Guided story · 17 events · 1947 to 2023
The defining events in UFO and UAP history, from the first flying-saucer reports to sworn testimony in Congress, one at a time.
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Private pilot Kenneth Arnold reported nine fast objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Press coverage of his account set off the first U.S. wave of flying saucer reports, and the Air Force later carried the case as unexplained.
Read the full event and its sourcesRoswell Army Air Field announced it had recovered a "flying disc" from a nearby ranch, and the Army said the next day it was a weather balloon. A 1994 Air Force report concluded the debris most likely came from Project Mogul, a then-secret balloon program.
Read the full event and its sourcesThe Air Force reorganized its UFO investigations as Project Blue Book. By the time it closed in 1969, the Air Force programs had logged 12,618 reports, 701 of them still listed as unidentified.
Read the full event and its sourcesOn two weekends in July 1952, radar at Washington National Airport and Andrews AFB tracked unexplained targets, some matched by pilot sightings, and jets were sent to intercept. The Air Force publicly suggested temperature inversions as a likely cause.
Read the full event and its sourcesAn Air Force-funded University of Colorado study led by physicist Edward Condon was made public. It concluded that further UFO study was unlikely to advance science, and the Air Force later cited it when closing Project Blue Book.
Read the full event and its sourcesAir Force Secretary Robert Seamans Jr. announced the end of Project Blue Book, citing the Condon study and its review by the National Academy of Sciences. The Air Force said no case it had studied showed a threat to national security or evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles.
Read the full event and its sourcesLogger Travis Walton went missing after his crewmates said a glowing object struck him in a clearing in Arizona's Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. He reappeared days later saying he had been taken aboard a craft; many have questioned the story, which he still defends.
Read the full event and its sourcesIranian Air Force F-4 jets were sent after a bright light over Tehran overnight, and crews reported losing instruments and communications as they closed in. A U.S. Defense Attache report on the incident, circulated by the DIA, was later released under FOIA.
Read the full event and its sourcesU.S. Air Force personnel at RAF Woodbridge reported unexplained lights in Rendlesham Forest on two nights, including an object seen near the base's back gate. Deputy base commander Lt. Col. Charles Halt reported the events to the UK Ministry of Defence in a January 1981 memo.
Read the full event and its sourcesThe crew of a Japan Air Lines 747 cargo flight bound for Anchorage reported lights and a large object pacing their aircraft over interior Alaska. The FAA interviewed the crew and reviewed the radar data.
Read the full event and its sourcesAir Force Secretary Sheila Widnall released a records search, prompted by a GAO inquiry requested by Rep. Steven Schiff, concluding the 1947 Roswell debris most likely came from Project Mogul, a then-secret balloon program to detect Soviet nuclear tests. It found no evidence of a crashed spacecraft.
Read the full event and its sourcesMany people across Arizona reported and videotaped bright lights in the night sky. In July 1997 the Maryland Air National Guard said its A-10 jets had dropped flares over a range southwest of Phoenix, though that does not account for every report. Former Gov. Fife Symington said in 2007 he saw it.
Read the full event and its sourcesNavy F/A-18F crews from the USS Nimitz strike group, cued by the cruiser USS Princeton's radar, reported intercepting a smooth white object they could not identify. Another crew recorded the infrared video the Pentagon later released as FLIR1.
Read the full event and its sourcesNavy F/A-18 crews training off the U.S. East Coast recorded the infrared videos later known as Gimbal and GoFast. Pilots in the squadron, including Ryan Graves, have said they saw unidentified objects repeatedly in 2014 and 2015.
Read the full event and its sourcesThe New York Times reported that the Pentagon had run a little-known Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, funded with about $22 million from 2008 to 2011. The story ran with two Navy videos and said Luis Elizondo had led the program.
Read the full event and its sourcesThe Defense Department authorized the release of three Navy infrared videos, FLIR1, Gimbal and GoFast, that had already circulated publicly. It said the objects in them remain unidentified.
Read the full event and its sourcesFormer Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch testified under oath that he had been told of a decades-long program to recover craft of non-human origin, which he said he learned through interviews rather than firsthand access. The Pentagon and AARO have said they found no verifiable evidence of such programs.
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