Nearly a century of wondering: The American UFO saga, in reality and in fiction
Apr 3, 2026, 9:12 PM
FILE - A sign directs travelers to the "1947 UFO Crash Site Tours" in Roswell, N.M., on June 10, 1997. (AP Photo/Eric Draper, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Eric Draper, File)
UFOs, or the notion of them, have been around a long time. Here’s a look at how the various iterations of the subject — from government investigations to sightings to movies and TV — have unfolded since World War II:
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On June 24, private pilot Kenneth A. Arnold reports seeing nine objects flying near Mount Rainier in Washington state. His was the first widely reported UFO sighting in this country and set off a wave of other reported sightings. On July 2, A ranch foreman checking on sheep finds strange debris spread over a prairie near Roswell, New Mexico. Authorities initially say the material is from a flying disc, but later say it is from a weather balloon.
U.S. Air Force launches Project Sign, an investigation into UFOs; renamed Project Blue Book in 1953. More than 12,600 reported sightings were investigated between 1948 and 1969.
Release of the spy film “The Flying Saucer.”
Radar operators, pilots and others pick up or see up to a dozen unexplained objects in the sky above Washington, D.C. in July.
Construction begins for what would become the Area 51 site northwest of Las Vegas as an Air Force facility. Area 51 becomes a hotspot for UFO conspiracy theories. In 2013, the CIA acknowledged the existence of the site.
In November, dozens of people in Levelland, Texas, west of Lubbock, report strange lights in the sky that interfered with their vehicles and lights.
In September, “Star Trek” premieres on NBC, launching the most enduring space drama in history.
Dec. 17: Air Force says it found no evidence of any UFO that was extraterrestrial in nature or that threatened national security; terminates Project Blue Book.
Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” released.
U.S. Air Force personnel stationed in Great Britain report seeing strange lights above Rendlesham Forest, northeast of London, in December. Officers reportedly see a metallic object in the forest after investigating the lights.
Spielberg’s “E.T. the Extraterrestrial” is released.
Roland Emmerich’s “Independence Day” is released.
Residents report seeing lights from a large flying object in the sky over or near Phoenix in March.
U.S. aviators track an unidentified blob which was dubbed “Gofast.” In another video from that year, labeled “Gimbal,” an unexplained object is tracked as it soars high along the clouds, traveling against the wind. “There’s a whole fleet of them,” one naval aviator tells another, though only one indistinct object is shown. “It’s rotating.” The videos are leaked and later released by the Pentagon.
Navy acknowledges the three clips of declassified military footage as unidentified aerial phenomena.
Pentagon announces a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) Task Force.
Investigators say in a U.S. government report that they did not find extraterrestrial links in reviewing 144 sightings of aircraft or other devices apparently flying at mysterious speeds or trajectories. They highlighted the need for better data collection.
Congress holds first hearing in 50 years on UFOs following reports of unexplained aerial phenomena by the military. Lawmakers from both parties say UFOs are a national security concern. NASA announces that it is launching a study of UFOs as part of a new push toward high-risk, high-impact science. The space agency says it’s setting up an independent team to see how much information is publicly available on the matter and how much more is needed. The agency releases its findings in 2023, saying the study of UFOs will require new scientific techniques, including advanced satellites as well as a shift in how unidentified flying objects are perceived. The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) set up in the Pentagon to track reports of unidentified objects in the sky, under water and in space.
Former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch testifies before a House Oversight subcommittee in July that the U.S. is concealing a longstanding program that retrieves and reverse-engineers unidentified flying objects. The Pentagon denies it’s concealing any such program.
New Pentagon study that examined reported sightings of UFOs over nearly the last century finds no evidence of aliens or extraterrestrial intelligence. The study from the Defense Department’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office analyzed U.S. government investigations since 1945 of reported sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena. It found no evidence that any of those claims were actually signs of alien life, or that the U.S. government and private companies had reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology and were hiding it.
—Feb. 14: Former U.S. President Barack Obama, answering a question about “are aliens real” on a podcast, says, “They’re real. But I haven’t seen them. And, they’re not being kept in Area 51.” Obama later released this statement on social media: “Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
—Feb. 19: President Donald Trump announces on social media that he’s directing the Pentagon and other government agencies to identify and release files related to extraterrestrials and UFOs because of “tremendous interest.” Trump accuses Obama of disclosing “classified information” and tells reporters that he doesn’t know if UFOs are “real or not.”
—March 31: U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna requests in a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the government release about four dozen videos related to UAP sightings to an oversight committee task force. “The presence of UAPs in and around the sensitive airspaces of U.S. military installations poses a threat to the security of the armed forces and their readiness,” Luna writes.
