Ruppelt said the official report concluded the men admitted it was a hoax.
Photo: Mark Yasuda, CC BY-SA 4.0
