Culture and science
Scientific studies, academic projects, panels and surveys. 281 events, newest first.
SightingsDec 1981
Residents of Norway's Hessdalen valley began reporting strange lights in December 1981, up to about 20 a week into 1984. Project Hessdalen ran an instrumented field study in 1984, and Ostfold University College set up an automatic measuring station in 1998. Their cause is still debated.
Photo: National Archives of Norway (Riksarkivet), CC BY-SA 4.0
Media14 Dec 1980
Episode 12 of Carl Sagan's PBS series Cosmos, 'Encyclopaedia Galactica', opened with a dramatized retelling of Betty and Barney Hill's 1961 abduction claim, which Sagan then picked apart, before turning to the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Photo: NASA/JPL, Public domain
SightingsMay 1980
A UFO enthusiasts' liaison office set up at Wuhan University in 1979 grew by May 1980 into the China UFO Research Association, which later claimed dozens of branches and thousands of members. It gained legal standing under a state-linked umbrella body in 1988 and lost it in 1997.
Photo: Howchou, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media1980
Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman founded The Planetary Society, a member-funded space advocacy group. By its own account members began funding SETI research in its first year, and it later sponsored Harvard searches such as Project META.
Photo: credit NASA JPL, Public domain
Close encounters1980
University of Wyoming psychologist R. Leo Sprinkle founded the Rocky Mountain Conference on UFO Investigation, held in Laramie each June, where people reporting contact experiences met. His papers on the psychology of UFO witnesses are held at the university's American Heritage Center.
Photo: Tony Webster, CC BY 2.0
Media1979
The Fund for UFO Research was founded in 1979 to give grants for UFO research and public education rather than investigate cases itself. Physicist Bruce Maccabee chaired it from the start; it was later led by Richard Hall and Don Berliner.
Photo: Jacques Poulet ( Jacquespoulet at en.wikipedia ), CC BY-SA 3.0
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
Sightings31 Dec 1978
A TV crew aboard a Safe Air Argosy cargo flight filmed lights off the Kaikoura coast, with returns reported on Wellington radar and the plane's own radar. An Air Force inquiry concluded natural but unusual phenomena; UN-post files released in 2021 show DSIR scientists left them unidentified.
Photo: Richard Goring, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government27 Nov 1978
At a UN Special Political Committee meeting on Grenada's UFO item, astronomer J. Allen Hynek, speaking with Grenada's delegation, said the phenomenon's scope was not recognized, and Jacques Vallee urged scientific study while saying there was no evidence UFOs were visitors from space.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
GovernmentJun 1978
France's CNES UFO study group GEPAN, overseen by a council of senior scientists, presented its first results from 1977-1978 case inquiries in a June 1978 report to that council. CNES later said the findings showed cases worth further study; founding head Claude Poher left in October 1978.
Photo: Edal Anton Lefterov, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media3 Apr 1978
At the 50th Academy Awards, Vilmos Zsigmond won the cinematography Oscar for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The film also received a Special Achievement Award for sound effects editing, credited to Frank E. Warner.
Photo: Attilaphoto at Hungarian Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
Government1978
After the 1977 Petrozavodsk reports, the Soviet Union added two parallel studies of anomalous phenomena to its state research plan, one under the Defense Ministry and one under the Academy of Sciences. Participants later said most cases were explained by rocket launches and balloons.
Media15 Nov 1977
Steven Spielberg's film Close Encounters of the Third Kind had its premiere in New York. Its title uses a term coined by Northwestern University astronomer J. Allen Hynek, who was credited as a technical adviser. The Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry in 2007.
Photo: Sanjay Acharya, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings15 Aug 1977
Ohio State's Big Ear radio telescope logged a strong narrowband signal that astronomer Jerry Ehman later circled and marked 'Wow!' on the printout. It was never detected again; Ehman called its origin an open question.
Photo: Big Ear Radio Observatory and North American AstroPhysical Observatory (NAAPO), Public domain
Media20 Jun 1977
Anglia Television's 'Science Report' aired 'Alternative 3', a spoof documentary with actors claiming missing scientists were being taken to a secret Mars colony. Meant for April Fools' Day, it ran on June 20; viewers flooded Anglia with calls, and some still treat it as real.
Photo: Spudgun67, CC0
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
Close encounters1977
Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for biography for 'A Prince of Our Disorder', his study of T. E. Lawrence. The prize gave unusual standing to his later research with people reporting alien encounters, which other academics criticized.
Media1977
Doubleday published The UFO Enigma by astronomer Donald Menzel and Ernest Taves, with an introduction by Fred Whipple. Appearing after Menzel's death in late 1976, it was his final book offering conventional explanations for UFO reports.
Photo: Fdavis99 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
MediaDec 1976
Astronomer Donald Menzel, a leading skeptic who explained UFO reports as natural and atmospheric effects, died in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Physics Today ran an obituary by Owen Gingerich in May 1977; his last UFO book appeared after his death.
Photo: Fdavis99 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media30 Apr 1976
Philosopher Paul Kurtz launched the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal at an American Humanist Association meeting. Its journal, later the Skeptical Inquirer, became a main outlet for skeptical critiques of UFO claims, including books by Philip Klass.
Photo: RobertoTenore, CC BY-SA 3.0
Government1976
During his 1976 presidential campaign, Jimmy Carter, who had filed a report of his own 1969 sighting, said he would make government UFO information available to the public and scientists. After taking office he did not follow through, citing possible defense implications.
Photo: Jack R. Thornell, Public domain
Media1976
'Mysteries of the Gods', an English version of the West German documentary 'Botschaft der Gotter' based on Erich von Daniken's book Miracles of the Gods, was released in the U.S. in 1976 with William Shatner as host and narrator. Its ancient-astronaut claims are rejected by scientists.
Photo: Michal Manas, CC BY 3.0
Media1975
Former Blue Book consultant J. Allen Hynek and computer scientist Jacques Vallee published 'The Edge of Reality: A Progress Report on Unidentified Flying Objects', treating UFOs as a real but unexplained phenomenon and proposing a framework for further study.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Media1975
Jacques Vallee published The Invisible College (Dutton), describing an informal network of scientists he said had quietly traded UFO data for years, and asking whether the phenomenon acts on human belief. A French edition, Le college invisible, appeared the same year.
Photo: Cmichel67, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media1975
David M. Jacobs published The UFO Controversy in America with Indiana University Press, a history of the U.S. debate over UFO reports.
Photo: Hinata47d, CC BY-SA 4.0
