ufo_data/bin/ufo600_906_2.md

1987

1987 — Abduction researcher and folklorist Thomas E. Bullard publishes UFO Abductions: The Measure of a Mystery, a two-volume comparative analysis of nearly 300 alleged abduction cases up through 1985, 103 of which offer both extensive information and reliable investigation. Bullard’s study summarizes key episodes and descriptive elements of the abduction narrative and attaches percentages to each to indicate how often a given feature occurs. He finds that the classic abduction story consists of eight possible episodes—capture, examination, conference, tour of the ship, journey or otherworldly journey, theophany, return, and aftermath. Few reports contain every episode; only capture and return are universal. He also examines features of the entities’ behavior and appearance, the UFO involved in the abduction, and the methods of mental and physical control. Bullard examines the literalist and reductionist hypotheses for abduction events, critiquing each. (Thomas E. Bullard, UFO Abductions: The Measure of a Mystery, Fund for UFO Research, 1987; Thomas E. Bullard, “Abductions in Life and Lore,” IUR 12, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1987): 14–19; Thomas E. Bullard, “Hypnosis and UFO Abductions: A Troubled Relationship,” JUFOS 1 (1989): 3–40; Thomas Bullard, The Myth and Mystery of UFOs, University Press of Kansas, 2010; Clark III 13–33)

1987 — Fortean Tomes publishes UFOs 1947–1987, edited by Hilary Evans and John Spencer and sponsored by the British UFO Research Association, in an attempt to place current knowledge about the UFO phenomenon in perspective. (Hilary Evans and John Spencer, eds., UFOs 1947–1987: The 40-Year Search for an Explanation, Fortean Tomes, 1987; Mark Rodeghier, [Review], JUFOS 1 (1989): 169–172)

1987 — Thomas F. McDonough discusses the possibility of extraterrestrial life in The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, addressing UFOs in a largely negative and uninformed chapter. (Thomas F. McDonough, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Listening for Life in the Cosmos, John Wiley, 1987; Michael D. Swords, “SETI/ETI and UFOs,” JUFOS 5 (1994): 151–155)

January 9 — 2:30 a.m. A road-maintenance engineer is on a routine checking tour between Hajdúböszörmény and Debrecen, Hungary, at the same point where his colleague had seen a “trailer” in December. He sees a “farmhouse” with the windows lit up, but knowing there is no farmhouse in that location, he stops the truck. The object is sitting near the overhead power lines between two stacks of straw. It is about 50 feet in diameter, disc- shaped, and rounded off at the rim. Through the center line runs a row of 8–10 portholes with warm, yellow light emanating from them. Between each window is a grayish-white streak of light. He can see an open door about 5– 6 feet high under the row of windows, through which he can see light and a floor with transverse ribs. Then he notices two entities wearing dark coveralls standing outside the object, while another appears in the door opening. Yellowish flashes erupt every 2–4 seconds from the top of the object. The witness flees the scene. (Karoli Hargitai, “The UFO Phenomenon in Hungary,” IUR 14, no. 2 (Mar./Apr. 1989): 15–16)

January 15–16 — 8:00 p.m. Police officer Glen Kazmar and Jeff Furseth watch a triangular configuration of red, white, and blue blinking lights that remain stationary in the southwestern sky over Belleville, Wisconsin. At 2:50 a.m., they are driving along Quarry Road west of town and see a “close-knit cluster of red, blue, and white lights.” After 15 minutes, they alert the Dane County Sheriff and are soon joined by a deputy from Verona and two Green County sheriff’s deputies, all of whom leave after debating what to do about reporting the lights. At 3:20 a.m., Kazmar and Furseth see the object move to the southwest. They call the FAA Center in Aurora, Illinois, which admits it has a slow-moving target in the area that won’t respond. Other witnesses near Monroe, New Glarus, and Verona also see lights. (Don Schmitt, “The Belleville Sightings, Part One,” IUR 12, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1987): 4–6; UFO Wisconsin, [Belleville articles]; “The Other UFO Days: Belleville, WI,” UFO Days, August 13, 2019)

January 27 — The National Security Agency responds to a letter from Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) stating that the NSA’s Project Aquarius does not deal with UFOs, but that “Apparently there is or was an Air Force project by that name

which dealt with UFO’s.” (Dale Goudie and Christian Lambright, “The Ice Documents Press Conference,” June 25, 1987)

February — Horror-fiction writer Whitley Strieber publishes Communion, the first-person account of his abductions and encounters recovered through hypnosis, as well as his lifelong involvement with mysterious events. The book remains on the bestseller list for a long time, and Ted Seth Jacobs’s cover illustration of an alien with large black eyes jars many people to recall their own apparent encounters with similar creatures. Strieber follows up on his experiences in seven subsequent books, in which he elaborates on his belief that the human species is in the process of being ushered into a higher level of understanding and existence. (Whitley Strieber, Communion: A True Story, Avon, 1987; Wikipedia, “Communion (book)”; Clark III 5, 1112–1113; Whitley Strieber, Transformation: The Breakthrough, William Morrow, 1988; Whitley Strieber, Breakthrough: The Next Step, HarperCollins, 1995; Whitley Strieber, The Secret School: Preparation for Contact, HarperCollins, 1997; Whitley Strieber and Anne Strieber, eds. The Communion Letters, HarperPrism, 1997; Whitley Strieber, Confirmation: The Hard Evidence of Aliens among Us?, St. Martin’s, 1998; Whitley Strieber, The Key: A True Encounter, Jeremy Tarcher, 2001; Whitley Strieber, Solving the Communion Enigma, Jeremy Tarcher, 2012)

February 6 — 7:30 p.m. Jeff Zweifel is walking home from work near Belleville, Wisconsin. He sees an object nearby with a bright white directional light aimed at a right angle to him. A red light is also visible, then a blue light. As he continues to walk, the object approaches him. When it is directly in front, a white light comes on. From left to right, red, white, and blue lights flash. A short gray trail of smoke is coming out the back. The object continues moving slowly and silently east at the same altitude. (Don Schmitt, “The Belleville Sightings, Part One,” IUR 12, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1987): 6)

February 16 — At a conference in the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev discloses that President Reagan had raised the possibility of an alien invasion during the Geneva Summit in 1986: “I shall not dispute the hypothesis, although I think it’s early yet to worry about such an invasion. It is much more important to think about the problems that have entered our common home.” (“Russians Worried UFOs Could Trigger Wars,” UFO Evidence)

February 25 — 4:10 p.m. Filmmaker Paul Davids is at work in his home office in East Los Angeles, California, when his children call him to see a “flying saucer.” Looking outside, he sees a metallic, domed disc making its way silently and smoothly across the sky over the valley in front of his house. They open the window and go out on the roof for an unobstructed view and spend the next 4–5 minutes watching it. At its closest point, about 500 feet away, it hovers in one position for about 2 minutes, wobbling with an even, slow oscillation. Its bottom seems to transform from silver to pitch black and back to silver again. Then it flies away at a faster but uniform speed. (Paul Davids, “Starry Night,” IUR 14, no. 3 (May/June 1989): 13–15, 23)

March — The Society for Scientific Exploration publishes the first issue of its Journal of Scientific Exploration, edited by astronomer Bernard Haisch. (Journal of Scientific Exploration 1, no. 1 (1987); Clark III 1082–1083)

March — San Antonio, Texas, freelance journalist Ed Conroy begins to find himself a target of an unmarked Bell 47 helicopter that hovers around his apartment building. The instances increase as he researches Whitley Strieber’s abduction story for a possible article. Black helicopters and CH-47 Chinooks also appear in his vicinity, and someone repeatedly changes the outgoing message on his home answering machine. Several people close to him begin to tell him about their nighttime experiences with entities and balls of light. These occurrences continue through 1988. (Ed Conroy, Report on Communion, Avon, 1989)

March — 3:00 a.m. A British Army communications officer is sleeping alone on the moors near Bishop Monkton, North Yorkshire, England, during a military exercise. He sees a strange red light in the sky circling slowly and silently around him. He watches it for 20 minutes as it makes three circuits that are precisely the same. Two F-4 Phantom II jets appear and give chase to the light, which plays cat and mouse with them. This continues for 5 minutes, then the light shoots away at great speed. The jets remain a few more minutes before returning. (“Brief Cases,” Northern UFO News, no. 157 (October 1992): 13; Nick Redfern, A Covert Agenda: UFO Secrecy Exposed, Simon & Schuster, 1997, pp. 163–164)

March 6 — 5:30 p.m. County surveyor Harvey Funseth and Fred Gochenauer are driving north of Belleville, Wisconsin, and spot four peculiar objects one above the other in the western sky. They take a side road to get a better look and stop alongside an open field. The main cigar-shaped object is silhouetted against the sunset, standing vertically above three smaller sections. The objects are all about a quarter mile away at low altitude. As they watch, the top object moves away from the smaller ones toward their right. It looks like an airplane fuselage without any markings, wings, or tail. It has a flashing light on top and two red glowing areas on the back, followed by a short vapor trail. Funseth estimates it is about 2,000 feet altitude. It picks up speed and streaks away

to the northeast. The remaining smaller objects are now obscured by a mist. Witnesses in other parts of town also see a similar display. (Don Schmitt, “The Belleville Sightings, Part One,” IUR 12, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1987): 7–8)

March 7 — A family of three in Pingwu county, Sichuan, China, is awakened by a loud, high-pitched hum. They go outside and are blinded by a beam of light coming from a huge reddish object shaped like a straw hat that is hovering above them. They pass out and wake up later to find themselves strapped to steel tables in a circular room occupied by humanoid entities with 3 eyes and standing 3 feet tall. The aliens take blood samples from them and probe them with needles, also making an incision on the child’s thigh. The next thing they know, they are walking down a road 7 miles from their home. (Chris Saunders, “UFOs over China,” Fortean Times 331 (October 2015): 32)

March 12 — Gallup releases a report indicating that there are three adult Americans who believe that “UFOs are real” for every two skeptics. (“1 Person in 2 Now Believes in UFOs,” Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press-Democrat, March 12, 1987, p. 13; Robert J. Durant, “Evolution of Public Opinion on UFOs,” IUR 18, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1993): 20)

March 12 — 9:15 p.m. Cmdr. Alvaro de Camargo is flying a Transbrasil Boeing 737-300 from Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil, to Manaus, Amazonas, when his radar detects an object directly in front of him. The Rio Branco tower says it has nothing on its radar. Suddenly the blip disappears from the screen, just as three orange lights appear on the left side of the airplane’s wing. Some passengers now can see the lights, flying parallel to each other and to the plane for about 20 minutes. (Clark III 201; Brazil 542)

March 20 — 1:00 p.m. Police in Verona, Wisconsin, view a triangular pattern of red, white, and blue flashing lights from the police station. The on-duty officer takes a squad car to investigate as the object moves behind a hill and hovers above a field. Within a minute, the lights move to the southwest and soon are out of sight. (Don Schmitt, “The Belleville Sightings, Part One,” IUR 12, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1987): 8).

March 23 — Evening. A woman hears a crash outside her home in Concord, North Carolina, and goes outside to investigate. She sees a domed disk in her backyard about 75 feet away, partially obscured by a tree. The dome is about 6 feet in diameter on top of an object about 25 feet high. The dome is projecting an intensely bright orange light that creates shooting pains in her eyes and lights up the entire yard. The lower part of the object is blue-silver and an 18–20 foot wide ramp extends down from it. Her eyes still hurt, so she does not see the UFO leave. No ground markings are found the next day, although two days later she discovers that a metal post on her dog lot has been magnetized. (Michael D. Swords, “Unusual Experiences from the Timmerman Files,” IUR 27, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 22–23)

April — UFO abduction researcher Budd Hopkins publishes Intruders, an account of his investigation into the abduction experiences of Debbie Jordan-Kauble (using the pseudonym of “Kathie Davis”) an Indianapolis woman whose long series of abductions include an instance when the beings impregnate her by artificial insemination aboard a UFO, then return a few months later to remove the fetus. During a subsequent abduction several years later, the beings introduce her to a frail little girl, half-human, half-alien, and tell her this girl is her daughter. (Budd Hopkins, Intruders: The Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods, Random House, 1987; Jerome Clark, “A Conversation with Budd Hopkins,” IUR 13, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1988): 4–12)

May — William Moore announces that for the past six and a half years he and some associates “succeeded in establishing a cooperative relationship with a number of well-placed contacts within the American intelligence community.” He provides a copy of one page of the MJ-12 briefing document, with some text blacked out FOIA-style. (MUFON UFO Journal, June 1987)

May 1 — The Center for UFO Studies moves from Glenview, Illinois, to 2457 West Peterson Avenue in Chicago. (“CUFOS Is Moving,” IUR 12, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1987): 26)

May 31 — British ufologist Timothy Good has also received a copy of the MJ-12 briefing document (the same one received by Moore and Shandera) in March and shares it with the press, adamantly refusing to say who sent it to him. The first mention appears in the London Observer, and soon it is the subject of pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, and ABC-TV’s Night Line. Many ufologists denounce the documents as a forgery. Good admits to researcher Richard Dolan in 2008 that the source was probably “connected to” Richard Doty. (Good Above, p. 544; Dolan II 398; Clark III 366)

June — Moore provides photocopies of all the pages of the Majestic-12 briefing document. Certain areas that had been blacked out are now readable, although redacted sections still exist. Moore has done his own redacting. He also reveals the Cutler-Twining memo. (MUFON UFO Journal, July 1987)

June 9 — 7:00 p.m. At RAAF Base Learmonth, near Exmouth, Western Australia, observers see a white light at 5,000 feet about 16 feet in diameter moving silently in a zigzag fashion from east to west. It hovers at the north end of the airstrip for 6–7 minutes, changes from white to amber, moves up into a cloud, then speeds off to the northeast. A Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport that takes off during the observation has difficulty establishing VHF radio communication. (Swords 409–410)

June 11 — Bill Moore, Jaime Shandera, and Stanton Friedman hold a press conference on the MJ-12 briefing document and the Cutler-Twining memo, asserting that they appear to be genuine. Friedman has found that Eisenhower did attend a briefing in Washington on November 18, 1952. He has also uncovered evidence that astronomer Donald Menzel was also a leading cryptographer and an elite member of the intelligence community. (Stanton T. Friedman, “MJ 12: The Evidence So Far,” IUR 12, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1987): 13–17; Dennis Stacy, “18th International Symposium,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 232 (August 1987): 7)

June 19 — 11:00 p.m. Brazilian Air Force Capt. Faria de Sousa is landing his aircraft at Anápolis Air Base ALA 2, Goiás, Brazil, when the control tower asks him to investigate “strange traffic” nearby. When he arrives at the location, his onboard radar registers the presence of another aircraft close by and his cockpit lights up. He sees a huge ball of light about 10 feet in diameter above his plane, but the light does not register on his radar. After 3 minutes he lands because he is running out of fuel. (Clark III 206; Brazil 554–555)

June 25 — Capt. William Cantrell and the crew of Delta Airlines Flight 1083 are near Charleston, West Virginia, when they see a small missile heading straight for the aircraft before it swerves to the side about 500–600 feet below. Cantrell describes the projectile as short, squatty, and homemade looking, about 4–6 feet long with large fins. It appears to be descending and unpowered. (Clas Svahn and Anders Liljegren, “Close Encounters with Unknown Missiles,” IUR 19, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1994): 12–13)

Summer — UK researcher Timothy Good publishes Above Top Secret, containing clean copies of the MJ-12 documents.

The book is an international exposé of UFO investigations and secrecy by the governments of the UK, US, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Australia, Canada, China, and Russia. (Timothy Good, Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-Up, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1987)

July 22 — The Military Archives Division of NARA issues a list of 10 problems with the Cutler-Twining memo: it was incorrectly filed; no other researchers have found information on MJ-12; the classification “Top Secret Restricted Information” was not in use until the Nixon administration; the memo does not bear an official letterhead or watermark; it does not match the paper Cutler used at the time; no records are found of an NSC meeting on July 16, 1954; another memo is found saying that NSC members were called to a civil defense exercise on July 16; and there is no entry in Eisenhower’s appointment books on a special meeting. (National Archives, “Majestic 12 or ‘MJ-12’ Reference Report”; “The MJ-12 Fiasco,” Just Cause, new series, no. 13 (September 1987): 1–22)

July 27 — 12:00 midnight. Witnesses in Accra and the Volta Region of Ghana see a large and apparently silent object over the Gulf of Guinea. Some people report the sound of explosions associated with it. A Ghana Air Force pilot views the missile-shaped object from the ground near Accra, traveling south over the ocean. It displays a yellow light at its trailing end, similar to a rocket. It appears to be at least twice as large as a Boeing 747. It stops descending and begins to climb, gaining altitude. Eight smaller, bluish lights appear in circular formation, seemingly the result of the object’s propulsive power. (Dolan II 413–414)

Late July — 9:00 p.m.–5:00 a.m. A married couple and their daughter are riding in a horse cart, returning to their home near Będzienica, Poland. They notice two huge red spheres, apparently attached to each other, descending toward the northeast a few miles away and disappearing behind the horizon. After arriving home a few minutes later, the area outside their house becomes flooded in white light. The family rushes outside and sees two groups of three white lights silently floating low above a field less than one mile away to the northeast. The man alerts his neighbor and they return to the road to watch the lights for several minutes. Soon they notice a large red triangular light moving up and down in the northeast less than 2 miles away. After 6 minutes they hear a high-pitched sound like a car horn and the red light disappears. They continue watching the white lights, but soon notice that another neighbor’s barn about 1,000 feet away seems to be on fire. The man goes home to get his motorcycle and two daughters, but when they get to the barn there is no fire and the light is coming from another set of white spheres to the south. By this time it is after 10:00 p.m., and they ride the motorcycle to a nearby hill to watch the lights.

Soon one of the daughters sees a large object like a vertical white TV screen 10 feet high approaching from the east about 60–100 feet above the ground. Two humanoids with angular heads and in green coveralls are visible against the screen, one large and one smaller. The man restarts the motorcycle with difficulty and returns home. Some 300 feet from their farmhouse, they see another object, a fireball with a tail descending in the area where they had seen the red triangle. Tired, the daughters and his wife go to sleep around 11:00 p.m., but the man stays up to watch the UFO activity. Around 4:00 a.m. the original two sets of white objects rearrange into a complex

group of 7 lights and remain that way for another hour. The next day, the man feels sick with heart problems and is taken to a hospital for a short stay. (Arek Miazga, “Z historii UFO na Podkarpaciu: Bliskie spotkanie w Będzienicy–Nockowej (1987),” Spotkania z Nieznanym, July 3, 2011; Poland 77–80)

Early August — A Soviet soldier serving with the military contingent in Leningrad [now St. Petersburg] is dispatched with four others to northern Karelia, where they join up with another unit. Their job is to guard a UFO that soldiers had recently discovered near Vyborg. A military plane had taken it to Monchegorsk, Murmansk Oblast, and deposited it in a former fuel depot. The guards get a close look at the object, which is more than 50 feet long, 16 feet wide, and 9 feet high, grayish-tan in color, smooth, and seamless. It is tube-shaped, with fins extending from the mid-section all the way to the rear. At the tip of its nose are outward-pointing triangles in a triangular formation. One week later, senior officers show up and attempt to enter the craft unsuccessfully. The craft is moved to a hangar and all but one of the soldiers are sent back to Leningrad. In September, a successful entry is made, according to the remaining officer. Inside, they discover two armchairs, two steering wheels, and a featureless control panel. The cockpit is so small that two adults can hardly fit inside. Investigators who collect “rod-like items” from inside experience mild burns on their hands (though gloved). (Clark III 345; Paul Stonehill and Philip Mantle, The Soviet UFO Files: Paranormal Encounters behind the Iron Curtain, Quadrillion, 1998,

pp. 96–97)

August 4 — 10:00 p.m. Gordon Baker and two others watch two cross-shaped objects pass slowly and silently over his home from northeast to southwest in Exmouth, Devon, England. Describing it like a “flying fairground” at 38,000 feet, he watches a jet aircraft fly underneath it. They watch it for 15 minutes until it disappears on the horizon.

Observers in Lympstone and Budleigh Salterton also see the object. Two huge, delta-shaped objects are seen making successive passes over Plymouth, Devon, between 10:30 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. Observations were also made in Bude, Cornwall, and Exeter, Devon, where they were apparently tracked on radar. (“‘Flying Fairground’ Is Seen over Town,” Exmouth (UK) Herald, August 7, 1987; “Whitehall Silent over Flying Fairground,” Exmouth (UK) Herald, August 14, 1987, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 222 (January 1988): 16; Marler 139)

August 11 — A witness in Osbornville, New Jersey, sees a shiny, oval object that hovers, becomes brighter, and takes off like a shot, leaving a white trail. It then stops abruptly, maneuvers, flashes more lights, and shoots straight up out of sight. (UFOEv II 30)

August 11 — Several people see a triangular object with three lights over Sevastopol, Crimea, Russia. A yellow light surriounds the perimeter, and a bright white light is seen inside. The object hovers and maneuvers for 3 hours with a trajectory that changes unpredictably. It disappears, reappears, and smaller objects separate rom it and take off at great speed. It finally takes off quickly away from the shoe. (Stonehill and Mantle, Russia’s USO Secrets, Flying Disk, 2020, p. 136)

August 23 — 2:00–3:00 a.m. A witness sees a circular, white object west of Hajdúböszörmény, Hungary, flying slowly to the north. A thin, orange-colored light beam sweeps from it several times from west to east. Suddenly it “jumps” with tremendous speed from one place to another and remains stationary, still sweeping its light beam for at least 30 minutes. Then it suddenly disappears. (Karoli Hargitai, “The UFO Phenomenon in Hungary,” IUR 14, no. 2 (Mar./Apr. 1989): 16)

August 30 — William S. Steinman makes another attempt to contact possible crashed-saucer insider Eric A. Walker, whom Robert Sarbacher has indicated was a behind-the-scenes participant. Steinman calls Walker, saying he is inquiring about “meetings that you attended at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in/around 1949–1950, concerning the military recovery of flying saucers, and bodies of occupants.” Walker replies: “Yes, I attended meetings concerning that subject matter.” Walker agrees they are talking about recovered aliens and seems nonchalant about the subject. Walker adds: “Yes, I know of MJ-12. I have known of them for 40 years… You are delving into an area that you can do absolutely nothing about… Forget about it!” Walker tells Steinman that he would consult his notes on the topic and hints he might cooperate further. Steinman writes Walker on August 31, sending him the MJ-12 briefing document and asking about Project Aquarius. Three weeks later, Walker replies, saying, “Some things you have right and some things you have very wrong.” He admits a machine was recovered and is still stored near “Wright Field.” Four normal looking males were found at the site, very much alive. “They learned the English language within a few hours and it was our decision not to make public spectacles of them, but to allow them to be absorbed into American culture.” Each of the four, Walker alleges, became highly successful in technology, sports, and finance. (Grant Cameron and T. Scott Crain Jr., UFOs, MJ-12, and the Government: A Report on Government Involvement in UFO Crash Retrievals, Mutual UFO Network, 1991, pp.

7–15)

August 31 — 10:55 p.m. A dark, domed, disc-shaped UFO with a mast or antenna on top comes down quickly over the high-security Naval Submarine Base Bangor [now Naval Base Kitsap] on the Kitsap Peninsula, Washington,

which houses the Trident nuclear ballistic submarine fleet. It hovers over a playground. Randy Springsteen, 8, and Dennis Mauer, 10, sons of military personnel, are sitting on the swings and see an entity with a big head, big pointed “cat” ears, wrinkled skin, and a greenish complexion in an open hatch. It has a thin, spindly body, long webbed fingers and toes, and tabs or suction cups on the ends of its fingers and toes. It also has a wrinkled mouth “like an old grandma’s.” The boys estimate the being is about 6 feet tall. It points a device that directs a beam of energy at the two boys on the swings, causing the levitation of the metal swings. The boys flee quickly into the Springsteen home and get Charlene Springsteen, who sees a row of lights in the sky as the UFO takes off and flies away. Charlene then has the boys draw separate sketches of both the UFO and the alien, which are remarkably similar. (Donald A. Johnson, “The Bangor CE3,” IUR 14, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1989): 4–6, 23)

Early autumn — Evening. Rich and Kathy Dicenzo, their children, and a family friend are sitting outside their weekend residence in the southern Ohio hills in front of a campfire. Suddenly a dark shape appears passing from in back of them from the north over the roof of the house and blotting out the stars in a precise boomerang shape. The perimeter of the shape is covered with 12–20 individual lights. All sounds from insects, tree frogs, and distant dogs stops. The campfire flame rises straight up, frozen. The aspen tree in the front yard stops “quaking” and the children gasp. The soundless object is low, and it extends beyond the 72-foot length of the house. After one minute, the light configuration wobbles, the lights change from amber to red, and the object splits into three sections, spreads out, and dissipates. (Jennie Zeidman, “Strangeness in the Night,” IUR 14, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1989): 5, 22)

September — The final issue of the APRO Bulletin is published by Jim and Coral Lorenzen. (APRO Bulletin 33, no. 7 (September 1987))

September — Three witnesses in Taunton, Somerset, England, observe a triangular object with bright white lights at each point and red lights underneath, rotating to the left. Its size is estimated to be comparable to three C-130 aircraft. (Marler 139)

September 11 — 8:15 p.m. Lydia B. Lövendal-Papae and her husband are walking between Herăstrău Park [now King Michael I Park] and Aviators Square in Bucharest, Romania, when they see a large, reddish-orange star hovering above the nearby Arcul de Triumf. After a minute, it moves to right above them and stops for a couple minutes before it sways back and forth. Suddenly it makes large zigzag movements toward the Romanian National Television building and disappears to the northeast. After 5 minutes, her husband sees a white beam shooting briefly from the direction it has gone. (Romania 45–46)

September 13 — A radioactive contamination accident takes place in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil, after a forgotten radiotherapy source is taken from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It is subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people are examined for radioactive contamination and 249 of them are found to be contaminated. In the cleanup operation, topsoil has to be removed from several sites, and several hundred houses are demolished. All the objects from within those houses, including personal possessions, are seized and incinerated. (Wikipedia, “Goiânia accident”)

September 14 — 6:05 p.m. A man and his daughter are walking in Debrecen, Hungary, when she sees a “flying log.” The man looks up and sees a cylindrical object flying very slowly to the north. After 3 minutes it disappears without a trace. (Karoli Hargitai, “The UFO Phenomenon in Hungary,” IUR 14, no. 2 (Mar./Apr. 1989): 16)

September 22 — 9:00 p.m. A young couple is sitting outside in Bossier City, Louisiana, when they see a large, conical or triangular object pass silently in the sky. It has sparsely distributed lighting on its base and seems metallic and solid. They estimate it is several football fields in length. On October 6, the man sees the object again, moving in the same direction toward Barksdale Air Force Base. (Michael D. Swords, “Timmerman’s Triangles,” IUR 29, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 16)

Mid-October — 6:00 p.m. A man is driving up Candlewood Lake Road, near Brookfield, Connecticut, when he sees a low-flying aerial object that passes over the trees to the left. After making a turn, he notices four cars stopped with no lights on off the side of the road. He flashes his headlights and his car’s radio and electrical power dies. All the other drivers—three men and a woman—are out of their cars. They tell him that their vehicles stopped as a large, bright aircraft flew over and passed silently over a hill in the west. It had all white and amber lights and was triangular in shape. Two other cars drive by at that time and their engines sputter but they do not stop. He notices a glow in the woods. He wants to investigate it, but no one will accompany him. Grabbing a flashlight, he walks into the woods for about a quarter of a mile, watching the glow get brighter. As he climbs a hill, the glow turns deep red and then off-white. As he reaches the top of the hill, he sees a lighted object, but trees block his view. He climbs down the hill to a clearing and sees an object like a dark triangle hovering silently in (not above) the trees. He hears a noise and sees a figure wearing a helmet and a dark suit with glowing metallic stripes around the arms

and waist approaching the object. It reaches the UFO and looks in the witness’s direction. He hears thoughts in his head saying that he shouldn’t come closer. As he watches, the figure raises its hand as if to say goodbye and vanishes in a flash of red light. The object then blinks out as if someone has just turned it off. (NightSiege 201– 203)

November 11 — 5:00 p.m. Edward Walters, president of a construction company in Gulf Breeze, Florida, has his first alleged encounter with a UFO. He sees a glowing, top-shaped craft with a row of portholes across the midsection and a luminous ring on the bottom. He rushes in and grabs a Polaroid camera and snaps a photo just as the UFO is moving from behind a tree. He takes three more photos as the object, 150 feet away, drifts in a northeasterly direction. As he is taking more photos, the object moves above him, and Walters is hit by a blue beam that paralyzes him and lifts him several feet off the ground. After hearing a computerlike voice and a female voice, he sees images of dogs. Then he falls hard on the pavement and the UFO is gone. Over the next few months, Walters (initially concealing his identity as “Mr. X”) and his family claim a bewildering variety of close encounters, including abduction incidents, and Walters continues to produce more photos of the UFOs plaguing him. The veracity of his claims causes a rift in ufology, with MUFON championing the case and CUFOS very skeptical.

California ufologist and songwriter Zan Overall produces evidence that Walters knew how to double-expose photos well before his UFO pictures. In June 1990, a model UFO, seemingly a prototype for a fake UFO in his photos, is found in the wall of the house formerly occupied by Walters. One week later, Tom Smith Jr., 22, comes forward claiming he has seen Walters fake some of the photos. Photoanalyst Bruce Maccabee continues to support Walters’s claims, coauthoring a book with him in 1997. (Wikipedia, “Gulf Breeze UFO incident”; MUFON UFO Journal, March 1988; Donald M. Ware, Charles D. Flannigan, and Walter H. Andrus Jr., “The Gulf Breeze, Florida, Photographic Case: Supplement to Part I,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 240 (April 1988): 13–14, 21; Jerome Clark, “Editorial: Ill Breeze,” IUR 13, no. 2 (March/April 1988): 3, 23; Dennis Stacy, “Gulf Breeze: A Note to the Skeptical,” IUR 13, no. 2 (March/April 1988): 10–11; Mark Rodeghier, “Gulf Breeze: A Note to the Committed,” IUR 13, no. 2 (March/April 1988): 12–13, 23; Mark Rodeghier and Robert D. Boyd, “Gulf Breeze, Florida: The Other Side of the Coin,” CUFOS Bulletin, April 1988, pp. 1–4; Jerome Clark, “Editorial: Breeze from the Gulf,” IUR 13, no. 3 (May/June 1988): 3; MUFON UFO Journal, June 1988; MUFON UFO Journal, July 1988; MUFON UFO Journal, August 1988; Bruce Maccabee, “A History of the Gulf Breeze, Florida, Sighting Events,” in MUFON 1988 International UFO Symposium, MUFON, 1988, pp. 113– 204; Richard H. Hall and Willy Smith, “Balancing the Scale: Unanswered Questions about Gulf Breeze,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 248 (December 1988): 3–7; Dan C. Overlade, “Psychological Evaluation of Mr. Ed,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 248 (December 1988): 7–8; Bruce Maccabee, “The Scale Remains Unbalanced,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 252 (April 1989): 3–24; MUFON UFO Journal, May 1989; Bruce Maccabee, “Billy, No; Ed, Yes,” IUR 14, no. 3 (May/June 1989): 16–19, 24; Wim van Utrecht, “How to Take Your Own Gulf Breeze Photos,” IUR 14, no. 3 (May/June 1989): 20–21, 24; MUFON UFO Journal, May 1990; Ed Walters and Frances Walters, The Gulf Breeze Sightings, Morrow, 1990; Zan Overall, Gulf Breeze Double Exposed: The ‘Ghost-Demon’ Photo Controversy, CUFOS, 1990; Craig Myers, “Gulf Breeze UFO Model Found,” Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, June 10, 1990, pp. 1, 8; Craig Myers, “I Saw UFO Photos Faked, Witness Says,” Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, June 17, 1990, pp. 1, 4; Bruce Maccabee, “The Gulf Breeze Lights,” IUR 17, no. 1

(Jan./Feb. 1992): 4–12; Art Hufford, “The Gulf Breeze Lights, Continued,” IUR 17, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1992): 11– 12; Zan Overall, “The Gulf Breeze RUFOs,” IUR 17, no. 2 (March/April 1992): 14–18; Barbara Becker, “The Invention of a Gulf Breeze UFO,” IUR 17, no. 2 (March/April 1992): 19–21, 23; Bruce Maccabee and Ed Walters, UFOs Are Real: Here’s the Proof, Avon, 1997; James W. Moseley and Karl T. Pflock, Shockingly Close to the Truth! Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist, Prometheus, 2002, pp. 287–297; Clark III 550–552)

November 18 — The US Congress issues its investigative report on the Iran–Contra Affair. It concludes that "the central remaining question is the role of the President in the Iran–Contra affair. On this critical point, the shredding of documents by Poindexter, North, and others, and the death of Casey, leave the record incomplete.” (Wikipedia, “Iran–Contra affair”)

Mid-November — 7:00 p.m. Jim Dawes is one of the witnesses of an object in the shape of the supersonic airplane Concorde at Wolverhampton, England. When it reaches overhead, he sees it is composed of many different lights in a triangle shape. (“Mystery of ‘Concorde shape UFO,’” Wolverhampton (UK) Express-Star, December 2, 1987; Marler 120)

November 23 — 8:25 p.m. Rick Devine goes out the back door of his home in Shreve, Ohio, to round up the family dogs and cats. He glances up and sees four blobs of cool-white light maneuvering in a cloverleaf pattern (elliptical orbits with a common center of flight, meeting at the center) in an area of sky a few hundred feet in diameter. The objects move slower at the outer edges of the orbit and faster as they near the center. Devine shoos the animals

inside (no reaction to the display) and calls to his wife Janet. She joins him and they continue to watch the objects. She describes the lights as rectangular. They cross the street into a schoolyard to get closer to the lights, which move away as if in response. At no time does the brightness or color or altitude of the lights change. Seemingly, the display covers an area equivalent to a baseball diamond. It moves back across the road, and the Devines follow. As they watch, the four blobs of light come together in the center, move outward and continue onward, disappearing 90° from each other. The sighting lasts 35 minutes. (Jennie Zeidman, “Strangeness in the Night,” IUR 14, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1989): 4–5)

November 28 — 9:10 p.m.–12:00 midnight. 33 unknown objects fly at low altitude over the coast of Primorsky Krai, Far Eastern district, Russia, on the Sea of Japan. Witnesses describe various shapes—cylinders, cigars, globes—all moving silently. Thirteen UFOs are seen above Dalnegorsk. The objects cause a 2-minute disruption of electrical circuits, including TVs and computers. More than 100 witnesses are questioned by the Far Eastern Commission. (Paul Stonehill and Philip Mantle, The Soviet UFO Files: Paranormal Encounters behind the Iron Curtain, Quadrillion, 1998, p. 94)

Winter — Night. Air Force Security Policeman Joseph C. Pscolka is awakened by the night shift flight security controller at the Malmstrom AFB N-01 missile alert facility northwest of Grassrange, Montana, who tells him that an alarm response team responded to a security alert at the N-06 launch site and had not been heard from for nearly an hour. Pscolka assembles a security response team and joins them to drive to the site. The security lights are out and the alarm team’s vehicle parked 50 feet from the wide-open gate with its lights out and engine off. Pscolka drives up to the vehicle when his own Peacekeeper APC loses power. At that moment, the alert team bursts from its vehicle and runs to the APC, begging to be let in. Their vehicle had shut down entirely, even the flashlights.

The entire launch facility, up to 20 feet outside the gate, is devoid of snow, even though the snow outside is knee- deep. Pscolka goes up to the facility alone after posting guards. When he gets to the snow-free zone, he notes the temperature is warmer, even hot. Everything within the facility is warm to the touch, including the soil. But there are no intruders. A few more APCs approach down the access road, and suddenly all the facility and vehicle lights come on again. After the incident, the teams are debriefed and ordered not to tell anyone about it. (Nukes 397– 401)

December — Barry Greenwood calls the MJ-12 documents hoaxes, most likely contrived by Richard C. Doty, who has apparently been Moore’s source for much of his UFO information. He cites the disparity between the briefing document’s extensive discussion of the Roswell crash and the mere 7 lines of text on the 1950 Texas crash.

Greenwood also charges that the Cutler-Twining memo had been planted, as it had been found in a virtually empty box in the National Archives containing a small number of non-UFO documents. Bruce Maccabee thinks the Cutler-Twining memo is genuine. (MUFON UFO Journal, December 1987; MUFON UFO Journal, July 1988)

December — John Grace founds the Leading Edge International research group after receiving the “Dulce Papers,” a set of documents allegedly disclosing unethical experiments on humans—such as breeding techniques, DNA manipulation, and genetic modification—at an underground base in Dulce, New Mexico. The papers inspired and are included in The Matrix series of six books published from 1988 to 2007 by Grace under the pseudonym Valdamar Valerian. These huge compilations of supposed documents and insider information discuss the alien visitors and treaties with earthly governments, harvests of human body parts, friendly and unfriendly alien species, the creation of humans and culture by aliens, acquisition of alien technology, and the dangers of an alien takeover. (Darryl Smith, “The Dulce Papers,” Crowded Skyes; “Leading Edge International,” UFO-Alien Database; Clark III 9–10)

December 1 — 7:15 a.m. A former London policeman (pseudonym Philip Spencer) is walking across Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire, England, to visit his father-in-law in East Morton. He was walking up a small hill when he notices an odd-looking figure in the trail ahead of him. It is dark green and about 4 feet tall with an oversized head and long, thin arms. The creature makes a gesture at Spencer, which he takes to be a warning telling him to stay away, but he takes out his camera and snaps a picture. The creature then runs away and Spencer follows it. He loses the creature in the fog but then sees an object rise from the moor and disappear into the sky. It is a whitish color and consists of two saucer-shaped parts on top of each other. He hears a loud hum. He fails to take a photo of the object. Rather than continue with his planned route, Spencer heads to another town that was about 30 minutes away. When he arrives, he finds that it is about two hours later than he expects it to be. Additionally, the compass he has taken with him is pointed in the opposite direction than it should be. While the photo is getting examined by experts, Spencer has strange dreams. Following ufologist Peter Hough’s advice, he attends a session of regressive hypnotherapy carried out by Jim Singleton on March 16, 1988. Under hypnosis, Spencer’s original account of the incident changes. Singleton calls it a genuine recall. Spencer now remembers that when he saw the

creature on the hill he was instantly paralyzed, lifted up a few feet, and pulled into the craft. When he enters, a voice tells him to be calm. A group of green aliens then performs medical experiments on him, inserting items into his nose and mouth. He is given a tour of the craft and shown a film with apocalyptic imagery, including nuclear explosions, famines, and floods. He is then shown a second film, but he never reveals the contents of this film, saying that the aliens who abducted him do not want humanity to know. Following this, Spencer is returned to Ilkley Moor, where he then takes his photograph. He claims that the alien is actually waving goodbye to him, not telling him to stay away, as in his original account. (Wikipedia, “Ilkley Moor UFO incident”; Peter Hough, “The Green Alien of Ilkley Moor,” Fate, March 1999, pp. 35–41; Matty Sweeney, “Ilkley Moor Alien Photograph,” The Paranormal Guide, October 7, 2014; “Picture Post: When Ilkley Moore Became an Alien Landing Site,” Yorkshire Post, October 13, 2014; Nick Redfern, Top Secret Alien Abduction Files, Red Wheel/Weiser, 2018; Patrick Gross, “The Ilkley Moor Encounter of the 3rd Kind, 1987”)

December 9 — Night. Oddly moving lights in the sky appear over Nottingham, England, traveling quickly and emitting a deep hum. A triangular object about 250 feet long covered in 150 red and white lights is observed over a farm near Hull around the same date. Similar UFOs are seen in Staffordshire and Long Eaton, Derbyshire. (“Mystery of City UFO Sightings,” Nottingham (UK) Evening Post, December 10, 1987; Hull (UK) Daily Mail, December 11, 1987; Long Eaton (UK) Trader, December 23, 1987; Marler 121)

December 14 — 9:30 p.m. A gray, oval-shaped object lands on the road ahead of a Mercedes car near Launceston, Tasmania. The engine and lights fail instantly, and the driver brakes to a stop. Intense light comes from the base of the object that is painful to the driver’s eyes. He leaves the car and gets sick, hiding behind a tree from where he watches his car being dragged about 33 feet, as if attracted by a magnet, and leaving tire marks on the road. A Land Cruiser approaches the scene and its lights fail, but the diesel engine continues to operate. The object takes off with a whirring sound. The car is covered with melted specks of asphalt, and serious electrical problems must be fixed after the incident. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 19)

December 29 — Lear Jet heir John Lear, based on stories by Albuquerque businessman Paul Bennewitz, claims in a statement on ParaNet that he has independent confirmation of a secret underground base near Dulce, New Mexico, populated by gray aliens and humans. Direct communication between one alien group and the US government took place at Holloman AFB in April 1964. Lear alleges that the MJ-12 group entered into a relationship with possible ET intelligences between 1969 and 1971 and in exchange for super technology, gave carte blanche to the ETs to conduct experiments and abductions on unsuspecting human beings. Lear also claims that the ETs, with our government’s knowledge, are mutilating domestic cattle and sheep, and in some cases even humans are the victims. In 1972–1973, a secret underground facility at Groom Lake, Nevada, was built “for and with the help of” the ETs. Lear claims that William Moore is being used as a conduit by MJ-12 (which includes Edward Teller, Henry Kissinger, Bobby Ray Inman, and possibly John Poindexter) to release information about the alien presence on earth. Many ParaNet members question his assertions. (Wikipedia, “Dulce Base”; “Statement Released by John Lear,” December 29, 1987; Don Ecker, “Driven to Destruction,” Fortean Times 121 (April 1999): 40–43)

1988

1988 — Michael Corbin becomes administrator of ParaNet, which runs through the mid-1990s. ()

1988 — College instructor Karla Turner and her husband are in counseling to learn why they are feeling physical symptoms of stress. She reads Missing Time by Budd Hopkins and Communion by Whitley Strieber and soon recalls having seen an odd light in the sky as a girl and begins to dream about UFOs. Having learned hypnotic regression techniques from her therapist, she regresses her husband, whereupon he remembers several childhood experiences with gray aliens. Several nights later, Karla awakens to sounds of clicks and bumps in the house, followed by disembodied voices in her bedroom. She later remembers a nightmare from her childhood in which an insect-like being holds her hand and tells her it is her mother. Soon she and her husband undergo regression by an Oklahoma UFO researcher, which produces accounts of repeated abductions since childhood and evidence that her whole family was involved. After one session, Karla, her husband, and a third person see a lighted, disc- shaped craft hovering above them. Two weeks later, she again hears voices in the night and loud knocking sounds. She wakes to find small punctures on her inner wrist and three white circles on her abdomen. Into 1989, more body marks appear, including a solid red triangle on her arm, puncture wounds, scratches, and bruises.

Poltergeist phenomena occur. The Turners begin to notice a white car parked near their house, and unmarked

helicopters seem to follow them. They begin to suspect the US military is monitoring them. (Karla Turner, Into the Fringe: A True Story of Alien Abduction, Berkley, 1992)

January — A family in the vicinity of Pasadena, California, notices a large, perfectly circular brown spot, 13 feet in diameter, in their backyard in the midst of their lush, well-cared for St. Augustine grass. It seems to have appeared the morning after the wife awakens to see a small, gray-skinned entity standing beside her and probing her torso with medical instruments. She had seen a strange light beam one month earlier. The brown area slowly fills in with Bermuda grass after 6 months. The Los Angeles County agricultural pathologist who examines a soil sample finds four southern chinch bugs (Blissus insularis) that he says can cause similar damage, although the progression is much slower and requires many more insects than four. (Ann Druffel, “CE3—and CE2?” IUR 14, no. 3 (May/June 1989): 10–12, 23)

January 5 (or 15) — 5:00 a.m. Cristian Tuţă is doing mandatory military service in a unit at Roşu, Romania, on the shore of Lacul Morii. While on guard duty, he notices an oval light positioned vertically 30 feet above the bridge to the only island on the lake. He estimates it is 45 feet high and 15 feet wide. Inside are four much brighter lights in the shape of a cross. At first it remains motionless, but begins quickly moving up and down along the bridge like a sine wave for 30 minutes. It stops abruptly and moves slowly to the southwest at an altitude of 60 feet. When it comes to a clump of trees, it changes its shape to two discs put together. In a split second it zooms away to the west. (Romania 46–48)

January 12 — Ed Walters produces his most famous photo—a brightly lit structured craft hovering above a road near his home in Gulf Breeze, Florida. (Ed Walters and Frances Walters, The Gulf Breeze Sightings, Morrow, 1990)

January 19 — 5:00 p.m. A father and daughter are driving to pick the mother up from work in Benton, Louisiana. When they pull into the mall parking lot, the daughter notices a streak of light in the sky that suddenly moves right in front of them about 150 feet away and 50 feet above the ground. It is a dull silver disc with “turbines” or openings around its perimeter that are spinning like a slowly moving fan. From the top of the object emerges a sheath with rotary blades, although the blades do not rotate. The disc is about the size of an automobile, around 5 feet tall, and completely silent. For 90 seconds, all the noise of the mall seems muted. Then the device begins to move and zips away quickly. (Michael D. Swords, “Unusual Experiences from the Timmerman Files,” IUR 27, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 21)

January 20 — 4:10 a.m. Faye Knowles and her three sons Patrick, Sean, and Wayne are en route along the Eyre Highway from Perth, Western Australia, to Melbourne, Victoria, by car, when they observe a bright, egg-shaped object ahead of them on the road near Mundrabilla, Western Australia. Sean is driving and has to swerve to miss the object. The egg-shaped object then begins to follow their station wagon. At some point, Sean does a U-turn to approach the object, but soon goes back to driving eastward. The family becomes disoriented, and the sequence of events is difficult to reconstruct. They roll down the windows and a “grayish-black mist” enters into the car. Faye reaches out the window to touch the roof and feels something warm, soft, and rubbery that covers her hand in black dust. They hear a thud on the roof and come to believe that the object has lifted their car off the road. They are let down suddenly and the right rear tire blows out. A truck driver named Graham Henley is driving ahead of the Knowles’s car; he sees a bright light in his rearview mirror for about 5 minutes. Shortly after Henley pulls into Mundrabilla, the Knowles family arrives in a state of disorientation. He inspects the damaged tire, sees dents in the roof, and smells something burnt. Henley and another trucker drive back to the scene and find skid marks and footprints. In the afternoon, the family report to police in Ceduna, South Australia, who note their distress and the dents in the roof. Samples of the black dust are collected for forensic analysis. The police tests are never done, but at least half of the material is obtained by ufologists Keith Basterfield and Ray Brooke, who take it to a laboratory. The analysis reveals ordinary materials: sodium chloride, sodium, aluminum, magnesium, sulfur, potassium, silicon, chlorine, clay particles, and calcium. The Seven Network pays the Australian Mineral Development Laboratories to test the vehicle for radioactivity, but there is none above background. AMDEL states that the car tire has failed due to being underinflated, and the dust, smell, and smoke is due to the blowout. Another set of samples is taken from the car by the Victorian UFO Research Society and sent to two different labs, again with commonplace results. However, one analysis by Richard Haines in the US concludes that the interior dust is different from the exterior dust, which contains a possible trace of astatine, a radioactive chemical element. Faye’s hand became red and swollen in the days after the event. (Keith Basterfield and Ray Brooke, “The Mundrabilla Incident,” UFO Research Australia Newsletter 6, no. 1 (April 1988): 3–20; Keith Basterfield and Ray Brooke, “The Mundrabilla Incident: An Update,” UFO Research Australia Newsletter 7, no. 1 (May 1989): 3–9; Keith Basterfield, Vladimir Godic, and Pony Godic, “Australian Ufology: A Review,” JUFOS 2 (1990): 36-37; Keith Basterfield, “Samples from the Mundrabilla CE2,” IUR 15, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1990): 12–13; UFOEv II 232–237; Siani, “UFOs on the Nullarbor Plain (Part 1),” Strange Days, September 27, 2007; Siani,

“UFOs on the Nullarbor Plain (Part 2),” Strange Days, September 27, 2007; Brian Dunning, “The Knowles Family UFO Incident,” Skeptoid podcast, no. 715, February 18, 2020)

January 21 — 8:00 p.m. Ex-Navy Lt. Dan McIndoe and his family are at their home 5 miles north of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington, when they see a white light with red and blue flashes. They watch it maneuvering for 2 hours. (Donald A. Johnson, “UFOs in Washington Skies,” IUR 13, no. 2 (March/April 1988): 4–6)

February 4 — 8:10 p.m. A woman is driving between Bacup, Lancashire, and Todmorden, Yorkshire, England, when she sees an intense orange, egg-shaped light to the south-southeast above Tooler Hill when she is crossing the border between the two counties. Its interior is like a “swirling liquid (or fire embers) with constantly changing patterns.” She stops to watch it as it hovers for another 2–3 minutes. As she drives away it starts to move, so she pulls over again and watches it (now dimmer) move away to the southwest. It speeds up as it descends below the level of the hillside. (Jenny Randles, “Another Pennine Earthlight?” Northern UFO News, no. 137 (June 1989): 15)

February 9 — 8:00 a.m. A man looking for farm work near Oswestry, Shropshire, England, sees a dog run from a parked car he is passing. The dog crosses the road and runs barking straight int a swirling, yellowish, glowing mist about 45 feet in diameter that straddles a hedgerow. The mist is making a noise like rushing air. The dog owner gets out of the car, and the witness follows her toward the glow and tries to calm her down. As they approach, their hair stands on end, their skin begins tingling, and they smell sulfur as an eerie stillness envelops them. Moments later, the glow disappears as if it is melting away. The dog is lying on the ground looking ill. Its eyes are red and its coat is soaking wet, yet the moisture is evaporating rapidly with steam visibly rising. The man carries the dog back to the car and the woman drives off with it. He later finds out that the dog recovered after an hour or so but died a few weeks later. (Jenny Randles, Time Storms: Amazing Evidence for Time Warps, Space Rifts, and Time Travel, Piatkus, 2001, p. 11; Jenny Randles, “UFOs Can Damage Your Health, Part Two,” Fortean Times 365 (April 2018): 27)

February 10 — 7:45–8:30 p.m. Numerous independent observers on the border of Cambria and Somerset counties near Johnstown, Pennsylvania, see a 60-foot object with several rows of lights that make it look like a “cruise ship in the sky.” The object passes over cars and trees at an altitude of 50–100 feet. It emits a slight humming sound and projects multiple beams of light toward the ground. (“Number of UFO Reports in State Unprecedented in ‘88,” Latrobe (Pa.) Bulletin, January 9, 1989, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 235 (February 1989): 11–12)

March 3 — 8:30 p.m. The brothers Farisano are returning home from a soccer championship near General Belgrano, Buenos Aires, Argentina, when they notice some strange lights above a nearby bridge. As they approach the lights, their vehicle engine suddenly stalls. They try to restart it but cannot, so they remain in their truck watching the lights. They now see that the lights are on a spherical object with a large red light on the top and several white lights in a row on the bottom section. The object hovers close to the ground. Inside the transparent midsection the witnesses can see a shadow-like figure moving about. The object suddenly moves slowly out of sight, after which the truck engine restarts and they drive home. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 19)

March 4 — 8:35 p.m. Sheila and Henry Baker and their three children are driving home to Eastlake, Ohio, after going to dinner. As they near the waterfront, Sheila notices something hovering above Lake Erie, so they drive down to the beach to investigate. A huge, metallic-gray, football-shaped object like a blimp is silently rocking back and forth, blinding white light emanating from both ends. It begins circling, moving overhead at about 1,300 feet. Somehow it causes the lake ice to rumble and crack. The Bakers get nervous and drive home, where they can still see the UFO with red and blue blinking lights along the bottom edge. 5–6 bright triangular lights detach from the side, hovering at first, then darting and zigzagging around at high speeds. Each is smaller than a Cessna and cross 50- mile stretches low over the ice “in the snap of a finger.” They make several passes toward the Perry Nuclear Power Plant about 20 miles away. The Bakers alert the Coast Guard, and Seaman James Powers and Petty Officer John Knaub drive to the beach, where the triangular objects approach them. They give a blow-by-blow radio report to the Coast Guard base in Detroit. Other witnesses in different locations also see the triangles. Suddenly the smaller objects return to the large one, which seems to be landing on the ice. They reenter it, the ellipse flashes a series of red, blue, and yellow lights, and the light at the end turns from white to red. Suddenly the lights go out and the ice booming stops. The witnesses assume the object has gone beneath the surface. The Coast Guard report the next day suggests that the lights were Venus and Jupiter. (NICAP, “Eastlake Close Encounter”; Richard P. Dell’Aquila, “Ohio Flap,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 249 (January 1989): 15–17; Dolan II 428–431; John Lasker, Technoir: 13 Investigations from the Dark Side of Technology, the US Military, and UFOs, The Author, 2010, pp. 23–28; Marcus Lowth, “The Baker Family UFO Encounter over Lake Erie,” UFO Insight, August 2,

2018; Michael Lee Hill, “Never Before Heard! Famous 1988 Lake Erie Coast Guard UFO Event Update: Audio Witness Testimony!” Michael Lee Hill blog, August 18, 2018; Patrick Gross, “Lake Erie, USA 1988”)

March 5 — Richard Doty writes to ufologist Larry W. Bryant that he had never promised film footage to Linda Moulton Howe. (Clark III 365)

March 7 — During a campaign rally in Rogers, Arkansas, vice president and presidential candidate George H. W. Bush is approached by a UFO buff named Charles Huffer, who asks him if he will tell the truth about UFOs. He sort of promises to declassify the information. Later, Huffer declines to send him any UFO cases because “you’re a CIA man. You know all that stuff.” “I know some,” Bush replies, “I know a fair amount.” (presidentialufo.com, “George Bush, 41st President”)

April — William Steinman again contacts Eric A. Walker at his Florida residence and asks about the current members of MJ-12. Within a week, Walker mails Steinman’s handwritten note back to him from Penn State, not Florida. At the top of the letter, Walker has written, “Must reply, did code (–1),” and placed numbers from 1 to 26 above certain words in Steinman’s letter. Later in the month, T. Scott Crain calls Walker, who says he cannot talk about the UFO subject. (Grant Cameron and T. Scott Crain Jr., UFOs, MJ-12, and the Government: A Report on Government Involvement in UFO Crash Retrievals, Mutual UFO Network, 1991, pp. 16–22)

April 12 — Coral Lorenzen, founder of APRO, dies in Tucson, Arizona. CUFOS had been attempting to purchase the APRO archives, but is thwarted by someone who convinces Coral’s son, Larry Lorenzen, that this is a bad move and that the APRO board should reconsider. He wants the archive to stay in Arizona. Tina Choate and Brian Myers, with their dubious International Center for UFO Research, convince the APRO board that they are the most logical recipients. In 1989, the board gives them the archives free of charge. Former APRO board member Robert Dean later realizes Choate and Myers are scam artists. They immediately bar anyone from using the files and move them to a garage at an undisclosed location in Scottsdale or Sedona, Arizona. It is not known if the paper archives still exist, although fortunately APRO case files prior to 1957 have been preserved digitally. In 2010–2012, Choate and Myers are involved in a fraudulent scheme to acquire and illegally sell a valuable collection of fossils. (“Obituary: Coral Lorenzen,” Flying Saucer Review 33, no. 3 (September 1988): 15; Clas Svahn, “Unique UFO Archive Hidden in Warehouse (APRO Archives and Files),” UFO Evidence; Jamie Ross, “Collector Sues over $25M in Fossils,” Courthouse News Service, May 17, 2010; Isaac Koi, “Rare Microfilms of UFO Documents Now Online: APRO, US Air Force, etc. (PDF archives),” Above Top Secret forum, December 15, 2014)

May 4 — MUFON Director of Investigations Dan Wright poses a set of open questions for John Lear, nearly all of which concern Lear’s sources. Lear claims that most of his information comes from confidential sources within the intelligence community, while a lesser portion comes from open sources and his own “informed speculation.” (Richard P. Dell’Aquila, “Who Is John Lear?” UFONet.it, 1988)

May 4 — During a question-and-answer session following a speech to the National Strategy Forum in Chicago’s Palmer House Hotel, President Reagan is asked about the most important “need” in international relations. He replies: “I’ve often wondered, what if all of us in the world discovered that we were threatened by an outer– a power from outer space, from another planet. Wouldn’t we all of a sudden find that we didn’t have any differences between us at all, we were all human beings, citizens of the world, and wouldn’t we come together to fight that particular threat?” (presidentialufo.com, “Ronald Reagan, 40th President, January 20, 1981–January 20, 1989”)

May 16 — 9:30–10:00 p.m. Eileen Ballard and four friends are outside in Stafford, England, when they notice two spotlights in the sky. The objects they are attached to position themselves side by side, one above the other, and fly slowly and silently across the sky. Red and green lights are visible on the undersides. BUFORA initially attributes the sighting to two US Air Force F-117 stealth fighters, an aircraft that had not yet been acknowledged, but this is considered unlikely as other witnesses come forward. (“Did Mystery Lights Reflect Secret Flights of F- 19?” Stafford (UK) Newsletter, May 20, 1988, p. 3; “After MP’s Plea, More Tell of UFO Mystery,” Stafford (UK) Newsletter, July 1, 1988; Marler 121–123, 139–140)

June 1 — 8:10 p.m. A Boeing 737 pilot, on a final approach to the runway at El Tepual Airport in Puerto Montt, Chile, suddenly encounters a large white light surrounded by green and red. The light is coming straight toward the airplane, and the pilot makes a steep turn to the left to avoid a collision. The object is also seen by air traffic control personnel. (Kean, pp. 194–195; “1988: La historia del Ovni de El Tepual, Puerto Montt,” Prensa Vértice TV YouTube channel, August 17, 2012; Rodrigo Bravo Garrido and Juan Castillo Cornejo, “Incidente del Boeing 737 del Vuelo Lan Chile 045 con un F.A.N.I. el 01 de Junio de 1988,” Parinacota UFO Arica, October 10, 2015)

July — Cynthia Hind begins publishing UFO Afrinews in Harare, Zimbabwe. It continues until July 2000. (UFO Afrinews, no. 1 (July 1988))

July — Walter Corrêa do Prado of Boqueirâo, Paraiba, Brazil, undergoes about one hour of missing time after seeing a strong light illuminating three blocks in his neighborhood. After witnessing other UFOs over the next month or so (one with his wife that leaves traces of burned grass), he begins reading UFO literature. In April 2000, do Prado is hypnotically regressed by Mario Rangel, and an abduction narrative surfaces. (Clark III 308–309; Brazil 329– 333)

July — The Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici launches another newsletter, Rassegna Casistica, edited by Alessandro Cortellazi in Turin, Italy. It continues through December 1991. (Rassegna Casistica, no. 1 (July 1988))

July 17 — Night. Several witnesses see two objects with red and green flashing lights make two crisscross passes near the generating station in Homer City, Pennsylvania. Later one object drops from the sky and makes two passes about 200 feet from the ground. It is circular in shape and about the size of a large car. It has four leg-like structures with lights on them that protrude from the bottom. A hissing noise can be heard as the object passes close by. (“Number of UFO Reports in State Unprecedented in ‘88,” Latrobe (Pa.) Bulletin, January 9, 1989, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 235 (February 1989): 12)

August — After eight years of stress, fear, and paranoia, Paul Bennewitz has turned over his business to his sons and barricaded himself in his house. His family, convinced his sanity and health are in danger, commits him to the Anna Kaseman Hospital in Albuquerque, where he stays for a month. After his release, his family keeps him away from ufology and ufologists. (Greg Bishop, Project Beta, Paraview, 2005, pp. 217–218)

August — José Semitiel Martínez begins publishing the newsletter Búsqueda in Gerona, Spain. It folds in March 1995. (Búsqueda, no. 1 (August 1988))

August 3 — 11:15 a.m. Kaye Stricker is stopped at a traffic light at the corner of Gadsden Avenue and West Avenue K in Lancaster, California, when she sees a shiny object in the sky coming from the northwest. It hovers briefly over the Sierra Highway before “evaporating.” (“Van Driver Reports Sighting UFO in Sky over Lancaster,” Palmdale (Calif.) Antelope Valley Press, August 4, 1988, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 232 (November 1988): 1)

September 2 — Afternoon. A man sitting by a pond on his rural residence near Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, is startled to see an object come out of the sky from the north and hover 50 feet away from him about 30 feet above the ground. It is spherical and about 15–20 feet in diameter. The upper section is red and the underside orange-red. The center is divided by a glass-like, amber-colored window, and lights can be seen flashing inside. The object emits a mist toward the ground. It silently hovers for about 2 minutes before moving off to the north. Later, the man finds a depressed area in the tall grass about 12 feet in diameter where the grass is swirled counterclockwise. (“Number of UFO Reports in State Unprecedented in ‘88,” Latrobe (Pa.) Bulletin, January 9, 1989, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 235 (February 1989): 12)

September 15 — An agent of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations contacts the Dallas, Texas, office of the FBI and supplies the Bureau with a copy of the MJ-12 documents. The set is obtained from a source whose identity AFOSI has decided must remain classified. (Kremlin 181–182)

September 25 —10:30 p.m. A man is driving along State Highway 113 in Lorain County, Ohio, when his car stalls. He sees two other stalled cars on the side of the road, so he gets out and talks to the four people from the other cars for a few minutes. They realize there are lights nearby in the woods that come from a silvery triangular object with a rim and rounded base. The treetops above it seem to be moving, although it is a calm night. After 15–20 minutes the object rises at an angle and moves away slowly and silently, passing overhead. It seems wider than the road. From the center of the base there is a white light like a fluorescent lamp. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 19)

October 8 — After speaking to John Lear by phone for the first time on October 4, conspiracy theorist Milton William Cooper receives in the mail a number of Lear’s writings, as well as the dubious “O.H. Krill” document, allegedly written by a USAF NCO named John Grace, claiming that the US government has a long-standing relationship with an alien civilization; a version of Abraham Zapruder’s John F. Kennedy assassination film enhanced to show Secret Service Agent William Greer shooting a pistol at Kennedy; Lear’s transcription of statements by a former Green Beret captain named William English regarding a nonexistent Project Grudge Report number 13 that refers to alien bodies; and a paper on Project Excalibur regarding underground facilities that was supposedly written by Bob Lazar while working at Los Alamos. (O. H. Krill [John Grace], “A Situation Report on Our Acquisition of Advanced Technology and Interaction with Alien Cultures,” IllumiNet BBS, June 1988; Don Ecker, “Freedom of Disinformation,” Fortean Times 122 (May 1999): 28–31; Dolan II 443–447)

October 13 — Former Sen. Barry Goldwater appears on Larry King’s syndicated radio show and responds to a caller who asks him whether the story about a secret Blue Room at Wright-Patterson AFB is true. He says his friend Gen.

Curtis LeMay got quite angry at him when he tried to gain access to the room, which is said to hold evidence related to UFOs. (Nukes 488–489)

October 14 — Bill Moore and his associates cooperate with “Falcon” and others in the “Aviary” to present a nationally televised two-hour special titled UFO Cover-Up? Live! Host Mike Ferrell interviews Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum, and finally “Falcon” (or someone pretending to be him) and “Condor” (identified by some as DIA employee Col. Robert Collins), who appear in silhouette with voices altered. They embarrassingly proclaim that the ETs have a preference for Tibetan music and strawberry ice cream. Robert Emenegger also appears, claiming he is convinced of the reality of the alleged UFO contact at Holloman AFB. Paul Shartle describes the Holloman film footage, saying it shows aliens emerging from a disc-shaped craft. (presidentialufo.com, “Disclosure Pattern 1972–75”; Internet Movie Database, “UFO Cover-Up? Live!”; Don Ecker, “Driven to Destruction,” Fortean Times 121 (April 1999): 40–43; Greg Bishop, Project Beta, Paraview, 2005, pp. 200–202, 211–212)

October 25 — 5:00 a.m. A Miami, Florida, couple is on their balcony terrace when they see 3 yellow lights moving erratically from west to east. They pass behind the only cloud in the sky then disappear. (Herbert S. Taylor, “Mystery Clouds and the UFO Connection,” IUR 29, no. 4 (July 2005): 19)

October 25 — The Dallas, Texas, office of the FBI transmits a 2-page secret Airtel to headquarters that says the MJ-12 documents have been getting local publicity and asks if the documents are still classified. (Kremlin 182)

October 26 — Jim Speiser ejects both Milton William Cooper and John Lear from ParaNet for bad behavior and peddling probable disinformation. (Don Ecker, “Freedom of Disinformation,” Fortean Times 122 (May 1999): 28–31)

October 26 — 9:00 p.m. Many residents of the San Joaquin Valley around Fresno and Kingsburg, California, see a low- flying object with three red lights in a V-formation. It seems to be circling and is visible for 45 minutes. (“Unidentified Object Steals across Valley Sky,” Fresno (Calif.) Bee, October 28, 1988, pp. 1, 16)

October or November — Pilot Robert Hopkins is flying a USAF RC-135S Cobra Ball reconnaissance aircraft east of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia when he is notified that the USSR has launched an RSD-10 Pioneer IRBM toward the Kura Missile Test Range at Klyuchi, Kamchatka Krai. The 1988 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty allows the Soviets to test-fire IRBMs into the sea, rather than breaking them up. Moving into position to collect telemetry information from the launch, Hopkins observes a “translucent, milky white wall moving from the left, over the USSR, to the right, over the Northern Pacific Ocean. It covered the entire sky from ground level to as far up as we could see looking out the front windows of the airplane.” The wall of light passes at an estimated 6,200 mph, disappearing eastward and leaving darkness behind it. Some analysts at the USAF Foreign Technology Division think it is caused by something in the first-stage fuel of the RSD-10; others suggest it is produced deliberately to dazzle US observation satellites. Some speculate that Russia has a secret Dome of Light weapon that has been observed several times since and that might involve a plasma that can temporarily disrupt electronics and blind a satellite. (Tyler Rogoway, “U.S. Spyplane Pilot’s Account Indicates Soviet Russia Tested a ‘Dome of Light’ Superweapon,” The Drive: The War Zone, February 6, 2019)

November — GEPAN is renamed Service d’Étude des Phénomènes de Rentrées Atmosphériques (SEPRA), but the Scientific Council is still closed, and no more technical reports are produced. Velasco is still tasked with studying UFO reports, but not in making analyses. (Gildas Bourdais, “From GEPAN to SEPRA: Official UFO Studies in France,” IUR 25, no. 4 (Winter 2000–2001): 13; Gildas Bourdais, “The Death and Rebirth of Official French UFO Studies,” IUR 31, no. 2 (June 2007): 13; Clark III 547; Swords 448)

November 10 — Assistant Secretary of Defense J. Daniel Howard holds a Pentagon press conference and reveals the existence of the F-117A stealth fighter. After the announcement, pilots can fly the F-117 during daytime and no longer need to be associated with the LTV A-7 Corsair II for training, flying the T-38 supersonic trainer for travel and training instead. (Wikipedia, “Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk”)

November 11–12 — 5:00 p.m. A truck driver returning from Utah to Baker, California, goes through a series of bizarre and inexplicable experiences, some of them ufological, that leave him convinced that his truck is possessed and “they” have been in control of him all along. The experiences end shortly after midnight before he returns to Baker and leave him terrified. During the drive he has been drinking copious amounts of coffee, which may have contributed to his hallucinatory excitement. (Ann Druffel, “The Caffeine Zone,” IUR 13, no. 3 (May/June 1988): 18–22)

November 12 — Aviation designer Brad Sorensen attends an air show at Norton AFB in San Bernardino, California, and is taken to a huge hangar by a former high-ranking Defense Department official to view the Lockheed Pulsar, nicknamed the Aurora, that allegedly can be anywhere in the world 30 minutes after launch. Behind a big black curtain are three flying saucers hovering above the floor. The small saucer is about 24 feet in diameter. The next

biggest one is 60 feet in diameter at the base, and another one is 130 feet. They are referred to as Alien Reproduction Vehicles. A videotape shows the smallest of the three vehicles making three little, quick, hopping motions; then it accelerates straight up and out of sight, completely disappearing from view in just a couple of seconds. There is a cut-away illustration that shows oxygen tanks and a robotic arm that can extend out from the side of the vehicle for collecting samples in space. (Mark McCandlish, “Alien Reproduction Vehicles,” Filer’s Files, #19-2011, May 4, 2011; Dolan II 457–461)

November 22 — The Northrup Grumman B-2 stealth bomber is first publicly displayed at United States Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, where it is assembled. This viewing is heavily restricted, and guests are not allowed to see the rear of the B-2. However, Aviation Week editors find that there are no airspace restrictions above the presentation area and take aerial photographs of the aircraft’s then-secret rear section with its suppressed engine exhausts. (Wikipedia, “Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit”; Steve Pace, B-2 Spirit: The Most Capable War Machine on the Planet, McGraw-Hill, 1999)

November 28 — Physicist Edward Teller allegedly calls the out-of-work physicist and electronics technician Robert Lazar and gives him the name of a contact in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lazar makes contact, and later receives a call from EG&G, a high-tech company with contracts at Groom Lake, Nevada. (Dolan II 475)

November 30 — An arranged meeting takes place in Washington, D.C., between AFOSI and FBI agents, who request information about the MJ-12 documents. The Air Force tells the FBI the documents are completely bogus and the FBI should cease its inquiry. (Kremlin 182–183)

December 1— Robert Lazar allegedly interviews at EG&G, but is informed that he is overqualified for the position in question (Dolan II 475)

December 1 — 11:00 p.m. A captain of the Brazilian Air Force flying a Mirage fighter jet is returning from a mission and is over Jaboãtoa dos Guararapes, Pernambuco, Brazil, when his radar indicates traffic about one mile from his position. He requests permission to intercept and goes after the brilliant disk-like object that has a dull glow like copper. The CINDACTA III radar still finds nothing. The UFO begins to approach the jet and suddenly his instruments begin to fail. A red light in the center begins to grow stronger and the pilot arms his missiles; but the missiles do not respond to his command and the UFO flies off in mere seconds. But the chase continues another 10 minutes, during which time the UFO plays with its pursuer. After landing, the pilot is told that another aircraft has seen a strange object about 15 minutes earlier in the state of São Paulo more than 1,242 miles away. (Clark III 207; Brazil 556–557)

December 4 — 5:25 a.m. A police officer en route to his station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, notices a brilliant glow in the sky ahead of him. It is so bright he can hardly see as he drives down a four-lane road, and he swerves and blocks two lanes. About 150 feet in the air is a 75-foot-long, highly polished silver object shaped like an ellipse. It is emitting a humming sound and casting light into and all around his car. It moves left and right, then shoots straight up into the sky, stopping again briefly before departing. The officer’s eyes hurt badly from the brightness and he feels ill. There is a sunburn-like rash on his face, and he has severe eye irritation, headache, and neck pain after the incident. He notes that the paint on his car has been dulled and an unusual powder-like substance is found on the exterior. (“Number of UFO Reports in State Unprecedented in ‘88,” Latrobe (Pa.) Bulletin, January 9, 1989, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 235 (February 1989): 12)

December 5 — Robert Lazar interviews at EG&G again for what seems like a part-time position. (Dolan II 475)

December 6 — Lazar reports to work at the EG&G building at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada. There he meets with a security officer named Dennis Mariani, who escorts him on a flight to Area 51 at Groom Lake, where Lazar signs a secrecy agreement that requires intensive monitoring of his activities. He and Mariani board a bus with blacked-out windows and ride for 30 minutes down a dirt and gravel road. They arrive at a base near Papoose Dry Lake known as S-4. Lazar’s ID is prepared, he is given a physical and treated for allergic reactions to unknown substances, then he begins work at S-4. Lazar claims he only visits S-4 on six or seven occasions between December 1988 and April 1989 to learn about Project Galileo, which deals with gravity and propulsion, and training on an “antimatter reactor.” He also reads about a second project, Looking Glass, concerned with seeing back in time. (Dolan II 475; Jacobsen, Area 51, p. 11)

December 18 — Milton William Cooper surfaces on CompuServe online network, claiming that while working as a quartermaster with an intelligence team for Adm. Bernard A. Clarey, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, he had seen two documents, Project Grudge Special Report 13 and an MJ-12 briefing. He elaborates on Moore’s and Lear’s tales of crashes and alien bodies, adding that the aliens are called Alien Life Forms (ALFs) and that he has seen photos of aliens that supposedly landed at Holloman AFB, New Mexico, in 1964 or 1977. (Dolan II 452– 453; Clark III 367)

December 28 — 7:45 p.m. Many people in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, see a huge, bright-yellow triangular object in the sky. Mañuel Marcado watches as two F-14 Tomcats (probably from an aircraft carrier) approach the object from either side then cross in front of it. The light stops in mid-air and absorbs both planes, according to Marcado. The object moves over Lago Samán, then divides itself into two triangles, one of which shoots off to the east and the other to the north. Allegedly, the triangular objects were tracked on US Navy radars. (Good Need, p. 379)

1989

January — Leonard Stringfield issues his fifth Status Report. (Leonard H. Stringfield, UFO Crash/Retrievals: Is the Coverup Lid Lifting? The Author, 1989)

January — The Long Island UFO Network begins publishing the Long Island UFO Reporter, which soon changes its name to the Long Island UFO Update, edited at first by George McLain in Center Moriches, New York. It continues through December 1992. (Long Island UFO Reporter 1 no. 1 (January 1989))

January 28 — Evening. A triangular UFO is seen over Tiptree, Essex, England. Its color changes from bright to dull white before it shoots to the southwest. Other triangular UFOs are observed in southeast Essex in January. (Marler 124)

February — Numerous witnesses in Gloucestershire, England, report a noiseless triangular UFO “ablaze with lights.” One report describes a series of light beams emanating toward the ground that give it a “tripod effect.” (Wilts & Gloucester Standard of Cirencester, February 24, 1989; Marler 124–125)

February 8 — 3:40 a.m. A man in Gulf Breeze, Florida, wakes to the sound of dogs barking outside. He sees a small object descending low over a nearby lot. It appears to be two connected discs, one on top of the other, not more than 3 feet in diameter. A white light is on top, and many other lights are blinking in shades of red, orange, and green. He approaches it, but it disappears in a flash of light. The duration is about 12 minutes. (NICAP, “Gulf Breeze, Florida: February 8, 1989”)

February 10 — 8:42 p.m. A woman in Grove Oak, Alabama, tells the Fyffe, Alabama, police department that she has been watching a curved object for more than an hour with a pair of binoculars. It has a red light on each end and a white light in between, with the top of the curve outlined in green light. Police Chief Junior Garmany and Assistant Chief Fred Works drive to the site and see the object at 1,000–1,500 feet, completely silent. It begins moving away as they approach. The officers drive after the object, following it for 12 miles when it suddenly reverses direction and flies over their patrol car at 300–400 mph. It is soon seen by law enforcement officers to the south in Crossville, Geraldine, and Collinsville, Alabama. The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office receives more than 50 calls from citizens in surrounding communities, including Dawson and Dog Town, Alabama, and Lick Skillet, Tennessee, regarding a “silent thing streaking through the dark.” (“Friday Night UFO Remains a Mystery,” Fort Payne (Ala.) Times Journal, February 14, 1989, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 236 (March 1989): 10; Meghan Mitchell, “Alabama’s UFO Capital Still Has a Story to Tell,” The Crimson White (University of Alabama), October 28, 2019)

February 13 — 9:00–10:00 p.m. A large, low-flying, cylindrical UFO is reported by many witnesses in the North Caucasus region of Russia. It has spotlights in front and back, porthole-like openings along the sides, fins on its tail, and travels at about 65 mph. As it flies over Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, it drifts down to an altitude of 150 feet then flies off. (Jacques Vallée, UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union: A Cosmic Samizdat, Ballantine, 1992, pp. 32–33)

February 15 — Fyffe, Alabama, police officer Dennison Scott and two other officers investigate a citizen’s report of a strange object in the sky, flashing multicolored lights for more than an hour before it moves away toward the northwest. (Dolan II 472–473)

March — The Center for UFO Studies launches a new series of its Journal of UFO Studies, edited by Michael D. Swords, who examines the literature relating to extraterrestrial intelligence in order to provide a basis for judging the ETH as an acceptable concept for use in analyzing UFO phenomena. (Michael D. Swords, “Science and the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis in Ufology,” JUFOS 1 (1989): 67–102)

March — Robert Lazar allegedly sees a disc on his third visit to S-4 at Groom Lake, Nevada. It is a classic-looking flying saucer, resting on three legs in a hangar. It is about 35–40 feet in diameter, 15 feet tall, and the color of pewter.

During his stay at S-4, he sees a total of 9 flying saucers, each distinctive in design and size. His assignment, however, involves just one craft he nicknames the “sport model,” which he is allowed to examine on his fourth visit to S-4. The disc has three levels, and he is cleared for the lower two. Lazar crawls underneath the craft and sees three “gravity amplifiers” that focus a “Gravity A” wave from the “total annihilation” reactor in the center

level of the craft. In this level, he sees a control panel and very small chairs—too small for human pilots. He discovers that part of the skin of the craft can become transparent, allowing one to look through it like a window. According to Lazar, the fuel for the craft is Element 115 [later synthesized in 2003 and named moscovium in 2016, but this is much different than what Lazar describes], housed in the reactor where it undergoes bombardment and spontaneous fission, producing antimatter particles that are converted to electricity with 100% efficiency. This power operates the amplifier, distorts the surrounding gravitational field, causes the craft to be invisible, and shortens the distance to a charted destination. Speed-of-light limitations are irrelevant. But Element 115 cannot be manufactured on Earth. The aliens have left only 500 pounds of it, but just 223 grams (half a pound) can fuel a craft for a long time. On another occasion, Lazar witnesses a demonstration of the craft, which lifts off the ground, moves left and right, and sits back down. He has access to and reads more than 100 documents dealing with the craft, its propulsion, and alien technology, as well as photos of gray alien bodies. The aliens are allegedly from the Zeta Reticuli 1 and 2 star system. The Reticulans claim to have genetically corrected human evolution up to 65 times over the past 10,000 years using viruses. They have given humans religion to prevent them from self-destructing and claim to be able to exert mind control on people when they are relaxed or sleeping. Lazar allegedly catches a glimpse of a small, gray alien standing between two men in white coats in a small room inside the secret S-4 facility. The documents also mention an exchange of information and hardware between the US government and the Reticulans until 1979, when some kind of conflict occurred. This is when the aliens leave and the military begins reverse-engineering what alien tech they have acquired. Then in May 1987, some scientists take an antimatter reactor to an underground Nevada test facility, where they are killed when attempting to cut the reactor open. Lazar claims he was hired as a substitute for one of these men. (“Billy Goodman Happening, Nov. 21, 1989,” transcript of call-in radio show, KVEG-AM, Las Vegas, Nevada; MUFON UFO Journal, June 1990; Grant R. Cameron, T. Scott Crain, and Chris Rutkowski, “In the Land of Dreams,”

IUR 15, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1990): 4–8; “S-4 Papoose Lake,” Bob Lazar Debunked; “New High-Def Photos of S-4,” Bob Lazar Debunked; “Element 115,” Bob Lazar Debunked; Dolan II 475–478; Jacobsen, Area 51, p. 12)

March 1 — Albuquerque, New Mexico, ufologist Robert Hastings issues a 13-page statement with 37 pages of appended documents and mails it to many prominent individuals in ufology. He claims “Falcon” is Richard Doty and “Condor” is Robert Collins, and that Doty and Moore are spreading disinformation. (Clark III 370)

March 9 — Night. Susan Stockman, a reporter for the Rainsville (Ala.) Weekly Post, is with general manager Teri Baker when she snaps three time-lapse photographs of a distant UFO just above the treetop level, showing a movement unlike that of an airplane that appears shortly afterward. (Susan Stockman, “Section Native Says UFOs Are Real,” Rainsville (Ala.) Weekly Post, March 9, 1989; Susan Stockman, “A First-Hand Glimpse of the UFO,” Rainsville (Ala.) Weekly Post, March 16, 1989, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 237 (April 1989): 3–6)

March 12 — 7:30 p.m. Gary Coker of Skirum, Alabama, sees a large UFO with red and green flashing lights on the side and two white lights about 6 feet in diameter on the bottom hovering about 5 miles away. Another man in Geraldine, Alabama, sees an object the size of a football field hovering above his chicken house at about the same time. In both cases, the object disappears after the witnesses go inside to get a camera or binoculars. (“Some Say UFO Is As Big As a Football Field,” Rainsville (Ala.) Weekly Post, March 16, 1989, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 237 (April 1989): 3)

Late March — 9:20 p.m. After a training exercise at Mihai Kogălniceanu Air Force Base [now Mihai Kogălniceanu International Airport] in southeast Romania, 18–20 aircraft pilots of Regiment 57 are inside a building at the base planning future exercises; outside, Col. Aurelian Dobre notices multiple lights appear above some nearby trees. He alerts the oher pilots to come out, and they see a triangular formation of objects at an equal distance from each other, all bathed in a silver light, moving south to north at a height of 4 miles. Dobre hears a noise like the rustle of a flight of birds; unlike his colleagues, he thinks the lights are on a single object the size of a football stadium. Col. Dan Aloanei is flying a MiG-29 and sees them as a V-formation of neon lights that disappear to the northeast. The next day, all the witnesses are required to submit written reports. (Romania 105–109)

March 22 — 8:30 p.m. After telling writer Gene Huff and pilot John Lear about his UFO secrets, Lazar and his wife Tracy drive Lear’s RV to Tikaboo Peak, Nevada, off Highway 375 to view a test flight of a flying saucer at S-4. Lear sees an elliptical-shaped light through Lear’s Celestron telescope for 7 minutes. Lear videotapes the encounter, and the tape shows a bright light apparently maneuvering. When the camera zooms in close to the object, it seems to be spinning. They watch it descend behind a mountain. (Tom Mahood, “The Robert Lazar Timeline,” Other Hand, January 1997; Susan Wright, UFO Headquarters: Investigations on Current Extraterrestrial Activity, St.

Martin’s, 1999 ed., pp. 186–209)

March 25 — The Soviet Mars probe Phobos 2 takes an infrared photograph of what appears to be a large and long cylindrical object very close to Mars moonlet Phobos. If this Phobos Mystery Object is at the same distance as the moonlet itself, it would be roughly 1.2 miles wide and 15 miles long. Its surface brightness is the same as Phobos.

Its sides are parallel and both of the ends are rounded. The end toward Phobos narrows slightly; the other end has a short protrusion. This is the last image taken by the probe. On March 27 it fails to reestablish communications with Earth due to an onboard computer malfunction and goes into a spin. (Paul Stonehill and Philip Mantle, The Soviet UFO Files: Paranormal Encounters behind the Iron Curtain, Quadrillion, 1998, pp. 70–73; Patrick Gross, “Soviet Probe Meets UFO on Phobos Mission”)

March 29 — Bob and Tracy Lazar, Gene Huff, John Lear, and Jim Tagliani drive to Tikaboo Peak, Nevada, to observe another flight test. They videotape a moving light. ()

April 5 — Robert Lazar, Tracy Lazar, her sister, Gene Huff, and John Lear make a third trip to view a flight test along Groom Lake Road, Nevada. They are discovered by guards and questioned by the Lincoln County sheriff. ()

April 6 — Lazar is prevented from going to work at Groom Lake and is taken to Indian Springs Air Force Base [now Creech AFB] for questioning. He is told he is no longer employed by EG&G, and if he comes near Groom Lake again he will be arrested for espionage. He is allegedly given a transcript of Tracy’s telephone conversations which indicate she is having an affair. (Jacobsen, Area 51, pp. 12–13)

April 13 — The Kerry Committee report, the result of an investigation led by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations, shows that Lt. Col. Oliver North and other members of the Reagan administration had set up a private network involving the National Security Council and CIA to deliver military equipment to the Contras, US-backed right-wing rebel groups in Nicaragua. This has not been authorized by Congress, and much of the funding comes from drug trafficking. DEA agent Celerino Castillo testifies that from 1985 to 1987, he discovered that the Contras were transporting cocaine through El Salvador’s Ilopango Airport. Castillo tried to bust the operation, but discovers that the traffickers were protected by the CIA. The subcommittee determines that there is “substantial evidence of drug smuggling... on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contras, and Contra supporters.” It does “not find that Contra leaders were personally involved in drug trafficking.” (Wikipedia, “Kerry Committee report”)

April 15 — 5:30 p.m. A father and his 16-year-old son watch from their front lawn in Novato, California, a slowly descending object shaped like “two spheres connected by together like a stem.” They are golden with a white halo around them. Through binoculars, they can see four smaller objects, golden discs, maneuvering near the original dumbbell-shaped UFO. The father notes a “strange absence of kids and dogs at the time.” (Richard F. Haines, “Daylight Dumbbell,” IUR 14, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1989): 12–13, 23)

April 24 — 10:55 p.m. An object described as three times the size of an aircraft hovers above Cherepovets, Vologda Oblast, Russia, at a height of 1,000 feet. (Jacques Vallée, UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union: A Cosmic Samizdat, Ballantine, 1992, p. 11)

May 2 — Pilot Manoel Luiz Christóvão, flying a small plane about 6 miles west of Arapongas, Paraná, Brazil, sees a huge circular light in the sky as he is preparing to land. Another plane flying nearby cannot see the light. Christovào continues to land, but the light positions itself in front of the plane, forcing him to make a sudden maneuver. The object moves in front of him again, forcing him to maneuver again. The pilot decides to head directly toward the light, after which the UFO accelerates abruptly and disappears. The maneuvers last approximately 10 minutes. (“Piloto se arrisca em prova de fogo no Paraná,” Portal UFO, December 1, 1995; Clark III 201; Brazil 542–543)

May 7 — Hoaxed South African Air Force documents purport to describe a UFO crash in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana 50 miles north of the South African border. Two Mirage fighter aircraft allegedly pursue a fast-moving UFO and shoot it down with an experimental “thor 2 laser cannon.” However, UFO researcher Cynthia Hind notices ludicrous errors in the documents, not least among them that they are in English, not Afrikaans. (Wikipedia, “UFO sightings in South Africa”; Clark III 1096–1098)

May 15 — Robert Lazar is first interviewed by George Knapp on KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, Nevada, in silhouette, using the pseudonym “Dennis.” Lazar discusses his purported employment at S-4, a subsidiary facility he claims exists near in Area 51. He says the S-4 facility is adjacent to Papoose Lake, which is located south of the main Area 51 facility at Groom Lake. He claims the site consists of concealed aircraft hangars built into a mountainside. Lazar says that his job was to help with reverse engineering the antigravity propulsion system of one of nine flying saucers, which he alleges are extraterrestrial in origin. Lazar claims one of the flying saucers, the one he terms the “sport model,” is manufactured out of a metallic substance similar in appearance and touch to stainless steel. (Tom Mahood, “The Robert Lazar Timeline,” Other Hand, January 1997; Grant R. Cameron, T. Scott Crain, and Chris Rutkowski, “In the Land of Dreams,” IUR 15, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1990): 4–8; Don Ecker, “Freedom of Disinformation,” Fortean Times 122 (May 1999): 28–31; George Knapp and Matt Adams, “I-Team: The Man Who Sent Shock Waves through UFO Circles 30 Years Ago,” KLAS-TV, May 15, 2019)

May 23 — Milton William Cooper produces a 25-page document titled The Secret Government, in which he claims that an unscrupulous group of covert CIA and other intelligence operatives actually runs the country. He says they were responsible for murdering one-time Secretary of Defense James Forrestal in 1949 because he threatened to expose the UFO cover-up. He claims there have been at least 16 downed alien craft, 65 bodies, and one live alien retrieved between 1947 and 1952, with at least 10 more crash/retrievals during the Eisenhower years. Cooper says aliens from a dying planet orbiting Betelgeuse landed at Holloman AFB, New Mexico, in 1954 and reached an agreement with the government. A second meeting took place with President Eisenhower at Edwards AFB, California, and signed a formal treaty with an alien ambassador, His Omnipotent Highness Krill. But, he claims, the aliens broke the treaty, abducting humans, conspiring with the Soviets, and manipulating society through secret organizations. Cooper also claims that Eisenhower had created a scientific advisory group in 1960 called the Jason Group to “discover the truth of the alien question.” Much more spurious and outlandish tales develop. (Milton William Cooper, The Secret Government: The Origin, Identity, and Purpose of MJ-12, The Author, May 23, 1989; Clark III 367–368)

May 30 — 3:46 a.m. TAM Airlines Flight 573 in the vicinity of Americana, São Paulo, Brazil, is contacted twice by the local control tower to ask if they can see an aircraft in their vicinity. Both times the pilot answers no, but at 3:52

a.m. the pilot says he can now see a strong light near the airplane. It maneuvers near the aircraft and one of the pilots estimates its size as about 164 feet. About 8 minutes later, they lose visual contact. (Clark III 201; Brazil 543)

May 30 — 9:15 p.m. A man and his son in Winnipeg, Manitoba, observe a “silvery, metallic hot dog,” oriented vertically and moving steadily west. After several minutes, the object is lost in the distance. (Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1989): 7)

June — Jacques Vallée presents “five arguments against the extraterrestrial origin” of UFOs at the eighth annual conference of the Society for Scientific Exploration in Boulder, Colorado. (1) There are too many close encounters to explain them as a physical survey of the earth. (2) The humanoid body structure is unlikely to have originated elsewhere and is not biologically adapted to space travel. (3) The behavior of alien abductors contradicts the idea that advanced aliens are conducting genetic or scientific experiments. (4) UFOs have been recorded throughout human history. (5) The apparent ability of UFOs to manipulate space and time suggests different and richer alternatives to the ETH. Vallée cites the earthlight theory, the control system hypothesis, and travel via wormholes as viable explanations. (Jacques Vallée, “Five Arguments Against the Extraterrestrial Origin of Unidentified Flying Objects,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 4, no. 1 (1990): 105–117)

June — Robert Hastings lines up an impressive case against Bill Moore, saying that the Project Aquarius message was altered by Moore, that Richard Doty had forged the Ellsworth AFB document, that Doty’s typewriter at Kirtland AFB was implicated in the July 1980 Craig R. Weitzel letter, that Doty had given data to Linda Moulton Howe that contradicted data in the Eisenhower briefing memo, and that Moore admitted to faking a government ID card and passed himself off as an intelligence operative for two years. (MUFON UFO Journal, June 1990)

June 2 — Paul Paulsen Frøyen sees two “U-boats” in Sognefjord between Lavik and Vadheim, Vestland, Norway. He watches them for two-and-a-half minutes, noting their periscopes and towers. When they submerge, he can see the spray. The Norwegian Air Force sends two jets to look for them, and the Coast Guard is also alerted. (Ole Jonny Brænne, “Observations of Unidentified Submarine Objects in Norway,” IUR 20, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1995): 13)

June 4 — 7:45 p.m. A security guard and an air traffic controller at Air Force Facility 42 in Palmdale, California, witness a silver flying object and three orb-shaped UFOs during testing of the B1-B bomber. There is also a rumor of an abduction occurring on this date at the same facility. (MUFON UFO Journal, November 1990)

June 6 — School children near the village of Konantsevo, Vologda Oblast, Russia, see a luminous dot in the sky. It gets larger, turns into a shining sphere, lands in a meadow, and moves to the Reka Kubena river about a quarter mile away. It seems to split, and a “headless person in dark garb” appears. The entity and sphere become invisible.

Three more spheres are said to land later in the same meadow. (Jacques Vallée, UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union: A Cosmic Samizdat, Ballantine, 1992, pp. 11–12)

June 24 — 12:00 midnight. A. N. Olkhovay goes out on her balcony in Kyiv, Ukraine, and sees a dim, twinkling, rectangular object shaped “like a loaf of bread” hovering above the Obolon neighborhood. She calls her neighbors, and one of them named Ivanitsky hastily takes two photos. The film is developed in the offices of the Pravda Ukrainy newspaper but it shows nothing. (V. D. Musinsky, “Letter: Soviet Ufology,” IUR 15, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1990): 21)

June 30 — 9:30 p.m. G. I. Lerman and his wife Ann watch a fiery object with a tail over Lake Radunka in Kyiv, Ukraine, flying at an altitude of 1,640–3,280 feet, first slowly, then speeding up. After a minute or two the flames die out

and they see a silver-white object. During the sighting they feel their own movements slowing down. (V. D. Musinsky, “Letter: Soviet Ufology,” IUR 15, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1990): 21)

Summer — Night. Edward Chard sees some odd lights hovering in Essex, England. He looks at them through binoculars and sees a large triangular object. (Nick Redfern, A Covert Agenda: UFO Secrecy Exposed, Simon & Schuster, 1997, p. 183)

July 1 — Bill Moore makes a stunning presentation at the MUFON UFO Symposium in Las Vegas, speaking candidly for the first time about his part in counterintelligence operations against Paul Bennewitz. Moore says he provided Doty with information about Bennewitz’s thinking and activities. Moore suggests that Doty was chosen by the real Falcon as a liaison person. He says that by mid-1982 Bennewitz had put together the story that contained all the elements later circulated by Lear and Cooper. Moore decided to go along with the disinformation game in order to keep in good graces with people who knew something about UFOs and national security. He withheld and blacked out certain portions of UFO-related government documents. He says he stopped cooperating in 1984 because he realized the documents he was receiving from AFOSI were faked, much of the scenario similar to the alien-contact mythos later spun by Lear and Cooper. All of it originated in the disinformation directed at Paul Bennewitz. He gives the names of others who “were the subject of intelligence community interest between 1980 and 1984”: Leonard H. Stringfield, Pete Mazzola, Peter Gersten, Lawrence Fawcett, Jim and Coral Lorenzen, and Larry W. Bryant. Moore leaves the stage through a back door, his reputation in ruins. (Don Ecker, “Freedom of Disinformation,” Fortean Times 122 (May 1999): 28–31; Clark III 370–372; Curt Collins, “Bill Moore and UFO Disinformation Accusations,” Blue Blurry Lines, April 29, 2022)

July 4 — Twilight. Two women are walking with a 6-year-old girl along the Dnieper River in a park near Kyiv, Ukraine, when they see a “boat” with three beings on board. The entities have absolutely identical faces—extremely pale, long blond hair, large eyes, and collarless silver shirts that look like nightgowns. They tell the women they are from another planet and want to show them their spaceship. The women walk with them but experience odd physical sensations and beg to be let go. They see a ship behind some trees, and the little girl gets frightened. The beings relent and board the craft by a ladder that then retracts. The door closes silently, and the craft departs. (V.

D. Musinsky, “Letter: Soviet Ufology,” IUR 15, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1990): 20–21; Jacques Vallée, UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union: A Cosmic Samizdat, Ballantine, 1992, pp. 37–39)

July 4 — Night. Members of the Iskuskovs family are on vacation in the Podgortsy section of southern Kyiv, Ukraine.

They watch silver-suited beings emerge from a landed UFO. (V. D. Musinsky, “Letter: Soviet Ufology,” IUR 15, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1990): 21)

July 6 — 7:00 p.m. Yasuhiko Hamazaki takes an 8mm videotape recording of a brightly luminous object that passes nearly overhead in Hakui, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. At one point he uses a zoom lens to get a clearer image. The object has a central ring like the planet Saturn, except that it is squarish and dome-shaped. About one minute of the video captures the object descending rapidly at a shallow angle, then suddenly changing direction and rising at a steep angle at very high speed. Bruce Maccabee’s photo analysis shows that the object is not an airplane, balloon, kite, or model airplane. (UFOEv II 297–298; Bruce Maccabee, “A Rare Photo Coincidence,” IUR 15, no. 3 (May/June 1990): 4–9, 22)

July 26 — 2:40 p.m. R. H. Stepanian, air traffic controller at Sochi International Airport, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, receives information from a Tupolev Tu-154 airliner crew flying from Simferopol, Crimea, that they have seen UFOs from a distance of 20–30 miles. According to the pilots, first one, then two “strange objects” pace them on their left.

One is almost exactly square, while the other is the shape of an elongated rhombus. At the time of the radio transmission, the two objects are swiftly moving away and beginning to separate. Apparently two other flights report multiple UFOs to the airport. (Paul Stonehill and Philip Mantle, The Soviet UFO Files: Paranormal Encounters behind the Iron Curtain, Quadrillion, 1998, pp. 74–76; Stonehill and Mantle, Russia’s USO Secrets, Flying Disk, 2020, pp. 134–135)

July 28–29 — 11:20 p.m. A domed disc-shaped object is seen over the rocket weapons depot at Kapustin Yar, Astrakhan Oblast, Russia. The object is flashing an intensely bright light from its underside. It hovers above the site at a height of 65 feet. Roughly 13–17 feet in diameter, its hull is illuminated with a dim green, phosphorus-like color. It circles two or three times and moves toward a railway station, still flashing its light, then returns to the weapons depot at a height of 200–230 feet. Soviet soldiers Levin and Klimenko say the object performed acrobatic maneuvers, at one point dividing into three shining points and taking the shape of a triangle. A fighter jet is scrambled, but the object evades it. Two other objects appear at low altitudes of 980–1,300 feet. The last one to appear, a cigar-shaped object, gives off flashes of red light at constant intervals, then lights of all colors. At around 1:30 a.m., it flies to the southwest and disappears. (Don Berliner, with Marie Galbreath and Antonio Huneeus, UFO Briefing Document: The Best Available Evidence, Dell, 2000, pp. 133–138; Good Need, pp. 354–

355, 363; Paul Stonehill and Philip Mantle, The Soviet UFO Files: Paranormal Encounters behind the Iron Curtain, Quadrillion, 1998, p. 79; Nukes 453–456)

August — Day. A man is walking his dog in a nature preserve between Wolverhampton and Dudley, England, when he sees a tennis-ball-sized “soap bubble” that has a white, feathery mass inside floating slowly about 12 feet above the ground. It floats into a field where there are several horses, which do not seem concerned about it. Suddenly the object changes direction and moves into a strong wind, coming straight toward him. In moments it is just inches away from him, seemingly surveying him. At close quarters he could see that the object has an oily look. At the instant he thinks about popping the bubble, it speeds off to the east, covering about 30 feet in one second, and disappears. (Jenny Randles, “Don’t Forget the Y-Files,” Fortean Times 405 (May 2021): 29)

August 2 — Richard L. Huff in the FBI Office of Information and Privacy affirms in a letter to researcher Larry W. Bryant that it keeps a classified personal file on Stanton T. Friedman and denies access to it. (Nick Redfern, Body Snatchers in the Desert, Paraview, 2005, p. 191)

August 2 — The Russian tanker Volgoneft-161 is in the Sea of Japan off the region of Primorsky Krai, Russia, when rew members notice an unusual shere about 35° above the northern horizon. It is pale yellow and surrounded by a hazy luminescence. The object movres t the northeast, ascending, and is visible for 5 minutes. (Stonehill and Mantle, Russia’s USO Secrets, Flying Disk, 2020, p. 116)

August 10 — 9:00 p.m. William Heijster, a Dutch military psychologist who works at the Ministry of Defence at The Hague, Netherlands, is driving with his family near Estepona, Spain, when they see an object hovering over a mountain. Heijster stops the car and videotapes the object off and on for the next hour. The incident is plausibly explained by Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos as the flight of a Transmediterranean research balloon launched from Sicily in a joint operation by CNES (France), INTA (Spain), and the Italian space agency. (UFOEv II 298–299; Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Expedientes Insólitos, Temas de Hoy, 1995, pp. 125–130; “El caso ovni acaecido en Malaga en 1989,” El Blog de Malaga, October 1, 2012)

August 22 — 2:40 p.m. A circular, flashing light is in view for about 5 minutes near Sunderland, England. At first it is stationary, but then it moves rapidly upward, leaving a hole in a cloud that then glows red. (Mark Rodeghier, “Another Hole in the Cloud,” IUR 33, no. 2 (July 2010): 24)

August 28 — Larry W. Bryant files suit in District Court for the District of Columbia for the FBI to release its files on Stanton T. Friedman. (Nick Redfern, Body Snatchers in the Desert, Paraview, 2005, p. 191)

Late August — 12:00 midnight. A woman is driving north of La Salle, Manitoba, when she sees a “cloudlike boomerang” pass over her car. (Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1989): 7)

Late August — While working as an engineer on the jack-up barge GSF Galveston Key in the North Sea, Chris Gibson and another witness see an unfamiliar isosceles triangle–shaped delta aircraft, apparently refueling from a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and accompanied by a pair of F-111 fighter-bombers. Gibson and his girlfriend watch the aircraft for several minutes until they move out of sight. He subsequently draws a sketch of the formation. (Christopher Bellamy, “Oil Rig Engineer Sketches Secret US Spy Aircraft,” The Independent (UK), December 14, 1992; Bill Sweetman, “Secret Mach 6 Spy Plane,” Popular Science 242 (March 1993): 56–63, 98–101; Bill Sweetman, Aurora: The Pentagon’s Secret Hypersonic Spyplane, Motorbooks, 1993, pp. 12–15, 88–89; Susan Wright, UFO Headquarters: Investigations on Current Extraterrestrial Activity, St. Martin’s, 1999 ed., pp. 154– 155; Simon Gray, “Chris Gibson’s Aurora Sighting,” Secret Projects forum, November 1, 2007; UFOFiles2, p.

144; Marler 178–180)

September — CAUS devotes all of one issue of its Just Cause newsletter to a harshly critical review of Moore’s activities. (“A Majestic Deception,” Just Cause, new ser., no. 21 (September 1989): 1–16; Clark III 371)

September — Marc Leduc begins publishing a newsletter, Lettre d’Information Ufologique, in Lac-Beauport, Quebec. It runs until June 1993. (Lettre d’Information Ufologique 1, no. 1 (September 1989))

September 6 — 11:13 p.m. Tong Yuwei, a worker in Ürümqi, Xinjiang Autonomous Province, China, sees a dark cloud light up with a yellow flash. A rotating, saucer-shaped object with a black gap on its edge appears. It makes a noise louder than a car engine. After hovering for a minute, the red-and-yellow glowing object moves out of sight at high speed to the southwest. (Central Intelligence Agency, “UFO Sighted over Urumqi Evening of 6 Sep,” [memo on Xingua news report], September 13, 1989)

September 13 — A woman is returning home from the grocery store in Protvino, Moscow Oblast, Russia, when two tall women in tight, silvery suits jump out from behind some boulders and paralyze her. The women have light blonde hair, gray-green skin, and hats with antennae. They take her to a small, disc-shaped craft by the side of the road and invite their captive for a ride, which they insist will not last long. She hesitantly accepts. Inside are three chairs, one of them occupied by a man. The woman offers them some of the bread she has just purchased, but the

women decline, offering her some of their own bread. Without thinking, she reflexively pops a piece into her mouth and swallows. She later describes the taste as a lightly sweet rye bread. The craft ascends and flies over Protvino before dropping the woman off at her apartment. The space people tell her they will meet again. (Vladimir Azhazha, Inaya Zhizn’, Golos, 1998; Joshua Cutchin, “The Great Alien Bake-Off,” Fortean Times 332 (November 2015): 44)

September 15 — 3:40 a.m. A woman in eastern Winnipeg, Manitoba, is looking out her kitchen window when a deltoid- shaped object sails past. It has lines of “Christmas lights” spreading out from its leading edge and moves silently out of view in 4–5 seconds. (Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec.

1989): 8)

September 15–19 — The Center for UFO Studies conducts the first expedition to the Roswell debris field site near Corona, New Mexico. The 10-member team includes Mark Rodeghier, Mimi Hynek, Donald R. Schmitt, and Kevin Randle. They find no unusual debris but survey the site and take soil samples. (Mark Rodeghier, “Roswell, 1989,” IUR 14, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1989): 4–8, 23)

September 16 — Night. A female employee at a meat packing plant in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, steps outside for a quick break when a beam of light strikes her from above. Looking up, she sees a hovering disc-shaped craft about 130–260 feet in diameter. She feels no fear and has a euphoric feeling as she begins rising up into the air toward the object. She also hears a voice extolling her to “fly with them.” Other workers come to the scene and begin yelling and running toward the woman. The beam disappears, and the UFO flies away. (Jacques Vallée, UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union: A Cosmic Samizdat, Ballantine, 1992, p. 36)

September 27 — 6:30 p.m. Several children playing at a park in Voronezh, Russia, see a pinkish aerial glow approaching them. As it passes overhead, they see that it is a deep red, ball-shaped object. The object flies around in circles for a few minutes and then leaves. When it returns, it hovers briefly, and then descends close to the ground. A hatch opens and a heavy-set figure emerges. The being moves very slowly and looks around. It has a small head resembling that of a doorknob, set in between the shoulders. It has three luminous eyes, the middle one moving around like “radar.” On its chest is a shield-like object. The being then closes the hatch and the object lands gently on four legs. The hatch opens again and three huge humanoids with small knob-like heads step out. They wear silvery coveralls and bronze-colored boots. A strange robot-like creature accompanies the giants. All four walk around the object several times. A beam of light comes out of the chest of one of the beings and strikes the ground, creating several luminous triangles that later fade away. At one point the craft and beings become briefly invisible but then reappear. One of the boys screams in fear. Then one of the beings looks at the boy and points a tube at him. A luminous beam comes from the tube and hits the boy, which makes him disappear. The boy later reappears after the beings and the objects have gone. Subsequent information reveals that on the craft’s hull and on the landing prop of another craft is the letter or symbol “zhe,” reported as similar to the “Ummo” insignia reported in Western Europe in the 1970s. In a work published by Socialist Industry slightly after the incident, a self-proclaimed UFO specialist asserts the marks left by the supposed landing were simply scorch marks from a burnt hay-bale. (Wikipedia, “Voronezh UFO incident”; “UFO Lands in U.S.S.R.: Read All about It in Tass,” Philadelphia Daily News, October 9, 1989, p. 5; “A Tass Bulletin: Knobby Aliens Were Here,” New York Times, October 10, 1989, pp. 1, 10; “U.F.O. Landing Is Fact, Not Fantasy, the Russians Insist,” New York Times, October 11, 1989, p. 6; “Aliens Visit Voronezh,” Moscow News, no. 43 (October 1989), via UFO Newsclipping Service, November 1989, p. 12; Jacques Vallée, UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union: A Cosmic Samizdat, Ballantine, 1992, pp. 40–61; Clark III 1229–1231)

September 28 — Night. Long Island UFO Network founder John Ford claims that a UFO is shot down and retrieved at Moriches Bay, Long Island, New York. Although UFOs are observed on the southern coast of Long Island, the crash/retrieval seems to be an exaggerated fantasy. Ford is convinced the nearby Brookhaven National Laboratory is part of a UFO coverup and is developing ET-related weaponry. On June 12, 1996, Ford and LIUFON member Joe Mazzachelli are arrested in a sting operation on conspiracy charges to poison John Powell, the head of the Suffolk County Republican Party, who Ford believes is covering up UFO retrievals and engaging in illegal activities, by putting radium in his toothpaste. Ford is convicted without a trial and sent to a mental institution because of his paranoid conspiracy obsession. (John Ford, “The Moriches Bay Case of September 28, 1989,” Long Island UFO Reporter 1, no. 3 (November 1989): 2–6; John Ford, “The Chairman’s Corner,” Long Island UFO Reporter 2, no. 1 (February 1990): 2–4; John Ford, “UFO Captured at Moriches Bay?” The East Ender, February 9, 1990, via UFO Newsclipping Service, April 1990, p. 7; Elaine Douglass, “The Ordeal of John Ford,” John Ford Defense Committee; “The John Ford Affair,” UFO UpDates, November 26, 1998; Dolan II 489–492)

October — Night. Hundreds of residents of Omsk, southwestern Siberia, Russia, report seeing a UFO. Major V. Loginov sees an object about 1.5 the size of the full moon passing overhead at an altitude of several kilometers. It projects

four bright lights, some downward, others parallel to the horizon. Loginov watches it for 5 minutes hovering above the civil airport before descending. The lights turn off, and a whirling plume trail appears around the sphere. Pilots taking off from the airport can see the object, but it is not visible on radar screens. (“USSR: Media Report Multitude of UFO Sightings,” Foreign Press Note (Foreign Broadcast Information Service), November 22, 1989, p. 4)

October 6 — 11:30 p.m. A woman driving near Tyndall, Manitoba, sees a bright light flash upward out of sight in front of her car. (Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1989): 8)

October 9 — 2:50 p.m. A couple and their child are getting into their car at a wildlife sanctuary in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

They see a white “boomerang-shaped” object hanging silently and motionless in the east over the city. The mother puts the child in the back seat for safety. The man continues to watch as the object tilts and moves, revealing a bulge on its underside. It moves away, and the object goes home. (Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1989): 8)

October 9 — 11:30 p.m. Carl Weselak is observing a meteor shower from his third floor apartment in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba, when he sees a large boomerang-shaped object flying north to south over the city. Over the next few hours he sees more UFOs ranging from balls of light to other boomerangs. He telephones a newspaper to have a reporter verify the sightings. However, UFOROM discovers that several aircraft takeoffs and landings at the airport correspond to some of Weselak’s observations. (Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1989): 8)

October 11 — A 16-year-old girl in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, sees a “net” fall from the sky, apparently surrounding her, in the center of which is a bright point. She tries to push it away but gets a shock. She screams, but her voice sounds distorted. Her family rushes out of the house and sees a flying disc hovering less than 50 feet away. It soon vanishes. The girl remains paralyzed a while, the tips of her fingers burned and enlarged, and she is taken to a hospital. (Jacques Vallée, UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union: A Cosmic Samizdat, Ballantine, 1992, pp. 36–37)

October 11 — 7:30 p.m. Brad Schmidt, 13, Todd Weinheimer, 13, Paul Goddard, 12, Kevin Still, and one other boy are skateboarding outside the town pool in Centennial Park, Langenburg, Saskatchewan, when they see an object with multicolored lights approaching them from the east. They wave their skateboards at it, and the lights hover silently 400 feet away at 100–200 feet in the air. They duck down in the tall grass. The object moves away over nearby Parkside School, pauses for a moment, then takes off to the west. The boys alert two teachers in the school, Bob Markham and Mark MacMurchy, and they go out to all watch the object for another 10–15 minutes. One of the teachers says the object has a bright flashing light on top and a red light on the bottom. It is more than half a mile away and only 650 feet in the air. The top light flashes every 15–20 seconds. Soon it moves away to the west. (“Strange Lights over the Park,” Regina (Sask.) Leader-Post, November 4, 1989, pp. C1–C2; Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1989): 8)

October 12 — 12:20 a.m. A shift worker in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is returning home through a park when he sees a “shimmering boomerang” in the sky. He goes closer and hears a high-pitched whine coming from it. The object starts to move slowly then shoots away making a noise like a sonic boom. (Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1989): 8)

October 13 — 10:20 a.m. Rose Neumeier is in her kitchen 7 miles southwest of Langenburg, Saskatchewan, when she sees a flash of light near a shed about 50 feet away. An object like “two pie plates rim to rim” is motionless in the air about 50 feet above the shed. It is shiny and metallic, 30 feet long and 10 feet thick, and has a flattened top and “corrugated” bottom. Light is shining brightly from the joint between the two halves. It is silent and the dog and cattle are not disturbed. After a few minutes, it rises slowly, moves north, curves through the hayfield, circles the barn, and moves away across the pasture. (“Object Hovers over Garage,” Regina (Sask.) Leader-Post, November 4, 1989, p. C2; Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1989): 8–9)

October 16 — 7:45 a.m. A woman is driving near Langruth, Manitoba, when she sees a “star with a tail of smoke going up” in the east. After a few minutes, the object takes on a dome shape and its tail is no longer visible. (Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1989): 9)

October 16 — 7:45 p.m. A man in Langenburg, Saskatchewan, is driving with his daughter when they observe an object “as wide as a small airplane is long” with colored flashing lights. It coasts silently over the highway “right over our heads.” (Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1989): 9)

October 21 — Witnesses in Burkhala, Magadan Oblast, Russia, watch a red, shining sphere maneuvering near an electric power transmission line for 30 minutes. About 7–9 lights are seen along its edge. One witness estimates its speed as 600 mph. (Vadim K. Ilyin, “KGB’s ‘Blue Folder’ Reveals Shootings, Landings in USSR,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 403 (November 2001): 9)

October 25 — 7:45 p.m. A resident of Gilbert Plains, Manitoba, sees a large object with red flashing lights. It is moving slowly and silently at an altitude of 200 feet. (Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1989): 9)

November 1 — 6:50 p.m. A pilot flying a small airplane 20 miles north of La Ronge, Saskatchewan, sees a pair of blinking lights moving across his path at 8,500 feet. Air traffic control confirms there are no other aircraft in the area at the time. (Chris Rutkowski, “The Canadian UFO Wave of 1989,” IUR 14, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1989): 9)

November 4 — 5:30 p.m. A couple and their two children are sitting in front of a large living room window in Hall Beach, Nunavut, watching television. The family dog begins barking, and soon the man’s attention is drawn to a strange object in the sky. The family watches the UFO, which looks like an upside-down cup and saucer. The bottom portion has a red light in the center, and three windows emitting white light are across the middle. After only a couple of seconds, the object departs, seemingly straight up, and disappears. A local employee of the Department of Public Works also sees the object. (Chris Rutkowski and Geoff Dittman, The Canadian UFO Report, Dundurn Press, 2006, pp. 142–143)

November 7 — 12:40 a.m. Two women in their 40s are driving on Interstate 70 west of Goodland, Kansas, when they encounter a UFO and lose 2 hours of time. They experience anxiety, insomnia, irritability, and bewilderment as a result. Neither women claim any interest in UFOs. They initially believe that they never left their car or observed anything further. Hypnotic regressions (obtained independently) reveal abduction scenarios with at least 40 direct correlations between their accounts. (John S. Carpenter, “Double Abduction Case: Correlation of Hypnosis Data,” JUFOS 3 (1991): 91–114)

November 10 — KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, Nevada, identifies and interviews Robert Lazar, unmasked and using his real name. Lazar claims that during his onboarding to the Area 51 program, he read briefing documents describing the historical involvement of Earth for the past 10,000 years with extraterrestrial beings described as grey aliens from a planet orbiting the twin binary star system Zeta Reticuli. The Zeta Reticuli system was previously claimed

by Barney and Betty Hill as the origin of aliens they allegedly encountered in their abduction. Lazar’s story quickly garners enormous media attention, controversy, supporters, and detractors. Lazar admits he cannot support with evidence his core claim of alien technology. (Tom Mahood, “The Robert Lazar Timeline,” Other Hand, January 1997; Don Ecker, “Freedom of Disinformation,” Fortean Times 122 (May 1999): 28–31)

November 10 — Communion, a feature film based on abductee Whitley Strieber’s book of the same name, premieres in the US. Directed by Philippe Mora, Strieber is played by actor Christopher Walken. (Internet Movie Database, “Communion”)

November 13 — The FBI releases a handful of its files on Stanton T. Friedman as a result of Larry Bryant’s lawsuit. (Nick Redfern, Body Snatchers in the Desert, Paraview, 2005, p. 191)

November 18 — Early evening. A large, black, boomerang-shaped object glides over downtown Lancaster, California. Low-intensity lights, similar to stars, outline its frame. Witness Robert Puskas estimates its size as 800–900 feet wide. Off its left tip he sees a silvery metallic disc about 30–40 feet in diameter, reflecting the streetlights. (MUFON UFO Journal, November 1990)

November 20 — 5:30 a.m. A couple in the rural town of Marieville, Quebec, wakes up to the sight of a strange blue light shining through the curtains. They hear a noise like an electric generator and feel a vibration. But looking outside they can see nothing. About 900 feet down the road, a neighbor is also awakened by the bright light and observes four blue objects over the other couple’s house. He also feels a vibration and describes the lights as intermittent, blinking out and reappearing in a different spot. At one point, the streetlights along Route 112 weaken when one of the objects gets too close. He thinks the lights are about 30 feet off the ground. Two other witnesses also see the lights interact with power lines. One reports that her power goes out for 10 minutes. On November 22, a strange pattern is discovered about 150 feet from the first couple’s residence—a perfectly round circle, 65 feet in diameter, of flattened (not burned) grass. The RCMP visits the circle on November 23 and 28, noting a striking difference in color of the flattened grass within the circle and the straight grass outside it. (Chris Rutkowski and Geoff Dittman, The Canadian UFO Report, Dundurn Press, 2006, pp. 149–150)

November 22 — The USAF SR-71 Blackbird program is officially terminated. The odd thing is that there is no dissension in the military about this. The alleged additional savings of $300 million is insignificant. Analysts point out that satellites, though useful, simply cannot perform the type of missions for which the Blackbird is suited. Some observers suspect there is a secret, better replacement. (Wikipedia, “Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird”; Bill Sweetman, Aurora: The Pentagon’s Secret Hypersonic Spyplane, Motorbooks, 1993, p. 4)

November 29 — 5:15 p.m. While patrolling on the road between Eupen, Belgium, and the German border, two federal policemen, Heinrich Nicoll and Hubert von Montigny, see an intense light in a nearby field. Above the field is a triangular object with three spotlights shining down and a red flashing light in the center. Without making a

sound, it moves slowly toward the German border for 2 minutes and then suddenly turns back toward Eupen. Nicoll and von Montigny follow it. (Patrick Vantuyne, “Mystery Craft: Eupen, Belgium,” Patt Nayeu & Son, June 12, 2010; Kean, p. 24)

November 29 — 5:24 p.m. About 250 witnesses, in 143 separate observations, watch the same or similar triangular or delta-winged craft maneuvering overhead at Eupen, Belgium. Two police officers in a patrol car are illuminated by a brilliant light beam from a dark triangular object hovering at 600–900 feet and making a faint humming noise. The light is so dazzling that “we could read a newspaper under it.” The UFO moves slowly away to the southwest, where it hovers near the Lac de la Gileppe dam for 45 minutes. Policemen Heinrich Nicoll and Hubert von Montigny watch it repeatedly emit two red beams with a red ball at the spearhead of both beams; the beams soon disappear, leaving the red balls, which return to the object. Then around 7:23 p.m., it moves further to the southwest and is seen over Spa for 30 minutes before it disappears. (UFOEv II 50–51; MUFON UFO Journal, July 1990, pp. 3–7; Société Belge d’Etude des Phénomènes Spatiaux, Vague d’OVNI sur la belgique: Un dossier exceptionnelle, SOBEPS, 1991; Auguste Meessen, “The Belgian Sightings,” IUR 16, no. 3 (May/June 1991): 4–5; Wim van Utrecht, “Triangles over Belgium: The SOBEPS Report,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 286 (February 1992): 5–6; Steven M. Greer, “UFOs over Belgium,” MUFON UFO Journal, no, 289 (May 1992): 8–12; Auguste Meessen, “Étude approfondie et discussion de certaines observations du 29 novembre 1989,” Inforespace, no. 95 (October 1997): 16–70; Auguste Meessen, “The Belgian Wave and the Photos of Ramillies”; Don Berliner, with Marie Galbreath and Antonio Huneeus, UFO Briefing Document: The Best Available Evidence, Dell, 2000, pp.

137–144; Kean, pp. 24–27)

November 29 — 6:45 p.m. Gendarmes Heinrich Nicoll and Hubert von Montigny see another object near Eupen, Belgium, which appears from behind a wood and makes a forward tilting maneuver. It has a dome on top with rectangular windows. It then departs to the north. (Joël Mesnard, “The UFO ‘Wave’ of November/December 1989 over Eastern Belgium,” Flying Saucer Review 35, no. 2 (June 1990): 4; Kean, p. 25)

November 29 — 6:45 p.m. A man is driving alone in his car on the Rue Mathieu de Lexhy at the intersection with the Rue Hector Denis near Grâce-Berleur, Belgium, when he sees to his left an immense stationary object at about 325 feet altitude and 1,600 feet away. He slows down, lowers his window, and hears a soft sound like an electric motor. The object is larger than a Boeing 707. It has flashing red, green, and white lights and a light beam directed toward the ground. He drives away while the UFO is still visible. (Patrick Vidal and Michel Rozencwajg, “The Belgian Wave,” IUR 16, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1991): 7)

November 29 — 7:20 p.m. Two federal policemen, Dieter Plummans and Peter Nicoll, see a triangular UFO near a monastery [Kloster Garnstock?] north of Eupen, Belgium. The object has three very strong spotlights and a flashing red central light. It is at an altitude of about 250 feet and about 300 feet away. It is immobile and silent, but it suddenly emits a hissing sound and its lights fade a bit. Simultaneously, a red ball comes out of the center and heads straight downward, but soon veers horizontal and disappears behind some trees. The object then passes above the police car, moving northeast. They follow it for 5 miles before losing it. (Kean, pp. 25–26)

November 30 — 3:15 a.m. New York City resident Linda Napolitano (pseudonym “Linda Cortile”) is allegedly abducted by aliens from her 12th-story apartment on the lower east side of Manhattan. Five aliens come into her bedroom while she is still awake. They paralyze her and move her into the living room. Linda and three of the five aliens are floated out through her living room window, directly through the window, to a large hovering UFO. Three independent witnesses to the abduction are two security intelligence agents (“Richard” and “Dan”), who see the UFO and abductees from a car near the Brooklyn Bridge, and a VIP political dignitary later identified as UN Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, who does not confirm any involvement. The UFO then dives into the East River. Budd Hopkins delves into the case, although he never meets the two security guards or even confirms their existence. Music critic Greg Sandow writes an insightful analysis of the case in 1997. Hopkins’s former wife Carol Rainey has been critical of the quality of his abduction research in this case and in that of singer Phoebe Snow, which he never publicized. (Budd Hopkins, “The Linda Cortile Abduction Case,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 293 (September 1992): 12–16; Budd Hopkins, “The Linda Cortile Abuction Case, Part II: The Woman on the Bridge,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 296 (December 1992): 5–9; Joseph J. Stefula, Richard D. Butler, and George

P. Hansen, “A Critique of Budd Hopkins’ Case of the UFO Abduction of Linda Napolitano,” January 8, 1993; Jerome Clark, “Saucer Smearers,” IUR 18, no. 2 (March/April 1993): 3, 22–24; “The Claims in Question,” IUR 18, no. 2 (March/April 1993): 4–5; Donald A. Johnson, “Why the Linda Case Is a Hoax,” IUR 18, no. 2 (March/April 1993): 5, 22; Willy Smith, “The Impossible Testimony of Janet Kimball,” IUR 18, no. 2 (March/April 1993): 6–7, 21; Budd Hopkins, “House of Cards: The Butler/Hansen/Stefula Critique of the Cortile Case,” IUR 18, no. 2 (March/April 1993): 8–14, 21; David M. Jacobs, “A Matter of Ethics,” IUR 18, no. 2

(March/April 1993): 15–16; John E. Mack, “Stirring Our Deepest Fears,” IUR 18, no. 2 (March/April 1993): 17, 21; Willy Smith, et al., “The Linda Case,” IUR 18, no. 3 (May/June 1993): 22–23; Linda Cortile [Napolitano], “A

Light at the End of the Tunnel,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 302 (June 1993): 12–17; Budd Hopkins, Witnessed: The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions, Pocket Books, 1996; Greg Sandow, “The Linda Cortile Case Analyzed: Part 1,” IUR 22, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 18–23; Greg Sandow, “The Linda Cortile Case Analyzed: Part 2,” IUR 22, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 3–10, 35–36; Kevin D. Randle, “A Response to Budd Hopkins,” A Different Perspective, February 18, 2011; Carol Rainey, “The Singer’s Hybrid Daughter, Part I,” The UFO Trail, February 5, 2016; Carol Rainey, “The Singer’s Hybrid Daughter, Part II,” The UFO Trail, February 22, 2016; Sean F. Meers, “The Linda Cortile UFO Abduction Case: Abstract,” February 27, 2012).

December 1 — Weather forecaster Francesco Valenzano and his young daughter are walking in the Square Nicolaï in Ans, Liège, Belgium, when they see a large, slow-moving craft approaching at low altitude. The object silently makes a tour of the square; when it passes over their heads, they notice it has a delta shape with three lights in a triangular position and a red rotating light in the middle and positioned lower than the belly of the object. (Kean, pp. 27–28)

December 1 — 6:50 p.m. An amateur photographer is sitting in his living room at Eupen, Belgium, when he sees a lozenge-shaped UFO with two white lights at each corner. He draws a sketch but fails to take a photo. He sees a similar object on January 10, 1990. (Auguste Meessen, “The Belgian Sightings,” IUR 16, no. 3 (May/June 1991): 8–9)

December 2–3 — President George H. W. Bush and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Malta, just weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. During the summit, Bush and Gorbachev declare an end to the Cold War, although whether it is truly such is a matter of debate. (Wikipedia, “Malta Summit”)

December 5 or 12 — 9:50 p.m. A couple is driving on the Trierer Strasse in Aachen, Germany, when they see a flying object cut across the road in front of them to the right. It has two headlights in front, emitting beams that slant downwards. There is a flashing orange light on the underside. The same object reappears at their home around 11:15 p.m. (Auguste Meessen, “The Belgian Sightings,” IUR 16, no. 3 (May/June 1991): 9–10)

December 11 — 6:30 p.m. A 12-year-old boy and his family in Trooz, Belgium, watch a domed, triangular object for 15 minutes. It is hovering at first, then passes above their house. (Kean, p. 28)

December 11 — 6:45 p.m. Lt. Col. André Amond of the Belgian Army and his wife spot a strange aerial object while they are driving on the deserted Rue de Sart Ernage between Ernage and Gembloux, Belgium. It looks like a series of 3–4 panels of light traveling north to south at an altitude of 650–980 feet. Beneath the series of panels, and close to the center, is a rotating red lamp. Amond stops where the road dead ends and watches the UFO pass for 2–4 minutes. Then the object abruptly changes course and silently heads in his direction. Only an enormous spot of white light is visible now, “much bigger than the spotlight of a big air carrier.” They both are frightened, so Amond starts the car again. The big light disappears, and three smaller white spotlights become visible, which form a more or less equilateral triangle. The rotating red light is still there, now seen in profile. The object then performs a turn of 180° to the left. The distance between the white luminous points is estimated at approximately 33 feet. They cannot distinguish any solid object around this triangle of three lights. The maneuver is majestic and slow. Next, the luminous points disappear. Only the red rotating light is still visible, and it takes off in a south- southwesterly direction. The duration of the sighting is about 5–8 minutes. (Kean, pp. 28–29; Wim van Utrecht, “The Lieutenant-Colonel and the UFO,” Caelestia, January 7, 2016;)

December 12 — 2:15 a.m. A man in Jupille-sur-Meuse, Belgium, wakes up to a dull throbbing noise coming from outside. He sees an enormous oval object seemingly jammed between two fir trees. On its circumference, small lights are changing color from blue to red and back. The object is metallic, with an oar or paddle at its rear. In the front is a window or cockpit. On the front part is a logo consisting of several ellipses crossing themselves. After a few minutes, the object rises slightly, the sound it emits changing slightly. It moves toward a neighbor’s meadow, shining down three beams of lights. Some moments later, it emits an intense and well-defined shaft of light into the sky. The witness goes back to bed. The next morning, he reports his sighting to the Gendarmérie, which investigates and finds a gigantic circular trace in the meadow. At the center, the grass has been cut off, but the cuttings are nowhere to be seen, and the grass within the circle is yellow. (Patrick Vidal and Michel Rozencwajg, “The Belgian Wave,” IUR 16, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1991): 6–7)

December 21 — Belgian Minister of Defense Jean-Pol Poncelet states that there have been many UFOs reported and that the ministry and the Army have no idea what they are. (Swords 456–457)

December 24 or 25 — 3:00 p.m. Pilot Vladimir Kuzmin sees a dark gray, cigar-shaped object hovering southwest of Chelyabinsk, Russia, while he is flying a two-seat Aero L-29 Delfin. He estimates its altitude at 4.6 miles. The sighting lasts more than 8 minutes with the object in direct view for over 4 minutes. Within hours, Kuzmin experiences a strange, crustlike skin rash on the exposed portion of his face that lasts for more than 11 days.

(Richard F. Haines, “UFO Activities in the Soviet Union,” IUR 16, no. 2 (Mar./Apr. 1991): 14; Richard F. Haines, “Encounter over Siberia,” IUR 16, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1991): 12–13, 21–22)

1990

1990 —The NORAD Unknown Track Reporting database includes 7,000 incidents since 1971, averaging about 350 a year, representing objects still unidentified after jet interception, but before ATC analysis and NORAD/FTC intelligence whittles down the numbers further to about 10%. NORAD Unknowns are effectively equivalent to Project Blue Book unknowns—high-strangeness UFOs that cannot be rated until full details are released. (Clark III 801–802; Swords 348)

1990 — Donald Johnson obtains a copy of UFOCAT on 10 3.5-inch diskettes from David R. Saunders, courtesy of John

S. Derr of the US Geological Survey. Derr has created the diskette version from one of the tape backups for use in his own research. Unfortunately, he is unable to read the first portion of the tape, so it is lacking the first 10,000 records. Fortunately, the Center for UFO Studies has another backup copy, and Johnson is able to merge the two sources and recreate the database as it existed in 1982. Since then, more than 10,000 additional records have been added. (“UFOCAT Is Back!” IUR 16, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1991): 24)

1990 — A Gallup survey this year indicates that the belief in “real” UFOs has declined to 47% from a peak of 57% in 1978 and 54% in 1973. Only 27% report a belief that extraterrestrial UFOs have actually visited earth, while 14% report they have seen a UFO. (Robert J. Durant, “Evolution of Public Opinion on UFOs,” IUR 18, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1993): 20)

1990 — Jerome Clark publishes volume one of the first edition of his UFO encyclopedia. (Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia: UFOs in the 1980s, vol. 1, Apogee, 1990; Michael D. Swords, [review], JUFOS 2 (1990): 189– 191)

1990 — Mathematician Arne Gjärdman replaces Sture Wickerts as head of UFO investigations at the Swedish National Defence Research Institute. He holds the position until 1999. During this time, the institute starts sharing information and ideas with UFO-Sweden, creating an atmosphere of understanding and cooperation. (Swords 370)

1990 — Journalist and lawyer Marek Rymuszkoz establishes the magazine Nieznany Świat in Warsaw. (Poland 81)

Early January — 10:30 a.m. Two women are driving southwest near Thimister-Clermont, Belgium, when they see a bizarre object on their right, moving at an altitude of 980–1,300 feet. Dark and massive, it resembles an iron seen from underneath. After a few seconds, it disappears behind a farmhouse. (Patrick Vidal and Michel Rozencwajg, “The Belgian Wave,” IUR 16, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1991): 7)

January — David Gotlib begins publishing the Bulletin of Anomalous Experience (at first under the title of Ratchet Patrol) in Toronto, Ontario, focusing on abduction experiencers. It folds in December 1994. (Ratchet Patrol 1, no. 1 (January 1990); Bulletin of Anomalous Experience 1, no. 3 (March/April 1990))

January 20 — 1:15–1:20 a.m. A silvery dome-shaped object with two rows of lights flies just ahead of a car for two to three miles on Highway 446 at Boyle, Mississippi. The engine and lights fail until the object departs. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 16)

January 22 — 10:00 a.m. UFOs approach the Santa Cruz Air Force Base, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Air traffic controllers spot them on their radars but cannot identify them because they do not make movements like an airplane or helicopter. Interceptors approach, but the objects move away and disappear. They return about 40 minutes after the interceptors land. Two other fighters are assigned to chase the objects, which are at an altitude of 4,800 feet. The case is investigated by an internal commission of the Brazilian Air Force, which can find no explanation. (Clark III 205–206; Brazil 553)

January 26 — British-Armenian orchid hunter Habib “Henry” Azadehdel (pseudonym “Armen Victorian”) calls Eric A. Walker and has an extended conversation about an alleged South African UFO crash with insect-like aliens.

Walker hints that there has been governmental collaboration with aliens in the past. (Grant Cameron and T. Scott Crain, UFOs, MJ-12, and the Government: A Report on Government Involvement in UFO Crash Retrievals, Mutual UFO Network, 1991, pp. 27–35)

February — Arranged by Norio Hayakawa, Robert Lazar is interviewed in Las Vegas, Nevada, by Nippon TV for 3–4 hours. Hayakawa and the TV crew drive out to Tikaboo Peak, where they film an orange light maneuvering above Groom Lake. (Jacobsen, Area 51, p. 14)

February — The Sauvegarde et Conservation des Études et Archives Ufologiques is established in Brunoy, France, by Jacques Scornaux. Its goal is the preservation and conservation of ufological documents and information. It publishes a SCEAU Bulletin from 1991 to 2008. (SCEAU Bulletin, no. 0 (1991))

February — The Centre d’Études et de Recherches sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux in Marseille, France, begins publishing Aérospatial-Météorologie-Astronomie (A.M.A.), edited by Bernard Hugues. It continues until September 1994. (Aérospatial-Météorologie-Astronomie, no. 1 (February 1990))

February 1–4 — An invitation-only research conference on abductions is held at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, organized by Rima E. Laibow and Daniel Schneck. (Rima E. Laibow, Robert

N. Sollod, and John P. Wilson, eds., Anomalous Experiences and Trauma: Current Theoretical, Research, and Clinical Perspectives, Center for Treatment and Research of Experienced Anomalous Trauma, 1992; Michael D. Swords, [review], JUFOS 4 (1992): 201–205)

February 21 — Sundown. Norio Hayakawa, a Nippon TV journalist, takes a crew to the Area 51 Mailbox Site (near the 29 ½ mile marker, Highway 375, Tikaboo Valley) to watch the test flight of an object from Groom Lake, Nevada. The group sees an orange-yellow light appear above the hills. They get a second sighting later that evening when an object moves to the right, descends, performs a back turn and a 5,000-foot sudden descent, more or less instantly. (Michael Hesemann, UFOs and Area 51: Secrets of the Black World, Lightworks video, 1995; “Norio Hayakawa,” Dreamland Resort)

February 21 — 9:07 p.m. A woman, her mother, and son are driving through Koblenz-Karthause, Germany, when they notice two lights beaming down at them at a 45° angle. The woman pulls to the side of the road at an angle to watch. The object bearing the lights stops almost directly overhead. She sees a large triangular object, stationary and noiseless, at rooftop height. The sides of the triangle measure about 65 feet. Three milky, yellowish-white lights are at each of the corners. In the center is a larger, primarily gray-blue light, although its colors change as something rotates on the UFO. The object itself has a metallic appearance. It has some structures that look like riveted plates. The object remains for 2–3 minutes then departs suddenly to the southwest behind the roofs of nearby houses. The woman succeeds in locating two other witnesses at nearly the same time. (Auguste Meessen, “The Belgian Sightings,” IUR 16, no. 3 (May/June 1991): 10–11)

February 28 —7:30 p.m. Gary Schultz goes to the Area 51 Mailbox site in Nevada with his wife Pearl. He leaps out of his lawn chair when he spots the first object. Every 45 minutes, a new object arrives, 6 in all. Two or three of the craft are bright, pulsing, ellipsoid objects. He takes photos, one of which clearly captures an object shaped like a bell. (“Unknown Craft over Area 51 in 1990, Photographed by Gary Schultz,” Norio Hayakawa YouTube channel, January 25, 2010; Michael Hesemann, UFOs and Area 51: Secrets of the Black World, Lightworks video, 1995)

March — Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine breaks the news that the term “Aurora” has inadvertently been included in the 1985 US budget, as an allocation of $455 million for “black aircraft production” in FY 1987.

According to Aviation Week, Project Aurora refers to a group of exotic aircraft and not to one particular airframe. Funding of the project allegedly reaches $2.3 billion in fiscal 1987, according to a 1986 procurement document obtained by Aviation Week. In 1994, Ben Rich, the former head of Lockheed’s Skunk Works division, writes that the Aurora is the budgetary code name for the stealth bomber fly-off that resulted in the B-2 Spirit. (Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos, Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed, Little Brown, 1996, pp. 309–310; UFOFiles2, pp. 143–144; “Aurora Timeline”)

March — A classified US Department of Defense document, Joint Staff Information Report #5049, “Belgium and the UFO Issue,” states that “Numerous UFO sightings have been made in Belgium since Nov 89. The credibility of some individuals making the reports is good… Investigation by BAF [Belgian Air Force] continues.” It notes that Belgian General Wilfried De Brouwer asked whether the objects were American B-2 or F-117 military aircraft, stating that he made the inquiry despite knowing that “the alleged observations did not correspond in any way to the observable characteristics of either US aircraft.” The US Air Force does confirm to the Belgian Air Force and Ministry of Defense that no US stealth aircraft were operating in the Ardennes area at the time.” (Nick Redfern, “Belgium and the UFO Issue,” Mysterious Universe, February 11, 2016)

March 1 — The Space Shuttle Atlantis launches the first stealth satellite in STS-36 for the National Reconnaissance Office. Nicknamed “Misty,” little is known about it other than it has visual and radar stealth characteristics, making it difficult to detect. The satellite is seen and tracked later in 1990 and in the mid-1990s by amateur observers. The second satellite is launched on May 22, 1999, and by 2004 the launch of a third satellite is planned for 2009. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the third satellite might be the payload of the Delta IV Heavy launch designated NROL-15, which is launched in June 2012. That launch deposits a payload into

geosynchronous orbit but, given the stealth/deception hypothesis, there remains the possibility of other, undetected payloads. (Wikipedia, “Misty (satellite program)”)

March 7 — A woman feeding her infant in Gulf Breeze, Florida, notices a beam of white light about 3 feet in diameter descend to the ground beyond her window. She feels a slight vibration and 2 seconds later the object is gone. The next morning her husband finds a circle of burned grass 11 feet in diameter near the window. Several people detect a strong “perfume” odor from the scorched area. (MUFON UFO Journal, May 1990)

March 8 — Henry Azadehdel calls Eric A. Walker a second time. Walker provides some vague and bizarre information involving MJ-12, ESP, and technology from crashed UFOs. A third conversation on August 18 is much more guarded. (Grant Cameron and T. Scott Crain, UFOs, MJ-12, and the Government: A Report on Government Involvement in UFO Crash Retrievals, Mutual UFO Network, 1991, pp. 27–35)

March 12 — Night. Large, shining discs appear in the sky along the Yaroslavskoye Shosse outside Moscow, Russia. Their place is taken by three groups of objects, some like pineapples (with platelets) but about 18 feet long. Others are like “triangular milk cartons,” and the third group are like upside-down basins about 40 feet across. (“UFO’s Reported near Moscow,” [telegram], April 15, 1990)

March 21 — 8:00 p.m.–12:00 midnight. UFOs are seen over a wide area of Russia encompassing Novoselye, Sergiyev Posad, Yakovlevo, Dubki, Kablukovo, Fryazino, Khabarovsk, and Kirzhach. Radar stations and aircraft are put on alert. At 9:38 p.m., a UFO is seen at 6,500 feet altitude over Pereslavl-Zalessky, Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia. Lt. Col.

A. A. Semenchenko is sent up in an interceptor to find it. At 10:05 p.m., he sees the object ahead and to the right. He tracks it on the in-flight radar as it flashes two white lights and changes speed and altitude. It does not respond to a radio challenge to identify itself. The pilot turns steeply and flies 1,600–1,900 feet above the UFO, but he can see only a vague shape. Between 8:00 p.m. and midnight, UFOs are also seen over a wide area. Witnesses in Khabarovsk watch bright red spheres flying in complete silence and darting above the icebound Amur River, and a black cigar-shaped object 160 feet long with a ruby-red exhaust is seen traveling low above the ground. Radars do not register it. The commanding officers of several antiaircraft defense units around Moscow gather more than 100 visual reports from their subordinates, which are forwarded to the chief of the antiaircraft defense headquarters, Gen. Col. Igor Maltsev, who says that the object is a disc between 325–650 feet in diameter with two blinking lights. It turns on its axis and its course is “snakelike.” (“UFOs on Air Defense Radars,” Rabochaya Tribuna, April 19, 1990; MUFON UFO Journal, June 1990; V. D. Musinsky, “Through the Secrecy Barrier,” IUR 15, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1990): 14–15; Central Intelligence Agency, “USSR: UFO Sightings No. 2—General Maltsev Comments,” Foreign Broadcast Information Service PROD Group, May 24, 1990; Patrick Gross, “FOIA Declassified Documents”; Antonio Huneeus, “Airplane Pilot UFO Encounters in the USSR and CIS, Part 2,” OpenMinds, August 20, 2010; Stonehill and Mantle, Russia’s USO Secrets, Flying Disk, 2020, p. 116)

March 28 — 11:20 p.m. A silent UFO is seen about 25 miles north of Chongqing, China. It is about 65 feet long with orange and pale green lights, and it flies toward the northeast at an altitude of 150 feet. (Defense Intelligence Agency, [unclassified report], The Black Vault, p. 11)

March 30–31 — 11:00 p.m. The Glons (Belgium) Control Reporting Center receives reports that three unusual lights are moving toward Thorembais-Gembloux, Belgium, constantly changing color, in the shape of an equilateral triangle. It requests the Wavre gendarmerie to send a patrol car to investigate. Ten minutes later, a second formation moves toward the first. Traffic Center Control at Semmerzake tracks one object only on its radar, and an order to scramble two F-16 fighters from Beauvechain Air Base is given. Throughout this time, in reports after the event, some people claim that the phenomenon is visible from the ground, describing the whole formation as maintaining relative positions while moving slowly across the sky. Over the next hour, the two scrambled F-16s attempt 9 separate interceptions. On three occasions, they manage to obtain a radar lock for a few seconds, but these are later shown to be radar-locks on each other. The pilots never see any of the claimed visual sightings or the claimed maneuvers, and they never get a lock on any objects apart from the other F-16. Investigator Wim van Utrecht suspects that the lights in the sky that triggered these scrambles were misperceptions of bright stars and planets. The other contacts are all the result of a well-known atmospheric interference called Bragg scattering, in which an aircraft’s own radars interfere with each other. After 12:30 a.m., radar contact becomes much more sporadic and the final confirmed lock takes place at 12:40 a.m. Following several further unconfirmed contacts, the F-16s eventually return to base shortly after 1:00 a.m. Members of the Wavre gendarmerie sent to confirm the original report describe four lights as arranged in a square formation, all making short jerky movements, before gradually losing their luminosity and disappearing in four separate directions at around 1:30 a.m. They also hear a low engine noise and that it seems to have a stick coming out one end with a turbine on it, which many claim shows it was a helicopter. (Wikipedia, “Belgian UFO wave”; NICAP, “Three Lights in Triangle Are Also Picked Up on Radar”; NICAP, “Three Lights in Triangle Are Also Picked Up on Radar”; “Remarkable Military Encounter in Belgium,” IUR 15, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1990): 23; Joël Mesnard, “Belgium Haunted by Huge

Triangular Craft, Part II,” Flying Saucer Review 35, no. 4 (December 1990): 2–6; Auguste Meessen, “The Belgian Sightings,” IUR 16, no. 3 (May/June 1991): 4–8; Bob Pratt, “The Great Belgium UFO Flap,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 267 (July 1990); Marie-Thérèse de Brosses, “F-16 Radar Tracks UFO,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 268 (August 1990): 6–7; Marie-Thérèse de Brosses, “An Interview with Professor Jean-Pierre Petit,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 273 (January 1991): 3–9; Kean, pp. 37–38; Swords 457; Jean-Michel Abrassart, “In Defense of the Psycho-Sociological Hypothesis: Another Reply to Auguste Meessen,” SUNlite 3, no. 4 (July/Aug. 2011): 9– 12; Patrick Gross, “The Belgium Flap Official Reports,” the full version of the Belgian Air Force report by Major Lambrechts, VS3/Ctl-Met 1, February 22, 2001; Patrick Gross, “The Belgium Flap Official Reports,” summary report on observations 30–31 March 1990, February 22, 2001; Marler 20–23; David Clarke, “Echoes and Angels:

UFOs on Radar,” Fortean Times 403 (March 2021): 44–45)

March 31 — Night. Lucien Clerebaut (secretary general of the Belgian UFO group SOBEPS), film director Patrick Ferryn, and José Fernandez take four photos, using high-sensitivity film, of one of the triangular objects passing directly overhead about 19 miles southeast of Brussels, Belgium. Ferryn estimates its altitude is only 1,000 feet with a diameter six times that of the full moon. As a control, he photographs an ordinary airplane several minutes later in the same spot, using all the same camera settings. The spotlights on the UFO, which seemed very bright to the observers, are barely discernible on the photos. The triangular shape, clearly visible to the naked eye, is also lost on the film. At the same time, the airplane lights come out brighter than those on the UFO, appearing just the way it looked from the ground, even though the UFO was much closer to the observers than the airplane. Lab experiments show that this is probably due to the effect of infrared light around the UFO. (Marie-Thérèse de Brosses, “Un OVNI sur le Radar du F16,” Paris-Match, July 5, 1990)

Early April — Many observers, including a journalist with Sovetskaya Estoniya, see UFOs hovering above power lines along the Tallinn Highway, Estonia, on several occasions. Maj. V. Stroynetskiy and several hundred other witnesses repeatedly observe UFOs over the Yaroslavl Highway in Russia, many of which look like large “triangular milk cartons.” The objects are flying at altitudes of 1,600–2,600 feet. At times, the entire body of an object “scintillates,” while at other times it becomes iridescent with “lights of various colors.” The objects fly at great speeds, make sudden stops in mid-air, and suddenly break off in lateral directions from the line of flight, “at which time they emitted rays.” (Central Intelligence Agency, “USSR: UFO Sightings No. 2—General Maltsev Comments,” Foreign Broadcast Information Service PROD Group, May 24, 1990)

April 4 — Patrick Maréchal, a young worker at Petit-Rechain, Belgium, takes a photo of a delta-shaped object on which three lights are visible at each corner. Maréchal admits the photo is a hoax in an interview for RTL on July 26, 2011. He and some friends take a sheet of Styrofoam, cut it into a triangle, paint it black, embed a flashlight in each corner, then hang it from a string. Maréchal shows reporters many trial photos they had taken trying to get the perfect look. (Wikipedia, “Belgian UFO wave”; NICAP, “Petit-Rechain, Belgium Photo”; “Classic Belgian Photos a Fake?” IUR 34, no. 1 (September 2011): 6; Wim van Utrecht, “Battle over Belgian UFOs,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 292 (August 1992): 20; Wim van Utrecht, “Famous Belgian UFO Photo a Hoax,” Caelestia; Kean, pp. 29–31; Auguste Meessen, “The Belgian Wave and the Photos of Ramillies”; Patrick Ferryn, “La photo de Petit-Rechain: Un état de la question,” Inforespace, no. 111 (December 2005): 4–21; André Marion, “Nouvelle analyse de la diapositive de Petit-Rechain,” Inforespace, no. 111 (December 2005): 22–27; Benôit Mussche, “Le rapport SeerSight,” Inforespace, no. 111 (December 2005): 28–41)

April 5 — 8:15 p.m. A motorist driving near the shore at Gulf Breeze, Florida, sees what looks like a jet fighter about to crash. Two military jets approach from the north, and the original object immediately shoots laterally southward, halting 1–2 miles away. The man gets out of his car to watch. The object appears to be a white disc with red and green lights spaced evenly around the side and an unlit dome on top. Slowly, it begins to rise. He calls a friend and the sheriff’s office. Two deputies arrive on the scene, and for the next 2 hours all three witnesses watch a bright light continue to ascend slowly. (MUFON UFO Journal, May 1990)

April 10 — A couple driving north on the Pensacola Bay Bridge in Florida see an object that looks like a long isosceles triangle with a centered red light on the bottom and pairs of white lights at the three apexes. As they near the end of the bridge in Pensacola, the object moves toward the west. It hovers, then moves off over the bay and out of sight. (Dan Wright, “Current Case Log,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 268 (August 1990): 22–23)

April 10 — A triangular UFO is seen for 10 minutes over Abakan, Republic of Khakassia, Russia. (Paul Stonehill and Philip Mantle, The Soviet UFO Files: Paranormal Encounters behind the Iron Curtain, Quadrillion, 1998, p. 110)

April 11 — Evening. Several residents of Gulf Breeze, Florida, watch a red light move toward the southwest and out into the Gulf of Mexico before winking out. Some think they can see clusters of balloons associated with the light, but others disagree. (MUFON UFO Journal, June 1990)

April 12–13 — Night. Two witnesses see a bright red light hovering above Little Sabine Island off Pensacola Beach, Florida. It stays there for several minutes before blinking out. It reappears the next night to the west of Gulf Breeze. (MUFON UFO Journal, June 1990)

April 14 — At least seven people report a red light to the north of Gulf Breeze, Florida. It approaches from the east at high speed and comes to a dead stop. It hovers, moves back and forth several times, then ascends out of sight. Other red lights appear and are seen in various locations around Pensacola by other groups of people. Some of these sightings are undoubtedly hoax balloons. (MUFON UFO Journal, June 1990; Dan Wright, “Current Case Log,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 268 (August 1990): 21–22)

April 22 — Before 12:00 midnight. Two workers in a factory courtyard in Basècles, Belgium, watch two enormous spotlights illuminate the area. A huge trapezoid-shaped “platform” moves slowly and silently above a smokestack, at one point covering the entire courtyard, 330 by 200 feet. They observe six lights on the object, which is grayish. Structures on the bottom of the platform look like “an aircraft carrier turned upside down.” (Kean, p. 31)

April 26 — Mikhail Gorbachev is visiting the Uralmash plant in Sverdlovsk, Russia, when he is asked for the first time whether the USSR studies UFOs. He answers vaguely that “there are scientific organizations which study this problem.” However, he later tells a group of workers that the “UFO phenomenon is real and we should approach it seriously and study it.” (Pravda, April 27, 1990; Sovetskaya Molodezh, May 4, 1990)

May 4 — 11:15 p.m. A retired archaeologist in Stockay, Liège, Belgium, is about to return home after checking his greenhouse when he hears neighborhood dogs barking. He sees, in a field about 325 feet away from him, a pyramidal or conical illuminated object topped by a “bright white mushroom cone” floating about 1 foot off the ground. He approaches to about 165 feet and watches the object change color from white to orange as its upper part rises. He calls his wife to watch the UFO too. She sees two small antennas on top. They leave to get their son, but when they return the object is gone. The next day, he finds four circular holes about 3 feet in diameter with a thin layer of yellowish powder sprayed on the grass. Some days later, the traces vanish after a rainstorm. (Patrick Vidal and Michel Rozencwajg, “The Belgian Wave,” IUR 16, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1991): 4)

May 21 — A joint Russian and Chinese endeavor to study UFOs is initiated in Dalnegorsk, Primorsky Krai, Russia. An agreement is made to share videos and photos of new sightings. (Central Intelligence Agency, “USSR, PRC Scientists in Joint Study of UFO’s,” May 21, 1990)

May 25 — Day. A giant reddish-orange disc some 980 feet in diameter and with portholes around its rim is seen hovering at an altitude of 3,300 feet above Mary, Turkmenistan. Col. Anatoly Kurkchy, chief of the Air Defense Division of the Russian 12th Army, orders three ground-to-air missiles fired at it. The UFO makes a slight horizontal maneuver, and three beams of light coming from its port side destroy the missiles. Kurkchy then scrambles two jet interceptors, but at a point about 3,200 feet from the disc, the jets are allegedly thrown to the ground and destroyed, killing the four pilots. Kurkchy is removed from his post and transferred to a remote location. (Good Need, pp. 356–357)

June — Raymond E. Fowler continues his exploration of the Betty Andreasson Luca abduction case in The Watchers, which reveals that Luca is often having an out-of-body experience during her abductions. She sometimes encounters human-like entities with blonde hair, blue eyes, and white robes who are apparently “in charge” of the other aliens. Luca feels that the human race is being “watched” by these beings, who tell her they foresee serious problems in the future regarding the survivability of the human species. (Raymond E. Fowler, The Watchers: The Secret Design behind UFO Abduction, Bantam, 1990)

June 5 — Robert Lazar is arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada, for aiding and abetting a prostitution ring. The charge is reduced to felony pandering, to which he pleads guilty on June 18. At sentencing on August 20, he is ordered to do 150 hours of community service, stay away from brothels, and undergo psychotherapy. ()

June 10 — Reporter Craig Myers announces in the Pensacola (Fla.) News-Journal that a foam UFO model, seemingly a prototype for a fake UFO, has been found by new homeowners in the attic of the former residence of Gulf Breeze, Florida, UFO photographer Ed Walters. Myers writes a series of articles showing how Walters likely hoaxes some photos using a double-exposure technique. In late June, Tom Smith Jr., 22, a former Gulf Breeze resident, comes forward and claims that he has seen Walters fake some of the photos, the entire Walters family is in on the hoax, and they had tried to enlist his help unsuccessfully. Investigators apply a voice stress analysis (VSA) test to Smith’s taped testimony, which he passes. A controlled VSA test has also been successfully applied to testimony by Ed Walters, in which he denies perpetrating a hoax. (Craig Myers, “Gulf Breeze UFO Model Found,” Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, June 10, 1990, pp. 1, 8; Craig Myers, “I Saw UFO Photos Faked, Witness Says,” Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, June 17, 1990, pp. 1, 4; UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 252 (July 1990): 1–6;

Geoff Price, “Lie Detection in UFO Controversies,” IUR 22, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 31; Kevin D. Randle, “The Truth about Polygraphs,” IUR 22, no. 4 (Winter 1997–1998): 29–30)

Summer — The crew of a Russia ship harbored in the Anadyr’ River off Ust-Belaya, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, sees a perfectly circular opening in the cumulus clouds above the village. Groups of objects enter the circle and fly away. Watch officer Aleksandr Polorotov begins taking photos of them until his camera malfunctions. When the film is developed, a luminous cigar-shaped object can be seen on some of the photos, but the open circle of sky is not on any of them. Some crew members experience severe headaches after the episode. (Stonehill and Mantle, Russia’s USO Secrets, Flying Disk, 2020, pp. 109–110)

July 6 — Day. Anna Dmitrievna Yerygina is herding goats on a lonesome road near Zvarykino, Belgorod Oblast, Russia, when a woman appears, seemingly out of thin air. Dressed in a light-gray, loose-fitting outfit with a hood, she seems somewhat tall and lean. The woman greets her and asks whether goats’ milk is tasty. Yerygina says it is, but she prefers cows’ milk. The woman then abruptly invites her on a brief excursion that will last no longer than three hours, touching her on the shoulder and saying, “Do not be afraid.” She takes Yerygina to a large oval craft in a nearby field, A man awaits them and helps them aboard. Yerygina sits in the dimly lit interior, then suddenly finds herself in another room with others dressed in the same gray coveralls. She feels as if she has been transported to another world. The entities radiate spiritual warmth and hospitality. One of them offers her some tasty bread and a strange liquid. After she finishes the meal, her memory goes blank and she finds herself back in the field with her goats, the strange woman by her side. The woman says goodbye with a smile, promising to meet her again. (Priyma Alexey, XX vek. Hronika Neobyasnimogo: Fenomen za fenomenom, AST Olympus, 2000; Joshua Cutchin, “The Great Alien Bake-Off,” Fortean Times 332 (November 2015): 42)

July 9 — 4:00 a.m. A witness is traveling toward Germany and makes a stop east of Brzózka near the bridge over the Bóbr River southwest of Krosno, Poland. He goes for a short walk in the woods when he hears an odd sound and sees a landed object like an overturned bowl. He estimates it is nearly 17 feet across and 80 feet tall, and has a nauseating odor like burned chocolate. About 15 entities resembling mummies are in front of the UFO, poking plants with a prod and hopping about like kangaroos. They are about 4.5 feet tall and wear deep-green uniforms and headgear like welding masks. Their fingers resemble claws. At some point the witness coughs and loses consciousness, waking up an hour later. (Poland 82; “Bliskie spotkanie w Brzózce w 1990 roku,” UFO-Relacje.pl, February 12, 2020)

July 11 — Belgian Air Force Col. Wilfred De Brouwer gives a public talk on UFOs at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. He states that the March 30–31 sightings were highly unusual, witnessed by gendarmes and others, and necessitated the scrambling of two F-16 fighters. He says the target was detected on radar and conformed to ground visual observations. The objects remain unidentified. (Swords 457)

July 19 — Shortly after 12:00 midnight. The base perimeter at Fort Allen Training Center in Juana Díaz, Puerto Rico, is suddenly illuminated by a powerful white light. An officer orders that all personnel must remain in the barracks or other base facilities and not come out under any circumstances. From a window, the officer can see a brightly lit, circular, metallic object over the base. It has windows around a central rim, with yellowish-white lights revolving in them. On the underside there is a round, turbine-like protrusion with many colored lights around it. A bright beam of pinkish-white light is coming from the underside, as if searching for something—this is the light illuminating the perimeter. Two F/A-18 Hornets (probably scrambled from Roosevelt Roads Naval Station) fly at high speed over the base toward the UFO, which departs at high speed to the west with the jets in pursuit. The officer later tells UFO investigators that Fort Allen personnel have been briefed on UFOs with training films that show crashed UFOs, and it is just the most recent of several briefings since the 1988 Cabo Rojo incident. (Good Need, pp. 380–381)

July 26 — 10:35 p.m. A married couple is driving south through Grâce-Hollogne, Belgium, when they see a triangular object hovering in the sky. It seems to measure about 39 feet on each side. A belt of white light like a large neon tube runs along two sides. The witnesses see three spotlights beaming down, apparently detached from the object but connected to each other by a support “bracket.” Two flashing lights, one red and one green, are on the underside. The man flashes his car lights twice, and two white lights at the base of the triangle rotate, tilt toward the car, and flash on and off three times. Keeping these lights pointed at the moving car, the object moves with its base forward and positions itself 330 feet away at a height of 200–300 feet, It makes a banking turn and paces the car, moving with the terrain and maintaining a constant height above the sloping ground at the same speed as the car (around 40 mph). When they approach the bridge at Seraing, the object crosses the Meuse River right next to them, ascending silently and moving back toward Grâce-Hollogne. (Kean, pp. 32–34)

Early August — Many witnesses in Rostock, Greifswald, and the islands of Rügen and Usedom, Germany, see groups of luminous spheres that accelerate rapidly and abruptly. One witness, Gerald Schwab, watches the lights stand still for 3 minutes before they accelerate rapidly forward. (Illobrand von Ludwiger, “The ‘Greifswald Lights,’” MUFON Central European Section, May 2000)

August 4 — Day. Two hikers near the A9 near Calvine, Perthshire, Scotland, see a diamond-shaped object that appears to be shadowed by an RAF Harrier jet. The object is visible for about 10 minutes. One of the hikers takes color photographs of the incident. Desk officers from DI55 suspect the image might show a US Air Force black project aircraft. The prints are sent to the Glasgow Daily Record newspaper, which forwards them to the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre at RAF Brampton [now closed] for scrutiny. The prints subsequently disappear and the MoD claims there is no surviving record of the conclusions reached about the investigation.

However, in October 2020 the Ministry of Defence blocks release of the photos from their scheduled declassification on January 1, 2021, until 2072 without any explanation. Former MoD official Nick Pope, one of the few people to see the photos and the analysis, says the photos are authentic and show a material device of unknown origin that has no wings, no fuselage, no tail, no visible engine, and bears no inscription. Compared to elements in the landscape, the object appears to be about 98 feet in diameter. The British government continues to deny that its US ally has ever been allowed to operate experimental aircraft in UK airspace, but David Clarke discovers that a dossier of evidence was shared with US intelligence after the British expressed “concern about a possible stealthy platform flying in UK airspace.” A 1992 letter from the British Defence Staff in Washington, D.C., reveals that one of the Calvine photos was brought to the US by British Intelligence officials to be examined by their US counterparts. (UFOFiles2, pp. 148–149; Paul Sims, “Alien Mystery: Government Bans Release of Secret UFO Dossier about Calvine for 50 Years,” Scottish Sun, October 10, 2020; Nick Pope, “‘Dark Forces’: I’ve Seen Top Secret Photos of Calvine UFO Sighting—It Left Me Shell-Shocked,” Scottish Sun, October 10, 2020; David Ramasseul, “Ovni de Calvine: L’interminable secret,” Paris Match, October 13, 2020; David Clarke, “The Jox Files: Was a US ‘Special Project’ Captured on Film in Scotland?” Fortean Times 409 (September 2021): 52–53; Simon Houston, “What Was the Calvine UFO Sighting and Are the Photos Real?” Scottish Sun, May 2, 2022)

August 24 — 8:35 p.m. Many witnesses in northern Germany see a formation of seven luminous objects over the Baltic Sea. They hover for nearly 30 minutes near Peenemünde (on Usedom) and the Soviet-built nuclear power plant at Lubmin [shut down soon afterward]. Five people, including nuclear physicist Ludmilla Ivanova, videotape the event from Greifswald, enabling researchers to triangulate the lights and reconstruct their positions. Ufologist Illobrand von Ludwiger’s group MUFON-Central European Section obtains 6 videos and 11 photos from different observers and interviews more than a dozen witnesses. They conclude that two groups of luminous spheres hovered nearly motionless for about 30 minutes over the sea. The brighter and closer group forms a circle of 6 spheres. The second group is in the shape of a “Y,” with some spheres performing individual movements.

Some of them move back and forth between the two groups. They are able to move extremely fast, estimated by one witness as “supersonic velocity,” then come to an abrupt stop when reaching the formation. (Jacques Vallée, “Estimates of Power Optical Output in Six Cases of Unexplained Aerial Objects with Defined Luminosity Characteristics,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 12, no. 3 (1998): 356–357; Illobrand von Ludwiger, “The ‘Greifswald Lights,’” MUFON Central European Section, May 2000)

September — New York Times journalist Howard Blum publishes Out There: The Government’s Secret Quest for Extraterrestrials, describing his investigation—after a tip given him by a National Security Agency official—of a mysterious agency called the UFO Working Group, a top secret, interagency body headed by “Col. Harold E. Phillips” of the Defense Intelligence Agency (actually a pseudonym for Col. John B. Alexander). Founded in 1987, according to Blum, after a flurry of suppressed UFO sightings, including the tracking on radar of a UFO by the US Space Command Space Surveillance Center, the UFO Working Group, calling on CIA, FBI, and other resources, has come up with nothing solid. It has, however, dug into many of the major events of ufology. Blum also claims that NORAD deep-space radars (the Defense Satellite Program) have tracked about 500 UFOs (fastwalkers) entering Earth’s atmosphere every year. (Howard Blum, Out There: The Government’s Secret Quest for Extraterrestrials, Simon & Schuster, 1990; Mark Rodeghier, “In the Black,” IUR 15, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1990): 9–11, 23)

September — US journalist Tim Weiner publishes Blank Check: The Pentagon’s Black Budget, based on his articles on black-budget spending at the Pentagon and CIA for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Weiner shows that the funding is classified above top secret and that few, if any, federal oversight investigators have the security clearances to audit this budget. He estimates its size as at least $35 billion (although by 2012 is has increased to $52.8 billion,

according to information revealed by Edward Snowden), three times the estimated total of what it was in 1981. (Tim Weiner, Blank Check: The Pentagon’s Black Budget, Warner, 1990)

September 2 — Early morning. Residents of Murmansk Oblast, Russia, see a large illuminated ball above the Arctic Ocean. It is at a high altitude, gives off no electronic signals, and moves slowly toward the Kola Peninsula. Soviet Air Defense thinks it resembles a large airship. Finally, the order is given to destroy it, and it turns out to be an enormous weather balloon. (Central Intelligence Agency, “Airship-Like UFO Sighted over Murmansk,” September 4, 1990)

September 13 — Shortly after 12:00 midnight. A Soviet radar unit in Samara, Russia, tracks an approaching object that apparently causes the equipment to malfunction and go blank. Going outside, the operators see a flying black triangle giving off three bright rays pass directly overhead at no more then 30 feet. It lands nearby and gives off more bursts of energy for 90 minutes. Cpl. S. Dudnik sees it knock out a radar aerial with a light beam. Two sentries, A. Blazhis and A. Varenitsa, allegedly disappear and reappear with no memory of the event and without realizing they have been missing. The ground where they were standing guard seems to be blasted by an explosion. Their wrist watches are running nearly 2 hours slow. Capt. D. Rudzit tells a military reporter from Za Rodinu who is investigating the incident that nothing has happened. In November, Deputy Minister of Defense Gen. Ivan Tretiak claims the incident was all a newspaper hoax. (Paul Stonehill and Philip Mantle, The Soviet UFO Files: Paranormal Encounters behind the Iron Curtain, Quadrillion, 1998, p. 50; Good Need, pp. 358–360, 364)

September 19 — The KNM Stavanger has a sonar contact with an unknown “U-boat” in the Norwegian Sea off Ona lighthouse, Husøya, Norway. The ship sends international warning signals but gets no response, so it drops hand grenades into the water. At 5:30 p.m., it shoots off three Terne rockets. The sonar contact ends, and the next day the search is called off. (Ole Jonny Brænne, “Observations of Unidentified Submarine Objects in Norway,” IUR 20, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1995): 13, 17)

September 27 — 10:50 p.m. Cosmonauts Gennady Manakov and Gennadi Strekalov are aboard the Mir space station. When Strekalov is looking down at Newfoundland through a clear atmosphere, he sees a glittering, iridescent, perfect sphere. He calls Manakov and together they study the object. Strekalov says it “shone like the balls that hang on trees at Christmas, greenish in color and all shimmering.” It appears to be 12–18 miles above the Earth. They watch it for 10 seconds when it disappears abruptly. (Central Intelligence Agency, “Take 1 of 3—Foreign Press Note—FB PN 91-014—USSR,” January 11, 1991; Good Need, p. 360; 2Pinotti 119–122)

October 1 — William Scott writes an article in Aviation Week on 45 sightings of strange aircraft over the southwestern part of the United States. Some of the objects move as slowly as 20 mph, then accelerate to supersonic speed. He concludes that there are at least two types of vehicles beyond the F-117A and B-2. One is a “triangular-shaped, quiet aircraft seen with a flight of F-117A stealth fighters several times since the summer of 1989.” Another is a “high-speed aircraft characterized by a very deep rumbling roar.” A third is a high-altitude, high-speed aircraft, typically observed as a bright, pulsating light, moving much faster than other aircraft, giving no engine noise or sonic boom. He also writes about some “exotic” propulsion systems used in new aircraft and comes very close to stating that these might be antigravity devices. (William Scott, “Multiple Sightings of Secret Aircraft Hint at New Propulsion, Airframe Designs,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, October 1, 1990, pp. 22–23)

October 8 — 11:00 a.m. Near Grozny, Chechnya, Russia, an unidentified target appears on ground radar screens.

Commander S. Prokoshin orders an interceptor jet scrambled and pilot Maj. P. Riabishev takes off in pursuit. Something makes him turn his head and he sees to his right rear two large, cigar-shaped objects. The length of the first is about 6,500 feet and the second about 1,300 feet. They are too distant to make out details. When he starts closing on them, both disappear from his field of vision, although ground radar continues to track them. (Central Intelligence Agency, “Take 1 of 3—Foreign Press Note—FB PN 91-014—USSR,” January 11, 1991; Good Need,

pp. 360–361)

October 14 — 7:00 p.m. Frau Wengere and her husband are driving from Lostorf to Zürich, Switzerland, when she sees two motionless, bright white lights ahead of them to the left over a range of mountains. Her husband can’t stop because there is no place to pull over. The lights of an approaching aircraft are much smaller and paler. They lose sight of the lights while driving through a village, but they see them again a little higher in the sky to the right of the road. A third light is now visible a bit to the left of the others and they watch it moving closer to the other two lights, which move from a 45° angle to horizontal, keeping the same space between them. The witnesses see two chains of red and green lights joining the two. They drive on and lose sight of the lights. (Auguste Meessen, “The Belgian Sightings,” IUR 16, no. 3 (May/June 1991): 11, 22)

October 21 — 10:05 p.m. Mme. Henquinet and her 15-year-old son Stephane are at the intersection of NB47 and N30 near Rachamps, Belgium, when two lights suddenly drop toward them. But the lights disappear, and as they turn

south on the N30, another light appears behind a hedge bordering the right-hand side of the road, about a dozen yards from the car. The light paces the car at the same speed, slowing down when she does. When they reach the end of the hedge, Mme. Henquinet brakes, and Stephane runs out of the car to look. They see a dark mass, more than 50 feet across, rise up rapidly and silently into the sky. On the lower part of the object is a circle of 7–8 lights. (Patrick Vidal and Michel Rozencwajg, “The Belgian Wave,” IUR 16, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1991): 5)

October 23 — 5:30 a.m. A young woman in Athus, Belgium, wakes up, looks out the window, and sees a light 1,300 feet away on or just above a nearby hill. It consists of two bright headlights directed at her. A smaller blue light is between the two white ones. About 10 minutes later, the lights rise together and move in toward her. The ground below lights up as they pass. A few moments later, the object passes silently over her house. She notices a small red light on its underside. The object then veers left in the direction of Luxembourg and disappears in the distance. (Patrick Vidal and Michel Rozencwajg, “The Belgian Wave,” IUR 16, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1991): 5)

October 23 — 9:25 p.m. Four witnesses, ages 15–17, see an unusual object with very bright lights in Pepinster, Belgium.

The have the impression that the object is taking off at a low altitude about 1,640 feet away. The object moves silently to the northeast, displaying on its lower part three bright white lights in the form of a triangle. At the center of the triangle is a steady red light. The object is shaped like a pyramid with the apex pointing forward. The sighting lasts for about 30 seconds. (Patrick Vidal and Michel Rozencwajg, “The Belgian Wave,” IUR 16, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1991): 5)

Late 1990 — A US Army captain is stationed in the Iraqi desert with his unit during Operation Desert Shield. He is informed by a superior officer that his unit is not to fire on any objects that might appear within a specific, rather restricted, area of the sky. A few nights later, he and his men see several bright objects maneuvering in an extraordinary fashion. “We could not have shot them down if we had tried,” he said. He does not know what they are, although UFOs are primary suspects. (Dolan II 555)

November 3 — The Center for UFO Studies and the Santa Barbara Centre for Humanistic Studies cosponsor a conference on “The UFO Phenomenon in the 1990s” at the Lobero Theater, Santa Barbara, California. (“The UFO Phenomenon in the 1990s,” IUR 15, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1990): 18)

November 5 — Around 6:00 p.m. The pilot and copilot of a British Airways flight from Rome to Gatwick Airport notice a large, silver-shaped object over the North Sea. They bring two crew members into the cockpit to observe it with them. Ground radar sees nothing unusual. (Nick Redfern, A Covert Agenda: UFO Secrecy Exposed, Simon & Schuster, 1997, p. 169; Good Need, pp. 382–383)

November 5 — 6:00 p.m. Two RAF Tornados over the North Sea encounter two large round objects, each with five blue lights and several white lights around the rim. As the jets close to investigate, one of the UFOs heads for one of the jets, which is forced to take evasive action. The two objects then head north and disappear. Nothing shows up on the jets’ radar. Commercial aircraft also report odd lights over the North Sea. Other high-speed contacts take place along the border of Germany and southern Belgium. (Paul Whitehead, “Special Report to FSR (May 1991),” Flying Saucer Review 36, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 10; Good Need, pp. 383–384; Nick Pope, Open Skies, Closed Minds, Simon & Schuster, 1996, p. 177; UFOFiles2, pp. 140–142)

November 5 — 7:00 p.m. French pilot Jean-Gabriel Greslé is standing outside a gym in Gretz-Armainvilliers, Seine-et- Marne, France, with six of his martial arts students when a massive UFO comes into view. His first impression is of a huge crane with many lights. It is about 2,600 feet away at an altitude of 985 feet, moving downward.

Another witness sees it level off and turn. It is projecting two very long, divergent beams of solid light that do not quite touch the ground. The object itself is at least 1,000 feet long and 200–250 feet thick with triangular substructures and many lights. Its rear section is trapezoidal. When it flies above them at no more than 100 mph, t somehow tunes out all surrounding noise as if carrying a “zone of silence.” As Greslé moves around a tree to view it better, it dims and moves away, disappearing into a cloud. (Good Need, p. 382)

November 5 — 7:00 p.m. Two different explosions are heard in the area around RAF Rhendahlen in Mönchengladbach West, North Rhein–Westphalia, Germany. Two RAF Phantom jets are performing practice intercepts under strict radar control. After the second explosion at 10:00 p.m., one of the crews sees UFOs heading north in “finger” formation. (Paul Whitehead, “Special Report to FSR (May 1991),” Flying Saucer Review 36, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 10; Good Need, pp. 383–384)

November 5 — Night. Witnesses report a large, cigar-shaped object, some accompanied by spheres, over many localities in southern Poland. Hundreds of people in Opole see a group of 15–20 spheres emitting bright trails. (Poland 73– 74)

November 7 — 7:15 p.m. An American woman tourist is swimming in the rooftop pool of the International Hilton Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Montreal, Quebec, when she sees a yellowish, oval object hovering directly overhead. Other hotel guests come to view it, as well as the pool lifeguard, who describes it as “a lighted object

with six lights on the perimeter of a large circle with a ray of light emitted from each one.” Municipal police and the RCMP are called and they also view the UFO. Around 9:00 p.m., Marcel Laroche, a journalist from La Presse, takes some photos. The object disappears around 10:10 p.m. due to increasing cloud cover. Other people around the city and at the airport also report seeing unusual lights. (Chris Rutkowski and Geoff Dittman, The Canadian UFO Report, Dundurn Press, 2006, pp. 172–174; Wim van Utrecht, “Large Stationary Object over Montreal,” Caelestia, September 28, 2007; “OVNI du Hilton-Bonaventure (17 Nov 1990),” Réseau OVNI Alerte / UFO-Alert Network Facebook page, November 7, 2018)

November 9 — Soviet Deputy Minister of Defense Ivan Tretyak speaks with a writer from Literaturnaya Gazeta and confirms that fighter-interceptors have encountered UFOs in Russian air space. However, most are explainable as natural phenomena, rocket launches, or satellites. He admits that some pilots report UFOs apparently of artificial origin, but their real nature remains unknown. (Central Intelligence Agency, “Take 1 of 2—Foreign Press Note— FB PN 91-003—USSR,” January 5, 1991)

November 22 — 5:28 a.m. Mme. Bouffioux is lying awake in bed at her home in Fleurus, Belgium, when she senses an intense light. She looks out the window, which is covered in vapor, and sees the light about 80 feet away behind the wall bordering her neighbor’s garden and in an abandoned field. After a while, the light turns off, and she sees bluish flashes erupting from a spot to the right of where the object was last seen. (Patrick Vidal and Michel Rozencwajg, “The Belgian Wave,” IUR 16, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1991): 7)

December 9 — 9:30 p.m. Mme. Cortvriendt and her husband are at the Waterloo exit of the Brussels Ring Road near Belle-Vue, Belgium, when they see a luminous triangle off to the right at an altitude of 160 feet. On its circumference are a multitude of white lights that are “bright as diamonds.” Stretching from the center of the object are four brass-colored arms in the shape of a cross. They lose sight of it as it travels away from them to the northeast. (Patrick Vidal and Michel Rozencwajg, “The Belgian Wave,” IUR 16, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1991): 8)

1991

1991 — Milton William Cooper publishes Behold a Pale Horse, an elaborate collection of conspiracy theories and a manifesto of the militia movement. According to sociologist Paul Gilroy, Cooper claims to explain the “Kennedy assassination, the doings of the secret world government, the coming ice age, and a variety of other covert activities associated with the Illuminati’s declaration of war upon the people of America.” Political

scientist Michael Barkun characterizes it as “among the most complex superconspiracy theories” and one of the most influential due to its popularity in militia circles as well as mainstream bookstores. Historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke describes the book as a “chaotic farrago of conspiracy myths interspersed with reprints of executive laws, official papers, reports, and other extraneous materials designed to show the looming prospect of a world government imposed on the American people against their wishes and in flagrant contempt of the Constitution.” (Milton William Cooper, Behold a Pale Horse, Light Technology, 1991; Wikipedia, “Milton William Cooper”)

1991 — Mark Rodeghier, Jeff Goodpaster, and Sandra Blatterbauer conduct a study on the psychosocial characteristics of 27 abductees for the Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, Illinois. They conclude from the data that the subjects cannot be classified as fantasy-prone personalities or as especially hypnotically responsive. However, a cluster analysis of MMPI scales reveals two types of abductees, one with higher fantasy-prone scores, more loneliness as adults, lower levels of happiness, more problems sleeping, and a greater incidence of sexual abuse as children. (Mark Rodeghier, Jeff Goodpaster, and Sandra Blatterbauer, “Psychosocial Characteristics of Abductees: Results from the CUFOS Abduction Project,” JUFOS 3 (1991): 59–90)

1991 — Psychic Sean David Morton begins going to Area 51 in Nevada. He and a friend tape a glowing, disc-shaped object that approaches within a few hundred yards. Several times it shoots up then descends with a falling-leaf motion. They return with burned faces and mild radiation poisoning. Morton later shoots more video showing glowing objects with extraordinary acceleration and maneuverability. Area 51 insiders allegedly contact him, including someone who claims he transported large disc-like and bell-shaped objects that he concludes are alien. He speaks of numerous underground levels, alien bodies in liquid tanks, and even several humanoid aliens from the Pleiades. Later Morton leads tours around Area 51 and suggests that the aliens there are from “Krondac,” a planet 800 light-years away. Morton is the subject of an article by the website UFO Watchdog, “The Shameless Psychic and His Prophecy of Lies.” which throws doubt on many of his claims. Morton sues the site for libel but the case is dismissed. In 2010, Morton and his wife are charged with securities fraud by the SEC. In February 2013, Morton is ordered by a judge to pay $11.5 million to the SEC within 14 days. They are arrested in 2016 and

begin serving federal sentences in 2017. (Wikipedia, “Sean David Morton”; Carole Masciola, “Mysterious Earthlings Scour the Desert for Space Alien Tourists,” Seattle Times, May 2, 1993; Royce Myers III, “The Shameless Psychic and His Prophecy of Lies,” February 2001)

1991 — The Argentine Ministry of Defense creates a small office devoted to the study of UFO sightings within the Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas de las Fuerzas Armadas, a federal agency in charge of scientific research and development. It lasts until 1997. (Milton W. Hourcade, “Argentina: UFO Declassification,” UAPSG–GEFAI, July 29, 2020)

1991 — Visión Ovni, a national UFO research organization, is launched in Victoria, Entre Rios, Argentina, by Silvia Pérez Simondini. (Wikipedia, “Visión Ovni”)

1991 — The Soviet Union launches the Thread III Project, a wide-ranging scientific and technical analysis of unusual space phenomena conducted by more than 15 separate military units, scientific institutes, and the Ministry of Defense. The organization driving it is an ambiguously named group called Soviet Military Unit 73790. (Skinwalkers 115–117)

January — The SOS-OVNI group (formerly Association d’Étude sur les Soucoupes Volantes) begins publishing Phénomèna, edited by Perry Petrakis, in Aix-en-Provence, France. It continues through 2001. (Phénomèna 1, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1991))

January 6 —6:00 p.m. Four family members driving along the E411 motorway near Spontin, Belgium, watch a gigantic, plate-shaped UFO with many lights and a cupola pass overhead heading northwest. At 6:30 p.m., a family driving south on the A4 in Beez, Belgium, see three lights attached to an object hovering above a quarry. An army veteran named Hardy estimates the UFO to be about 260 feet long and 30–50 feet high, with the forward three lights in the form of a rectangle and a red light on the lower rear end. The bottom part is bulged out and dark gray in color. On the side, 15 portholes are lit up in white light. After parking their car on the side of the road, the witnesses watch the object for another minute or so. As soon as Hardy turns on his headlights, the object moves away to the northeast. (Patrick Vidal and Michel Rozencwajg, “The Belgian Wave,” IUR 16, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1991): 8, 23)

February — 1:00 a.m. A security camera at Birchwood Shopping Mall four miles east of Warrington, Cheshire, England, picks up a white light, seemingly tennis-ball sized, moving around an open walkway. It appears to inspect a garbage bin, climbs a wall, and at one point approaches the camera. The security guard zooms the camera in on it, revealing a white, doughnut shape. It flies away, hovering above a tree to the south, and vanishes. About 8 minutes has elapsed. (Jenny Randles, “UFOs in Focus,” IUR 18, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1993): 15–16)

February 6? — Evening. A woman is walking with two friends near the Etang de l’Ursine in Chaville, Hauts-de-Seine, France, when they see a large and brilliant star in the west. At nightfall, they return to their homes. One, named Sylvia, who lives on the Rue Alexis Maneyrol, goes back to look for the star and notices now that it is moving in a triangular motion. While walking back through the woods, she is struck by a beam. Suddenly, she is enveloped by a beam of light that seems to be trying to trap her, but she escapes back to her house. She goes to sleep but is surprised by an intruder in her house, a small figure in a watery-green cosmonaut suit who points to a screen showing the interior of a spaceship. The screen and figure dissolve. The next day, near a bus stop, she sees a strange figure wearing a cape who scowls at her terrifyingly. (Joël Mesnard, “A Failed Abduction at Chaville?” IUR 32, no. 3 (July 2009): 21–22, 24)

February 18 — Richard Haines meets with members of the Expert Group on Anomalous Phenomena of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow to discuss UFO events in the US and USSR. (Richard F. Haines, “UFO Activities in the Soviet Union,” IUR 16, no 2 (Mar./Apr. 1991): 13–14)

February 22 — 12:45 a.m. Three youths driving home from a school reunion at Maids Moreton, Buckingham, England, see a white, cigar-shaped object glowing with numerous lights. It comes closer with an unsteady, jerky motion. They park the car in a field to watch the object, which approaches to within 100 feet. As they try to leave, their engine and headlights fail to respond. A brilliant beam of light envelops the car and they hear a faint humming sound. The light beam and sound disappear suddenly, along with the UFO, and they restart the car and drive away. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 19)

March 6 — 7:58 a.m. A glowing turquoise, cigar-shaped object on an easterly course crosses the path of Air Charter Flight 866 near Kingston, Ontario, stops ahead of the airliner, then proceeds to the north. (UFOEv II, 127)

March 12 — On two occasions an object is seen over the Tihange Nuclear Power Station, Belgium. One witness reports a UFO directly above the red lights on one of the plant’s huge chimneys, where it hovers about 1 minute, beaming one of its lights on the outside structure while another light points directly down one of the chimneys. After its

inspection, it flies straight through the enormous white plume of steam before disappearing in the dark. (Kean, p. 32)

March 15 — Night. An electronic engineer in Auderghem, Belgium, wakes up and hears a barely audible, high-frequency, whistling tone. He looks outside and sees a large rectangular object at a low altitude with irregular structures on the bottom. He walks upstairs to an upper-level terrace and watches the dark-gray object drift overhead slowly without lights. The whistling noise has stopped. (Kean, pp. 31–32)

March 18 — Captain Zho, the pilot of a regional airliner over Kunshan, Jiangsu, China, sees a ring-shaped object, two rectangular objects moving back and forth, and a red blaze of light coming from the ring. (UFOEv II, 127)

March 31 — For two nights in a row a couple in Palmarejo, Puerto Rico, hears their two Dobermans howling as if frightened, apparently upset by a peculiar sound like a phonograph record played at the wrong speed. It seems to move around the house, but the sound source cannot be located. Suddenly one of the dogs shrieks, and the husband runs outside to find two strange beings on his patio. They are 3–4 feet tall, gray, with big heads, big black eyes, and a slit for a mouth. The beings flee. The female Doberman is unharmed, but the male is found killed, with empty eye sockets and internal organs missing. (Clark III 139)

April 11 — 7:00–9:00 p.m. A bright, oval-shaped object that changes color from blue to red flies over the Complexo Penitenciário da Papuda, a federal prison in São Sebastião in the Federal District of Brasilia, Brazil. The object is seen by dozens of residents of the Lago Sul area and by more than 20 police officers on duty that night. The first to see the UFO is Lt. Damasceno of the Independent Company of the Military Police. He calls colleagues and is greeted with jokes. But he persuades them to go outside and see the UFO. He says the object is blue when vertical but turns red when it changes position. It appears to be no more than 1,650 feet above the prison. It flies up and down and horizontally without leaving a trace, and the intensity of its lights and colors vary. Carloads of people descend upon Papuda and dozens of people observe the UFO. After 100 minutes, a strange haze begins to engage the UFO, which disappears about 20 minutes later. Damasceno informs Sgt. Petronius, a CINDACTA flight controller, that he is seeing a “strong blue light that changed to red in the direction of three hours to the right.” Petronius is following the object on radar; it seems to be rectangular and moving at about 435 mph. CINDACTA confirms that the object has been tracked over much of the Lago Sul area and close to the Brasilia airport. Later, it identifies the object as a meteorological balloon, deemed an inadequate explanation by witnesses. (Clark III 874– 875; Brazil 336–338)

April 19? — Afternoon. Two militiamen on patrol in Almaty, Kazakhstan, notice a flare at the top of Kok Tobe Mountain.

They watch flames go up and down and then see an array of red light beams. They drive to within 650 feet of a hovering UFO. At that point, a few rays sweep across the car and it stops dead. The object then dims its lights and disappears. The men return to the police station but cannot recall how they did so. (Central Intelligence Agency, “Alma-Ata Patrolmen Report UFO Sighting,” from Tass, April 19, 1991)

April 21 — 8:00 p.m. Captain Achille Zaghetti and his copilot are flying a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 Alitalia airliner with 57 passengers. They are over the English Channel just off the coast of Romney, Kent, England, and preparing to land at Heathrow Airport, London, when they see a round object or missile, about 10 feet long, approaching from their left. It is less than 100 feet away. The control tower confirms a radar target, which is now behind them. The British Army denies firing any missiles. The British Civil Aviation Authority concludes that “extensive enquiries have failed to provide any indication of what the sighting may have been.” Nick Redfern notes that the description of the UFO is consistent with a pilotless drone of the type used for defense practice. (Clas Svahn and Anders Liljegren, “Close Encounters with Unknown Missiles,” IUR 19, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1994): 13–14; Nick Redfern, A Covert Agenda: UFO Secrecy Exposed, Simon & Schuster, 1997, pp. 170–172; Nick Pope, Open Skies, Closed Minds, Simon & Schuster, 1996, p. 196; “Britain Releases UFO Files, Dispels Some Mysteries,” KPIC, Roseburg, Oregon, October 19, 2008; UFOFiles2, pp. 135–137; 2Pinotti 113–116)

April 26 — A different security camera at Birchwood Shopping Mall near Warrington, Cheshire, England, records a similar object to the one detected in February in a location several hundred yards away. The camera records it for 20 minutes as it moves across the ground, passes by a road sign, climbs onto the roof of the mall, and vanishes in the sky above the M6 motorway. The camera operator lets the object enter the camera’s infrared spot beam, then switches the beam off; the light vanishes, then returns when the beam is turned back on. Investigators suspect that the light was caused by an insect interacting with the beam. (Jenny Randles, “UFOs in Focus,” IUR 18, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1993): 16–17)

May 1–7 — Wendelle C. Stevens holds the First World UFO Congress in Tucson, Arizona, which brings together UFO researchers, witnesses, and others from Spain, Italy, Japan, Russia, Germany, the UK, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Chile, Brazil, Canada, and the US. (2Pinotti 117–118)

May 12 — 7:00 p.m. Farmer Moisés Campelo is walking home from his brother’s house in Campo Redondo, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, when a bright light approaches and stops right above his head, spinning slowly. His eyes begin to burn and he feels paralyzed, as if he is being sucked into the light. He remains suspended under the light for about 5 minutes, after which he is dropped to the ground. Campelo starts crawling home, but the light returns and levitates him again. This time he is suspended for 15 minutes before being dropped. He remains traumatized and sustains an eye injury. (Bob Pratt, UFO Danger Zone: Terror and Death in Brazil—Where Next?, Horus House, 1996, pp. 9–13; Brazil 340–342)

May 17 — 1:30 a.m. A nurse in Braine l’Alleud, Belgium, hears an intense hum and looks out her window to see a large triangular object moving slowly overhead. At the front of the triangle, there is a group of lights located symmetrically along the edges. They are grouped toward the front point of the triangle. At least four of these lights are white and flickering quickly, with approximately two lights on the left and on the right flickering each second, but never reproducing the same sequence. She thinks there is also a steady red light. Slightly back from the central axis, she sees a ray of light, inclined on 45°, coming from an opening that is larger than the diameter of the flickering lights. This beam projects to the ground onto the street, and traced a brief series of figure 8s.

Suddenly, after 5 seconds the UFO instantly reappears far away, its blinking lights (but not the ray) still visible. (Vague d’OVNI sur la Belgique, Tome 2: Une énigme non-resolué, SOBEPS, 1994, pp. 16–19; Patrick Gross, “The Belgium Flap”)

May 22 — A husband and wife in Nottingham, England, see an array of lights in an “elongated triangle” formation. The same object is seen 15 minutes later by another man in the area. He estimates it is about 1,000 feet high and gives off a low humming noise. (Nick Redfern, A Covert Agenda: UFO Secrecy Exposed, Simon & Schuster, 1997, p. 184)

May 22 — Col. Alvaro Fernández Rodas, head of the Flight Safety Section of the Spanish Air Staff (where the UFO archives are kept), issues an Informative Note to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Ramón Fernández Sequieros titled “The UFO Archive and Its Possible Release.” The note is the result of meetings between Vicente- Juan Ballester Olmos, who is developing a catalog of UFO observations by military personnel and police officers; Maj. Ramón Alvarez Mateus, head of the Air Force Public Relations Office; and the Flight Safety Section. It mentions that no investigations have been made since 1980 and that since 1988 cases are not even archived. The note recommends that UFO cases be declassified. (Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, “The Spanish Air Force UFO Files,” IUR 18, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1993): 13; Swords 424–425, 515)

June 1 — 2:38 p.m. A Britannia Airways Boeing 737 is descending for a landing at 8,000 feet near Heathrow Airport, London, England, when the pilots see an unknown object for 1–2 seconds through the windshield. It disappears rapidly on the left. The missile has a yellow-orange cylindrical body with a “wrinkled” appearance and is about 10 feet long. (Clas Svahn and Anders Liljegren, “Close Encounters with Unknown Missiles,” IUR 19, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1994): 14)

June 8 — 6:00 p.m. Pilot Cesar Escobar and Copilot Angel David Farina are flying two passengers to Asunción, Paraguay, in his Cessna 210. While monitoring airport frequencies near Concepción, he overhears a conversation between the control tower and a Líneas Aéreas Paraguayas airliner, with the pilot reporting a brightly lit object approaching on a convergent course. The object is also showing on airport radar. He hears the pilot exclaim as the UFO speeds past. A few minutes later, Escobar sees a bright, blue-white light approaching on his right side. Just then radar control radios to ask if he has traffic on his right, and he replies affirmatively. The object paces his plane for 25 minutes within about 1,300 feet. Its intense light tends to conceal its exact shape, but it appears to be oval. Several times it moves in closer, as if playing a game, and Escobar becomes frightened. When it approaches, his instruments go crazy, including his automatic direction finder, which drifts around aimlessly. As he begins descending into Asunción Airport at 7:22 p.m., the object stops following and hovers. Anibal Gavigan, the air traffic control specialist on duty, is called by radar control and informed that a strange object has followed the Cessna 210 into the airport. He is asked if he can see it, and he can see the luminous object. After the Cessna lands, the airport lights are turned off to better identify the glowing object, which remains motionless over the field. At one point a luminous, yellow ray briefly shoots from the object to the western horizon. When it departs, the object accelerates so rapidly that it disappears after one sweep of the radar scope. (Jorge Alfonso Ramirez, “UFO Intercepts Aircraft over Paraguay,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 310 (February 1994): 8–10; UFOEv II, 144–145; Don Berliner, with Marie Galbreath and Antonio Huneeus, UFO Briefing Document: The Best Available Evidence, Dell, 2000, p. 145)

June 16 — 1:30 a.m. A businessman stops by the side of the road to relieve himself near The Bridestones, Cheshire, England, a Neolithic site with standing stones. He sees a golden beam of light above the stones from which emerges a shower of sparks. He returns to the car, but the engine will not start. He begins to run away when a

large, glowing ball heads from the sparks straight toward him. It is so bright that it causes pain in his eyes and he feels rooted to the spot. He blacks out and regains his senses several hundred yards away from his car. He is naked above the waist and his shoes are missing. As he tries to get up, he brushes down his trousers and finds that they are charged with static electricity, causing sparks to jump from his body. After staggering around, he finds his car with the keys still in the ignition. Next to the door are his shoes and shirt, folded on the ground and warm to the touch. The car starts without trouble and he drives away, realizing that it is now 3:05 a.m. (Jenny Randles, “Much More Than Marsh Gas,” Fortean Times 311 (March 2014): 27)

June 17 — 6:30 p.m. Walter Leiss and three other passengers on board Dan Air Flight DA 4700 from London (Gatwick Airport) to Hamburg, Germany, see a wingless projectile below and to the left of the plane flying at an altitude of 4,000–5,000 feet with no vapor trail. The object is slender, gray, and cigar-shaped. The crew does not see it. (Clas Svahn and Anders Liljegren, “Close Encounters with Unknown Missiles,” IUR 19, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1994): 14– 15)

Summer — An effort is made by Raven to encourage the Bush administration to reveal the US government’s interactions with aliens and crashed saucers. Meetings are allegedly held in safe rooms at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Washington, D.C., with administration officials and cabinet and agency heads. Much seems to depend on the confirmation of Robert Gates as CIA director. A meeting to brief President Bush on the topic is scheduled for August but canceled due to the Soviet military coup. (Robert Collins and Richard Doty, Exempt from Disclosure: The Disturbing Case about the UFO Coverup, Peregrine, 2005)

July — Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt publish UFO Crash at Roswell, disclosing the results of their interviews and reconstruction of the Roswell incident of 1947. They publish an update in 1994. (Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt, UFO Crash at Roswell, Avon, 1991; Richard Hall, “Roswell Matters,” IUR 18, no. 3 (May/June 1993): 23; Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt, The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell, Avon, 1994; Clark III 951)

July — Leonard Stringfield issues his sixth status report, UFO Crash/Retrievals: The Inner Sanctum. (Leonard H. Stringfield, UFO Crash/Retrievals: The Inner Sanctum, The Author, 1991)

July 5 — Customs and bank regulators in seven countries raid and lock down records of branch offices of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which has been investigated for being involved in massive money laundering and other financial crimes and illegally gaining the controlling interest in a major American bank. In addition to violations of lending laws, BCCI is also accused of opening accounts or laundering money for figures such as Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega, Hussain Muhammad Ershad, and Samuel Doe, and for criminal organizations such as the Medellín Cartel and Abu Nidal. William von Raab, a former US Commissioner of Customs, tells the Kerry Committee that the CIA holds “several” accounts at BCCI. According to a 1991 article

in Time magazine, the National Security Council also has accounts at BCCI, which are used for a variety of covert operations, including transfers of money and weapons during the Iran–Contra affair. (Wikipedia, “Bank of Credit and Commerce International”; Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin, False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, the World’s Most Corrupt Financial Empire, Houghton Mifflin, 1992; David Sirota and Jonathan Baskin, “Follow the Money: How John Kerry Busted the Terrorists’ Favorite Bank,” Washington Monthly, September 2004)

July 11 — 12:21 p.m. While many people in Mexico City, Mexico, are looking to the sky to see the last total solar eclipse of the 20th century, they also notice a bright object hovering in the sky. Videos are recorded as far south as Puebla and Oaxaca. Skeptics claim the object is the planet Venus, but the full eclipse lasts just under 7 minutes, and the object is seen for more than 30 minutes—before, during, and after the event. Guillermo Arragin, a reporter, videotapes the object, and Jaime Maussan, host of the Mexican version of the CBS TV show 60 Minutes, shows the Arragin footage a week later. He asks his viewers to share any sightings they had during the eclipse. Fifteen videotapes are submitted, each taken by a witness in a different location. Maussan enlists the help of the station’s video experts for digital enhancement and enlargement. The videos show solid, metallic-looking objects that reflect light. Maussan looks into balloons, helicopters, and other conventional objects, but comes up empty. The enhancements reveal a “hockey puck” shape, and many of the recorded objects pass in front of clouds. (Unsolved Mysteries Wiki, “Mexico City UFO”; Tim Printy, “The July 11, 1991, Mexico City UFOs: Basic Astronomy Ignored,” February 2003)

July 15 — 5:45 p.m. The copilot of a Britannia Airways Boeing 737 on a flight from Crete to Gatwick Airport near Crawley, West Sussex, England, sees a small, black, lozenge-shaped object about 1.5 feet in diameter, smooth, and some 1,600 feet ahead and above. It is on a collision course, and within 2 seconds it passes the aircraft’s wing at a distance of only 325 feet. The London Air Traffic Control Center picks up a target moving away from the plane to the southwest at 100 mph. (Clas Svahn and Anders Liljegren, “Close Encounters with Unknown Missiles,” IUR 19, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1994): 15; UFOFiles2, p. 137)

July 26 — Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Ramón Fernández Sequieros passes instructions to the Spanish Air Regions to centralize all UFO registers into Madrid Air Force headquarters. (Swords 425, 515)

August 4 — Night. Seven hikers near Lacul Bucura in the Retezat Mountains in west central Romania see a bright red light approaching them from behind. Thinking it might be a lost tourist, they wave their flashlights at it, but it starts zigzagging and increasing its speed. Soon they see other lights of varying colors, shapes, and configurations, all moving in the Valea Rea. Through binoculars they take on the shape of discs with luminous portholes. (Romania 55–57)

August 10 — US freelance writer Danny Casolaro is found dead in a bathtub in room 517 of the Sheraton Hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, his wrists slashed 10–12 times. The medical examiner rules the death a suicide. His death becomes controversial because his notes suggest he is in Martinsburg to meet a source about a story he calls “the Octopus.” This centers on a sprawling collaboration involving an international cabal, primarily featuring a number of stories familiar to journalists who worked in and around Washington, D.C., in the 1980s—the Inslaw case, about a software manufacturer whose owner accused the Justice Department of stealing its work product; the October Surprise theory that during the Iran hostage crisis, Iran deliberately held back American hostages to help Ronald Reagan win the 1980 presidential election, the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and Iran–Contra. Casolaro’s family argues that he has been murdered; that before he left for Martinsburg, he told his brother that he frequently received harassing phone calls late at night; that some of them were threatening; and that if something were to happen to him in Martinsburg, it will not be an accident. They also cite his well-known squeamishness and fear of blood tests, and state they find it incomprehensible that if he were going to commit suicide, he would do so by cutting his wrists a dozen times. A number of law-enforcement officials also argue that his death deserves further scrutiny, and his notes are passed by his family to ABC News and Time magazine, both of which investigate the case, but find no evidence of murder. (Wikipedia, “Danny Casolaro”; Kenn Thomas and Jim Keith, The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro, Feral House, rev ed., 2003; Cheri Seymour, The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal, TrineDay, 2010; “Danny Casolaro’s Files and Notes”)

September — 10:45 p.m. Security policeman T/Sgt Anthony W. Keel is working as an alert response team leader at the Ellsworth AFB Oscar Flight area 30 miles west of Opal, South Dakota, when he is dispatched to a missile launch site with multiple alarms. They arrive, clear the site, and reset the alarms. Then he gets another call for a different site with the same alarm pattern, which they then reset. On the way back to the Oscar Launch Control Facility, he gets another call, and the team can see a blue, pulsating light above the site experiencing the alarm. The light moves away as they pull in to secure the site. The light is the size of a small helicopter, semicircular and oblong, and completely silent. (Nukes 468–469)

September 9 — Self-professed pranksters Doug Bower and Dave Chorley make headlines claiming they started the UK crop circle phenomenon in 1978 with the use of simple tools consisting of a plank of wood, rope, and a baseball cap fitted with a loop of wire to help them walk in a straight line. To prove their case, they make a circle in front of journalists; cerealogist (advocate of paranormal explanations of crop circles) Pat Delgado examines the circle and declares it authentic before it is revealed as a hoax. Inspired by the Tully, Australia, crop circle accounts from 1966, Bower and Chorley claim to be responsible for all circles made prior to 1987, and for more than 200 crop circles in 1978–1991 (with 1,000 other circles not being made by them). After their announcement, the two men demonstrate making a crop circle. According to University of Oregon fractal expert Richard Taylor, “the pictographs they created inspired a second wave of crop artists. Far from fizzling out, crop circles have evolved into an international phenomenon, with hundreds of sophisticated pictographs now appearing annually around the globe.” (Wikipedia, “Crop circle”; William Tuohy, “‘Crop Circles’ Their Prank, 2 Britons Say,” Los Angeles Times, September 10, 1991, p. 14; Jenny Randles, “Round and Round in the Circle Game,” IUR 16, no. 6 (Nov/Dec. 1991): 17–18, 22–23; Richard Taylor, “Coming Soon to a Field near You,” Physics World, August 2011, pp. 2–7; UFOFiles2, pp. 120–123; “Necrolog: Doug Bower,” Fortean Times 371 (October 2018): 28–29; “The Man Who Launched a Million Conspiracy Theories,” Daily Mail (UK), October 20, 2019)

September 15 — One of the cameras on Space Shuttle Discovery Flight STS-48 captures several anomalous, glowing objects that float along and then sharply change direction, apparently in response to a flash in the lower left portion of the picture. NASA explains the objects as ice particles reacting to a Space Shuttle thruster firing. Astronomer Philip C. Plait discusses the issue in his book Bad Astronomy, agreeing with NASA. However, physicist Jack Kasher and Mark Carlotto dispute that explanation, arguing that there are two groups of correlated object motions involving at least a dozen distinct events. Kasher’s analysis reveals that the objects behaved oddly for any type of particle, ice or otherwise, and Carlotto indicates that no thruster was fired in that timeframe.

(NICAP, “STS Video Footage of Possible UAP Phenomenon in Orbit”; Wikipedia, “STS-48”; Mark J. Carlotto, “Digital Video Analysis of Anomalous Space Objects,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 9, no. 1 (1995): 45–63; Jack Kasher, “Anomalous Images on Videotape from Space Shuttle Flight STS-48: Examination of the Ice- Particle Explanation,” JUFOS 6 (1995/96): 80–148; Lan D. Fleming, “Examination of the Trajectories of Anomalous Objects Imaged during the STS-48 Space Shuttle Mission,” JUFOS 9 (2006): 71–98)

September 19 — 6:35 p.m. Maria Kulis is visiting Medjugorje, Bosnia, and takes a photo of St. James Church from a distance of about 500 feet. When she has the film developed, she notices an odd dark object in the sky almost above the church. The image is sharp and silhouetted against a purplish-blue sky. The object would be about 6.6 feet long if it was at an altitude of 1,000 feet. (Bruce Maccabee, “The Medjugorje UO,” IUR 17, no. 2 (Mar./Apr. 1992): 12–13, 23; UFOEv II 301–302;)

October — Following a request by Russian cosmonaut Pavel Popovich, the KGB declassifies several documents from its so-called “Blue Folder.” The material is obtained by Vadim K. Ilyin from the late Vyacheslav Shtyepa of the Ufological Committee of the Russian Geographical Society. (Good Need, p. 353)

October 1 — The Air Force’s Electronic Security Command is redesignated the Air Force Intelligence Command and reacquires the Foreign Technology Division. (Wikipedia, “Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency”)

November 6 — The small near-Earth Object 1991 VG is discovered by American astronomer James Scotti at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The uncertainty of the object’s origin and its small size (16–39 feet), combined with rapid variation in the object’s brightness in images obtained during its close passage with Earth in early December 1991, leads to some speculation that 1991 VG might be a spent rocket fuel tank from a space mission, or even an alien artificial object. However, a detailed analysis of the available evidence confirms that there is no compelling reason to believe that 1991 VG is unnatural. (Wikipedia, “1991 VG”; Duncan Steel, “SETA and 1991 VG,” The Observatory 115 (1995): 78–83; Mark Rodeghier, “Alien Probe Detected in Solar System?” IUR 20, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1995): 9–10; Carlos de la Fuente Marcos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos, “Dynamical Evolution of Near-Earth Asteroid VG 1991,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 473 (2018): 2938–2948)

1992

1992 — A man is driving near Alton Barnes, Wiltshire, England, when he sees a bright glow approaching from the opposite direction. Thinking it is from a speeding motorcycle, he stops the car and leaves the engine idling. As it approaches, the light changes direction and passes over the roof of the car. The engine stalls. The object seems to be emitting light all around it, but a few seconds later it disappears. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 19–20)

1992 — Jerome Clark publishes the second volume of the first edition of his UFO encyclopedia. (Jerome Clark, The Emergence of a Phenomenon: UFOs from the Beginning through 1959, Omnigraphics, 1992; Michael D. Swords, [review], JUFOS 4 (1992): 181–183)

1992 — El Ojo Crítica, an independent and skeptical newsletter, begins publication in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. (El Ojo Crítica, no. 1 (1992); “(Pre) Historia de El Ojo Crítica”)

1992 — The Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena is established in Kharkiv, Ukraine, to study UFOs and extraterrestrial visitation. It has Russian and Ukrainian ufologists on its board, and it publishes RIAP Bulletin (in English, edited by Vladimir Rubtsov) from January 1994 to June 2006. (RIAP Bulletin 1, no. 1 (Jan./March 1994); Vladimir Rubtsov, “Ukraine Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena,” IUR 18, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1993): 15– 16)

January 15 — The Spanish Air Force transfers responsibility for handling UFO reports to the Air Operative Command (whose head is Gen. Alfredo Chamorro Chapinal) at Torrejón Air Base in Madrid, Spain, which updates the procedures for reporting and investigating UFO sightings by military personnel. The added responsibility is placed in the intelligence section, commanded by Lt. Col. Ángel Bastida. (Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, “The Spanish Air Force UFO Files,” IUR 18, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1993): 13; Swords 425, 517)

February — 4:00 a.m. Near Tennant Creek, Northern Territory, Australia, five people are in a car driving around a bend when they encounter a huge area lit up from above. The engine, headlights, and dash lights cut out. They stop the

car, restart it, and drive on, but 2 minutes later the same thing happens, then again 2 minutes after that. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 20)

February 15–16 — The Center for UFO Studies and the Fund for UFO Research hold the Plains of San Agustin Conference in the Sofitel Chicago Hotel in Rosemont, Illinois, in order to examine the nature and quality of the evidence for a reported crash of a UFO and the recovery of aliens—both dead and alive—on the Plains of San Agustin, New Mexico, in July 1947. A focal point for the discussion is the testimony of Gerald Anderson, who contacted investigators Kevin Randle and Stanton Friedman with his claim that he had been present on the Plains when he was 5 years old. The separate stories of archaeologists and Grady L. “Barney” Barnett at this retrieval are also considered. Moderator Michael D. Swords concludes that the evidence for the Plains of San Agustin crash is “single-witness testimony with no physical or instrumental evidence to support the story” as well as problematic and inconsistent testimony. A summary report on the conference is published in June 1992. (Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt, UFO Crash at Roswell, Avon, 1991, pp. 31–32, 87–90; Thomas J. Carey, “The Search for the Archaeologists,” IUR 16, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1991): 4–9, 21; Stanton T. Friedman, Thomas J. Carey, Kevin D. Randle, and Donald R. Schmitt, “The Search for the Archaeologists: An Exchange,” IUR 17, no. 3 (May/June 1992): 6–12, 22–23; Donald R. Schmitt and Kevin D. Randle, “Second Thoughts on the Barney Barnett Story,” IUR 17, no. 3 (May/June 1992): 4–5, 22; Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt, “Missing Time,” IUR 17, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1992): 21–23; The Plains of San Agustin Controversy, July 1947: Gerald Anderson, Barney Barnett, and the Archaeologists, CUFOS/Fund for UFO Research, 1992; Mark Rodeghier and Mark Chesney, “Who’s the Dummy Now? The Latest Air Force Report,” IUR 22, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 8–9; Kevin D. Randle and Karl T. Pflock, “Barney Barnett’s Crashed Saucer: Where Did It Come From?” IUR 28, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 15–18, 24– 25)

March — US historian David M. Jacobs publishes Secret Life, in which he lays out a detailed study of abduction phenomenology based on his research with numerous abductees. He finds many accounts of hybrid making and clues that the aliens exploit human genes to repopulate their planet or perhaps plot a takeover of the Earth. (David

M. Jacobs, Secret Life: Firsthand Accounts of UFO Abductions, Simon & Schuster, 1992; Mark Rodeghier, [review], JUFOS 4 (1992): 184–189; Clark III 8)

March or April — 4:30 a.m. S/Sgt Joseph M. Brown is posted to a security team at the Malmstrom AFB A-3 flight launch facility outside Sluice Box Canyon near Monarch, Montana. Due to an alarm-system malfunction, two men are staked out in a security camper. Just after arriving at the site, Brown sees a bright white light moving erratically through the sky with sudden direction changes and abrupt stops and starts. He watches it for 15–20 minutes, then the light moves closer to the facility. He wakes up his partner, who also watches the light. Another security team at A-10 about 10 miles away can also see the light, which is less than a mile away. They continue to watch the light until about 6:30 a.m. when it shoots up into the sky and stops. With more daylight, they see a black area around the light. (Nukes 457–461, 466–468)

March 3 — 7:50 p.m. Roger Cross is driving on Highway 3A in Concord, New Hampshire, when he hears an unusual drumming sound. He pulls to the side of the road and sees an immense triangular object with pulsating lights flying 400–500 feet above the road. (Marler 217)

March 4–5 — UFO sightings at the Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City, Mexico, are confirmed by radar. (Don Berliner, with Marie Galbreath and Antonio Huneeus, UFO Briefing Document: The Best Available Evidence, Dell, 2000, p. 146)

March 5 — 6:30 p.m. Military Policeman Luis Ribeiro and a colleague are hunting in the interior of Ceará state, Brazil, when a domed disc lands nearby. Five 4.5-foot tall humanoids emerge and take Ribeiro inside the craft. The beings communicate with him in Portuguese and tell him they are from “Catandório.” After a 5-hour abduction experience, he is returned to the encounter site. (Brazil 342–344)

March 20 — 3:51 a.m. Patrolman Luis Delgado has just checked the doors on a local business at Haines City, Florida, and turns onto 30th Street. He sees a green light in his rear-view mirror. The light seems to come from a small plane that is about to crash. Just seconds later, the interior of his patrol car is illuminated with a green glow. The object begins to pace his car which is traveling about 40 mph. The object moves from the right side to the front of the vehicle several times. When it has moved to the front for the third time, Delgado slows his car and pulls off the roadway, fearing he might collide with the object. It is a color of green he had never seen before that seems to flow over the surface. It is 15 feet long with a 3-foot-thick center. The object hovers approximately 10 feet off the ground. The engine, lights, and radio on his patrol car cease to function. The object hovers in front of his car and then shines a bright white light into the interior. He exits and begins to walk backwards away from the object. He tries to radio Haines City dispatch on his radio, but it does not function. The air around him has chilled to the point that he can see his breath. The object is hovering about 20 feet northeast of his car, then it speeds away after

approximately 2–3 seconds. It departs the area in a northeasterly direction at 10 feet altitude. Delgado loses sight of the object in only seconds. (UFOEv II 193–194; Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 15)

March 23 — Near Amarillo, Texas, radio hobbyist Steven Douglass photographs a “donuts on a rope” contrail and links this to distinctive sounds. He describes the engine noise as “strange, loud pulsating roar... unique... a deep pulsating rumble that vibrated the house and made the windows shake... similar to rocket engine noise, but deeper, with evenly timed pulses.” In addition to providing the first photographs of the distinctive contrail reported by others, Douglass also reports intercepts of radio transmissions: “Air-to-air communications... were between an AWACS aircraft with the call sign Dragnet 51 from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, and two unknown aircraft using the call signs Darkstar November and Darkstar Mike. Messages consisted of phonetically transmitted alphanumerics. It is not known whether this radio traffic had any association with the ‘pulser’ that had just flown over Amarillo.” (Wikipedia, “Aurora (aircraft)”)

March 31 — The Spanish Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. Ramón Fernández Sequieros, issues Instrucción General 40-5, a 28-page set of procedures for UFO investigations that is issued to all units in June. Lt. Col. Ángel Bastida admits it is inspired by several questionnaires that Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos has supplied, including those used by the US Air Force. (Swords 426, 520)

April 13 — Gen. Alfredo Chamorro Chapinal signs a proposal for full UFO document disclosure to the Spanish Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. Ramón Fernández Sequieros. (Swords 426, 518)

April 22 —The Spanish Joint Chiefs of Staff downgrade UFO documents from secret to “internal reserve” (confidential). (Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, “The Spanish Air Force UFO Files,” IUR 18, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1993): 13; Swords 426, 519)

April 28 — A crop circle appears in a rapeseed field at Sutton Scotney, close to Winchester, England. (Chris Talarski, “Going around in Circles,” IUR 17, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1992): 4–9)

May — The Roper Organization releases the results of its “Unusual Personal Experiences” survey of nearly 6,000 US adults devised by Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs, and Ron Westrum, and conducted in 1991. Its intent is to determine how widespread the abduction phenomenon might be. Five indicator questions in the survey assess the respondents’ sleep paralysis, dreams of flying, missing time, observations of unusual lights inside a room, and puzzling body scars. The poll, financed by the Bigelow Holding Corporation, suggests that 2% of adult Americans (more than 3.7 million) think they have been abducted by aliens. (Geraldo Fuentes, “Abductions: A Report on the Roper Analysis Data”; Robert L. Hall, Mark Rodeghier, Donald A. Johnson, “The Prevalence of Abductions: A Critical Look,” JUFOS 4 (1992): 131–135; Robert J. Durant, “Evolution of Public Opinion on UFOs,” IUR 18, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1993): 20–22; Susan Blackmore, “Abduction by Aliens or Sleep Paralysis?” Skeptical Inquirer 22, no. 3 (May/June 1998): 23–28; Mark Rodeghier, “Counting Abductees: What Can Surveys Tell Us?” IUR 25, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 20–21)

May 1 — University of Connecticut psychologist Kenneth Ring publishes The Omega Project, in which he argues that ostensible aliens, angels, and otherworldly entities exist in an imaginal realm, a “third kingdom” between reality and fantasy that is accessible through certain altered states of consciousness that undermine ordinary perception and conceptual thinking. Through extensive psychological testing, Ring finds that abductees and those who have near-death experiences are emotionally indistinguishable, with childhoods that typically involve episodes of abuse, trauma, and serious illness. One consequence is the development of a dissociative state as a means of coping with stress; it is the key to experiencing the imaginal realm, a shamanic journey through which symbolic language and images are expressed. (Kenneth Ring, The Omega Project: Near-Death Experiences, UFO Encounters, and Mind at Large, Morrow, 1992; Kenneth Ring and Christopher J. Rosing, “The Omega Project: A Psychological Survey of Persons Reporting Abductions and Other UFO Encounters,” JUFOS 2 (1990): 59–98; David A. Gotlib, “Abductions: Imagined or Imaginal?” IUR 17, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1992): 18–20; Clark III 886)

Summer — An unnamed family from Albuquerque is hiking and prospecting about 12 miles from Horse Springs, New Mexico, in the general area of the Plains of San Agustin, when they discover an odd piece of metal. They unsuccessfully try to cut it, burn it, and bend it. The discovery remains unconfirmed. (Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt, “The Hatch Enigma,” IUR 18, no. 2 (March/April 1993): 18)

Summer — Héctor and Jaime Feliciano watch a gigantic silent triangle pass over Salinas, Puerto Rico, heading toward the MATES Camp Santiago military base. It is a metallic dark gray with a rough undersurface containing multiple small colored lights and two large white lights. White beams shine down from the object at three points. (Jorge Martín, “Triangular UFOs over Puerto Rico,” Flying Saucer Review 44, no. 3 (Autumn 1999): 24)

June 1 — The US Strategic Command is established as a successor to the Strategic Air Command in response to the end of the Cold War. Its principal mission is to deter military attack and, if deterrence fails, to counter with nuclear weapons. (Wikipedia. “United States Strategic Command”)

June 13–17 — The Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosts an Abductions Study Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, chaired by David E. Pritchard and John E. Mack, with presentations, panels, and discussions about the UFO abduction phenomenon. UFO researchers like Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs, and Mack hold forth beside relative novices and abductees themselves. Representative non-US research is also contributed (Brazil, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia). Even skeptics are represented and speak. The conference marks the cracking apart of the public unity of American researchers into at least two major schools of opinion, which deeply disagree to this day. Both continue to believe that the phenomenon is extraterrestrial. Hopkins, Jacobs, and others are present to elaborate what some have come to refer to as the “Dark Marauders” view of abductions. But conference co- organizer and Harvard psychologist John Mack presents an entirely different spin: These experiences are extraterrestrially caused but are positively transformational for the human spirit. Despite the severe disagreements that follow, this gives researchers like Joseph Nyman a foundation stone authority figure around whom to rally.

The so-called pessimist and optimist schools take shape right before the attendees’ eyes. A third major position exists within the US research community, the “probably extraterrestrial but I don’t know the details” viewpoint, represented at the conference in the persons of Mark Rodeghier, Stuart Appelle, and David Gotlib. Kenneth Ring also presents his interesting view comparing abductions and near-death experiences, and David Hufford does likewise regarding the “Old Hag” imagery of sleep paralysis. (Andrea Pritchard, et al., Alien Discussions: Proceedings of the Abduction Study Conference Held at MIT, Cambridge, MA, North Cambridge, 1994; Michael

D. Swords, [review], Journal of Scientific Exploration 11, no. 1 (1997): 101–104; John E. Mack, “Helping Abductees,” IUR 17, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1992): 10–15, 20; C. D. B. Bryan, Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Alien Abduction, UFOs, and the Conference at M.I.T., Knopf, 1995; Stuart Appelle, “The Abduction Phenomenon at MIT,” IUR 20, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1995): 20–21, 24; Thomas E. Bullard, [Book reviews], JUFOS 6 (1995/96): 231–248; Ralph Blumenthal, The Believer: Alien Encounters, Hard Science, and the Passion of John Mack, University of New Mexico, 2021)

July 9 — A 450-foot “Snail” pictogram appears in a wheatfield at Alton Barnes, Wiltshire, England. (Chris Talarski, “Going around in Circles,” IUR 17, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1992): 4–9)

July 17–19 — The First International Conference of the Center for Crop Circle Studies is held at King Alfred’s College in Winchester, Hampshire, England. (Chris Talarski, “Going around in Circles,” IUR 17, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1992): 4– 9)

July 23 — 7:30 a.m. An abduction event takes place in a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, involving a rare case of physical evidence. Businessman Peter Khoury had at least one previous abduction experience in 1988 that left him so disturbed that in 1993 he forms a support group to help others like him. The details of his 1992 abduction slowly emerge through extended conversations with Australian ufologist Bill Chalker. Khoury wakes up suddenly and finds two nude females seated on his bed, one blonde and the other dark-haired with some Asian features. They are human-like but have some odd physical characteristics: narrow heads and large eyes. Khoury says that what happens next feels weird and dreamlike, “like looking through binoculars, but through the back of my own head.” The blonde reaches out and forces him towards her. Before he knows what he is doing, he takes a small bite out of her and swallows it. There is no blood or screaming. The two beings look at each other in a puzzled way, then vanish. Khoury has a coughing fit and goes to the bathroom where he discovers a blonde hair wrapped around a body part. He turns the hair over to Bill Chalker for mitochondrial DNA analysis in 1999 (by Horace R. Drew of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification. The results are startling: DNA from the shaft of the hair reveals very rare and unusual Asian signatures common to the isolated Lahu people of China and Thailand, but DNA from the root shows sequences indicating rare Basque/Gaelic and Asian results—suggesting advanced cloning techniques and possible hybrid characteristics. (Bill Chalker, “Strange Evidence,” IUR 24, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 3–13; Anomaly Physical Evidence Group, “Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Analysis of a Shed Hair from an Alien Abduction Case,” IUR 24, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 13–16, 31; Bill Chalker, “Aliens, Hair, and DNA,” IUR 29, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 3–5, 10; Bill Chalker, Hair of the Alien: DNA and Other Forensic Evidence of Alien Abduction, Simon & Schuster, 2005; Bill Chalker, “Peter Khoury and the ‘Hair of the Alien’: 20 Years On,” TheOzFiles, July 29, 2012; Clark III 651–654)

August — Crop circles appear in wheatfields near Ipswich and Strathclair, Manitoba. (Chris Rutkowski, “‘A Looney a Look’: Crop Circles in Western Manitoba,” IUR 17, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1992): 9–12)

August 5 — 1:45 p.m. Pilots of United Airlines Flight 934 are flying at 23,000 feet some 50 miles northeast of George AFB [now Southern California Logistics Airport], Victorville, California, when an unusual aircraft comes directly toward them and passes underneath at an estimated distance of 500–1,000 feet. It resembles the forward fuselage of a Lockheed S-71, without wings but with a sort of tail. The size is about 50 feet long and its speed is supersonic. (Aviation Week and Space Technology, August 24, 1992; Clas Svahn and Anders Liljegren, “Close Encounters with Unknown Missiles,” IUR 19, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1994): 15)

August 19 — 1:00 a.m. A witness is driving near Tucson, Arizona, when he notices a strange light in the distance. As it approaches from the northeast, it descends rapidly, moves across a field, and hovers. A cone of light emerges from the bottom that completely bathes the area, illuminating the ground. At this point the witness is about 600– 900 feet away and is able to see that it is a solid object that looks like a manta ray with a dull-black matte finish. He pulls over and can hear no sound coming from it. The object moves directly overhead, and the witness gets back in the car and speeds away. He sees the object again as it stops 15 feet above a nearby farmhouse. Again a bright light comes from its base, engulfing the entire house for 20 seconds. It moves away and illuminates a large area of trees behind the house. (“Current Cases,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 296 (December 1992): 18)

September — The first Spanish Air Force UFO document is declassified. The process lasts until 1999, when 84 files (covering 122 cases between 1962 to 1995) are disclosed. (Swords 427, 521–522)

September 18 — The existence of the US National Reconnaissance Office is declassified by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, as recommended by the Director of Central Intelligence. (Wikipedia, “National Reconnaissance Office”)

September 23 — The last US underground nuclear test, Divider, takes place at the Nevada Test Site. (Wikipedia, “Operation Julin”)

October — The first official Spanish UFO reports are declassified, leaving only witness names redacted. (Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, “The Spanish Air Force UFO Files,” IUR 18, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1993): 14)

October 9 — 7:50 p.m. A fragment of the Draconid meteor stream strikes a 1980 Chevrolet Malibu owned by Michelle Knapp while she is home in Peekskill, New York. She goes outside after hearing a crash and discovers a hole in the trunk of the car and a 6-inch crater in her driveway. The stony fragment (oval shaped and about 1 foot in length) is in the crater, along with pieces of the car. The rock is still hot and weighs about 30 pounds. (Wikipedia, “Peekskill meteorite”; “A Hot Rock from Outer Space? Meteorite May Have Hit Teen’s Car,” Yonkers (N.Y.) Herald Statesman, October 11, 1992, p. 28; Mark Rodeghier, “UFO/Vehicle Very Close Encounters,” IUR 27, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 5)

October 15 — 6:00 p.m. Witnesses in Lubbock, Texas, see a gray cigar-shaped object that becomes visible for about 20 minutes after a cloud disappears. It moves close enough to them so that they can see windows on the object. The cloud reappears and the object is no longer visible. (Herbert S. Taylor, “Mystery Clouds and the UFO Connection,” IUR 29, no. 4 (July 2005): 19)

October 27 — Just before 12:00 midnight. A1C Michael R. Reager and A1C Jason H. Barrier are approaching the operations hanger of the 44th Field Maintenance Missile Squadron at Ellsworth AFB, Rapid City, South Dakota. A group of bright white lights suddenly appears in the air, moving rapidly in rigid formation. Witnesses assume the lights are attached to a large, dark aircraft. It hovers briefly above the hangar at 300–500 feet then moves away. (Nukes 470–472)

November — Night. A man in Brighton, England, calls the RAF to report a brightly lit UFO shaped like a “squashed rugby ball” hovering above his house. Through windows in its side, he can see two men wearing beige uniforms standing in front of machinery. When one of the crew members appears to notice him, the object’s lights go out and the UFO zooms away over the English Channel. (UFOFiles2, p. 128)

November — After 10:00 p.m. Three Romanian military helicopters are flying at an altitude of 328 feet at a speed of 93 mph on a night exercise near Buzău, Romania. Col. Marcel Smoleanu notices a silent, bright-red sphere about 60 feet in diameter to his left that begius to fly parallel to the helicopters. The other pilots confirm the sighting. After a minute or so, the object accelerates sharply, makes a 90° turn, and cuts across their flight path. The helicopters slow to a hover and the object disappears suddenly. The flight exercise is scrapped and the helicopters return to the military airfield at Buzău. One of the pilots, Lt. Col. Doru Drăgoi, is called into the radar room where operators show him more than 10 unidentified targets on the screen making odd movements northeast of Buzău, including sharp 180° turns near Săpoca. Drăgoi also sees bright objects crossing overhead from east to west at an amazing speed. (Romania 110–113)

November 16 — Lt. Col. Ángel Bastida, head of the Intelligence Section of the Spanish Air Operative Command, establishes an informal agreement of cooperation with Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos to act as a civilian consultant

on the declassification of UFO reports and establish a direct contact procedure for future cases. This allows him to personally view, handle, and copy all of the agency’s original UFO case files. It ensures that all reports in official custody are released, increases the momentum of the process, and secures copies of all related documentation. (Swords 428–429; Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, “Monitoring Air Force Intelligence (Spain’s 1992–1997 UFO Declassification Process),” MUFON 1997 International UFO Symposium Proceedings, pp. 139–178)

December 16 — Night. Werner Noeske observes a large, brightly illuminated disc with a large triangular window in the base over Leipzig, Germany. Additional witnesses come forward, but an investigation reveals that two unrelated incidents contributed to the sightings: a “sky tracker” searchlight common in European discos, and a cargo plane that makes routine flights at the same hour. A photograph confirms the latter interpretation. (Hans-Werner Peiniger, “UFO-Beobachtungen,” Journal für UFO-Forschung, no. 86 (Mar./Apr. 1993): 3–4)

December 24 — 6:09–8:15 p.m. Twenty civilian witnesses and police south and west of Monroe, Louisiana, watch a silent, boomerang-shaped UFO with bright beams of light pass over cars in a forested area and bounce up and down for 6 minutes. The object is videotaped by one of the witnesses, Cecil Cullipher, in West Monroe. (W. L. Garner Jr., “UFOs Compete with Santa for Christmas Eve Limelight,” IUR 18, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1993): 8–11, 23)

1993

1993 — Jean-Jacques Velasco coauthors OVNIs: La science avance, with journalist Jean-Claude Bourret, in which he admits the physical reality of UFOs and the probability of their extraterrestrial origin. He stresses that it’s his personal opinion, although he has been authorized by CNES to write the book. Its foreword is written by astrophysicist Jean-Claude Ribes, president of the French Astronomical Society. (Jean-Claude Bourret and Jean- Jacques Velasco, OVNIs: La science avance, Laffont, 1993; Gildas Bourdais, “From GEPAN to SEPRA: Official UFO Studies in France,” IUR 25, no. 4 (Winter 2000–2001): 13)

1993 — The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) facility begins construction north of Gakona, Alaska, just west of Wrangell–Saint Elias National Park, funded by the Air Force, Navy, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and DARPA. Its original purpose is to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance. As a university- owned facility, HAARP is a high-power, high-frequency transmitter used for study of the ionosphere. The most prominent instrument at HAARP is the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI), a high-power radio frequency transmitter facility operating in the high frequency band. The IRI is used to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere. Other instruments, such as a VHF and a UHF radar, a fluxgate magnetometer, a digisonde

(an ionospheric sounding device), and an induction magnetometer, are used to study the physical processes that occur in the excited region. (Wikipedia, “High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program”; University of Alaska Fairbanks, “About HAARP”)

January 1 — 1:30 a.m. A taxi driver has just dropped off revelers at a remote house in Hethersgill, Cumbria, England. She heads home down a remote track toward the main road when suddenly her CB radio begins to crackle then fades entirely. Moments later her car engine and lights fail, and she coasts to a stop. She gets out, hoping to walk back to the house, when she sees a ball of light low over the road heading towards her. It swoops over her car and shoots into the sky, causing her skin to tingle. The headlights come back on, the car lurches forward, and she hears her sister talking on the CB asking where she has been for the past 30 minutes. (Jenny Randles, “The Twelve UFOs of Christmas,” Fortean Times 374 (Christmas 2018): 29)

January 14 — 7:00 p.m. Residents of Jerzmanowice, Kraków County, Poland, see a flash of light just before limestone debris falls around them, breaking window panes and plunging through roofs. A local rock formation, Babia Skała, has been shattered by an apparent lightning strike, although some in the village have seen one or two bluish objects colliding with the rock face. Although the blast is seen in Kraków, registered on seismic equipment, and observed by the fight controller in Balice, the Polish Army refuses to disclose any further details. (Poland 119– 120; “Babia Skała,” Rowerowa Matopolska, May 26, 2015)

January 19 — Night. Jackie Chown and her family see a huge triangular object with flashing lights above their home in Ellastone, West Midlands, England. They chase after it in their car but lose track of it. (“UFO Spotters Chase Mysterious ‘Flashing Triangle,’” Ashbourne (UK) News Telegraph, January 21, 1993, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 283 (February 1993): 13)

January or February — Night. T/Sgt John W. Mills III is driving back to Malmstrom AFB near Great Falls, Montana, with another tech sergeant. Near Monarch, Montana, they watch a bright light in the sky for about 5 minutes. Suddenly

it makes a sharp banking maneuver. Thinking it is a helicopter, they drive on toward Belt, Montana, where they encounter a roadblock with cars backed up for miles. The base dispatcher asks if they saw anything on their drive. When they answer yes, he tells them to proceed to the Alpha-01 missile launch facility not far away. They are redirected to Malmstrom, where they find that many “anomalies” have been reported zooming over missile sites that night. The “anomaly” they had seen apparently came down and landed near the highway west of Belt.

Another light reportedly flew in and out of the open doors of the base vehicle barn; at least 4 witnesses say it was the size of a softball and flew at a height of about 10 feet. At least six balls of light maneuver around the flight line of the base at high speed and different altitudes. (Nukes 462–466)

February 1 — 9:00 p.m. A witness is driving in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, when he sees a large, black, triangular UFO hovering above a water tank. The object has 9 lights, including a row of lights on one side. Two police officers had seen bright beams of lights in the vicinity earlier. (Marler 218)

February 4 — 6:35 p.m. Kevin Crump and his grandmother, Betty Barnick, spot an object in the sky near Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, that spits out a blue glowing ball from its tail end, which hangs in the sky over an old school. Crump gets out and sees the UFO almost directly overhead. The moonlight reflects off its black metallic surface. It has the shape of an “oblong triangle” with a light at each point—a red light and a blue light at the front and a white light in the back. The UFO eventually moves away but returns with another bright blue light below it. (Marler 218–219)

March — US Rep. Steven Schiff (R-N.Mex.) writes to Defense Secretary Les Aspin, asking the US Air Force to declassify and provide him with all material relating to the Roswell crash. There is no response. After a second request, USAF Col. Larry G. Shockley refers him to the National Archives, which has no information. ()

March 12 — Paramount premieres Fire in the Sky, a feature film directed by Robert Lieberman that is based on abductee Travis Walton’s book of the same name. Walton is portrayed by actor D. B. Sweeney. (Internet Movie Database, “Fire in the Sky”; Chris Talarski, “Film Review: Fire in the Sky,” IUR 18, no. 3 (May/June 1993): 21)

March 16 — A couple who are viewing aerial activity from a hill adjacent to Area 51 in Nevada see strange lights that seem to transform themselves into an automotive vehicle. After the encounter, the witnesses sense that 30 minutes are unaccounted for. They undergo hypnosis and recall an abduction by gray-skinned aliens. The man is taken into a craft, while the woman is taken into a white van. Inside the van are two men dressed in black with black baseball caps. They administer intrusive procedures in her eyes, ears, and elsewhere. She remembers seeing electronic instruments and automatic rifles inside the van. (William F. Hamilton, “Area 51 Encounter,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 304 (August 1993): 14–17; Clark III 734)

March 31 — 1:10–1:15 a.m. Dozens of people across Devon, Cornwall, South Wales, Shropshire, and central Ireland see triangular UFOs speeding across the sky. An MoD police patrol sees the lights from RAF Cosford in Shropshire, England. The UFO passes over the base “at great velocity ... at an altitude of approximately 1,000 feet.” It looks like two white lights with a faint red glow at the rear, with no engine noise. The RAF police report also contains details on other civilian UFO sightings that they had learned about in the course of making enquiries with other military bases, civil airports, and local police. The police call ahead to alert the meteorological officer at nearby RAF Shawbury that the UFO is coming his way. The officer at Shawbury sees the object moving slowly across the countryside toward the base at a speed of no more than 30–40 mph. He sees the UFO fire a narrow beam of light (like a laser) at the ground and watches the light sweeping backwards and forwards across the field beyond the perimeter fence, as if it is looking for something. He hears and feels the vibrations from an unpleasant low- frequency humming sound coming from the craft. He estimates its size as midway between a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and a Boeing 747. The light beam retracts in an unnatural way, then the object accelerates to the horizon many times faster than a military aircraft. Ministry of Defence UFO Officer Nick Pope says there are multiple sightings at different times that cannot be attributed to the reentry, concluding on April 16 that “It seems that an unidentified object of unknown origin was operating in the UK Air Defence Region without being detected on radar; this would appear to be of considerable defence significance, and I recommend that we investigate further, within MoD or with the US authorities.” However, Jenny Randles suspects that the sightings are caused by the Soviet Tsyklon rocket booster 22586U, which launched the Kosmos 2238 radio satellite into orbit the previous day. Pope later comes around to that viewpoint after hearing about sightings at the same time in Ireland and France. (Jenny Randles, “A New Broom at the Ministry,” IUR 19, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1994): 18–20; Nick Pope, Open Skies, Closed Minds, Simon & Schuster, 1996, pp. 134–141; Don Berliner, with Marie Galbreath and Antonio Huneeus, UFO Briefing Document: The Best Available Evidence, Dell, 2000, p. 146; David Clarke, “The Cosford Case,” Fortean Times 199 (September 2005): 30–31; Kean, pp. 165–167, 251–252; Good Need, pp. 384–

385, 431–432; UFOFiles2, pp. 142–143; Jenny Randles, “Irish Mid-Air Spectacular,” Fortean Times 375

(January 2019): 33; Nick Pope, “The Cosford Incident,” 2019)

April — Michael D. Swords examines the position of establishment astronomers on the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life in the first six decades of the 20th century, especially regarding Mars, Venus, and deep space. He then speculates on the likely advice received by the USAF intelligence community by astronomical experts in the early days of the UFO phenomenon. (Michael D. Swords, “Astronomers, the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, and the United States Air Force at the Beginning of the Modern UFO Phenomenon,” JUFOS 4 (1992): 79–129)

April — Spanish communications technician José Luis Jordán Peña confesses for the first time to hoaxing the Ummo letters as well as the UFO sightings at Aluche, Spain, in 1966 and San José de Valderas in 1967. He says that he used the word “Ummo” because it suggests the Spanish word humo (smoke) and randomly chose Wolf 424 as the home star for the imaginary planet. “I wrote the reports on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and I took advantage of my trips to France, England, Mozambique, etc., or those of friends, to send letters from there.” However, other hoaxers begin copying his style, and after he receives an invitation to an Ummo conference in Cuba, he decides to admit the hoax he had started 25 years earlier. (Wikipedia, “Ummo”; Jim Keith, Casebook on the Men in Black, IllumiNet, 1997)

April — Didier Gomez begins publishing UFOmania in Paris, France. It continues through April 2015. (UFOmania, no. 1 (April 1993))

April — The Centro de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Inusuales in Buenos Aires, Argentina, publishes the first issue of Los Identificados, a journal focusing on Argentine occupant cases. It is edited by Roberto E. Banchs and runs for 15 issues until 1998. (Los Identificados, no. 1 (April 1993))

April 26 — 11:20 p.m. A witness in Muskegon, Michigan, is taking her dog for a walk when she notices two red lights and one white light arranged like a triangle above Muskegon Lake. The lights separate, and the white light shoots across the sky. The two red lights move back and forth like a pendulum before heading south. Another witness in Whitehall, Michigan, sees a similar display at the same time. (“Two See Unidentified ‘Triangle of Lights,” Muskegon (Mich.) Chronicle, April 28, 1993, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 287 (June 1993): 5)

April 28 — 11:50 p.m. Jefferson County Air Unit police officers Kenny Graham and Kenny Downs are on helicopter patrol over General Electric Appliance Park in Louisville, Kentucky, when Graham sees something like a small fire off to his left. Downs shines his spotlight on the light, which begins to drift back and forth as the spot washes over it. Then it gradually floats up to the helicopter’s altitude at 500 feet, where it hovers for a few seconds before moves away at high speed, making two counterclockwise loops and doubling back to the rear of the helicopter.

Graham pushes his speed up to 100 mph. The object passes them and climbs hundreds of feet into the air before descending again toward the helicopter. Graham tries to close the gap, but it eludes him. As it approaches again on a parallel course, the object releases three fireballs. Fearing a collision, Graham banks away. When his move is complete, the light has vanished. Two officers in their squad cars, Mike Smith and Joe Smolenski, also see the light and the fireballs. Smolenski tries to follow the light for a full minute before it disappears. (“Police Officers Describe ‘Dogfight’ with a UFO,” Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal, March 4, 1993, pp. 1, 5)

April 29 — A Rockwell-MBB X-31 experimental jet fighter designed to test thrust-vectoring technology successfully executes a rapid minimum-radius, 180° turn using a post-stall maneuver, flying well outside the range of angle of attack normal for conventional aircraft. This maneuver has been called the “Herbst maneuver” after Wolfgang Herbst, a Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm employee and proponent of using post-stall flight in air-to-air combat. It looks nothing like a triangular UFO and cannot match the performance of the Belgian triangles. (Wikipedia, “Rockwell-MBB X-31”)

May 9–September 20 — Artist and ceramicist Filiberto Caponi has a series of encounters with a humanoid alien near his home in Pretore, Ascoli Piceno, Italy. He takes six Polaroid photos of the creature in seemingly painful physical conditions. (Timothy Good, Unearthly Disclosure: Conflicting Interests in the Control of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Random House, 2001, pp. 140–206; Patrick Gross, “The Filiberto Caponi Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, 1993”)

June 3 — Ordinary Conversations about Extraordinary Matters, a documentary film by Allen Ross, premieres at the theatre of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Illinois. It features interviews with attendees at R. Leo Sprinkle’s 12th Rocky Mountain UFO Conference in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1991. (“New Abduction Documentary Debuts,” IUR 18, no. 3 (May/June 1993): 21; George M. Eberhart, “Postcards with a UFO Theme,” IUR 29, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 22)

June 3 — 6:00 p.m. A passenger on a flight 15 minutes out of Los Angeles International Airport in California sees a small cloud moving in the opposite direction of the aircraft, which has leveled off at 30,000 feet. He watches it fly in between two vertical columns of clouds, then when it approaches to a point directly in line with his window, it dives into the cloud mass below at a 30° angle and disappears. (Herbert S. Taylor, “Mystery Clouds and the UFO Connection,” IUR 29, no. 4 (July 2005): 19, 26)

June 5 — Reinhard Nühlen founds Deutschsprachige Gesellschaft für UFO-Forschung in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, and begins publishing DEGUFOrum in January 1994. It is currently (2020) edited by Nikolaus Bettinger in Würselen, Germany. (DEGUforum, no. 1 (January 1994))

June 26 — 4:00 a.m. Witnesses in Hartcliffe, Bristol, England, see a large cigar-shaped object (a possible blimp) drifting slowly and silently over the rooftops. large white light (the planet Venus) in the southeast climbing slowly upward. It fades into the lightening sky shortly before dawn. One witness takes many minutes of video of this object, compressing several hours of its appearance. The same light appears at the same time for weeks. (Jenny Randles, “UFOs in Focus,” IUR 18, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1993): 14–15)

July 22 — Richard L. Huff in the FBI Office of Information and Privacy informs researcher Nick Redfern that it has a file on Majestic-12, although it is in “closed status.” The file title is labeled “Espionage.” (Kremlin 191–192)

August — Day. A witness takes a video of an odd figure on a beach at Rhyl, Clwyd, Wales. As the camera pans through the crowd on the beach, a strange semi-transparent figure in a silver suit becomes visible for a couple of seconds standing and facing a wooden fence. Looking up, he cannot see the figure, which appears to have vanished.

Investigators suspect it is merely someone in odd clothing. (Jenny Randles, “UFOs in Focus,” IUR 18, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1993): 15)

August 1 — MARAUDER (Magnetically accelerated ring to achieve ultrahigh directed energy and radiation) is, or was, a USAF Research Laboratory project to develop a coaxial plasma railgun. It is one of several US efforts to develop a plasma-based projectile. It began development in 1990, and its first published experiment takes place on this date. The project’s initial success leads to it becoming classified, and only a few references to

MARAUDER appear after 1993. No information about the fate of the project is published after 1995. (Wikipedia, “MARAUDER”; C. R. Sovinec and R. E. Peterkin Jr., “Phase 1b MARAUDER Computer Simulations,” 1990 IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science, Abstracts)

August 8 — Early morning. Kelly Cahill and her husband Andrew are returning from a party in Narre Warren North, in the Dandenong Foothills of Victoria, Australia, and are near Eumemmerring Creek south of Belgrave when they see a huge lighted object with windows in front of them on the road. It seems to have people in it, but it quickly shoots off to the left and disappears. They continue driving, and about one kilometer ahead they encounter another bright light. Her husband continues driving, and they do not recall anything else until they get home. They agree they saw a UFO but can’t agree on whether they had missing time or saw people. They both can smell vomit and feel stomach pains. Kelly notices a triangular mark below her navel, which is bleeding a bit. Kelly has a strange dream immediately after the encounter, and two subsequent dreams in September, October 23, and January 1994—all involving entities and a “strange physical dimension.” A few weeks later, both of them start remembering that the UFO has landed in an adjacent field and that they get out of the car to look at it. An abduction scenario ensues involving tall black beings. They also recall that there is another car stopped by the road with at least two people in it. By November 17, Phenomena Research Australia has located the couple in the other car and a woman who was with them. They have also undergone an abduction experience and have missing time. These witnesses, unknown to the Cahills, confirm the UFO landing site, and their drawings of the UFOs and entities closely coincide with Kelly’s. The second group also recalls seeing a third car with one male who is gazing fixedly toward the encounter site. Unfortunately, Kelly’s account of the incident is the only one that has come to light. (Bill Chalker, “An Extraordinary Encounter in the Dandenong Foothills,” IUR 19, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1994): 4–8, 18–20; Bill Chalker, “Aliens, Hair, and DNA,” IUR 29, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 3; Kelly Cahill, Encounter, HarperCollins, 1996; Bill Chalker, The Oz Files: The Australian UFO Story, Duffy and Snellgrove, 1996; Bill Chalker, “The Kelly Cahill Case Revisited: An Extraordinary Lost Opportunity,” TheOzFiles, March 2, 2016)

August 12 — 12:30 a.m. Two friends are watching the Perseid meteor shower in a dark school yard in North Lethbridge, Alberta, when they see a dark, gray-black, triangular object pass quickly and silently overhead for 4–5 seconds. Each point of the triangle has a red light on it. As it disappears to the south, it flips upward at a 45° angle. Another witness in a different location watches a similar object around the same time. Local radar does not show any unusual traffic. (David Thacker, “Flight of the Triangle,” IUR 19, no. 3 (May/June 1994): 4–8, 23)

August 13 — Night. Costin and Mariana Popa are driving with their daughter Diana in a rural area a few miles south of Telega, Romania, when their car engine stops unexpectedly and the headlights go out. Examining the engine, they

are suddenly hit by a “wall of air” and see a fog-like rectangular screen on the right side of the road floating 18 inches above the grass. It is pulsating every 2–3 seconds with a yellowish-white light. They hear no noise and feel no heat. After about 20 minutes the screen begins to move across the road and stops in front of them, having become a narrow band of light 90 feet long and 3 feet wide. Soon it becomes brighter and shoots into the sky and disappears. The car starts normally again. (Romania 58–59)

August 14 — 1:56 a.m. Four UFOs with red and green flashing lights are seen flying at low altitude above Henri Coandă International Airport at Otopeni, Romania. They first turn up on radar, then are seen visually and observed through binoculars. (Romania 75)

September 2 —6:00 a.m. A black-and-white security camera at a private company in West Manchester, England, captures a pulsing ball of white light that appears in the northwest, moving toward the north, for several minutes. The camera operator also sees it visually. Estimates place its speed as low as 50 mph. Possible blimp. (Jenny Randles, “UFOs in Focus,” IUR 18, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1993): 15)

September 16 — 4:00 p.m. Pilots of two airliners preparing to land at Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City, Mexico, see an object like a balloon, but it is going too fast. One pilot describes it as looking like a praying mantis. (Jaime Maussán, “OVNIs sobre la Terra,” La Epoca (Mexico), November 19, 1993; Antonio Huneeus, “UFO Chronicle: UFOs and IFOs from Mexico, Part II,” Fate 47, no. 12 (December 1994); Don Berliner, with Marie Galbreath and Antonio Huneeus, UFO Briefing Document: The Best Available Evidence, Dell, 2000, p.

146)

October — Rep. Steven Schiff asks Charles Arthur Bowsher, head of the US General Accounting Office, to prepare a report on the status of records related to the 1947 Roswell incident in New Mexico. (Mark Rodeghier, “Roswell and the GAO Investigation,” IUR 19, no. 2 (March/April 1994): 3, 24)

October — The Foreign Technology Division becomes the National Air Intelligence Center. (Wikipedia, “National Air and Space Intelligence Center”)

October 12 — Air Force Col. Richard L. Weaver tells researcher Nick Redfern that USAF considers both the MJ-12 group and its documents to be “bogus.” However, he concedes that there are “no documents responsive” to his request on how such a determination was made. (Kremlin 183–184)

October 18 — A memo on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Study” from a UK wing commander to the Sec(AS)2, the Air Staff deputy director, proposes a secret government study of UFOs, which will become Project Condign in 1997– 2000. Paragraph 2 reads: “I am aware, from intelligence sources, that xxxxx believes that such phenomena exists and has a small team studying them. I am also aware that an informal group exists in the xxxxxxxxxxx community and it is possible that this reflects a more formal organization.” Leslie Kean suspects that the first redacted word is “Russia” and the second is “US intelligence.” (“Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Study,” October 18, 1993, UK UFO Documents, Part 1, pp. 198–199; Kean, pp. 238–240)

October 25 — 5:30–9:30 p.m. Multiple sightings of diamond- or triangular-shaped objects with multicolored light occur around La Louvière, Hainaut, Belgium. (Patrick Gross, “The Belgium Flap”)

December — The RAAF formally concludes its UFO investigations in a revised “RAAF Policy: Unusual Aerial Sightings.” (Bill Chalker, “The Australian Government and UFOs,” IUR 22, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 22)

December — Héctor Escobar begins publishing Perspectivas Ufológicas in Mexico City, Mexico. The periodical continues until February 1996. (Perspectivas Ufológicas, no. 1 (December 1993))

December 1 — The European Parliament considers a resolution that enables the French UFO agency, Service d’Expertise des Phénomènes de Rentrée Atmosphérique (SEPRA), to carry out UFO investigations throughout the member countries of the European Community. The resolution was first proposed in 1991 by Belgian deputy Elio Di Rupo in the wake of the Belgian UFO wave to set up an all-European agency to study UFO reports. The EP’s committee on industry, external trade, research, and energy, chaired by physicist Tullio Regge, holds several meetings on the proposal in consultation with SEPRA’s Jean-Jacques Velasco, and approves the motion for a resolution. However, the Parliament does not have the necessary votes to implement and fund the resolution, the agency is never created, and SEPRA has its own funding problems. (George M. Eberhart, “The European Parliament,” IUR 19, no. 2 (March/April 1994): 19; 2Pinotti 137–140)

December 17 — The first operational Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is delivered to Whiteman AFB, south of Knob Noster, Missouri, where the fleet is based. (Wikipedia, “Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit”)

1994

1994 — A video of a UFO is taken by a ground radar station at the Tolicha Peak Electronic Combat Range, part of the Nellis Range northwest of the Nevada Test Site. At times the UFO appears to be four globes tied together; at other times it appears to be a fuzzy, gaseous cloud. The film is genuine, according to Steven Greer, who shows it at CSETI’s Congressional Briefing on April 9, 1997, in Washington, D.C. It is aired by the Fox TV show Sightings and a few other TV networks. (Patrick Gross, “The Nellis Test Range UFO Video”)

1994 — More than 300 pages of Army CIC documents relating to Operation Harass are declassified after researcher Timothy S. Cooper files a FOIA request. There is a concentration on frantic wartime efforts to find the Horten brothers, as well as an “Intelligence Requirements on Flying Saucer Type Aircraft: Draft of Collection Memorandum,” undated but prepared prior to October 20, 1947. (“FOIA: Army CIC UFO Files Various Subjects Including ‘Horten Brothers: Flying Wing,’” Above Top Secret forum, December 17, 2007)

1994 — Mark Rodeghier, Stuart Appelle, David Gotlib, and Georgia Flamburis develop and publish an “Ethics Code for Abduction Experience Investigation and Treatment.” It is approved by the CUFOS and MUFON boards. (“News from the Field,” IUR 19, no. 3 (May/June 1994): 3; David Gotlib, Stuart Appelle, Georgia Flamburis, and Mark Rodeghier, “Ethics Code for Abduction Experience Investigation and Treatment,” JUFOS 5 (1994): 55–81)

1994 — Wim van Utrecht founds Caelestia in Antwerp, Belgium, to collect, investigate, and document UFO reports. (Wim van Utrecht, “About Caelestia,” July 2007)

1994 — Karla Turner writes Taken, in which she describes accounts from eight women, none of whom know each other, all of whom consciously recall a large portion of their abduction experiences without the aid of hypnosis. She is disturbed to find that at least 10 people close to her seem to have a pattern of alien intrusions and disturbances. The women describe a variety of alien types: grays, insectoids, humanoids, blue humanoids, and dwarves. Several of the women describe not only hybrid nursery rooms, but also cloning rooms in which living but inert humans are suspended in liquid-filled cylinders. There are accounts of aliens apparently taking human souls and placing them into a box. One alien group appears to harvest “negative emotional energy.” Not all experiences are harmful or exploitative; some women claim to have had miraculous healings by aliens. Still, Turner suggests that this does not make the aliens humanity’s benefactors. If they cared for humans, it could be the way in which a farmer cares for cattle. Four of the women describe being abducted by human military personnel and taken to underground military facilities. Human and alien workers are sometimes described as being there. The abductees remember being questioned by military types who ask “What do you know about the alien agenda? What have they told you? What implants have you received? What procedures have they carried out on you?” A number of medical problems develop, apparently related to the abductions: cancer, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, sexual dysfunction, and suicide. One thing that perplexes Turner is why military groups would need to interrogate abductees about alien intrusions. (Karla Turner, Taken: Inside the Alien-Human Abduction Agenda, The Author, 1994)

January 4 — RAAF Wing Commander Brett Biddington informs civilian UFO groups in Australia that the number of UFO reports submitted to the RAAF has declined significantly in the past 10 years, saying “there is no compelling reason for the RAAF to continue to devote resources to recording, investigating, and attempting to explain [Unusual Aerial Sightings].” He says that reports will be forwarded to civilian groups. (Bill Chalker, “The Australian Government and UFOs,” IUR 22, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 22, 36; Swords 411–412)

January 12 — Rep. Steven Schiff (D-N.Mex.) tells the press that he has been stonewalled by the US Defense Department when he requested information about the 1947 Roswell incident on behalf of his constituents and witnesses.

Schiff calls the lack of response “astounding” and indicative of a cover-up. (“Roswell Declaration 1994,” IUR 19, no. 2 (March/April 1994): 21)

January 15 — President Bill Clinton issues an executive order to create an Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments to investigate US government records on radiation studies done at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Certain records involving programs in and around Area 51, Nevada, are excluded on the basis that the president does not have a need to know. (Wikipedia, “Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments”)

January 28 — 1:14 p.m. Air France pilot Jean-Charles Duboc and two members of his A320 airliner crew briefly observe over Coulommiers–Voisins Aerodrome, Seine-et-Marne, France, an elliptical UFO, reddish-brown in color and possibly of large size. Radar at CODA, the Taverny air operations center, tracks the object for 50 seconds but places the target closer to the airplane than the pilot’s estimate. SEPRA investigates the case and determines that based on the radar trajectory the UFO is about 750 feet long. (Joel de Woolfson, “UFO ‘Evidence’ Grows,” This Is Guernsey, February 5, 2007; Gildas Bourdais, “The Death and Rebirth of Official French UFO Studies,” IUR 31, no. 2 (June 2007): 16; Kean, pp. 135–136; Good Need, pp. 401–402; “1994-01-28: Sighting of Air France

Pilot Jean Charles Duboc,” Tom Owens YouTube channel, June 16, 2019; Patrick Gross, “UFO Sighting of Flight AF-3532”)

Late January — The Secretary of the Air Force’s office of Security and Special Program Oversight directs its research and classification team to locate any official records on the Roswell incident. (Swords 351)

February — Leonard Stringfield releases his seventh and final status report on UFO crash/retrievals. (Leonard H. Stringfield, UFO Crash/Retrievals: Search for Proof in a Hall of Mirrors, Status Report VII, The Author, 1994).

February 9 — Richard Davis, director of the National Security Analysis group at the General Accounting Office, writes to Secretary of Defense William Perry that the GAO is initiating a review of “DOD’s policies and procedures for acquiring, classifying, retaining, and disposing of official governmental documents dealing with weather balloon, aircraft, and similar crash incidents” to find out whether “proper procedures to ensure government accountability” were followed. (Mark Rodeghier, “Roswell and the GAO Investigation,” IUR 19, no. 2 (March/April 1994): 3, 24; Swords 351)

February 15 — 11:00 p.m. Kerstin Hallman is on her way home from work near Grillby, Sweden, when she sees an oblong light with spikes on top. The car lights go out and the engine fails. (Clas Svahn and Jorgen Granlie, “The Light That Stopped a Car,” IUR 22, no. 4 (Winter 1997–1998): 12; Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 16–17)

March — In response to Steven Schiff’s getting stonewalled by the US Defense Department over information on the 1947 Roswell incident in New Mexico, airline pilot Kent Jeffrey circulates the Roswell Declaration, a statement calling for an “Executive Order declassifying any US government information on the existence of UFOs or extraterrestrial intelligence” and a release from the security oaths taken by military or civilian personnel involved in UFO cases. Promoted by CUFOS, MUFON, and the Fund for UFO Research, the declaration is signed by more than 20,000 people interested in finding out the truth. (“Roswell Declaration,” International Roswell Initiative; “The Roswell Declaration,” IUR 19, no. 2 (March/April 1994): 20–21)

March — Night. A married couple are driving in Bestwood Village, Nottinghamshire, England, when they see a huge triangular object hanging in the sky. It has three steady white, green, and red lights and is apparently only 200 feet from the ground. Its base has a ribbed pattern. It moves off slowly to the northwest, then accelerates, changing direction to the south. (“UFO Sighting Convinces Hucknall Man,” Hucknall (UK) Dispatch, March 11, 1994, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 298 (May 1994): 16)

March 6 — 4:30 p.m. Two men flying an ultralight aircraft 250 feet over Termoli, Campobasso, Italy, see a small, spherical object flying northward. Approximately 4 miles from them, it is lost to sight in a few seconds. Earlier in the afternoon an unknown dark object crashes on Monte Mutria, Campobasso. The witness, Angelo Gianbattista, 18, tells his father, police officer Franco Giambattista, that an airplane has fallen. Franco goes outside and spots with binoculars two dark shadows in a ravine. The military police are notified and converge on the site. At 8:00 p.m., guided by a powerful light beam, eight volunteers climb the mountain. Three helicopters hover overhead.

Nothing is found, even conventional objects that might be mistaken for something else. (Renzo Cabassi, “UFO Crash at Guardioaregia?” Italian UFO Reporter 2, no. 4 (October 10, 1996): 2–4; Clark III 345; 2Pinotti 140–

March 8 — 9:15 p.m. Residents of Holland, Michigan, begin observing odd lights in the sky. To some, the lights appear to be attached to one another, or at least coordinated in their movements. The commonest description is of four lights strung together, high in altitude, moving from southeast to southwest. The Graves family sees a disk with lights turning clockwise on its underside. Police officer Jeff Velthouse is dispatched to investigate, and he watches some lights through binoculars around 9:40 p.m. The Allegan County sheriff’s office contacts the Muskegon National Weather Service radar station about 30 miles to the north to ask whether they have any targets. They do, and the radar operator gives a live report, recorded by the police, of the returns he is tracking.

The majority of the returns are of three, well-separated targets, sometimes in line, both usually in a triangular array. An intermittent fourth signal blinks in and out. The visual sightings last until 11:00 p.m., but the weather radar continues to see targets for another 20–30 minutes. (Michael D. Swords, “The Holland, Michigan, Radar- Visual Case, 1994,” IUR 24, no. 3 (Fall 1999): 3–7; Don Berliner, with Marie Galbreath and Antonio Huneeus, UFO Briefing Document: The Best Available Evidence, Dell, 2000, pp. 146–147; Swords 343)

April — The UK government introduces a Code of Practice on Access to Government Information, a limited right to access government records from the previous 30 years, as a precursor to a full freedom of information act. (Campaign for Freedom of Information, “Code of Practice on Access to Government Information: Guidance on Interpretation,” April 1994, second ed., 1997)

May — The Dean of Harvard Medical School, Daniel C. Tosteson, appoints a committee of peers to confidentially review Department of Psychiatry Head John E. Mack’s clinical care and clinical investigation of the people who had shared their alien encounters with him (some of their cases are written up in Mack’s 1994 book Abduction).

Angela Hind writes, “It was the first time in Harvard’s history that a tenured professor was subjected to such an investigation.” Upon the public revelation of the existence of the committee (inadvertently revealed during the solicitation of witnesses for Mack’s defense, 10 months into the process), questions arise from the academic community (including Harvard Professor of Law Alan Dershowitz) regarding the validity of an investigation of a tenured professor who is not suspected of ethics violations or professional misconduct. Concluding the 14-month investigation, Harvard then issues a statement stating that the dean has “reaffirmed Dr. Mack’s academic freedom to study what he wishes and to state his opinions without impediment,” concluding “Dr. Mack remains a member in good standing of the Harvard Faculty of Medicine.” (Wikipedia, “John E. Mack”; John E. Mack, Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens, Wheeler, 1994)

May — Research psychologist Susan Marie Powers publishes a study on 20 abductees to explore the presence of PTSD symptoms. The results show that 45% of the abductees manifest PTSD symptoms and 70% manifest dissociative symptomatology. A content analysis of the narratives suggests that sexual abuse could be at the root of some of the stories. (Susan Marie Powers, “Thematic Content Analyses of the Reports of UFO Abductees and Close Encounter Witnesses: Indications of Repressed Sexual Abuse,” JUFOS 5 (1994): 35–54; Susan Marie Powers, “Dissociation in Alleged Extraterrestrial Abductees,” Dissociation 7, no. 1 (March 1994): 44–50)

May 21 — 11:00 p.m. A witness in Plauen, Germany, is watching TV when she notices a light outside. She sees a disk with several rings of lights illuminating a tree and causing it to whip around violently. It is about 30 feet in diameter, and its top and bottom halves are rotating in opposite directions. After it hovers silently for a minute, it stops shaking the tree and moves behind a building and shoots away, leaving a hole in the clouds above. Two other witnesses see the disc from a different perspective and feel a strong wind. (Illobrand von Ludwiger, Best UFO Cases: Europe, National Institute for Discovery Science, 1998)

June — The TNS Emnid Institut in Bielefeld, Germany, conducts a one-question survey on UFO beliefs among 1,069 Germans. Although the question is ambiguous, 22% respond yes and 78% no, in both the former West and East Germanies. The belief is much stronger in younger populations. (Mark Rodeghier, “Do Germans Believe in UFOs and Extraterrestrials?” IUR 21, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 25, 30)

June — Day. An object like a balloon suddenly appears in the sky above US Highway 22 and East Kemper Road in Symmes Township, Ohio, outside Cincinnati. It remains perfectly stationary until after dark. One witness takes at least three photos of it. At one point it ascends to a higher altitude. The object is approached and circled three times by local air traffic. (Patrick Gross, “The Symmes Township Orb, USA, June 1994”)

Early June — A tree farmer named Meng Zhaoguo is at Red Flag logging camp near Wuchang, Heilongjiang, China, with two other workers when they see a strange light in the sky. Thinking it is either a downed satellite or helicopter, Meng goes to retrieve the wreckage. However, at some point he is hit in the forehead by a shining light and knocked unconscious. He wakes up at home some time later, with no recollection of how he got there. A few nights later, he wakes up in his bed to find that a 10-foot-tall female alien with six fingers and braided leg fur is in his room. He and the alien have sex for 40 minutes before it disappears, leaving a 2-inch scar on his thigh. He also claims that on July 17, he levitates through a wall and meets with a group of three-eyed aliens on their ship. He asks to see the female alien again but is rebuffed. The aliens show him images of Mars (or Jupiter), which they claim is their home world, and tell him that “on a distant planet the son of a Chinese peasant will be born in 60 years.” His story is examined by the UFO Enthusiasts Club at Wuhan University throughout 1997. They conclude that while the initial contact may have occurred, the subsequent reported events are almost certainly untrue.

However, other UFO groups in China think that his ongoing story is true. In September 2003, Zhang Jingping and the state-sponsored Chinese UFO Association give Meng a medical exam, a lie detector test, and a hypnotic regression session to prove his claims. The results supposedly confirm his story. (John Kohut, “UFO Group Probes Claims of Sex with Jupiter Visitor,” South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), October 30, 1994; Teresa Poole, “Close Encounters of an Intimate Kind: Peking Days,” The Independent (UK), March 17, 1995; “Calling Occupants of Inter-planetary Craft,” China Daily, October 31, 2010; “One of the Strangest Alien Abduction Cases in China Ever Told,” Before It’s News, July 20, 2014; Chris Saunders, “UFOs over China,” Fortean Times 331 (October 2015): 28–30; Michael Meyer, “Meet the Chinese Lumberjack Who Slept with an Alien,” HuffPost, October 16, 2015; Bill Chalker, “The Untold Story of UFOs in China: Lost in Translation or the Devouring Dragon?” New Dawn Special Issue 14, no. 1 (January 2020))

June 24 — 2:40 a.m. Three gendarmes at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, Seine-et-Marne, France, notice a bright set of lights in the sky. They drive closer and find that the source is a stationary object with three yellow-white lights. Its underside is triangular with a central pyramidal spire that points downward. They stop their patrol car, and the object moves slowly toward them until it stops directly above the vehicle. There is no noise, smoke, or odor. As soon as they start the car again, the object moves west at high speed and becomes a speck on the horizon within a second. The total duration is 10 minutes. The police radios stop functioning, and the car becomes hot even though the windows are open. (“Ussy-sur-Marne (77) 24-06-1994,” GEIPAN, March 22, 2007; Swords 449)

July 2 — 1:30–1:45 p.m. A resident of Limelette, Belgium, is at home in the Petit-Ry neighborhood when he looks out a window and sees a group of 10 white vertical structures with rounded edges moving back and forth about 180 feet above a vacant lot. They are all about 15–26 feet high and somewhat translucent, moving in an erratic pattern. The dry grass below has risen up into the air, forming a tornado shape and spinning anticlockwise. He watches it for 2–3 minutes, and the phenomenon moves slowly to the north and disappears. Possibly a wind devil. (Wim van Utrecht, “Dancing Ice-Lollies over a Waste Ground,” Caelestia)

July 3 — The first flight of a CIA-developed Predator drone takes place at the El Mirage Field in the Mojave Desert, California. (Wikipedia, “General Atomics MQ-1 Predator”)

July 31 — Roswell, a made-for-TV movie directed by Jeremy Kagan and produced by Paul Davids, premieres on Showtime. It stars Kyle MacLachlan, Martin Sheen, and Dwight Yoakam, and is based on UFO Crash at Roswell by Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt. (Paul Davids, “Roswell: The Movie,” IUR 19, no. 2 (March/April 1994): 15–18)

August 23 — 5:40 a.m. A delivery man and other early risers observe a V-shaped object low in the sky above the business district of a western suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Strobe lights emerge from the object at both its top and bottom, shining continuous beams of light on the object both while it is hovering and in flight. It disappears behind some buildings to the south. (Marler 175)

August 31 — 8:30 p.m. Six witnesses in Mongo, Indiana, see a light glowing through the treetops to the southwest at a low altitude. It looks somewhat like the Moon, but it starts moving from behind the trees into an open area near a road and hovers. It looks like a domed disc with a white strobe light on top of the dome. A bright red light on the bottom flashes 3–4 times like a strobe, then the object it disappears to the south east within 2 seconds. One of the witnesses takes at least four good pictures with a Vivitar fully automatic 35 mm camera with a standard lens and loaded with 400 ASA color film. Dogs do not react to the object. (NICAP, “The Mongo Photos”; Patrick Gross, “The Mongo Multiple Visual and Photographic Case, August 31, 1993”)

September 8 — In response to Rep. Steven Schiff’s request for information, Col. Richard L. Weaver, director of security and special program oversight of the USAF Office of Special Investigations, publicly releases the Report of Air Force Research Regarding the “Roswell Incident,” a 23-page executive summary (dated July 27) that concludes that “the material recovered near Roswell was consistent with a balloon device and most likely from one of the Mogul balloons that had not been previously recovered.” (Report of Air Force Research Regarding the “Roswell Incident,” in Col. Richard L. Weaver and 1Lt. James McAndrew, The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert, US Air Force Headquarters, July 1995, pp. 5–32; Mark Rodeghier and Mark Chesney, “The Air Force Report on Roswell: An Absence of Evidence,” IUR 19, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1994): 3, 20–24; Karl T. Pflock, “Roswell, the Air Force, and Us,” IUR 19, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1994): 3–5, 24; Swords 351)

September 13 — 5:30 p.m. As Larry Gardea is hunting for bear near Luna Canyon in Mora County, New Mexico, he sees a cow lying dead some 30 feet away. In the place where its rectum should be is a large, cylindrical hole. Ten feet beyond that cow is another one, apparently alive, sitting on its knees. At that moment a dozen cattle stampede in the opposite direction, and Gardea hears a loud humming noise coming from the nearby woods. A third cow is suddenly propelled through the air nearby at near ground level, as if carried by an invisible beam. Gardea fires two shots and the humming stops. (Clark III 138)

September 14 — 8:50–9:05 p.m. A brilliant ball of fire with a long trail of sparks is seen over a wide range of territory in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and southern Zambia, followed by a sonic boom. Some people see three large lights in front, with from 8–20 smaller lights behind. Many report that the objects are traveling very fast from north to south; others see it moving slowly, and one man says he walked along with it more than 320 feet. Geologists Euen Nisbet and Kathy Silva, working in Zvishavane, Zimbabwe, report that the display takes a minute to cross the sky on a path angled about 10° away from north to south. Witnesses at Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe, variously see three orange-red lights with trails, a bright link with a dark center and 14 lights flashing around it, a light flying at treetop level, a row of green lights with a trail, and an object several times larger than a Boeing 747. Possibly

debris from the rocket that launched the Russian satellite Kosmos 2290. (Cynthia Hind, “UFO Flap in Zimbabwe,” UFO Afrinews, no. 11 (February 1995): 4–18; Cynthia Hind, “UFO Flap in Zimbabwe,” IUR 20, no. 3 (May/June 1995): 20–21; James Oberg, “Zimbabwe: 1994 Sep 14 near 18:51 UTC,” PowerPoint presentation)

September 16 — 10:00 a.m. Some 60 children in a grassy playground outside Ariel School in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, see three or four objects landing in the “rough bush area” about 330 feet away. An entity of some kind emerges from the largest object and stands on top. It has long, straight, black hair tied back with a headband around its larger than normal head, stands about 3 feet tall, and is dressed in black. Some of the younger African children are afraid it is a Tokoloshe, a folkloric entity. After 15 minutes, the craft and entity fade from view. The headmaster asks each child to draw what they saw. Researcher Cynthia Hind interviews them on September 17 and psychologist John E. Mack several months later. (Cynthia Hind, “The Children of Ariel School,” UFO Afrinews, no. 11 (February 1995): 19–25; “Never-Before-Seen Photos Reveal Extraordinary Wedge-Shaped Impressions,” Daily Mail (UK), May 20, 2022; Internet Movie Database, “Ariel Phenomenon”)

September 26 — An aircraft crash at RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, England, appears closely linked to US black missions, according to a report in Air Forces Monthly. Further investigation is hampered by USAF aircraft flooding into the base. Special Air Service personnel arrive in plainclothes and in an Agusta 109 helicopter. The crash site is protected from view by fire engines and tarpaulins, and the base is closed to all flights soon afterwards. A USAF C5 Galaxy is redirected to the station, which takes the disassembled aircraft back to the US. (Dreamland Resort, “RAF Boscombe Down’s Black Day,” April 12, 2005)

Fall — Terry and Gwen Sherman purchase a 512-acre ranch in western Uintah County, southeast of Ballard, Utah. The couple soon encounter various types of UFOs and paranormal phenomena, including cattle mutilations, bigfoot, flying orbs, discarnate voices, crop circles, poltergeist activity, electromagnetic anomalies, orange portals, and a giant wolflike creature. Colm Kelleher and coauthor George Knapp subsequently write a book, Hunt for the Skinwalker (2005), in which they describe the ranch being acquired by Robert Bigelow’s National Institute for Discovery Science in 1996 for $200,000 to study the sightings at the ranch, soon dubbed the Skinwalker Ranch after the shape-shifting creature in Navajo folklore. Between June and August 1997, NIDS personnel observe anomalies on every occasion they are at the ranch, but they are unable to prove anything scientifically. Among those involved are retired US Army Col. John B. Alexander who characterizes the NIDS effort as an attempt to get hard data using a “standard scientific approach.” However, the investigators admit to “difficulty obtaining evidence consistent with scientific publication.” (Wikipedia, “Skinwalker Ranch”; Colm Kelleher and George Knapp, Hunt for the Skinwalker, Paraview, 2005; Gildas Bourdais, “Hunt for the Skinwalker: New Challenge for the ETH?” IUR 31, no. 1 (January 2007): 25–31; Clark III 1073–1075; John B. Alexander, “From Los Alamos to Skinwalker Ranch,” Fortean Times 363 (February 2018): 39–41)

October 1 — TV host Larry King broadcasts “Larry King Live at Area 51,” which includes a prerecorded interview with former Sen. Barry Goldwater, who says: “I think the government does know. I can’t back that up, but I think that at Wright-Patterson field, if you could get into certain places, you’d find out what the Air Force and the government knows about UFOs… I called Curtis LeMay and I said, “General, I know we have a room at Wright- Patterson where you put all this secret stuff. Could I go in there?’ I’ve never heard him get mad, but he got madder than hell at me, cussed me out, and said, ‘Don’t ever ask me that question again!’” (“UFOs: Oct 1, 1994, Filmed Outside Area 51,” SmokingMan47 YouTube channel, November 28, 2015)

October 7 — 10:00 p.m. Jerzy Bulczyński and his family in Biskupice, Poland, see two identical large discs with rotating rings consisting of smaller spheres, all grayish-green in color and around 6–8 times the size of the full moon. (Poland 88)

October 8 — 8:00 p.m. Military personnel at Poligon Nadarzyce airbase near the village of Nadardyce, Poland, report a spherical UFO surrounded by a ring of lights. It changes shape to a triangle and an ellipse. In reaction to the initial report, Krzesiny AFB sends two MiG-21 interceptors that allegedly experience technical malfunctions during their pursuit. The Polish Army concludes that the phenomena were caused by a laser searchlight operated by the local Olimpia Circus. (Poland 87–89)

December 1 — A strong, flaming light with a train-like rumbling noise causes destruction to 1,700 square feet of woodland in the Guiyang Baiyun Duxi Forest Farm near Guiyang, Guizhou province, China. Trees are broken off at the same height and some roofs are damaged. Although a probable airburst from a meteor, some Chinese researchers argue it could be a ufological event. (Bill Chalker, “The Untold Story of UFOs in China: Lost in Translation or the Devouring Dragon?” New Dawn Special Issue 14, no. 1 (January 2020))

December 29 — 9:45 p.m. A mother and her six children are driving northwest on Zaring Cutoff Road west of Dusty, Washington. To the east she sees three bright yellow lights that appear to be sitting in a snow-covered field. She

stops the car to look and realizes that the lights are attached to triangular objects, each with stubby wings and a bright light on the nose. They move slowly and pass in front of the car to a field on the left. Suddenly they pivot 90° and move parallel with the road toward the southeast, maintaining the same configuration. Each has a window on the bottom that emits a bluish light and a buzzing sound. (Marler 225–226)

1995

1995 — Astronomer Carl Sagan publishes The Demon-Haunted World, in which he aims to explain the scientific method to laypeople and encourage them to learn critical and skeptical thinking. He explains methods to help

distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science and those that can be considered pseudoscience. Sagan states that when new ideas are offered for consideration, they should be tested by means of skeptical thinking and should stand up to rigorous questioning. He argues that the chances of extraterrestrial spacecraft visiting Earth are vanishingly small. However, he does think it plausible that Cold War concerns contributed to governments misleading their citizens about UFOs, and writes that “some UFO reports and analyses, and perhaps voluminous files, have been made inaccessible to the public which pays the bills ... It’s time for the files to be declassified and made generally available.” He cautions against jumping to conclusions about suppressed UFO data and stresses that there is no strong evidence that aliens are visiting the Earth either in the past or present. He worries that fake news and conspiracy theories will become the reality of the future, predicting: “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.” (Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark, Random House, 1995; Wikipedia, “The Demon-Haunted World”)

1995 — The National Research Council of Canada announces that it will no longer accept UFO reports for analysis. As a consequence, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigations on its behalf ceases. Ufologist Chris Rutkowski casually suggests that the NRC could forward any non-meteoric sightings it runs across. (Chris Rutkowski, Canada’s UFOs: Declassified, August Night, 2022, p. 11)

1995 — The China UFO Research Organization in Beijing has now collected more than 5,000 reports of UFOs in Chinese airspace. (Good Need, p. 403)

January 6 — 6:48 p.m. Capt. Roger Wills and First Officer Mark Stuart are piloting a British Airways Boeing 737 aircraft with 60 passengers when they are buzzed by a bright wedge-shaped object as they are preparing to land at Manchester Airport, England. The object appears only yards in front of the airliner as it flies at 4,000 feet. It is so close that Stuart instinctively reacts by ducking down inside the cockpit. It has small lights, makes no attempt to change course, and makes no discernable sound or turbulence. The object does not appear on radar. Possibly a fireball meteor. (David Boras, “UFO Nearly Collides with British Airliner,” IUR 21, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 26–27; “UFO Near Miss over the Airport,” Manchester (UK) Evening News, February 18, 2010; Good Need, pp. 402– 403; UFOFiles2, pp. 137–139; Marler 140–143, 266–269; Patrick Gross, “Air Misses”)

January 12 — Around 5:00 a.m. Farmer Beto Lima is hunting armadillos on his property near Feira de Santana, Bahía, Brazil, when he finds an object the size of a Volkswagen beetle floating on a pond. He manages to pull it to the shore when suddenly liquid flows from it and two creatures emerge. One of them is hairy and clawed like a sloth, the other is apparently dead and looks like a child. The object is lightweight, and Lima carries it into his house.

Brazilian soldiers allegedly retrieve the wreckage and the creatures. (“O caso Roswell nordestina: Queda da UFO na Bahia, em janeiro de 1995,” UFOs-Wilson, May 20, 2012; Brazil 521–529)

February — A Boeing 737 is starting a landing approach at 7,900 feet at Guiyang Airport [now Guiyang Longdongbao International Airport], Guizhou province, China, when its anti-collision system detects an object rushing toward the aircraft. Some 6,000 feet away, the pilot sees a UFO changing from a rhomboid to a circular shape and from yellow to red. The pilot lands safely, even though the object remains on his radar screen for some time before disappearing to the south. (Good Need, p. 403; Patrick Gross, “Air Misses”)

February 20 — In briefing notes on the safety implications of UFO close approaches for the Joint Airmiss Working Group in the UK, former British Airways Capt. Graham Sheppard comments: “It would not be surprising to discover

that, in the past, unexplained aeroplane losses have been caused by instinctive maneuvering to avoid a conflicting UFO… The commercial sensibilities of the airlines should now be set aside along with the media’s inability to give serious treatment to the subject. Otherwise this discrete and notifiable hazard to aircraft safety will continue to be concealed and thus gratuitously omitted from the briefing syllabus.” (Good Need, p. 404)

February 22 — Researcher Timothy S. Cooper receives a document purporting to be the first annual report of the Majestic 12 Project, supposedly written in 1951 and referring to possible virus contamination stemming from retrieval of the Roswell aliens. Nick Redfern has examined it and says it is definitely a hoax, though it could possibly represent disinformation from Russia. (Timothy S. Cooper, “Research Synopsis on the Majestic Documents,” The Author, December 30, 1999; Nick Redfern, “Why the Majestic 12 ‘1st Annual Report’ Is a Hoax,” Mysterious Universe, July 30, 2019; Kremlin 202–208)

March 8 — A military radar installation near Luzern, Switzerland, detects a series of anomalous radar targets that, taken together, appear to make up the straight-line trajectory of an unidentified object traveling at a speed near Mach 3. The consistency in velocity and direction of the three track segments strongly suggests that it is a single object traveling about 150 miles in just over 4 minutes, which corresponds to an average velocity of about 2,147 mph. Another track going in the same direction was picked up 70 seconds after the first one dropped off the radar, separated by a few miles. This time the system recorded six consecutive returns, each registering a radial speed component of about 2,088 mph. Again the system dropped the track. A minute later the Luzern radar records hits on yet another object, loses it again, and detects it three more times over 40 seconds before it is dropped for the final time. (Bruce Maccabee, “Atmosphere or UFO? A Response to the 1997 SSE Review Panel Report,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 13, no. 3 (1999): 421–459)

March 14 — 3:40–4:00 a.m. Ismailovich Borovkov wakes up to a bright light shining in his home on Serebristy Boulevard in St. Petersburg, Russia. He sees a bright orange light hovering outside the window for 10 minutes, then it suddenly diminishes to a point and disappears. Borovkov hears a loud ringing in his right ear. Around 4:00 a.m., another resident sees a UFO over the Pulkov Highway. (“Close Encounters over St Petersburg, March 14, 1995,” IUR 20, no. 5 (Winter 1995): 12)

March 14 — 7:00–8:00 p.m. A further cluster of UFO sightings, some of them close encounters and one a radar case, take place around St. Petersburg, Russia. (“Close Encounters over St Petersburg, March 14, 1995,” IUR 20, no. 5 (Winter 1995): 12–15)

March 30 — 8:30 a.m. Farmer Jan Pienaar, 45, is driving in the North West Province, South Africa, when his truck stops dead. About 240 feet ahead is a huge object on three landing pads. It has the form of two inverted soup plates with a pudding bowl on top, and the upper level has portholes. The object buzzes like a “giant electric beater.” He gets out of the car but feels paralyzed as if a magnet is holding him. After 3–5 minutes the UFO takes off, and he regains his senses and the car starts up. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 17)

April — The Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici begins publishing UFO Forum, edited by Giuseppe Verdi in Vittoria, Italy. It continues through at least October 2001. (UFO Forum, no. 1 (April 1995))

April 10 — 7:30 a.m. An 11-year-old boy is on his way to school with his mother and two younger sisters near Merweville, South Africa, when they see a strange object on a side road. It looks like a cloud but is stationary. Then it moves north, although the prevailing wind is to the west, and disappears behind some clouds. The object is about the size of a large truck. (Marie van Staden, “A Peculiar Cloud-Like Object,” UFO Afrinews 13 (February 1996): 10–13)

April 14 — President Bill Clinton issues Executive Order 12,958, which establishes a system to automatically declassify information more than 25 years old, unless the government takes discrete steps to continue the classification of a particular document or group of documents. The order takes effect on October 14, 1995. (US Department of Justice, “FOIA Update: Executive Order 12,958,” 1995)

April 18 — 9:00 p.m. A woman in Prospect, Chebucto Peninsula, Nova Scotia, sees a large, brilliant, white light hovering in the sky to the northwest. She can see its reflection on the surface of the still water. She calls her husband, who gets binoculars and determines there are two lights side by side. After several minutes or so, his mother on the floor above says she can see the light too. As soon as they switch the deck lights off for a better view, the two lights start moving directly toward their house, and he watches it slowly fly about 100 feet above the house. It seems to be a rectangular object about 200 feet long by 100 feet wide. It disappears behind the tree line. (Don Ledger, “The Flying Triangle Phenomenon,” IUR 27, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 7)

May 5 — 4:15 a.m. A senior master sergeant and an airman are patrolling the perimeter of the Ghedi Air Force Base near Brescia, Italy. Suddenly they notice an unusual yellow light zigzagging and maneuvering in the sky, much bigger than a star and heading toward the northern part of the airfield. After several minutes it increases in size and becomes a round, orange object as big as the full moon, moving at least 186 mph before hovering a while and zooming away. It returns and leaves twice more, the last time descending to 65 feet above their patrol vehicle.

They think this time it will land, but it ascends and zooms away again. They prefer not to report the incident. (2Pinotti 150–151)

May 25 — 10:30 p.m. An America West B-757 airliner is cruising at 39,000 feet near Bovina, Texas. To their right and somewhat below their altitude, Capt. Gene Tollefson and First Officer John J. Waller see a row of bright white lights that sequence on and off from left to right. Waller contacts the Albuquerque FAA Air Route Traffic Control Center while the sighting is in progress and checks with military installations in the area, but no explanation can be found. As the airliner proceeds to the west and the object begins dropping behind, the crew sees it against a background of thunderclouds. When the background clouds pulse with lightning, the UFO appears as a dark, wingless, elongated cigar-like object around the strobing lights. Though they do not know the exact distance, Tollefson and Waller estimate the object to be 300–400 feet long. One of the air traffic controllers at Albuquerque contacts NORAD, which confirms an unidentified radar target in the vicinity. But this later proves to be a small aircraft whose transponder is not initially operative. (NICAP, “America West Airlines Flight 564 / NORAD/ F- 111 Incident”; Walter N. Webb, Final Report on the America West Airline Case, May 24–25, 1995, Fund for UFO Research, July 1996; “1995: The America West UFO Sighting,” ufocasebook.com; Patrick Gross, “Texas, May 1995”)

June 15 — 2:30 a.m. A triangular UFO with two other brightly lit round objects is seen over RAF West Drayton [now closed], England. (Marler 143)

June 22 — 1:00 a.m. Soldiers guarding a military ammunition dump in the southern Carpathian Mountains near the Buzau River, Romania, notice several bright lights in the valley below. They are attached to an object that begins ascending and approaching them from the southwest. It is a flat triangular object with rounded edges that passes straight above their unit, illuminating the ground from a height of about 150 feet. They can hear a loud buzzing noise. It glides to the northeast over the mountains near Întorsura Buzăului and disappears. The next day the unit is rounded up and told never to speak about the sighting. (Romania 94–95)

July — USAF Headquarters publishes, through the Government Printing Office, The Roswell Report: Fact Versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert, by Col. Richard L. Weaver and Lt. James McAndrew, blaming the Roswell debris on a top-secret Project Mogul balloon array sent aloft to detect signs of Soviet nuclear explosions. The first part of the 1,000+-page document is an introductory summary, supported by 31 attachments, by Weaver that was released in September 1994. The second part is a synopsis of Project Mogul balloon research findings by McAndrew, with additional attachments and appendices. A photo section includes photos of various Air Force personnel and Mogul scientists. The report claims Mogul flight number 4, launched on June 4, 1947, was responsible for the Roswell debris. The attachments and appendices are mostly memos dealing with the Air Force requests of its departments for Roswell records; statements and interviews with persons connected with Project Mogul; and New York University progress reports on the Constant Level Balloon project (a study to determine how balloons and their payloads could be maintained at high altitudes for long periods of time). About 95% of the report is padding. (Robert A. Galganski, “The Roswell Debris: A Quantitative Evaluation of the Project Mogul Hypothesis,” IUR 20, no. 2 (March/April 1995): 3–6, 23–24; Charles B. Moore, Robert G. Todd, Mark Rodeghier, and Kevin D. Randle, “Project Mogul and the Roswell Crash: An Exchange,” IUR 20, no. 2 (March/April 1995): 7–9, 19–22; Col. Richard L. Weaver and 1Lt. James McAndrew, The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert, US Air Force Headquarters, July 1995; Mark Rodeghier and Mark Chesney, “The Final(?) Air Force Report on Roswell,” IUR 20, no. 5 (Winter 1995): 5–6; Richard Hall, “Fact vs. Fiction in the Pentagon,” IUR 20, no. 5 (Winter 1995): 7–8; Swords 352–354; “Air Force Reports on the Roswell UFO Incident,” Military Wiki; Clark III 32)

July 1 — Dusk. As a Varig Airlines flight is descending about 37 miles from Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, the commander sees a very bright disc-like object spinning in the sky in a curious way. The UFO is about 215 feet in diameter and emits a bright white light. As they approach the landing, the light speeds up and crosses in front of them. (Clark III 201; Brazil 543–544)

July 15 — 2:45 p.m. Two witnesses (an emergency room nurse and her husband) are driving home (probably along State Highway 8, adjacent to the Naugatuck River) after a fishing trip to Harwinton, Connecticut. A shadow crosses the road as they are driving north, and they look up to see a large metallic disc about 500 feet in diameter at an

altitude of about 200 feet, over trees about a half mile away. The object is traveling 65–70 mph and its surface is metallic gray with a band of apparent panes of dark glass and facets on its upper portion. It passes behind trees to the right in about 10–15 seconds. A group of independent witnesses at another location does not observe the object. (Mark Cashman, “The Harwinton Daylight Disc,” IUR 25, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 14–19)

July 28 — The US General Accounting Office releases Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash near Roswell, New Mexico, which says that all administrative records from Roswell Army Air Field in New Mexico from March 1945 to December 1949 have been destroyed, as well as outgoing messages from October 1946 to December 1949. This is perhaps not unusual for the time, as record retention and disposition procedures were unclear; however, Nick Redfern suggests the possibility that the records were destroyed or removed to hide evidence of unethical radiation and other experiments on unwilling human subjects. The GAO agrees with the Air Force that the wreckage was most likely from a Project Mogul balloon train. The report is in response to a request by Rep. Steven Schiff (D-N.Mex.). (Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash near Roswell, New Mexico, General Accounting Office, July 1995, reprinted in IUR 20, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1995): 3–6; Mark Rodeghier and Mark Chesney, “What the GAO Found: Nothing about Much Ado,” IUR 20, no. 4 (July/Aug.

1995): 7–8, 24; Swords 354–355; Nick Redfern, The Roswell UFO Conspiracy, Lisa Hagan, 2017, pp. 134–139)

July 29 — 12:15 a.m. Five witnesses in Low Bradfield, South Yorkshire, England, watch a triangular object, “bigger than a commercial airliner, “ flying flat side forward. A low humming sound is heard. (Marler 143–144)

July 31 — 6:10 p.m. Aereolíneas Argentinas Flight 734, a Boeing 727 with three crew and 102 passengers, is in the landing pattern for San Carlos de Bariloche Airport, Rio Negro, Argentina. Capt. Jorge Polanco suddenly sees a white light bearing down on the aircraft before halting only 300 feet away. The object then makes a turn and flies parallel to the 727. It looks like an inverted flying saucer as large as the airliner, has two green lights at each end and a flashing orange light in the center, and very powerfully illuminated, according to the captain. As Polanco begins to land, the runway and airport lights go out, so he is forced to climb back to 9,800 feet, accompanied by the UFO. Airport chief Maj. Jorge Orviedo reports that the airport’s radio support is cut off, and there is a blackout in many parts of the city. When the ground lights come back on, the UFO shoots away at tremendous speed. The object is also observed by a Gendarmeria Piper PA-31-310 that is flying 1,900 feet above the 727. (Good Need, pp. 403–404; Patrick Gross, “Air Misses”)

August 8 — Two airliners, one from TAM and the other from Rio Sul Serviços Aéreos Regionais, watch a UFO over Macapá, Amapá, Brazil. TAM Cmdr. Marcos Aurélio de Castro reports that he and his copilot see a metallic glow ahead of them to the right. The air traffic center cannot see anything but notes that the Rio Sul flight has reported something similar 5 minutes earlier. Suddenly the silvery object approaches the TAM aircraft. The sighting lasts about 10 minutes. (Clark III 201–203; Brazil 544–545)

August 14 — 11:55 p.m. An enormous, roughly triangular object is seen by three family members near the Brighton Racecourse, Sussex, England. (Marler 144)

August 27 — 9:30 a.m. Tim Edwards shoots a video of a disc-shaped object hovering then darting about the sky over Salida, Colorado. A series of ripples or moving lights are seen to rotate from left to right on the object, which stays just above the sun while Edwards, his daughter, and four construction workers also watch. UFO investigators are not impressed with the video, which might be spider web or cottonwood fluff. Bruce Maccabee thinks it might be a genuine UFO. (“UFO Video Salida Tim Edwards 1995,” UFOvideodotcom YouTube channel, October 4, 2012; “Colorado Man and His Films Bring UFO Meet Back to Earth,” Salt Lake City Deseret News, November 30, 1995; Jennie Zeidman, “The Will to Believe: Gnats, Moths, and Cottonwood Fluff from Outer Space,” IUR 21, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 14–17; Bruce Maccabee, “Salida: An Analysis of the Video,” IUR 21, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 17–19)

August 28 — Fox TV broadcasts for the first time the “alien autopsy film,” a 17-minute black-and-white film supposedly depicting a secret medical examination of autopsy of an alien by the US military. The program, hosted in the US by Jonathan Frakes, is given the title Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction. The film is broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK as a segment of “The Roswell Incident.” London-based entrepreneur Ray Santilli presents it as an authentic autopsy on the body of an alien recovered from the 1947 crash of a flying disc near Roswell, New Mexico. The film footage is allegedly supplied to him by a retired military cameraman who wishes to remain anonymous.

Experts, including pathologist Cyril Wecht, special effects specialist Stan Winston, and cinematographer Allen Daviau, are shown commenting on the film’s authenticity. The program causes a sensation, with Time magazine declaring that the film has sparked a debate “with an intensity not lavished on any home movie since the Zapruder film.” Fox rebroadcasts the program twice, each time to higher ratings. But even segment director John Jopson tells producer Robert Kiviat that he suspects the entire film is a fake, but Fox makes it clear that such suspicions will not be allowed. Mike Maloney, a former photographer for the London tabloid Daily Mirror, says it is the

same footage that he saw in the late 1970s at a private viewing in the Los Angeles house of a Disney executive. In 2006, Santilli admits the film is not authentic but rather a staged reconstruction of footage (using sheep brains and jelly stuffed into puppets made by a UK sculptor John Humphreys) he claims to have viewed in 1992, but which has deteriorated and become unusable by the time he made his film. The military cameraman is portrayed by a homeless man in Los Angeles. Santilli claims that a few frames from the original are embedded in his film, but he never specifies which ones. Producer Spyros Melaris claims that he has made all the auxiliary footage, including that of the homeless man. The existence of an original filmstrip of the alleged autopsy has never been independently verified. Philip Mantle of BUFORA has spent 25 years examining both the footage and the story surrounding it. (Wikipedia, “Alien autopsy”; Internet Movie Database, “Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?”; “Alien Autopsy,” Orbitalmedia YouTube channel, February 14, 2013; Richard Corliss, “Autopsy or Fraud-topsy?” Time, November 27, 1995; Joseph A. Bauer, “A Surgeon’s View: Alien Autopsy’s Overwhelming Lack of Credibility,” Skeptical Inquirer 20, no. 1 (January 1996): 23–24; Michael Hesemann and Philip Mantle, Beyond Roswell: The Alien Autopsy Film, Area 51, and the US Government Coverup of UFOs, Marlowe, 1997, pp. 182–210; “Eamonn Investigates: Alien Autopsy,” UFOHighway YouTube channel, September 19, 2010, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4; Philip Mantle, Alien Autopsy Inquest, The Author, 2007; Philip Mantle, “Alien Autopsy Film, R.I.P.,” IUR 32, no. 1 (August 2008): 15–19; Nathalie Lagerfeld, “How an Alien Autopsy Hoax Captured the World’s Imagination for a Decade,” Time, June 24, 2016; Philip Mantle, Roswell Alien Autopsy: The Truth behind the Film That Shocked the World, Flying Disk Press, 2017, revised ed., 2020; Stu Neville, “Effects, Lies, and Videotape: 25 Years of the Alien Autopsy,” Fortean Times 395 (August 2020): 32–36; Nigel Watson, “Alien Autopsy: The Interview,” Fortean Times 395 (August 2020): 37–40)

September 21 — The USAF Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory issues a Report on Project Mogul by 1Lt. James McAndrew. (1Lt. James McAndrew, Report on Project Mogul: Synopsis of Balloon Research Findings, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, September 21, 1995)

September 29 — 8:50 p.m. A witness in Stanley, Durham, England, watches a strange triangular object through binoculars. It flies pointed-end forward and has a pulsing red light on its front tip and steady white lights on its other tips. (Marler 144)

September 29 — 9:30 p.m. Near Vejle, Jutland, Denmark, a 24-year-old man is driving when the dashboard lights behave erratically, the wipers go on, and his dog gets agitated. Then the engine goes completely dead. Without warning, a powerful light explodes over the vehicle, coming from a huge disc directly above the car. (“Bilstop med Effekter,” UFO-Nyt 1996, no. 1, pp. 4–5; Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 17–18)

October 1 — 11:00 p.m. Fernando Beserra and Wilson da Silva Oliveira are fishing off the Ilha do Major, a mangrove area near the Rio Piaçabuçu adjacent to São Vicente, São Paulo, Brazil, when a bright yellow object approaches swiftly and silently, landing on a nearby islet. Their boat engine fails as the UFO passes over, but they restart it and flee the area. They return the next morning and find an area of dry vegetation twisted clockwise in a circle 18 feet in diameter. Four marks of apparent landing gear are also found, each measuring 4 by 6 inches and half an inch deep. Researchers from the Instituto Nacional de Investigações de Fenômenos Aeroespaciais find that in the soil samples obtained within the burned area seeds germinate easily, but those planted in the samples harvested outside the circle do not germinate and are attacked by fungi. (Thiago Luiz Ticchetti, “UFO Landing in São Vicente: UFO Lands and Leaves Marks on Ground,” Nexus Newsfeed, October 2, 2019; “Caso de OVNI avistado em São Vicente completa 25 anos,” Diário do Litoral (Santos, São Paulo), March 9, 2020; Brazil 354–360)

November 27 — 6:20 p.m. Mohammad Ahsan and four colleagues see two triangle-shaped objects emitting laser-like blue rays splashed with red over Dubai, United Arab Emirates. They are silently moving from the al-Hamriya Fish Market southeast toward Dubai International Airport. (“UFO Sighting in UAE Reported,” Saudi Gazette, November 28, 1995, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 317 (December 1995): 16)

December — Real-estate developer Robert Bigelow founds the National Institute for Discovery Science in Las Vegas, Nevada, to research and advance serious study of various fringe science and paranormal topics, especially ufology. It holds its first organizational meeting in December. Bigelow soon hires retired US Army Col. John B. Alexander part-time and biochemist Colm Kelleher as deputy administrator. Alexander puts together a Scientific Advisory Board that includes ufologist Jacques Vallée, parapsychologist Harold E. Puthoff, astronaut Edgar Mitchell, mathematician Gian-Carlo Rota, physicist O’Dean Judd, physicist Johndale Solem, astronaut and Senator Harrison Schmitt, psychologist Albert Harrison, and Christopher (Kit) Green as chair. The first official

board meeting takes place in January 1996. NIDS disbands in October 2004. (Wikipedia, “National Institute for Discovery Science”; John B. Alexander, “From Los Alamos to Skinwalker Ranch,” Fortean Times 363 (February 2018): 38–39; Skinwalkers 14–15, 31)

December 12 — 2:30 p.m. Farmer Egon Kratz and his son-in-law, Adilson Marcílio, are working on their Bela Vista Farm off Highway 227 about 5 miles from Ituporanga, Santa Catarina, Brazil, when a bright, silent, disc-shaped object appears low above some nearby trees, moves swiftly about 30 feet from the ground, and disappears into a valley. On December 15, Marcílio and some friends return to look for traces and find much of the vegetation scorched.

Technicians from the Federal University of Santa Catarina arrive on December 20 to collect soil samples and rocks. Kratz notes in January that much of the foliage and vegetation where the UFO has passed is dead or defoliated. (Brazil 350–353)

1996

1996 — The Institut des Hautes Études de la Défense Nationale, a French strategic planning agency, decides to create a 12-member COMité d’ÉTudes Approfondies (COMETA) to review well-documented UFO cases and cooperate with agencies in other countries to assess national security factors. It is chaired by French Air Force General Denis Letty and begins by interviewing French witnesses, consolidates the best information, and presents its research to appropriate French agencies. (Wikipedia, “Rapport COMETA”)

1996 — Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defence official who served on the Sec (AS) 2a UFO desk in 1991–1994, publishes a memoir titled Open Skies, Closed Minds that recounts his conversion from UFO skeptic to believer due to his investigation of cases that seem to be evidential. He concludes that “extraterrestrial spacecraft are visiting Earth and that something should be done about it urgently.” (Nick Pope, Open Skies, Closed Minds, Simon & Schuster, 1996; Wikipedia, “Open Skies, Closed Minds”)

1996 — La Fundación Anomalía is created by a group of Spanish ufologists headed by José Ruesga Montiel in Santander, Cantabria, Spain. It takes over publishing Cuadernos de Ufologia from the Colectivo Cuadernos in 1997 and publishes a new journal, Anomalía, from September 2000 to 2011. (Anomalía, no. 1 (September 2000))

January 13 — Oralina Augusta de Freitas is watching TV in her home near Varginha, Minas Gerais, Brazil, when she sees a UFO hovering over the cattle, which are agitated. She calls her husband, Eurico Rodrigues, and they watch the object, which is the size of a microbus and the shape of a submarine. For 40 minutes the object flies less than 20 feet above the ground, heading toward town. The object has a hole in its structure through which white smoke is billowing. Pieces of its fuselage sway in the wind. (“ET de Varginha: Caso completa 20 anos com mistérios e incertezas,” G1, January 20, 2016; Clark III 1222)

January 13 — 4:00 a.m. Businessman and pilot Carlos de Souza is driving from Très Coracões to Varginha, Minas Gerais, Brazil, along Highway 491. About 3 miles from Varginha, he hears a sound like an engine rumbling, so he stops by the side of the road and gets out of his vehicle. He sees a cylindrical airship 33–40 feet long and 13–16 feet in diameter flying about 395 feet above him toward Varginha. It is metallic, polished, and reflects the morning sunlight. He notices a hole in the right side of the ship and white smoke pouring out. After it crosses the highway, de Souza gets into his car and starts chasing it. When it crashes into the woods, he finds a dirt road that leads him to the scene, which is covered with debris that looks like tinfoil. He picks up a larger piece that is thin and light.

When he kneads it, he is amazed to see that it returns to its original state. Further away, he sees an Army helicopter, two tarpaulins, an ambulance, and three cars. He smells a powerful ammonia odor and is startled by a military police officer who approaches him and shouts, “Go away, you saw nothing.” Two more soldiers appear and force him to leave, so he returns to his car, drives away, and stops at a restaurant. A man approaches him and asks if he is Carlos de Souza, He replies yes, and the man calls him over and says, “What you saw, I saw too. You should not talk to anyone about it.” The man then relates details about de Souza’s private life. Meanwhile, two soldiers from the Escola de Sargentos das Armas in Très Coracões contact ufologists Ubirajara Franco Rodrigues and Claudeir Covo about the incident to tell them that the area has been cordoned off and that trucks are loading odd material. There are rumors that NORAD has alerted the Brazilian authorities that it has tracked a large number of UFOs over the western hemisphere and that one has penetrated Brazilian airspace. (Wikipedia, “Incidente de Varginha”; Clark III 1222; Good Need, pp. 369–376; Roger K. Leir, UFO Crash in Brazil: A Genuine UFO Crash with Surviving ETs, Book Tree, 2005; “ET de Varginha: Caso completa 20 anos com mistérios e incertezas,” G1, January 20, 2016; Patrick Gross, “The Varginha Affair”)

January 20 — 8:00 a.m. The Varginha, Brazil, fire department receives a call from someone who asks them to investigate a strange creature seen in a park north of the Jardim Andere neighborhood. At 10:00 a.m., firefighters arrive

expecting to find a wild animal, but they encounter a 5-foot-tall bipedal entity with red eyes and brown skin. Fish peddler João Bosco Manoel comes across firefighters Sgt. Palhares, Cpl. Rubens, and soldiers Santos and Nivaldo, who are carrying a net with a strange being inside it. One of its feet is brown, and the firefighters are trying to conceal it from curious onlookers. A smell of ammonia permeates the scene. (Clark III 1222–1223)

January 20 — Afternoon. According to testimony by an ex-soldier, uniformed military men open fire while they are sweeping the small forest near Varginha, Brazil, where the creature had been found earlier. A soldier becomes frightened when he sees a creature apparently helping a wounded comrade. Two shots strike its belly and one its chest. A fourth shot hits its shoulder. These two creatures differ from the earlier one and have black hair.

Immediately afterward, soldiers come out of the woods carrying the creatures in two black sacks. Something is moving in one of them. (Clark III 1223)

January 20 —3:30 p.m. Sisters Liliane Fátima da Silva, 16, and Valquíria Aparecida da Silva, 14, and their friend Kátia Andrade Xavier, 22, are crossing a vacant lot at Rua Dr. Benevenuto Bráz Viêrira in the Santana neighborhood of Varginha, Brazil, when they encounter a thin, hairless, dark-skinned creature with dark veins, two legs with enormous two-toed feet, two arms with only three fingers, a huge head two three bony protrusions (one on each side and one in the center), and huge red eyes crouching beside a wall. At first they think it is a statue, but then it turns its head and they think it is a devil. They run home and call their mother, Luzia Helena da Silva, but when they return to the vacant lot, all they find is two footprints and an awful stench. (Wikipedia, “Incidente de Varginha”; Clark III 1223–1224; “ET de Varginha: Caso completa 20 anos com mistérios e incertezas,” G1, January 20, 2016; “Caso Varginha Minuto a Minuto,” João Marcelo YouTube channel, July 13, 2016; Brazil 494– 509)

January 20 — Around 6:00 p.m. After a hailstorm halts the search for several hours, the Varginha, Brazil, search units venture back into the woods. Two plainclothes officers of the Military Police Intelligence Service, one of them Marco Eli Chereze, locate and capture a fourth creature, forcing it into the back of their car. They bring it to a health clinic but are turned away, so they take it to the Hospital Regional do Sul de Minas, where the first examinations are performed. (Clark III 1224)

January 21 — 2:00 a.m. Marco Eli Chareze returns home to his mother’s house to change clothes because his are drenched with rain. He begins to fall ill. (Clark III 1225)

January 21 — The strange creatures are transferred to Hospital Humanitas Unimed in Varginha, Brazil. There are many reports of unusual movements of the Army, the police, and the fire department between the two hospitals.

Vehicles are also seen arriving at a hospital in Belo Horizonte, where allegedly one of the creatures dies. (Clark III 1224)

January 22 — The Brazilian military uses three trucks and several other vehicles to move the covered bodies. The trucks are parked on the side of Hospital Humanitas Unimed, and a series of cover-up operations are performed involving doctors, nurses, soldiers, firemen, and military police. The bodies inside the three trucks go to the Escola de Sargentos das Armas in Très Coracões, Brazil. (Clark III 1224)

January 23 — 4:00 a.m. A military convoy leaves the Escola de Sargentos das Armas for Campinas, Brazil. (Clark III 1224)

January 23 — 9:00 a.m. The creatures are delivered in a metal box punctured with holes to the University of Campinas in São Paulo, Brazil, where doctors Fortunato Badan Palhares and Conradín Metz begin performing autopsies. Lab workers are prevented from entering the site. According to three military sources, at least one creature is taken to underground labs located at the university. Another creature is referred to the Legal Medical Institute at the Cemitério dos Amarais in Campinas. Army officials continue making decisive movements around Campinas through April. There are rumors that metal fragments of an unknown origin are taken to the Brazilian Departamento de Ciência e Tecnologia Aeroespacial in São José dos Campos, São Paulo, where they are examined in secret underground facilities. The same day, a cargo aircraft takes off from Canoas Air Force Base, Rio Grande do Sul, transporting three containers, a box, several soldiers, and a sophisticated radar system to be deployed near Varginha. (Clark III 1224)

January 25 — The US military arrives in Campinas, Brazil, by helicopter, where the entire university is on standby. (Clark III 1224–1225)

January 26 — Several scientists and military personnel linked to NASA arrive at the University of Campinas, Brazil. The cover story is that US scientists are choosing Brazilian scientists to take part in future space missions. (Clark III 1225)

February 6 — Marco Eli Chereze, 23, one of the military policemen involved in the Varginha, Brazil, creature capture, begins exhibiting strange symptoms and notices inflammation and a small abscess under his left arm. At the

barracks infirmary, physician Robson Ferreira Melo performs surgery to remove the abscess, found to be due to staphylococcus. Then Chereze develops a fever and pain all over his body. (Clark III 1225)

February 11 — Chereze is admitted to Hospital Bom Pastor in Varginha, Brazil. ()

February 12 — Chereze is transferred to the emergency room of the Hospital Regional do Sul de Minas, Brazil, suffering from intense pain in the lower back and fever. ()

February 15 — Chereze wakes up very tired and in a state or torpor, with signs of cyanosis. He is transferred to intensive care, where his condition deteriorates rapidly. Chereze dies at 11:00 a.m. An autopsy confirms septicemia caused by a urinary infection, but the cause of death is unclear, according to Dr. Cesário Lincoln Furtado, who says it is highly unusual for a young man to quickly acquire an immunodeficiency followed by an attack of three kinds of virulent bacteria. Doctors order his body to be cremated immediately, but his family will not allow it. The death certificate gives the cause of death as acute respiratory failure, sepsis, and pneumonia. The family begins a legal challenge to have the records released. (A. J. Gevaerd and Ubirajata Franco Rodrigues, “Varginha Case: New Revelations,” translation of “Novas revalações agitaram Varginha,” UFO Brazil, no. 102, August 1, 2004; Clark III 1225)

March 1 — 6:00 p.m. A man driving past a field in Southport, Merseyside, England, sees a triangle-shaped object with a white light in each corner and a green light in the center. It stays motionless for 5 minutes before it starts circling the field. Then it stops and the lights merge into one long green light. Without warning, it takes off and disappears. (“Mystery in the Evening Skies,” Southport (UK) Visitor, March 8, 1996, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 325 (August 1996): 13)

March 9 — 10:50 p.m. Two groups of motorists at Gallows Corner, Romford, East London, England, watch a triangular UFO as large as a soccer field with a white light in each corner and a pulsating orange light in the center. (Marler 220–221)

March 12 — Two hunters are snowmobiling near Trout Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada, when they come upon two metallic “spaceships” blocking their trail. Both objects are about 300 feet in diameter, with a bright light on their tops and windows on their sides. One stands on three legs while the other hovers. As the hunters drive around the objects, the lights go out. Later, Trout Lake officials find large rectangular impressions in the snow. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada—1996,” IUR 22, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 32)

April 21 —Around 9:00 p.m. Terezinha Gallo Clepf is celebrating her 67th birthday at the restaurant at the Parque Zoobotânico Municipal Dr. Mário Frota in Varginha, Brazil, when she steps onto a porch to smoke a cigarette. She looks to her left and sees a strange creature with bright red eyes and a yellow helmet on its head. It is behind a fence that circles the porch. They stare at each other. Clepf goes back into the restaurant but soon comes back out and the creature is still there. She gets her husband to take her home. (Clark III 1225)

April 29 — Luzia Helena da Silva is visited in Varginha, Brazil, by four men in suits who do not identify themselves. After hearing her daughters’ story of their January 20 encounter, they offer the family a large sum of money to record a video denying what they had seen that day and claiming the whole thing was a joke. (Clark III 1225)

May 8 — Brig. Gen. Sergio Pedro Coelho Lima, commander of the Escola de Sargentos das Armas in Très Coracões, Brazil, reads a statement saying that no officer at the school has participated in the alleged operation. He insists to journalists that nothing unusual has happened in the city. When asked what the ESA military was doing on January 20, he replies that the military was “working for the sake of the Army and the nation.” In 1999, the story is amplified when a Major Calza says a “dwarf, disfigured and mentally retarded,” was behind some of the creature reports in Varginha. (Clark III 1225, 1226)

May 17 — 8:00 p.m. Hildo Lúcio Gardino, 20, is traveling from Très Coracões to Varginha, Brazil, when she sees a strange creature on the side of the road. She dims her headlights and speeds past as the creature places its hands over its eyes and flees into the woods. (Clark III 1225)

May 22 — 3:30 p.m. A motorist on the West Tamar Highway near Bradys Lookout State Reserve in Tasmania, notices an upright, vapor-like trail to the north. The trail changes into an upright, bronze-colored cigar shape that disappears in front of their eyes. (“Northern Flap,” TUFOIC Newsletter, no. 79 (October 1996): 3; Herbert S. Taylor, “Cloud Cigars: A Further Look,” IUR 30, no. 3 (May 2006): 13)

May 29 — About 1:00 p.m. A vertical, misty cloud is seen against the clear blue sky above Launceston, Tasmania. It forms into a vertical upright cylinder that seems to have a long hole. The witness and a friend look away for a second, and the object is gone. (“Northern Flap,” TUFOIC Newsletter, no. 79 (October 1996): 3; Herbert S. Taylor, “Cloud Cigars: A Further Look,” IUR 30, no. 3 (May 2006): 13)

June 17 — 10:30 p.m. A witness is driving east on East Kingsfield Road in the northern part of Pensacola, Florida, when he sees a large, black triangular object. He pulls to the side of the road to watch, as does a truck in front of him. The object has a single white light at each corner and hovers directly above the road. A red blinking light is at the center. (“Triangular Shaped Craft Hovers over Witness,” Pensacola Beach (Fla.) Islander, July 10, 1996, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 325 (August 1996): 5)

June 24 — Day. Spasso Maximovitch notices an unusual object in the western sky over Rosh HaAyin in central Israel. He grabs his video camera to film it, just as a glowing white oval-shaped object appears some 20° west of the object and streaks toward it at high speed. Within 3 seconds it strikes the stationary orb, causing a huge explosion in the sky that seemingly destroys both objects. Stunned, Maximovitch stops filming immediately after capturing the explosion. (Patrick Gross, “UFO Mid-Air Crash—or Military Drill—Filmed in Israel”)

July — Day. A private pilot is flying his Piper Cherokee PA-28-140 from Waterville, Nova Scotia, to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, at 3,500 feet. While over Cape Blomidon, Nova Scotia, the pilot’s father-in-law (next to him in the right seat) spots a chrome-colored sphere 60 feet in diameter about 2 miles away and traveling at the same speed as the aircraft but about 500 feet lower. The pilot banks gently in its direction, and the sphere speedily darts toward Springhill, Nova Scotia, 20 miles away, and hovers there as a bright dot, then disappears. The pilot is distressed about the encounter and is distracted for the rest of the flight. (Don Ledger, “Two Spherical UAP Cases Witnessed by Pilots in Canadian Airspace,” IUR 33, no. 2 (July 2010): 9, 22)

July 4 — John P. Timmerman investigates a mystery crop circle found in a wheat field belonging to Dan Arend off County Road 126 near Paulding, Ohio. (John P. Timmerman, “The Paulding, Ohio, Crop Circle,” IUR 21, no. 3 (Fall 1996): 24–26)

July 9 — 12:30 a.m. Police Sgt. Marian Mancu and volunteer guard Maricel Rusu are patrolling on the main road through Cerțești, Romania. Rusu sees a lighted object descending silently, causing nearby neon lights to vary in their intensity. Mancu hears a whistling sound and sees an object with flashing blue and red lights hovering 2 feet above the pavement. Three small people with elongated heads, white faces, big eyes, and scaly bodies are moving around inside it. The object is top-shaped, 15–20 feet across and 8 feet tall, and has a girdle of lights around the edge like a rainbow. After 2 minutes it rises vertically, its lights become brighter, and nearby streetlights go out. It turns northwest and departs with tremendous speed. Other residents of the town witness unusual light phenomena. (Romania 135–146)

July 17 — Dusk. A woman near Langruth, Manitoba, is startled to see a disc-shaped object moving quietly and slowly through her farmyard. The object, 9–12 feet in diameter and 2.5 feet thick, has slitlike lights along its edge. The next morning, she finds three circular patches of deep green growth in the area where the object had been. She thinks her well water has been affected by the incident. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada—1996,” IUR 22, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 32)

August — Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attends the fifth meeting of the National Institute for Discovery Science scientific advisory board in Las Vegas, Nevada. Jacques Vallée delivers the main presentation. Reid stays in frequent contact with Robert Bigelow afterward. (Skinwalkers 15)

August 12 — 9:40 p.m. A witness in Smithton, Illinois, sees a faint, dull-red, glowing triangular object as he is looking for the Perseid meteor shower. It appears from the south, flies north above his house, and vanishes after 10 seconds. (Marler 171)

August 17 — A couple camping in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba, see a strange blue light dancing behind a hill. When they investigate, they find an object moving along the ground, occasionally emitting fames from its base. After a short while, it zips into the sky, then returns and hovers near them. It then shines a beam of light around the ground, illuminating them at one point. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada—1996,” IUR 22, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 32)

August 18–20 — Journalist Gary Webb publishes his “Dark Alliance” series in the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, with one long article and one or two shorter articles appearing each day. It claims that “For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.” This drug ring “opened the first pipeline between Colombia’s cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles” and, as a result, “The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America.” The Mercury News continues to pursue the story, publishing follow-ups to the original series for the next three months. Other papers are slow to pick up the story, but African Americans quickly take note, especially in South Central Los Angeles where the dealers discussed in the series are active. They respond with outrage to the series’ charges. By the end of September, three federal investigations are announced: an investigation into the CIA

allegations conducted by CIA Inspector-General Frederick Hitz, an investigation into the law enforcement allegations by Justice Department Inspector-General Michael Bromwich, and a second investigation into the CIA by the House Intelligence Committee. After his resignation from The Mercury News, Webb expands the “Dark Alliance” series into a book that responds to the criticism of the series and describes his experiences writing the story and dealing with the controversy. A revised version is published in 1999 that incorporates Webb’s response to the CIA and Justice Department reports. The February 2000 report by the House Intelligence Committee in turn considers the book’s claims as well as the series’ claims. Webb’s reporting in “Dark Alliance” remains controversial. Many writers discussing the series point to errors in it. The claim that the drug ring of Meneses- Blandón-Ross sparked the “crack explosion” has been perhaps the most criticized part of the series. Webb commits suicide in 2004. (Wikipedia, “Gary Webb”; Wikipedia, “Dark Alliance (book)”; Gary Webb, Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, Seven Stories, 1998, revised ed., 1999)

August 29 — 8:00 p.m. A mechanic notices a white mass of light at Port Arthur, Tasmania. His car acts up a bit, but the light vanishes, and it returns to normal. At 9:30 p.m., on the return trip, the white mass returns and paces the car for several kilometers. The engine misses and the headlights go out. He can now see a cigar-shaped object about 650 feet away, so he gets out, checks the engine, and finds nothing wrong. The UFO moves off and the car starts again. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 20)

September 10 — The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty is adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. It opens for signature in New York on September 24 and is signed by 71 states, including five of the eight then- nuclear states. The treaty will enter into force 180 days after the 44 states listed in Annex 2 of the treaty have ratified it. These “Annex 2 states” are states that participated in the CTBT’s negotiations between 1994 and 1996 and possessed nuclear power reactors or research reactors at that time. As of 2016, eight Annex 2 states have not ratified the treaty: China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, and the United States have signed but not ratified the treaty;

India, North Korea, and Pakistan have not signed it. (Wikipedia, “Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty”)

September 16 — Day. A witness is repairing a fence on his property near Valley, Ohio, when his dog starts barking loudly. Going over to his dog, he looks up to see a low-flying space-capsule-shaped UFO hovering and moving slowly over one of his cow pastures. He takes six photos of the object. Black to dark green in the photos, the cone-shaped object, when enlarged, shows a black Teflon-like covered bottom and a flange or rim that goes around near the top. In each photo the UFO is shown at a slightly different position and altitude, making it more difficult to hoax. (Patrick Gross, “Mysterious Photos”)

October — Psychologist Stuart Appelle evaluates factors of deception, suggestibility, personality, sleep phenomena, psychopathology, psychodynamics, environment, and event-level alien encounters as origins of the abduction experience. He argues that no one theory enjoys enough empirical support to be accepted as a general explanation. (Stuart Appelle, “The Abduction Experience: A Critical Evaluation of Theory and Evidence,” JUFOS 6 (1995/1996): 29–78)

October 5 — 2:00 a.m. Police Constable David Leyland in Skegness, Lincolnshire, England, sees some rotating colored lights in the sky and reports them to the coast guard. Police in nearby Boston see a single, stationary bright light, while the crew of an offshore tanker report another colored light. Air traffic control radar at Claxby by Normanby, Lincolnshire, picks up a strong target over Boston, and RAF Waddington near Lincoln also picks up an unidentified target in another position. Talk of a UFO wave becomes embellished in the media, and MP Martin Redmond calls for an investigation by RAF Air Defence. Wing Commander Norman Hutchinson conducts an in- depth investigation of all the sightings and radar targets, producing a 23-page report that he completes on November 13. It’s pretty clear that the mysterious radar blips are a permanent radar echo caused by the 273-foot steeple of St. Botolph’s Church in Boston, the stationary white light is Venus, and astronomer Ian Ridpath identifies the rotating colored lights as misobservations of Sirius and Vega. (UFOFiles2, pp. 159–162; David Clarke, “The 1996 East Anglian UFO Flap,” Fortean Times 223 (July 2007): 28–29)

October 5 — 10:00 a.m. Businessman-pilot Haroldo Westendorff is flying a single-engine EMB-712 Tupi (Piper PA-28 Cherokee) over Ilha da Sarangonha, near São José do Norte, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, when he sees a gigantic object about the size of a football stadium. It is pyramidal in shape with 8 sides, on each of which are 3 protruding domes. Westendorff follows it for 2 minutes. The UFO is revolving slowly on its own axis and moving toward the ocean. A hatch opens on top of the object and three disks emerge and fly away quickly. When Westendorff tries to get closer, the UFO emits reddish rays, causing him to maneuver about 650 feet away. Soon the object begins to rise at great speed. Operators at the Infraero control room at Pelotas Airport visually confirm the observation. (“Caso Ufológico Haroldo Westendorff, 1996,” Canal Fenomeno OVNI YouTube channel, January 18, 2015;

“Completam-se 20 anos do Caso Haroldo Westendorff,” Portal UFO, October 5, 2016; Clark III 203; Brazil 545– 548)

October 15 — 11:00 p.m. A couple is driving near Trois Rivières, Quebec, when they see three strange triangular objects flying in the northern sky. One object, shaped like a “topper” and much larger than an airplane, aims an intense white light at their car for 20 minutes. They feel like “time was stopped.” Dozens of other people in the region see UFOs that same night. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada—1996,” IUR 22, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 32)

October 16 — 8:30–9:00 p.m. Many people over a wide area of south-central Ohio and northern Kentucky phone police to report strange lights in the sky. A husband and wife watch a fiery orange object near Ripley, Ohio, for 20 minutes. Charles Fite and Bill Adams in Aberdeen, Ohio, see several lights to the north in a “T” formation. A man in Tollesboro, Kentucky, reports 8–10 objects in a group that blink out and reappear in three-minute intervals. An airport operator in Jackson, Ohio, receives two calls describing a group of red lights moving erratically in the northwestern sky. Terry Howard, between Waverly and Chillicothe, Ohio, videotapes a group of glowing objects at about the same angle of altitude as the moon. Ohio UFO investigators suspect that the sightings are a result of military maneuvers by the Ohio Air National Guard. (Terry Endres and Ron Schaffner, “UFO Flare-Ups in Ohio,” IUR 23, no. 3 (Fall 1998): 9–13)

October 25 — 2:00 a.m. A family sees a bowl-shaped disc with five rectangular windows in Gypsumville, Manitoba. It is seen through binoculars as it directs a beam of light down at a lake it is hovering above. Two nights later it returns, moving high above the lake. They drive to the home of a neighbor who joins them outside to watch four objects flying in formation. Two of the objects suddenly change direction and disappear from view, then the other two shine beams of light on the lake again and disappear by moving into the clouds. (Chris Rutkowski and Geoff Dittman, The Canadian UFO Report, Dundurn Press, 2006, pp. 195–196)

November 16 — During an exhibition by the Brazilian Air Force’s Smoke Squadron over the coastline of Santos, São Paulo, Brazil, one of the EMB-312 Tucano aircraft’s wings breaks off and causes it to crash. A piece of the wing falls on a swimmer and kills him. A video taken at the time of the accident shows a small spherical object approaching the aircraft from behind and passing just at the point where the wing breaks off. Ufologist Reginaldo de Athayde analyzes the video images and finds that the object is real, metallic, reflective, and boasts a speed five times greater than the airplane. It measures about 3-by-3 feet in diameter and has a speed of 746–932 mph. It passes about 6.5 feet from the wing of the plane. (Clark III 205; Brazil 549–551)

December — 11:00 p.m. T/Sgt Anthony W. Keel is engaged in a field training exercise about one mile from the Weapons Storage Area at Ellsworth FB near Rapid City, South Dakota. He looks at the top of a hill and sees a light bobbing around and moving west to east. About 10 minutes later, he looks up again and sees it moving east to west and then back several times. It now moves in a straight line east away from Ellsworth but stops and hovers 2–3 miles from the base. Then it makes several short darts in different directions. After about 5 minutes, the radio operator announces that all flights from Ellsworth are grounded. The light eventually blinks out. (Nukes 469–470)

December 11 — 7:00–8:30 p.m. At least 31 people in the Yukon Territory, Canada, witness a giant UFO. Indications are that it may be the size of several football stadiums. The sightings principally take place in four locations in the central Yukon: Fox Lake, Carmacks, Pelly Crossing, and Mayo, with 6, 9, 8, and 8 witnesses respectively. (NICAP, “Dec. 11, 1996: Yukon Territory”; Chris Rutkowski and Geoff Dittman, The Canadian UFO Report, Dundurn Press, 2006, pp. 188–194; Chris Rutkowski, “The Cold, Hard Facts about UFOs in Canada,” IUR 34, no. 1 (September 2011): 22–23)

December 19 — A Boeing 757-200 operated by China’s Southern Airlines takes off from Beijing on a routine flight south to Wuhan. As the jetliner reaches an altitude of 31,500 feet, the copilot spots a bright flash in the sky just ahead of them. A silver-gray metallic UFO strikes the top of the 757’s cockpit, cracking the outer windshield. The pilot immediately declares an in-flight emergency and radios Beijing’s Capital International Airport, requesting permission to land. The plane lands safely 10 minutes later. (Patrick Gross, “Air Misses”)

1997

1997 — In his 1997 article “Dead Cows I’ve Known,” cattle mutilation researcher Charles T. Oliphant speculates that cattle mutilations are the result of covert research into emerging cattle diseases and whether they can be transmitted to humans. He suspects the NIH, CDC, or other federally funded bodies are involved, and they are supported by the US military. Pazrt of this is based on allegations that human pharmaceuticals have been found in mutilated cattle, and that necropsies show cattle mutilations commonly involve areas of the animal that relate to

“input, output, and reproduction.” To support his hypothesis, Oliphant cites the 1990 Reston Ebola virus case in which plainclothes military officers, traveling in unmarked vehicles, entered a research facility in Reston, Virginia, to secretly retrieve and destroy animals that were contaminated with a highly infectious disease. (Wikipedia, “Cattle mutilation”; Ted Oliphant III, “Mad Cow Disease and Cattle Mutilations?” Our Strange Planet, 1997; Ted Oliphant III, “Dead Cows I’ve Known, Part 3,” 1998)

1997 — Contactee Billy Meier’s ex-wife Kalliope in Switzerland tells interviewers that his photos are of spaceship models he has crafted with items like trashcan lids, carpet tacks, and other household objects (verifying the allegations made by California skeptic Kal R. Korff in 1981), and that the stories he told of his adventures with the aliens were similarly fictitious. She also says that photos of purported extraterrestrial women “Asket” and “Nera” are really photos of Michelle DellaFave and Susan Lund, members of the singing and dancing troupe The Golddiggers. It is later confirmed that the women in the photographs are members of The Golddiggers performing on The Dean Martin Show. (“Asket and Nera Photo Deconstruction,” Billy Meier Case)

1997 — Douglas Torr and Timir Datta are involved in the development of a “gravity generator” at the University of South Carolina. According to a leaked document from the Office of Technology Transfer at USC and confirmed

to Wired reporter Charles Platt in 1998, the device would create a “force beam” in any desired direction and that the university plans to patent and license this device. No further information about this university research project or the “Gravity Generator” device is ever made public. (Wikipedia, “Anti-gravity”; Charles Platt, “Breaking the Law of Gravity,” Wired, March 1, 1998)

1997 — Chile sets up a new government agency tasked with studying UFO reports. (Kean, p. 116)

Winter — 3:00 p.m. Sgt. John F. Duffy is serving as loadmaster and radio operator aboard a KC-130R Hercules cargo plane flying at an altitude of 24,000 feet north of the Horne Islands in the South Pacific. He notices a white object on the left side of the aircraft. At first it seems stationary, then appears to jump behind a nearby cloud, moving in a horizontal direction and disappears after only 2 seconds. (Richard F. Haines, “South Pacific Sighting, 1997,” IUR 24, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 11–12)

January 10–12 — Roswell witness Jesse Marcel Jr. undergoes a second series of hypnosis sessions, this time with Washington, D.C.–area clinical psychologist Neil Hibler. They are paid for by Roswell Declaration author Kent Jeffrey, who concludes that Marcel is indeed describing weather balloon debris. However, this interpretation is disputed. ()

January 13 — Morning. A woman driving on Highway 1 from Abbotsford to Chilliwack, British Columbia, notices a fluffy cloud in a clear sky that “bursts downward” with a bright white light three times in succession. It dissipates, leaving behind a black bar. After 5 minutes, a solid stream of white light comes downward from it and another black bar appears, about 45° below the first one. They both start moving east in a wavy motion. She loses sight of them when she gets off the freeway at the Sardis exit. (Herbert S. Taylor, “Satellite Objects and Cloud Cigars,” IUR 29, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 26)

January 27 — 10:40 p.m. A man is driving on a quiet back road just south of Llangynidr, Powys, Wales, when he sees a “massive star” moving toward him. His car radio fails, and he is unable to use his mobile phone to call for help. He stops and gets out of the car. The glowing tube of smoky gray and blue light descends and encircles the car, remaining for 5 minutes. The witness can move around in the cloud but can hear no sound associated with the object. After the glow vanishes, he remains frightened and a bit sick. The car is coated with dust of unknown origin. He drives home to Newport, and the following morning he notices a skin rash. (Jenny Randles, “A Sprinkling of Star Dust,” Fortean Times 392 (May 2020): 33)

February 22 — Near Aklavik, Northwest Territories, Canada, two silver-gray objects follow five people along a road. They hover above the highway then glide smoothly down to the snow behind them. The objects have rows of windows with bright blue light shining through them. After 15 minutes, the objects are lost to view as the witnesses turn along an ice road. (Chris Rutkowski, “1997 Canadian UFO Survey,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 15)

February 27 — 7:30 p.m. A luminous blue sphere appears over Aviano Air Base, Italy, and hovers. After it disappears, a larger, orange-yellow-red sphere appears, and six fighters are scrambled to intercept it. The jets circle around the sphere but it disappears. (2Pinotti 155)

March — Cheltenham, England, researcher Robin Cole and his UFO group named Circular Forum have looked into the activities of the nearby Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) facility known as the Oakley Installation. He issues an unpublished report on their findings, titled “GCHQ and the UFO Cover-Up,” which includes information on radar/visual encounters reported by RAF personnel in the 1950s, evidence that GCHQ

studied gun-camera footage of UFOs taken by British military pilots, the fact that the GCHQ library contains numerous UFO publications, and evidence that GCHQ still monitors military UFO encounters. Shortly afterward, he is visited by two Cheltenham policemen who ask him about a UFO group called the Truth-Seekers. It turns out they are actually from the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police, a counter-terrorism division. (Wikipedia, “GCHQ”; Nick Redfern, “Paranoia or Surveillance?” IUR 30, no. 3 (May 2006): 7–9; Nick Redfern, “UFO Encounters, Saucers, and Secrets,” Mysterious Universe, August 23, 2018; Nick Redfern, “UFO Researchers: What Can Happen When You Go Looking for Secrets,” Mysterious Universe, September 18, 2020)

March 3 — The Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy, chaired by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), after conducting an “investigation into all matters in any way related to any legislation, executive order, regulation, practice, or procedure relating to classified information or granting security clearances,” issues its final report. It concludes that secrecy is a form of government regulation; that excessive secrecy has significant consequences for the national interest when policy makers are not fully informed, the government is not held accountable for its actions, and the public cannot engage in informed debate; that some secrecy is important to minimize inappropriate diffusion of details of weapon systems design and ongoing security operations as well as to allow public servants to secretly consider a variety of policy options without fear of criticism; that the best way to ensure that secrecy is respected, and that the most important secrets remain secret, is for secrecy to be returned to its limited but necessary role; that secrets in the federal government are whatever anyone with a stamp decides to stamp secret; and that a new statute is needed to set forth the principles for what may be declared secret.

Moynihan reports that approximately 400,000 new secrets are created annually at the highest level, Top Secret. (Wikipedia, “Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy”; Donald R. Burleson, “UFO Secrecy and the Law,” IUR 28, no. 4 (Winter 2003–2004): 16–17)

March 6 — 6:45–10:30 p.m. Dozens of UFOs descend from the sky and briefly hover above Aviano Air Base, Italy. They zoom toward Venice Marco Polo Airport before heading toward Istrana and Treviso air bases, where they remain hovering in the sky for a while before returning to Aviano. The display repeats several times, despite Italian and US fighters attempting to intercept them. (2Pinotti 156)

March 8 — 3:00 a.m. Folkestone Herald journalist Sarah Hall is driving through Burmarsh, Kent, England, when she sees a large triangular object descend and hover above a field some 700 feet away near Dymchurch. It has a disc attached to it on the back and a big light on the front. When she pulls to a stop, it shoots away to a spot about 1,500 feet away and hovers. It does this four times, making a humming sound, and moving westward in increments for only a few seconds at a time. The UFO seems to be twice the size of an airliner. Other witnesses to a strange object come forward after Hall writes an article about her sighting. The residence of Conservative Home Secretary Michael Howard in Lympne is one epicenter. (Good Need, pp. 385–387)

March 13 — 6:55–10:30 p.m. Aerial lights of varying descriptions are seen by thousands of people (many of whom are looking for Comet Hale-Bopp) in a space of about 300 miles from Henderson, Nevada, at 6:55 p.m., through Phoenix to the edge of Tucson, Arizona. Tim Ley and his family at first see a tiny arc of five white lights just after 8:00 p.m. in the northwestern sky. They slowly draw nearer (around 30 mph), and Ley discerns a V-formation flying no more than 100 feet above the ground. The lights hold this pattern for more than 15 minutes, leading him to believe they are on one structure. Ley’s report is the most detailed, but there are many others. There are two distinct events involved in the entire incident: a triangular formation of lights seen to travel around 8:10–9:30 p.m. from Paulden to Tucson, passing over Prescott and Phoenix. Some witnesses see a huge carpenter’s square-shaped UFO, containing five spherical lights or possibly light-emitting engines. Gov. Fife Symington is one witness, although he does not reveal this until 2007; he calls the object “otherworldly.” One overriding characteristic prevails: The UFO is a massive solid object, not merely lights, and it appears low in the sky, blocking out the stars behind it. Many witnesses say it is the size of multiple football fields and up to one mile long. Reports vary in terms of the number and color of lights and their movements. The second group of events is a series of stationary lights seen in the Phoenix area around 10:00 p.m. The Air Force identifies this group as magnesium LUU2 flares dropped by A-10 Warthog aircraft in a training exercise at the Barry Goldwater Range in southwest Arizona as part of Operation Snowbird; news coverage later shows a video taken around 10:00 p.m. by an amateur photographer that clearly shows the flares, not the earlier UFO. Phoenix city councilwoman Frances Emma Barwood is the only elected official to launch a public investigation, but she receives no help from any level of government. She speaks to more than 700 witnesses who call her office, including police officers, pilots, and former military personnel. Minimal coverage is provided at the time by the media, even in Phoenix. (Wikipedia, “Phoenix Lights”; NICAP, “The Phoenix Lights Case: More Than Lights and Flares?”; Tony Ortega, “The Great UFO Cover-up,” Phoenix New Times, June 26, 1997; Bruce Maccabee, “Report on Phoenix Lights Arrays,” 2000; Donald R. Burleson, “UFO Secrecy and the Law,” IUR 28, no. 4 (Winter 2003–2004): 16; Lynne D. Kitei, The Phoenix Lights: A Skeptic’s Discovery That We Are Not Alone, Hampton Roads, 2004; “Former Arizona

Governor Says He Saw ‘Phoenix lights’ UFO,” American Chronicle, March 18, 2007; Thomas E. Bullard, “Defending UFOs,” IUR 34, no. 2 (March 2012): 12–13, 30; Kean, pp. 247–249, 253–261; Good Need, pp. 387– 390; Clark III 901–905; Patrick Gross, “The Phoenix Lights, Arizona, USA, March 14, 1997”)

March 15 — 5:00 p.m. An object explodes in the air and crashes to the ground near Węgorzewo in northeastern Poland.

The debris is allegedly retrieved by soldiers. The Polish Army denies all knowledge of the incident, but Col. Zdzislaw Czekierda of the General Staff admits there is a special division that has gathered information about UFO sightings since the early 1980s. (Good Need, p. 391; Poland 117–118)

March 21–23 —A Space and UFO Science Symposium is held at Cosmo Isle Hakui, a museum of space history in Hakui, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. Symposium speakers include Richard F. Haines, Jesse A. Marcel Jr., Bruce Maccabee, R. Leo Sprinkle, hypnotherapist Derrel Sims, podiatrist Roger K. Leir, and crop circle researcher Colin Andrews. (Richard F. Haines, “The 1997 Space and UFO Science Symposium at the Cosmo Isle–Hakui Center, Japan,” IUR 22, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 15–18, 36)

March 24 — 10:00 p.m. Reports come in from the public that there is a low-flying aircraft over Howden Moors, Yorkshire, England. These reports soon turn into accounts of bright flashes, loud booming noises, and “several plumes of black smoke” rising from somewhere in the woodlands of the open countryside. Several search operations from several different counties are launched, both on foot and in the air. These continue through the night. The main concern is that a light aircraft or a helicopter has come down. However, no survivors or any wreckage is discovered during the search, which goes on well into the following day. At one stage, no-fly zones are put in place, an action that some UFO researchers later find suspicious—particularly when there are commercial airliners “stacking” as a result. Despite all of this activity, the official word from the military is that there is no crash at all. It is simply a mistaken sighting—despite many reports from the general public. Soon, rumors circulate from the many volunteer searchers. The most prominent comes from a unit of Yorkshire Water workers who happen to be in the area. They see a wrecked pile of metal in a clearing and a “military presence” that is loading “body bags” onto a Sea King helicopter. When the military is confronted with this, they claim they are merely moving equipment. An explanation remains elusive, although a military exercise did take place, at least 3 groups of observers reported UFO-like sightings, the sonic events did take place, and at least 1–2 civilian aircraft are reported in the area. (David Clarke and Martin Jeffrey, “The Mystery of Howden Moors: Part One,” IUR 24, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 13–20; David Clarke and Martin Jeffrey, “The Mystery of Howden Moors: Part Two,” IUR 24, no. 3 (Fall 1999): 24–28)

March 26 — 3:30 p.m. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office takes a 911 call from a man later identified as Richard Ford, reporting a group suicide in a house in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Two deputies find 39 bodies of identically dressed, androgynous-looking men and women. Autopsies establish that each had drunk a lethal combination of vodka and barbiturates then smothered themselves with a plastic bag. Videotaped statements left behind explain that the suicides, members of a religious millenarian cult called Heaven’s Gate, were leaving their “earthly vehicles” behind and expect to board a spacecraft trailing Comet Hale-Bopp. It was founded in 1974 and led by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles (formerly called Bo and Peep). (Wikipedia, “Heaven’s Gate (religious group)”; Clark III 566–567)

March 30 — A mother and her three children are chased along a highway near Whitehorse, Yukon, by an object “like a small satellite dish.” At one point, the object is directly above the car at treetop level. (Chris Rutkowski, “1997 Canadian UFO Survey,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 15)

March 30–April 1 —Aerial lights are seen for several nights west of Arica, Chile, and over the Pacific Ocean, causing some alarm. Witnesses include civil servants and aeronautical experts at Chacalluta International Airport. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation issues a public statement confirming the observations. (Kean, pp. 190–191)

April 10 — Rear Adm. Thomas R. Wilson, vice director of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meets in a Pentagon conference room with former astronaut Edgar Mitchell and UFO Disclosure founder Steven M. Greer to discuss the rogue nature of certain “special access programs” (SAPs) connected to the study of alien technology that are dominated by private contractors. Others allegedly there are retired Cmdr. Will Miller, Adm. Mike Crawford, Gen. Patrick Hughes, Shari Adamiak (Greer’s assistant), and Stephen Lovekin. Greer claims he has extracted a pledge from Wilson during the meeting to investigate SAPs involving UFO technology. But Wilson soon reports that he doesn’t have the proper security clearance to inspect those files. As Greer informs a Portland, Oregon, audience in 2001, Wilson says, “‘I am horrified that this is true. I have been in plenty of black projects, but when we tried to get into this one,’ he was told, and I quote, ‘Sir, you do not have a need to know.’ The head of intelligence Joint Staffs. You don’t have a need to know. Neither did the CIA director, and neither did the president.” In a July 4, 2008, appearance on Larry King Live, Mitchell tells the audience he had learned the admiral “had found the people responsible for the cover-up and for the people who were in the know and were

told, I’m sorry, admiral, you do not have need to know here and so, goodbye.” Shortly afterward, Wilson admits meeting with Mitchell but denies he was ever refused access. (Steven M. Greer, “Dr. Steven Greer Disclosure Project Talk, Sept. 2001, Portland, Oregon,” UFO Evidence; Steven M. Greer, Hidden Truth, Forbidden Knowledge, Crossing Point, 2006, pp. 158–160; “Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell Recounts Admiral Wilson Story on CNN’s Larry King Live, 7/4/08,” The Black Vault YouTube channel, June 17, 2020; “Admiral: Never Looked for UFO Data,” Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, August 6, 2008; Dolan II 538–539; Kean, pp. 234–235; Joe Murgia, “The Wilson/Davis Documents: My Twenty-Three Year Journey, Part 1,” Part 2, UFO Joe, June 21, 2020)

April 20 — 1:40 p.m. A woman is sitting on a park bench along the St. Clair River in Sarnia, Ontario. A grayish-white object suddenly appears in front of her, suspended vertically, with the bottom party positioned 25° above the horizon. The object has tubelike shape, rounded at both ends. She then notices a white spherical object that seems to have been ejected from the first. It travels a short distance north to Lake Huron and vanishes. The original object then disappears after another few seconds. (Herbert S. Taylor, “Satellite Objects: A Further Look,” IUR 29, no. 2 (Spring 2004): 26)

May 18 — Day. A tradesman sees a “flying entity” near Ponte a Mensola in the hills northeast of Florence, Italy. It descends vertically and lands in a field not too far away. He approaches it and sees that it is a man wearing black overalls with a red belt, helmet, and dark glasses, and with no apparent flying apparatus. The intruder notices him and disappears in the long grass, which is flattened where the man has landed. (2Pinotti 156–157)

May 30 — About 11:20 a.m. Writer Georgina Howell is crossing the tarmac at Kirkwall Airport in Orkney, Scotland, to board British Airways Flight 8773 to Aberdeen when she notices a silvery chevron about 45° in the sky to her left. She thinks it is odd, but suspects it is some kind of aircraft. Suddenly she falls down on her face, sustaining some minor scrapes and bruises. Asked why she fell, she says she was looking at a sky object, but it is no longer there. Later, she hears about chevron-shaped objects over Phoenix. (Good Need, pp. 390–391)

June — US Army Col. Philip J. Corso writes, with William J. Birnes, The Day after Roswell, a tell-all memoir about the Roswell, New Mexico, crash and retrieval. Much of the book is an account of Corso’s claims that he was assigned to a secret government program that provided some material recovered from a crashed spacecraft to private industry (without saying where the items came from) to reverse engineer them for corporate use. Corso was a special assistant to Lt. Gen. Arthur Trudeau, who headed Army Research and Development, and was in charge of the Foreign Technology Desk. In this position, he would take technological artifacts obtained from Russian, German, and other foreign sources and have American companies (including IBM, Hughes Aircraft, Bell Labs) reverse engineer that technology. The book contends that several aspects of modern technology such as fiber optics and integrated circuits were developed by using information taken from the craft. Corso also claims the world was “at war” with extraterrestrials and that the Strategic Defense Initiative project in the 1980s was part of that campaign successfully concluded in Earth’s favor. The book concludes with information about Project Horizon, a 1959 US Army plan to construct a base on the Moon. When first released, the book contains a foreword written by Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), for whom Corso had served as an aide. Thurmond writes, “He has many interesting stories to share with individuals interested in military history, espionage, and the workings of our Government.” The foreword does not mention anything about UFOs, since Thurmond has assumed the book is a straightforward memoir. When he learns about the book’s contents, Thurmond asks for his foreword to be retracted, saying, “I know of no such ‘cover-up,’ and do not believe one existed.” (Wikipedia, “The Day after Roswell”; Philip J. Corso with William J. Birnes, The Day after Roswell, Pocket Books, 1997; George M. Eberhart, [review], IUR 22, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 22–24; Good Need, pp. 424–425; Nick Redfern, The Roswell UFO Conspiracy, Lisa Hagan, 2017, pp. 145–151)

June — Roswell Declaration author and pilot Kent Jeffrey announces that he is unable to find sufficient evidence of an extraterrestrial crash in New Mexico in 1947 and that the Corona debris was probably from a Project Mogul balloon. (Keau Davidson, “UFO Fan: Roswell Saucer Story Is Bunk,” San Francisco Examiner, June 23, 1997; Kent Jeffrey, “Roswell: Anatomy of a Myth,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 350 (June 1997): 3–17; Kent Jeffrey, “Roswell: Anatomy of a Myth,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 12, no. 1 (1998): 79–101; Michael D. Swords, “A Different View of ‘Roswell: Anatomy of a Myth,’” Journal of Scientific Exploration 12, no. 1 (1998): 103– 125; Robert M. Wood, “Critique of ‘Roswell: Anatomy of a Myth,’” Journal of Scientific Exploration 12, no. 1 (1998): 127–140)

June — Night. Two police officers responding to an emergency call in Daniec, Poland, see two bright spheres maneuvering 1,000 feet to the left of their patrol car. The lights stop, then accelerate, and make sharp turns in the

air. One of the lights approaches them to about 40 feet away, while the other is still circling above a field. Suddenly, both lights depart at high speed. (Poland 110–111)

June 6 — The Gomzyakov family is traveling on the Krutikha River, Altai Krai, Russia, when they see a luminous flying object moving at a speed of 300 mph. The object turns around over the Ob River and flies north. An hour later, they arrive at the vilage of Krutikha, where they see another object engulfed in brownish gas and emitting powerful floodlights toward the ground. Another crescent-shaped object appears carrying a light that is 8 times as big as itself. The family watches the display for 15 minutes, after which all the objects move off to the north, leaving behind an odor reimiscent of blast furnaces ar a steel factory. (Stonehill and Mantle, Russia’s USO Secrets, Flying Disk, 2020, p. 127)

June 8 — A former police officer sees a turquoise object that seems to land in a field near a highway he is driving along at Treherne, Manitoba. It remains on the ground for 10–15 minutes and appears to have a light on its front and back. The witness is inexplicably frightened. (Chris Rutkowski, “1997 Canadian UFO Survey,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 15)

June 18 — USA Today breaks the media silence about the Phoenix, Arizona, UFOs in a front-page story. NBC and ABC evening newsrooms pick up the story and nickname the object(s) the “Phoenix Lights.” (Richard Price, “Arizonans Say the Truth about UFOs Is Out There,” USA Today, June 18, 1997, p. 4; “1997 NBC News Report on the Phoenix Lights w/ Tom Brokaw and Robert Hager,” Roadside Television YouTube channel, March 8, 2019)

June 18–19 — Evening. Grzegorz Nowak and four friends are visiting the monument to the Battle of Annenberg in Góra Świętej Anny, Poland, when they see glowing fireballs playing about on the hill and a large orange sphere. They try to communicate with the fireballs by flashing their headlights on and off; one of the lights responds with a similar signal. They watch other aerial objects and two of the youths have some missing time of more than an hour. The next night, they improve their headlight signaling. An enormous cigar-shaped object appears, shooting out multicolored lights that hover almost directly above them. Some of the orange spheres seem to transform into cloaked beings, each carrying a light ball. Some Polish researchers consider this a concocted episode amplified by fantasy proneness. (Poland 85–87; “Seria dziwnych zdarzeń w Opolu w 1997 roku,” UFO-Relacje.pl, February 13, 2020)

June 19 — Arizona Gov. Fife Symington calls a press conference, stating that “they found who was responsible” for the Phoenix Lights. He proceeds to make light of the situation by bringing on stage his 6-foot-4 chief of staff Jay Heiler dressed in an alien costume and proclaiming him “the guilty party.” He jokes that the media is taking the story “entirely too serious” as Heiler removes the mask. Symington also notes that he requested information from the commander of Luke AFB near Glendale, Arizona, the general in charge of the Arizona National Guard, and the head of the Arizona Department of Public Safety. But none of them have an answer for what. In 2007, Symington responds to an Air Force explanation that the lights were flares: “As a pilot and a former Air Force Officer, I can definitively say that this craft did not resemble any man made object I’d ever seen. And it was certainly not high-altitude flares because flares don’t fly in formation.” In a December 10, 2008, episode of the television show UFO Hunters called “Arizona Lights,” Symington says that he contacted the military asking what the lights were. The response was “no comment.” (“Symington Claims He Saw UFO in Phoenix Sky,” Tucson (Ariz.) Citizen, March 24, 2007, p. 4; Kean, p. 249)

June 24 — 7:30 p.m. A woman in Lachlan, Tasmania, is home alone in her kitchen when she notices a bright light source on the window blinds. Looking outside, she sees a large circle of light seemingly at ground level, some 550 feet to the east of the house. The circle is in a paddock at a higher elevation and in front of the trees and the other end.

She goes outside, but can’t see any further details or head any sound. The light does not reflect on any of the nearby trees. Later, the light disappears. (“UFOs in Tasmania,” IUR 22, no. 4 (Winter 1997–1998): 28)

June 24 — USAF releases The Roswell Report: Case Closed, by Capt. James McAndrew, stating that any alien bodies found at Roswell, New Mexico, were really anthropomorphic test dummies carried aloft in high-altitude balloons, and the unusual military activities were balloon launch-and-recovery operations. Although the dummy tests occurred several years after 1947, witnesses had been confused about the exact date. Claims of alien bodies at Roswell Army Air Field hospital are a combination of two incidents: the June 26, 1956, crash of a Boeing KC- 97G Stratotanker at Roswell-Walker AFB in which 11 crew members die; and a May 21, 1959, manned balloon mishap, in preparation for Project Excelsior, at Holloman AFB, Alamogordo, in which Capt. Joseph Kittinger is injured. The Project Mogul balloon is still invoked to explain the 1947 debris field at Corona, New Mexico. (Capt. James McAndrew, The Roswell Report: Case Closed, Headquarters US Air Force, 1997; Mark Rodeghier and Mark Chesney, “Who’s the Dummy Now? The Latest Air Force Report,” IUR 22, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 7–10; Swords 355–357; “Air Force Reports on the Roswell UFO Incident,” Military Wiki; Clark III 321)

June 28 — Four witnesses in Blind River, Ontario, watch the flight of a triangular red object with jagged edges and a “square forward section.” Within seconds of its disappearance, an egg-shaped object appears in the same location and flies along a similar path, flaring every two seconds into a bright white from a dull gray. (Chris Rutkowski, “1997 Canadian UFO Survey,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 15)

June or July — Twilight. A Polish passenger on a ferry to Stockholm, Sweden, watches a large ball of light, 30 feet across, follow the ship’s course low over the surface of the Baltic Sea. As many as 10 smaller spheres emerge from the upper part of the object and remain 10 feet away from it. Some darker colored spots can be seen rotating on the surface of the original light. After several minutes, the lights go off. (Poland 121–122)

July — Witnesses, one of whom is an Air Force and Coast Guard veteran, at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, see a “square of eight lights” in the sky. Fifteen minutes later, a silent boomerang-shaped object glides above them “like a huge bat” at low altitude. Its underside is covered with hundreds of small, dim, rectangular lights. (Chris Rutkowski, “1997 Canadian UFO Survey,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 15)

July 3 — Two witnesses driving along Highway 16 near Nojack, Alberta, see a “black ring” with faint lines hanging down into a motionless “big puff of smoke.” It is in view for 5 minutes. (Chris Rutkowski, “1997 Canadian UFO Survey,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 15)

July 14 — 10:49 p.m. Air traffic controllers at Henri Coandă International Airport at Otopeni, Romania, are supervising the landing of an airliner when they notice a light about 3 miles distant between Buftea and Corbeanca and well below the scattered cloud layer. It does not appear on radar. The duty officer turns the airport video cameras toward the UFO and records its image for 2 hours. Through binoculars the light is seen to have a horizontal band colored white, orange, and red. When the airport lights are switched on for another landing, the light blinks out and reappears in a different location, this time looking like two light balls joined together. The lights appear brighter when the airport lights are on and dim as soon as they are turned off. The lights disappear abruptly at 1:10 a.m. (Romania 75–77)

August 3 — The New York Times’s William J. Broad reports on a study, “The C.I.A.’s Role in the Study of U.F.O.’s, 1947–90,” by National Reconnaissance Office historian Gerald K. Haines in a CIA journal, Studies in Intelligence, that Project Blue Book had known that more than half of UFO reports in the 1950s and 1960s by citizens and aviation experts were based on “fleeting glimpses of U-2 and SR-71 spy planes.” Rather than acknowledging their existence, Blue Book came up with “false cover stories” like ice crystals and temperature inversions. Not a single linkage of a reconnaissance flight to a UFO report is provided. These allegations are treated uncritically in the news media. One-time Blue Book head Robert J. Friend says the story is “laughable” and denies ever having to conceal U-2 sightings. Bruce Maccabee points out that the greater number of UFO sighting are at night when U-2s cannot be seen, and even in the daytime a U-2 flying at 72,000 feet is “essentially invisible.” Haines also reveals that in the 1970s and 1980s CIA analysts devoted some time to “counterintelligence concerns that the Soviets and the KGB were using US citizens and UFO groups to obtain information on sensitive US weapons development programs (such as the Stealth aircraft), the vulnerability of the US air-defense network to penetration by foreign missiles mimicking UFOs, and evidence of Soviet advanced technology associated with UFO sightings.” (Gerald K. Haines, “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947–90,” Studies in Intelligence, 1997, pp. 67–84; William J. Broad, “CIA Admits Government Lied about UFO Sightings,” New York Times, August 3, 1997, p. 12; Mark Rodeghier, “The CIA’s UFO History,” IUR 22, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 3–6, 36; Bruce Maccabee, “CIA’s UFO Explanation Is Preposterous,” 2000; Swords 349–350; Clark

III 926–927; Kremlin 187–188)

August 4 — Two forest rangers in different towers near Hadashville, Manitoba, simultaneously observe a silver ball that hovers above the trees some distance away. A second object approaches the first and the two travel away together. (Chris Rutkowski, “1997 Canadian UFO Survey,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 15)

August 9 — 5:07 p.m. Swissair Flight 127 to Zürich, Switzerland, is flying northeast over Queens, New York, near John

F. Kennedy International Airport, when pilots Capt. Philippe Bobet and First Officer Kurt Grunder see a cylindrical, glowing-white object, about the size of a fuselage of a small light aircraft, heading toward the Boeing 747 at high speed. The airliner is in level flight at 20,000 feet and cruising at 390 mph in a cloudless sky, and the UFO is 100–200 feet above it. There is no noise from the object, and no trail or wake disturbance is detected. The near collision lasts about only one second. The object is not detected on radar, and it does not trigger the aircraft’s collision warning system. The object is explained as a weather balloon, which is spotted by a United Airlines pilot in nearly the same location and height 72 minutes after the incident. (NICAP, “Swiss Air Has Near Miss with UFO”; Don Berliner and Robert J. Durant, Near Miss with a UFO: Swissair Flight 127, UFO Research Coalition,

1999; Robert J. Durant, “Swissair jet Has ‘Near Miss’ with UFO,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 377 (September 1999): 3–9; Good Need, pp. 405–406)

August 12 — 1:00 a.m. Two police officers are on patrol near Lacock Road in Corsham, Wiltshire, England, when a triangular object flies past them at only 30 feet altitude and 45–50 mph. It heads to the northeast and is joined by a second object that seems to be following it. Their speed increases as they are lost to sight within seconds. (Marler 144–145)

September — Didier Charnay begins publishing UFO Log in Grenoble, France. It continues through autumn 2000. (UFO Log, no. 1 (September 1997))

September 29–October 3 — Through the auspices of the Society for Scientific Exploration and funded by Laurance Rockefeller, who has a long-time UFO interest, English physicist Peter A. Sturrock holds a workshop at the Pocantico Conference Center in Tarrytown, New York, in which UFO researchers present their best data to a panel of scientists agreeable to hearing them out. The panel is charged with deciding whether the available physical evidence can produce results that will lead to the resolution of the UFO question. For the panel, Sturrock recruits astronomers (and SSE members) Thomas E. Holzer and Charles R. Tolbert, electrical engineer Von R. Eshleman, geophysicist J. R. Jokipii, photoanalyst François Louange, geologist H. Jay Melosh, atmospheric physicist James J. Papike, radiation physician Günther Reitz, and plant biologist Bernard Veyret. To present the UFO evidence, Sturrock brings in aviation psychologist Richard F. Haines, German ufologist Illobrand von Ludwiger, CUFOS director Mark Rodeghier, retired NASA engineer John F. Schuessler, Norwegian ufologist Erling Strand, science professor Michael D. Swords, computer scientist Jacques Vallée, and SEPRA director Jean-Jacques Velasco. The panel makes several observations: The UFO problem is not a simple one, and it is unlikely that there is any simple, universal answer; whenever there are unexplained observations, there is the possibility that scientists will learn something new by studying them; studies should concentrate on cases that include as much independent physical evidence as possible; continuing contact between the UFO community and physical scientists could be productive; and institutional support for research in this area is desirable. After four days of presentations and discussions, Sturrock announces that the panel will issue a statement to be drafted later that encourages UFO study by scientists. (Michael D. Swords and Mark Rodeghier, “The History-Making

Sturrock Workshop,” IUR 23, no. 3 (Fall 1998): 3–8; Peter A. Sturrock, et al., “Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports: The Proceedings of a Workshop Held at the Pocantico Conference Center, Tarrytown, New York, September 29–October 4, 1997,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 12, no. 2 (1998): 179–229; Peter A. Sturrock, The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence, Warner, 1999; Clark III 1115–1117)

October 3 — The Chilean Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos begins operations in Santiago, Chile. Air Force Gen. Gonzalo Miranda has created the agency within the Department of Civil Aeronautics after the series of sightings in Arica earlier in the year. CEFAA is charged with compiling, analyzing, and studying every incident involving anomalous aerial phenomena observed by any aviation personnel, civil or military. (Kean, p. 191)

October 17 — In an effort to gauge the vulnerability of military satellites to laser attacks, the US military tests a directed energy weapon, Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL) developed by the US Navy in 1980, against an aging USAF reconnaissance satellite. From its location at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, MIRACL sends two blasts of its deuterium fluoride laser against MSTI-3 at a distance of 238 miles. The Pentagon claims mixed results because a computer glitch prevents the satellite from reporting back that the second shot has struck the target. (“Call it a MIRACL,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 54, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1998): 5–6)

November 4 — 6:00 p.m. Between Minehead and Porlock, Somerset, England, a man driving home in foggy conditions sees three white beams of light that suddenly permeate the fog from above and converge into a circle on the hood of his car. The electrical system fails, and he cannot restart it. After about 5 minutes the light beam disappears suddenly and the headlights come back on, so he resumes driving. When he gets home, he finds that his watch and car clock are 5 minutes slow and that a compass placed near the car gives a reading 90° from true. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 20)

November 13 — Night. Two witnesses are driving home near Lac La Biche, Alberta, when they see a diamond-shaped object, consisting of three white lights in the front and one red light in the rear, suddenly “turn on.” It hovers above trees about 900 feet away, and they can see the bottom of the object. (Chris Rutkowski, “1997 Canadian UFO Survey,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 15)

November 17 — Night. A woman sees an “inverted triangular object with no wings” outside her home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It has many rows of lights across its surface and is “lavender and steel gray” on one side, which is illuminated. (Chris Rutkowski, “1997 Canadian UFO Survey,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 15)

November 28–30 — The panelists from the Sturrock workshop reconvene in a San Francisco, California, hotel to draft a statement on science and UFOs, but the language continues to be hashed out and debated for months. The process goes on until April 27, 1998, when the report is sent to the editorial office of the Journal of Scientific Exploration. The report’s release engenders a mostly positive press response, but with little effect on scientists’ continuing refusal to examine UFO reports. (Clark III 1117)

December — Retired Sergeant-Major Cherd Chuensamnaun is deep in Buddhist meditation at his home in Nakhon Sawan, Thailand, when he begins receiving communications from space aliens. The following day his skeptical son and son-in-law Jaroen Raepeth are lifted up from the living room sofa and thrown outdoors into the yard. His daughter Wassana sees a 33–50-foot long UFO outside at treetop level. Cherd continues to transmit messages from the extraterrestrials (who hail from Pluto and another planet named Loku) until his death in 2000. His family now continues the tradition, and nearby Khao Kala hill regularly attracts crowds of meditating UFO enthusiasts. According to the opinions of a theologian from Silpakorn University, this cult is based on a combination of beliefs in ghosts, god, aliens, and Buddhism combined. (Wikipedia, “UFO Sightings in Thailand”; Richard S. Ehrlich, “The UFO Seekers Flocking to a RemoteThai Hilltop in Search of Buddhist Aliens,” CNN, October 6, 2019; “Buddhist Aliens,” Fortean Times 388 (January 2020): 6)

December 7–14 — The first World Forum of Ufology takes place in Brasília, Brazil, coordinated by the Brazilian Ufologists Commission. The coalition of researchers is comprised of Claudeir Covo, from the National Institute of Aerospace Phenomena Investigations (INFA); Rafael Cury, from the Núcleo de Pesquisas Ufológicas (NPU); Reginaldo de Athayde, from Ufological Research Center (CPU); Marco Antônio Petit, from Fluminense UFO Research Association (AFEU); and Ubirajara Franco Rodrigues and Ademar José Gevaerd, both from the Brazilian Center for Flying Saucer Research (CBPDV), the largest UFO group in the country. The event culminates in the Brasilia Letter, a document signed by nearly all ufologists present, representing their nations and research entities. The letter conveys the position of ufologists to the Brazilian government to take the necessary steps required to clarify the UFO question. (A. J. Gevaerd, “Brazilian Researchers Organize the Biggest UFO Conference Ever,” UFO Updates, December 8, 1997; Clark III 209; 2Pinotti 161)

December 8 — Night. After two brightly lit objects fly above Surrey, British Columbia, a large, disc-shaped, pewter- colored craft spins and bobs around in the sky. The witnesses give chase in their car, but lose sight of it. (Chris Rutkowski, “1997 Canadian UFO Survey,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 15)

December 14 — Seven people in Vancouver, British Columbia, see an object shaped like an “@” sign. It zooms into view and stops in mid-flight, appearing as a “flattened silver pyramid.” It bobs up and down then disappears suddenly. (Chris Rutkowski, “1997 Canadian UFO Survey,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 15)

December 22 — An object like an “airplane wing cross-sectioned” is seen by a witness near Halifax, Nova Scotia. It has a solid appearance and is slow-moving, disappearing after 8 minutes. (Chris Rutkowski, “1997 Canadian UFO Survey,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 15)

December 31 — 11:30 p.m. Many people in the area of Rzeszów, Poland, watch a spherical orange object. Jan Skobran and Maciej Robert see it briefly before it disappears. At 11:50 p.m., it reappears and they videotape it on VHS. After about 40 seconds it disappears, but another shows up at 12:20 a.m., pulsating with an intense orange glow. Seconds later it disappears, but another light appears over the Słocina forest. (Poland 153–154)

1998

1998 — The Roper Organization conducts a second survey on abductions, using the same indicators as its 1991 survey. This one is commissioned by Robert Bigelow’s National Institute for Discovery Science. Results indicate that the number of potential abductees has dropped from more than 3.7 million in 1991 to 2.2 million in 1998. (Mark Rodeghier, “Counting Abductees: What Can Surveys Tell Us?” IUR 25, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 21–23)

1998 — Podiatrist Roger K. Leir publishes The Aliens and the Scalpel, in which he reviews his investigation of alien implants since 1995. Leir has performed surgery to remove small objects from the feet and hands of 17 abductees. Robert Bigelow’s National Institute for Discovery Science provides the funding for the analysis of these objects. Some of the findings are potentially noteworthy—the objects are found on the left side of the body, most of them fluoresce under ultraviolet light, some are magnetic, and most appear metallic and seem to emit radio signals.

Calcium, copper, and iron are the most common constituents. Critics dismiss the objects as tiny slivers of metal or glass embedded in tissue and find no evidence for radio emissions. None of the objects reveal any apparent technological structure. (Roger K. Leir, The Aliens and the Scalpel: Scientific Proof of Extraterrestrial Implants

in Humans, Granite, 1998; Roger K. Leir, “Alien Implants and Physical Evidence,” MUFON 2005 International UFO Symposium Proceedings, MUFON, 2005; Clark III 11)

January — David Jacobs’s book The Threat expresses his belief that the aliens are not doing research; rather, they are carrying out a deliberate and massive breeding program using individuals from childhood onward and families for generations. The aliens create pregnancies, steal fetuses, and grow hybrids in vats and incubators. When those hybrids become children, they require emotional nurture from humans to thrive, so the aliens bring abductees back to touch and interact with the children. The abductees report seeing hybrids that look less and less like the gray aliens. Another series of hybridizations occurs as the aliens breed or engineer early-stage hybrids into progressively more human late-stage hybrids, who are all but indistinguishable from ordinary people (blond, blue- eyed Nordics). Some adult hybrids assist the aliens in their work, while others live on earth and mingle with humans for a time. Jacobs raises the alarm that apparent benevolence from the aliens is a con to lull us into complacency and hide their true intentions. (David M. Jacobs, The Threat: Revealing the Secret Alien Agenda, Simon & Schuster, 1998; Thomas E. Bullard, “Apocalypse in Gray,” IUR 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 20–27; Clark III 9, 10)

January 2 — 9:30 p.m. Fernando Mariano de Oliveira and Luciene da Cunha Lopes are in a townhouse on the Rua Luis Augusto Ferreira in the Capão Redondo neighborhood of São Paulo, Brazil, when they see a small luminous sphere about 8 inches in diameter moving up and down in the sky at variable speeds about 500 feet away from them. Other family members join them to watch the silent white light, and the neighborhood dogs bark constantly. Fernando’s brother, Alan Bruno de Oliveira, 10, picks up a camcorder and films the light with the help of his cousin Katiuscia da Cunha Lopes for 4.5 minutes. The light disappears around 10:00 p.m. (Brazil 385–392)

January 11 — 1:00 a.m. A pair of dark triangular objects appear to merge together over Cuddington, Cheshire, England. (Marler 145)

February — Night. Two young men are driving from Opole to Niemodlin, Poland, when the car radio goes off and the engine of their Polski Fiat 125p fails just as a large object flies over them. The lights, radio, and engine come back on by themselves after the object is gone, but they can still see it in the west as it apparently descends toward the road a mile or two ahead. From the top of a hill, they see it emitting a dazzling light and hovering above the trees. Suddenly it approaches them, flying 65–100 feet off the ground, and they speed ahead into town. (Poland 84–85)

February 17 — An Army intelligence document summarizes the “Bioeffects of Selected Nonlethal Weapons,” including microwave, acoustic, and radio-frequency directed energy devices. As for RF energy, “There is no sound propagated through the air like normal sound. This technology in its crudest form could be used to distract individuals; if refined, it could also be used to communicate with hostages or hostage takers directly by Morse code or other message systems, possibly even by voice communication.” And, “The phenomenon is tunable in that the characteristic sounds and intensities of those sounds depend on the characteristics of the RF energy as delivered. Because the frequency of the sound heard is dependent on the pulse characteristics of the RF energy, it seems possible that this technology could be developed to the point where words could be transmitted to be heard like the spoken word, except that it could only be heard within a person’s head. In one experiment, communication of the words from one to ten using ‘speech modulated’ microwave energy was successfully demonstrated. Microphones next to the person experiencing the voice could not pick up the sound. Additional development of this would open up a wide range of possibilities.” (US Army, “Bioeffects of Selected Nonlethal Weapons,” February 17, 1998)

Early March — William Weitzel and the Fund for UFO Research discover and later secure copies of the unsanitized, pre- redaction record copy 16mm microfilm of the Blue Book Files, filmed at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama, in February 1975 that the National Archives inadvertently makes available at the Archives II facility in College Park, Maryland. (Sparks, p. 6)

April 22 — 9:20 p.m. A former Canadian F-104 pilot watches a UFO embedded in a cloud of green light fly toward the south over his car as he is driving near Whistler, British Columbia. It is visible only a few seconds. Other witnesses further south see the UFO stop over Puget Sound for 5–10 seconds, jump instantly to another location, and hover again before speeding away to the south. (George Filer, “Washington Large Disc with Hole in Its Center,” Filer’s Files, #34-2007, August 22, 2007; Nukes 495)

April 22 — 9:23 p.m. Civilian Larry Swanson sees a disc-shaped UFO fly silently north to south at about 300–400 feet altitude over the center of Naval Submarine Base Bangor [now Naval Base Kitsap] on the Kitsap Peninsula, Washington. At one point, the disc tilts slightly, allowing Swanson to view its underside, which is glowing white

except for a central circular area about 30 feet in diameter. It slowly glides out of sight. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, January 28, 1999; Nukes 494–498)

June 5 — 10:30 p.m. Paul Best and his girlfriend are driving near Llanidloes, Powys, Wales, when they notice three triangular objects that are rounded on the bottom. They remain stationary for 6–7 minutes, then begin moving slowly before shooting away at high speed. (“UFOs Spotted near Llani,” Welshpool (UK) County Times, June 12, 1998, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 351 (October 1998): 14)

June 25 — 2:00 p.m. A witness and her children in Cleveland, Ohio, see 8 white, balloon-like objects moving across the sky into a large cloud, pausing before entering it one by one. They watch the cloud and follow it to the horizon, but the objects do not emerge. (Herbert S. Taylor, “Mystery Clouds and the UFO Connection,” IUR 29, no. 4 (July 2005): 16)

June 26 — Early morning. Two witnesses spot a triangular UFO hovering above Corbett Hospital in Stourbridge, England. The object has white lights at each corner and projects a white beam of light onto the buildings. (“Strange Shape in Sky,” Wolverhampton (UK) Express and Star, July 10, 1998, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 351 (October 1998): 11)

July 2 — 8:00 p.m. A couple working outside in their yard at Ticonderoga, New York, see a soundless, wingless object moving swiftly through the sky. The man takes a video of it as it flies past the eastern side of St. Mary’s Church. Probable aircraft. (Bruce Maccabee, “‘Flying Peanut’/Double UFO Video Seems to Be Authentic,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 369 (January 1999): 3–7; Wim van Utrecht, “Luminous Peanut over Ticonderoga, New York,” Caelestia)

July 21 — 11:19 p.m. An object the size of a small trailer appears suddenly over Napoleon, Ohio. It is emitting a dense fog and stays stationary for 7 minutes, then branches out and grows until 5 smaller craft are seen circling it. The large object seems to dissolve and disappear, the smaller objects still circling for another few minutes. (Herbert S. Taylor, “Cloud Cigars: A Further Look,” IUR 30, no. 3 (May 2006): 13)

August 10 — 12:00 noon–1:00 p.m. At least four witnesses at Quirindi, New South Wales, see “20 silver balls” performing complex maneuvers. Angel hair streams from the objects during acceleration and right-angle turns. The substance consolidates into long, white strands that slowly fall to earth, draping on telephone lines and trees. It is white, cotton-like, and strong, requiring a good tug to break, but quickly sublimates to nothing on handling. A sample is sent to UFO researcher Bill Chalker for analysis. Microscopic imaging by indicates it is spider web.

Another witness in Piallaway, New South Wales, reports similar material at 2:00 p.m. (Brian Boldman, “An Analysis of Angel Hair, 1947–2000,” IUR 26, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 10; Keith Basterfield, “Angel Hair: An Australian Perspective,” IUR 27, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 7; Brian Boldman, “Angel Hair Physical Analyses: A Review,” JUFOS 9 (2006): 107–108)

August 21 — Israeli-American astrophysicist Mario Livio speculates that extraterrestrials are not particularly rare, it’s just that the most likely time for them to have developed was 3 billion years ago. (Mario Livio, “How Rare Are Extraterrestrial Civilizations and When Did They Emerge?” arXiv, August 21, 1998)

September 13 — A sensationalized TV documentary, The Secret KGB UFO Files, is released in the US and hosted by actor Roger Moore, who recounts a dubious story about a Soviet crash/retrieval in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, in March 1969 that involved an alien autopsy. (Internet Movie Database, “The Secret KGB UFO Files”; “The Secret KGB UFO Files, 1998,” M TUFONC YouTube channel, September 24, 2019)

September 14 — Lt. Col. Enrique Rocamora, in charge of declassification of UFO reports for the Spanish Air Force from 1993 to 1999, enters the 57th staff course at the Escuela Superior del Aire in Madrid, Spain. Along with consultations and contributions from Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, he creates a massive monograph, “The Process of Declassification of UFO Documentation in the Air Force,” with 10 chapters and 16 attachments amounting to 296 pages. (Swords 428, 523)

September 28 — UFO researchers Ion Hobana, Harald Alexandrescu, and Dan D. Farcaş establish the Asociația pentru Studiul Fenomenelor Aerospațiale Neidentificate (ASFAN) with offices in the Admiral Vasile Urseanu Astronomical Observatory in Bucharest, Romania. (Romania 69–70; “Association for the Study of Unidentified Space Phenomena (ASFAN), Romania”)

October — Scott Corrales begins publishing Inexplicata: The Journal of Hispanic Ufology. It persists through December 2004 but continues as a blog in December 2005. (Inexplicata: The Journal of Hispanic Ufology, no. 1 (Fall 1998); Inexplicata blog)

October 18 — 12:40 p.m. Dave Rose is at Sandwell Valley, West Midlands, England, with his parents when they see a motionless sphere in the sky. After 20 minutes another object, a metallic-looking triangular UFO, also appears. The triangle moves from side to side in short bursts before vanishing completely. The sphere dwindles to a dark spot in another 10 minutes. (“Did You See This UFO?” Wolverhampton (UK) Express and Star, October 29, 1998, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 353 (December 1998): 12)

October 19 — Four different radar stations in Hebei province, China, pick up an unknown target moving above a military flight training base near Cangzhou. At least 140 observers at the base see the object as a small star that grows larger and larger as it descends. It has a mushroom-shaped dome on top and a flat bottom covered with rotating lights. The base commander scrambles a Shenyang J-6 fighter, which gets to within 2.5 miles of the UFO over Qing County, whereupon it abruptly shoots upward. The UFO plays cat and mouse with the jet, appearing and reappearing. Permission to fire on the UFO is denied by ground control. The fighter is forced to return after running low on fuel, and the UFO disappears before other aircraft arrive. (Good Need, p. 393)

November 6 — 3:00 a.m. A man is driving with his wife near Childers, Queensland, when he sees an object moving quickly across the road. Five minutes later he sees a green beam of light shining down from the sky. The light source seems to be about 3,000 feet above them. Both he and his wife, who is asleep in the car, experience swelling in the hands and lips, as well as headaches. They both feel compelled to take their wedding rings off and sense that something else will happen to them. (“Australian CE2,” IUR 24, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 12)

November 6 — 7:00 a.m. A witness in Bothell, Washington, sees a thin, horizontal cloud that tilts and descends. A taller horizontal cloud tilts to the left, but it soon appears to be a dark, cylindrical object. Two small oval clouds emerge from a larger cloud. All of the objects slowly descend past the Cascades Mountains. A few jets fly toward them one at a time, until 9:30 p.m. (Herbert S. Taylor, “Mystery Clouds and the UFO Connection,” IUR 29, no. 4 (July 2005): 26)

November 11 — 11:55 a.m. Two daylight discs are seen by Ms. R. M. Jones as she is driving through Alexander, Arkansas: “The first was larger, more white, more stationary and lasted longer. The second was a white cigar sort of thing, sort of shimmery.” (“UFOs Dominate Night Sky over Arkansas,” UFO Roundup 3, no. 49, December 7, 1998)

November 27 — 7:00–7:30 p.m. A woman is driving east on 25 Mile Road north of Mount Clemens, Michigan, when she sees a “highly intense,” basketball-sized ball of white light coming directly at her from the right at high speed.

There is no sound and no time to avoid a collision. The object hits the car with a low thud, but the car’s motion is not affected. She does not see it again and continues driving home. Upon inspecting her car, she finds a cream- colored residue where it hit the car, forming a streak about 12–13 inches long that is broken in several spots. The residue is saved and after several months it is sent to analytical chemist Phyllis Budinger for tests and analysis.

The results show prominent components of kaolin (aluminum silicate), a hydrated metal (perhaps manganese) oxide, and a celluloidal material. Only the oxide is not attributable to the car’s own finish. There is no evidence of heat transferred to the car’s paint. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFO/Vehicle Very Close Encounters,” IUR 27, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 3–5)

November 30 — Night. Bright blue-white lights are seen throughout Sussex County, Delaware. One man reports a “large blue light that was moving all over erratically,” with smaller lights coming from the larger one. Local researcher Jane Segal receives reports that “fighters from Dover Air Force Base were flying all over the region.” (“UFOs Seen by Many in Southern Delaware,” UFO Roundup 3, no. 49, December 7, 1998)

December — 5:45 p.m. Christopher Cabrera is at the end of his patrol shift at Area 2 in Nellis AFB in Nevada and chatting with a few other guards. All four of them notice three extremely bright amber lights in front of them in the southeast blinking sequentially in a vertical, triangular formation. The bottom two lights are about 100 feet off the ground and a quarter-mile away. They seem to be attached to one solid object that blocks out the stars behind it. It remains eerily silent. The event lasts about 10 seconds and the lights are so bright that it looks like daytime. The guards report the incident to the Flight Chief, who tells them not to repeat the story to anyone or they will be eligible for dishonorable discharge. (Robert L. Hastings, “Triangular-Shaped UFO Sighted at the Nellis AFB Nuclear Storage Area,” UFOs & Nukes, April 23, 2015)

December 2 — Night. UFO activity in Brisbane, Queensland, consists of a bright white light, an orange ball of light, and a missing time experience, all by different witnesses. (“UFOs Converge on Brisbane,” UFO Roundup 3, no. 49, December 7, 1998)

December 3 — 11:30 p.m. A witness is driving in Kirkland, Washington, when she notices a cluster of four white lights and one red light to the south. They seem to be approaching, and when she arrives home she sees they are attached to a large equilateral triangle that passes overhead. (Marler 227–228)

December 11 — During mission STS-88, the crew of Space Shuttle Endeavor takes photos of an unusual dark object in low earth orbit. Conspiracy theorists claim it is an alien satellite, dubbed the Black Knight, in polar orbit around the Earth. However, the object is later identified as a thermal blanket that became dislodged and lost during a December 9 EVA by astronauts Jerry L. Ross and James H. Newman during their installation of antennas on the International Space Station. (Wikipedia, “Black Knight satellite conspiracy theory”; Lorenzen, UFOs: The Whole Story, Signet, 1969, p. 220; James Oberg, “Phantom Satellite?” PowerPoint presentation; Martina Redpath, “The Truth about the Black Knight Satellite Mystery,” Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, July 18, 2013)

1999

1999 (or 2000) — Retired NASA psychologist Richard F. Haines founds the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena as a place for pilots, crews, and air-traffic controllers to report their UFO sightings on a confidential basis. Ted Roe is executive director and Haines is the chief research scientist. (“New Organization Promotes Aviation Safety in UFO Sightings,” IUR 25, no. 4 (Winter 2000–2001): 22, 30; Richard F. Haines, “NARCAP’s Project Sphere: Are Spherical UAP a Threat to Aviation Safety?” IUR 33, no. 2 (July 2010): 4–5; Clark III 553)

1999 — Austrian astrobiologist Helmut Lammer and his wife Marion publish MILABS: Military Mind Control and Alien Abduction, a review of people claiming to have been abducted by military personnel who interrogate them about their UFO experiences, remove or insert implants, and perform medical examinations and memory eradication. (Helmut Lammer and Marion Lammer, MILABS: Military Mind Control and Alien Abduction, IllumiNet, 1999; Helmut Lammer, “Preliminary Findings of Project-MILAB: Evidence for Military Kidnappings of Alleged UFO- Abductees,” October 16, 1996; Helmut Lammer, “Further Findings of Project-MILAB: Looking behind the Alien/Military Abduction Agenda,” August 13, 1997; Malcolm Robinson, “MILABS: Military Mind Control and Alien Abduction,” Strange Phenomena Investigations England, 2001)

1999 — Harvard University psychologist John E. Mack publishes a second book on abductions, Passport to the Cosmos, in which he continues to focus on the experience as transformative and ultimately benevolent. Much of the experience consists of a life lesson in symbolic form, Mack asserts. The hybrids combine the human and alien in a shared mission to save the Earth. The nurturing of hybrid children emphasizes the importance of emotion, and the otherness of the aliens awakens a sense that humans are not the apex of existence. The shock and terror of kidnap by unearthly beings breaks the illusion that the world is under our control. Although Mack hears the usual accounts of examinations and reproductive procedures from dozens of other experiencers, he still reads these events as symbolic agents of the larger purpose to save Earth from humans and humans from themselves.

Whether or not the abductors are extraterrestrial hardly matters. (John E. Mack, Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters, Crown, 1999; Clark III 9, 10)

January 22 — Peter Gersten, executive director of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy, files a FOIA lawsuit in federal district court in Phoenix, Arizona, to release documents relating to the Phoenix Lights and (later) the St. Clair Triangle in Illinois in 2000. The Department of Defense files a motion to dismiss the suit. Assistant US Attorney Richard Patrick says the department has conducted a reasonable search for information requested by Gersten’s group and cannot find any records. (“UFO Lawsuit to Get Hearing,” Phoenix Arizona Republic, February 4, 2000)

January 22 — 7:03 a.m. A witness driving south on State Highway 3 near the off-ramp to Naval Submarine Base Bangor [now Naval Base Kitsap] on the Kitsap Peninsula, Washington, sees an orange volleyball-sized light 20 feet above the overpass moving at 60–70 mph toward the base. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, February 11, 2003; Nukes 498)

February 3 — A British Debonair Bae146 charter jet encounters a “long cylindrical object” the size of a battleship while flying at 28,000 feet over the North Sea off Denmark. The captain observes rows of square portholes on the UFO just before it bathes the airliner in incandescent light. The object comes to an abrupt halt, then accelerates past the airplane at an incredible speed. RAF radar stations track the object, which is also seen from three other nearby aircraft. A Civil Aviation Authority source says the object is tracked by a military radar station in Yorkshire after it enters British air space. (“North Sea Encounter,” IUR 24, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 31)

March — Kevin D. Randle, Russ Estes, and William Cone publish The Abduction Enigma, offering a rigorous critique of the alien explanation for the abduction phenomenon and arguing instead that abductee personalities, cultural ideas, and investigator influences have coalesced to create false memories. (Kevin D. Randle, Russ Estes, and

William Cone, The Abduction Enigma: The Truth behind the Mass Alien Abductions of the Late Twentieth Century, Forge, 1999; Thomas E. Bullard, [review], JUFOS 7 (2000): 94–106)

March 5 — Midnight. A diamond-shaped UFO is blamed for the unexplained collapse of a theatre roof in Kimberley, British Columbia. An object covered with flashing lights is seen by several witnesses prior to the incident. (East Kootenay (B.C.) Weekly, March 23, 1999; “Recent UFO Cases,” IUR 24, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 31)

March 24 — Night. Five people in the towns of Brinsley, Nottinghamshire, and Crich and Belper, Derbyshire, England, watch a flying object that looks like a black wedge with two bright headlights. The blunt end of the wedge is facing forward as it flies at about 35 mph. (“‘Black Wedge’ Seen in Skies over Town,” Belper (UK) News, March 24, 1999, via UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 360 (July 1999): 13)

April 2 — Two Chilean national police officers see a UFO hovering above Mount Balmaceda in Puerto Natales, Tierra del Fuego, Chile. They see red, green, and yellow lights on the object, which performs several side-to-side displacements as it hovers near the summit. (La Tercera (Santiago), April 4, 7, 1999; “Recent UFO Cases,” IUR 24, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 31)

April 7 — 10:58 p.m. A woman is looking through the second-story window of her home in East Falmouth, Massachusetts. She sees strange, double, white lights resembling car headlights attached to a triangular object silently moving across the sky through the maple trees. It is in view for only 4–5 seconds. (“Recent UFO Cases,” IUR 24, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 31)

June 9 — A huge fall of “white filamentous threads” covers hedges, trees, and power lines over 10,000 square kilometers in Esperance, Western Australia. Some strands are 30 feet in length. Witness Marilyn Burnet has a sample analyzed and finds copper, aluminum, zinc, iron, sodium, manganese, silicon, and other minerals. (Brian Boldman, “Angel Hair Physical Analyses: A Review,” JUFOS 9 (2006): 108; Keith Basterfield, “Angel Hair: An Australian Perspective,” IUR 27, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 7–8)

June 30 — 11:00 a.m. Two witnesses are walking their dog in the Park Zachodni in Wrocław, Poland, when they see a blue-gray, disc-shaped object with a row of blue lights pass over the trees to the northeast. Another similar object follows a similar path shortly afterward. (Poland 83–84)

July 2 — Abduction researcher and folklorist Thomas E. Bullard expands on his description of the abduction experience in an examination of 437 reports from the literature. He looks at location and duration, the sequence of the episodes and common events within each, the appearance and behavior of the entities, interior and exterior descriptions of the UFO, and the mental and physical controls the aliens use on the abductees. (Thomas E. Bullard, “What’s New in Alien Abduction? Has the Story Changed in 30 Years?” MUFON 1999 International UFO Symposium Proceedings, MUFON, 1999, pp. 170–199; Clark III 13–22)

July 16 — A 90-page report, Les OVNI et la Defense: A Quoi doit-on se Préparer? (UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare for?), is published as the result of an in-depth study of UFOs carried out over several years by an independent group of former advanced workshop participants at the Institut des Hautes Études de Défense Nationale in Paris, France, and by other experts. Before its public release, it is sent to President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. The report is prefaced by Gen. Bernard Norlain of the Air Force and begins with a preamble by André Lebeau, former president of the Centre National d’Études Spatiales. The Comité d’Études Approfondies (COMETA) group, collective author of the report, is presided over by Gen. Denis Letty of the Air Force. The report analyzes various UFO cases and concludes that UFOs are real, complex flying objects, and that the extraterrestrial hypothesis has a high probability of being the correct explanation for the UFO phenomenon. The study recommends that the French government should adjust to the reality of the phenomenon and conduct further research. (Comité d’Études Approfondies, “UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare For?” part 1 and part 2, July 16, 1999; Gildas Bourdais, “The French Report on UFOs and Defense: A Summary”; Swords 449–450; Mark Rodeghier, ed., “The 1999 French Report on UFOs and Defense,” IUR 25, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 20–22, 30; Gildas Bourdais, “From GEPAN to SEPRA: Official UFO Studies in France,” IUR 25, no. 4 (Winter 2000–2001): 10)

July 27 — Day. Several people living near the shore of Lake Backsjön, near Gunnarskog, Värmlands, Sweden, see and hear a rocket-shaped object plunge into the water. The object is 6–10 feet long and descends at high speed, creating a splash in the water before sinking. One witness contacts the rescue station at Arvika, who in turn contact the police and military. Stellan Jansson, chief of staff for the I 2/Fo52 Värmland Regiment, interviews the witnesses. In September, the army begins an intensive search of the lake under the code name Operation Sea Find using divers, sonar equipment, and a mini-sub. The operation conducts a 10-day search and examines 75% of the lake, but the search is discontinued on September 16 after finding no evidence. On October 1, a secret report is

completed for military intelligence in Stockholm. (Clas Svahn and Eileen Fletcher, “The Swedish Military and UFOs,” IUR 25, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 16–17; Swords 370)

September — The peer-reviewed European Journal of UFO and Abduction Studies is launched in Southampton, England, by Totton College psychology professor Craig A. Roberts. Its editorial board features UFO researchers in the UK, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, France, and Italy. It continues through the September 2002 issue. (European Journal of UFO and Abduction Studies, launch volume (September 1999))

September 30 — 10:35 a.m. A serious criticality incident takes place in the Tokaimura uranium processing facility operated by JCO in the village of Tokai, Iberaki Prefeccture, Japan. The accident occurs as three workers are preparing a small batch of fuel for the Jōyō experimental fast breeder reactor, using uranium enriched to 18.8% with the radioisotope uranium-235 (with the remainder being the fertile uranium-238). It is JCO’s first batch of fuel for that reactor in three years, and no proper qualification and training requirements appear to have been established to prepare those workers for the job. A precipitation tank reaches critical mass when its fill level, containing about 35 pounds of uranium, reaches about 11 gallons. The two technicians who receive the higher doses die several months later. (Wikipedia, “Tokaimura nuclear accidents”)

October 9 — The last flight of a temporarily reactivated SR-71 Blackbird takes place. (Wikipedia, “Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird”)

October 9 — 7:57 p.m. While fishing off Fort Pickens near Pensacola, Florida, an ex-Air Force security policeman and a city police officer watch a triangular UFO with high-intensity blue arcing lights traveling west over the Gulf of Mexico in a zigzag fashion. It is about 200 feet in the air, a quarter of a mile distant, and moving at 115–350 mph. At least four times it seems to hover for 30 seconds. After 15 minutes, it moves away to the west. (George Filer, “Florida Triangle with Blue Ionization near Gulf Breeze,” Filer’s Files, #43-1999, October 18, 1999)

October 10 — 11:45 p.m. A couple in Lewiston, Michigan, see a hazy, pulsing object outside their bedroom window.

Other lights seem to be flying around it, so that it resembles moths flying around a light bulb. They watch it for 45 minutes, then go back to sleep. (Herbert S. Taylor, “Cloud Cigars: A Further Look,” IUR 30, no. 3 (May 2006): 13)

October 29 — 5:45 p.m. A man and woman in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, see a nickel-colored object emerge from a strange contrail-like cloud and fly back into it. A few seconds later, it shoots out again and circles around it for 15 minutes. About an hour later, they see jets flying around, apparently searching for the object. (Herbert S. Taylor, “Cloud Cigars: A Further Look,” IUR 30, no. 3 (May 2006): 13)

November 11 — A sample of “angel hair” is recovered from a fall in Sacramento, California, and sent to analytical chemist Phyllis Budinger for Fourier Transform infrared spectrometry analysis. She finds that the fibrous material is not spider web but consists of a silk-like substance containing secondary amide linkages similar to protein. It also contains volatile hydrocarbons. (Brian Boldman, “An Analysis of Angel Hair, 1947–2000,” IUR 26, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 14–15)

November 11 — 8:30 p.m. Two men are loading gravel onto a truck in Tomelilla, Skåne, Sweden, when they see a boomerang-shaped object flying overhead, blocking out the stars. The object is solid and observed for 5–10 seconds. UFO-Sweden researchers Clas Svahn and Anders Persson check with the Swedish military for their radar data at the time and find that it has recorded many targets. They conclude that a flock of migrating birds, probably eiders, flying in formation is responsible. (Clas Svahn and Eileen Fletcher, “The Swedish Military and UFOs,” IUR 25, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 17–18)

December — Cao Gong, a middle-aged man from Beijing, China, claims he is abducted by aliens and flown to Qinhuangdao, Hebei province, in a UFO. The entities look like humans but have large hands and are very pale. Zhang Jingping of the World Chinese UFO Association begins to investigate the Cao case in April 2000 and has him hypnotically regressed by a psychologist from Suzhou. Cao also passes a lie detector test at the Beijing Bureau of Public Security. Cao remembers meeting in the spacecraft a Chinese girl who looks about 13 years old. She tells him the aliens cured her of a disease. Zhang brings Cao to the Tangshan Bureau of Public Security in July 2000, where the police construct a computer reconstruction of the girl’s face according to his description. In November 2002, Zhang leads a group of students from Beihang University on a trip to Qinhuangdao to look for the girl. They arrive in Qinglong County and begin a blind search among the area’s 400,000 inhabitants. On the second day, an old man recognizes the girl in the image. They locate her and she turns out to be 15 years old.

Zhang brings her back to Beijing to meet Cao Gong, who identifies her as the girl he met. (Bill Chalker, “The

Untold Story of UFOs in China: Lost in Translation or the Devouring Dragon?” New Dawn Special Issue 14, no. 1 (January 2020))

2000

2000 — Ufologist Richard H. Hall completes a sequel to NICAP’s 1964 report to Congress. The UFO Evidence, Volume II covers UFO sightings since 1964. (Richard H. Hall, The UFO Evidence, Volume II: A Thirty Year Report, Scarecrow, 2000)

2000 — Walter Andrus retires as director of MUFON and is replaced by John Schuessler. ()

2000 — Ufologist Chris Rutkowski and Ufology Research of Manitoba begin receiving UFO reports made to Canadian agencies, allowing them to create a yearly statistical report on sightings in Canada. (Chris Rutkowski, Canada’s UFOs: Declassified, August Night, 2022, p. 11)

2000 — Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos launches UFO FOTOCAT, a project to create a worldwide catalog of UFO photos.

He eventually accumulates close to 13,000 cases in the database. Based on its content, Ballester Olmos releases eight research reports as of August 2020. (“The Year 1954 in Photos (Expanded)”; “Argentina: The Year 1965 in Photos”; “Avistamientos OVNI en la Antártida en 1965”; “Norway in UFO Photographs: The First Catalogue”; “Spheres in Airborne UAP Imagery”; “An Approach to UFO Pictures in France”; “Belgium in UFO Photographs, vol. 1 (1950–1988)”; and “The Marfa Lights: Examining the Photographic Evidence (2003–2007)”)

2000 — The National Nuclear Security Administration is created by Congress in the wake of the Wen Ho Lee spy scandal and other allegations that the Department of Energy’s lax administration has resulted in the loss of nuclear secrets to China. It is a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy responsible for safeguarding national security through the military application of nuclear science. (Wikipedia, “National Nuclear Security Administration”)

2000 — Polish journalist and author Igor Witkowski publishes Prawda o Wunderwaffe, describing a purported top-secret Nazi technological device or secret weapon called Die Glocke (“The Bell”). It is later popularized by military journalist and author Nick Cook in The Hunt for Zero Point, who associates it with Nazi occultism, antigravity, and free energy research. Mainstream reviewers have criticized claims about Die Glocke as being pseudoscientific, recycled rumors, and a hoax. Die Glocke and other alleged Nazi “miracle weapons” have since been dramatized in video games, television shows, and novels. (Wikipedia, “Die Glocke (conspiracy theory)”; Igor Witkowski, The Truth about the Wunderwaffe, European History Press, 2013; Nick Cook, The Hunt for Zero Point: Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology, Broadway, 2002)

2000 — The results of the Russian Setka program are disclosed by Boris Sokolov, coordinator of Setka-MO, and Yulii Platov, deputy coordinator of Setka-AN, in an article in the Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

According to them, 90% of the anomalous atmospheric phenomena observed in Russian territory can be explained by the effects of human activities (especially rockets and weather balloon launches), while the remaining 10% are unexplained. For the latter cases, they could be rare or still unknown natural phenomena. However, no evidence is found of UFO landings, crashes, close encounters, or alien abductions. No evidence of an extraterrestrial UFO origin has emerged either. Paul Stonehill, a Russian UFO scholar, believes that only the results of Setka-AN’s studies are disclosed, while those of Setka-MO still remain secret. Stonehill further claims there is nothing to indicate that anyone in the Setka program attempted to seriously analyze the cases that remain unexplained. (Paul Stonehill and Philip Mantle, The Soviet UFO Files: Paranormal Encounters behind the Iron Curtain, Quadrillion, 1998, pp. 43, 52; Pyotr N. Rybalko, “Bureaucratized Pseudoscience,” RIAP Bulletin 6, no. 2–3 (Apr./Sept. 2000): 11–12; Boris Sokolov and Yulii Platov, “A History of State UFO Research in the USSR,” Skeptical Briefs 10, no. 4 (December 1, 2000))

2000 — Mathematician Karsten Jöred replaces Arne Gjärdman as head of UFO investigations at the Swedish National Defence Research Institute. He holds the position until 2006. (Swords 370)

2000 — Alleged abductee Stan Romanek of Loveland, Colorado, claims his first UFO experience. He has many experiences with aliens since then, allegedly discovering mysterious wounds on his body that glow under a black light and claiming electronic communications with aliens. He also claims aliens have followed his car, visited his home, and communicated with him telepathically. In 2003, he claims he woke up and found himself wearing a ladies’ flannel nightgown, which makes him suspect he has been abducted and returned in woman’s clothing.

Romanek eventually comes to suspect that the clothing belongs to another supposed abductee, Betty Hill. When asked if the gown has been tested for Hill’s DNA, Romanek claims that it has not because the test is too expensive. Appearing on ABC Primetime in 2009, Romanek makes the unsubstantiated claims that he

underwent hypnosis by R. Leo Sprinkle, a psychologist who specializes in alien abduction cases. Romanek claims

that under hypnosis he wrote out the Drake equation, a formula used to estimate the number of communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy, and then added “x100” to it. Skeptic Joe Nickell suggests the equation is written through simple memorization. On August 8, 2017, Romanek is found guilty of felony possession

of child pornography. (Erik Dofge, “New Alien Video Shines (Photoshopped) Light on UFO Hoaxers,” Popular Mechanics, June 8, 2008; Alan Scherstuhl, “In Kansas City, Celebrity UFO-Filmer Stan Romanek Finds an Audience of Believers—and One Reporter,” The Pitch (Kansas City), August 13, 2009; “Man Claims Aliens Send Him Messages,” ABC News, August 18, 2009; Joe Nickell, “Abductions or Hoaxes? The Man Who Attracts Aliens,” Skeptical Inquirer 34, no. 3 (May/June 2010): 19–20; Jack Brewer, “Ufology Indicted,” The UFO Trail, August 7, 2016)

January 5 — Shortly after 4:00 a.m. The “St. Clair Triangle,” “UFO Over Illinois,” “Southern Illinois UFO,” or “Highland, Illinois UFO” sighting takes place over the towns of Highland, Dupo, Lebanon, Shiloh, Summerfield, Millstadt, and O’Fallon, Illinois. Five on-duty police officers around these locales, along with various other eyewitnesses, report a massive, silent, triangular or rectangular craft operating at an unusual treetop-level altitude and speeds. One of the police officers manages to get a single yet ambiguous Polaroid photograph of the object. The incident is examined in the ABC special Seeing Is Believing with Peter Jennings, an hour-long Discovery Channel special UFOs Over Illinois, an episode of the 2004 Syfy series Proof Positive, and a 30-minute independent documentary titled The Edge of Reality: Illinois UFO, January 5, 2000 by Darryl Barker Productions. (Wikipedia, “Black triangle (UFO)”; “Police Officers in St. Clair County Report Seeing Early- Morning UFO,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 9, 2000, pp. D1–D2; “UFO Sighting Brings Media Attention, Investigative Team to Southern Illinois,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 12, 2000, pp. A1, A6; “UFO Baffles Observers,” Waterloo (Iowa) Republic-Times, January 12, 2000, p. 2; “Buffs Baffled by UFO,” Chicago Sun- Times, January 20, 2000; David B. Marler, “Illinois Police Officers Track UFO near Scott AFB,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 383 (March 2000): 3–8; Internet Movie Database, “UFOs over Illinois”; “Illinois UFO, January 5, 2000,” IUR 26, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 16; “Hypothesis: The Illinois Flying Triangle Is a Department of Defense, Not an ET Craft,” National Institute for Discovery Science, July 2002; Darryl Barker, “The Illinois Triangle? Do We Have the Technology?” Darryl Barker Productions, August 2, 2002; Internet Movie Database, “Proof Positive,” Episode 108, November 24, 2004; Internet Movie Database, “Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs, Seeing Is Believing”; “UFOs: Seeing Is Believing (2005), ABC Documentary,” Movie Buff Guy YouTube channel, June 18, 2019; Thomas E. Bullard, “Defending UFOs,” IUR 34, no. 2 (March 2012): 33; Marler 26–60; Skinwalkers

106–108)

January 5 — Bill Sweetman writes in Jane’s International Defence Review that there are approximately 150 “special access programs” within the Pentagon at the close of 1999, many of which are unacknowledged. They often have completely independent systems of classification, with total control exercised by the program manager. He concludes that most are dominated not by Defense personnel but by private contractors. He has no idea how they are funded. (Bill Sweetman, “In Search of the Pentagon’s Billion Dollar Hidden Budgets: How the US Keeps Its R&D Spending under Wraps,” Jane’s International Defense Review, January 5, 2000)

January 10 — 9:00 p.m. A young man near Sézanne, Marne, France, encounters a bright white light near the town water tower. His engine cuts out and the radio stops working. (Mark Rodeghier, “Vehicle Interference near Sézanne,” IUR 33, no. 3 (December 2010): 8–9)

March 1 — In a campaign press conference in Stockton, California, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) acknowledges that the Phoenix Lights incident “has never been fully explained, but I have to tell you that I do not have any evidence whatsoever of aliens or UFOs.” (Kean, p. 250)

March 30 — 5:00 a.m. Leah Isaac, a friend, and their small boy are driving on the Klondike Highway at the west end of Little Fox Lakes, Yukon Territory, when they spot a 40-foot wide disc hovering some 300 feet away. The UFO shoots across the road at “incredible speed,” then stopped abruptly for a split second before shooting off at a 90º angle. The car’s headlights dim and the tape deck ceases working when the UFO is nearby. Leah’s analog watch stops, and her friend’s digital watch goes blank. (Martin Jasek and Mark Rodeghier, “Vehicle Interference at Little Fox Lake, Yukon,” IUR 25, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 23–24, 32)

March 30 — US District Court Judge Stephen M. McNamee dismisses the CAUS lawsuit seeking documents on the Phoenix Lights in Arizona, concluding that “a reasonable search was conducted” by the Department of Defense, even though no information was found. (Kean, pp. 251–253)

April — Sergio Sánchez and Diego Zúñiga launch the UFO magazine La Nave de los Locos in Santiago, Chile, which continues until October 2006. (La Nave de los Locos, no. 1 (April 2000))

Early July — Evening. Ceri Kenyon is walking home in Littleborough, Greater Manchester, England, when he sees a flickering object in the sky. As he approaches, he hears a buzzing sound and sees that it is a triangular object surrounded by lights. (Marler 223–224)

July 17 — 10:50 p.m. A witness in Silverdale, Washington, sees four orange lights descending to the west over the Olympic Mountains. When the second to last light is gone, the witness sees a flash like an explosion. About 15 minutes later, another orange light appears, moving south to north at a speed too slow for a meteor. It descends behind the same mountain. A Blackhawk helicopter is visible in the same area at the same time. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, February 11, 2003; Nukes 498–499)

August — Two police officers in Halifax, Nova Scotia, watch a large, triangular-shaped object hovering just above the trees. It is about 660 feet on each side. (Don Ledger, “The Flying Triangle Phenomenon,” IUR 27, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 7)

August 5 —11:30 a.m. A witness spots a silver disc in the sky over Old Noarlunga, South Australia, and calls out his wife to watch. Over the next 90 minutes they see 3 whitish additional balls and something that looks like a helicopter, all traveling west to east. Long, silver, cobweb-like substance falls in large wads or strands. Once touched with a stick, it shrivels up and evaporates. Similar material falls on Moana and Aldinga Beach, where one witness also sees a bright light. (Keith Basterfield, “Angel Hair: An Australian Perspective,” IUR 27, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 8)

August 20 — 3:09 p.m. Two blurry round objects appear in a photograph hovering above the copse of trees next to the High Water Mark of the Rebellion Monument on the Gettysburg Battlefield, Pennsylvania. They are not noticed at the time the photo is taken. (Patrick Gross, “Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA, 2000”)

September — UFO researchers Karl Pflock and Peter Brookesmith organize an invitation-only symposium to re-evaluate the Betty and Barney Hill abduction case in depth. It takes place at the Indian Head Resort in Lincoln, New Hampshire, near the site of the abduction event itself. The other researchers are Dennis Stacy, Marcello Truzzi, Thomas E. Bullard, Hilary Evans, Robert Sheaffer, Joe Firmage, and Greg Sandow. Betty Hill joins the group for an evening’s entertainment and a morning tour of the site where the abduction took place. The essays written by participants, along with reflections by Walter N. Webb and an appendix by Martin S. Kottmeyer, are compiled in Encounters at Indian Head. (Karl T. Pflock and Peter Brookesmith, eds., Encounters at Indian Head, Anomalist, 2007; Robert Sheaffer, “Betty Hill’s Last Hurrah: A Secret UFO Symposium in New Hampshire,” Skeptical Inquirer 31, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 2007); Greg Sandow, “The Hill Case and the Limits of Ufology,” IUR 31, no. 4 (March 2008): 3–7, 19–28)

September 3 — 9:30 p.m. A man is out walking in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, when he sees a large and unusual aircraft looming up over the skyline. It is black with no discernible tail section and is shooting three powerful beams of light from dome-like globes set in a triangular pattern on its underside. Small red lights appear on the tips of its swept-back wings. (UFOFiles2, pp. 139–140)

September 27 — 9:45 p.m. Four men are camped in a trailer at a rural hunting camp near Challis, Idaho. One goes out to the truck for food and sees a massive, dark, triangular object hovering motionless above him. He yells for the others to come out, lights on the object turn on, and it slowly moves toward the nearby mountains. When it reaches one, it tips upward and ascends the side of the mountain vertically. When it reaches the top, it tips forward and disappears from sight. (Marler 228–229)

October 15 — Richard Haines’s National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena releases a 90-page report that summarizes more than 100 UFO incidents reported by pilots and their crews, including 56 near misses, all affecting aircraft safety. Most cases involve multiple witnesses, and many are backed by ground radio communications and radar corroboration. Experienced pilots present accounts of objects, ranging from silver discs to green fireballs, flying loops around passenger aircraft, pacing planes despite pilots’ evasive attempts, or flooding cockpits with blinding light. Haines documents cases with electromagnetic interference on navigation and operating systems. He writes that a crew’s ability to perform its duties safely is disrupted when the crew is faced with “extremely bizarre, unexpected, and prolonged luminous and/or solid phenomena cavorting near their aircraft.” The primary danger is in the human response, since the objects do not appear to be hostile and seem to be able to avoid collisions using extraordinary maneuvers. (Richard F. Haines, “Aviation Safety in America: A Previously Neglected Factor,” National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, October 15, 2000)

October 31 — After sunset. A woman delivering pizzas in Cygnet, Ohio, is stopped along Cygnet Road when she sees an elongated, football-shaped object clearly visible just beyond a thin grove of trees ahead of her. It is slowly moving westward toward and above Interstate 75, which is busy with cars and large trucks. It hovers for a few seconds

and turns brighter, then shoots off westward in a streak of light. Two men driving north on I-75 also see the object. (John P. Timmerman, “Possible Close Encounter in NW Ohio,” IUR 25, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 18)

November — 7:00 p.m. A retired law enforcement officer and several friends are cooking dinner over an open fire in a wooded area near Elsberry, Missouri, when they see a huge flying wing with white lights on each end. It seems to be flying completely silently at 3,000 feet. They watch it for 30 seconds before it disappears into the southeast. ()

November 4 — Two witnesses near the Del Lago Golf Club north of Vail, Arizona, see a teardrop-shaped object flying at 300 feet. It has multiple lights around its perimeter. They drive toward it, flashing their lights, and the object climbs another 300 feet and moves west along some railroad tracks. Two A-10 Thunderbolt II fighter aircraft appear and try to follow the object, but it accelerates and loses them. (George Filer, “Arizona Formation of Flying Triangles,” Filer’s Files, #49-2000 (December 11, 2000))

November 4 — 8:45 p.m. A family in Scottsdale, Arizona, sees a triangular formation of three bright lights in the southern sky blinking irregularly. The object they are attached to is larger than a commercial airliner that happens to pass by. (George Filer, “Arizona Formation of Flying Triangles,” Filer’s Files, #49-2000 (December 11, 2000))

November 20 — 8:45 p.m. An 11-year-old boy on the north side of Phoenix, Arizona, watches three dark triangle-shaped objects maneuvering and hovering. (George Filer, “Arizona Formation of Flying Triangles,” Filer’s Files, #49- 2000 (December 11, 2000))

November 28 — 7:00 p.m. Jason Ingraham sees a flying triangle with a deep red blinking light on each point in Phoenix, Arizona. It moves northwest for about 10 seconds, then it leans to the left and begins to rotate in a clockwise motion. It makes a full rotation before disappearing behind some distant trees. There are 6 normal airplanes in the sky at the same time. (George Filer, “Arizona Formation of Flying Triangles,” Filer’s Files, #49-2000 (December 11, 2000))

November 30 — The UK Freedom of Information Act 2000 is given royal assent but will not come into full force until 2005. The legislation creates a public “right of access” to information held by public authorities. (Wikipedia, “Freedom of Information Act 2000”)

December 1 — 6:45 p.m. A witness in Avondale, Arizona, sees a bunch of lights in the shape of a triangle to the southeast. Helicopters seem to be flying around it. (George Filer, “Arizona Formation of Flying Triangles,” Filer’s Files, #49-2000 (December 11, 2000))

December 4 — The UK Ministry of Defence notes in a “loose minute” that DI55, the space weapons section of the Defence Intelligence Staff, has completed a study of UFO reports, concluding that there is nothing of value in its assessment of “threat weapons systems” and will carry out no further investigations. It will be released in 2006 as the Project Condign report. (UK Defence Intelligence Staff, “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP): DI55 Report,” December 4, 2000, in David Clarke, comp., Project Condign documents, pp. 46–47; David Clarke and Gary Anthony, “The British MoD Study: Project Condign,” IUR 30, no. 4 (August 2006): 7–11)

December 13 — 10:00 pm. A group of five people is traveling in a Volkswagen on a dirt road 9 miles from Iturama, Minas Gerais, Brazil—João Caiana, his wife Valdeir Martins, daughter Magui Martins, a 3-year-old granddaughter, and an 18-year-old friend. Some odd colored lights in the sky seem to follow them for 2 miles. Suddenly the interior of the car begins to get hot, and a light gray entity with big eyes approaches them. Everyone loses control and seems to be sucked into a UFO for an abduction scenario. (Laura Maria Elias, “Caso Caiana: Desdobramentos de um clássico de Ufologia Miniera,” Portal UFO, February 1, 2015; Brazil 393–396)

December 19 — 6:10 a.m. Reporter Alfondo Reyes is observing the eruption of Popocatépetl southeast of Mexico City, Mexico, and taking time-exposure photographs. On one 20-second exposure he catches a bright luminous object that contrasts with the smoke of the eruption and seems to make a turn toward the crater. He does not actually see the object and only discovers it after the photo is developed. (Patrick Gross, “UFOs Photographed over Erupting Mexico Volcano”)

December 24 — 7:00 p.m. A woman living in the Baranówka neighborhood of Rzeszów, Poland, sees a light outside her window on the 4th floor of an apartment building. It makes unusual maneuvers like a figure-8 and zigzags, and is joined by another light that flies at a constant speed. Both are about 5 feet in diameter. She snaps two motion-blur photos with her Minolta that shows an object hovering above the apartment block opposite her. The second object approaches the first one and they fly away together. (Poland 151–153)

2001

2001 — Gérard Brachet, the new director of CNES, decides to audit SEPRA. It is conducted by an outsider, François Louange, an expert in photoanalysis who has participated in UFO studies at CNES. (Gildas Bourdais, “The Death and Rebirth of Official French UFO Studies,” IUR 31, no. 2 (June 2007): 13)

January 1 — 12:01 a.m. Five people driving along Highway 3 south of New Plymouth, New Zealand, spot an orange object about 30–50 feet in diameter pacing their car 100 feet above them. They pull over to watch and see three similar objects hovering and swaying around. They look like they are changing color from metallic glowing orange to metallic deep purple and shades of blue. One more larger object appears on the horizon and speeds toward the other four. Each seems to react in a way similar to an army unit and forms a line and disappears almost instantly to the south. As they leave several minutes later, they realize they haven’t seen any traffic for 30 minutes and only see some as they enter New Plymouth. (George Filer, “New Zealand Discs Start New Millennium,” Filer’s Files, #2-2001 (January 9, 2001))

January 5 — 10:30 a.m. A white, “self-lit” cigar-shaped object with a small vapor trail is seen at Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Its hops forward in its progress through the sky before it moves out of view behind a mountain. It returns and flies back again. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2001,” IUR 26, no. 4 (Winter 2001–2002): 17)

January 14 — Late afternoon. Witnesses on both sides of the hill see a small object appear to strike the telecommunications mast on top of Snaefell, Isle of Man. Two women on horseback see a 20-foot-long object that crashes in a shower of sparks and smoke. The emergency services think a small plane has crashed, because they have lost power and are using a backup generator. As light fades, however, helicopter crews can see damage to the mast, but no sign of wreckage. The UK government blames a model aircraft. (Jenny Randles, “Mysterious Island: The UFO Legacy of the Isle of Man,” IUR 29, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 14)

January 22 — 12:30 a.m. Barnaul Airport in Altai Krai, Russia, shuts down after a slightly tilted, oscillating, disc-shaped object is detected hovering above its runway. The crew of an Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane refuses to take off, claiming they can see a luminous object. An incoming Yakovlev Yak-40 passenger plane also sees an object at Barnaul and lands at another airport. Sergei Kurennoi, the chief airspace controller at Barnaul, sees the object at an elevation of 15°–20º above the horizon above the end of the track. With his binoculars, he distinguishes a solid structure that radiates light of various colors (red, green, purple). Nothing is tracked on radar. The UFO noiselessly takes off to the northwest, changes direction to the southwest, and vanishes after 90 minutes. (Patrick Gross, “UFO Shuts Down Russian Airport”)

January 25 — In the UK House of Lords, Peter Hill-Norton asks the Ministry of Defence what is the “highest classification that has been applied in any MoD document concerning UFOs.” Its reply is: “A limited search through available titles has identified a number of documents graded Secret. The overall classification of the documents was not dictated by details of specific sightings of UFOs.” (David Clarke and Gary Anthony, “The British MoD Study: Project Condign,” IUR 30, no. 4 (August 2006): 32)

January 31 — 3:30 p.m. As many as 10 witnesses observe two cigar-shaped “shining lights” in the sky, hanging motionless over the horizon at Gjoa Haven, Nunavut. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2001,” IUR 26, no. 4 (Winter 2001–2002): 17)

January 31 — The entire USAF Solid State Phased Array Radar System goes into operation at five units worldwide including Beale AFB near Marysville, California; Cape Cod Air Force Station in Massachusetts; Clear Air Force Station, Alaska; RAF Fylingdales in north Yorkshire, England; and Thule Airbase in Greenland. These radars are designed primarily to detect ICBM or sea-launched cruise missiles directed at the US. (Wikipedia, “Solid State Phased Array Radar System”)

February — French ufologist Dominique Weinstein creates a massive catalogue of 1,305 UFO sightings by pilots from 1916 to 2000. She finds that 606 cases (36.7%) are sightings by military pilots and crews; 444 cases (26.9%) are by civilian pilots; and 196 cases (11.8%) are by private pilots. In 200 cases (12.1%) the visual observation is confirmed by on-board or ground radar. And in 57 cases (3.45%) the pilots note electromagnetic effects on one or more of the plane’s transmission systems. (Dominique F. Weinstein, “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: Eighty Years of Pilot Sightings, a Catalog of Military, Airliner, and Private Pilots Sightings from 1916 to 2000,” National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, February 2001)

March 11 — 6:30 p.m. An irregularly shaped object like a cluster of red spheres flies against the wind above a witness in Calgary, Alberta, who manages to take a photograph. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2001,” IUR 26, no. 4 (Winter 2001–2002): 17)

April 1 — 10:30 p.m. Farm manager George Hofer and several children from the Rosedale Hutterite Brethren Colony near Etzikom, Alberta, see a brilliant fireball falling and apparently striking the Earth only a few miles away. On April 16, Ken Masson, who farms 13 miles south of Etzikom, discovers a circular, crater-like formation on his land. On May 1, Pano Karkanis of the University of Lethbridge Department of Geography visits the site, interviews the witnesses, measures the crater, and takes soil samples. The crater is 6 inches deep, with an inside diameter of 7.9 feet, surrounded by a mound of dirt 16 inches high. He notes four indentations inside the circle that he suspects are caused by rainwater. The dirt inside is cracked and sere, and he finds some odd reddish-brown particles of dirt on the mound. He concludes the crater was formed by a meteorite fragment that vaporized, leaving only the reddish-brown particles. Meteorite impact expert Alan Hildebrand the University of Calgary doubts the crater was made by a meteorite. (Chris Rutkowski and Geoff Dittman, The Canadian UFO Report, Dundurn Press, 2006, pp. 204–206)

May — Christian Morgenthaler founds the Sciences et Phénomènes Insolites du Ciel et de l’Aéronautique in Odratzheim, Bas-Rhin, France. It publishes the SPICA News from January 2002 to December 2010. (SPICA News, no. 1 (January 2002))

May 3 — In the UK House of Lords, Peter Hill-Norton asks the Ministry of Defence why the UFO documents it referred to in January were classified secret. Its answer is, “One document was classified ‘Secret’ with a ‘UK Eyes Only’ caveat because it contained information about the UK air defence ground environment that could be of significant value to hostile or potentially hostile states. Associated correspondence was given the same classification.

Generally, however, notifications of and correspondence on the subject of UFO sightings are unclassified.” (David Clarke and Gary Anthony, “The British MoD Study: Project Condign,” IUR 30, no. 4 (August 2006): 32)

May 9 — Twenty government workers from military and civilian organizations speak about their experiences regarding UFOs and UFO confidentiality at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The press conference is initiated by Steven M. Greer, founder of the Disclosure Project, which has the goal of disclosing alleged government UFO secrecy. The purpose of the press conference is to build public pressure through the media to obtain a hearing before the US Congress on the issue. Aerospace illustrator Mark McCandlish testifies that gravity control propulsion research started in the 1950s and successfully reverse engineered the vehicle retrieved from the Roswell, New Mexico, crash site to build three Alien Reproduction Vehicles (ARVs) by 1981. McCandlish describes their propulsion systems in terms of Thomas Townsend Brown’s gravitators and provides a line drawing of its interior. The diagram closely resembles the drawing provided earlier in Milton William Cooper’s book Behold a Pale Horse. Another Disclosure Project whistleblower, Philip J. Corso, states in his book The Day after Roswell that the craft retrieved from the second crash site at Roswell had a propulsion system resembling Brown’s gravitators. Corso’s book also features several gravity control propulsion statements made by Hermann Oberth.

Although major American media outlets report on the conference, interest quickly dies down, and no hearing takes place. (“Group Calls for Disclosure of UFO Info,” ABC News, May 10, 2001; “UFO Spotters Slam ‘US Cover-Up,’” BBC News, May 10, 2001; Jean-Pierre Petit, “I Have a Doubt about ‘Disclosure,’” March 19, 2003; Wikipedia, “United States gravity control propulsion research”)

Early June — A Hellfire missile is successfully launched from an MQ-1A Predator drone on a replica of Osama bin Laden’s Afghanistan Tarnak residence in Area 51, Nevada. A missile launched from a Predator explodes inside one of the replica’s rooms; it is concluded that any people in the room would have been killed. However, the armed Predator does not go into action before the September 11 attacks. (Wikipedia, “General Atomics MQ-1 Predator”)

June 23 — 9:45 p.m. Three witnesses are sitting in their yard in Fernandina Beach, Florida, when they see a bright white light with a bluish tinge descend and hover about 2,000 feet due east of them above the ocean. After one minute it emits a mist from three points on its underside so that it appears to be sitting on a cloud. Then it emits mist from its upper area and becomes enshrouded with the light shining through. Then the light blinks off, leaving only a cloud that stands there for about one minute. It disappears 5–10 seconds afterward. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, February 11, 2003; Nukes 506–507)

June 30 — 10:30 p.m. Electrical power goes off in the small village of Năneşti, Romania, even though the lights in neighboring villages are still on. A number of witnesses notice a red, round ball moving slowly in the air. When it stops it begins to spin, turning into a rotating segmented ring of pale yellow light. The ring becomes larger in diameter, coming closer to the ground where it gets as large as 600 feet in diameter. After a short period of time it climbs again, still rotating but shrinking and turning into a red dot that moves around in the sky until it starts rotating again and repeating the cycle some 8–20 times over the course of 45 minutes. Some witnesses see it as a

dark red cloud lit from inside by squares of light. The display ceases sometime after midnight and the power returns mysteriously at around 2:00 a.m. (Romania 70–73)

July 9 — 11:30 p.m. A man and his daughter watch six orange, oval objects flying in a V-formation toward the west at Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2001,” IUR 26, no. 4 (Winter 2001–2002): 17)

July 14–15 — Evening–night. Dozens of Staten Islanders and residents of Carteret, New Jersey, observe lights in the southwestern sky on a clear, cloudless night. The lights appear in various formations at about 45° above the horizon. Witnesses view the scene from Arthur Kill Road and the West Shore Expressway on the New York side. The Waterloo Cafe, located opposite the Blazing Star Burial Ground on Arthur Kill Road, provides the most significant witnesses. The consensus of their testimonies reveals a series of lights, numbering from 4–5 to as many as 16–20, bright orange or orange-red in hue, and appearing as solid round objects. Witnesses number about 50, including the owner of the cafe, but not all come forward. Those who do, agree that there was no sound emanating from the lights, and no one can see any wings. The lights are often no more than 1,000 feet in the air, often described as flying in an inverted V-shaped configuration. Unknown targets without transponders, some at heights of 99,000 feet, are picked up on radar at Newark International Airport. (Dennis K. Anderson, “The Arthur Kill Sightings, July 14–15, 2001,” IUR 28, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 3–6, 26–27)

August 3 — Day. A Brazilian Air Force pilot and four others are taking supplies from Belém to Salvador, Brazil, aboard a C-130 Hercules transport. One of the military officers draws the colonel’s attention to a disc-shaped object that is accompanying the plane about 6t0 feet away. Ground control cannot detect anything on radar. The object has a brushed gray color and is the size of a bus. It has a dome at the top and flat at the bottom. The sighting lasts about 10 minutes. (Clark III 208; Brazil 559–560)

August 6 — Afternoon. Two Turkish Air Force pilots from 122 Squadron are practicing maneuvers in a Cessna T-37B Dragonfly jet trainer over the Gulf of Çandarli, an inlet of the Aegean Sea in western Turkey. 1Lt. Ilker Dinçer and his student Lt. Arda Gunyel are surprised by an extremely bright object, shaped like something between a disc and a cone, with a pod on its lower part. Ground control has nothing on its radar. The UFO approaches the Cessna at high speed, then positions itself alongside, behind, and above the jet. It plays cat and mouse with the plane for some minutes before it disappears at high speed. The Turkish Air Force announces that it is a weather balloon. (Good Need, pp. 393–394)

August 12 — 12:25 a.m. Five people watch seven gray objects flying in a straight line over Victoria, British Columbia, which change position in flight into a hexagonal formation and ascend into the sky. They are lost to view after 15 minutes. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2001,” IUR 26, no. 4 (Winter 2001–2002): 17)

August 17 — 9:30 p.m. An astronomer in Mitchell, Manitoba, hears loud booming sounds and runs outside to see three steady lights in triangular formation moving east to west. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2001,” IUR 26, no. 4 (Winter 2001–2002): 17)

August 20 — Dozens of passengers on the Rogalin ferry returning from Sweden to Gdansk, Poland, with 50 passengers on board watch an object 10 feet in diameter rise to the surface about 500 feet away. It approaches the boat, submerges, and maneuvers underwater. After three minutes, the ferry leaves it behind. (Poland 121–122)

August 25 — 3:27 p.m. An astronomer and others at St.-Laurent, Quebec, watch two solid-appearing objects moving slowly through the clear sky. They take some photos. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2001,” IUR 26, no. 4 (Winter 2001–2002): 17)

September 6 — 10:00 p.m. Police on patrol in Sampacho, Cordoba, Argentina, receive an alert on their car radio about several UFOs above the Cerro Sampacho. They appear to be silently hovering at an altitude of 5,000 feet. (“UFOs Seen in Argentina,” IUR 27, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 4)

September 9 — 10:30 p.m. A family traveling in a pickup truck between Achiras and Sampacho, Argentina, notice an intense red light in the sky moving from the southwest. It looks like an intense red beam with bright flashes behind it. In the front is something like an arc of light. The object seems as if it about to fall on top of them, but it changes course and heads toward the mountains. (“UFOs Seen in Argentina,” IUR 27, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 4)

November 5 — Apache County sheriff’s deputies attempt to arrest Milton Willian Cooper at his Eagar, Arizona, home on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and endangerment stemming from disputes with local residents. After an exchange of gunfire during which Cooper shoots one of the deputies in the head, Cooper is fatally shot. Federal authorities report that Cooper has spent years evading execution of a 1998 arrest warrant for tax evasion. According to a spokesman for the Marshals Service, he vowed that “he would not be taken alive.”

(Wikipedia, “Milton William Cooper”; “Arizona Militia Figure Shot to Death,” Los Angeles Times, November 7, 2001, p. 24)

November 11 — An oval object with several lights flies on an irregular path above Policeman’s Point, Yukon Territory. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2001,” IUR 26, no. 4 (Winter 2001–2002): 17)

December — Peru sets up a new Air Force agency, the Departamento de Investigación de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (DIFFA), tasked with studying UFO cases. It is founded and directed by Comandante Julio Chamorro because “these anomalous events had occurred frequently enough over national territory to create a danger, and we recognized that they needed to be taken seriously.” It is first publicly acknowledged in February 2003 by Col.

José Raffo Moloche, but it closes in 2008 (“Perú reabre oficina para recopilar datos sobre ovnis,” BBC News, October 20, 2013; Kean, p. 189)

December 11 — 8:06 p.m. Pilots of a commercial airliner flying above Craik, Saskatchewan, see lights that they think belong to another aircraft at a higher altitude, but air traffic controllers have no other aircraft on their radar. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2001,” IUR 26, no. 4 (Winter 2001–2002): 17)

2002

January 18 — The Sirius UFO Space Sciences Research Center opens in Istanbul, Turkey, with an exhibition area that showcases UFO incidents in both Turkish and English. (“International UFO Museum Opens in Turkey,” IUR 27, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 28)

February 2 — 2:53 a.m. A witness is driving down a road in Clermont, Florida, when he sees a silent, bright light over Lake Minnehaha. The object passes over his car at about 15–20 feet in the air, and his engine dies. It shoots off like a slingshot and disappears. The car starts again. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 18)

February 20 — 8:15 a.m. A witness aboard a cruise ship off the southern coast of Puerto Rico sees an irregularly shaped object like a cloud high in the sky. He takes a photo, then leaves to attend a meeting. Analysis indicates that the object is most likely a Tethered Aerostat Radar System airship used to provide radar data in support of the US drug interdiction program. (John P. Timmerman and Mark Rodeghier, “Snapshot from a Cruise: An Aerostat Sighting,” IUR 28, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 13–14)

March 15 — 9:30 p.m. Lisa Stone is driving with her 16-year-old son when she sees a triangular object with white lights that is maneuvering around Magazine Hill, outside Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The object is massive, perhaps the size of a university football field. She drives directly underneath, and “hail” starts falling from it. The object does a figure eight before heading in the direction of Fall River to the northeast. (Don Ledger, “The Flying Triangle Phenomenon,” IUR 27, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 7, 23)

April — Skandinavisk UFO Information begins publishing UFO-Mail in Ringsted, Denmark. (UFO-Mail, no. 1 (April 2, 2002))

Summer — Two men see an object over Mosinee, Wisconsin, that shines a straight, 5-foot-wide beam of light on the Wisconsin River like a searchlight. The beam does not change shape as the object goes higher above the water. (Carl W. Feindt, “Beam of Light into a Body of Water,” IUR 33, no. 3 (December 2010): 23.)

July 26 — 1:00–1:55 a.m. Near Andrews AFB, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C., independent witnesses 8 miles apart become aware of unusual and persistent aircraft activity. In both locations, witnesses see odd lights or objects pursued by one military jet. Two pairs of fighters take off from Andrews at 1:00 a.m., remain airborne for 50 minutes, fly at low altitude using afterburners over residential areas, and pursue an unidentifiable light on three occasions. Gary Dillman, working late shift at a sand-and-gravel operation in Brandywine, Maryland, sees the first two fighters at 1:00 a.m., then at 1:30 a.m. and 1:40 a.m. he sees a glowing, round, hard-edged orange object that one of the fighters is chasing. The pursuit takes place between broken clouds at about 4,000 feet and a light overcast at about 6,000 feet; the unknown object and fighter are about 1–2 miles away. In Waldorf, Maryland, around 1:35 a.m. Renny Rogers feels the walls of his home rattling from a low-flying aircraft and goes out to see a single jet fighter. At 1:40 a.m., he sees a bright, pale-bluish light in the north-northeast moving at a high rate of speed. He calls a neighbor to come watch the display. Soon a fighter comes over his house in obvious pursuit of the light and about 1,000–2,000 feet behind it. The four fighters return to base around 1:50 a.m. (Kenny Young,

“UFO Violates D.C. Airspace,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 413 (September 2002): 11; Joan Woodward, “The Washington, D.C., Jet Chase of July 26, 2002,” IUR 27, no. 4 (Winter 2002–2003): 3–7, 22–25; Good Need, pp.

394–396)

August — The Roper market research firm conducts a telephone poll, sponsored by the Sci-Fi channel, to ask a national sample of adult Americans a series of questions about UFOs and abductions. The results indicate that two-thirds think there are other forms of intelligent life in the universe, 56% think that UFOs are something real, 48% think that UFOs have visited Earth in some form, 11.6% have seen a UFO at close quarters, 72% think the US government is not telling everything it knows about UFOs, and 21% think that humans have been abducted by other life forms. (Mark Rodeghier, “Attitudes toward ETI, UFOs, and Abductions,” IUR 27, no. 4 (Winter 2002– 2003): 10–14)

August — Day. Three witnesses in Szczuczyn, Poland, watch a V-shaped object with brilliant white lights at each of its corners moving slowly from west to east with its flat point forward. (Poland 99)

August 5–18 — A third team of Italian researchers, code named EMBLA and led by Massimo Teodorani and Gloria Nobili, visits Hessdalen, Norway, and collects evidence pointing to an unknown atmospheric light phenomenon “able to produce a luminous power of up to 100 kW.” However, a 2003 analysis by Matteo Leone demonstrates that the lights reported by the EMBLA team are consistent with automobile headlights. (Massimo Teodorani, “A Long-Term Scientific Survey of the Hessdalen Phenomenon,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 18, no. 2 (2004): 217–251; Matteo Leone, “A Rebuttal of the EMBLA 2002 Report on the Optical Survey in Hessdalen,” 2003)

August 13 — 2:15 a.m. A woman watching the Perseid meteor show in Cow Bay, Nova Scotia, sees a large meteor with a long tail appear out of Ursa Major and arch over her head to the southeast. Suddenly it disappears as if it has passed behind something. She also sees a straight, black line advancing trough the sky, then a “perfect black triangle of gargantuan proportions” crossing directly over the clearing around her house. It is pitch black and enormous, moving only about 10 mph and taking 5 minutes to disappear over the trees to the northwest. Ufologist Don Ledger investigates and finds that radar at Moncton Center in New Brunswick had picked up an unidentified target at that time and place. (Don Ledger, “The Flying Triangle Phenomenon,” IUR 27, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 3–7)

September 6 — 10:00 p.m. Police in Sampacho, Cordoba, Argentina, receive an alert about a mystery light. They see 7–8 objects over the Cerro Sampacho hovering silently at about 5,000 feet altitude. They have them in view for several minutes. (“Argentinsk politi ser åtte UFOer,” UFO-nytt, 2002, no. 2, p. 21)

September 9 — 10:30 p.m. A family is traveling in a pickup truck northward along Provincial Highway 24 between Achiras and Sampacho, Cordoba, Argentina. In the vicinity of Cerro Aspero, they begin noticing “a very intense red light in the sky” in the southwest. The object looks like an intense red beam with an arc of light on its front section. The observation lasts for several minutes as the light approaches then heads towards hills in the south. (“Another UFO Spotted near Sampacho, Argentina,” UFO Roundup 7, no. 39 (September 24, 2002)

September 16–24 —Scientists from the University of New Mexico initiate an archaeological dig at the debris field site near Corona, New Mexico, funded by the Sci-Fi channel. The team finds a small number of artifacts of unknown provenance and some soil deformation anomalies, but no furrow or unusual debris. (Sci Fi Channel, Sci Fi Declassified: The Roswell Dig Diaries, Pocket Books, 2004; “The Roswell Dig Diaries,” IUR 28, no. 4 (Winter 2003–2004): 11)

Late September — 5:45 p.m. Security Policeman Christopher Cabrera is on guard an entry control point at the Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field [now Creech AFB] in Clark County, Nevada. He looks toward the base and sees an amber/red object hovering above it. He stares at it for about 2 minutes then suddenly a red beam shoots out from the orb and hits the side of the nearest mountain. The beam lasts about one minute and Cabrera notices what looked like molten rock dripping from the mountain. The beam abruptly ceases and the orb just disappears. A few seconds later, the molten effect on the mountain also dissipates. (Robert L. Hastings, “Triangular-Shaped UFO Sighted at the Nellis AFB Nuclear Storage Area,” UFOs & Nukes, April 23, 2015)

October — A “three-foot diameter orb” quickly moves along the perimeter fences of Area 2, a weapons storage area of the Nevada Test Site [now the Nevada National Security Site]. It eventually outpaces the security teams that attempt to pursue it in Humvees. (Nukes 513)

October 1 — The US Strategic Command is restricted by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, merging with the US Space Command and assuming all duties for full-spectrum global strike, operational space support, missile defense, intelligence, and planning. (Wikipedia, “United States Strategic Command”)

October 4 — 7:06 p.m. A rotating CCTV camera at Terminal 2 in Kota Kinabalu International Airport, Sabah, Malaysia, records a video of an oblong object passing by in seconds. No unusual object is tracked by the airport radar. A

security guard sees the object moving silently west to east before disappearing in the hills. (Patrick Gross, “Radar/Visual/Camera UFO Case at Airport in Malaysia?”)

October 10 — Day. A military pilot off the coast of Southern California or Baja California, Mexico, is looking down at the ocean at a 78° angle and sees, at a 7,238-foot visual slant range, a submerged, white, egg-shaped object about 20–50 feet below the surface. It is about 130 by 200 feet in size and appears silent and stationary. (Keith Basterfield, “A BAASS Data Report of a 2002 Submerged Egg-Shaped Object in the SOCAL OPEAREA,” Unidentified Aerial Phenomena—Scientific Research, May 13, 2022)

October 16 — Rear Adm. Thomas R. Wilson, who has retired as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency on July 29, has a meeting in Paradise, Nevada, with Eric W. Davis of EarthTech International Inc., an astrophysicist who is a member of the National Institute for Discovery Science and an associate of Harold E. Puthoff. He talks about his previous meetings with Cmdr. Will Miller, in which he admits he was denied access to an Unacknowledged Special Access Program dealing with reverse engineering an alien craft. Davis takes 15 pages of notes, which are leaked to researcher Grant Cameron and others in April 2019. (Eric W. Davis, “Eric Davis Meeting with Adm.

Wilson” [notes], Imgur, April 19, 2019; Richard Dolan, “The Wilson Leak: Latest Developments,” Richard Dolan Member Forum, June 19, 2019; “The Admiral Wilson Leak: Evidence of USAPs (Unacknowledged Special Access Programs) and Reverse Engineering of Extraterrestrial Technologies,” Metallicman, December 23, 2019; Joe Murgia, “The Wilson/Davis Documents: My Twenty-Three Year Journey, Part 1,” Part 2, UFO Joe, June 21, 2020)

October 18 — A fall of angel hair covers a large area of Alessandria, Italy, including roofs, cars, and trees. A sample is recovered and examined by the Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche in Parma and shows “unequivocally” that the filaments are not organic, but similar to synthetic polymer textile fibers. They have a clear alternation of bright and dark segments. The Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione Ambientale in Turin disputes the finding and proclaims the material spider web. (Brian Boldman, “Angel Hair Physical Analyses: A Review,” JUFOS 9 (2006): 108)

October 23 — 7:40 p.m. Pilot Thomas J. Preziose takes off from Mobile, Alabama, in a Cessna 208B single-engine cargo plane en route to Montgomery. Six minutes later, he collides with an unknown object at 3,000 feet and descends uncontrolled into swampy water in the Big Bateau Bay in Spanish Fort, Alabama. The pilot’s final words are: “Night Ship 282, I needed to deviate, I needed to deviate.” A strange red residue (“transfer marks”) is found coating at least 14 different areas of the downed airplane that are widely separated in location both inside and outside the aircraft. The engine block has been split. The final NTSB report indicates that the accident is caused by pilot disorientation. However, an independent investigation finds numerous discrepancies with regard to both the FAA documentation and the NTSB investigation. The composition of the red residue is variously found to be tere- and isophthalate polymer with possible presence of inorganic silicate compounds; and epoxy material with some inorganic silicate filters. (“NTSB Solves Riddle of ‘02 Small-Plane Crash,” Washington Post, January 11, 2006; Kean, pp. 61–62; Marcus Lowth, “Just What Did Happen to Tom Preziose? Contact, or Cover-Up?” UFO Insight, November 8, 2017)

October 31 — Astronomers Margaret C. Turnbull and Jill Tarter publish a catalog of nearby habitable stellar systems, each at least 3 billion years old, stable, and supporting liquid water on the surface of a habitable planet. (Margaret

C. Turnbull and Jill C. Tarter, “Target Selection for SETI: 1. A Catalog of Nearby Habitable Stellar Systems,” arXiv, October 31, 2002)

November — After an audit, photoanalyst François Louange recommends the reactivation and redevelopment of SEPRA. The report is picked up by the French press. (Gildas Bourdais, “The Death and Rebirth of Official French UFO Studies,” IUR 31, no. 2 (June 2007): 13)

November 8 — The Sci Fi channel sponsors a symposium on “Interstellar Travel and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: Science Fiction or Science Fact?” at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Speakers include astrophysicist Richard Conn Henry, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, astrophysicist Bernard Haisch, computer scientist Jacques Vallée, aviation expert John Callahan, and physicist Peter Sturrock. (“GWU’s SciFi UFO Symposium,” IUR 27, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 22)

November 16 — A boomerang-shaped object surrounded by mist is seen in the Old Town district of Rzeszów, Poland. (Poland 92)

November 21 — 7:00 p.m. James Bunnell sees a pulsating light on the side of a mesa near Marfa, Texas. It is yellow and hovers for 8–10 minutes, then begins descending, blinks out, and reappears as a bright red light that lasts only 2–3 seconds. (James Bunnell, Hunting Marfa Lights, Lacey, 2009, pp. 67–68)

November 28 — Night. Two policemen in Buenos Aires, Argentina, see a large light maneuvering in the sky and emitting colored sparks before it approaches their patrol car. The light reverses its course, and the engine and headlights

fail. About 30 minutes later, the object moves away, the car starts again, and the siren suddenly comes on. The UFO paces them to one side before it finally disappears. Five police cars are involved in the incident. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 20)

December 2–13 — The Sci Fi channel airs a fictional miniseries about UFOs and abductions titled Taken, produced by Steven Spielberg. The show takes place from 1944 to 2002 and follows the lives of three families: the Crawfords, who seek to cover up the Roswell crash and the existence of aliens; the Keys, who are subject to frequent experimentation by the aliens; and the Clarkes, who sheltered one of the surviving aliens from the crash. (Wikipedia, “Taken (miniseries)”; Internet Movie Database, “Taken”)

December 26 — Roswell, New Mexico, witness Walter G. Haut signs an affidavit that asserts he had seen bodies recovered from the 1947 crash in a temporary morgue at Roswell Army Air Field. Haut dies December 15, 2005, and the affidavit is released by his family. (Thomas J. Carey and Donald R. Schmitt, Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the Government’s Biggest Cover-Up, New Page, 2007, pp. 215–217)

2003

January 31 — 10:30 p.m. Two witnesses in Villeneuve, Alberta, watch a large white object described as “two saucers rim to rim” move slowly through a farmyard and over some houses, then out of sight. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2003,” IUR 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 13)

February 8 — 1:00 a.m. Carlos Eduardo Montilho wakes up in his home in Guará I, Brasilia, Brazil, to tend to his dog in the backyard. An intense white light comes down about 23 feet in front of him that is attached to an oval object abut 10 feet in diameter. The grass stirs beneath it as if blown by wind, and it is making a humming sound. His wife starts screaming for him to get back inside. He retreats to the kitchen, where they both watch the object for 3 minutes before it rises slowly and disappears. The dog is asleep the entire time. (Brazil 400–402)

February 12 — 9:02 p.m. A dark triangular object with some sort of structured undercarriage is seen flying over Vancouver, British Columbia. It is in view for 3 minutes by two witnesses. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2003,” IUR 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 13)

February 15 — The National Air Intelligence Center becomes the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), which coordinates a “wide variety of complex space/counterspace analytical activities.” (Wikipedia, “National Air and Space Intelligence Center”)

February 19 — 9:20 a.m. A fast-moving silvery object “like a cruise missile” flies swiftly across snow-covered fields near Raymore, Saskatchewan, heading north. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2003,” IUR 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 13)

February 25 — 7:30 p.m. A witness in downtown Bremerton, Washington, looks up and sees a triangular object with a light at each point flying silently over Naval Submarine Base Bangor [now Naval Base Kitsap] on the Kitsap Peninsula, Washington, at an altitude of 800–1,000 feet. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, March 4, 2003; Nukes 499)

March 3 — 7:55 a.m. The drive and passenger of a truck traveling along a highway in Houston, British Columbia, watch as a silver object the size and shape of an Airstream trailer flies alongside them, then zooms away. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2003,” IUR 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 13)

April — 2:30 a.m. Some Air Force security policemen for Area 2, a weapons storage area of the Nevada Test Site [now the Nevada National Security Site], are having a meal outside when they notice a red glow at their feet. The light is coming from a giant sphere perhaps 100 feet across approaching them from the south. By the time they notice it, the reddish-orange object has passed silently overhead at about 75 feet altitude in a few seconds. Apparently, it projects a zone of silence and exerts a zone of pressure directly below it, causing the guards’ ears to pop. It disappears over some mountains to the north, where it apparently explodes in a burst of white light with no sound or shockwave. Building in intensity, the explosion keeps growing until it is painful to perceive through closed eyes, then quickly dies down. The light effects last for 5 seconds. The security controller orders all outside units to search for the downed object. They look until 7:00 a.m. but find nothing. (Nukes 512–515)

June — The Turkish press announces that Turkey’s National Intelligence Service has received a top-secret request from the US Central Intelligence Agency for details on all its latest UFO reports. The Service accordingly asks the

Turkish Air Force, Turkish Airlines, and other agencies to submit reports. It recommends that the Air Force should establish an investigative agency headed by a colonel. (Good Need, p. 394)

June 5 — 4:45 p.m. Shortly after TAM Flight 3287 takes off from Palmas–Brigadeiro Lysias Rodrigues Airport in Palmas, Brazil, to Brasilia, air traffic control asks the pilot if he can see any other aircraft near his plane. He cannot, but ground control says there is another object in his flight area. When they are over Palmas, the copilot sees a gigantic object on the right side of the plane. It is metallic and surrounded by bright multicolored lights. It flies as if it is sliding with no friction. The UFO follows the aircraft for almost an hour before moving away. (Clark III 203–205; Brazil 548)

June 10 — Serbian astrophysicist Milan M. Ćirković theorizes that because it is reasonable to assume that there is an inhabited planet somewhere 3 billion years older than Earth, we are likely to encounter an alien civilization significantly older than 1.8 billion years. (Milan M. Cirkovic, “The Temporal Aspect of the Drake Equation and SETI,” arXiv, June 10, 2003)

July 5 — The Sci-Fi Channel places a stone marker at the Roswell debris field site to commemorate the 1947 crash. (Thomas J. Carey and Donald R. Schmitt, Witness to Roswell, New Page, 2007, p. 223)

July 7 — 10:30 p.m. A witness in Verdun, Quebec, watches a gray, teardrop-shaped object moving slowly at low altitude over rooftops, making an unusual whirring sound. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2003,” IUR 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 13)

July 28 — 12:45 a.m. Hundreds of witnesses see a large, white, moon-shaped object flying over the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, zigzagging from northwest to southeast and changing direction in some cases to move over local mountains and drop into valleys. At 1:00 a.m., a beam of white light arches across the sky from horizon to horizon and persisting until at least 2:00 a.m. Dubbed the “Okanagan Arch,” the beam is seen from Kamloops to Jaffray. (Chris Rutkowski and Geoff Dittman, The Canadian UFO Report, Dundurn Press, 2006, pp. 207–209)

August 6 — 12:32 a.m. Three witnesses in North Bay, Ontario, watch as a gray, cigar-shaped object, stationary in the sky, becomes “wavy” and then suddenly disappears from view after 5 minutes. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2003,” IUR 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 13)

August 10 — 2:22 p.m. A large fuselage-shaped object flies low along a road, under some guy wires, and among trees in Whitehorse, Yukon. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2003,” IUR 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 13)

August 11 — 6:00 p.m. Diana Luca and her mother are chatting at the kitchen table in her home in New Westminster, British Columbia. Out of the corner of her eye, Luca spots a black object behind the trees in the back alley. The two step out on the patio for a better look and see a UFO flying behind the trees and over the top of the shorter ones. The object, flat and shaped like a Frisbee, flips on its underside, which is as red and shiny as a Coke can. She calls her husband, Mark Murphy, who is inside. By the time he gets to the porch, the UFO looks cigar-shaped and is an estimated 1.8 miles away. Murphy rushes inside to get a camcorder and gets the rest of the sighting on tape. (“UFOs over British Columbia,” Vancouver (B.C.) Courier, March 15, 2004; “B.C. Sighting,” IUR 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 27)

August 20 — Day. Frank Delephine takes a video of a formation of five yellowish lights leaving a smoke trail above the beach at Nowa Karczma on the Vistula Spit, Poland. (Poland 125)

August 23 — Three witnesses observe a saucer-shaped object with protrusions for 30 seconds as it flies above some cars on a highway in Winnipeg, Manitoba. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2003,” IUR 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 13)

August 26 — Members of the Defense Committee on the Chilean Chamber of Deputies analyze information on UFOs for the first time. It hears testimony, largely reports from pilots and air traffic controllers, provided by the Comité de Estudios de Fénomenos Aéreos Anómalos and the director of OVNIvision (both UFO research groups in Chile). Defense Committee Chairman Arturo Cardemil tells the media that UFOs have sometimes disrupted air-traffic operations. (George Filer, “Chile: Congress Acknowledges Importance of UFO Research,” Filer’s Files, #36- 2003, September 3, 2003)

September — 10:30 a.m. Arthur A. Larson is sitting in a truck at a gravel crossroads near Clara City, Minnesota, when he sees a round, black object at an altitude higher than a passing passenger jet but below the cirrus clouds. He watches it for 10–12 seconds and estimates its speed as 3,000–5,000 mph. (Arthur A. Larson, “Recent Minnesota Sighting,” IUR 29, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 25)

September 11 — A triangular object with red lights flies over two people in Whitehorse, Yukon. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2003,” IUR 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 13)

December 8 — 8:45 p.m. An unusual white, oval object with a ring of blue lights hovers above a house in Houston, British Columbia, dropping sparks. It then flies steadily toward the mountains and is lost to sight. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2003,” IUR 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 14)

December 24 — 1:00 p.m. Three people in Airdrie, Alberta, watch a chrome-colored “marble” hanging motionless in the sky. After about 15 seconds, it vanishes without a trace. (Mark Rodeghier, “UFOs in Canada, 2003,” IUR 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 14)

2004

2004 — Afternoon. A Brazilian pilot flying an ATR 42-300 twin turboprop airliner has a near-miss with a luminous sphere near the São Paulo–Congonhas Airport, Brazil. The encounter lasts 14 minutes. (Richard F. Haines, “Near Miss with UAP near São Paulo Airport,” IUR 32, no. 3 (July 2009): 9–18, 23–24; Robert J. Durant, “Commentary on the São Paolo Near Miss,” IUR 32, no. 3 (July 2009): 19–20)

2004 — Vadim Chernobrov registers the All-Russian Scientific Organization, Kosmopoisk, as an international association. (Wikipedia, “Kosmopoisk”)

2004 — Night. Three teams of security policemen at Nellis AFB in Nevada are sent to investigate a mysterious light seen in a distant corner of the weapons storage compound in Area 2. Upon arriving at the location in vehicles, they cannot see any light. However, seconds later, one policeman spots a towering, silhouette-like, 8- or 9-foot-tall figure, visible against the moon-lit sky. It quickly turns and runs. After disappearing over a rise in the terrain, with six Security Policemen in hot pursuit, the unknown intruder seemingly vanishes into thin air. (Robert L. Hastings, “Triangular-Shaped UFO Sighted at the Nellis AFB Nuclear Storage Area,” UFOs & Nukes, April 23, 2015)

January —CNES decides to close SEPRA, perhaps because engineer Jean-Jacques Velasco is publishing a book, OVNIs: L’évidence, in April. (Gildas Bourdais, “The Death and Rebirth of Official French UFO Studies,” IUR 31, no. 2 (June 2007): 13; Swords 450)

January 4 — 8:30 p.m. An Aer Lingus Boeing 737 with 135 people on board is about 2 miles off the east coast of Ireland approaching Dublin Airport. It is being followed in for landing on Runway 10 by a British Midland Airbus A330- 200 at a distance of 6 miles. Both are at an altitude of 3,000 feet and moving at 287 mph. As the 737 approaches Slane, the A330 crew observes unidentified traffic take off vertically from a field. The object has bright strobe lights and is triangular in shape. It begins to circle the 737, which experiences a power drain. The A330 sees a purplish glow surround the 737, whose captain requests a course change to avoid the object, which is passing in front of the airliner. The UFO angles to the port side and the 737 experiences a huge wake turbulence and an increase in outside air temperature to 327° F. for about 15 seconds. The A330 also feels the turbulence, and the UFO heads southeast at great speed. When the 737 lands, the crew cannot raise the speed brakes on the wings, which are found to be damaged, as if dented by a hammer. There is also aircraft skin damage and hydraulic damage to the brakes caused by the UFO wake. (Good Need, pp. 406–410; Dermot Butler and Carl Nally, Conspiracy of Silence: UFOs in Ireland, Mercier, 2006, pp. 41–42)

January 4 — 10:30 p.m. Another Airbus 330-200 is approaching the east coast of Ireland, bound for Dublin Airport, when the crew sees a flashing strobe light over Slane, County Meath. As the aircraft throttles back to 265 mph at 2,500 feet, the UFO takes on a triangular shape, passes in front of the plane, and gives off a bright flashing light. The UFO begins circling the Airbus in an aggressive manner. The crew expects a collision with the object, which is about 360 feet wide. The interior lights dim (power drain) and the encounter continues for 8–10 minutes as passengers watch. At one point, wake turbulence from the UFO triggers the wind shear warning device. Other aircraft in the vicinity are watching the encounter and listening in to radio transmissions. Just 2 minutes before landing, the UFO shoots away to the southeast. (Good Need, pp. 407–410; Dermot Butler and Carl Nally, Conspiracy of Silence: UFOs in Ireland, Mercier, 2006, pp. 42–43)

January 17 — 7:45 p.m. A witness at Bass River, New Brunswick, sees a bright, fast-moving fireball. Around 11:00 p.m., a couple near Saint-Louis-de-Kent, New Brunswick, watch two flashing lights low in the west. They descend rapidly then fly in front of the witnesses at tremendous speed. They then stop and settle above some trees on the eastern horizon and disappear. A man in Caraquet is looking south and sees two objects, one on top of the other, flying west to east. They take 5 minutes to cross the sky but do not look like airplanes. In Moncton, another witness sees a single light moving steadily and rapidly across the ocean toward the east. In Saint Paul, another witness sees two lights heading toward the northwest, They make no sound, rotate around each other, hover, then leave at high speed. (Chris Rutkowski and Geoff Dittman, The Canadian UFO Report, Dundurn Press, 2006, pp. 210–211)

January 20 — European Parliament Member Nello Musumeci submits a proposal to create a Europe-wide “body for the study of unexplained atmospheric phenomena.” He suggests that the European Commission should pay special attention to UFO studies by various European space centers and recommends SEPRA in Toulouse, France, as a model. (2Pinotti 213)

January 21 — A man is driving on the Trans-Canada Highway 10 miles north of Sussex, New Brunswick, when he sees a blinking light off to his left, apparently hovering above the road. As he approaches, he sees the object is composed of two bright white lights that seem to be attached to a structured object. It descends and hovers above a field. The witness can’t pull over, so the light is soon lost to view behind him. (Chris Rutkowski and Geoff Dittman, The Canadian UFO Report, Dundurn Press, 2006, p. 211)

January 22 — 9:00 p.m. S/Sgt Shawn Burke of the 86th Operations Support Squadron stationed at Ramstein Air Base outside Ramstein-Misenbach, Kaiserslautern, Germany, sees a row of seven lights directly overhead and glowing a bright white. When the clouds become thicker, the display disappears briefly, then reappears and become more elongated, looking more like lines than dots. Burke takes a few photos. They remain stationary all night. His cellphone and the internet in his building goes out when the lights get brighter. Possible light pillars. (Wim van Utrecht, “Seven Unidentified Lights over Ramstein Air Base,” Caelestia)

January 25 — 6:26 p.m. A woman and her son watch a strange triangular object in the sky above Richibucto, New Brunswick. It has sparkling lights on top and a V shape on its underside. In a telescope, they can see it is a large gray object with something like a round door on the bottom. It suddenly speeds up and disappears in the distance. (Chris Rutkowski and Geoff Dittman, The Canadian UFO Report, Dundurn Press, 2006, p. 211)

January 27 — Night. Alec Birch, who has confessed to faking a UFO photo in 1962, takes a series of color slides showing the town hall in Retford, Nottinghamshire, England, for a photography competition. He sees nothing unusual at the time, but on examining one transparency he finds an image that appears to be an elliptical UFO. Ruling out lens flares and aircraft, he contacts the Ministry of Defence, which sends the slide to the Defence Geographic and Imagery Intelligence Agency for analysis. The agency reports back to the MoD on August 2, saying that no definite conclusions can be reached, but “it may be coincidental that the illuminated plane of the object passes through the centre of the frame, indicating a possible lens anomaly, [for example] a droplet of moisture.” (UFOFiles2, pp. 147–148)

February 20 — 2:00 p.m. Lt. Ribeiro of the Brazilian Air Force is retuning on a flight from São Paulo to Recife, Brazil.

He is ordered to intercept a radar return that he can visually confirm as a yellow light. During the interception, the light remains stationary. Suddenly it begins moving toward the aircraft and gets very close. The pilot can only see a sphere of light coming closer, so he maneuvers sharply to the right. At this point his plane is illuminated by a beam of light. Seconds later everything is back to normal and the object is gone. (Clark III 206; Brazil 553–554)

March 5 — Mexican Air Force pilots flying a C-26A Metroliner using infrared equipment to search for drug-smuggling aircraft record 11 unidentified objects on infrared video and radar near Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche, Mexico. The objects are not visible to the crew. Secretary of Defense Gen. Gerardo Clemente Vega issues a press release on May 12 accompanied by videotape that shows moving bright lights at 11,500 feet. Mexican journalist Jaime Maussan interprets the videotape as “proof of alien visitation,” but science writer and skeptic Michael Shermer is critical of witness accounts that vary wildly, saying, “it was like a fisherman’s tale, growing with each retelling,” while NARCAP suggests the lights are most likely burn-off flares on offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. (Mark Rodeghier, “Special Failures Down Mexico Way,” IUR 28, no. 4 (Winter 2003–2004): 12–13, 28; “NARCAP Statement on the Mexican FLIR Case,” IUR 29, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 17)

April 15 — Ademar José Gevaerd’s Brazilian Ufologists Commission launches a campaign called “Freedom of Information Now!” with the goal of convincing the Brazilian government to publicly release official information on the Varginha case, the Official Night of the UFOs, and the Trindade Island photos. (Clark III 209)

Summer — Two security guards at a glass factory in Częstochowa, Poland, watch a large, oblong-shaped object with two bright yellow lights on both ends fly 90 feet above their guard post. (Poland 110)

July 31 — CNES is now embarrassed by its decision to close SEPRA and is planning a rebirth. (Gildas Bourdais, “The Death and Rebirth of Official French UFO Studies,” IUR 31, no. 2 (June 2007): 14)

August — The National Institute for Discovery Science releases a report, “NIDS Investigations of the Flying Triangle Enigma,” with analyses of triangle-shaped UFOs in the US, Belgium, and elsewhere. (“NIDS Investigations of the Flying Triangle Enigma,” August 2004)

August 21 — Three red lights hovering in a triangular formation are seen by several witnesses in Tinley Park and Oak Forest, Illinois. Further observations take place on October 31, 2004; October 1, 2005; and once again on October 31, 2006. The lights are captured on video by some witnesses. The video evidence suggests that the lights keep the geometrical shape and move as if they are attached to each other through a dark object. The incident is examined in a Dateline NBC episode on May 18, 2008, and in the episode “Invasion Illinois” of the television series UFO Hunters that premiers on The History Channel on October 29, 2008. (Wikipedia, “Black triangle (UFO)”; Marler 211–216)

August 28 — 10:11 p.m. A circular metallic UFO the size of an airliner is seen above the Pemex oil refinery in Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico. It is accompanied by six luminous spheres at an altitude of about 3,300 feet. The larger craft performs erratic maneuvers at high speed. (“Recent UFO Reports,” IUR 29, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 25)

September 12 — Evening. Laura Simmons sees a “silent, abstract blob almost like the underside view of a manta ray shape, moving quickly, quietly across the sky” above Fulton Street in San Francisco, California. She describes it as “very large, almost gossamer, sprinkled with lights but almost like dusted with luminous powder.” (“Recent UFO Reports,” IUR 29, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 25)

September 16 — 9:00 p.m. Brian Junkin, Chuck Martin, and three children in Poulsbo, Washington, watch a multicolored light move erratically for 10 minutes about 500–1,000 feet above the canal adjacent to Naval Base Kitsap on the Kitsap Peninsula. The light keeps changing colors from green to red to orange. Flashes of light also come from what appear to be corners of an underlying object. Another light comes speeding in from the north on a straight course and stops close to the first light, which continues to dance around. Suddenly, both lights blink out at the same time. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, September 29, 2004; Nukes 499–502)

September 17 — 3:39 a.m. A woman in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, wakes up to a humming sound and lights shining through her window. She runs out and sees a large object “shaped like a large submarine” with lights. It has beams of lights shining down the middle of it in a straight line from one end to another. She hears a loud thunderclap and the object rises higher until it is lost to sight. (“Recent UFO Reports,” IUR 29, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 25)

September 27 — Early morning. A five-member team of geologists and glaciologists (including Rajiv Kalia, Sunil Dhar, Sushil Singh) led by Anil V. Kulkarni of the Indian Space Research Organization’s Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad are on a research trip in the barren Samudra Tapu valley, Himachal Pradesh, India, at an elevation of 17,000 feet. They spot a strange white, oblong object about 3–4 feet on the top of a mountain ridge that is floating just a few feet from the ground and approaches the camp to a distance of 160 feet. Kulkarni and Dhar grab cameras and take several photos. It has a cylindrical head with 2 balloon-type attachments and looks like a robot walking. The object hovers motionless for a few seconds, then starts a steep ascent, hovers another 5 minutes, then rises high in the sky. Kalia says it does not look like a man-made object. (“UFO Sighting in Himachal Lahaul-Spiti District Remains a Mystery,” India Today, February 13, 2006; Mark Rodeghier, “Scientists Would Investigate Sightings by Other Scientists—Wouldn’t They?” IUR 30, no. 3 (May 2006): 22–23)

October 1 — The US Air Force 20th Space Control Squadron at Eglin AFB, Florida, takes over the operation of the US Navy’s Space Surveillance System until 2009. (Wikipedia, “Air Force Space Surveillance System”)

October 4 — Pilot Brian Binnie reaches a world record altitude of 367,490 feet in SpaceShipOne, an air launched rocket plane. (Wikipedia, “Brian Binnie”)

October 27 — Day. The crew of a military jet near Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California, observes a dark gray, egg-shaped object, approximately 62 feet long, engaging in high-speed maneuvers at 45,000 feet. It is moving east at 575 mph, then makes an aggressive vertical turn. (Keith Basterfield, “A BAASS Data Report of a 2002 Submerged Egg-Shaped Object in the SOCAL OPEAREA,” Unidentified Aerial Phenomena—Scientific Research, May 13, 2022)

October 28 — Night. An Iranian Air Force F-14 is on combat air patrol near the heavy water reactor near Khondab, Iran, when it picks up an unidentified target at a distance of 50 miles away that is making rapid changes in altitude, heading, and speed. The pilot is ordered to bank toward the target after regional command receives a visual confirmation from an Arak Air Defense Group observer. Approaching at 22,000 feet, the pilot spots the target at 5,000 feet. The object is spherical and has a green halo surrounding it and a green light on its tail end. When the pilot turns toward the light, it disappears then reappears a few miles away, apparently moving at a speed of Mach 7 or greater. The F-14 is ordered to turn all lights off and descend to pursue the target. At 7,800 feet the target disappears again, but after the F-14 makes a turn at 7,000 feet, it picks up the target again and flies 2,000 feet below it. The F-14 arms its weapons and the pilot requests clearance to engage the object. Every time the radar officer attempts to lock on the object, the radio, radar, and other instruments become jammed. Finally, the F-14

ascends to 19,000 feet because it is low on fuel and spots the object one last time at low altitude. The pilot returns to the 8th Predator Tactical Fighter Base in Isfahan. (Air Forces Monthly, December 18, 2017; “Iran UFO Reports Revealed,” Key Aero, December 18, 2017)

November 10 — Navy Chief Petty Officer Kevin Day, stationed on the guided missile cruiser USS Princeton, notices the clear radar traces of 8–10 objects travelling southwards in a loose though fixed formation at 28,000 feet in the immediate vicinity of Catalina and San Clemente islands, California. He is startled by their slow speed of

120 mph but receives confirmation of their presence from radar operators on other vessels. Regular observations are made of a similar number of objects over the following six days. The objects are also faintly detected by an E- 2C Hawkeye plane after Princeton sends them coordinates. (Wikipedia, “Pentagon UFO videos”)

November 14 — 9:30 a.m. Navy Commander David Fravor and pilot Jim Slaight, flying two McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornets over the California coast on a routine training mission, are diverted from their exercise to investigate some unusual radar contacts detected by the cruiser USS Princeton that is part of the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group. They observe a 40-foot-long wingless craft flying at incredible speeds in an erratic pattern. Controllers on one of the Navy ships report objects that are dropping out of the sky from 80,000 feet and going “straight back up.” As they are looking for the object that appears on the radar, Fravor spots a white disturbance in the water and a white object (nicknamed “Tic-Tac”) moving in random directions. The planes fly lower to investigate the object, which seems to be about 40 feet long and then starts to mirror their movements before accelerating at high speed and disappearing. Fravor and another pilot, Alex Dietrich, say in an interview that a total of four people (two pilots and two weapons systems officers in the back seats of the two airplanes) witness the object for about 5 minutes. The disturbance in the water vanishes. Soon the same or a similar object reappears at their rendezvous point 60 miles away, but by the time they arrive it has disappeared. Another plane launched from the USS Nimitz has its radar jammed and is able to pick up the object on an infrared channel. Two objects emerge from the

bottom of the blip, which takes off and goes off the right side of the screen. The speed of the object, which has no exhaust trail, is stunning. However, the Navy claims it “never obtained an accurate” radar track of the objects reported by Fravor; they are quickly dropped by the Princeton’s radar when the computer categorizes them as “false targets.” After the return of the first team to USS Nimitz, a second F-18 team, led by Chad Underwood, takes off at approximately 12:00 noon, this time equipped with an advanced infrared camera (FLIR pod). This camera records an evasive unidentified aerial system on video. Underwood says “he never had visual, only seeing the object via FLIR.” David Fravor says that the radar operator on the USS Princeton briefed him that they had been tracking radar targets for two weeks. The footage is publicly released by the Pentagon in 2017. This footage is known as the 2004 USS Nimitz FLIR1 video. It officially sheds some light on a decade-old story that had been largely unknown and unreported, aside from a 2015 secondhand story on FighterSweep.com that, in spite of providing many details, remained unconfirmed at that time. Jonathan Axelrod [possibly Naval officer John F. Stratton], investigating the case in 2009 for BAASS, concludes tat the object “was no known aircraft or air vehicle currently in the inventory of the United States or any foreign nation,” and that it remained “stationary with little or no variation in altitude transitioning to horizontal and/or vertical velocities far greater than any known aerial vehicle with little or no visible signature.” Analysis of the FLIR footage by Mick West of Metabunk claims that the impressive sudden departure is an illusion; the object does not actually move except when the aircraft’s own infrared camera moves. West thinks the object resembles an “out-of-focus low-resolution backlit plane” filmed at a distance. [A second film of infrared footage, known as the GIMBAL video, is released by the Pentagon alongside the 2004 FLIR1 footage. Although the media often present the two videos together to illustrate the 2004 USS Nimitz UFO incident, the GIMBAL video is unrelated and was filmed on the East Coast of the United States in early 2015 by planes from the USS Theodore Roosevelt.] (NICAP, “Object Outmaneuvers 2 Jets over Pacific”; Wikipedia, “Pentagon UFO videos”; “Pentagon Declassifies Navy ‘UFO’ Videos (Video 1/3),” ABC News YouTube channel, April 27, 2020; “Navy Pilot Recalls Encounter with UFO: ‘I Think It Was Not from This World,’” ABC News, December 18, 2017; Keith Basterfield, “Did the AAWSA Program / AATIP Really Start in 2007?” Unidentified Aerial Phenomena—Scientific Research, May 16, 2018; “2004 USS Nimitz Navy Strike Group Incident Report,” Scientific Coalition of UAP Studies, March 3, 2019; “Scientific Findings Regarding a Major U.S. Navy Encounter with UFOs,” Scientific Coalition of UAP Studies, April 25, 2019; Matthew Phelan, “Navy Pilot Who Filmed the ‘Tic Tac’ UFO Speaks: ‘It Wasn’t Behaving by the Normal Laws of Physics,’” New York, December 19, 2019; Mick West, “Explained: New Navy UFO Videos,” Metabunk, April 27, 2020; David Clarke, “Echoes and Angels: UFOs on Radar,” Fortean Times 403 (March 2021): 40–42; Skinwalkers 45–46, 111–114, 118–119; Bill Whitaker, “UFOs Regularly Spotted in US Airspace,” CBS News, August 29, 2021; “Famous Navy UFO Is Camera Glare Hiding Something ‘Really Interesting,’ Researcher Says,” The Independent (UK), March 18, 2022; Internet Movie Database, “A Tear in the Sky”)

November 16 — An unmanned NASA X-43A hypersonic scramjet, the fastest free-flying air-breathing vehicle, achieves a speed of 7,546 mph. (Wikipedia, “NASA X-43”)

2005

2005 — More than 9,500 UFO reports and related documents (of an estimated 15,000) are digitized by Library and Archives Canada and made available online. It releases a virtual exhibition titled “Canada’s UFOs: The Search for the Unknown.” (Chris Rutkowski, Canada’s UFOs: Declassified, August Night, 2022, pp. 11–13)

January 1 — The UK Freedom of Information Act 2000 comes into full force. Around 120,000 requests are made in the first year. Private citizens make 60% of them, with businesses and journalists accounting for 20% and 10% respectively. However, requests from journalists tend to be more complex and consequently more expensive.

UFOs are one of the three most popular FOI requests made to the Ministry of Defence. (Wikipedia, “Freedom of Information Act 2000”; UFOFiles2, p. x)

January 15 — UFO researcher Keith Basterfield interviews a man in Adelaide, South Australia, whose British father had worked for MI5 after World War II. His father had told him in 1959 when he was 12 that the American military had been experimenting in 1947 with monkeys and pigs being dropped in devices equipped with retrorockets from stratospheric balloons to test them for eventual space rocket research. In one of these experiments, which were conducted at night, they used live 2–3 humans with a hydrocephalic condition (enlarged heads caused by excess cerebrospinal fluid) whom they obtained from a facility. The retrorockets failed, the balloon crashed, and a rancher found the material and one of the humans who was still alive. A medical retrieval team came for it. The UFO cover story for this crash near Roswell, New Mexico, was concocted to keep the experiments secret. (Keith Basterfield, “Jacobsen, Redfern, and an Adelaide Informant,” Unidentified Aerial Phenomena—Scientific Research, July 8, 2011; Nick Redfern, The Roswell UFO Conspiracy, Lisa Hagan, 2017, pp. 153–163)

January 31 — 10:00 p.m. Two men ice fishing at Columbia City, Indiana, encounter a large triangle above the east end of the pond. It crosses the frozen water at a low altitude, then hovers for some seconds before rising silently upward, leaving a trail of steam from the surface of the ice. The men try to call the local sheriff, but their cellphones are dead, as is their electrical fish locater. After the object disappears, they find a two-inch hole in the ice where the object had hovered. (Jenny Randles, “UFOcal Points,” Fortean Times 196 (June 2005): 28)

January 31 — 12:00 midnight. A large oval mass is seen floating above a cornfield at Wood River, Nebraska, by a man leaving his parents’ house. It rocks slightly from side to side for some 10 minutes and then sends out bursts of light toward the ground before climbing upward, seeming to suck up an object, apparently a large cow, from the field below. (Jenny Randles, “UFOcal Points,” Fortean Times 196 (June 2005): 28)

February 7 — 2:00 a.m. In the farming area of El Paraiso, Mar del Plata, Argentina, a resident hears a noise like a strong wind or turbine and sees two misty yellow lights drifting above a copse of trees and climbing slowly. Other witnesses hear and see the phenomena, and others are wakened by their farm animals going crazy and dogs howling as if in pain. At dawn, two circular marks are found near the copse. Police forensic experts take samples of an ash-like deposit that leaves a greasy smear when touched. Meanwhile, the daughter of one of the locals involved is having nightmares about a UFO trying to catch her. (Jenny Randles, “UFOcal Points,” Fortean Times 196 (June 2005): 28)

February 24 — UFOs: Seeing Is Believing, a two-hour American TV documentary narrated by Peter Jennings, airs on ABC-TV. The show mentions the Kenneth Arnold sighting, the Phoenix lights, southern Illinois triangle-shaped UFOs, and the Roswell incident, which Jennings sneeringly dismisses as a myth. Guests include James McGaha, Seth Shostak, Jill Tarter, Stanton Friedman, Budd Hopkins, Susan Clancy, and Michio Kaku. (Wikipedia, “UFOs: Seeing Is Believing”; Internet Movie Database, “Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs, Seeing Is Believing”; “UFOs: Seeing Is Believing (2005), ABC Documentary,” Movie Buff Guy YouTube channel, June 18, 2019)

February 27 — Richard Doty appears on Art Bell’s Coast to Coast radio program and describes his disinformation campaign against Paul Bennewitz. (“Greg Bishop and Richard Doty, Coast to Coast AM with Host Art Bell, Interview Transcript,” February 27, 2005)

April 27 — Late morning. Air traffic radar detects an unidentified target in restricted air space near Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport in Arlington, Virginia, causing President George W. Bush to be taken to a bunker and Vice President Dick Cheney to be evacuated to safety. The target gets within 7 miles of the airport,

then vanishes. Although it is not identified, officials argue it is caused by a radar anomaly. (“Radar Blip Causes White House Security Scare,” Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times, April 28, 2005, p. 10)

May 1 — Night. A biotechnologist and his daughter are driving on the Central Oregon Highway about 50 miles southeast of Bend, Oregon. They notice three bright blue objects zigzagging around each other about 300 feet away above a field. Suddenly two of the lights move toward them and through their vehicle. One passes through the windshield and passes through a window. The second passes through the man’s left arm and upper body, exiting his right arm. He feels a bit hazy, but notices the light is spherical and about the size of a softball. Still driving, the man feels nauseous and scared. The next 45 minutes into Bend seems like 3 hours. Days later, he develops a red rash on the left side of his face and loses some hair on that side. His ankles swell, and he loses some sight and hearing on the left. In the next few weeks, he gains about 50 pounds (although exercising and dieting) and sleeps a lot. In February 2007 he is diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in his left chest, a pre-cancerous condition, and undergoes surgery in May, his health gradualy improving by the end of 2008. (Skinwalkers 70–75)

May 3 — 5:30 a.m. A witness sees strange red and white lights crossing the flight path into Dulles International Airport in Virginia, west of Washington, D.C. (Jenny Randles, “UFOcal Points,” Fortean Times 199 (September 2005): 26)

May 4 — 10:00 a.m. Angler John Walker sees an object the size of a house, shaped like a large gray bullet, in the sky above Squeaking Point, Tasmania. He estimates its height at 150 feet. It moves extremely slowly, taking 15 minutes to cross his view. (Jenny Randles, “UFOcal Points,” Fortean Times 199 (September 2005): 26)

May 8 — Night. A witness captures video footage of pulsating, kaleidoscopic lights over the Denbigh Moors near Llannefydd, North Wales. The lights had appeared for several nights and remained visible for a lengthy amount of time. (Jenny Randles, “UFOcal Points,” Fortean Times 199 (September 2005): 26)

May 9 — 9:30 p.m. A man getting into his car in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, spots a huge, pulsating mass overhead, shaped like a double cross, and brilliantly studded with red, green, and white lights. It stays visible for a long time. The witness goes to bed at 1:20 a.m., and the object, or a similar one, is still visible. (Jenny Randles, “UFOcal Points,” Fortean Times 199 (September 2005): 26)

May 9 — 11:25 p.m. A woman outside her house in Kuujjuaq, Quebec, watches multi-colored lights heading northeast at a slow pace and low altitude. (Jenny Randles, “UFOcal Points,” Fortean Times 199 (September 2005): 26)

May 11 — 11:28 a.m. Radar trackers spot a plane entering the Air Defense Identification Zone around Washington, D.C. As the aircraft bears down on Washington from the north and officials cannot contact the pilot, the White House’s internal threat level goes from yellow to orange and then to red within four minutes. Fighters are scrambled, and occupants and visitors to the Capitol, the Supreme Court, and the White House are sent scurrying for safety. The aircraft flies over the vice president’s residence and comes within moments of reaching the White House and close to being shot down. Officials say 35,000 people are evacuated from the Capitol and adjacent office complexes. An additional 200 are evacuated from the White House. First lady Laura Bush and former first lady Nancy Reagan, who is visiting, are ushered to a bunker beneath the White House for safety, and Vice President Dick Cheney is taken to a secure location. The airplane is a Cessna 150 piloted by two aviators flying with outdated maps from a rural Pennsylvania airstrip and they are lost. Authorities say the pilots are so clueless that when officials finally make radio contact and order the plane to divert at 12:06 p.m., the fliers refuse, asserting their right to proceed. The F-16s then fire four bright flares across the plane’s nose, and the two men realize the gravity of their situation. The plane then veers northwest, out of town, escorted by the interceptors, security helicopters, and a US customs jet. The 15-minute aerial encounter is watched by rapt workers in downtown Washington office buildings. (“Confused Fliers Trigger Capitol Scare,” Washington Post, May 12, 2005)

May 20 — Ademar José Gevaerd leads a delegation of ufologists who meet with Brazilian Air Force officials in Brasília, Brazil, headed by Brigadier Telles Ribeiro, chief of the Air Force’s Center for Public Communications. In an interview after the meeting, Gevaerd says his group has been shown information on three specific cases: the testimony of the head of Varig, Nagib Ayub, on a UFO seen in the airspace in Rio Grande do Sul in 1954; testimony from pilots who pursued 21 UFOs flying over São Paulo, São José dos Campos, and Rio de Janeiro in May 1986; and a Brazilian Air Force investigation of UFOs held in 1977 in Pará by Col. Uyrange Hollanda, who died in 1997. According to Hollanda, “we detected at least nine forms of objects. Probes, flying saucer-shaped spaceships... All reports were sent by the 1st COMAR to Brasilia.” (Wikipedia, “Ademar José Gevaerd”)

June — British author Nick Redfern publishes Body Snatchers in the Desert, which purports to show that the 1947 Roswell crash may have been military aircraft tests using Japanese POWs, suffering from progeria (an early aging syndrome) or radiation effects. He has interviewed elderly whistleblowers—a woman he calls the Black Widow, Al Barker, Bill Salter, and a retired military man he calls the Colonel. In 2001, the Black Widow claims to have worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, at which time elements

of the Usgovernment conducted high-altitude balloon tests with attached gondolas that contained live test subjects and sometimes dead bodies. These subjects were handicapped humans, possibly Japanese, including sufferers of progeria. She claims to know of 3 classified balloon flights in May–July 1947. The bodies were broiught to Oak Ridge under stringent security. In 2003, the Colonel states that Roswell and other crashes were a cover for research linked to high-altitude balloon experiments. He mentions crashes in May and July 1947 of two experiments with handicapped persons on board. (Nick Redfern, Body Snatchers in the Desert: The Horrible Truth at the Heart of the Roswell Story, Paraview, 2005)

June 19 — 3:10 p.m. Three witnesses in Silverdale, Washington, see a black, rectangular object fly silently in a straight line and constant speed from south to north almost directly above the town. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, June 20, 2005; Nukes 502–503)

June 28 — Early morning. Following reports of unidentified lights above Dublin Airport in Ireland, a UFO 30 feet wide and 10 feet high approaches dangerously close to a commercial aircraft flying at 3,000 feet. The plane experiences intense waves of heat and wake turbulence. A strobe light on the object induces dizziness and nausea; the copilot vomits a few times, but after a while both pilots feel strangely relaxed. After heading in the direction of Malahide, County Dublin, the UFO returns and continues further harassment, causing the aircraft to become uncontrollable for a few minutes. The pilot reports to London Air Traffic Control Centre: “Need assistance… We have a hostile craft and we have made dangerous maneuvers to avoid it.” London confirms the presence of unauthorized air traffic. Some RAF Tornados are scrambled and reach the aircraft 25 minutes later, but there is little they can do except escort the plane to a UK airport, accompanied by the UFO. (Good Need, pp. 409–410; Dermot Butler and Carl Nally, Conspiracy of Silence: UFOs in Ireland, Mercier, 2006, pp. 229–232)

July — The new CNES director, Yannick d’Escatha, again creates a department for UFO investigations. Another engineer, Jacques Patenet, replaces Jean-Jacques Velasco as head. It is under the authority of CNES but reports to a steering committee (Comité de pilotage) called COPEIPAN, headed by Yves Sillard. The committee has 15 permanent members: representatives of civil and military authorities, and representatives of the scientific world. (Gildas Bourdais, “The Death and Rebirth of Official French UFO Studies,” IUR 31, no. 2 (June 2007): 14; Swords 451)

July 5 — 8:50 p.m. A woman is driving home from a fishing trip at Sargent, Texas, on FM2611 when her lights blink twice and the engine goes dead. She gets out of the car to check the battery cables, and sees a bright bluish glow lighting up a wooded area across the highway. The light gets brighter and moves upward through the trees. The outer edges of the light seem to vibrate or tremble slightly. The higher it goes the faster it gets until it disappears. The car starts right up afterward. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 18)

July 22 — Industrial chemist Phyllis Budinger reports on her laboratory tests on stains from the dress that abductee Betty Hill was wearing on the night of her abduction in 1961. The samples indicate protein and oily materials from an external source. She also reports on materials brought back from a recent abduction by Stan Romanek, which prove to be bismuth trioxide, used in the making of ceramics and glass but uncommon in everyday situations. No direct link between the materials and an extraterrestrial source can be established. (MUFON 2005 International UFO Symposium Proceedings)

Late July — 7:30 p.m. Just as an airliner is making its final approach to the Santa Rosa Airport, La Pampa province, Argentina, the airport control tower operator notices an unknown, luminous object moving slowly and parallel to the aircraft. The flight plan operator is alerted, and they both watch the UFO stop, emit a brilliant flash of blue- white light, move again, emit another flash, and vanish. The airliner crew does not see the UFO. (Good Need, p. 411)

August 4 — 10:30 p.m. A witness in Fernandina Beach, Florida, sees two rose-red objects approach from the ocean and move silently to the south, disappearing in about 75 seconds. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, September 2, 2005; Nukes 507)

August 27 — 8:45 p.m. Dennis Speed is outdoors at his home in Lenah Valley, Tasmania, when he sees a formation of six orange lights approaching from the north. They are the size of bright stars and are moving slowly below the cloud level. Suddenly, they scatter about 1,650 feet apart, and a white aura appears in the sky around them. He watches them for 15 minutes. Up to 9 oranges UFOs are seen elsewhere in Hobart. (“Orange UFOs over Hobart,” IUR 31, no. 2 (June 2007): 18)

September 1 — The 30th Reconnaissance Squadron, which operates Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel drones, is activated at Tonopah Test Range Airport in Nevada. RQ-170 Sentinels have been deployed to Afghanistan, where

one was sighted at Kandahar International Airport in late 2007. This sighting, and the Sentinel’s secret status at the time, leads Bill Sweetman to dub it the “Beast of Kandahar.” (Wikipedia, “Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel”)

September 17 — 10:30 a.m. A man is at his home on 31st Avenue in Peoria, Arizona, when he sees a bright object approaching from the east. Seven other objects appear around it, staying in the same spot for about 15 minutes, then moving to the left quickly. They go higher, moving left to right and right to left, almost hitting each other. They are completely silent. (“Spherical UFOs in Arizona,” IUR 30, no. 1 (October 2005): 32)

September 20 — Attorney and Army Reserves Brig. Gen. Stephen Lovekin, who had worked for the Army Signal Corps in the 1950s and early 1960s, speaks with writer Peter Janney about the extraterrestrial presence on Earth and the official coverup. He claims that in 1995 he attended a conference on the Strategic Defense Initiative in Monterrey, Mexico, that included high-level US and Russian participants. The purpose of SDI is to protect both countries from incursions by UFOs, he alleges. (Dolan II 289)

September 22 — The French UFO agency is given the name Groupe d’Études et d’Information sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés (GEIPAN) in order to emphasize the “information-gathering” aspect of the agency. At its first meeting, it renews the agreements with a network of specialists so that it can work effectively on new cases. (Wikipedia, “Groupe d’Études et d’Information sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés”; Gildas Bourdais, “The Death and Rebirth of Official French UFO Studies,” IUR 31, no. 2 (June 2007): 14; Swords 451)

September 29 — Space scientist Yves Sillard is interviewed on Radio France International about GEIPAN. He states that the UFO phenomenon is serious and involves many witnesses who deserve an answer about what they have seen. The sightings, he says, include impressive radar-visual cases and landing traces. (Swords 451–452)

October — Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, formerly the Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, activates the Joint Unmanned Aerial Systems Center of Excellence and the 3d Special Operations Squadron (the latter is the 1st MQ- 1 Predator squadron in the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC). (Wikipedia, “Creech Air Force Base”)

October — Cognitive psychologist Susan Clancy publishes Abducted: How People Came to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens, in which she describes her psychological testing of a sample of abductees. These tests reveal a propensity for false memories and magical ideation, making abductees more likely than average to imagine, be led by investigators, and integrate cultural scripts like the abduction story into memory. Clancy demonstrates that alien abduction stories give people meaning and a way to understand their own lives and circumstances. It also gives them a feeling that they are not alone in the universe. New York Times reviewer Benedict Carey’s takeaway is that “in this sense, abduction memories are like transcendent religious visions, scary and yet somehow comforting and, at some personal psychological level, true.” However, Clancy fails to ask her subjects about their religious beliefs. (Susan Clancy, Abducted: How People Came to Believe They Were Abducted by Aliens, Harvard University, 2005; Benedict Carey, “Explaining Those Vivid Memories of Martian Kidnappers,” New York Times, August 9, 2005; Clark III 7)

Early October — 12:30 p.m. The crew of a Magnicharters Boeing 737 encounters a luminous disc in the air corridor over Oaxaca state, Mexico, at 20,000 feet. The object emerges from one cloud and enters another at a distance of 12 miles from the aircraft. (Good Need, p. 411)

November 1 — An anonymous email is received by Victor Martinez, who runs a discussion list for retired intelligence people who are interested in UFOs. This person, in return for anonymity, passes on a huge volume of information each month for the next three years, all of it extracts from an alleged original document—a top secret, 3,000-page report compiled by the Defence Intelligence Agency in the late 1970s. The major revelations are: There were two crash sites in New Mexico, one southwest of Corona, and the second at Pelona Peak, south of Datil. The Corona site was discovered a day later by an archaeological team, who reports the crash site to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department. One live entity (EBE 1) was found hiding behind a rock; it and some dead bodies were later transferred to Loa Alamos National Laboratory. Roswell Army Air Field took the craft and sent it on to Wright- Patterson AFB. The second site was not discovered until August 1949 by two ranchers. It took the sheriff several days to reach this crash site. He took photos, drove back to Datil, and notified Sandia Army Base, which recovered six bodies that were first sent to Sandia then to Los Alamos. The live entity established communication and supplied the name of his home planet, Serpo, in our constellation of Zeta Reticuli. It died in 1952 after being allowed to use a communication device in the crashed UFO to contact his home planet. An alien/US military meeting was set for April 1964 in Alamogordo, where the aliens (nicknamed Ebens) landed and retrieved their comrades’ bodies (which had been frozen). In 1965, the US had an exchange program with the aliens, where one entity was left behind and 12 trained Americans (10 men, 2 women) left for Serpo from the Nevada Test Site.

They were supposed to stay 10 years, but something went wrong. In 1978, seven men and one woman returned; two had died on Serpo, and four others decided to remain. Of the 8 that returned, all have since died, the last in 2002. A few months after the documents became known, a UK Ministry of Defence official nicknamed “Chapman” claims the events were not as described but that the document is real, as he had seen it in 1969 or 1970 in London. He claims is was a CIA document authored by Alice Bradley Sheldon (a science fiction author using the pseudonym James Tiptree Jr. who worked for the CIA in 1952–1955) in response to Soviet disinformation in the 1960s about nuclear bombs in the US. (Wikipedia, “Planetary objects proposed in religion, astrology, ufology, and pseudoscience”; Rational Wiki, “Project Serpo”; Mark Pilkington, Mirage Men: An Adventure into Paranoia, Espionage, Psychological Warfare, and UFOs, Skyhorse, 2010; Kremlin 161–166)

December 15 — The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, a single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the Air Force, officially enters service. USAF officials consider the F-22 a critical component of the service’s tactical air power. Its combination of stealth, aerodynamic performance, and avionics systems enable unprecedented air combat capabilities. (Wikipedia, “Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor”)

2006

2006 — The UFO Research Coalition (CUFOS, MUFON, Fund for UFO Research) launches an Abduction Monitoring Project (later changed to Ambient Monitoring Project), an effort to create a compact, multi-instrumental device to be placed in the homes of recurrent abductees to record magnetic, electrical, and atmospheric anomalies over an extended period. The goal is to compare any reported abduction experiences with the anomalies to see if they coincide. After considerable difficulty with the design and construction of these boxes through 2008, data are recorded from participating abductees. However, funding is not available for the analysis needed to reach any conclusions. (Tom Deuley, “The Ambient Monitoring Project: Data Colleced in Abductee’s Homes Being Analyzed,” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 483 (July 2008): 3–7, 15; Jack Brewer, “What Happened to the Ambient Monitoring Project?” The UFO Trail, April 2, 2014)

January — GEIPAN’s Jacques Patenet announces that the organization will make its UFO files available to the public worldwide and placed on the CNES website. (Swords 452)

May 15 — The UK Defense Intelligence Staff releases (after a September 2005 Freedom of Information Act request by David Clarke and Gary Anthony) a 400-page report on a secret UFO study, codenamed “Condign,” undertaken by DIS between 1997 and February 2000. Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region, written by former Marconi Electronic Systems scientist Ron Haddow, draws on approximately 10,000 sightings and reports that have been gathered by the DI55, a section of the Directorate of Scientific and Technical Intelligence (DSTI) within the Defence Intelligence Staff. The report concludes that UFOs have an observable presence that is “indisputable,” but also that no evidence has been found to suggest they are “hostile or under any type of control.” According to its authors, the majority of analyzed UFO sightings can be explained by the misidentification of common objects such as aircraft and balloons, while the remaining unexplainable reports are most likely the result of a supernormal meteorological phenomenon not fully understood by modern science. This phenomenon is referred to in the report as “Buoyant Plasma Formation,” akin to ball lightning, and it supposedly produces an unexplained energy field that creates the appearance of a Black Triangle by refracting light. The electromagnetic fields generated by plasma phenomena are also said to explain reports of close encounters due to inducing perceptual alterations or hallucinations in those affected. The Condign report suggests that further research into “novel military applications” of this plasma phenomenon is warranted, and that “the implications have already been briefed to the relevant MoD technology manager.” The report also notes that scientists in the former Soviet Union have identified the close connection between the ‘UFO phenomena’ and Plasma technologies,” and are “pursuing related techniques for potential military purposes.” The report describes people who believe themselves to have had close encounters as being convinced of what they said that they had seen or experienced, but also as not representing proof that such encounters are real. It attributes a number of cases to the “close proximity of plasma related fields” which it said can “adversely affect a vehicle or person.” (“Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region (The Condign Report): Summary of Contents,” The Real UFO Project; UK Defense Intelligence Staff, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region, released 2006; David Clarke and Gary Anthony, “The British MoD Study: Project Condign,” IUR 30, no. 4 (August 2006): 3–13, 29– 32; Kean, pp. 173–175; UFOFiles2, pp. 149–155)

May 16 — At least three green fireballs brighter than the moon but not as bright as the sun blaze over northeast Australia.

A farmer sees one with a blue tapering tail pass over the mountains of the Great Divide about 75 miles west of Brisbane, Queensland, then watch a phosphorescent green ball about 12 inches wide roll slowly down the side of a mountain, bouncing over a rock along the way. A commercial airline pilot landing in New Zealand sees a meteor breaking up into fragments that turn green as the bits descend in the direction of Australia. The timing of the fireballs suggests they might be debris from Comet 73P/Schwassmann–Wachmann 3, according to physicist Stephen Hughes at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. (Charles Q. Choi, “Mystery of Green Fireball ‘UFOs’ Solved,” Live Science, November 30, 2010)

July 13 — 11:00 p.m. A woman camping on the beach at Wicie, Poland, sees several red and blue lights maneuvering within a glow about 10 feet above the water. Then she realizes that the glow surrounds a huge metallic saucer- shaped object with lights that are turning on alternately from left to right. Her cellphone is acting crazy and she thinks the sea is roaring louder than usual. The object scares her so much that she hides in the forest nearby. (Poland 125)

July 28 — The Cheyenne Mountain Realignment consolidates NORAD’s day-to-day operations at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with Cheyenne Mountain as an Alternate Command Center. (Wikipedia, “North American Aerospace Defense Command”)

September — The UK Secretary of State for Defence, Des Browne, approves a proposal from the Directorate of Air Staff (the former Sec(AS)) to transfer all remaining UFO files to the National Archives. Funds are found to scan approximately 160 files and remove sensitive personal information. This is described as “the largest release of documents younger than 30 years in the MoD’s entire history.” (UFOFiles2, p. 170)

September 5 — Residents of Vladivostok, Primorsky Krai, Russia, see several types of UFOs maneuvering near the city. One looks like a radaint sphere with three parts. Other witnesses report four lights. A police officer sees an object with 10 yellow lights moving around in a circular motion and hovering above the Sea of Japan at an altitude of 1– 2 miles. Other smaller objects approach it, one of which explodes in a bright flare-up. The official explanation is that these are candle bombs used as aerial targets for Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter aircraft. (Stonehill and Mantle, Russia’s USO Secrets, Flying Disk, 2020, pp. 117–118)

September 22 — The Grumman F-14 Tomcat supersonic fighter is retired by US Navy, having been supplanted by the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. (Wikipedia, “Grumman F-14 Tomcat”)

October 6 — Night. Ufologist Bill Chalker is along the Mekong River in Phon Phisai District, Thailand, for the annual Naga Light (ghost light) festival. He witnesses and videos many of the Naga light balls arising from the river: “This phenomenon has a tremendous social and human dimension and while it is tempting to try to explain the lights, however correctly or incorrectly, as planted ‘rockets,’ ‘submarine’ firings, Naga Dragons speaking, they all seem to fall short of entirely convincing explanations.” Orb sightings are on the increase, with up to 408 counted at the Phayanak festival on October 24, 2018 (260 in Rattanawapee District and 148 in Phon Phisai). (Wikipedia, “Naga fireball”; Bill Chalker, “The Mystery and Allure of the Naga Light Festival: My 2006 Adventure on the Mekong,” TheOzFiles, January 28, 2015; “Buddhist Aliens,” Fortean Times 388 (January 2020): 7)

November — Many people in a village in Zhenyuan Yi, Hani and Lahu Autonomous County, southern Yunnan, China, see seven white hemispherical objects hovering directly over the property of a local Chinese Communist Party cadre for nearly two hours. They appear to keep changing shape. Many people from neighboring villages hear about the phenomenon and arrive to watch it. People try to pursue the lights, but they soon disappear. (Clark III 653)

November 1 — John Schuessler retires as director of MUFON. He is succeeded by James Carrion of Bellevue, Colorado. (“Schuessler Retires As MUFON Head,” IUR 30, no. 4 (August 2006): 16)

November 7 — 4:15 p.m. Federal authorities at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, receive a report that a group of 12 airport employees are witnessing a metallic, saucer-shaped craft hovering over Gate C-17. The object is first spotted by a ramp worker who is pushing back United Airlines Flight 446, which is departing Chicago for Charlotte, North Carolina. The employee apprises the crew of the object above their aircraft. It is believed that both the pilot and copilot also witness the object. Several independent witnesses outside of the airport also see the object. One describes a “blatant” disc-shaped craft hovering over the airport, which was “obviously not clouds.” According to this witness, nearby observers gasp as the object shoots through the clouds at high velocity, leaving a clear blue hole in the cloud layer. The hole reportedly seems to close itself shortly afterward. According to the Chicago Tribune’s Jon Hilkevitch, “The disc was visible for approximately five minutes and was seen by close to

a dozen United Airlines employees, ranging from pilots to supervisors, who heard chatter on the radio and raced out to view it.” So far, no photographic evidence of the UFO has surfaced, although Hilkevitch finds out that one of the pilots is in possession of a digital camera at the time of the sighting and may have photographed the event. NARCAP publishes a 155-page report and has called for a government inquiry and improved energy-sensing technologies: “Anytime an airborne object can hover for several minutes over a busy airport but not be registered on radar or seen visually from the control tower, [it] constitutes a potential threat to flight safety.” The FAA stance concludes that the sighting was caused by a weather phenomenon and that the agency would not be investigating the incident. (Wikipedia, “2006 O’Hare International Airport UFO Sighting”; Jon Hilkevitch, “What WAS That Thing in the Sky at O’Hare?” Chicago Tribune, January 1, 2007, pp. 1, 19; Mark Rodeghier, “Media Take Notice When Media Take Notice: UFO Seen over O’Hare Airport,” IUR 31, no. 1 (January 2007): 32; Richard F. Haines, “Report of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon and Its Safety Implications at O’Hare International Airport on November 7, 2006,” NARCAP, May 14, 2007; Leslie Kean, “Incident at O’Hare Airport,” IUR 31, no. 2 (June 2007): 3–7; Richard F. Haines, et al., “A UAP and Its Safety Implications: O’Hare International Airport, Nov. 7, 2006,” IUR 31, no. 3 (October 2007): 3–7; Kean, pp. 65–72; Clark III 835–838; Mutual UFO Network, [case report])

November 8 — The 42d Attack Squadron is formed at Creech AFB, Nevada, as the first MQ-9 Reaper drone squadron. (Wikipedia, “Creech Air Force Base”)

December 13 — Fastwalkers, a documentary on NORAD’s Defense Satellite Program and its detection of UFOs (fastwalkers and slowwalkers) entering the Earth’s atmosphere, is released. (Internet Movie Database, “Fastwalkers”)

2007

2007 — The US National Archives allows the entire collection of sanitized Blue Book documents to be placed on the web through a private company called Footnote.com (now called Fold3), totaling nearly 130,000 pages, each one an individual JPG image. (Sparks, p. 7)

2007 —John Carpenter launches the Journal of Abduction–Encounter Research in Springfield, Missouri, which continues until July 2010. (Journal of Abduction–Encounter Research, no. 1 (January 2007))

January 11 — China conducts an anti-satellite missile test in which a Chinese weather satellite, the FY-1C polar orbit satellite of the Fengyun series orbiting at an altitude of 537 miles, is destroyed by a kinetic kill vehicle traveling with a speed of 8 km/s in the opposite direction. It is launched with a multistage solid-fuel missile from Zichang Satellite Launch Center or nearby. It is the first known successful satellite intercept test since 1985. The kill produces an estimated 35,000 pieces of one-centimeter-wide debris and another 1,500 pieces that are 10 centimeters or more. (Wikipedia, “2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test”)

January 12 — Afternoon. Amateur radio enthusiasts record the conversation of pilots in two USAF F-15C fighters on a training mission just north of RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, England. One fighter gets a radar lock on an unidentified target 17 miles in front of him. He breaks the lock and reacquires it to validate the target, which is moving slowly at 17,700 feet. Closing to 500 feet, the pilot sees a small, irregular object like a “black rock.” His wingman joins him and they make three additional passes as they track it on airborne radar. (Skinwalkers 126– 127)

March 5 — 7:15 p.m. Several witnesses around Bremerton, Washington, see a steady red light above the smokestack at Naval Base Kitsap on the Kitsap Peninsula. It moves slowly north for 10 minutes, stops for 3 minutes, then suddenly dims, brightens, and disappears. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, March 8, 2007; Nukes 503)

March 18 — Former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington admits that he witnessed one of the “craft of unknown origin” during the 1997 Phoenix Lights event, but notes that he didn’t go public with the information. In an interview with Leslie Kean in the Prescott Daily Courier, Fife says: “It was enormous and inexplicable. Who knows where it came from? A lot of people saw it, and I saw it too. It was dramatic. And it couldn’t have been flares because it was too symmetrical. It had a geometric outline, a constant shape.” (“Former Arizona Governor Says He Saw ‘Phoenix lights’ UFO,” American Chronicle, March 18, 2007; “Former Arizona Governor Says He Saw a UFO during the 1997 Phoenix Lights,” Wikinews, March 19, 2007; Kean, pp. 253–257, 262–264)

March 22 — GEIPAN, the French office in charge of UFO investigations, begins to put all its UFO files on its website. These reports have been gathered in more than 30 years of investigations since its creation in 1977. Some 400 files, covering the period 1988–2005, are put online first. (Groupe d’Études et d’Informations sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés website; Gildas Bourdais, “The Death and Rebirth of Official French UFO Studies,” IUR 31, no. 2 (June 2007): 12, 14–15; Swords 452–453; “French Space Agency Puts UFO Files Online,” Fox

News, January 13, 2015)

March 30 — GEIPAN’s Jacques Patenet appears, with Ciel et espace editor Alain Cirou, on a well-known French TV program called C dans l’air. Questioned bluntly by host and journalist Yves Calvi about UFOs, Patenet says unequivocally that yes, there are UFOs. (Gildas Bourdais, “The Death and Rebirth of Official French UFO Studies,” IUR 31, no. 2 (June 2007): 14)

April — French space scientist Yves Sillard consolidates his ideas on UFOs in the landmark book Phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifies: Un défi à la science, written in collaboration with other scientists. (Yves Sillard, et al., Phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifies: Un défi à la science, Le Cherche midi, 2007)

April 6 — Night. Brian Vike is driving near North Park Lake, McCandless, Pennsylvania, with friends when he sees a strange light shining directly on the lake from high above it. They get out and walk towards the lake. Vike is able to see fish swimming beneath the surface of the lake under the beam. The object projecting the light moves away to above the trees and is only the size of a streetlight. (Carl W. Feindt, “Beam of Light into a Body of Water,” IUR 33, no. 3 (December 2010): 24)

April 23 — Afternoon. The passengers of Flight A-Line 544 depart Southampton, England, in a BN2a Mk3 Trislander aircraft at about 2:00 p.m. in fine weather with good visibility for miles around, though a haze layer is present at 2,000 feet, and a continuous cloud layer at 10,000 feet. They rise to an altitude of 4,000 feet and are cruising

on autopilot about 10 miles south of the Isle of Wight. Capt. Ray Bowyer notices, exactly in the direction

of Guernsey in the Channel Islands (southwest and 12 o’clock ahead) what appears to be a brilliant yellow lamp or light. He thinks that it might be an airplane or reflections from the ground, as Guernsey is immediately behind it. The reflection of the sun off a greenhouse is a possibility but the UFO persists for a couple of minutes. It is brilliant yellow, with a dark grey band enveloping it one third from the right, like a band around a cigar. Bowyer makes contact with Jersey ATC to check on traffic heading his way. Paul Kelly at Jersey ATC cannot see any traffic in that position, but he picks up a faint primary return radar signal. A passenger behind the captain confirms what Bowyer is seeing and points out a second UFO immediately behind the first: Bowyer estimates both lights to be “up to possibly a mile across.” Radar traces also seem to register the presence of two objects, which Bowyer believes to be correlated with the position and time of the sighting. The first object is presumed to have been near the Casquets, west of Alderney, and the second some miles north of Guernsey. A study by David Clarke, however, cannot establish a definite link, as the radar reflections of cargo or passenger ferries may have affected at least some of the readings. Bowyer disagrees with Clarke’s team on the supposed link between the radar traces and ferries and proposes that two solid airborne UFOs are working in unison that day. Captain Patterson, the second pilot witness, posits some type of “atmospheric phenomenon” as an explanation. (Wikipedia, “2007 Alderney UFO Sighting”; Kean, pp. 73–81; UFOFiles2, pp. 166–168; Jean-François Baure, David Clarke, Paul Fuller, and Martin Shough, “Report on Aerial Phenomena Observed near the Channel Islands, UK, April 23, 2007,” February 2008; Jean-François Baure, David Clarke, Paul Fuller, and Martin Shough, “Unusual Atmospheric Phenomena Observed near Channel Islands, UK, 23 April 2007,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 22, no. 3 (2008): 291–308)

June 8 — The US Air Intelligence Agency is redesignated the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency. (Wikipedia, “Air Force intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency”)

June 11 — The Société Belge d’Étude des Phénomènes Spatiaux in Brussels, Belgium, is officially dissolved. Its place is taken by a less formal group, Comité Belge d’Étude des Phénomenes Spatiaux, headed by Patrick Ferryn. (“Bienvenue sur le site de COBEPS,” Comité Belge d’Étude des Phénomenes Spatiaux)

June 19 — Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence officer and scientist James T. Lacatski contacts Robert Bigelow for permission to visit the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, a project under study by the National Institute for Discovery Science. He wants to see how the DIA might develop a strategy to characterize the “potential threat aspects of the phenomena.” (Skinwalkers 17–18, 38–39)

July 16 — 12:52 a.m. A witness is walking a dog in Port Orchard, Washington, when an orange fireball travels from southeast to northwest for 30 seconds. It disappears in thick clouds over Green Mountain. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, August 7, 2007; Nukes 503–504)

July 26 — Robert Bigelow accompanies DIA official James T. Lacatski on a visit to Skinwalker Ranch in Utah. During his 2-hour visit, Lacatski witnesses a bizarre tubular object hovering in the kitchen of the Homestead 1 building. After 30 seconds, it vanishes. He describes it is as similar to the object depicted on Mike Oldfield’s 1973 album Tubular Bells. (Skinwalkers 39–41)

September — Project Oxcart, the A-12 reconnaissance aircraft program, is declassified. (Wikipedia, “Lockheed A-12”)

Fall? — The Defense Intelligence Agency, at the initiation of Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the urging of government contractor and Las Vegas billionaire Robert Bigelow, quietly establishes the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP)—purposly misidentified as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a Pentagon program to study UFOs—as a DIA project on the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C Ring to evaluate the threat potential of UFOs. With the support of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), Reid secures $22 million in black-project funding in the 2008 Supplemental Funding Act directed to the DIA Directorate of Analysis, specifically the Defense Warning Office. Its goal is “to understand the physics and engineering of these [advanced aerospace weapon system] applications as they apply to the foreign threat out to the far-term, i.e., from now through the year 2050.” The Pentagon will spend this money between September 2008 and December 2010. (Wikipedia, “Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program”; Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean, “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program,” New York Times, December 16, 2017; Clark III 48; Skinwalkers 41–42)

October 10 — 10:40 p.m. A man sees a silver-gray disc about 70 feet wide hovering above Lake Easton, Washington, for 3–5 minutes. A beam of bright greenish light is extended from it, illuminating the lake. He sees small objects floating up to it, apparently fish. (Carl W. Feindt, “Beam of Light into a Body of Water,” IUR 33, no. 3 (December 2010): 24)

October 17 — 7:00 p.m. A man is driving on Interstate 90 near Cle Elem, Washington, when he sees a bluish-gray disc hovering about 600–700 feet in the air. It bobbles slightly for about 5 minutes then disappears. (Carl W. Feindt, “Beam of Light into a Body of Water,” IUR 33, no. 3 (December 2010): 24)

October 30 — Afternoon. Pilot Marin Mitrică is flying a MiG-21 LanceR fighter on a training flight from Romanian Air Force 71st Base at Câmpia Turzii, Romania, when he is suddenly hit by an unknown object. The collision breaks the plastic window covering the cockpit, punches a hole in his helmet, and wounds his face. He reduces speed and descends from his altitude of 4 miles to avoid hypoxia and hypothermia. After landing, an examination of the flight recorder shows two small triangles approaching from the right. No traces of organic matter are found on the plane, ruling out birds, and there are no other civilian or military aircraft or balloons in the area. (“A Mid Air Collision between a MiG 21 and a UFO over Romania in October 2007?” Flying Saucer Review 53, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 1; Romania 114–115)

November 12 — A press conference, moderated by former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington, is held at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. Nineteen former pilots and military and civilian officials speak about their experiences with UFOs and demand that the US government engage in a new investigation. (Bonnie Malkin, “Pilots Call for New UFO Investigation,” The Telegraph (UK), November 14, 2007; “I Touched a UFO: Ex-Air Force Pilot,” Sydney (N.S.W.) Morning Herald, November 14, 2007; Marler 23–24)

December 14 — 6:45 p.m. Witnesses in Kingsland, Georgia, see a triangular object with a light in each corner that changes from red to blue to white, with a bright burst happening occasionally. The object moves slowly at about 500 feet altitude. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, March 4, 2008; Nukes 507–508)

December 29 — 9:00 p.m. Two witnesses driving near the Kitsap Mall in Silverdale, Washington, see an object with three white lights apparently hovering above Trigger Avenue near Naval Base Kitsap to the north. As they approach its location, they see that it is large, triangular and made out of reflective metal. It is silently hovering 500 feet in the air over a farm a few yards from the highway. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, January 21, 2008; Nukes 504–505)

2008

2008 — Luis Elizondo, an employee of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, claims that he is the director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a small group of UFO-curious

personnel at the Pentagon who are studying UFOs encountered by military personnel. Confusingly, it has the same name as the nickname of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s secret Aerospace Advanced Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) used in 2008–2010 as a way to mask its real name. The group has the direct knowledge of their superiors. The core people in this group will form the basis of what will become the UAP Task Force, created by Congress in the summer of 2020, but it now operates without a budget, office, or formal name until Elizondo resigns from his job in 2017. The Department of Defense has claimed that AATIP ended in 2012. (Clark III 49; Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean, “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program,” New York Times, December 16, 2017; Skinwalkers xxiii–xxiv, 157–158)

2008 — The Swedish Defence Research Agency begins sharing a database with UFO-Sverige to make all reports coming into the institute available to the organization’s field investigators. (Swords 371)

January 8 — 6:10 p.m. Truck driver Harlan Cowan is traveling east toward Stephenville, Texas, when he sees two stationary lights directly ahead. They are as bright as welding arcs. They split apart and move rapidly away from each other to the north and south at a high rate of speed. At 6:15 p.m., private pilot Steve Allen and three other witnesses 5 miles southeast of Stephenville see four lights similar in intensity to burning magnesium. They come out of the northeast at a speed faster than a military jet. Allen thinks the lights are spread out over a one-mile area. They slow down and remain stationary northwest of his position, then they shift from 4 lights in a horizontal position to 7 lights in a vertical position, emit a white flame, and blink out. Over 30 more witnesses come forward to report odd lights until about 9:30 p.m. Some also see fighter jets chasing the light. Angela Joiner, a reporter with the Stephenville Empire-Tribune, calls Maj. Karl Lewis, spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, who first tells her he thinks the lights are reflections of the sun on high- altitude aircraft. When she asks about military aircraft reported by witnesses, Lewis volunteers the information that there were no F-16s from his unit operating that night, and no other pilots had reported a UFO. On January 16, a FOIA request is sent to the Federal Aviation Administration for any radar data from sites around Stephenville. On January 23, the Air Force admits in a press release that there indeed were 10 F-16s performing training operations that night between 6:00 and 8:00. Joiner contacts Lewis again, who now merely reads the press statement and is not helpful. In February, responses to FOIAs by Robert Powell and Glen Schulze begin to arrive. Military bases unanimously respond with “we have found no records responsive to your request.” However, the FAA releases its raw radar information in mid-February. It is clear that the unknown lights are not related to F-16 activity, but there is intense Air Force activity that night. Ten F-16s and one AWACS jet make figure-8s over the area. Two F-16s from Oklahoma fly south to the Stephenville area. FAA radar returns also show a target four miles north of Allen’s sighting that moves at an apparent speed of 2,100 mph. At 7:20 p.m., two radar sites pick up a target that corresponds to Constable Lee Roy Gaitan’s observation of an unknown light. Another radar track begins at 6:51 p.m. An unknown object without a transponder signal is tracked with FAA radar for more than one hour. Two different radars (one at Fort Worth and another at Temple) make contact with the object 187 times as it covers a distance of 50 miles on a constant trajectory to the southeast. Its speed varies from stationary, to accelerating to 532 mph in 30 seconds, to deaccelerating to 49 mph in 10 seconds. It is traveling on a direct course to President George W. Bush’s Western White House in Crawford, Texas. At 8:00

p.m. it is 10 miles from Prairie Chapel Ranch. Two witnesses riding bicycles 2 miles away from the ranch see a light that slowly descends, makes a 90° turn, then speeds out of sight in 1–2 seconds. But no F-16s pursue this potential interloper. (NICAP, “Large Object Seen / Tracked by Radar / Near Bush Ranch”; “Stephenville 2008,” Texas UFO Museum and Research Library; Angela K. Brown, “Military Reverses Itself, Says F-16s Were in Texas Area Where Residents Reported UFO,” Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer, January 23, 2008; “MUFON Releases Report on UFO Sighting in Stephenville, Texas,” Wikinews, July 18, 2008; Glen Schulze and Robert Powell, “Stephenville Lights: A Comprehensive Radar and Witness Report Study Regarding the Events of January 8, 2008, 4pm to 8pm,” December 18, 2010; Swords 344–348)

February 21 — The US Navy destroys the malfunctioning US spy satellite USA-193 orbiting at 153 miles altitude using a RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 launched from the USS Lake Erie. The US claims it created no space debris because the satellite was so close to earth that the particles burned up in reentry. (Wikipedia, “Operation Burnt Frost”)

March 5 — The 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron becomes operational at Creech AFB, Nevada, as “the Air Force’s [first] test squadron for unmanned aerial systems.” The base is home to drone operators for both the US Air Force and the CIA in missions across Afghanistan and the Middle East. (Wikipedia, “Creech Air Force Base”)

April — After publication of the 99th issue of Magonia, John Rimmer decides to cease print publication. (“History of

Magonia,” Magonia Archive; Clark III 706)

April 22 — The last F-117 stealth fighter-bomber is retired and returned to Tonopah Test Range in Nevada. Although officially retired, the F-117 fleet remains intact and photos show the aircraft carefully mothballed. Some of the aircraft are flown periodically and have been spotted flying as recently as July 2019. (Wikipedia, “Lockheed F- 117 Nighthawk”)

May — Scripps-Howard News Service and Ohio University conduct a telephone poll on UFOs and extraterrestrial life. 55.8% of respondents believe that the existence of intelligent life in space is either likely or somewhat likely, while 33.1% believe it is likely or somewhat likely that intelligent life has visited earth. Only 7.6% answer that they have had a UFO sighting. (Mark Rodeghier, “Influences on Opinion about ETI and UFOs,” IUR 32, no. 2 (December 2008): 19–24)

May 5 — At the request of the Brazilian Commission of Ufologists, the office of the Deputy Chief of Legal Affairs contacts the Ministry of Defense and requests access to documents related to UFO material that is no longer classified and can be turned over to the National Archives. (Clark III 1072)

May 6 — Political scientists Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall publish an article, “Sovereignty and the UFO” in Political Theory, in which they point to the fundamental weakness of anti-UFO arguments, which claim falsely that no evidence exists. When skeptics are not arguing along those lines, they use a priori logic, which insists that if extraterrestrials exist, they would not behave or look as UFO witnesses describe. Another assertion is that spacecraft could never get to Earth, given the constraints of distance and speed. The authors argue that the problem is that the idea of real UFOs challenges anthropocentric norms, making it a taboo even to acknowledge a phenomenon that has been declared non-existent. (Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall, “Sovereignty and the UFO,” Political Theory 36, no. 4 (August 2008): 607–633; Clark III 537–538; Kean, pp. 269–281)

May 12 — The first tranche of UFO files is released by the UK National Archives, whose UFO webpage, set up to provide direct public access, receives more than 1.7 million visitors in the first few days. Internet searches on UFOs triple overnight across the globe. (“UK Releases Classified UFO Files,” New Scientist, May 13, 2008; UFOFiles2, p. x)

May 26 — New York Times staff reporter Sarah Lyall, based in the UK, selectively focuses on some of the silliest UFO documents released by the Ministry of Defence (letters written to the agency by citizens) and provides readers with standard ridicule and the biased approach traditionally associated with New York Times coverage. (Sarah Lyall, “British UFO Shocker! Government Officials Were Telling the Truth,” New York Times, May 26, 2008)

June 26 — 9:20 a.m. At the 27th Annual Meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration in Boulder, Colorado, Jerome Clark gives a lecture on the distinction between “event anomalies” (which cannot be easily explained) and “experience anomalies” (which are effectively inexplicable). Event anomalies require a scientific investigation to be understood, documented, and incorporated into current or future knowledge. Experience anomalies are indifferent to truth narratives, supporting false ones just as readily; they embrace the notion of liminality, in which it is possible to enter a “realm between the daylight of science and reason and the dark night of dreams and superstition.” Clark expands on the concept in later books and articles. (Clark III 444-446; Jerome Clark, “Experience Anomalies,” Fortean Times 243 (December 2008): 42–47)

July 29 — Former UK Ministry of Defence official Nick Pope offers a rational response to the biased reportage in the May 26 issue of the New York Times, citing the O’Hare Airport and Alderney UFO cases. He concludes: “The United States Air Force or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration should reopen investigations of UFO phenomena. It would not imply that the country has suddenly started believing in little green men. It would simply recognize the possibility that radar alone cannot always tell us what’s out there.” (Nick Pope, “Unidentified Flying Threats,” New York Times, July 29, 2008)

August 18 — The Defense Intelligence Agency issues a small-business set-aside solicitation (HHM402-08-R-0211) for a company to handle its new Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), with a due date of September 10. The solicitation states that the primary focus is on “breakthrough technologies and applications that create discontinuities in currently evolving technology trends.” (Skinwalkers 20–21, 42–43)

August 20 — 4:45 p.m. A military witness one mile outside Hrubieszów, Poland, watches a silvery isosceles triangle hovering and rotating around its axis in the west. He estimates it is 50 feet long on one side and less than 2 miles away. It flies over the area at an altitude of 330 feet. At one point it dims and literally vanishes in mid-air in a matter of seconds. (Poland 94–95)

September 16 — 10:30 p.m. A witness and his fiancée are driving north near Radomsko, Poland, when they see a black triangle with lights (apparently gas jets) at its corners slowly floating 500 feet above the road. Two of the lights are blinking and one is steady. The 30-foot-wide object has cubical protrusions on its side and a smooth bottom. It seems to be rotating at first and takes another pass over the highway at a higher altitude after doubling back. (Poland 93–94)

September 22 — A $10 million initial contract for the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) is awarded to Bigelow Aerospace, the only bidder on the August solicitation, by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The program contract directs that the “contractor shall complete advanced aerospace weapon system technical studies” on 12 topics, such as propulsion, power generation, materials, configuration, structure, and directed-energy weapons. The intent is to research technology that could shed light on the UFO/UAP phenomenon. Robert Bigelow sets up the Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) project with 40–50 full-time support staff to carry out the contract through September 30, 2010. DIA intelligence officer James T. Lacatski becomes the program manager, and biochemist Colm Kelleher is deputy administrator. (Clark III 48; Keith Basterfield, “Dr. Colm Kelleher and the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program,” Unidentified Aerial Phenomena—Scientific Research, May 14, 2018; Keith Basterfield, “Did the AAWSA Program/AATIP Really Start in 2007?” Unidentified Aerial Phenomena—Scientific Research, May 16, 2018; Skinwalkers 20, 22–25, 42–44)

October 31 — The National Archive in Brasília, Brazil, receives from the Center for Aeronautical Documentation and History a set of publications dated 1952–1969 on UFOs. Among them are documents identifying the government’s System of Investigation of Unidentified Aircraft and UFO cases investigated from October 1968 to August 1969. Another batch is received on April 23, 2009, covering the years 1970–1972. (Clark III 1072–1073; Kean, p. 199)

October 31 — 6:00 p.m. An architect in Sandomierz, Poland, sees a boomerang- or half-moon-shaped object surrounded by a mist filled with red points of light. It is silently moving 93) northeast at tremendous speed. (Poland 92–93)

November — Robert Bigelow hires biochemist Colm Kelleher as deputy administrator of the Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies project in Las Vegas, its first full-time employee. (Skinwalkers 44)

November — 9:00 p.m. A Polish woman living in Aarhus, Denmark, looks up and sees a gigantic luminous object silently heading west. It looks like it s made of glass or jelly and is surrounded by a misty illumination. (Poland 93)

November 5 — Researcher Robert Powell writes to NORAD’s Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr. and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, with copies to the FAA and chairmen of the Senate and House Committees on Homeland Security, asking for an investigation of the Stephenville Lights case of January 8 as a violation of restricted airspace by “unknown aircraft” near the Bush ranch. (Glen Schulze and Robert Powell, “Stephenville Lights: A Comprehensive Radar and Witness Report Study Regarding the Events of January 8, 2008, 4pm to 8pm,” December 18, 2010; Swords 348, 510–511)

November 17 — A teacher is taking his dog for a stroll in Sulejówek, Poland, when he comes across a triangular object with lights along its rounded edges and in the center. It flies directly over him. (Poland 93)

December 22 —Maj. Gen. John H. Bordelon, NORAD chief of staff, responds to Powell’s request. He claims an “exhaustive search” in data files was conducted, and the Air Force “could find no tactical or technical information that would corroborate this event.” He refers Powell to the National UFO Reporting Center hotline. (Swords 348, 512)

2009

2009 — CUFOS creates an updated version of its UFOCAT database containing more than 209,551 UFO reports and related information. (Center for UFO Studies, “UFOCAT 2009”)

2009 — Denmark and Sweden publicly release more than 15,000 UFO files each. (Kean, p. 117)

2009 — Visión Ovni and many other UFO researchers in Argentina form Cefora, an organization to study the UFO phenomenon in detail. Silvia Simondini and others start collecting signatures on a petition to declassify Argentine military documents on UFOs. However, since most agencies are not required to keep documents more than 5 years, their efforts are frustrated by bureaucratic deaccession rules, especially for interesting Argentine reports.

(Wikipedia, “Cefora”; Milton Hourcade, “Argentina: UFO Declassification,” U.A.P.S.G.–G.E.F.A.I., July 29, 2020)

2009 — The operations and maintenance contract for the day-to-day management and operation of the US Air Force Space Surveillance System is awarded to Five Rivers Services, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (Wikipedia, “Air Force Space Surveillance System”)

January 1 — Yvan White takes over as director of GEIPAN from Jacques Patenet, who continues as an advisor. (Swords 453)

January 5 — 8:15–9:00 p.m. Mysterious floating red lights in the sky are reported near Morristown, New Jersey. The red lights are also observed on January 26, January 29, February 7, and February 17. The events are later revealed as a hoax perpetrated by Joe Rudy and Chris Russo, who are conducting a social experiment to expose ufology as a pseudoscience and raise consciousness around the unreliability of eyewitness claims. They release five flare lights attached to helium balloons. Reports are concentrated in the towns of Hanover Township, Morristown, Morris Plains, Madison, and Florham Park. On April 7, Russo and Rudy plead guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and are sentenced to fines of $250 and 50 hours of community service. (Wikipedia, “Morristown UFO hoax”)

March — The UK National Archives releases another batch of UFO files. (UK National Archives, “Briefing Document: Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs),” 2013)

May 8 — 11:45 p.m. “Derek Jones” is alerted by his two dogs barking in his backyard in northern Georgia, where his 10- year-old son is camping out in a tent with a friend. He sees a large triangular object about 300 feet long with yellowish lights at each apex moving silently above him. There is a bluish-white light in the center. Behind the triangle are four small objects, two egg-shaped and two round, with bluish-white lights that change to greenish to white and back to bluish. The smaller objects dart up and down soundlessly and erratically. He attempts taking pictures of it with a camera and a videocamera, but the batteries fail in both devices. When he points a bright spotlight beam at the triangle, it responds immediately with a beam of intense bluish-white light about 2–3 feet in diameter that strikes him for about 3 seconds, causing a burning sensation. He runs back into the house, where he watches two of the smaller objects move away to the south-southwest while the other two shoot straight up. He goes to bed, but is awakened by low-flying helicopters at 2:00 a.m. Around 7:30 a.m., he is visited by two men who want to talk about his “sighting report.” They are driving a black sedan, produce no identification, one of them is armed, and they behave oddly as they interview him for 30–40 minutes. After he sees the same men in the black sedan a week later, he reports the license plate to BAASS, which tracks it to a Department of Homeland Security carpool. Jones experiences hair loss and general unwellness within 18 days of the incident. In October he develop lumps on his legs, groin, and back; they enlarge, multiply to 24, and become painful in February 2010.

One of the lumps is diagnosed as non-malignant lymphoma, but a BAASS-contracted physician suspects Jones has undergone about 300 grays of ionizing radiation. (Skinwalkers 99–105)

May 26 — 9:52 p.m. A man in Rzesnów, Poland, notices from his balcony five strange, whirling red-orange lights twinkling above the suburban villages of Chmielnik and Tyczyn. He captures them on a video. (Poland 153–154)

June — The Uruguayan Air Force declassifies its UFO files and makes them public, including records of 40 cases that remain unexplained, some involving military pilots. Col. Ariel Sánchez, in charge of the UFO office, says that the “Air Force does not dismiss an extraterrestrial hypothesis based on our scientific analysis.” (“Uruguay Joins the Party,” Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, June 12, 2009; Kean, p. 190)

June 16 — 2:00 a.m. A woman in Kansas City, Kansas, is looking toward a public forest area behind her home when she notices a large white light moving toward her. It stops, and she uses her binoculars to get a closer look. The object consists of three large spheres connected together with a large arm or protrusion extending from beneath it. The arm is moving around in a circle. It stays in that position until it just disappears. Shortly afterward, military planes and helicopters move into the area and seem to be searching for something for about one hour. (Roger Marsh, “Reports from Louisville and Kansas City,” IUR 32, no. 3 (July 2009): 20)

June 24 — Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) decides that the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Application Program (misidentified intentionally as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) has made such extraordinary discoveries that he asks for additional security (individuals “specialized in the areas of advanced sciences, sensors, intelligence, counterintelligence, and advanced aerospace engineering”) to protect it. He writes Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III that AATIP has made “much progress” with the “identification of several highly sensitive, unconventional aerospace-related findings” that will “likely lead to technology advancements.” He requests that it be designated a “restricted Special Access Program.” Some of the ongoing

projects include power and propulsion systems (nuclear propulsion, anuclear fusion, positron propulsion, magnetohydrodynamics, traversable wormholes, warp drives, antigravity, zero-point energy), materials science (metallic glass, programmable matter), recalculating the Drake Equation, invisibility, and weaponry (pulsed microwaves, high-powered lasers). (Harry Reid, Letter to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn III, June 24, 2009; Skinwalkers 27, 90–93)

June 24 — 1:55 p.m. A package handler at Louisville International Airport in Kentucky sees a reflection in the sky from the south end of a runway. As it approaches, he sees it is a rotating object, first a cylinder, then a diamond shape. It moves over the runway in a straight line and at a steady speed about 1,500 feet high. The object stops at the end of the ramp and hovers for 30–40 seconds, then moves up into the clouds and disappears. (Roger Marsh, “Reports from Louisville and Kansas City,” IUR 32, no. 3 (July 2009): 20)

July — At the invitation of Robert Bigelow, naval aerospace engineer Jonathan Axelrod [possibly John F. Stratton], Jim Costigan, and David Wilson arrive at the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah to deploy a wide variety of sensory equipment to detect and record anomalies. They experience an odd temperature drop, intense anxiety, and a menacing dark oval shape. After Axelrod returns home to suburban Virginia, paranormal phenomena plague his family, including a humanoid shape, phantom footsteps, blue orbs, and a wolf-like creature standing on two legs. (Skinwalkers 1–8)

July 5 — 9:20 p.m. Retired police officer Buck Scarsdale is sitting with his son Bo and girlfriend Joanna Fife on the porch of his ranch home in Lagol, Ventura County, California. They notice seven bright blue lights silently hovering several feet off the ground in the orchard about 500 feet away. They jump in a truck and drive slowly with the lights off toward the display. When they get there, the lights are gone. After returning to the house, they decide to drive back, this time with flashlights. After 10 minutes of searching on foot, they hear two loud clicks coming from some dense bushes, and three others clicks coming from different directions. They return to the house.

Buck’s brother Roger arrives at 10:30 p.m., and both of them return to the orchard. Just before 11:00 p.m., Roger sees a silver, gray, and blue flash as an oblong object disappears into an opening in the sky that closes quickly. On July 10, Buck, Bo, and Joanna see an intensely blue light at the northern end of the pasture. Buck and Roger approach it and watch a floating light 5 feet in diameter maneuvering for 5 minutes 900 feet away before it vanishes. Two teams of investigators sent by Robert Bigelow also see lights and orbs the rest of the month, and their camera and video equipment behaves oddly. (Skinwalkers 59–69)

August — Robert Bigelow brings Pentagon technical analyst Juliett Witt to the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah. Along with Colm Kelleher, she experiences a cone of silence and a weird pig-like creature the one night she is there. Like Jonathan Axelrod, the phenomena follow her back home to Virginia, where she experiences poltergeist phenomena and sees a huge owl that attacks her car. (Skinwalkers, 50–58, 81–82)

August 6 — The UK National Archives releases another batch of UFO files. (UK National Archives, “Briefing Document: Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs),” 2013)

August 21 — 9:40 p.m. Tomasz Skorupski sees a deep-black object in the shape of the letter M flying west to east 200 feet above the ground at 50 mph at Kowale Oleckie, Poland. He estimates it is 10 feet in length and 30 feet at the widest point. Seven dimly yellow lights are positioned on the craft, while the rest seems dark and obscures the stars on its flight path. (Poland 100)

September — 10:00 p.m. Jim Costigan, who had visited Skinwalker Ranch in Utah two months earlier, is walking his dog with his wife Laila in suburban Maryland when they see a blue, softball-sized light moving in their direction about 6 feet off the ground to the left. It accelerates and shoots between them, grazing Laila’s shoulder as it passes. Within seconds it is lost behind a house. The dog does not notice it. Laila becomes lethargic the next day and shows severe flu-like symptoms for the next few weeks. She is ultimately diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease of the thyroid. (Skinwalkers 77–79)

November — The RAF Air Command prepares a briefing for UK Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth recommending that the Ministry of Defence “should seek to reduce very significantly the UFO task which is consuming increasing resources, but produces no valuable defence output.” (“Britain’s Defense Ministry Releases Its Final UFO Files,” USA Today, June 21, 2013)

November — Sen. Harry Reid’s request for Special Access Program status for the US Defense Intelligence Agency’s Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program is denied by a group at the Pentagon consisting of Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Gen. James R. Clapper, special programs officer at USDI Susan Jones, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative

Affairs Marcel Lettre, and Defense Intelligence Agency defense warning officer Bob Carlsberg. (Skinwalkers 92- 93; Gideon Lewis-Kraus, “How the Pentagon Started Taking UFOs Seriously,” The New Yorker, April 30, 2021)

November 25 — 12:15 a.m. A mental health professional in Port Jervis, New York, is driving home listening to Christmas CDs on the car’s player. Coming around a bend, he sees an object about one mile away. As he comes to the next turn, he slows down to 25 mph to get a better look, but by then he is surprised to see that it is almost on top of him. He stops the car on the side of the road, putting it in park with the engine running. The object is cigar-shaped and turning clockwise slowly as it approaches. It is moving slowly like a hot-air balloon. He hears a sound like a cat purring at a low frequency. The UFO passes overhead and his vehicle suffers a complete power failure. His cellphone is also dead. He opens the driver’s door and looks up, seeing lights on the bottom of the object, which immediately blink out. The car starts again spontaneously. (Herbert S. Taylor, “An Update on Vehicle Interference Reports, Part 1,” IUR 33, no. 4 (May 2011): 20–21)

December 1 — The UK Ministry of Defence shuts down its UFO hotline and closes its UFO desk, ostensibly because it has produced “no defence benefit” and no evidence of extraterrestrial aliens in more than 50 years. But the staff is overwhelmed by public inquiries, which are at a 10-year high. (“UFO Investigations Unit Closed by Ministry of Defence,” BBC News, December 4, 2009; “Britain’s Defense Ministry Releases Its Final UFO Files,” USA Today, June 21, 2013; UFOFiles2, pp. 175–176, 178)

December 1 — The Defense Intelligence Agency’s AAWSAP program issues the first of 38 Project Physics position papers (Defense Intelligence Reference Documents) that define the current and projected state of the art in aerospace technology, all pertaining to the 12 areas chosen by the DIA. Bigelow’s group has subcontracted with Harold E. Puthoff, CEO of EarthTech International in Austin, Texas, to choose the precise nature and scope of the papers. The first paper is on “Advanced Nuclear Propusion for Manned Deep Space Missions” by physicist Friedwardt Winterberg. (US Defense Intelligence Agency, [list of products produced under the AATIP contract], January 9, 2018; Skinwalkers 47, 122)

December 9 — Night. A large beam of light is seen and photographed for 10 minutes over all of northern Norway from Trøndelag in the south through all the counties further north, as well as parts of northern Sweden. The phenomenon consists of a blue beam of light with a grayish spiral emanating from one end of it. It moves from behind a mountain, stops in mid-air, and starts to spiral outwards. A similar, though less spectacular, event also occurred in Norway the month before. Both events have visual features of failed flights of Russian RSM-56 Bulava SLBM. The Russian Defense Ministry admits shortly afterward that such an event had taken place at the time on December 9. (Wikipedia, “2009 Norwegian spiral anomaly”; Tony Spell, “Estimation of the Trajectory, Location, Size, and Altitude of the ‘Norway Spiral’ Phenomenon,” December 29, 2009)

December 11 — Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) directors James T. Lacatski, Colm Kelleher, and Larry Grossman meet at Bolling AFB [now Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling] in Washington, D.C., with Jack Angelo, director of operations for the Office of Special Projects of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. They brief him on their operations and security, and ask AFOSI for data on the Northern Tier UFO incursions of October–November 1975. Angelo promised to see what he could do, but BAASS needs to be accepted into some Special Access Programs to progress much further. (Skinwalkers 94–97)

2010

January — The RAF asks the Home Office to cancel standing instructions to police forces who have, in the past, routinely forwarded UFO sightings by officers to the MoD. (UFOFiles2, p. 179)

January — US Navy Petty Officer John Baughman sees a “Tic-Tac” shaped object from the flight deck of the supercarrier USS Carl Vinson off the coast of Haiti. It is a solid, white object, some 20 feet long, that darts into the water and appears to collapse on itself and disappear. (Ryan Sprague, “New Navy Witness Says He Saw a ‘Tic Tac’ Operating Underwater,” Medium: Trail of the Saucers, July 11, 2021)

Late January — Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) Director of Investigation Larry Grossman meets in Washington, D.C., with former AFOSI Col. Barry Hennessey (Ret.). He acknowledges that AFOSI could not identify many of the UFOs associated with the Northern Tier air force bases in 1975. Hennessey suspects that many of the AFOSI investigative records for those cases have been purged, and hinted to Grossman that some odd unmanned aerial vehicles could be military projects. (Skinwalkers 97–98)

February 17 — The UK National Archives releases another batch of UFO files, more than 6,000 pages of documentation and reports from 1994 to 2000. (“UFO Sightings from the National Archives,” The Guardian (UK), February 17, 2010; UK National Archives, “Briefing Document: Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs),” 2013)

March — The Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) asks remote viewer Joseph McMoneagle to observe a target designated as 22610 using traditional blind targeting protocols. 22610 is actually Skinwalker Ranch in Utah. McMoneagle’s sketch of the ranch, its environment, animals, two ranch managers, and two security guards are accurate, but he indicates a fifth individual is present. He describes a male, 60–70 pounds, 4 feet 3 inches high, with no hair. McMoneagle says this person is invisible to ranch personnel, although he attempts to ciommunicate with them to see their response. (Skinwalkers 120–121)

March 3 — Evening. S/Sgt. Omar Gonzalez and the crew of Dakota Air Traffic Control at Ellsworth AFB near Rapid City, South Dakota, pick up unidentified traffic crossing a passing aircraft, which reports visual contact with an object 2,000 feet above him. The target appears to be 18 miles south of the Ellsworth AFB runway. Suddenly the object vanishes from view and the radar track disappears. A few minutes later, the target reappears on radar behind the aircraft. (Skinwalkers 125)

March 8–12 — Dozens of independent witnesses in Kraków and Rzeszów, Poland, report a strange disc-shaped object of considerable size with white or red lights on its perimeter and red-green lights on its base. (Poland 104–107)

April 22 — An unmanned HTV-2 Falcon hypersonic glider, the fastest unmanned aerial vehicle, reaches a record speed of 13,201 mph. (Wikipedia, “Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2”)

April 22 — The first X-37B, an uncrewed, reusable, robotic spaceplane, launches on its first mission, Orbital Test Vehicle 1 / USA-212, on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The spacecraft is placed

into low Earth orbit for testing. While the Air Force reveals few orbital details of the mission, a worldwide network of amateur astronomers claims to have identified the spacecraft in orbit. It lands on December 3 after more than 224 days in orbit. (Wikipedia, “USA-212”)

June 14 — European Parliament Member Mario Borghezio calls for the European Union to have its own centralized information center where anyone can access information on UFOs, even records held by the military. Borghezio argues that governments should go public with the information they hold and stop what he believes is a systematic cover-up. Not satisfied with a central archive, Borghezio also wants a scientific center to study UFOs that could encourage research and development. “I think that, under the principle of transparency,” he says, “the EU member states have a duty to make public and available to all scientific data on UFOs which today are partially or wholly withheld.” (“MEP Calls for Declassification of UFO Files,” Euractiv, July 7, 2010)

July 7 — 8:40 p.m. A UFO is seen hovering above Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport near Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. An airliner preparing for descent first notices the object and notifies the tower. Within minutes, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) closes the airport down, grounding outbound flights and diverting inbound ones to other airports. Normal operations resume an hour later. Nearby residents take photos of the UFO. One daylight photo taken earlier in the afternoon shows an object with a clear, comet-like tail; another, taken after dusk shows a glowing object emitting golden light. Another photo clearly shows an airplane with a contrail.

CAAC conducts an investigation but refuses to release it publicly because there is a “military connection.” MIT weapons analyst Geoffrey Forden says the most credible photo shows an arc streaking across the sky around sunset and that the most likely cause is the launch of a DF-21 missile somewhere near Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and aimed at a point somewhere in the eastern Gobi Desert. (“Flights Diverted, Delayed As UFO Detected Hovering,” People’s Daily Online, July 9, 2010; “UFO Forces Hangzhou Airport to Shut Down,” China Central Television, July 10, 2010; “Hangzhou Light Show,” Arms Control Wonk, July 12, 2010; “UFO in China’s Skies Prompts Investigation,” ABC News, July 14, 2010; Alexis C. Madrigal, “A UFO over China? Well, No,” The Atlantic, July 19, 2010 “UFOs over China? Not Quite, Analyst Says,” CNN, July 20, 2010)

August — The Nevada Test Site is renamed the Nevada National Security Site. (Wikipedia, “Nevada Test Site”)

August 5 — The UK National Archives releases another 5,000 pages of UFO files to the public. This release alone generates 196 separate news items and reaches a readership of 25 million people. (“Churchill Ordered UFO Cover-Up, National Archives Show,” BBC News, August 5, 2010; UK National Archives, “Briefing Document: Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs),” 2013; UFOFiles2, p. xi)

August 13 — 8:00 p.m. A circle of six yellow lights appears in the sky above the Jardim Bela Vista district of Bauru, São Paulo, Brazil. Dentist Daniela Tamarossi and others spend more than 2 hours watching it maneuver. (Brazil 403– 405)

August 16 — 11:00 p.m. Two people camping on Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia are walking on the beach when they notice above them a low-flying triangular object with lights at each of its points. It is moving silently to the south toward Jacksonville, Florida. About 45 minutes later they see it through some trees from their campsite, again silent and heading south. (“Sighting Report,” National UFO Reporting Center, November 21, 2010; Nukes 508)

September 27 — Researcher Robert Hastings organizes a briefing at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., that brings together former US Air Force personnel who testify to the existence of UFOs and their ability to neutralize American and Russian nuclear missiles. Those appearing include former Capt. Robert Salas, retired nuclear missile targeting officer Robert C. Jamison, and retired Col. Charles I. Halt. Several of the ex-servicemembers say that when they brought their concerns to superiors, they were told it is “top secret” or that it “didn’t happen.” Hastings suggests the presence of such phenomena means that aliens could be monitoring our weapons and perhaps warning us about their use. (“Ex-Air Force Personnel: UFOs Deactivated Nukes,” CBS News, September 28, 2010; Robert L. Hastings, “The UFOs–Nukes Connection Press Conference,” October 11, 2010; “Military Witnesses of UFOs at Nuclear Sites: National Press Club,” QUFOSR YouTube channel, December 15, 2016; Nukes 511–512)

September 30 — The contract for the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program is extended until December 21, 2010, at no cost to the government. However, there is no congressional funding available for 2011. One of its most significant achievements is the development of a Data Warehouse that links 11 separate UFO databases and supporting documentation. The databases are the NIDS database airline and military pilot sightings, the USAF Blue Book database, UFOCAT, the MUFON Case Management System database, Project Colares, the Canadian government’s UFO releases, the UK government’s UFO releases, BAASS cases investigated, Skinwalker Ranch database, and a database of Skinwalker Ranch contagious health effects.

Each UFO case is assigned a credibility rating designed by Jacques Vallée, and the database configuration is based on a six-layer model developed by Vallée and Eric W. Davis in 2003, using layers designated as physical, anti-physical, psychological, physiological, psychic, and cultural. The Data Warehouse is not retired at the end of the AAWSAP, but is used by the UAP Task Force and its successor organization. (Skinwalkers 26–27, 167–170)

October 11 — 8:40 p.m. A man named Qiao sees two luminous objects, one small one and the other larger, over the Xincheng district of Taiyuan, Shaanxi, China. They keep circling in a regular pattern. Other luminous objects are reported above the Sanqianglu district. Soon the media hotlines are flooded with phone calls. Two luminous objects circling in the air are seen at 8:55 p.m. in the Xinhuajie district, at 9:01 p.m. near the Apparel Town area, and at 9:05 p.m. near the racetrack. When reporters arrive at the plaza of the Taiyuan Railway Station, they see a large, milky-white, luminous spot circling above the clouds with a diameter of at least 32 feet. The object first looks like a luminous spot produced by a searchlight against the clouds, but it has no obvious light beams. The object circles and moves up and down and from side to side until it disappears around 9:10 p.m. (“Chinese UFO Report Affirms Reality of Manipulative Extraterrestrial Abduction,” Canadian Business Daily, September 24, 2011)

October 13 — 4:00 a.m. A village in the Qinling mountains of southern Shaanxi province, China, supposedly disappears overnight after witnesses contact news agencies to report UFOs in the area. Chinese troops allegedly cordon off the area with no explanation. A video circulates online, reportedly showing bright blue lights in the sky over the village. Subsequent reports deny a military presence in the area and attribute the story to rumor and misinformation. Other reports indicate the “disappearance” took place in 1987 and was part of a rural relocation program to alleviate poverty in the area. (“Inexplicable Disappearance of a Village in the Qinling Mountains: UFO Village Vanishing?” Before It’s News, October 14, 2010; “China Qinling Mountains Village Vanishing after UFO (13/10/2010),” Marco Maia YouTube channel, October 14, 2010; “UFO Abduction of Whole Village Exposed As Rumor,” People’s Daily Online, October 18, 2010; Chris Saunders, “UFOs over China,” Fortean Times 331 (October 2015): 31; Robert Foyle Hunwick, “China Unsolved: The Village That Vanished,” SupChina, July 11, 2018; Brent Swancer, “A Mysterious Vanishing Village in China,” Mysterious Universe, June 26, 2019; “Across China: Revisiting a Disappearing Village in Northwest China,” Xinhua, June 17, 2020)

October 23–24 — Air Force personnel at Francis E. Warren AFB near Cheyenne, Wyoming, report seeing an enormous cigar-shaped craft maneuvering high above its missile field. The UFO appears similar to an advertising blimp but has no passenger gondola or advertising on its hull. On the same day, the missile site temporarily loses its ability

to communicate with 50 of its Minuteman III nuclear missiles. The five Missile Alert Facilities affected, Alpha through Echo, are responsible for launching those ICBMs in time of war and comprise the 319th Strategic Missile Squadron. The Air Force then quickly acknowledges the problem, saying that a backup system could have launched the missiles if necessary and that the breakdown lasted only 59 minutes. But according to two missile technicians stationed at the base, the communications problem, while intermittent, lasts several hours. These confidential sources further report that the commander of the squadron sternly warns its members not to talk to journalists or researchers about “the things they may or may not have seen” in the sky near the missiles in recent months and threatens severe penalties for violating security. (NICAP, “Base ‘Loses’ 50 Missiles”; Marc Ambinder, “Failure Shuts Down Squadron of Nuclear Missiles,” The Atlantic, October 26, 2010; Robert L. Hastings, “Huge UFO Sighted near Nuclear Missiles during October 2010 Launch System Disruption,” UFOs & Nukes, June 21, 2011; Nukes 515–517)

November 5 — In a letter to Spanish UFO researcher Ignacio Darnaude, admitted Ummo hoaxer José Luis Jordán Peña elaborates on the reason why he began writing the fake letters. He acknowledges that he used collaborators (Vicente Ortuno, Norman West, John Child, Mercedes Carrasco, Alberto Borras, Trinidad Pastrana, Sean O’Connelly, Iker J.) who sent letters from distant places and that he created the fictional character of John Axee to better disseminate his knowledge. He claims he was contacted at the outset by two American doctors, Jonathan F. McGuire and Arnold J. Lebotski (he previously said that they were CIA agents), working for a foreign organization who offered him, for a fee, to carry out a sociological experiment in the interest of western culture. (Wikipedia, “Ummo”; Alain Moreau, “Ummo: Une imposture?” Les Cles de l’Inexplique; Scott Corrales, “The Ummo Experience: Are You Experienced?” Strange Magazine; UmmoWiki, “Jóse Luis Jordán Peña”)

November 14 — 6:30 p.m. A swiftly moving light is seen maneuvering in the sky above Logradouro, Ceará, Brazil, apparently following witnesses, for more than 6 hours. (Brazil 407–408)

December 22 — The New Zealand Ministry of Defence releases 12 volumes of documents related to UFOs dating from 1952 to 2009. (Suzy Hansen, “Relinquishing Responsibility? Circumstances Surrounding the Release of the New Zealand MOD UFO Files 2010/2011,” Ufocus.nz, 2018)

2011

January — Philippe Ailleris, amateur astronomer and founder of the Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena Reporting Scheme, publishes “UFOs and Exogenous Intelligence Encounters” in the European Space Policy Institute Perspectives newsletter. Although he makes it clear that a large percentage of UFO sightings are explainable, an open-minded approach toward the phenomenon is necessary. He argues that UFOs have had a positive influence on public support for space exploration and SETI, and that 60 years of UFO sightings have opened our minds to the inevitability of direct contact with nonhuman intelligences. (Philippe Ailleris, “UFOs and Exogenous Intelligence Encounters,” European Space Policy Institute Perspectives, no. 43 (January 2011))

February 7 — James T. Lacatski provides an in-depth briefing to Jim Bell and Sacha Mover of the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate on the accomplishments of the AAWSAP in an attempt to transfer the program out of the Department of Defense. He recounts the BAASS investigations into UAPs and the paranormal events at the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, as well as AAWSAP’s research into advanced technologies. Lacatski works with Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to attempt to get the BAASS-like project funded. Negotiations and presentations continue through December, but DHS is ultimately uninterested and concerned about negative publicity. (Skinwalkers 28, 142–143, 148–154)

March 11 — 2:46 p.m. A 9.0 Mw earthquake takes place with an epicenter near Honshu, Japan. Immediately after the earthquake, the electricity-producing Reactors 1, 2, and 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, automatically shut down their sustained fission reactions by inserting control rods in a safety procedure referred to as a SCRAM, which ends the reactors’ normal running conditions, by closing down the fission reaction in a controlled manner. Because the reactors are now unable to generate power to run their own coolant pumps, emergency diesel generators come online, as designed, to power electronics and coolant systems. These operate normally until a 46-foot tsunami sweeps over the plant’s seawall and destroys the generators for Reactors 1–5. Large amounts of water contaminated with radioactive isotopes are released into the Pacific Ocean during and after the disaster. (Wikipedia, “Fukushima nuclear disaster”)

March 31 — The New Zealand Ministry of Defence releases a further 3 volumes of documents related to UFOs. (Suzy Hansen, “Relinquishing Responsibility? Circumstances Surrounding the Release of the New Zealand MOD UFO Files 2010/2011,” Ufocus.nz, 2018)

May 6 — The Argentine Air Force creates the Comisión de Estudio de Fenómenos Aeroespaciales for the study of aerospace phenomena. Capt. Moriano Mohaupt, Air Force press spokesman, says that the commission is composed of meteorologists, air traffic controllers, pilots, and radar experts, who will look into sightings. Since 2015 it has been managed with rigor and transparency by Commodore Rubén Lianza. (“Argentina Creates UFO Commission,” IUR 34, no. 1 (Sep. 2011): 21; Milton Hourcade, “Argentina: UFO Declassification,” U.A.P.S.G.– G.E.F.A.I., July 29, 2020)

June 6 — 8:00 p.m. A Mrs. Beata is walking her dog in the Baranówka neighborhood of Rzeszów, Poland. She sees an elliptical, dull metallic object crossing the sky just above the trees about 180 feet away. It is about 30–50 feet long and 15–30 feet across and completely silent. It disappears after emitting some flashes of light from its perimeter. (Poland 155–156)

July — Igor Kalytyuk begins publishing Novosti Ufologii, an online UFO newsletter, in Rivne, Ukraine. It continues through December 2016, accompanied by occasional special bulletins of the Ufology News Project from 2012 to 2018. (Novosti Ufologii, no. 1 (July 2011); “About the Ufology News Project”)

August — The UK National Archives makes available its first batch of Ministry of Defence UFO files from 1985 to 1995, followed shortly afterward by files for 1997 and 1998–2000. (UK National Archives, “Briefing Document: Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs),” 2013)

September 11 — 5:00 a.m. An 18-year-old girl in Baborów, Poland, is awakened by a light from a blue triangular object hovering outside her bedroom window. Its contours are outlined with white halogen-like lights and there is what looks like a hatch in its center from which a mist is emanating. She can feel the heat from the object on her face and forehead. The object departs to the west but does not disappear until 6:30 a.m. (Poland 100–101)

November — Out of its 1,170 fully investigated UFO cases, the French UFO agency GEIPAN shows that 22% are unidentified. (Swords 453)

2012

February 18 — 2:00 p.m. A father and son, both pilots, are in their propellor-driven Mooney Ovation II flying at 7,480 feet. Shortly after they cross the border of Virginia from Charlotte, North Carolina, they prepare to land in Richmond. Above Chase City, Virginia, the father unexpectedly sees a bright, glowing sphere about 30 feet in diameter flying alongside the aircraft. As the UFO begins to soar about 50 feet away from the right wing, the plane loses power. All of the electrical equipment (including the computer) suddenly turns off. A few seconds later, the plane regains all systems as the UFO swiftly shoots away at an incredible speed. (NICAP, “Aircraft Encounters UFO and E-M Effects”)

March — The Center for UFO Studies publishes the final issue of the International UFO Reporter. ()

April 13 — Afternoon. Mihnea Mustaţa and other observers north of Ploieşti, Romania, watch a white, hat-shaped object passing over a field to the east at about 53 mph toward the village of Pleaşa. It disappears for a few minutes and reappears in a different location. Starting at 2:28 p.m., Mustaţa takes several photos of the object before it disappears, accompanied by several balls of light. (Romania 80–82)

May 10 — 3:00 p.m. Workers at a warehouse in Rzeszów, Poland, see a group of spherical objects converging from various directions to a point where a large object shaped like a “screw-thread” is hovering. Two spheres fly away after maneuvering in the air. The other objects disappear (Poland 155)

May 10 — 9:30 p.m. A witness in Hermanowa, Poland, watches a light approach him until it is only 100 feet away, only 6–10 feet above his neighbor’s house. An identical object, also about 1 foot in diameter, on the same flight path

appears and stops in the same position above the adjacent house. After 20 seconds, it veers off at an angle of 130° and both objects fly away. (Poland 155)

Late May — Evening. Two wind-farm engineers are on top of a 4–5 story building in Mamaia-Set, Romania, when they see a large V-formation consisting of clusters of three lights approaching at high speed from the south. The formation crosses the sky in 4–5 seconds. (Romania 82–83)

July — The UK National Archives opens more UFO policy files, covering 1995–1997, 1997–1998, and 2002–2008. (UK National Archives, “Briefing Document: Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs),” 2013)

July 5 — 10:04 p.m. A security camera at a well site in the Eagle Ford Shale Field near Cotulla, Texas, snaps an image of what appears to be a 60-foot-diameter object with an array of four lights hovering above the caliche pad of an oil well. Later, in October, workers at the site report UFOs in the night sky. One of them named Xavier Garza takes a blurry video of a reddish-orange orb in the northern sky. (“Observers Think UFOs Hovered above the Eagle Ford Shale,” San Antonio (Tex.) News-Express, January 12, 2013; “Cotulla 2012: Security Camera Shows UFO Hovering over South Texas Oil Field,” Texas UFO Museum and Research Library)

August 1–15 — Indian Army troops deployed along the Chinese border from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradash report as many as 100 UFO sightings. The 14th Corps, which is deployed in the Kargil and Leh districts and patrols the frontier with China, sends reports to Army headquarters about sightings by an Indo-Tibetan Border Police unit in the Thakung district near lake Pangong Tso in the Himalayas. The reports describe yellowish spheres that appear to lift off from the horizon on the Chinese side and slowly traverse the sky for 3–5 hours before disappearing. The Army uses a mobile ground-based radar unit and a spectrum analyzer to verify the identity of the UFOs, but they cannot track the spheres on radar. Officials insist the objects are not Chinese drones. (“Over 100 UFOs Seen along China Border,” Times of India, November 6, 2012; Dirk Vander Ploeg, “Chinese, Russian, and Indian Troops Jointly Spot UFOs,” UFO Digest, March 16, 2013)

August 3 — Kathleen Marden reports on a survey of abductees in which 38% report seeing hybrids, usually in a large facility along with humans being examined. These respondents see short and tall gray humanoids along with a few mantis-like, reptilian, Nordic, and occasional rarer types. One surprise finding is that 40% suffer chronic fatigue syndrome or mononucleosis. They also report examinations focused on glandular tissue, especially the thymus, a gland that has been implicated in these illnesses. (Kathleen Marden, “Abduction Experiencers’ Perception of the Alien Agenda,” MUFON 2012 International UFO Symposium Proceedings, MUFON, August 2012)

September 19 — 9:45 p.m. Jennifer Styer is driving north on Antelope Lane near Roy, Montana, when she sees two V- shaped objects to the northwest that speed silently toward her. They have orange lights on each arm and are flying in a straight line quite close to each other. (Robert L. Hastings, “UFOs Reported near Malmstrom AFB’s Nuclear Missile Sites in September 2012,” UFOs & Nukes, November 4, 2012)

September 21 — 8:30 pm. Dale Uhler and his wife are driving north-northwest of Moccasin, Montana, two miles north of the intersection of North Star and Fieldstone roads when they notice a bar-shaped, yellow-orange light about 30°– 35° above the horizon. It then splits into three lights, which persist for about 20 seconds before disappearing. A second witness on the Old Musselshell Trail south of the Missouri River, Montana, sees what may be the same display, which appears to him as four orange lights that appear and disappear in sequence. A third witness, about 20 miles east of Roy, Montana, also sees the lights to the north. (Robert L. Hastings, “UFOs Reported near Malmstrom AFB’s Nuclear Missile Sites in September 2012,” UFOs & Nukes, November 4, 2012)

2013

2013 — The Pentagon’s black budget is at $52.6 billion, according to documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden. Although the government has annually released its overall level of intelligence spending since 2007, it does not divulge how it uses the money or how it performs against the goals set by the president and Congress. (“‘Black Budget’ Summary Details U.S. Spy Network’s Successes, Failures, and Objectives,” Washington Post, August 29, 2013)

January 4 — Night. Dogs belonging to Carlos Torres of Pine Bush, New York, become noisy and agitated. When he goes outside, he sees a huge rectangular object blocking out the stars and moving silently overhead. His young daughter is terrified. It takes 2 minutes to travel out of sight. (Randle, Levelland, 2021, p. 125)

January 8 — 4:00 a.m. Two policemen in a village near Nysa, Poland, notice distant lights that appear and reappear. At one point, they stop their patrol car to observe the light, which is changing shape and radiating a number of colored lights. The light approaches them and stops a half-mile away. Small points of light break off from its base, some returning into it and others disappearing in mid-air. The primary light then gives off a stroboscopic flash of light that illuminates a large area. The officers drive away, but the light follows them. They stop again at a parking lot and see that the light is coming from a domed disc emitting dazzling yellow lights. Three blue lights are on its base. They drive off again, but the object paces them at a distance of about one mile. Both officers experience strong anxiety during the sighting, and there is a possible element of missing time. (Poland 110–114)

January 12 — 8:20 p.m. A married couple pull out of their driveway in West Melbourne, Florida, to go out to dinner. As the couple drive west down their street, they see three bright lights in a row in the sky. They assume that the lights are Chinese lanterns, since they are all at or above the same elevation. As they draw closer, they realize that the lights form a single object. As the object turns, the lights are in a pyramidal shape (indicating rotation of the object that causes the three horizontal lights to appear like a pyramid). At the same time, the object bolts away at an incredible speed and disappears in a few seconds. (NICAP, “Pyramid-Shaped Object Observed by Couple”)

March 5 — 5:30 p.m. A witness in the Słocina neighborhood of Rzeszów, Poland, lets her cat outside, but it panics. She looks up and sees strange lights about a quarter of a mile away. She looks through binoculars and sees that the lights are attached to an object with a cupola hovering about 650 feet above some houses in the area. It flies away to the east. (Poland 157)

March 19–20 — In the early hours of March 19, a couple living in a rural section of Warkworth, New Zealand, see a blue flash and hear a loud explosion that causes the building to shake. The next morning they find their telephone service is out and their fax machine’s circuitry is melted. Around midnight on March 20, the woman is watching TV while her husband has gone to bed. She hears a loud sound like jet engines thrusting and goes outside to see a large, black isosceles triangle about 800 feet away and 600 feet in the air, slowly rising among the treetops. It drifts sideways and gradually turns or pivots. The underside of the craft is flat and smooth, a pale pearly metallic color. It has three reddish-orange rings with black centers, one at each point of the triangle, which resemble hot glowing metal rather than actual lights. In the center of the underside is a white strobe light, rotating with a circular movement and casting an intermittent short beam of light. She watches it for 20 seconds as it moves above the house, tilts its nose upwards, and rises more quietly up the ridge-line behind the house, briefly pausing near a transmitter mast positioned on the top of the hill. From there it gains altitude rapidly and suddenly shoots away at phenomenal speed and disappears within seconds. (Suzy Hansen, “Sightings of a ‘Black Triangle’ (Air)craft, 2013,” Ufocus.nz, 2013)

March 31 — Twilight. A young couple watches a triangular formation of lights hovering above a forest near Biała, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. It looks to be about 400 feet wide. After a change in position it moves off in the direction of Chojnów to the south. (Poland 95–96)

April 18 — Members of the Brazilian Ufologists Commission meet with representatives of the Brazilian armed forces at the Ministry of Defense to discuss gaining access to military documents involving UFOs. Attendees determine that Navy, Army, and Air Force documents related to UFOs are to be made public, as established by the law on access to information. More than 10,000 pages of previously confidential documents are released to the public and are available at the National Archives in Brasilia and online. (Alejandro Rojas, “UFO Researchers Meet with Brazilian Ministry of Defense,” OpenMinds, April 26, 2013)

April 25 — 9:20 p.m. An unknown object flying at a low altitude passes directly above the Rafael Hernández Airport runway in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, causing the delayed departure of a commercial aircraft. No transponder signal or other communication from the object alerts the airport tower, creating a dangerous situation with departures and arrivals. The pilots of an airborne US Customs and Border Protection De Havilland Canada Dash 8 turboprop aircraft see a pinkish or reddish light over the ocean in their vicinity, so they film the object on infrared thermal video. The object is 3–5 feet in length and its speed varies from 40 to 120 mph. The 3-minute footage shows the flight of an object that crosses into northwestern Puerto Rico from the Atlantic Ocean, traverses the space over the airport twice, then returns to the Atlantic where it apparently submerges. Its speed through the water reaches a high of 95 mph. Chemist Robert Powell and five other members of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies later obtain the video and subject it to a thorough analysis. Their conclusion in 2018 is that the video is the “best documentation of an unknown aerial and submerged nautical object exhibiting advanced technology” that the authors have seen. (Robert Powell, et al., “2013 Aguadilla Puerto Rico UAP: The Detailed Analysis of an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon Captured by the Department of Homeland Security,” Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, August 15, 2018)

April 29–May 3 — Stephen Bassett’s Paradigm Research Group holds a Citizens Hearing on Disclosure at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Forty UFO researchers, along with political and military representatives (Robert Salas, Paul Hellyer, Nick Pope), testify to six former members of the US Congress: Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Merrill Cook, Lynn Woolsey, Darlene Hooley, Roscoe Bartlett, and Mike Gravel. The witnesses speak for 30 hours over five days. The panel reaches the conclusion that the US government and other governments need to share what is known about UFO sightings and the United Nations should take the subject of UFOs seriously. (Richard B. Muhammad, “What Is the Truth about UFOs?” The Final Call, May 7, 2013; “Citizen Hearing on Disclosure (2013),” The Unidentified, May 27, 2018)

June — Researcher David Marler publishes Triangular UFOs, an evaluation of hundreds of reports of delta-shaped UFOs seen worldwide. Marler assesses whether these represent an extraterrestrial UFO visitation or a secret project developed by one or more governments. (David Marler, Triangular UFOs: An Estimate of the Situation, Richard Dolan Press, 2013)

June 5 — Based on material supplied to them by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, The Guardian exposes a top-secret court order showing that the NSA has collected phone records from over 120 million Verizon subscribers. Under the order, the numbers of both parties on a call, as well as the location data, unique identifiers, time of call, and duration of call are handed over to the FBI, which turns over the records to the NSA. (Wikipedia, “Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)”)

June 6 — The Guardian and the Washington Post reveal the existence of the PRISM surveillance program (which collects the emails, voice, text, and video messages of foreigners and an unknown number of Americans from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Apple, and other tech giants). (Wikipedia, “PRISM (surveillance program)”)

June 14 — US prosecutors charge Edward Snowden with espionage and theft of government property, but in late July he is granted temporary asylum by the Russian government. The extent to which the media reports have responsibly informed the public is disputed. In January 2014, President Obama says that “the sensational way in which these disclosures have come out has often shed more heat than light” and critics such as Sean Wilentz note that many of the Snowden documents do not concern domestic surveillance. The US and UK Defense establishment weigh the strategic harm in the period following the disclosures more heavily than their civic public benefit. In its first assessment of these disclosures, the Pentagon concludes that Snowden committed the biggest “theft” of US secrets in the history of the United States. Sir David Omand, a former director of GCHQ, described Snowden’s disclosure as the “most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever.” (Wikipedia, “Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)”)

June 19 — A triangular object with lights in each tip is seen at Szklarska Poręba, Poland. (Poland 98)

June 21 — The UK National Archives releases another batch of 209 UFO files, approximately 52,000 pages, covering 2009. The full set of files show that the Ministry of Defence received an average of 150 sightings annually from 2000 to 2007, increasing to 643 in 2009. This is supposed to be the final batch, but more files are discovered later. (“Britain’s Defense Ministry Releases Its Final UFO Files,” USA Today, June 21, 2013; UK National Archives, “Briefing Document: Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs),” 2013)

June 25 — The CIA publicly acknowledges the existence of Area 51 for the first time, following a FOIA request filed in 2005, and it declassifies documents detailing its history and purpose. (Wikipedia, “Area 51”)

June 27 — 12:20 p.m. An F/A-18F Super Hornet from Strike Fighter Squadron 11 (VFA-11, the “Red Rippers”), flying out of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, has an encounter with an “aircraft [that] was white in color and approximately the size and shape of a drone or missile” in the W-72 warning area, a patch of airspace off the coast of Virginia and North Carolina. The jet’s crew visually acquires it as they see it “pass down the right side of their aircraft with approximately 200 feet of lateral separation” while flying at an altitude of 17,000 feet. It is climbing and has a visible exhaust trail. Neither the Super Hornet nor NAS Oceana records a radar track of the object. The Navy tells units to be aware of the potential hazards posed by unauthorized or uncoordinated drone operations. (Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick, “Here Are the Navy Pilot Reports from Encounters with Mysterious Aircraft off the East Coast,” The Drive: The War Zone, May 12, 2020)

July 15 — 10:00 p.m. A 60-year-old postal worker and his wife see a rectangular-shaped object maneuver through the sky and come within 100 feet of them in Bellingham, Washington. It executes precise turns that avoid electrical poles, wires, and streetlights. The object’s color changes from a glowing red to a dull gray as it performs a banking turn and comes to a standstill. The color change is not uniform because it begins at the top of the object and moves downward. The object appears about the size of a large SUV, and at its closest approach it is about palm-width in size at arm’s length. The wife sees it as tumbling along its central axis. (NICAP, “Rectangular Object Viewed at 100ʹ”)

July 19 — 6:35 p.m. The pilot of a Thomas Cook Airbus A320 cruising at 34,000 feet near Reading, Berkshire, England, sees a silvery metallic object shaped like a rugby ball streak within a few feet of his cockpit on his left-hand side. The UK Airprox Board rules out another aircraft or weather balloon. (Phil Davies, “Thomas Cook Aircraft in UFO ‘Near Miss,’” Travel Weekly, January 24, 2014)

August 1 — Night. A group of young people at Góra Ossona in Częstochowa, Poland, see a triangular object. (Poland 98)

August 3 — 10:30–11:00 p.m. Witnesses in multiple points in Poland report three successive sightings of unidentified triangular objects. A woman in Lubliniec walking her dog sees a giant boomerang floating silently to the west only about 150 feet above her housing estate. It has dim symmetrical lights that are the same intensity as stars and is about 65 feet long. A young couple in Łosice watches a dark, triangular UFO with gray-violet colored lights.

An engineer in Dobrzykowice observes a high-altitude, delta-shaped formation of lights. (Poland 96–97)

August 14 — Night. An amateur astronomer in Lublin, Poland, is tracking an object in an orbital trajectory. Close-up, it resembles a rocket with a triangular contour, crimson-red color, and yellowish center. A smaller isosceles triangle seems to be embedded in it. (Poland 98)

August 18 — 7:00 p.m. A family that owns a dacha in Tyczyn, Poland, watches a wingless object with spear-shaped panels maneuvering slowly and silently above them. It has an apparently rotating blinking light and is making constant turns and ascents. (Poland 101–102)

August 20 — 9:45 p.m. Three vehicles pull over on Homer Watson Boulevard just west of Doon South Drive in Kitchener, Ontario, to observe a strange object that is crossing in front of them. The highway lighting makes it easy to see a spherical object 30 feet in diameter move very slowly across the freeway just above the utility poles. The object, only a few hundred feet from the stopped cars, is apparently solid with a glow that illuminates the trees as it passed by. The primary witness exits his car and attempts to take a photo with his cellphone, but its camera functions are dead. He continues to watch the object for another 45 seconds. Once the object leaves, the cellphone operates properly again. (NICAP, “E-M Effects from Sphere near Highway”)

August 28 — 9:40 p.m. A three-man hunting party observes a barbell-shaped object within 400 feet of their camp in rural Ontario. The object interferes with the operation of their Motorola radio, a cellphone, and a Sony Cybershot video camera. The object is in view for about 5 minutes. The primary witness owns a company that receives Department of Defense contracts and puts together a 17-page report and a video on the sighting. (MUFON case file)

September 9 — Two witnesses in Sokółka, Poland, see a gigantic triangular UFO flying by in a few seconds. (Poland 98) September 12 — Night. A delta-shaped UFO is seen above Franciszka Hynka street, Warsaw, Poland. (Poland 98)

October — Peru reopens its Departamento de Investigación de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (DIFFA), which had closed in 2008, as a result of “increased sightings of anomalous aerial phenomena” in the country’s skies. DIFAA will bring together sociologists, archaeologists, astronomers, meteorologists, and Air Force personnel to analyze these events. (“Peru Reopens UFO Investigation Office,” Homeland Security News Wire, October 28, 2013)

October 1 — The first-generation Air Force Satellite Surveillance System ceases operation. The main advantage of the system was its ability to provide uncued data on new objects as opposed to tracking objects based on existing information. However, the system was also said to be inherently inaccurate due to its dated design. (Wikipedia, “Air Force Space Surveillance System”)

October 6 — 9:00 p.m. A father and daughter are traveling west on Highway 40 through Rabbit Ears Pass, Colorado, when the father notices two white lights in the distance. The dimmer of the two begins to descend erratically. It seems to wave back and forth, rather than just move straight down, as it disappears behind a stand of tall pine trees. Then the brighter light begins to grow as it approaches quickly. He tells his daughter to look up, and she immediately sees the object as it speeds toward them. The white light develops a red border that transitions into a solid red light. A very short bright green line also appears just below and to the immediate left of the solid red light. The object then slows and swerves to the north. When the object is positioned just to the left and in front of them, it drops in elevation and begins to pass slowly overhead. The father sees that the short green line is actually a long, flat, bright, rectangular strip. Both note how crisp and clear the green box angles are and how there is no glow, given the brightness of the green light. The father, who had previously worked with low-powered lasers, identifies the green color as exactly 532nm. They cannot see any reflections on the body or wings. The object slows almost to a hover as it passes above them. Once the object passes out of view to the rear, they are unable to see it again out the back window or in the rearview mirrors. They do not want to stop and get a better look. The father comments that he has never seen a solid object emit such a bright green light. (NICAP, “Solid Object Emits Bright Green Light”)

October 13 — 12:05 a.m. A Mr. Mateusz notices a large boomerang-shaped object with yellow lights flying above Pabianice, Poland, from northeast to west. It is surrounded by a hazy mist or glow, making it seem semi- transparent. (Poland 97)

November 1 — Media outlets report that Skunk Works has been working on an unmanned reconnaissance airplane it has named SR-72, which can fly twice as fast as the SR-71 at Mach 6. However, USAF is officially pursuing

the Northrop Grumman RQ-180 UAV to take up the SR-71’s strategic surveillance role. (Wikipedia, “Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird”; Guy Norris, “Exclusive: Skunk Works Reveals SR-71 Successor Plan,” Aviation Week, November 1, 2013)

November 8 — 4:36 p.m. Two witnesses are driving on the Ring Road around Bucharest, Romania, near the exit for the Autostrada Soarelui. They see a light-brown cylinder-shaped object rotating on its axis and hovering silently above some high-voltage power lines. They watch it for 10 minutes until it disappears suddenly without moving. (Romania 83–84)

November 18 — 12:55 p.m. An F/A-18E Super Hornet from Strike Fighter Squadron 143 (VFA-143, the “Pukin Dogs”), flying out of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, spots an object in the W-72 warning zone via radar off its nose at around 12,000 feet and a speed of approximately 0.1 Mach. “The aircraft had an approximately 5-foot wingspan and was colored white with no other distinguishable features,” according to the pilot, who is able to visually acquire the object and track it for one hour. The Navy concludes that this object is an unmanned aerial system (UAS), but that Commander, Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic and Fleet Area Control and Surveillance Facility, Virginia Capes (FASCFAC VACAPES), the latter of which is also identified here by its callsign “Giant Killer,” is not able to ascertain the operator. A Navy vessel is in the area traveling south, but the Navy is unable to identify it. (Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick, “Here Are the Navy Pilot Reports from Encounters with Mysterious Aircraft off the East Coast,” The Drive: The War Zone, May 12, 2020)

November 19 — 6:20 p.m. Two witnesses, each with 30+ years experience as Army and Air Force aircraft maintenance technicians, see a huge triangular UFO that flies from north to south about 500 feet above them near Adel, Georgia. The surface of the object is not clear and has a rippling effect like “a heat mirage down the road on a hot summer’s day.” There are no anti-collision lights required for all aircraft. The object has a wingspan larger than a C-5A cargo plane and flies slowly at 12–17 mph with absolutely no noise. The rear of the object displays a row of white pulsing lights that are set back or surrounded by a shroud. As the object moves further away, a small drone- like object is seen flying alongside on the left. Soon it banks to the southeast, allowing them to see clearly its triangular shape. (NICAP, “Triangular UFO Observed by Experienced Military Men”)

December 18 — 3:00 p.m. Another Super Hornet pilot from VFA-143 encounters a white object visually and on radar in the W-72 warning zone. (Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick, “Here Are the Navy Pilot Reports from Encounters with Mysterious Aircraft off the East Coast,” The Drive: The War Zone, May 12, 2020)

2014

February — Day. An aircraft matching the black triangle description is photographed multiple times over Kansas and Texas. Amateur photographer Jeff Templin snaps pictures of a triangular aircraft while photographing wildlife in Kansas. (“Texas Mystery Aircraft Also Photographed over Kansas,” Deep Blue Horizon, April 17, 2014)

February 24 — US journalist Glenn Greenwald publishes information in The Intercept about a slideshow document, The Art of Deception, released by Edward Snowden and issued by the UK’s formerly secret Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group concerning “online covert operations.” The slideshow, probably dating to spring 2012, was shared with the US National Security Agency and other intelligence partners and reveals existing techniques to manipulate public opinion and online discourse. The document even includes three UFO photos as illustrations of these techniques. Greenwald writes: “These GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters] documents are the first to prove that a major western government is using some of the most controversial techniques to disseminate deception online and harm the reputations of targets. Under the tactics they use, the state is deliberately spreading lies on the internet about whichever individuals it targets, including the use of what GCHQ itself calls ‘false flag operations’ and emails to people’s families and friends. Who would possibly trust a government to exercise these powers at all, let alone do so in secret, with virtually no oversight, and outside of any cognizable legal framework?” (Wikipedia, “Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group”; Glenn Greenwald, “How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations,” The Intercept, February 24, 2014; “The Art of Deception: Training for a New Generation of Online Covert Operations,” The

Intercept, February 24, 2014; Mark Pilkington, “Tricksters, Saucers, and Cyber Magicians,” Fortean Times 313 (May 2014): 6–7)

March 10 — Day. Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett photograph a triangular aircraft giving off a long contrail over Amarillo, Texas. (Bill Sweetman, “Mystery Aircraft over Texas,” Aviation Week, March 28, 2014; “‘Mystery Aircraft’ over Texas Draws Speculation of Real Spy Plane,” Houston Chronicle, March 28, 2014)

March 26 — 4:30 p.m. An F/A-18E Super Hornet from Strike Fighter Squadron 106 (VFA-106, the “Gladiators”), flying out of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, detects a possible radar track at around 19,000 feet and with a speed of 0.1 Mach in the W-72 warning area. The pilot’s wingman does not have the object on radar and there is a debate about whether it might be a false track given high winds that are gusting at over 100 knots at 18,000 feet. “The unknown aircraft appeared to be small in size, approximately the size of a suitcase, and silver in color,” according to the report. The pilot is only able to pass within 1,000 feet of it and cannot identify it. After that pass, they lose sight of it and never regain visual contact. “I feel it may only be a matter of time before one of our F/A-18 aircraft has a mid-air collision with an unidentified UAS [unmanned aerial system],” the head of

VFA-106 comments. The report also says that “FACSFAC VACAPES has received multiple UAS sightings in the recent months,” but does not say how many of those sightings resulted in sending in hazard reports. The jets’ radar has been upgraded, allowing them to zero in on unidentified targets with infrared targeting cameras. (Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick, “Here Are the Navy Pilot Reports from Encounters with Mysterious Aircraft off the East Coast,” The Drive: The War Zone, May 12, 2020; Bill Whitaker, “UFOs Regularly Spotted in US Airspace,” CBS News, August 29, 2021)

April 23 — 10:51 p.m. Another F/A-18F Super Hornet from Strike Fighter Squadron 11 (VFA-11, the “Red Rippers”) has an encounter with multiple “unidentified aerial devices” while flying out of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and operating in the W-72 warning area. The crew initially detects two UADs on radar, one at 12,000 feet and another at 15,000 feet, both apparently stationary or near-stationary. They then confirm both of these objects using the jet’s Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) system. While investigating the first pair of UADs, another two appeared to pass through the ATFLIR field of vision at high speed. The two moving objects do not appear on the aircraft’s radar. (Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick, “Here Are the Navy Pilot Reports from Encounters with Mysterious Aircraft off the East Coast,” The Drive: The War Zone, May 12, 2020)

April 24 — 12:47 p.m. Two more F/A-18Fs make radar contact with another UAD in the W-72 warning area while conducting Basic Fighter Maneuvering out of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Both aircraft are able to maintain a radar track with the object, which is stationary or near-stationary at 11,000 feet. The aircraft are also able to lock onto the object with CATM-9Xs, a captive-carry training version of the AIM-9X Sidewinder missile. However, in this instance, neither one makes visual contact. (Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick, “Here Are the Navy Pilot Reports from Encounters with Mysterious Aircraft off the East Coast,” The Drive: The War Zone, May 12, 2020)

April 27 — The crew of a F/A-18F from Strike Fighter Squadron 11 (VFA-11), flying out of NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and operating in the W-72 warning area, encounters an unknown aerial device. This report is the most spartan in its details of the three, but it describes a “near mid-air collision with balloon-like object.” (Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick, “Here Are the Navy Pilot Reports from Encounters with Mysterious Aircraft off the East Coast,” The Drive: The War Zone, May 12, 2020)

June 13 — 2:36 p.m. The pilot and first officer of an Airbus 320 flying at just under 3,500 feet and headed into Manchester Airport observe a man-like object that passes them to the northeast over Macclesfield, Cheshire, England. They estimate it is about 200–300 feet above their altitude and only a few hundred yards distant. They cannot see any parachute or paraglider apparatus. Air traffic control confirms there are no other radar targets in the area. The object is in sight for only 3–4 seconds. (Jenny Randles, “Superman vs. Airbus,” Fortean Times 323 (February 2015): 30–31)

July 31 — Gen. Ricardo Bermúdez, director of Chile’s official UFO agency, Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos, convenes a three-hour meeting at the offices of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) in Providencia of 19 experts from a wide range of disciplines to discuss whether UFOs pose a threat to aerial safety. Among those present are astronomers, psychologists, meteorologists, physicists, and representatives of the armed forces. All seem to accept the premise that UFOs, whatever they are, exist and are worthy of investigation. The DGAC chief of operations says that because many witnesses believe UFOs demonstrate intelligent behavior, it is

the government’s duty to look for the intention behind that intelligence. However, the group concludes that, despite some accidents attributed to UFOs around the world, they “do not present a threat or a danger to air operations.” (Leslie Kean, “Chile Declares UFOs Pose No Threat to Aircraft,” HuffPost, August 12, 2014; “Capitulo 55 DGAC TV,” DGAC TV Institucional YouTube channel, August 7, 2014)

September 29 — The Air Force Intelligence agency is restructured as the Twenty-Fifth Air Force and aligns the 9th Reconnaissance Wing and the 55th Wing under the new numbered air force. Its primary mission is to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) products, applications, capabilities, and resources to include cyber and geospatial forces and expertise. Additionally, it is the service cryptologic component (SCC) responsible to the National Security Agency and Central Security Service for Air Force cryptographic activities. It is headquartered at Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas. (Wikipedia, “Twenty-Fifth Air Force”)

October 5–20 — Unidentified drones are observed over seven nuclear plants in France. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve tells France Info radio that a judicial investigation is underway. The tiny, unmanned craft appear late in the evening, at night, or early in the morning. The nuclear plants are the Superphénix in Creys-Malville (closed in 1997); the Bugey Nuclear Power Plant, Ain; Blayais Nuclear Power Plant near Blaye, Gironde; the Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant, Moselle; the Chooz Nuclear Power Plant, Ardennes; the Gravelines Nuclear Power Station, Nord; and the Nogent Nuclear Power Plant, Aube. (“Drones Spotted over Seven French Nuclear Sites, Says EDF,” The Guardian (UK), October 30, 2014)

October 16 — The Swedish military reportedly intercepts a radio transmission in Russian on an emergency frequency, sparking a massive search for a Russian submarine thought to be stricken in Swedish waters, the largest Swedish mobilization since the Cold War. Further encrypted radio traffic from Kanholmsfjärden in the Stockholm archipelago, Sweden, and in Kaliningrad, Russia (home to the Russian Baltic fleet), is intercepted the next day. The search involves stealth ships, minesweepers, and helicopters, as well as hundreds of sailors, pilots, and divers. On the island of Korsö, Finland, a mysterious man dressed in black with a backpack is seen wading to shore and is later photographed wading off the nearby island of Sandön, Finland. (It later turns out that the man is a Stockholm pensioner named Ove who is doing some trout fishing.) At a press conference later in the month, the Swedish navy shows a photograph of an unidentified foreign vessel (although it later turns out to be a Swedish ship). A Russian defense ministry spokesman announces that there have been no emergency situations involving Russian military vessels. (Wikipedia, “Swedish submarine incidents”; “Baltic Sub Mystery,” Fortean Times 322 (January 2015): 12)

October 20 — Strands of cobweb-like “angel hair” fibers fall from the sky in Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka. (“Cobwebs Like Particles Floating in Polonnaruwa Skies,” Gossip Lanka News, October 21, 2014)

October 21 — Swedish military commander Gen. Sverker Göranson announces that he aims to force the unidentified submarine object to the surface with depth charges if necessary. He reveals there have been visual observations twice on October 17 and once on October 19. (“Baltic Sub Mystery,” Fortean Times 322 (January 2015): 12)

October 24 — Sweden calls off its search for the mysterious Russian sub. Russia asserts that the vessel was a Dutch submarine, a claim rejected by the Netherlands. The public has reported 250 sightings, five of which the navy takes seriously. Rear Admiral Anders Grenstad says the object could not have been a conventional submarine but a “craft of a lesser type.” (“Swedes Call off Search for Mystery Submarine,” USNI News, October 24, 2014; “Baltic Sub Mystery,” Fortean Times 322 (January 2015): 12)

October 25 — Afternoon. Miguel Monteiro is walking in the parish of Alverca do Ribatejo e Sobralinho, Portugal, when he sees white, cottony flakes or fibrous strands falling from the sky and sticking to electrical wires. They feel somewhat like cobwebs but are whiter and thicker. Monteiro takes some home and stores them in liquid nitrogen. He claims that under ultraviolet light the fibers wiggle “as if alive.” Another witness says the strands fell two weekends in a row. (“Mysterious Rain of ‘Alien Angel Hair’ Falls from Sky in Portugal,” Metro (UK), November 26, 2014; “Strands of White ‘Angel Hair’ Rained from Sky—Which Wriggle under UV Light,” Metro (UK), December 17, 2014)

October 31 — Retired Swedish naval officer Sven Olof Kviman snaps a picture of what looks like a 65–98-foot long, black submarine in waters just outside Lidingö in Stockholm, Sweden. The incident remains unconfirmed but has been classed by the military as a “potential” submarine. (“Up to Four Subs Feared in Stockholm Waters,” The Local (Sweden), January 24, 2015)

November 11 — 1:52 p.m. A Chilean Navy Airbus Cougar AS-532 helicopter is flying northward west of Santiago, Chile, at an altitude of 4,500 feet and 152 mph. The technician aboard is taking video footage when he notices an object about 40 miles away. He zooms in on it using infrared film. The naval pilot sees it as a “flat, elongated structure

with two thermal spotlights like discharges that do not coincide with the axis of motion.” The video shows a dark, disc-shaped object flying above the sea, which “in two instances discharged some type of gas or liquid with a high thermal track or signal.” The official Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos spends two years studying the film, then releases the footage, admitting it cannot ascertain what the object is. CEFAA Gen. Ricardo Bermúdez Sanhueza says: “We do not know what it was, but we do know what it was not.” (“Conclusive Proof? Airforce Probe Finds Navy Filmed Real UFO over Ocean,” The Express (UK), January 7, 2017; “Chilean Navy Helicopter Pilot Shoots Video of UFO,” Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, February 8, 2018)

November 14 — Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven announces that there is “clear evidence” of a submarine incursion in Swedish waters in October. (“Sweden Confirms Submarine Violation,” The Guardian (UK), November 14, 2014; “Baltic Sub Mystery,” Fortean Times 322 (January 2015): 12)

2015

January 10 — John Greenewald Jr. puts the Fold3 Blue Book files online into his Black Vault website and makes many of the case files into easily downloadable PDFs. The work is done by a contributor to the ATS website since 2012. Unfortunately, the JPG conversion to PDFs is done incorrectly so that documents with many pages are out of correct order. (Sparks, pp. 8–9)

January 27 — Ancestry.com, the owner of Fold3, illegally demands that Greenewald remove his Blue Book collection from the Black Vault website, falsely claiming copyright. They are still unavailable. (Sparks, p. 9)

January 27 — 9:10 p.m. Ufologist Steven M. Greer is leading a group of UFO watchers at Vero Beach, Florida, when they spot two UFOs that appear one after another then fade from sight. A video is taken of the event and posted on Greer’s website. Greer claims it is the result of the group’s meditation and “coherent thought” practices, and there are no ships or aircraft in the area at the time. However, journalist Tom Rogan determines that the UFO is a Beechcraft Model 76 Duchess aircraft moving at 85 mph deploying parachute flares. (Tom Rogan, “Did Steven Greer Fake a UFO with Flares?” Washington (D.C.) Examiner, July 31, 2020)

February? — Two infrared video recordings, known as the Go Fast and GIMBAL videos, are taken by an F/A-18 Super Hornet from the USS Theodore Roosevelt off the East coast of the US in the vicinity of Jacksonville, Florida, sometime between January and February 2015. The two videos are reported by the New York Times to have been taken a few weeks apart, with the audio of the pair including voices of military personnel who are questioning what they are observing. The Navy confirms the authenticity of the videos, stating only that they depict what they consider to be “unidentified aerial phenomena.” Susan Gough, a Pentagon spokeswoman, confirms that the videos were made by naval aviators and that they are “part of a larger issue of an increased number of training range incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena in recent years.” In April 2020, the two videos are declassified and officially released by the Department of Defense, alongside footage from the 2004 USS Nimitz incident. Five pilots from the VFA-11 “Red Rippers” fighter squadron report sighting UFOs “almost daily” while training for a deployment to the Persian Gulf. Three of those pilots have chosen to remain anonymous, while two, Lieut. Ryan Graves and Lieut. Danny Accoin, have given interviews and appeared on a History Channel program about UFOs. Radar contacts, infrared detections, and visual sightings by the pilots and weapon systems officers are reported for several months. According to Accoin, the objects have “no distinct wing, no distinct tail, no distinct exhaust plume.” One pilot describes something “like a sphere encasing a cube.” Another source confirms to “The War Zone” that the same description is given by several other pilots and that encounters are commonplace among multiple squadrons including the nearby E-2 Hawkeye squadrons from Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia. Accoin says that “multiple sensors [are] reading the exact same thing.” Graves states that the objects are showing up at 30,000 feet as well as sea level and can accelerate, slow down, and hit hypersonic speeds with maneuvers “beyond the physical limits of a human crew.” The pilots also report that the objects persist in the air for long periods of time and might “be out there all day.” When one of the sightings is made, “usually we’d just say, ‘we’re seeing one of those damn things again,’” Graves says. Once, an object almost collides with two jets, prompting the VFA-11 fighter squadron to submit a Notice to Airmen aviation flight safety report. According to the pilots, the squadron has speculated that the sightings could be a classified drone development program, but the near miss angers the pilots and convinces them that this is a safety issue and not a black project. (Wikipedia, “Pentagon UFO videos”; Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean, “‘Wow, What Is That?’ Navy Pilots Report Unexplained Flying Objects,” New York Times, May 26, 2019; Joseph Trevithick and Tyler Rogoway, “Carrier Group in Recent UFO Encounters Had New Defense Tech Like Nimitz in 2004 Incident,” The Drive: The War Zone, May 30, 2019; Clark III 49; “Unidentified: UFO Testimony from Lt. Ryan Graves (Season

1) / History,” History YouTube channel, September 22, 2019; Jan Tegler and Cat Hofacker, “Mystery of the ‘Damn Things,’” Aerospace America, November 2019; “Pentagon Declassifies Leaked ‘UFO’ Videos (video 2/3),” ABC News YouTube channel, April 27, 2020; “Pentagon Declassifies Navy ‘UFO’ Videos (video 3/3),” ABC News YouTube channel, April 27, 2020)

April 13 — Swedish Rear Admiral Anders Grenstad tells the media that the Armed Forces reported to the Swedish government on April 8 that the suspected underwater vessel in October 2014 was in fact only a civilian “working boat.” (“‘Submarine’ in Sweden Was Only Civilian Boat,” The Local (Sweden), April 13, 2015)

May 5 — In a four-hour long presentation in front of nearly 7,000 people at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City, Mexico, journalist and ufologist Jaime Maussan presents BeWitness, an unveiling of two Kodachrome slides that purport to show a dead alien. The slides, discovered in 1998 in the estate of Sedona, Arizona, lawyer Hilda Blair Ray, whose husband Bernerd had been a petroleum geologist in West Texas. The slides had found their way to Chicago videographer Adam Dew, who wants to create a documentary (tentatively titled Kodachrome) about the supposed alien. In the process he has gathered UFO researchers Thomas J. Carey, Donald Schmitt, Anthony Bragalia, and others to lend credence to the authenticity of the images as possibly related to the Roswell incident, since they seem to have a provenance of 1947. The two nearly identical slides show what appears to be a short mummy on a glass exhibit case with an undecipherable placard next to it. Within days of the presentation in Mexico City, a skeptical group uses a SmartDeBlur program to read the text of the placard, which reveals that the supposed alien is actually the mummified body of a two-year-old Native American child taken from the ruins of Montezuma Castle cliff dwelling in Camp Verde, Arizona, in 1894 by an S. L. Palmer and loaned to the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum in Mesa Verde, Colorado, where it had been on display for many years before it was returned to the Montezuma Museum in June 1947. (David Clarke and Peter Brookesmith, “From ‘Smoking Gun’ to #Epicfail,” Fortean Times 329 (August 2015): 26–27; Kevin D. Randle, Roswell in the 21st Century: The Evidence As It Exists Today, Speaking Volumes, 2016; Les Carpenter, “The Curious Case of the Alien in the Photo and the Mystery That Took Years to Solve,” The Guardian (UK), September 20, 2017)

September — In Walking Among Us, David M. Jacobs explains how 14 abductions have detailed for him how an alien invasion is already underway. The alien hierarchy consists of insect-like entities as the leaders, tall Grays the skilled workers, short Grays the menial workers, and masses of hybrids—the end products of the abduction program. These hybrids begin as half-human/half-Gray entities and become progressively more human over four successive stages. The ultimate product is the human hybrid (“hubrid”), fully human in appearance, capable of integration into society. Hybrids have become deeply embedded on Earth, living in their own apartments, mingling with humans, working their way into positions of influence. Their growing numbers on earth advance the Change, the day when they and their alien masters supplant or absorb humankind. (Dana DiFilippo, “Space Aliens Walk Among Us? Indeed, Claims Retired Temple Prof,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 15, 2014; David M. Jacobs, Walking Among Us: The Alien Plan to Condition Humanity, Disinformation Books, 2015; Clark III 10– 11, 629–630)

December 22 — Janel Sturzl, 31, an employee of the Daily Mining Gazette in Houghton, Michigan, dies while in a coma after being diagnosed with thallium poisoning at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The police investigate her death as a homicide. (“Poisoning Still under Investigation,” Houghton (Mich.) Daily Mining Gazette, October 24, 2017)

2016

February 3 — 7:00 p.m. A married couple is driving on Interstate 10 near Katy, Texas, when they look up through the sunroof and see three black dots that they at first think might be breaks in the cloud cover. Watching them while stopped at a traffic light, they see the dots are part of a vast, noiseless triangular object that emerges from the clouds. The witnesses think it is generating a kind of night fog low above the ground. The witnesses try to take a video, but their cellphones are not working properly; both devices die and do not recharge the entire night. (Roger Marsh, “Texas UFO Kills Allegedly Ground Electronics, Creates Fog to Hide in,” OpenMinds, February 10, 2017)

April — Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, sells the Skinwalker Ranch in Uintah County, Utah, to Utah real estate developer Brandon Fugal. In 2020, he partners with the History Channel on a TV documentary series, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, in its third season in 2022. (Skinwalkers 86, 219–221; Internet Movie Database, “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch”)

April 15 — Night. The Canadian Air Defence Sector is notified of a WestJet flight near Toronto, Ontario, that “reported a very bright light pass overhead of them” when “there was no other traffic in the area.” In the day’s log, the lines following what’s clearly referred to as a “UFO report” are all redacted in white. (Daniel Otis, “Credible UFO Reports Are Being Ignored, Declassified Canadian Government Documents Reveal,” Motherboard, November 29, 2021; CADORS Report, no. 2016O0730, April 24, 2016)

May 13 — James T. Lacatski retires from the Defense Intelligence Agency, following failed attempts to get the AAWSAP program funded agin through the Department of Defense. (Skinwalkers 29)

June — The Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici begins publishing Cielo Insolito, a journal of UFO history edited by Giuseppe Stilo and Maurizio Verga. (Cielo Insolito, no. 1 (July 2016))

July 1 — NORAD releases figures indicating that radar Tracks of Interest have averaged 1,800 per year since 2011. It states that it routinely withholds Unknown tracks and Tracks of Interest data because the release of any details might affect national defense. (“‘Alien Cover Up’: Nearly 2,000 UFOs Tracked by Radar System But Details Suppressed,” The Express (UK), July 1, 2016; Clark III 801)

August 11 — In Roswell in the 21st Century, Kevin D. Randle upends his previous position and argues that while the Roswell incident remains shrouded in mystery, it was almost certainly not generated by the recovery of a downed spacecraft and dead occupants. (Kevin D. Randle, Roswell in the 21st Century: The Evidence As It Exists Today, Speaking Volumes, 2016)

September 19 — 11:45 p.m. An Air Canada Express pilot flying to Vancouver, British Columbia, reports “3 red lights 3,000 feet above him and going slower” while at 25,000 feet over an uninhabited stretch of British Columbia’s rugged northern coast. Vancouver air traffic controllers report the incident 20 minutes later to the RCAF in Ontario as a “vital intelligence sighting.” The RCAF reviews radar data, but finds nothing near the plane. Within an hour, reports are faxed to the Canadian government’s transportation department and the RCAF’s secretive Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Division in Winnipeg. There is no further follow-up. (Daniel Otis, “Credible UFO Reports Are Being Ignored, Declassified Canadian Government Documents Reveal,” Motherboard, November 29, 2021; CADORS Report, no. 2016P1783)

October 27 — Two Georgia men are arrested on drug charges. They are reportedly plotting domestic terrorism based on conspiracy theories about HAARP. The Coffee County Sheriff’s Office says the men possess a “massive arsenal” that includes AR-15 rifles, Glock handguns, a Remington rifle, and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

According to police, the men want to destroy HAARP because they believe the facility manipulates the weather, controls minds, and even traps the souls of people. Police say the men confess that “God told them to go and blow this machine up that kept souls, so souls could be released.” (“Georgia Men Plotted Attack on Alaska Aurora Research Facility to ‘Release Souls,’ Detective Says,” Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, November 1, 2016; “Suspected Terrorists Believe Research Facility Controls Minds, Traps Souls,” WALB, Albany, Georgia, November 1, 2016)

December 10 — 4:44 a.m. A married couple is driving near Windsor, Maine, when they observe a “large triangle-shaped object” in two pieces (“like a carpenter’s framing square”) in the northeast sky. The object has six flashing red lights and one turquoise light that goes out as they are watching. It shows a black surface that is about 300 feet long. When they get out of the car for a better look, the man grabs his wife’s phone to take photos and a video. He shoots 6–8 minutes of video, but when he views it, it shows only black. The object seems to move effortlessly like a boat coasting through the water—“slow enough to where we could make out some detail but fast enough to where it was out of sight within 10 minutes or so.” They both feel weird as they watch the object. The woman becomes nauseous and the man feels strangely “awestruck.” (MUFON case file)

2017

2017 — The US nuclear stockpile has dwindled to 3,822 bombs. (“Stockpile Numbers,” DoD Open Government) 2017 — The increasing number of drone cases posing a risk to aircraft leads the UK Airprox Board to launch a Small

Unmanned Air System (SUAS) assessment that classifies incidents into one of four categories: drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), balloons (including toys and weather), model aircraft, and unknown objects. (UK Airprox Board, “Small Unmanned Air System (SUAS) Assessment”)

January 1 — Richard F. Haines retires from his role as chief scientist for NARCAP. He reports: “The fact that no cause- effect relationship has been found in major UFO airborne safety incidents doesn’t support the notion of nearby, material objects or phenomena in the air. Finally, the well-intentioned change of the term UFO into UAP—hoping to reach a larger scientific audience—served little and no relevant achievement followed.” (Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, “Haines Retires from NARCAP,” UFO FOTOCAT Blog, April 17, 2017)

May 9 — Steven M. Greer releases a documentary, Unacknowledged, on the history of UFO secrecy. Interviews with George Filer, Tom Bearden, Glenn Dennis, Richard Doty, Stephen Lovekin, and John Podesta are featured. Narrated by Giancarlo Esposito. ( Internet Movie Database, “Unacknowledged”; “Unacknowledged: An Exposé of the World’s Greatest Secret,” Free Movies YouTube channel, October 28, 2020)

May 28 — Evening. Rik Koops and Harm Duursma see UFOs over Park Sonsbeek, in Arnhem, Netherlands. Koops shoots a 3-minute video of three globular objects. A spokesperson for the Defence Helicopter Command at nearby Deelen Air Base denies that the objects are drones. (“3 bal vormige objecten bewegen in de lucht,” UFO Meldpunt Nederland, May 29, 2017; “UFO boven Arnhem? ‘Ledeeren die het ziet, zit met open mond van verbazing,’” de Gelderlander, May 30, 2017; “Het ufo-seizoen is veer aangebroken,” de Gelderlander, May 31, 2017)

June — Nick Redfern publishes The Roswell UFO Conspiracy, a sequel to his 2005 Body Snatchers in the Desert. In 2001, Redfern interviewed an elderly woman (the Black Widow) who had worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee from the mid-1940s to the early 1950s, who told him that just after World War II she had seen some 15 human “guinea pigs,” including Japanese prisoners and handicapped persons, who were involved in government experiments involving exposure to high altitudes in balloons. Through her testimony and that of other witnesses, Redfern concludes that the “aliens” found at the Roswell crash in New Mexico in 1947 were likely these humans deemed expendable by the US government, and that flying saucers and aliens were a convenient cover story. The experiments were inconclusive and the methods unethical, so all the records were destroyed. (Nick Redfern, The Roswell UFO Conspiracy: Exposing a Shocking and Sinister Secret, Lisa Hagen, 2017)

June — Some additional dubious MJ-12 documents (47 pages total) are provided to Heather Wade, host of the Midnight in the Desert streaming radio show. (Nick Redfern, “The Majestic 12 Documents Are Back,” Mysterious Universe, June 16, 2017; Kremlin 214–220)

July 1–2 — The second Dulce Base UFO Conference is held at the Wild Horse Casino and Hotel in Dulce, New Mexico.

The event is organized by members of the Jicarilla Apache, Southern Ute, and Navajo nations and features speakers Chuck and Nancy Wade; the Paranormal Rangers (Stanley Milford Jr. and Jonathan Dover), Navajo law officers; abductee Travis Walton; and actor Alan Tafoya. (Paul Ross, “‘The Truth Is Around Here…Someplace,’” Fortean Times 361 (Christmas 2017): 42–47)

July 14 — 7:20 p.m. The pilot of an Airbus A319 is holding at 7,000 feet at Gatwick Airport near Crawley, West Sussex, England, when the First Officer, in the right-hand seat, notices an object close to the aircraft. He mentions it to the captain, who also sees it. Both believe the object is not close enough to hit the aircraft and that they will miss it. It is black and shiny metallic in color and appears to be a square or cube. It maintains its altitude and takes about 7 seconds to pass, making them believe it is hovering. They are not certain it is a drone because they cannot see any propellors. They alert Gatwick, but the controllers there do not report seeing it. (“UKAB ‘Unknown Object’ Log 2017–2020,” Fortean Times 406 (June 2021): 43; UK Airprox Board, “Assessment Summary Sheet for UKAB Meeting on 11th October 2017”)

July 19 — 9:00 a.m. The FBI conducts a raid on Robert Lazar’s United Nuclear Scientific business in Laingsburg, Michigan, in connection with the thallium poisoning death of Janel Sturzl in 2015, apparently to determine if the company sells or distributes thallium. Apparently it does, but only a harmless radioactive isotope. (John Greenewald, “Documents on 2017 Bob Lazar / United Nuclear Raid—Laingsburg Police Department,” The Black

Vault, July 1, 2019; Tim McMillan, “Bob Lazar Says the FBI Raided Him to Seize Area 51’s Alien Fuel: The Truth Is Weirder,” Motherboard, November 13, 2019)

August — Reports begin to surface that US and Canadian diplomatic personnel in Havana, Cuba, have experienced unusual, unexplained health problems dating back to late 2016. The health problems typically have a sudden onset: The victim suddenly begins hearing strange grating noises that seem to come from a specific direction. Some of them experience it as a pressure or a vibration; or as a sensation comparable to driving a car with the window partly rolled down. The duration ranges from 20 seconds to 30 minutes, and always happens while the diplomats are either at home or in hotel rooms. Other people nearby, family members and guests in neighboring rooms, do not report hearing anything. Affected individuals describe symptoms such as hearing loss, memory loss, and nausea. Some US embassy individuals reportedly experience lasting health effects, including one unidentified diplomat who now needs a hearing aid. In October, the Associated Press releases what it says is a recording of the sound some embassy workers are hearing. Accusations are made that these are a result of attacks using unspecified technology, perhaps a sonic or ultrasonic weapon. (Wikipedia, “Havana syndrome”; David Hambling, “The Sound of Violence,” Fortean Times 360 (December 2017): 14; “Ottawa Doctor Treating Canadian Diplomats with Mysterious ‘Havana Syndrome,’” Ottawa (Ont.) Citizen, November 30, 2018 )

August 9 — 9:20 p.m. A couple are walking south along North Lake Shore Drive just north of Schiller Street in Chicago when they notice something large and dark flying toward them from the east and crossing ahead of them at an altitude of 20 feet or so. It sweeps upward over the trees in front of 1400 North Lake Shore Drive, then stops in mid-air after it reaches a height just below the top of the building. It hovers with a large pair of wings for about 5 seconds, then dives toward the ground. As the witnesses quicken their pace toward the building, the “winged being” descends in front of them, no more than 25 feet away, and hovers 5 feet above the sidewalk with its wings spread open. They can see its bright red eyes that vary in intensity. Several people on the other side of the street also see the being, which hovers for 10 seconds, pulls its wigs in close, and silently shoots up into the sky. The witnesses describe it as “human-like” with a small head that narrows at the top, two legs with long tapered feet, and no apparent arms. It is 5–6 feet in height and has wide wings that resemble the top wings of a butterfly. The sightings is the most recent of 29 reported in the Chicago area in the summer. (Lon Strickler, “Winged Humanoid Confronts Shocked Chicago Witnesses,” Phantoms and Monsters, August 10, 2017; Joe Vince, “Winged Freak Terrorizes Chicago? Wait’ll You Get a Load of These 29 Sightings,” Chicago Patch, August 11, 2017)

September — The US State Department removes non-essential staff from the US embassy in Havana, Cuba. (Wikipedia, “Havana syndrome”)

September — The To the Stars Academy begins offering to the public $50 million worth of stock through a Regulation A+ equity crowdfunding campaign. The company is cofounded earlier in the year by rock guitarist Tom DeLonge, engineer and parapsychologist Harold E. Puthoff, and Jim Semivan and is composed of aerospace, science, and entertainment divisions. Its science and aerospace divisions are devoted to the “outer edges of science,” such as investigating UFOs. It employs Luis Elizondo as a key investigator. Its Virtual Analytics

UAP Learning Tool (VAULT) is a public-facing database of UFO sightings. The VAULT team collects, analyzes, and provides their authentication of UFO sightings, most famously reported in the media as having been obtained through declassified government materials. Some evidence suggests that TTSA is sponsored or heavily influenced by the Department of Defense ,as there are 11 former DoD counterintelligence and information specialists associated with it. (Wikipedia, “To the Stars (company)”; Althea Legaspi, “Tom DeLonge Announces Stars Academy for ‘Outer Edges of Science’ Research,” Rolling Stone, October 12, 2017; Tyler Rogoway, “Tom DeLonge’s Origin Story for To the Stars Academy Describes a Government UFO Info Operation,” The Drive: The War Zone, June 5, 2019; “The UFO Information Operation,” Medium: INFO-OPS, November 23, 2021)

September 23 — 7:50 p.m. Witnesses in Son, Netherlands, watch a white, U-shaped light for 5 minutes. One witness manages to take a photo of the light, which by then is diminishing in size before disappearing. (“U-vormig wit licht hoog ver weg in die hemel, stilstaand,” UFO Meldpunt Nederland, September 23, 2017)

October 4 — Luis Elizondo resigns from his Pentagon UFO office to protest what he says is excessive secrecy and internal opposition. He declines to identify his successor. He states there is a need for more serious attention to the “many accounts from the Navy and other services of unusual aerial systems interfering with military weapon platforms and displaying beyond-next-generation capabilities.” He tells Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis that “there remains a vital need to ascertain capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation.” (Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean, “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program,” New York Times, December 16, 2017; Paul Dean and Keith

Basterfield, “A Formal Job Description of an AASWAP/AATIP UFO Case Investigations Scientist,” UFOs: Documenting the Evidence, May 3, 2018)

October 19 — ‘Oumuamua (1I/2017 U1), the first known interstellar object detected passing through the Solar System, is discovered by Robert Weryk using the Pan-STARRS telescope at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, 40 days after it passes its closest point to the Sun on September 9. When it is first observed, it is about 21 million miles from Earth and already heading away from the Sun. ʻOumuamua is a small object estimated to be between 330 and 3,280 feet long, with its width and thickness both estimated to range between 115 and 548 feet. It has a dark red color similar to other objects in the outer Solar System. Its light curve presents its motion as tumbling, rather than smoothly rotating, and it is moving sufficiently fast relative to the Sun that few possible models define a Solar System origin, although an Oort cloud origin cannot be excluded. Extrapolated and without further deceleration, its path will not allow it to be captured into a solar orbit, so it will eventually leave the Solar System and continue into interstellar space. (Wikipedia, “‘Oumuamua”; “Small Asteroid or Comet ‘Visits’ from Beyond the Solar System,” NASA, October 26, 2017; Patrick Gross, “‘Oumuamua: Extraterrestrial Device or Natural Object?”)

October 24 — The Cuban government employs about 2,000 scientists and law enforcement officers who interview 300 neighbors of diplomats, examine two hotels, and medically examine non-diplomats who could have been exposed. Cuban officials analyze air and soil samples and consider a range of toxic chemicals. They also examine the possibility that electromagnetic waves are to blame and even look into whether insects might be the culprits but find nothing they can link to the medical symptoms. The FBI and Cubans meet to discuss the situation, although the Cubans say that the US declines to share the diplomats’ medical records with Cuban authorities or to allow Cuban investigators access to US diplomats’ homes to conduct tests. (“Cubans Forcefully Reject Blame for U.S. Diplomats’ Mystery Ailments,” NBC News, October 24, 2017)

October 25 — The FAA detects an unidentified aircraft flying “fast” (relative to commercial air traffic) at around 35,000 feet over Northern California towards Oregon. In an effort to identify the aircraft, the FAA contacts commercial airline pilots in the vicinity who visually confirm a white object traveling northbound. After the commercial passenger jets confirms the position, NORAD scrambles F-15Cs from the 142nd Air Wing in Portland, Oregon, to investigate. Bearing the most advanced targeting system available (the Sniper pod), the F-15s are unable to locate or identify the vehicle. FAA and NORAD both confirm the event and NORAD publicly confirms the launch of the F-15s. (Tyler Rogoway, “You Need to Hear These FAA Tapes from That Oregon UFO Incident That Sent F- 15s Scrambling,” The Drive: The War Zone, February 15, 2018; US Air Force, “Sniper Pod”)

October 27 — A group of scientists, former military and law enforcement officials, and other professionals form the Scientific Coalition for Ufology [later changed to the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies] to conduct and encourage the rigorous scientific examination of UFO phenomena. Its executive board includes Robert Powell, Richard Hoffman, and other scientists and professionals. (Scientific Coalition for Ufology, “Scientific Study of UFOs To Be Focus of New Organization,” October 27, 2017)

December 5 — In Moscow, Russia, covert CIA operative Marc Polymeropoulos suddenly gets symptoms similar to Havana Syndrome. In the spring of 2018, a private neurologist gives Polymeropoulos a diagnosis: occipital neuralgia, a condition resulting from damage to the two nerves that run from the base of the skull, curving toward the front of the head. (Julia Joffe, “The Mystery of the Immaculate Concussion,” GQ, October 19, 2020)

December 16 — The US Department of Defense confirms the existence of a Defense Intelligence Agency program used to collect data on military UFO sightings, the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications

Program (misidentified as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) that was disbanded in 2010. (Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean, “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program,” New York Times, December 16, 2017; Clark III 48)

December 19 — Luis Elizondo states on CNN that he believes there is “very compelling evidence we may not be alone.” (“Former Pentagon Official: ‘We May Not Be Alone,’” CNN, December 19, 2017)

2018

2018 — The British UFO Research Association publishes Vehicle Interference Report, compiled by Geoff Falla and Michael Hudson, summarizing 1,188 EM cases from 1908 to 2013. (Geoff Falla and Michael Hudson, Vehicle Interference Report, BUFORA, 2018)

2018 — Jerome Clark completes the third edition of his two-volume UFO encyclopedia. (Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, Omnigraphics, 2018)

January — A total of 11 satellites carrying Space-Based Infrared System or Space Tracking and Surveillance System payloads are operating in medium-earth, highly elliptical, and geosynchronous orbits that together provide continuous global coverage of infrared energy sources. Originally designed to detect missile launches, and later aircraft, this highly sophisticated capability continues to evolve and improve. This work is being undertaken at the Air Force’s Overhead Persistent Infrared Battlespace Awareness Center at Buckley AFB in Aurora, Colorado, as well as its new Data Utilization Lab. (Wikipedia, “Spaced-Based Infrared System”)

January 5 — 1:30 a.m. A woman looking from her bedroom window in Linden, Michigan, sees a large object emitting red-orange light approaching her. It stops dead above her head, accelerates, then slows down. Her husband goes

outside and watches it before it blinks out. (Jenny Randles, “The Twelve UFOs of Christmas,” Fortean Times 374 (Christmas 2018): 29)

January 8 — The Associated Press reports that a non-public FBI report has found no evidence of an intentional sonic attack in Havana, Cuba. (“Tillerson Tells AP Cuba Still Risky; FBI Doubts Sonic Attack,” Associated Press, January 8, 2018)

January 9 — At the direction of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the State Department conveys an Accountability Review Board to “review security incidents involving diplomatic personnel.” Retired US Ambassador to Libya Peter W. Bodde is chosen to lead the board. (“Retired Ambassador to Libya to Lead Cuba Attacks Review,” CNN, January 10, 2018)

January 9 — The Defense Intelligence Agency responds to an inquiry by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) regarding 38 projects that the military’s Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program [in reality, the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Application Program] has been involved with. The letter is released on January 16 in response to a FOIA request by Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy. One such research topic, “Traversable Wormholes, Stargates, and Negative Energy,” was led by Eric W. Davis of EarthTech International, which was founded by Harold E. Puthoff, who was formerly involved in the Stargate Project. Another project called “Invisibility Cloaking” was headed by German scientist Ulf Leonhardt, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Yet another title, “Warp Drive, Dark Energy, and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions,” was attributed to theoretical

physicist Richard Obousy, director of the nonprofit Icarus Interstellar. One of those papers was released to the public by Popular Mechanics on February 14, 2020. Titled “Clinical Medical Acute and Subacute Field Effects on Human Dermal and Neurological Tissues,” it is written by Christopher (Kit) Green, formerly a CIA agent, forensic clinician, and neuroscientist, who describes it as “focused on forensically assessing accounts of injuries that could have resulted from claimed encounters with UAP.” (Joseph Trevithick, “Here’s the List of Studies the Military’s Secretive UFO Program Funded, SomeWere Junk,” The Drive: The War Zone, January 18, 2019; US Defense Intelligence Agency, [A list of all products produced under the AAWSAP contract])

February — The Brazilian Ufologists Commission begins a new phase of its “UFOs: Freedom of Information Now” campaign called “We Have the Right to Know.” The campaign demands that the Brazilian Army, the Minas Gerais military police, and the fire brigade of Varginha release the secret files on the 1996 Varginha case. (Clark III 209)

February 1 — 6:10 p.m. An Airbus A321 pilot is descending from 10,000 feet into Manchester Airport, England, when he sees a grayish, thin-profiled object that passes by very close at the same altitude at great speed down the left side of the aircraft. His initial reaction is that he has seen an internal reflection, but the First Officer and another person have also seen it. None of them have a clear view because it is in the landing-light beam for a split second. (UK Airprox Board, “Assessment Summary Sheet for UKAB Meeting on 25th April 2018”; “UKAB ‘Unknown Object’ Log 2017–2020,” Fortean Times 406 (June 2021): 43)

February 16 — 9:16 p.m. A witness in Driebergen-Rijsenburg, Netherlands, sees three irregularly flashing lights flying toward the northwest. One of the lights suddenly leaves the formation and flies off in another direction. The lights fly slowly and silently for 6 minutes. (“3 rode oplichtende punten aan de hemel,” UFO Meldpunt Nederland, February 16, 2018)

February 20 — 10:00 p.m. A woman in Ede, Netherlands, sees three points of light (one brighter than the others) on a triangular object that is moving toward the northwest. She watches it for 2 minutes. (“Driehoek formatie 3 lichtpunten,” UFO Meldpunt Nederland, February 21, 2018)

February 23 — 7:30 a.m. Several people traveling to work in Wielsbeke from the village of Waregem, Belgium, see a hovering triangle with two bright lights like a star. There are red lights on its wings, and it is shaped like a B2 stealth bomber. (Belgisch UFO-Meldpunt, March 4, 2018)

February 23 — 6:50 p.m. Two witnesses in Oudenaarde, Belgium, see a “hanging dot” that ascends at an enormous speed. (Belgisch UFO-Meldpunt, March 4, 2018)

February 23 — 10:40 p.m. A witness going outside for a smoke in Biervliet, Netherlands, sees three globes flying in a straight line. They move closer together and disappear at the same time as they seem to merge. (“Drie lichtbollen,” UFO Meldpunt Nederland, February 23, 2018)

February 24 — 1:00 a.m. A man steps outside his house in Mol, Belgium, when it suddenly becomes light outside. Looking up, he sees an orange fireball flying past with small fragments falling off it. It is silent and does not explode. (Belgisch UFO-Meldpunt, March 4, 2018)

February 24 — 1:15 a.m. A man in Breda, Netherlands, looks out his bedroom window and sees an enormous globe of white and turquoise light as large as the full moon. The light is so brilliant it hurts his eyes to look at it for 6 seconds. (“Felle turqouise-witte bewegende lichtbol, grootte van een volle maan,” UFO Meldpunt Nederland, February 24, 2018)

February 24 — 3:40 p.m. A Learjet 36 belonging to Phoenix Air flying at 37,000 feet reports an object passing above them going in the opposite direction at about 40,000 feet. Minutes later, Blenus Green, pilot of an American Airlines Airbus A321 flying on the same air route at 40,000 feet, reports a bright object passing above them in the opposite direction by about 2,000–3,000 feet. The planes are moving east between the Sonoran Desert National Monument in southern Arizona and the New Mexico border. The air traffic controller in Albuquerque is unable to verify any other aircraft in the area. (Tyler Rogoway, “Learjet and Airbus Had Strange Encounter with Mysterious Craft over Arizona,” The Drive: The War Zone, March 8, 2018; “2 Airline Pilots Report Seeing UFO While Flying over Arizona,” CBS News, March 29, 2018; Jenny Randles, “The Sonora Desert Incident,” Fortean Times 367 (June 2018): 31; Patrick Gross, “Pilots Sightings”)

February 25 — 6:45 a.m. A witness in Lendele, Belgium, looks out the window and sees a large, bright globe without a tail shooting toward the ground. After a few seconds it disappears. (Belgisch UFO-Meldpunt, March 4, 2018)

February 26 — 7:30 p.m. A man walking his dog in Sibculo, Netherlands, takes a video of a bright, flashing object. (“Snel bewegend verspringd licht,” UFO Meldpunt Nederland, February 26, 2018)

February 27 — The Trump administration requests $81.1 billion, the largest amount ever, in funding for the black budget that bankrolls US intelligence operations. $59.9 billion is earmarked for the National Intelligence Program for non-military efforts. The other $21.2 billion would go to the Military Intelligence Program for the Defense Department. (“DNI Releases Budget Figure for FY 2019 Appropriations Requested for the National Intelligence Program,” Office of the Director of National Intelligence, February 27, 2018; “Trump Administration Requests Record $81.1 Billion for ‘Black Budget,’” Washington Times, February 28, 2018)

February 27 — 6:30 p.m. A 13-year-old boy in Briele, Netherlands, watches two black discs with red lights flying together. (“2 zwarte (met rode streep) schijven die naast elkaar vliegen,” UFO Meldpunt Nederland, February 27, 2018)

February 27 — 10:10 p.m. A cluster of 3–5 orange-white lights is seen moving and hovering above Heerlen, Netherlands. (“3–5 oranje witte lichten in de lucht kijk hoek 44° Noord Oosten,” UFO Meldpunt Nederland, February 27, 2018)

February 28 — 6:20 p.m. A semi-transparent oval object flies 30–50 feet above the A2 highway near Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, Netherlands, before moving over an adjacent meadow. (“Grijs semi-transparante bal vloog boven snelweg,” UFO Meldpunt Nederland, February 28, 2018)

March — University of Pennsylvania researchers examine 21 affected diplomats from the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba, and the preliminary results are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The report “found no evidence of white matter tract abnormalities” in affected diplomats, beyond what might be seen in a control group of the same age and describe “a new syndrome in the diplomats that resembles persistent concussion.” While some diplomats recover swiftly, others have symptoms that last for months. The study concludes that “the diplomats appear to have sustained injury to widespread brain networks.” Some experts criticize the study, arguing that there is “no proof that any kind of energy source affected the diplomats, or even that an attack took place.” MRI scans and other tests taken by a chief neurologist in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on an unspecified number of Canadian diplomats posted in Havana show evidence of brain damage that mirrors the injuries of some of their US counterparts. Global Affairs Canada withdraws all staff with families. (“Fresh Row over Mysterious Sickness Affecting US Diplomats in Cuba,” The Guardian (UK), February 24, 2018; Randel L. Swanson II, et al., “Neurological Manifestations among US Government Personnel Reporting Directional Audible and Sensory Phenomena in Havana, Cuba,” Journal of the American Medical Association 319 (March 20, 2018): 1125–1133; “Blood and Bureaucracy: Inside Canada’s Panicked Response to ‘Havana Syndrome,’” Toronto (Ont.) Globe and Mail, December 12, 2018)

March 2 — The US State Department announces it will continue to staff its embassy in Havana, Cuba, at the minimum level required to perform “core diplomatic and consular functions” due to concerns about health attacks on staff.

The embassy has been operating under “ordered departure status” since September, but the status is set to expire. This announcement serves to extend the staff reductions indefinitely. (“US Embassy in Cuba to Reduce Staff Indefinitely after ‘Health Attacks,’” CNN, March 2, 2018)

March 9 — The US Air Force officially retires the MQ-1 Predator drone from operational service. The aircraft was first operationally deployed in 1995 and in 2011 the last of 268 Predators were delivered to the service, of which just over 100 were still in service by the start of 2018. While the Predator was phased out by the Air Force in favor of the heavier and more capable MQ-9 Reaper, the Predator continues to serve in the MQ-1C Gray Eagle derivative for the US Army as well as with several foreign nations. (Wikipedia, “General Atomics MQ-1 Predator”)

March 13 — 4:15 p.m. An F/A-18E Super Hornet from Strike Fighter Squadron 106 (VFA-106, the “Gladiators”) tracks four separate unknown objects on its radar in the W-122 warning area, which sits off the coast of North Carolina. The objects are all flying at approximately 0.1 Mach at altitudes between 16,000 and 22,000 feet. The pilot visually identifies one at 20,000 feet that “appeared to be a quadcopter-type drone, 3–4 feet wide.” The objects do not appear to be doing anything in particular and are stationary or near-stationary. They are also spread out across an area approximately 40 to 50 miles wide, with the closest one being 15 miles away from the one boat that the pilot noted seeing below. (Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick, “Here Are the Navy Pilot Reports from Encounters with Mysterious Aircraft off the East Coast,” The Drive: The War Zone, May 12, 2020)

April 5 — Night. Dogs belonging to a witness in DeRidder, Louisiana, begin growling in the living room, and cows in the pasture are mooing excitedly. Outside, he sees a huge white light growing and intensity and pulsating for 15 minutes. When it disappears, the animals calm down. (Randle, Levelland, 2021, p. 125)

May 5 — 12:45 p.m. A B757 airliner pilot is approaching Gatwick Airport near Crawley, West Sussex, England, in busy airspace when the First Officer and Captain see a fairly large, irregular-shaped, dark-lack object pass down the left side at the same altitude within 200 feet of the aircraft, heading in an easterly direction. No avoiding action is needed, but the incident is reported to Gatwick control. (UK Airprox Board, “The UKAB Meeting on 20th June 2018 Consisted Solely of Consolidated Drone/Balloon/Model/Unknown Object Report Sheet”; “UKAB ‘Unknown Object’ Log 2017–2020,” Fortean Times 406 (June 2021): 43)

May 23 — After an employee of the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China, reports medical symptoms (abnormal sensations of sound and pressure) in April that are similar to the diplomats in Havana, Cuba, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirms to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that there are several reports from diplomatic staff in Guangzhou of symptoms “entirely consistent” with those reported from Cuba. A medical team arrives at the end of the month to conduct baseline medical evaluations on consulate staff. Some are evacuated to the US, including security engineering officer Mark Lenzi, who has been hearing sounds like “marbles bouncing and hitting the floor” since April 2017, followed by excruciating headaches and insomnia. (“US Embassy Pulls More China Staff over Mystery Illness,” BBC News, June 7, 2018; Richard Stone, “Sonic Attack or Mass Paranoia? New Evidence Stokes Debate over Diplomats’ Mysterious Illness,” Science, June 20, 2018; “US Diplomat Mark Lenzi, Who Suffered Mysterious Injury While Stationed in China, Pledges to Donate Brain to Science,” South China Morning Post, May 11, 2019; Julia Joffe, “The Mystery of the Immaculate Concussion,” GQ, October 19, 2020)

July 5 — 9:30 a.m. A King Air BE90 pilot is cruising at 16,000 feet about 10 nautical miles north of Birmingham, England, when he sees a rectangular or elliptical object pass 500–1,000 feet below the aircraft. He estimates it is 20–40 inches long, although it is only in sight for 2 seconds below it passes beneath the plane. It is either hovering or traveling in the opposite direction. (UK Airprox Board, “Assessment Summary Sheet for UKAB Meeting on 12th September 2018”; “UKAB ‘Unknown Object’ Log 2017–2020,” Fortean Times 406 (June 2021): 43)

July 26 — The To The Stars Academy’s ADAM Research Project is announced to test extraterrestrial materials for commercial and military applications. The testing will be done through Harold E. Puthoff’s EarthTech International in Austin, Texas. (To The Stars Academy, “An Introduction to the ADAM Rsearch Project,” July 26, 2018)

August 6 — 11:20 p.m. A resident of Heemstede, Netherlands, is skywatching when he suddenly sees a silent triangular object with three white lights moving faster than an airplane. (“Drie lichtjies in driehoeksvorm leek zwart vlak in het midden te zitten,” UFO Meldpunt Nederland, August 6, 2018)

August 12 — 11:30 p.m. Frédéric K. and a companion are watching the night sky in Viry, Haute-Savoie, France, when they see a black triangle with lights at each of its points. The object is nearly motionless, but it is rotating slightly and is completely silent. K. is struck by its immense size, which he estimates is several times the size of an

airliner. After a few seconds it moves slowly northeast toward Geneva, Switzerland. (Daniel Robin, “Les triangles de la nuit (suite),” Ovnis-Direct, August 23, 2018)

September 1 — According to a New York Times report, Douglas H. Smith, the lead author of the March study on Havana Syndrome and director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania, says that microwaves are now considered a main suspect and that the team is increasingly sure the diplomats have suffered brain injury. Strikes with microwaves, some experts now argue, more plausibly explain reports of painful sounds, ills, and traumas than do other possible culprits—sonic attacks, viral infections, and contagious anxiety. In particular, a growing number of analysts cite an eerie phenomenon known as the Frey effect, named after Allan H. Frey, an American scientist, who in the 1960s found that microwaves can trick the brain into perceiving what seem to be ordinary sounds. The false sensations may account for a defining symptom of the diplomatic incidents—the perception of loud noises, including ringing, buzzing, and grinding. Initially, experts cited those symptoms as evidence of stealthy attacks with sonic weapons. (William J. Broad, “Microwave Weapons Are Prime Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers,” New York Times, September 1, 2018; Beatrice Alexandra Golomb, “Diplomats’ Mystery Illness and Pulsed Radiofrequency/Microwave Radiation,” Neural Computation 30 (2018): 2882–2985)

October 15 — The Five Continents UFO Forum is held in the Cosmos Hotel in Moscow, Russia, to serve as a platform to launch a worldwide UFO organization. The nine founders of the World Coalition on Extraterrestrial Contact include Don Schmitt (US), Roberto Pinotti (Italy), Gary Heseltine (UK), Ademar José Gevaerd (Brazil), Andrea Simondini (Argentina), Haktan Ardogan (Turkey), Gabor Tarçali (Hungary), Lachezar Filipov (Bulgaria), and Anthony Choy (Peru). The conference is promoted by the Russian Kosmopoisk group and the International Chinese UFO Association. (2Pinotti 230–231)

October 26 — Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb and his postdoctoral assistant Shmuel Bialy submit a paper exploring the possibility that the recently discovered interstellar object ʻOumuamua is an artificial thin solar sail accelerated by solar radiation pressure in an effort to help explain the object’s nongravitational acceleration. Other scientists state that the available evidence is insufficient to consider such a premise and that a tumbling solar sail would not be able to accelerate. In response, Loeb writes an article detailing six anomalous properties of ʻOumuamua that make it unusual, unlike any comets or asteroids seen before. A subsequent report on observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope sets a tight limit on cometary outgassing of any carbon-based molecules and indicates that ʻOumuamua is at least 10 times shinier than a typical comet. A detailed podcast produced by Rob Reid provides the full details about the differences between ʻOumuamua and known comets. (Wikipedia, “‘Oumuamua”; Abraham Loeb, “How to Search for Dead Cosmic Civilizations,” Scientific American blog, September 27, 2018; Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb, “Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain ‘Oumuamua’s Peculiar Acceleration?” arXiv, October 26, 2018; Matt Williams, “Could ‘Oumuamua Be an Extraterrestrial Solar Sail?” Universe Today, October 31, 2018; “Cigar-Shaped Interstellar Object May Have Been an Alien Probe, Harvard Paper Claims,” WPSD-TV, Paducah, Kentucky, November 6, 2018; Kerry Sheridan, “Scientists Push Back against Harvard ‘Alien Spacecraft’ Theory,” Phys.org, November 7, 2018; Abraham Loeb, “6 Strange Facts about the Interstellar Visitor ‘Oumuamua,” Scientific American blog, November 20, 2018; D.E. Trilling, et al., “Spitzer Observations of Interstellar Object 1I/’Oumuamua,” aeXiv, November 20, 2018; Rob Reid, “Nailing Down the Nature of ‘Oumuamua: It’s Probably a Comet, But…” Ars Technica, November 29, 2018; Oded Carmeli, “If True, This Could Be One of the Greatest Discoveries in Human History,” Haaretz, January 16, 2019)

November 6 — Around midnight. The pilots of a US Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter are preparing to take off from an airstrip about 40 miles northwest of Tucson, Arizona, when they spot three objects in a loose triangular formation in the sky at a low altitude. The copilot continues to follow the three objects with the aircraft’s multi- sensor imaging system, the Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor. As the three objects approach the foothills of nearby Picacho Peak, they suddenly appear to rotate around each other, as if revolving around an unseen axis, all while maintaining a steady eastward trajectory. Pilot Chris Lehto says they are moving at an unexpectedly high rate of speed. After several rotations, the objects then resume an obtuse triangular formation before speeding out of sight as the Apache begins to take off. (Tim McMillan, Micah Hanks, and Christopher Plain, “Incursions at the Border: Homeland Security Agents Tell of Encounters with Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” The DeBrief, May 27, 2022)

November 9 — 6:47 a.m. A British Airways 787 is flying eastward just off the coast of County Kerry, Ireland, near the Dingle peninsula at 330 mph at an altitude of 39,000 feet. Two other aircraft, a Norwegian Airlines 737 in front of it and a Virgin VA 76 behind, are on the same flight path. The pilot of the British Airways plane notices a bright

light moving fast on the left and rapidly veers north. She asks Shannon Airport if there are military planes in the area. They tell the pilot no and that nothing is showing on their radar. The Virgin pilot has seen it and thinks it is a meteor or satellite re-entry. The Norwegian pilot has seen two bright lights. Shannon verifies that other aircraft have witnessed the event. (Jenny Randles, “Irish Mid-Air Spectacular,” Fortean Times 375 (January 2019): 33)

November 9 — A report finds that the earlier FBI investigation into the Cuban health attacks has been stymied by conflicts with the CIA and State Department. The CIA is reluctant to reveal, even to other US agencies, the identities of affected officers. Federal rules on the confidentiality of medical records also hindered the investigation. (Adam Entous and Jon Lee Anderson, “The Mystery of the Havana Syndrome,” New Yorker, November 9, 2018)

November 17 — Day. A Cargojet flight from the Cincinnati area to Calgary, Alberta, observes bright lights high above Saskatchewan, while a corresponding Canadian Air Defence Sector log entry describes “bright shining lights” that are “maneuvering and moving fast.” (Daniel Otis, “Credible UFO Reports Are Being Ignored, Declassified Canadian Government Documents Reveal,” Motherboard, November 29, 2021; CADORS Report, no.

2018C4984)

November 19 — The Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization announces that all 21 monitoring facilities located in Australia are completed “and sending reliable, high-quality data” to Vienna, Austria, for analysis. The global monitoring system consists of 337 facilities worldwide to monitor the planet for signs of nuclear explosions. It includes 60 infrasound stations that monitor for micropressure changes in Earth’s atmosphere, which are caused by infrasonic waves. These waves have a low frequency and cannot be heard by human ears, and can be caused by nuclear explosions. (Wikipedia, “Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization”)

November 21 — Morning. The Canadian Air Defence Sector detects an unidentified radar target approaching North America from the direction of Greenland. Canadian CF-18 fighter jets are soon launched from CFB Bagotville in Quebec to locate the “unknown track,” but find nothing. A declassified report from the following day blames the “spurious data” on equipment issues at a NORAD radar installation on Canada’s north Atlantic coast. Later that day, CADS receives a UFO report from Edmonton air traffic controllers about “3 red lights in the sky, hovering at the approximate height of a cell phone tower” near High Prairie, Alberta. This time, CADS responds by notifying Canadian NORAD headquarters in Winnipeg and Transport Canada, the federal transportation department. (Daniel Otis, “Credible UFO Reports Are Being Ignored, Declassified Canadian Government Documents Reveal,” Motherboard, November 29, 2021)

December 4 — The independent documentary Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers is released. The film, available on Netflix beginning in June 2019, “chronicles the challenges and travails of a cosmic whistleblower. Burdened with a revolutionary secret, he had to choose between his oath to his country or his conscience. Jeremy Corbell’s film explores Lazar’s groundbreaking claims and the devastating impact it has had on his life over the course of the last 30 years, including rare and never before revealed footage guaranteed to alter the landscape of the debate.” “Unfortunately, Corbell busies up the documentary with a barrage of images of atomic age archival footage and such that after awhile make the movie seem more like a collage than a film. There is also the psychobabble narration that is mumbled by Mickey Rourke; at times poetic, at times it comes off like comic relief. It’s distracting and unnecessary.” (Internet Movie Database, “Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers”; “Watch Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers, 2021,” News of the World YouTube channel, November 5, 2021; Amy Zimmerman, “Why Did the FBI Raid the Home of the Biggest Alien Truther?” The Daily Beast, December 4, 2018; Carlos, “Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers,” Cinema365, December 26, 2018)

December 19–21 — Sightings of drones disrupt around 1,000 flights at Gatwick Airport in West Sussex, England, causing flights to be diverted or canceled. There are multiple reports but no physical or photographic evidence. The military are called in with special anti-drone equipment. Gatwick goes back to normal operations on December 21 after two people are arrested then released without charge. (Wikipedia, “Gatwick Airport drone incident”; “Who is Drone Ranger?” The Sun (UK), December 21, 2018; “Gatwick Drone Attack Possible Inside Job, Police Say,” BBC News, April 14, 2019; “The Gatwick Drone Enigma,” Fortean Times 406 (June 2021): 40–41)

December 30 — 6:45 p.m. The pilot of an Embraer 175 passenger plane approaching the runway at Glasgow Airport, Scotland, sees an “object pass between three and 10 feet from the aircraft at the same level.” The pilot cannot tell what it is, but it is “lit up in various places and was more horizontally long than it was vertically.” The Airprox board is unable to identify the object, but decides there was a definite risk of collision and luck played a part in missing it. (UK Airprox Board, “Assessment Summary Sheet for UKAB Meeting on 13th February 2019”; “UKAB ‘Unknown Object’ Log 2017–2020,” Fortean Times 406 (June 2021): 43)

2019

January — Ufologist Jenny Randles retires the Northern UFO News after its 200th issue is published. (Jenny Randles, “January Issue Now Out,” Oz Factor Books)

January 4 — Biologists Alexander L. Stubbs of the University of California, Berkeley, and Fernando Montealegre-Z of the University of Lincoln analyze the recording of a sound made by US personnel in Cuba and release it to the Associated Press. They conclude that the sound is caused by the calling song of the Indies short-tailed cricket (Anurogryllus celerinictus) rather than a technological device. They match the song’s “pulse repetition rate, power spectrum, pulse rate stability, and oscillations per pulse” to the recording. (Carl Zimmer, “The Sounds That Haunted U.S. Diplomats in Cuba? Lovelorn Crickets, Scientists Say,” New York Times, January 4, 2019; Robert

W. Baloh and Robert E. Bartholomew, Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria, Springer, 2020)

January 6 — The crew of a Vanguard Air Care flight sees an unidentified light moving parallel to them for about three minutes while they are travelling at about 265 mph at an altitude of 7,500 feet around the 55th parallel over northern Manitoba. The CIRVIS report says the brightness of the light in the night sky is what attracted the observer’s attention and that NAV Canada’s Winnipeg Air Control Centre assumes that it is another aircraft. 21 Aerospace Control and Warning Squadron at Canadian Forces Base North Bay in Ontario is notified of the sighting. An unclassified intelligence report is then faxed to Transport Canada. (“2019 Sighting of Unidentified Light in Northern Manitoba Sky Was Reported to Air Force, Vice Says,” Thompson (Man.) Citizen, April 14, 2021)

January 8 — The television series Project Blue Book premieres on the History channel. The main role of J. Allen Hynek is played by Aidan Gillen, with Laura Mennell as Mimi Hynek. The series runs for a second season in 2020 before it is canceled. UFO skeptic Robert Sheaffer, reviewing the first four episodes, points out numerous historical inaccuracies and falsehoods, some of which he characterizes as “absurd.” Concerned over misguiding viewers, he concludes that “this program references real people by their real names, a real government program, and real incidents. It then mixes in absurd and invented details, while claiming that the show is based on real events.” (Wikipedia, “Project Blue Book (TV series)”; Internet Movie Database, “Project Blue Book”)

January 15 — 11:40 a.m. An RAF Typhoon pilot is leading a pair of fighters from Coningsby, England, to an exercise in the North Sea. After receiving clearance to climb to 30,000 feet from 15,000 feet, he notices an object at 11 o’clock about one nautical mile away, slightly higher and maintaining a constant altitude. The radar and data link show no traffic conflictions. The object reflects sunlight and appears to have a linear form. It passes down the left- hand side of the aircraft. The wingman independently sees the same object as it passes over the leader’s aircraft.

He maintains the formation at 15,000 feet until they are clear of the object. Nothing unusual is noticed by ground radar. (UK Airprox Board, “Assessment Summary Sheet for UKAB Meeting on 13th March 2019”; “UKAB ‘Unknown Object’ Log 2017–2020,” Fortean Times 406 (June 2021): 43)

January 30 — The government of Canada announces that it is reducing its embassy staff in Havana, Cuba, after a 14th Canadian diplomat reports symptoms of Havana syndrome in late December 2018. (“‘Havana Syndrome’ Forces Canada to Halve Its Diplomatic Presence in Cuba,” Radio Canada International, January 30, 2019)

February 6 — The Canadian government is served with a $28 million dollar lawsuit by five diplomats, on the alleged basis that Ottawa has not promptly addressed the serious health concerns the Canadian diplomats and their families have faced in Havana, Cuba, more than 2 years ago. The origin of these health concerns is unknown, but these ailments manifest as symptoms that are similar to that of a concussion. None of these allegations have been proven in court. (“Ailing Canadian Diplomats Who Served in Cuba Have ‘Visible and Real’ Health Impacts, Trudeau Says,” Toronto (Ont.) Star, February 7, 2019)

February 10 — Afternoon. Several people in Cogollos de Guadix, Granada, Spain, observe three mysterious lights flash across the sky at great speed, each of which falls in a different part of the village. José María Madiedo at the Universidad de Huelva rules out meteorites because the objects are only seen locally. (“Seen in the Skies,” Fortean Times 382, August 2019, p. 17)

February 13 — 4:35 p.m. The crew of an EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23 (VX-23), flying out Naval Air Station Patuxent River in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, and conducting activities in the W-386 warning area, visually spot what they specifically describe as “a red weather balloon” at 27,000 feet. Neither Fleet Area Control and Surveillance Facility, Virginia Capes (FASCFAC VACAPES), nor the Echo Control team responsible for overseeing operations in the Atlantic Test Ranges off the coast, are aware of any scheduled balloon activity. (Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick, “Here Are the Navy

Pilot Reports from Encounters with Mysterious Aircraft off the East Coast,” The Drive: The War Zone, May 12, 2020)

March — An airline passenger films a supposed UFO over the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece. The film is taken through the airplane window and shows a massive, gray-black, contrail-like object cutting through a layer of clouds. Some investigators conclude it is an F-4 fighter jet of the Greek Air Force. (“Seen in the Skies,” Fortean Times 382, August 2019, p. 17)

March 4 — An FA-18 pilot flying out of NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, takes cellphone images of a UAP out of his cockpit in the W-72 warning area off the coast. His weapons systems officer captures three different objects using the same cellphone. (Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell, “The US Navy Filmed Pyramid Shaped UFOs,” Extraordinary Beliefs, April 8, 2019)

March 30 — 2:00 p.m. A B787 airliner pilot flying over London, England, sees a red object pass down the right-hand side of the aircraft at 6,000 feet. It is impossible to identify, although it is large enough to cause concern. (UK Airprox Board, “Assessment Summary Sheet for UKAB Meeting on Wednesday 15th May 2019”; “UKAB ‘Unknown Object’ Log 2017–2020,” Fortean Times 406 (June 2021): 43)

April — The UK National Archives releases 18 more UFO files that had been missed since the last release in 2013. (“Ministry of Defence Insider Reveals Contents of Britain’s ‘Final’ UFO Files,” Metro (UK), January 30, 2020)

April — The Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia, picks up a 982.992 MHz radio signal, labeled BLC1, emitted from Proxima Centauri. Researchers from the Breakthrough Listen Project cannot attribute it to any Earth-based or near-Earth human-created source. Shifts in the signal’s frequency are consistent with a planet’s movement and may be suggestive of a third planet within the system. As of December 2020, follow-up

observations have failed to detect the signal again, a step necessary to confirm that the signal is a technosignature. (Wikipedia, “BLC1”; “Signal from Space,” Fortean Times 404 (April 2021): 15; David Appell, “Meet the Technosignature Researcher on the Lookout for Exocivilizations,” Physics World, February 2, 2022)

April 4 — The Argentine Air Force’s Comisión de Estudio de Fenómenos Aeroespaciales is renamed the Centro de Identificación Aéroespacial. (Milton Hourcade, “Argentina: UFO Declassification,” U.A.P.S.G.–G.E.F.A.I., July 29, 2020; Government of Argentina, “Centro de Identificación Aéroespacial”)

April 28 — 12:40 p.m. An Airbus A319 is climbing out from Gatwick Airport, near Crawley, West Sussex, England, when the pilot sees an object a few seconds after breaking through cloud at 17,000 feet. It passes beneath them from the center of the aircraft and under the right-hand wing and is clearly contrasted against the clouds. The small object appears dark green in color with a white light on top. The UK Airprox Board places this incident in the highest risk category. (UK Airprox Board, “Assessment Summary Sheet for UKAB Meeting on Wednesday 19th June 2019”; “UKAB ‘Unknown Object’ Log 2017–2020,” Fortean Times 406 (June 2021): 43)

May 5 — 2:00 p.m. An Airbus A320 pilot departing from Gatwick Airport, England, sees a totally white object resembling a shoebox-sized cube with a ball on top. It passes down the left-hand side of the aircraft, slightly above and within 16 feet at 6,000 feet altitude. The object appears to be in level flight. (UK Airprox Board, “Assessment Summary Sheet for UKAB Meeting on Wednesday 19th June 2019”; “UKAB ‘Unknown Object’ Log 2017–2020,” Fortean Times 406 (June 2021): 43)

May 22 — Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood confirms to the New York Post that the AATIP program “did pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena,” dispelling rumors that the program only focused on theoretical physics. (Steven Greenstreet, “The Pentagon Finally Admits It Investigates UFOs,” New York Post, May 22, 2019)

May 24 — Researchers who examine Canadian diplomats affected by Havana Syndrome come to the conclusion that neurotoxin exposure is compatible with the symptoms. Their explanation of the root cause is the increased use of fumigation as pest control by the embassies themselves, which is supported by blood analysis. (“Havana Syndrome: Exposure to Neurotoxin May Have Been Cause, Study Suggests,” CBC News, September 19, 2019)

May 26 — The New York Times reports that US Navy pilots fully briefed AATIP about encounters they had with unexplained objects during the summer of 2014 to March 2015 while flying at high altitudes off the East coast of the United States. (Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean, “‘Wow, What Is That?’ Navy Pilots Report Unexplained Flying Objects,” New York Times, May 26, 2019)

June — The National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena issues an advisory for pilots that offers recommendations on how to deal with UAPs by Ted Roe. It offers a general history of UAP, some common profiles of unidentified objects, safety factors that can arise during an incident, and cautions and recommendations

for aircrews and air traffic controllers. (Ted Roe, “Advisory for Pilots, Aircrews, Air Controllers, and Aviation Professionals: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, UAP, UFOs, and Aviation Safety,” NARCAP, June 2019)

June 15 — President Donald Trump tells ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that he has been briefed on Navy pilots reporting increased sightings of UFOs. Trump raises his eyebrows and grins incredulously when asked what he makes of the reports. “I want them to think whatever they think,” Trump says of the Navy pilots. “I did have one very brief meeting on it. But people are saying they’re seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly.” (Matthew Choi, “Trump Says He Was Briefed on Navy Sightings of UFOs,” Politico, June 15, 2019)

June 15 — Approximately 4:45 p.m. The Skinwalker Ranch project in Uintah County, Utah, orchestrated by Utah real estate developer Brandon Fugal (who purchased the land from Robert Bigelow in April 2016) and led by University of Alabama astrophysicist and science fiction author Travis S. Taylor, sends up three instrumented small rockets to locate the source of strong RF and gamma radiation apparently coming from about one mile above the property. Between the rocket tests, the team observes and films on two occasions a round, white ball that moves erratically around the sky for a few seconds before disappearing. Cows in a neighboring field are agitated and group closely together in one spot. (The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, Season 1, Episode 4, 2020; Internet Movie Database, “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch”)

June 23 — The catalog of space objects built by the US Space Surveillance Network lists 44,336 objects including 8,558 satellites launched into orbit since 1957. 17,480 of them are actively tracked while 1,335 are lost. The rest have re-entered Earth’s turbulent atmosphere and disintegrated, or survived re-entry and impacted the Earth. The SSN typically tracks space objects that are baseball size or larger. The Space Surveillance Network has numerous sensors that provide data. They are separated into three categories: dedicated sensors, collateral sensors and auxiliary sensors. Additionally sensors are classified as Near-Earth (NE) tracking (observing satellites, space debris, and other objects in lower orbits), or Deep Space (DS) tracking (generally for asteroids and comets). This global program consists of at least 29 distinct worldwide space surveillance systems, featuring the world’s most powerful radars (including the Solid State Phased Array Radar System), the DARPA Space Surveillance Telescope, the ground-based optical GEODSS space surveillance system (which detects “uncorrelated targets”), the Geosynchronous Space-Based Situational Awareness Program, and the Navy’s sea-based X-band radar system. The Combined Space Operations Center (formerly the Joint Space Operations Center) at Vandenberg Space Force Base and the Space Control Center at Cheyenne Mountain are both repositories of data from the SSN. (Wikipedia, “United States Space Surveillance Network”)

June 27 — The Storm Area 51 Facebook event is created by college student Matty Roberts as a joke, unaware of the viral attention it will receive. He comes up with the idea of suggesting a raid on the Nevada facility to search for aliens after watching Area 51 conspiracy theorist Bob Lazar and filmmaker Jeremy Corbell on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast on June 20. The event plans for the raid in Amargosa Valley on September 20. More than

2 million people responded “going” and 1.5 million “interested” on the event page, which subsequently attracts widespread media reaction and makes the event become an internet meme. (Wikipedia, “Storm Area 51”)

July — Subsequent findings by the University of Pennsylvania team find that, compared to a healthy control group, the US diplomats who report injury in the Havana, Cuba, embassy have experienced brain trauma; advanced MRI scans (specifically res-fMRI, multimodal MRI, and diffusion MRI) reveal “differences in whole brain white matter volume, regional gray and white matter volume, cerebellar microstructural integrity, and functional connectivity in the auditory and visuospatial subnetworks” but find no differences in executive functions. The study concludes that the US government personnel have been physically injured in a way consistent with the symptoms that they describe but express no conclusion on the cause or source of the injury. The New York Times reports: “Outside experts were divided on the study’s conclusions. Some saw important new evidence; others say it is merely a first step toward an explanation, and difficult to interpret given the small number of patients.” (Benedict Carey, “Were U.S. Diplomats Attacked in Cuba? Brain Study Deepens Mystery,” New York Times, July 23, 2019; Ragini Verma, et al., “Neuroimaging Findings in US Government Personnel with Possible Exposure to Directional Phenomena in Havana, Cuba,” Journal of the American Medical Association 322 (July 23/30, 2019): 336–347)

July 14 — 10:00 p.m. Two unmanned aerial systems (UAVs, or “drones”) are sighted by the crew of the guided missile destroyer USS Kidd off the western tip of San Clemente Island, California. The ship immediately activates its photo expert team (SNOOPIE) and enters into a condition of restricted communications designed to enhance operational security and enhance survivability. Less than 10 minutes later, the USS Kidd advises the USS Rafael Peralta of the situation. The USS Rafael Peralta logs show that at around 10:00 p.m. it had activated its own SNOOPIE team. Reports of possible UAV sightings and a red flashing light come in from the USS John Finn. A white light hovers above the flight deck of the USS Rafael Peralta. The drone manages to match the destroyer’s

speed, moving at 16 knots in order to maintain a hovering position over the helicopter landing pad. By this point, the encounter has lasted over 90 minutes—significantly longer than what commercially available drones can typically sustain. (Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti, “Multiple Destroyers Were Swarmed by Mysterious ‘Drones’ off California over Numerous Nights,” The Drive: The War Zone, March 23, 2021)

July 15 — 8:39 p.m. The USS Rafael Peralta again spots unidentified UAVs between San Clemente Island and San Diego, California, and by 9:00 p.m. the USS Kidd is also reporting them. The drones seem to be pursuing the ships, even as they continue to maneuver throughout the incident. By 9:20 p.m., the USS Kidd logs simply remark “Multiple UAVs around ship.” 17 minutes later, the Kidd issues orders for the crew to man what is possibly a Mark 87 Electro-Optical Director to provide surveillance and tracking data. At approximately the same time, the USS Russell records a frenzy of activity, with drones dropping in elevation, and apparently moving forward and backward, left and right. Meanwhile, the USS Rafael Peralta receives a radio call from a passing cruise ship,

the Carnival Imagination, notifying them that the drones are not theirs, and that they also see as many as five or six drones maneuvering nearby. The incident continues into the night, with the USS Rafael Peralta first recording two UAVs and then four UAVs near their ship. Approaching midnight, the USS Russell reports a final sighting involving multiple pyramid-shaped objects. Despite the nearly three-hour duration of the event, none of the warships involved appear to have been able to identify the drones. The Navy, Coast Guard, and FBI investigate the natter and are unable to provide an adequate investigation. Leaked photos and videos said to pertain to this incident are released by filmmaker Jeremy Corbell. The materials consisted of footage of radar screens showing multiple unknown contacts, video of an object apparently falling into the ocean, and a brief video of a triangular- shaped light flying over the deck of a ship. The apparent triangular shape of the object has been strongly debated, as many have posited it was the result of a common optical artifact. (Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti, “Multiple Destroyers Were Swarmed by Mysterious ‘Drones’ off California over Numerous Nights,” The Drive: The War Zone, March 23, 2021; Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell, “The US Navy Filmed Pyramid Shaped UFOs,” Extraordinary Beliefs, April 8, 2021; “2019 the US Navy Filmed ‘Pyramid’ Shaped UFOs: Here Is That Footage,” Jeremy Corbell YouTube channel, April 8, 2021; “Pyramid UFO, New Footage: It’s Just Bokeh, Not a Pyramid,” Mick West YouTube channel, April 15, 2021; “VFX Artists Debunk Pentagon UFO Videos,” Corridor Crew YouTube channel, August 15, 2021; Graeme Rendall, “‘Drone Swarms’: UAPs or Other Actors?” UAP Media UK, April 20, 2021)

July 16 — Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence and Counterterrorism subcommittee, asks Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer to outline what resources the Navy is dedicating to investigating UFO sightings. He also asks if officials have found physical evidence to substantiate the claims and whether they are aware of any foreign nations or private companies that have introduced breakthrough technologies that could explain them. (Mark Walker, Letter to Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer, July 16, 2019)

July 17 — 7:56–10:39 p.m. The Navy destroyer USS Paul Hamilton is cruising 80 nautical miles southwest of San Clemente Island, California, when it spots a UAS (unmanned aerial systems) about one mile distant. Twenty minutes later, the timeline indicates two UASs are seen with one of them falling in the water. By 8:26 p.m., multiple objects are spotted. The timeline also indicates that the bridge was able to see flashing red lights. At 8:50 p.m., the timeline notes a “UAS swarm.” By 9:11 p.m., the timeline notes that one of the objects is directly overhead at 2,000 feet. Just a minute later, all of the objects appear to change course and head away from the ship at 69 mph. However, eight minutes later, UASs are again seen behind the ship. The last event noted in the slide takes place when one of the UAS crosses the ship at approximately 2,000 feet. A photo is taken with a forward- looking infrared (FLIR) system that is of extremely low resolution. Three blurry dots are discernible, but there are no other visible details. (Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti, “Navy Releases Timeline for Mysterious 2019 ‘UAS Swarm’ Involving Warships Off California,” The Drive: The War Zone, February 10, 2022)

July 18 — An investigation into the UAS incidents is routed to the Chief of Naval Operations. (Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti, “Harassment of Navy Destroyers by Mysterious Drone Swarms off California Went on for Weeks,” The Drive: The War Zone, December 17, 2021)

July 23 — 8:50 p.m. Another drone is spotted by a SNOOPIE team on the USS Russell at an elevation of about 400 feet. A little over an hour later, flares are spotted, though the logs do not remark if these are connected to the ongoing drone sighting. (Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti, “Harassment of Navy Destroyers by Mysterious Drone Swarms off California Went on for Weeks,” The Drive: The War Zone, December 17, 2021)

July 24 — 10:30 a.m. A new term is introduced to the USS Russell log: “ghostbusters.” A log entry reflects an apparently brief counter UAS exercise lasting about eight minutes. Though official references are hard to come by, “ghostbuster” is a term sometimes used to refer to lower-end counter UAS devices that look similar to rifles.

These anti-drone countermeasures are increasingly being used by security forces around the world. They operate

by using highly-directional radiofrequency jammers designed to disrupt communications between drones and their operators. One key limitation of these devices is that they can only disable drones that are directly controlled by a human operator. Autonomous systems are far more resilient against such countermeasures. It is not perfectly clear if the Russell had this equipment onboard previously, or if “ghostbuster” devices were brought onboard in reaction to the earlier drone incidents. (Stew Magnuson, “OSD to Recommend Big Budget Increase for Counter- Drone Technologies,” National Defense, March 23, 2017; Brett Tingley, “Check Out the Anti-Drone Weapons Carried by Security at Biden’s Meeting in Brussels,” The Drive: The War Zone, June 15, 2021; Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti, “Harassment of Navy Destroyers by Mysterious Drone Swarms off California Went on for Weeks,” The Drive: The War Zone, December 17, 2021)

July 25 — 1:20 a.m. Another unidentified drone incident, lasting 32 minutes, is reported by the USS Kidd. (Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti, “Multiple Destroyers Were Swarmed by Mysterious ‘Drones’ off California over Numerous Nights,” The Drive: The War Zone, March 23, 2021;)

July 30 — 2:15 am. The USS Kidd reports another UAV incident. Its SNOOPIE team remains activated until 3:27 a.m.

Ships’ logs show a sustained, but an intermittent pattern of drone sightings throughout the month of July by Navy ships operating off Southern California. These events seem to have spurred additional training and the rapid deployment of unique capabilities like the “ghostbuster” counter-UAS equipment. It remains unknown what impact, if any, this training and equipment has on deterring drone operations. At least three ships report sighting drones in the very early hours of July 30, with unusual and extensive redactions in the logs of the USS Russell, but we do not know what happened the next day, or in the weeks that followed. (Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti, “Multiple Destroyers Were Swarmed by Mysterious ‘Drones’ off California over Numerous Nights,” The Drive: The War Zone, March 23, 2021; Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti, “Harassment of Navy Destroyers by Mysterious Drone Swarms off California Went on for Weeks,” The Drive: The War Zone, December 17, 2021)

July 31 — In response to the inquiry by Mark Walker, Navy Undersecretary Thomas Modly writes in a brief letter that “the Department of the Navy takes these reports very seriously and continues to log sightings and fully investigate the accounts.” (Bryan Bender, “Navy Withholding Data on UFO Sightings, Congressman Says,” Politico, September 6, 2019)

August — An anonymous White House staffer who is accompanying National Security Adviser John Bolton in London, England, is in her hotel room when she suddenly feels a tingling in the side of her head that is facing the window. The intense pressure in her head is accompanied by a tinning in her ears. When she leaves the room, the symptoms stop. She reports the incident to the Secret Service because it is uncannily similar to the symptoms described by American diplomats who had served in Cuba and China. (Julia Joffe, “The Mystery of the Immaculate Concussion,” GQ, October 19, 2020)

August 8 — An explosion at the State Central Navy Testing Range near Nyonoksa, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, triggers radiation levels to rise. According to official Russian sources, the explosion is the result of a failed test of an “isotope power source for a liquid-fueled rocket engine,” possibly a 9M730 Burevestnik cruise missile test or recovery. Five nuclear scientists die immediately and three suffer from burns. Russian authorities order the evacuation of the village near the blast site, suggesting grave dangers due to nuclear radiation. (Wikipedia, “Nyonska radiation accident”)

September 6 — Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) accuses the US Navy of withholding information about reports of unidentified aircraft after officially requesting more data on the mysterious encounters. “While I am encouraged the Under Secretary of the Navy confirmed that UAP encounters are fully investigated, there is frustration with the lack of answers to specific questions about the threat that superior aircraft flying in United States airspace may pose,” Walker tells Politico. (Bryan Bender, “Navy Withholding Data on UFO Sightings, Congressman Says,” Politico, September 6, 2019)

September 20 — The Storm Area 51 Facebook event takes place with about 150 people showing up at the entrance to Area 51. Although no one succeeds in entering the site, an estimated 3,000 attend the related music festivals in Rachel and Hiko, Nevada, according to state and local law enforcement, and up to 10,000 people visit the area over the weekend. Air Force spokeswoman Laura McAndrews says government officials are briefed on the event and discourage people from attempting to enter military property. Nevada law enforcement also warns potential participants in the event against trespassing. The event, although intended as a joke, has an effect on businesses both locally in Nevada and around the US, which prepare products for visitors for those attending. (Wikipedia, “Storm Area 51”)

September 29–30 — 11:00 p.m. Security officers at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station near Tonopah, Arizona, observe 5–6 drones flying at 200–300 feet and showing flashing red and white lights. The objects also have

spotlights turned on during their approach but turned off as they maneuver above the site. They remain over the plant for more than 80 minutes and are estimated to be at least 2 feet across, ruling out commercial drones. They return the following night, with 4 drones operating above the station for an extended period. Polie unsuccessfuly attempt to track down the operators. (Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick, “The Night a Mysterious Drone Swarm Descended on Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant,” The Drive: The War Zone, July 29, 2020)

October 11 — The Twenty-Fifth Air Force for intelligence activities is merged with the 24th Air Force to form a reactivated 16th Air Force responsible for information warfare. Its headquarters is still at Joint Base San Antonio– Lackland in Texas. (Wikipedia, “Sixteenth Air Force”)

October 17 — The To the Stars Academy announces it has entered into a cooperative research and development agreement with the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. The five-year contract will focus on “inertial mass reduction, mechanical/structural meta materials, electromagnetic meta material wave guides, quantum physics, quantum communications, and beamed energy propulsion.” According to the US Army, no public funding will go the group, but at least $750,000 will be provided in support and resources for developing and testing To the Stars technologies. The contract states that To the Stars will provide samples in its possession of “metamaterials,” any data or “obtained vehicles” that use “beamed energy propulsion,” and any information or technology related to “active camouflage” for testing and analysis of potential application on Army ground vehicles. Doug Halleaux, a spokesperson for the CCDC Ground Vehicle Systems Center, has stated that the US government has approached To the Stars because “If materials represented in the TTSA ADAM project are scientifically evaluated and presented with supporting data as having military utility by the TTSA, it makes sense to look deeper here.” According to Halleaux, the Army is also interested in the results of a collaboration between To the Stars and TruClear Global, a company that creates custom video screen billboards, aimed at providing “advanced technology solutions to United States Government clientele.” (Wikipedia, “To the Stars (company)”; “Cooperative Research and Development Agreement between To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, Inc., and the U.S. Army Combat Capavilities Development Command, Ground Behicle Systems Center,” October 10, 2019; Travis J. Tritten, “UFO Group Sharing Exotic Materials with Army for Combat Vehicles,” Bloomberg Government, October 21, 2019; M. J. Banias, “Tom DeLonge’s UFO Research Group Signs Contract with U.S. Army to Develop Far-Future Tech,” Motherboard, October 21, 2019; Mindy Weisberger, “Rock Star’s Company Seeks UFOs, Finds Military Contract,” Live Science, October 27, 2019; M. J. Banias, “The Army Told Us Why It Partnered with Tom DeLonge’s UFO Group,” Motherboard, November 4, 2019; To the Stars Academy, “CRADA FAQ,” November 15, 2019)

October 27 — The fifth X-37B mission, Orbital Test Vehicle-5, lands at the Shuttle Landing Facility on Merritt Island, Florida, after spending nearly 780 days in space. The Boeing X37B is an uncrewed, reusable, robotic spaceplane that is launched by an Atlas V rocket and uses solar panels for power in space. While the complete payload for OTV-5 is classified, the Air Force announces that one of its experiments is the Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader II (ASETS-II), which measures the performance of an oscillating heat pipe. (Wikipedia, “Boeing X-37”)

November 9 — 5:16 p.m. A young couple are driving home on the A629 near Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, when they see a white glow over the moorland. They stop and get out to watch as they hear the roar of what seem to be fighter jets headed for the glow. Other cars also stop and watch. Some start to film the object and the jets, as d o the couple on their cellphones, but the footage is blurry. The mother of the driver starts an appeal on social media for any other witnesses who filmed the event to come forward. Jenny Randles determines that two aircraft at that location, but they are not military and not jets; they are Partenavia P.68 Observers belonging to Ravenair and flying at 2,200 and 2,300 feet side by side and landing at John Lennon Airport in Liverpool 25 minutes later. No radar target matches the UFO itself. (Jenny Randles, “2020 Vision,” Fortean Times 389 (February 2020): 28–29)

November 11 — 5:33 p.m. A commercial aircrew is flying a Boeing 737-800 airliner at 37,000 feet altitude and 506 mph near Marseille, France. The pilot observes an unusual light flying just above their altitude on a collision heading from the right side into the 2 o’clock position relative to the aircraft. It performs a 180° turn and then matches the speed and heading of the airliner before beginning to cross above and in front of its flight path. At this point the pilot uses a cellphone to take a photograph and record 47 seconds of the UFO crossing their flight path, accelerating, and moving away. (Ted Roe, “NARCAP Technical Report 19: Analysis of a November 11, 2019, Aviation Safety-Related Incident Involving a Commercial Airliner and a UAP Over Europe,” July 2019)

November 26 — The same White House staffer who had an attack in August is hit again by Havana Syndrome while walking her dog in Arlington, Virginia. As she passes a parked van, a man gets out and walks past her. Her dog

starts seizing up. Then she feels it too: a high-pitched ringing in her ears, an intense headache, and a tingling on the side of her face. (Julia Joffe, “The Mystery of the Immaculate Concussion,” GQ, October 19, 2020)

December — The Federal Aviation Administration launches an investigation into multiple nighttime sightings of unidentified “drones” with 6-foot wingspans flying in formation at about 150 feet over rural areas of northeastern Colorado (Phillips, Yuma, Washington, Lincoln, and Morgan counties) and southwestern Nebraska (Perkins County) for the last 2 weeks in December, and as early as November 23. The objects usually fly in square grid patterns nearly every night between 5:00 and 10:00 p.m. They have blinking lights and hover, then descend and take off very fast. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) says he is glad the FAA is investigating. The Colorado Department of Homeland Security also opens an investigation, as Gov. Jared Polis vows to get to the bottom of the case. Sheriffs say the drones are not breaking Colorado law, but industry experts note that the drone operators could be violating FAA regulations on flying after dark and above a certain height. (“FAA Probes Clusters of Mysterious Drones Flying over Colorado,” Reuters, December 31, 2019; Sam Tabachnik, “A Night on the Plains: Chasing the Mysterious Drones of Eastern Colorado,” Denver Post, January 3, 2020)

December 3 — The CIA team investigating the Havana Syndrome attacks brings its findings to CIA director Gina Haspel.

According to two sources, after listening to the investigators lay out their evidence that suggests the Russian security services are behind the hits on Agency personnel, Haspel challenges them. She accuses the investigators of both hiding information from her and lying to her about what their inquiry has uncovered. The director questions the motives of those looking into the attacks. “This is why we need to clean out Russia House,” she says, referring to the CIA’s operations unit focused on Russia, according to two sources. “You’re just trying to stir up trouble on Russia.” A third source confirms that “the meeting did not go well.” (Julia Joffe, “The Mystery of the Immaculate Concussion,” GQ, October 19, 2020; Ana Swanson, Edward Wong, and Julian E. Barmes, “U.S. Diplomats and Spies Battle Trump Administration over Suspected Attacks,” New York Times, October 19, 2020)

December 20 — The United States Space Force Act, part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020, is signed, creating an independent space service by renaming and reorganizing Air Force Space Command into the United States Space Force. (Wikipedia, “United States Space Force”)

December 31 — Dusk. Placido Montoya, a plumber from Fort Morgan, Colorado, gives chase to a mystery drone in Morgan County after seeing blinking lights in the sky. But they take off rapidly and he speeds up to 120 mph before losing them. Vince Iovinella, deputy sheriff at the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office, receives more than 30 calls from locals reporting drones “zipping around all over the place.” Iovinella himself sees one with red, white, and green lights that he also tries to chase, but it outruns him. (“Attack of the Drones,” The Guardian (UK), April 18, 2021)

2020

January 6 — A meeting of local, state, and federal agencies brings 75 people to Brush, Colorado, to share information and strategy on the mystery drones. Officials are looking for a command vehicle (such as a “closed box trailer with antennas or a large van”) that might be controlling the drones. (“Command Vehicle Focus of Colorado Drone Investigation,” Mystery Wire, January 6, 2020)

January 8 — Drones are now being seen in Castle Rock and Parker in Douglas County, Colorado, and Fort Collins in Larimer County. Kerry Garrison, a vice president at drone vendor Multicopter Warehouse in Centennial, claims the drone reports are actually sightings of Starlink satellites launched by SpaceX; although they are at orbital altitude, in a clear sky they can look lower than they really are. But Garrison also visited the eastern planes with other aviation experts to view the drones. He says he saw red lights go zipping by at 100 mph, faster than any drone. A close call with a drone and a Flight for Life helicopter near Fort Morgan, Colorado, prompts officials to add ground-based spotting teams and aircraft equipped to hunt drones. However, an investigation by Colorado Homeland Security later say the incident is unrelated to the drone activity. (“Local Drone Dealer Says Lights Spotted over Castle Rock Were Satellites,” KDVR, Denver, January 7. 2020; Paul Seaburn, “Mysterious Drones Fly near Denver As Colorado Residents Fear a Government Cover-Up.” Mysterious Universe, January 8, 2020; Brett Tingley, “Surveillance Plane Joins Intensifying Hunt for Mystery Drones over Colorado and Nebraska (Updated),” The Drive: The War Zone, January 8, 2020; Kevin D. Randle, “X-Zone Broadcast Network: Drones, Drones, Drones,” A Different Perspective, February 7, 2020)

January 13 — State agencies and the Colorado Division of Homeland Security announce that they are scaling back investigations into drone sightings. Between November 23 and January 13, the Colorado Information Analysis Center received 90 reports of drone activity. Of those, 14 are confirmed by law enforcement to be hobbyist

drones. Between January 6 and January 13, when state officials investigate drone sightings in the field, there are 23 drone activity reports. Of those, 13 are determined to be planets, stars, or small hobbyist drones. Six reports are ruled out as “atmospheric conditions or unidentified commercial aircraft.” Finally, four reports are confirmed by law enforcement, but the aircraft are unidentifiable. (“State Plans to ‘Scale Back’ Investigation of Drones in Northeast Colorado,” KDVR, Denver, January 13, 2020; “Drone Swarms,” Fortean Times, no. 416 (March 2022): 19)

January 30 — The UK National Archives and Ministry of Defence announce another “final” release of UFO files. (“Ministry of Defence Insider Reveals Contents of Britain’s ‘Final’ UFO Files,” Metro (UK), January 30, 2020)

February 14 — A Popular Mechanics article by UFO investigative writer and retired police lieutenant Tim McMillan says that Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) was contracted under the auspices of the AATIP program to study UFO reports and purported paranormal phenomena. According to Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, the AAWSAP contract “sounds like it was a good deal for the contractor. But it would be hard to argue that either the military or the public got their money’s worth.” (Tim McMillan, “Inside the Pentagon’s Secret UFO Program,” Popular Mechanics, February 14, 2020)

March 3 — Science writer Sarah Scoles publishes They Are Already Here, focusing on the beliefs and attitudes of UFO researchers through first-person interviews. (Sarah Scoles, They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers, Pegasus, 2020; Curt Collins, “UFO Culture Examined: They Are Already Here by Sarah Scoles,” The Saucers That Time Forgot, Mar h 26, 2020)

March 19 — Night. A commercial Boeing 767 airliner is flying from Mexico City to Houston, Texas. At an approximate position somewhere west of Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico, the plane is flying north at 37,000 feet at 575 mph when the first officer, looking across to the left side of the cockpit, sees a yellowish-white light descend into view from above. He first thinks that it is a meteor and begins to say so when it suddenly stops at nearly the same altitude as the aircraft. The UFO then projects an illuminating beam of bright white light on the aircraft and appears to take a collision heading. The captain takes a defensive attitude and prepares for evasive measures, but the beam of light illuminating the aircraft ceases, and the UFO suddenly accelerates to the same speed and heading of the aircraft, maintains separation, and begins pacing. The captain estimates that the UFO maintains a distance of 1,000–2,000 feet, near the minimum allowable separation of 1,000 feet. The copilot describes the UFO as a “brilliant yellow white plasma object, teardrop shaped.” There are no navigation lights or other features associated with airplanes, and the light seems to have a tail. During the following 30 minutes, the crew observes and takes 8 photographs and four video segments of the UFO, one of which lasts 4:47. The video documents that the Airborne Collision Avoidance System SSR radar does not detect anything while the crew is actively observing the object. As the aircraft and its attendant UFO approaches the Mexico/US border, the light begins to flicker, changes colors from yellow-white to pinkish-purple, and turns on a perpendicular heading away from the aircraft and parallel to the border without crossing into the US. (Ted Roe, “An Independent Analysis of a March 19, 2020, Aviation-Safety Related Incident Involving UAP, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, over Mexico,” NARCAP, June 1, 2020)

March 28 — The US Space Force declares the Space Fence, its second-generation space surveillance system, operational.

The system is designed to track more than 25,000 artificial satellites and chunks of space debris in Earth orbit (and UAPs, presumably), some as small as a marble. The initial Space Fence facility is located at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, along with an option for another radar site in Western Australia. The US Strategic Command has data-sharing agreements with Australia, Japan, Italy, Canada, France, South Korea, the United

Kingdom, the European Space Agency, and Europe’s Eumetsat weather satellite organization. With this and other surveillance capabilities, former assistant secretary of defense Christopher Mellon wonders why the US Air Force has not simultaneously detected the same UAPs that the US Navy has been doing with less sophisticated equipment. (Wikipedia, “Space Fence”; Lockheed Martin, “Space Fence”; Christopher Mellon, “Why Is the Air Force AWOL on the UAP Issue?” The Debrief, February 3, 2022)

April 27 — The Pentagon officially releases the three videos (Tic-Tac, GIMBAL, and GoFast) showing UFOs that were previously released between December 2017 and March 2018 by the private company To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences. The release states that “the aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified.’” (“Pentagon Officially Releases UFO Videos,” CNN, April 29, 2020; David Clarke, “Echoes and Angels: UFOs on Radar,” Fortean Times 403 (March 2021): 40)

May 1 — The US Office of Naval Intelligence holds a classified briefing to destigmatize the UAP problem and to promote more intelligence collection regarding UAP incursions and encounters with active military deployments. (Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell, “The US Navy Filmed Pyramid Shaped UFOs,” Extraordinary Beliefs, April 8, 2019)

May 28 — Postdoctoral researcher Darryl Seligman and astrophysicist Gregory Laughlin argue that the interstellar object ʻOumuamua could be a hydrogen iceberg generated by a giant molecular cloud. The hypothesis explains the object’s strange cigar shape, as cosmic radiation would chip away at its edges (in some directions more than others) that would produce an elongated shape. The fact that it sped up as it entered the Solar System can be explained because it is outgassing hydrogen increased by the solar flux. (Darryl Seligman and Gregory Laughlin, “Evidence That 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua) Was Composed of Molecular Hydrogen Ice,” arXiv, May 28, 2020)

June — Robert Bigelow launches a new effort, the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies, to study the survival of human consciousness after death. (Skinwalkers 35)

June 23 — The US Senate Intelligence Committee, apparently disturbed by the lack of a coordinated investigatory process, asks the Pentagon for a detailed, unclassified report on UFOs, or “unidentified aerial phenomena.” In his report attached to the 2020–2021 Senate Intelligence Authorization Act, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, instructs the director of national intelligence, the secretary of defense, and other agency heads to compile data on UFOs. “The Committee understands that the relevant intelligence may be sensitive; nevertheless, the Committee finds that the information sharing and coordination across the Intelligence Community has been inconsistent, and this issue has lacked attention from senior leaders,” the report states. It also confirms the existence of an ongoing Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force managed by the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in collaboration with the Office of Naval Intelligence, as was its informal predecessor program, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Investigation Program.

The task force is headed until January 2021 by Naval officer John F. Stratton. (Wikipedia, “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force”; M. J. Banias, “Senate Intelligence Committee Confirms the US Navy Has a UFO Task Force,” Motherboard, June 23, 2020; “Classified UFO Briefings May Have Left Senators ‘Disturbed,’ Expert Says,” Fox News, June 24, 2020; George Knapp, “More UFO Heraings? Congress Might Consider Hearing from These 2 Men,” Mystery Wire, May 23, 2022)

June 24 – The Intelligence Committee votes to require the US Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense to publicly track and analyze data collected on unexplained aerial vehicles. Reports from the task force are to be issued to the Intelligence Committee every six months. (Bryan Bender, “Senators Want the Public to See the Government’s UFO Reports,” Politico, June 23, 2020; “Senate Panel Votes to Let Public Access UFO Records,” Courthouse News Service, June 24, 2020; “Pentagon UFO Unit to Publicly Release Some Findings after Ex- Official Says ‘Off-World Vehicle’ Found,” The Independent (UK), June 24, 2020)

July 16 — 5:00 a.m. Paul Froggatt sees a glowing orange sphere that follows him as he is cycling through the Oakwood and Blacklow Spinney Woods in Warwickshire, England. The usual early morning birdsong has gone silent.

Turning a bend, he encounters a 7-foot-tall, green-colored creature that stands on two legs and looks like a praying mantis. It has a triangular head and two large black eyes that stare at him. He thinks it is trying to transmit evil thoughts into his mind, so he speeds up and escapes it. (Nigel Watson, “M Is for Mantis and Missile,” Fortean Times 404 (April 2021): 22)

July 23 — Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean report in the New York Times that Sen. Rubio is primarily concerned about reports of unidentified aircraft over US military bases and that China or Russia or some other adversary has made “some technological leap” that “allows them to conduct this sort of activity.” Rubio says some of the unidentified aerial vehicles over military bases possibly exhibit technologies not in the US arsenal. But he also notes: “Maybe there is a completely, sort of, boring explanation for it. But we need to find out.” The paper reports that while former Sen. Harry Reid “believed that crashes of objects of unknown origin may have occurred and that retrieved materials should be studied; he did not say that crashes had occurred and that retrieved materials had been studied secretly for decades.” News reports also repeat a claim made by Eric W. Davis that an “off-world vehicle” might be in the possession of the US government. (Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean, “No Longer in the Shadows, Pentagon’s UFO Unit Will Make Some Findings Public,” New York Times, July 23, 2020)

August — The National Academy of Sciences completes a report on Havana Syndrome, concluding that embassy personnel in Cuba, China, Russia, and other countries were most likely subjected to “directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy” in malicious attacks. A committee of 19 experts says that the immediate symptoms that patients reported—including strange sensations of pain, pressure, and sound that often appear to emanate from a

particular direction or occurred in a specific spot in a room—are more consistent with a directed “attack” of radiofrequency energy. The report does not point to a perpetrator, though it mentions “significant research in Russia/U.S.S.R.” on pulsed radiofrequency technology, as well as the exposure of military personnel in Eurasian communist countries to microwave radiation. The CDC concludes, “The evaluations conducted thus far have not identified a mechanism of injury, process of exposure, effective treatment, or mitigating factor for the unexplained cluster of symptoms experienced by those stationed in Havana.” The report is inexplicably withheld from congressional and public scrutiny after it is submitted. Only after key senators learn of its existence later in the fall and press then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to turn it over does the Trump administration finally provide the report to a few Senate offices. The New York Times and NBC News first report on details of the unclassified NAS study, titled “An Assessment of Illness in U.S. Government Employees and Their Families at Overseas Embassies,” in early December. (Ana Swanson and Edward Wong, “Report Points to Microwave ‘Attack’ As Likely Source of Mystery Illnesses That Hit Diplomats and Spies,” New York Times, December 5, 2020)

August 4 — Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist approves the establishment of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. The Department of the Navy, under the oversight of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, will lead the effort. The Department of Defense says it is establishing the UAPTF to improve its understanding of the nature and origins of UAPs. Its mission is to detect, analyze, and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to US national security. Its mandate includes examinations of incursions that are initially reported as UAPs when the observer cannot immediately identify what he or she is seeing. (Wikipedia, “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force”; US Department of Defense, “Establishment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force,” August 14, 2020)

August 29 — 6:45 p.m. An American Airlines pilot reports that a man flying in a jet pack has passed by them about 90 feet away at their altitude of 3,000 feet coming into Los Angeles International Airport in California. About 10 minutes later, a Jet Blue Airways pilot spots the flying man. (“A Man Flying a Jetpack Was Reported by Pilots above Los Angeles,” CNN, September 3, 2020)

September 1 — 10:13 p.m. A B737 is approaching the runway at Leeds Airport, England, at 1,800 feet. Both pilot and First Officer suddenly see a bright light and an object that appears to be headed toward the aircraft, almost head on, slightly up and to the left. It appears without warning and gives them no time to act. After landing, the crew informs Air Traffic Control, who tells them that the West Yorkshire police helicopter had earlier seen “lanterns” in the area, but neither crew member thought that matched what they saw. The UK Airprox Board concludes that a “definite high risk of collision had existed.” (UK Airprox Board, “Monthly Meeting October 2020”; “UKAB ‘Unknown Object’ Log 2017–2020,” Fortean Times 406 (June 2021): 43)

September 15 — Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono announces at a press conference that members of the Self- Defense Forces must make a visual recording of any unexplained aerial phenomena they encounter and that the footage must be analyzed to the fullest extent. The military is also being tasked with looking into reports of UFO sightings from the public. The issue is brought up when Kono meets with US Defense Secretary Mark Esper in Guam in late August for a regularly scheduled talk on regional security issues. (“Japan’s Defense Ministry Launches Protocol for UFO Sightings,” The Diplomat, September 18, 2020; “Japan Orders Military Pilots to Report UFO Sightings,” Deutsche Welle, September 28, 2020)

October 14 — 1:45 p.m. A China Airlines crew member reports what appears to be someone in a jet pack flying at about 6,500 feet roughly seven miles northwest of Los Angeles International Airport, California. The air traffic controller alerts another pilot who is preparing to land, and the Federal Aviation Administration alerts local law enforcement and the FBI. However, it’s more likely that the pilots were seeing a battery-powered electric drone fitted with a mannequin. Jet packs would take up too much fuel to get to those altitudes. (“A Man Flying in a Jetpack Has Been Spotted Again in the Skies over Los Angeles,” CNN, October 14, 2020; “This Jetpack Maker Isn’t So Sure That’s What’s Been Spotted over the L.A. Skies,” NBC News, October 15, 2020)

November — An official from the National Security Council suddenly falls ill with symptoms similar to those previously experienced by diplomats in Havana, Cuba. It takes place on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., close to the White House. (“US Investigating Possible Mysterious Directed Energy Attack near White House,” CNN, April 29, 2021)

November — The extensive case files of the Center for UFO Studies (including files originating from the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York, and J. Allen Hynek’s Project Blue Book copies) are transferred from Chicago, Illinois, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where a

digitization project begins that will ultimately make them widely available, headed by CUFOS board member David Marler. (“David Marler: CUFOS Digitization Project 2021,” Project 1947)

December — The CIA re-launches its task force on Havana Syndrome and expands its efforts under new Director William J. Burns, who has vowed during his confirmation hearings to review the evidence on the attacks on CIA personnel overseas, which have long been publicly reported. (“CIA Launches Task Force to Probe Invisible Attacks on US Diplomats and Spies As One Victim Finds Some Relief,” CNN, February 24, 2021)

December 27 — President Donald Trump signs a $2.3 trillion government funding bill—the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021—containing a number of long-anticipated provisions, including an Intelligence Authorization Act for 2021. The latter contains a subheading labeled “Advanced Aerial Threats,” which requires the Director of National Intelligence (Avril Haynes under the Biden administration) to consult with the Secretary of Defense (Lloyd Austin under the Biden Administration) to submit a report on “unidentified aerial phenomena (also known as ‘anomalous aerial vehicles’), including observed airborne objects that have not been identified” and the potential threats they pose. The premise behind the provision is that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was concerned that the US government has no coordinated or comprehensive process for collecting and assessing intelligence data about unidentified aerial phenomena. It demands a detailed analysis of UAP data to be delivered to the Joint Armed Services Committee by the end of June 2021. It also calls for a streamlined reporting structure under the aegis of a named official The director of the US Navy’s UAP Task Force, Brennan McKernan, leads this new Pentagon-wide project. (Helen Lin, “Sci-Fi Stimulus Secrets: Why Did UFOs Appear in the December 2020 COVID-19 Relief Package?” Reference, July 2, 2021)

2021

January — Ash Ellis, who runs the online site UFO Identified, compiles a breakdown of 484 sightings reported in the UK during 2020. The majority (396) were made in England. There is a sharp increase in March and April due to the launch of SpaceX satellite trains. The most likely time to see a UFO is between 9 and 10 p.m. on a Sunday, and the shapes vary from star-like, triangular, oval, disc-shaped, and cylindrical to unknown. There were only three CE-3s and one abduction report. (Ash Ellis, “The UK UFO Report 2020,” UFO Identified)

January 1 — Using Freedom of Information requests, UK reporter Dean Kirby analyzes 128 separate calls to 16 police forces since 2016 that mention UFOs. Several are obvious UAVs, including one reported by a caller to police in Bangor, Northern Ireland, who described a flying object that appeared to have solar panels. But the true figure could be much higher, with more than 30 police forces including Police Scotland saying they have no easy way of counting the calls and three saying they would each have to search through more than 700 records where the letters UFO were used. (Dean Kirby, “In One of the Strangest Years of Our Lives, Reports of UFO Sightings Have Reached New Heights in Lockdown,” News UK, January 1, 2021)

January 15 — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has conducted a two-year “epidemiologic investigation” of the mysterious medical incidents suffered by US personnel in Cuba but cannot determine the nature of the injuries nor the cause, according to its 18-page report. “The evaluations conducted thus far have not identified a mechanism of injury, process of exposure, effective treatment, or mitigating factor for the unexplained cluster of symptoms experienced by those stationed in Havana, Cuba,” concluded the CDC study. Titled “Cuba Unexplained Events Investigation—Final Report,” the CDC study was completed more than a year ago. But its existence was revealed only after a more recent evaluation by the National Academy of Sciences, which references the CDC report leaked to the press in December. (Dan Vergano, “Medical Records Can’t Explain ‘Havana Syndrome,’ a Buried CDC Report Says,” BuzzFeed News, January 15, 2021; “CDC Report on the ‘Havana Syndrome’: Medical Mystery Remains Unsolved,” National Security Archive, February 2, 2021)

February 7 — The British UFO Research Association reports that it received 583 reports in 2020, which is 40% less than in 2019. However, the number of high-strangeness reports doubled (37). (“An Overview of Sightings, Photographs, and High Strangeness Reports in 2020 and Looking Ahead to 2021,” BUFORA, February 7, 2021)

February 9 — 10:30 p.m. An unidentified drone with a green light on its underbody is spotted from the corner of East Ajo Way and South Palo Verde Road in Tucson, Arizona, directly adjacent to a fuel terminal just west of Davis- Monthan. It flies into controlled airspace surrounding the base and Tucson International Airport after the Tucson Police Department and US Customs and Border Protection helicopters began to pursue it. The law enforcement helicopters follow the drone northwest out of the city for nearl 45 minutes before losing it in the clouds around 14,000 feet. The CBP is operating an Airbus AS350, while Tucson police are flying a Bell 206B-3 Jet Ranger.

The CPB pilot says that the drone is highly modified and able to outperform any other he has seen previously, flying circles around both helicopters at speeds well in excess of 100 mph. (Brett Tingley, “Police helicopter Crew Says Mysterious Craft They Chased Was ‘Not Like Any Other’ Drone,” The Drive: The War Zone, June 22, 2021; Tim McMillan, Micah Hanks, and Christopher Plain, “Incursions at the Border: Homeland Security Agents Tell of Encounters with Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” The DeBrief, May 27, 2022)

February 17 — Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy files a report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, saying that it is restructuring its operations to “scale back its initiatives in science and commercialization.” This is given as justification for dropping advisors Luis Elizondo, Stephen Justice, and Christopher Mellon. (Nigel Watson, “M Is for Mantis and Missile,” Fortean Times 404 (April 2021): 22)

February 21 — 12:19 p.m. An American Airlines Airbus A320 pilot reports a long, cylindrical object like a cruise missile pass above his location west of Clayton, New Mexico. The FAA has no reports of objects on air traffic controller radar screens. (“Intercept: American Airlines Flight 2292 Reports Close Encounter with Unknown Flying Object,” Deep Blue Horizon, February 21, 2021; Tyler Rogoway, “FAA Releases Statement on Airliner’s Encounter with Unknown Object over New Mexico,” The Drive: The War Zone, February 24, 2021)

March 12 — The US State Department names a senior official to lead the agency’s response to the Havana Syndrome attacks. Pamela L. Spratlen, a career foreign service officer, will serve as the senior advisor to the Health Incident Response Task Force, which was created in 2018 to coordinate the response to the spate of incidents. (“State Department Names Senior Official to Lead Response to Mysterious ‘Havana Syndrome’ Attacks,” CNN, March 12, 2021)

March 29 — Chris Rutkowski’s annual review of UFO sightings in Canada shows there was a 46% rise in reports in 2020; 30% of the 1,243 sights were in Ontario and 24% from Quebec. 13% remain unexplained. (Chris Rutkowski, “The 2020 Canadian UFO Survey,” Ufology Research, March 29, 2021)

April 13 — According to the National UFO Reporting Center, there was an increase of some 1,000 sightings in the United States during 2020, reaching a peak of 7,200 reports. (“UFO Sightings in US Rose Sharply during the Pandemic, Data Reveals,” WION, April 13, 2021)

April 15 — Tyler Rogoway of The War Zone summarizes the defense implications of drone and UAP interference with military aircraft, ships, and weapons systems, concluding that “at least one of our adversaries, and possibly two, have played our own cultural norms against us and have executed what may be among the most successful and ingenious intelligence-gathering plays of all time. Meanwhile, it seems that the DoD is either incapable of identifying and evaluating what should no longer be considered an emerging threat—swarming drones and radar target balloons—or they are playing along by acting like they do not know, which could be the case for a number of reasons.” (Tyler Rogoway, “Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and the Pentagon Acts Like They’re UFOs,” The Drive: The War Zone, April 15, 2021)

April 19–26 — The US Navy kicks off a secretive experiment to launch a missile at a surface target using information from a combination of manned and unmanned aircraft and surface vessels to test their direct attack and electronic warfare capabilities. (Joseph Trevithick, “Huge Navy Unmanned-Focused Experiment Underway Featuring Live Missile Shoot and ‘Super Swarms,’” The Drive: The War Zone, April 20, 2021)

May — During a briefing prior to a planned US Air Force exercise, USAF personnel observe a slide presentation that explains what to do if they encounter a UAP. They are clearly instructed to complete the Air Force reporting form, which features shapes of several different types of UAP they could encounter (plasma-like balls, tic-tacs, discs). It also features specific questions, such as whether the UAP interferes with their radar operation. This is all new, the officer points out to researcher Robert Powell, something that would not have occurred 18 months previous. He finds the stigma associated with this subject in the Air Force has significantly changed. (Robert Powell, “Opinion: When It Comes to the USAF and UAP, the Tide May Finally Be Turning,” The Debrief, February 7, 2022)

May 18 — Former President Barack Obama admits on The Late Late Show with James Corden that “When I came into office, I asked … is there a lab somewhere where we’re keeping the alien specimens and spaceship? And you know, they did a little bit of research and the answer was no. But what is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there are, there’s footage and records of objects in the skies, that we don’t know exactly what they are, we can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern.” (“Barack Obama Talks about UFOs Again on Late Night Television,” WIAT, Birmingham, Alabama, May 19, 2021)

June 25 — The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence releases a summary 6-page report on UAPs, largely centering on evidence gathered in the last 20 years from US Navy reports. It claims that 143 of the 144 are unidentified, though none of the data is provided. (The full report, available only to those with proper security clearances, is released in a redacted version in March 2022.) The report comes to no conclusion about what the UAPs were, based on a lack of evidence, though in a limited number of incidents, UAP reportedly appear to exhibit unusual flight characteristics, including high velocity, breaking the sound barrier without producing a sonic boom, high maneuverability not able to be replicated otherwise, long duration flight, and an ability to submerge into the water. Some of the UAPs appear to move with no discernable means of propulsion, and it is noted that the alleged high speeds and maneuvers would normally destroy any craft. These observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception, and require additional rigorous analysis. The report indicates that, in some cases, the UAP recordings are of physical objects and not false readings, as individual instances had been detected by different sensor mechanisms, including visual observation. The report also states that “UAP probably lack a single explanation,” and proposes five possible categories of explanation: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, US government or industry development technology, foreign craft, and an “Other” category. The report raises concerns that the UAPs could be a safety issue, with regard to a possible collision with US aircraft, and that they could pose a security threat if they are foreign craft gathering information about the US. The report indicates that investigation of the topic will continue, including development of reporting protocols. The report also indicates that, of the sightings reported, all except one (confirmed as a weather balloon) lack sufficient information to attribute a specific explanation or explanations. (Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena [6-page summary report], June 25, 2021; Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena [redacted full report], June 25, 2021; Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper, “US Finds No Evidence of Alien Technology in Flying Objects, But Can’t Rule It Out, Either,” New York Times, June 3, 2021; Andrew Desiderio, “‘We’ve Got to Get an Answer’: UFOs Catch Congress’ Interest,” Politico, June 23, 2021; “US Report on Pentagon-Documented UFOs Leaves Sightings Unexplained,” ABC News (Australia), June 25, 2021; “Pentagon Won’t Rule Out Aliens in Long-Awaited Report,” BBC News, June 25, 2021; David Clarke, “Beyond Blue Book: The Pentagon UFO Report in Context,” Fortean Times 409 (September 2021): 48–51; John Greenewald, “June 2021 Classified UAP/UFO Report Given to Congress Partially Released,” The Black Vault, March 23, 2022; Micah Hanks, “Analysis: Newly Released Version of Once-Classified Report Presents New Clues about the U.S. Government’s UAP Investigations,” The Debrief, March 24, 2022; Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, “On the 2021 UAPTF Classified Report,” Academia.edu, 2022)

July 20 — Reports surface of American diplomatic officials coming down with Havana Syndrome in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. (“American Personnel in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan Reported As among ‘Havana Syndrome’ Victims,” bne IntelliNews, July 21, 2021)

July 26 — The Galileo Project, headed by a multi-institutional team of scientists led by Avi Loeb of the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University, announces that it will investigate evidence that could represent defunct or still- active “extraterrestrial technological civilizations,” or ETCs. The project, which includes Luis Elizondo, Christopher Mellon, Nick Pope, and Michael Shermer, will analyze data from astronomical surveys and telescope observations, and design new algorithms using artificial intelligence, in order to identify potential interstellar travelers, alien-built satellites, and UAPs. Ufologist Jacques Vallée joins the project in January 2022. (Mindy Weisberger, “Harvard-Led Team to Search Cosmos for Extraterrestrial Space Tech and UFOs,” Live Science, July 26, 2021; Robert Sheaffer, “Galileos Galore: Now Including Dr. Jacques Vallée!” Bad UFOs, January 25, 2022)

July 30 — 11:00 p.m. A bright green fireball illuminates the night sky over Izmir, Turkey. The visual part of the event lasts several seconds before the object disintegrates. Several residents report a sonic boom. According to Hassan Ali Dar, deputy director of the Astronomical Observatory of Aegean University, the object is part of the Perseid meteor shower. (Teo Blašković, “Very Bright Fireball over Izmir, Sonic Boom Reported, Turkey,” The Watchers, August 2, 2021)

August — Reports of Havana Syndrome come to light among more than 20 US diplomats in Vienna, Austria, since January. The numbers are greater here than in any city outside Havana, Cuba. The CIA removes its station chief in Vienna for not adequately responding to the outbreak. (“‘Havana Syndrome’-Like Mystery Illness Affects Vienna US Diplomats,” BBC News, July 17, 2021; “CIA ‘Removes Vienna Boss’ over Havana Syndrome Outbreak,” BBC News, September 24, 2021)

August 29 — In a breakthrough interview on CBS-TV’s 60 Minutes, US Navy pilots line up to recount their experiences with UFOs on the eastern coast. It happens so frequently that the encounters became commonplace, Ryan Graves, a retired navy pilot, tells the show. “Every day,” Graves says. “Every day for at least a couple years.” (Bill Whitaker, “UFOs Regularly Spotted in US Airspace,” CBS News, August 29, 2021)

September 5 — Australian journalist Ross Coulthart releases a documentary, The UFO Phenomenon, which recounts the history of the Australian government’s involvement with UFOs. (“The UFO Phenomenon: Full Documentary 2021,” 7NEWS Spotlight YouTube channel, September 5, 2021)

September 15 — 4:03 p.m. One adult and two children witness a hovering metallic object in the Century City area of Los Angeles, California. After watching it for a few seconds, the adult takes a video as the object slowly moves toward the east. (“Video Taken of Hovering Bright, Metallic, Flashing Object,” UFOs Northwest, October 12, 2021)

October — US diplomats in Bogota, Colombia, and Berlin, Germany, are being affected by Havana Syndrome. (“Havana Syndrome: Berlin Police Probe Cases at US Embassy,” BBC News, October 9, 2021; “Havana Syndrome Reported at US Embassy in Colombia,” BBC News, October 13, 2021)

October 8 — The Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act is signed by President Joe Biden. It authorizes the CIA Director and the Secretary of State to provide financial support for personnel suffering brain injuries. However, while funding for it has not yet passed, it has been included in drafts of a Defense Department appropriations bill. (“Biden Signs Legislation to Compensate Victims of Mysterious ‘Havana Syndrome,’” New York Times, October 8, 2021)

October 9 — Day. Witnesses watch a small, rounded, silver-metallic object at high altitude (perhaps above 15,000 feet) for 5 minutes during the Wings Over Houston Air Show at Ellington Air Force Base near Houston, Texas. The object leaves no trail as it alternately maneuvers and hovers. One of them takes a photograph. The MUFON investigator suspects the object might be a US Army Long Endurance Multi Intelligence Vehicle, a hybrid blimp, making an appearance at the air show. (Kevin D. Randle, “Coast to Coast: The National Defense Authorization Act and Two Interesting Sightings,” A Different Perspective, December 11, 2021)

November — Optical engineer Vincent Costes takes over from Roger Baldacchino as manager of Groupe d'Études et d'Informations sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés, the official French UFO agency in Toulouse, France. (“Un nouveau responsable au GEIPAN à partir de novembre 2021,” GEIPAN, November 3, 2021)

November 6 — 8.55 a.m. A witness in Marietta, Georgia, photographs a white, cigar-shaped object moving in a westerly direction. (“Strange Cigar-Shaped Object Seen and Photographed,” UFOs Northwest, November 23, 2021)

November 8 — Night. A couple from Hubbard, Ohio, see a triangular-shaped object with a bright yellow light on top and two sets of three white lights along the side, just above the treetops. It appears to be football-field sized and is hovering about 100 feet above the highway. As they approach, it swiftly moves to the left and flies over some trees. Their car begins to act funny and the check-engine light comes on, indicating reduced engine power and traction control. (Kevin D. Randle, “Coast to Coast AM: EM Effects and Current UFO Sightings,” A Different Perspective, December 17, 2021)

November 11 — 11:10 a.m. A witness sees nine white orbs flying in formation and mimicking a flyby of F-16s during the Leavenworth, Kansas, Annual Veterans Day Parade. Prior to the F-16 flyby, the witness sees the orbs forming and reforming into various groups. At times they disappear and reappear at an incredible speed. One of the orbs is in an “overwatch” position, while at least six are in a “three-by-two formation.” After passing the flyby, they form a four-point formation then disappear to the west at great speed. A photo is taken showing the orbs and the F-16s. (“9 White Orbs Seen at F16 Airshow,” UFOs Northwest, November 19, 2021)

November 19 — The governmental Centro de Identificatión Aerospaciale in Argentina issues an annual report on its investigation into 45 UFO cases analyzed during the previous year, plus occasional investigations on older events. CIAE investigates only those UFO sightings supported by evidence (photography, video, or material). All of them are technically explained, the distribution of causes being birds & bugs (40%), balloons and airborne objects (18%), optical artifacts (11%), astronomical (11%), astronautical (11%), aircraft (7%), or ground facilities (2%). (Rubén E. Lianza, “Informe de Resolución de Casos Recibidos en 2021,” CIAE, November 19, 2021)

November 23 — US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks establishes the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) to synchronize the detection and identification of UAPs. It is to be overseen and directed by the Airborne Object Identification and Management Executive Council (AOIMEXEC), led by Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie. (Kathleen Hicks, “Establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group,”

November 23, 2021; “Ex-Officials Express Deep Concerns over New Pentagon UFO Unit,” The Hill, December 1, 2021)

December 3 — 6:00 p.m. A woman driving in downtown Green Bay, Wisconsin, in foggy conditions, spots five lights moving in different directions. The lights merge into one. Three other oval, blue-purple lights also fly through the clouds. She then sees green lights moving very quickly. The sighting lasts 45 minutes and she takes several photos. (“Groups of Multicolored Lights Move Rapidly on Foggy Night,” UFOs Northwest, December 4, 2021)

December 15 — A new camera system goes into operation at the University of Würzburg, Germany, designed to detect UAP using artificial intelligence. Professor for Space Technology Hakan Kayal has set up SkyCAM-5 on the roof of a university building on the Hubland campus. “When the camera detects known objects, it recognizes them with a Convolutional Neural Network, classifies them and stores the corresponding video sequences in a database,” Kayal explains. (“UAP: SkyCAM Searches the Sky,” Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, December 20, 2021)

December 27 — President Joe Biden signs into law the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2022. It includes an amendment, “Establishment of Office to Address Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), that requires the Defense Department to coordinate with other federal agencies to collect, analyze, and report on UAP cases, including those with “adverse physiological effects.” It funds a new office, the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, to replace the UAP Task Force program coordinated by the US Office of Naval Intelligence. The new office will serve as a “centralized repository” for such information and will coordinate with US allies to “better assess the nature and extent” of UAP incidents. It requires the office to submit an annual report to Congress. (“Sen. Gillibrand Introduces Amendment to Defense Bill Establishing Office to Study UFOs,” WTI-TV, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, November 9, 2021; Kevin D. Randle, “Coast to Coast AM: Official Study of UFOs and a UFO Picture,” A Different Perspective, November 27, 2021; “Biden Signs $770 Billion Defense Bill,” New York Times, December 27, 2021)

2022

January — Ash Ellis of UFO Identified issues a summary report on 413 UFO sightings made in the UK 2021. The majority originate in England. (Ash Ellis, “The UK UFO Report 2021,” UFO Identified)

January 17 — A military-style drone circles the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Forsmark, Sweden, operating even though there is a high wind. Similar drones with large wings are reported over the Ringhals and Oskarshamn nuclear power plants. The previous week, drones are seen circling the Parliament buildings and the Royal Palacec in Stockholm, as well as the Kiruna and Luleå airports. A police helicopter is seen pursuing a drone flying above it at a height of 3,280 feet to the west of Stockholm, but authorities do not manage to down any of these. All the drones seem to be larger and have greater endurance than commercial models. (“Sweden Drones: Sightings Reported over Nuclear Plants and Palace,” BBC News, January 18, 2022; “Drone Swarms,” Fortean Times, no. 416 (March 2022): 18)

January 19 — The CIA announces it has ruled out a sustained global campaign by a hostile power aimed at hundreds of US diplomats and spies as the cause of Havana Syndrome symptoms. In about two dozen cases, the agency cannot rule out foreign involvement, including many of the cases that originated at the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba, beginning in 2016. Another group of cases is considered unresolved. But in hundreds of other cases of possible symptoms, the agency has found plausible alternative explanations. (“CIA Says ‘Havana Syndrome’ Not Result of Sustained Campaign by Hostile Power,” NBC News, January 19, 2022)

February 2 — An intelligence panel investigating the cause of Havana Syndrome says that some of the episodes could plausibly have been caused by “pulsed electromagnetic energy” emitted by an external source, according to a partially declassified intelligence report. A panel of intelligence community experts drew up the report after analyzing over 1,000 documents and interviewing affected individuals. They determine the symptoms associated with the illness to be “genuine and compelling,” and note that while some cases can be attributed to known psychological or medical factors, others remain unexplained. The authors sought to determine the feasibility of five potential causal mechanisms, including “acoustic signals, chemical and biological agents, ionizing radiation, natural and environmental factors, and radiofrequency and other electromagnetic energy.” They assessed the potential of each of these mechanisms to account for cases that cannot be easily explained by other means. More specifically, they looked at cases involving a combination of four particularly puzzling “core

characteristics.” These include “the acute onset of… sound or pressure in only one ear or on one side of the head,”

as well as vertigo, “a strong sense of locality or directionality,” and an absence of any obvious environmental or medical causes for such symptoms. Ruling out the possibility that Havana syndrome could represent an underlying brain disorder, the authors state that “the combination of the four core characteristics is distinctly unusual and unreported elsewhere in the medical literature, and so far have not been associated with a specific neurological abnormality.” On the other hand, they conclude that “pulsed electromagnetic energy, particularly in the radiofrequency range, plausibly explains the core characteristics,” although they do concede that such a theory is riddled with “information gaps.” Addressing the possibility that Havana syndrome could therefore be caused by a nefarious device, they go on to explain that devices do “exist that could generate the required stimulus, are concealable, and have moderate power requirements” that could produce the observed symptoms. (“Havana Syndrome Could Be Caused by Pulsed Energy Devices, Intelligence Report Says,” IFLScience, February 3, 2022; “US Intelligence Community Report Says ‘Pulsed Electromagnetic Energy’ Could Cause Havana Syndrome,” CNN, February 3, 2022; Office of the Director of National Intelligence, [IC Experts Panel on Havana Syndrome executive summary], declassified February 1, 2022)

March 25 — The Defense Intelligence Agency releases Defense Intelligence Reference Documents on 37 of the 38 projects that its Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) has produced as part of its Project Physics under the direction of Hal Puthoff. The topics range from “Pulsed High-Power Microwave Source Technology” to “Invisibility Cloaking” and “Antigravity for Aerospace Applications.” (John Greenewald, “The Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) Documentation,” The Black Vault, March 31, 2022)

April 22 — 8:52 p.m. The pilot of an Embraer Phenom business jet flying at 45,000 feet above Kessel, West Virginia, notices a light 10,000 feet above him. It changes to a string of lights. As he passes underneath, he notices the object’s lights go out and the aircraft’s avionics system fails. Other pilots can see the light as well. (John Greenewald, “FAA Confirmed UFO Sighting April 22, 2022, by LXJ359 over Kessel, West Virginia,” The Black Vault, May 19, 2022)

May 12 — Department of Defense officials choose Deputy Director of Intelligence and physicist Sean Kirkpatrick to head the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG). (Douglas Dean Johnson, “Scientist and Intelligence Officer Sean Kirkpatrick Piced to Head the New Pentagon-IC Office Empowered by Congress to Study Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” Mirador, May 12, 2022)

May 17 — 9:00 a.m. The House Intelligence Committee’s Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee holds hearings on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, as directed by the National Defense Authorization Act, which calls on the military to provide an annual report and semiannual briefings on the topic to Congress. The hearing features Ronald Moultrie, under secretary of defense for intelligence and security, who is involved with the newly created Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG), and Scott W. Bray, deputy director of naval intelligence. Bray testifies that their database of reports of UFOs now includes about 400 incidents, up from 143 assessed in a report released in 2021. He cites improved sensors, an increase in drones and other non-military unmanned aerial systems, and aerial clutter such as Mylar balloons as causes for the uptick. Incidents in the 2021 report date as far back as 2004 and are based on both sensor data and observations by military aviators. Bray says that “Navy and air force crews now have step- by-step procedures for reporting UAPs on their kneeboard, in the cockpit.” In a back-and-forth with Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), Bray agrees that standardizing the civilian reporting process will be useful. While the military database does include some civilian reports, the vast majority have come from within. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, pushes for the Pentagon and the public to understand that UAPs are becoming a national security concern. At the hearing, officials play a declassified video clip showing a mysterious UAP that zipped by a pilot’s aircraft in a US Navy training yard. It appears to be a spherical object traveling at extremely high speeds. Bray says that he does not have an explanation for what this specific object is. Bray and Moultrie both say they will commit to declassifying more information when possible and when it does not pose a national security risk, adding the task force will operate with more transparency than past Pentagon programs. (Christopher Dean Hopkins, “The Military’s UFO Database Now Has Info from About 400 Reported Incidents,” National Public Radio, May 17, 2022; Brad Dress, “UFOs Pose ‘Potential National Security Threat,’ Lawmakers Warn,” The Hill, May 17, 2022)

May 27 — The Center for UFO Studies launches its first Facebook page. (CUFOS, Facebook page)