70 Fun Facts About UFO

Which U.S. Air Force captain coined the acronym 'UFO'?

Ruppelt argued 'flying saucer' was misleading for objects of every conceivable shape and preferred the more general term.

What acronym for 'unidentified anomalous phenomena' has increasingly replaced 'UFO'?

The term first appeared in the late 1960s and gained ground because of the negative cultural baggage attached to 'UFO'.

Near which mountain did pilot Kenneth Arnold report a chain of nine shining objects on June 24, 1947?

He was detouring to look for a crashed Marine transport plane that carried a $5,000 reward.

What term did the press coin from Kenneth Arnold's description of objects moving like a skipped dish?

Arnold himself described the objects' shape differently; the saucer image came from his account of their motion.

The debris found near Roswell in 1947 came from a balloon train belonging to which top-secret program?

The program was designed to listen for Soviet nuclear tests, which is why the Army covered it with a weather-balloon story.

Which rancher found tinfoil, rubber, tape and beams scattered across a New Mexico ranch in 1947?

With no phone or radio at the ranch, he initially had no idea a flying-disc craze was sweeping the country.

Which retired Air Force officer claimed in 1978 the Roswell weather-balloon story was a cover?

His claim was popularized by the 1980 book The Roswell Incident and launched decades of conspiracy theories.

Roughly how far from the town of Roswell was the actual 1947 debris site?

The site was closer to Corona; the incident took Roswell's name because the local Army Air Field handled the recovery.

Which rocketry pioneer did much of his early work in Roswell in the 1930s?

The Roswell Museum and Art Center recreates his rocket-engine workshop, and a local high school bears his name.

Project Blue Book was headquartered at which Air Force base?

The base is also where Project Sign's Air Materiel Command review had been written in 1949.

How many UFO reports had Project Blue Book collected by the time it closed in 1969?

Of those, 701 stayed classified as unexplained even after analysis; many others turned out to be U-2 and A-12 spy-plane flights.

Which two projects preceded Project Blue Book, in order?

Sign was originally named Project SAUCER and ran for most of 1948 before being replaced.

Which Air Force chief reportedly ordered Project Sign's 1948 'Estimate of the Situation' destroyed?

The estimate allegedly concluded UFOs were extraterrestrial; no copy has ever surfaced, and Popular Mechanics called it 'probably more mythological than real'.

What did the 1953 Robertson Panel recommend as a way to dampen popular interest in UFOs?

The CIA-convened panel worried that a flood of sighting reports could swamp air-defense channels at a critical moment.

Which agency convened the Robertson Panel?

The panel grew out of a CIA review of Blue Book after the 1952 Washington, D.C. sightings, and its report was originally classified Secret.

Which institution hosted the Air Force-funded project that produced the 1968 Condon Report?

Physicist Edward Condon's team examined hundreds of Blue Book, NICAP and APRO files before concluding UFO study was unlikely to yield major discoveries.

Which astronomer advised Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book and later devised the 'Close Encounter' scale?

He began as a skeptic and ended up founding the Center for UFO Studies after criticizing Blue Book's 'cavalier disregard' for scientific method.

What was Hynek's explanation for 1966 Michigan sightings that became a famous punchline?

He insisted at the press conference it explained only a portion of the Michigan reports, but the phrase stuck to him for life.

Hynek was a consultant on which 1977 Steven Spielberg film named after a level of his own scale?

Spielberg gave the astronomer a cameo in the film's climactic sequence.

Which French filmmaker played scientist Claude Lacombe in Spielberg's 1977 UFO film?

Richard Dreyfuss starred as Roy Neary, the Indiana lineman whose life is upended by a UFO encounter.

Betty and Barney Hill's 1961 abduction claim was set in which U.S. state?

They were driving home to Portsmouth from Niagara Falls and Montreal; the state placed a historical marker at the site in 2011.

Ufologists linked the star map Betty Hill drew under hypnosis to which star system?

Ohio schoolteacher Marjorie Fish built the match; the same map opens the 2012 film Prometheus.

Which 1966 best-seller by John G. Fuller told the Hills' story?

NBC dramatized it as the 1975 TV film The UFO Incident.

Barney Hill is the grandfather of a fighter in which sport?

UFC strawweight Angela Hill is his granddaughter.

Forestry worker Travis Walton vanished for five days in 1975 in which state?

His logging crew said a beam of light knocked him down near Heber; the National Enquirer paid them $5,000 for Best Case of the Year.

Travis Walton's account was adapted into which 1993 film?

Skeptics Philip Klass and Michael Shermer suggested a motive: an 'Act of God' abduction could excuse the crew's late logging contract.

The Phoenix Lights of March 13, 1997 were traced to aircraft from which pilot training program?

A formation of A-10 Thunderbolts and flares dropped over the Barry Goldwater Range accounted for the two separate sightings.

Which governor mocked the Phoenix Lights with a costumed aide, then later called them 'otherworldly'?

A decade later he told an investigator he had stayed quiet 'because he didn't want to panic the populace'.

The Rendlesham Forest incident of December 1980 took place outside which air base?

Deputy base commander Lt. Col. Charles Halt's memo to the Ministry of Defence made it 'Britain's Roswell'.

Skeptics attribute the flashing light seen by Rendlesham airmen to which structure?

The lighthouse sits along the same line of sight from the forest, about five miles away on the coast.

What shape were the objects reported during the Belgian UFO wave of 1989-90?

On March 30, 1990 two Belgian F-16s were scrambled to chase a radar contact, though neither pilot saw anything.

In 1994, 62 schoolchildren reported a landed craft and beings in black outside Ruwa in which country?

Some of the children said the beings telepathically delivered an environmental message; skeptics called it mass hysteria.

In the 1976 Tehran incident, which type of fighter jets reported losing instruments near the object?

One crew reported its weapons system failed just as they prepared to fire; an airliner also lost radio.

The 1996 'ET de Varginha' humanoid sightings happened in which country?

The Brazilian Army concluded a local resident had been mistaken for an alien and that troop movements in the area were routine.

The 1966 Westall UFO, seen by students at a high school, occurred in which Australian city?

The sighting has since been commemorated with documentaries, reunions and a UFO-themed playground.

The 1967 Shag Harbour incident took place in which Canadian province?

Canada's Department of National Defence still lists it, along with Manitoba's Falcon Lake case, as unsolved.

Kentucky pilot Thomas Mantell died in 1948 chasing an object later identified as which kind of balloon?

He climbed too high in his P-51 without oxygen and blacked out; the top-secret balloon program was unknown to him.

The Lubbock Lights of 1951 were first reported by three professors from which institution?

A chemical engineer, a petroleum engineer and a geologist watched 20-30 lights pass over a backyard on August 25.

What did the Air Force blame for engines dying near a glowing object around Levelland, Texas in November 1957?

Farm workers Pedro Saucedo and Joe Salaz made the first call, and the night-desk officer thought it was a joke.

The 1965 Kecksburg fireball, 'Pennsylvania's Roswell', was speculated to be debris from which Soviet craft?

NASA said in 2005 that examined fragments came from a Soviet satellite but that its records had been lost in 1987.

The Cash-Landrum witnesses of December 1980 in Texas said the object was what shape?

Unusually for a UFO case, it went to civil court over claimed health and property damage, though the case was dismissed.

At which Chicago airport did United employees report a saucer over Gate C-17 in November 2006?

The FAA declined to investigate because nothing appeared on radar and called it a weather phenomenon.

Area 51 was acquired by the Air Force and CIA in 1955 primarily to flight-test which aircraft?

The base is officially Homey Airport, and the CIA only publicly acknowledged its existence in 2013 after a FOIA request.

Which Nevada road near Area 51 is nicknamed the 'Extraterrestrial Highway'?

The tiny town of Rachel along it has become a tourist stop for alien-hunters.

Bob Lazar claimed the craft he studied near Area 51 was fueled by which entry on the periodic table?

The element had not yet been synthesized when he made the claim in 1989; his education and job history were later found to be full of fabrications.

The 2019 viral Facebook event proposed to storm Area 51 and 'see them aliens' on which date?

Two music festivals, AlienStock and Storm Area 51 Basecamp, sprang up in rural Nevada to cash in.

The Majestic 12 documents, which the FBI called 'completely bogus', first surfaced in 1984 as what?

The package was dropped through TV producer Jamie Shandera's mail slot bearing only a New Mexico postmark.

According to the hoax documents, which president created the Majestic 12 committee by executive order in 1947?

The forged Truman-Forrestal memo authorized Defense Secretary James Forrestal and Vannevar Bush to proceed with 'Operation Majestic-12'.

World War II pilots' term 'foo fighters' was borrowed from which comic strip?

Radar operator Donald Meiers of the 415th Night Fighter Squadron was a devoted reader of Bill Holman's fireman strip in the Chicago Tribune.

The 1946 'ghost rockets' were reported mainly over which region?

More than 2,000 reports were collected, mostly by the Swedish military; many feared Russian tests of captured German V-weapons.

Which inventor was rumoured to be behind the 'mystery airships' of 1896-97 and called the reports 'a pure fake'?

An enciphered letter supposedly between an airship pilot and the inventor was 'found' on April 16, 1897.

A 1561 broadsheet woodcut by Hans Glaser depicts a 'celestial phenomenon' over which German city?

Skeptic Jason Colavito calls it 'a secondhand depiction of a particularly gaudy sundog'.

Which 11th-century Chinese polymath described a pearl-like flying object in his Dream Pool Essays?

Witnesses in Anhui and Jiangsu said its light cast tree shadows for ten miles around.

The Pentagon's 'Tic Tac' video came from an F/A-18 pilot flying from which aircraft carrier in 2004?

Commander David Fravor said the object was white, oval and about 40 feet long, hovering over a disturbance in the ocean.

The secret AATIP program revealed by the New York Times in 2017 was funded with how much money?

Senator Harry Reid pushed for it at the urging of Nevada billionaire Robert Bigelow; funding ran from 2007 to 2012.

What is the name of the Pentagon unit created by Congress in 2022 to investigate UFOs?

NASA also stood up its own UAP independent study team around the same time.

Which Harvard astronomer launched the Galileo Project in 2021 to search for alien artifacts?

His book Extraterrestrial argued that the interstellar object 'Oumuamua might be an artificial light sail.

Britain's secret 1996-2000 UFO study for the Ministry of Defence was code-named what?

Its report, released in 2006, was titled 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Defence Region'; who wrote it remains classified.

Which country's space agency has run the longest continuous government UFO investigation, since 1977?

The unit inside CNES has gone by GEPAN, SEPRA and now GEIPAN.

The 1952 'Invasion of Washington' saw the most publicized sightings over which two stretches of days?

Blue Book logged more than 717 new reports during the 1952 flap, more than in the entire four previous years combined.

Which magazine's April 1952 cover story 'Have We Visitors From Space?' fuelled that summer's UFO sighting wave?

The issue had Marilyn Monroe on the cover and was the most reputable outlet yet to entertain the spaceship idea.

Which grassroots UFO organization, founded in 1969, later supplied field investigators to Hynek's CUFOS?

Its investigator handbooks go into great detail on documenting alleged sightings.

A 1979 study by CUFOS researcher Allan Hendry found what share of investigated UFO cases were hoaxes?

He concluded most sightings were honest misidentifications born of inexperience or misperception.

Which CBS anchor hosted the 1966 TV special 'UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy?' with Carl Sagan?

Hynek told viewers there was 'no valid scientific proof that we have been visited by spaceships'.

Which Harvard psychiatrist became a leading advocate for alien 'experiencers' in the early 1990s?

Historian Greg Eghigian says he marked 'both the culmination and end of the headiest days of alien abduction'.

Roughly what share of the 6,000 cases studied by France's GEIPAN remain unexplained?

The agency, part of the French space agency CNES, says it can neither prove nor disprove the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

The Brazilian Air Force's 1977 UFO investigation carried which codename?

Its name means 'Operation Saucer'; Brazil also analysed magnesium fragments recovered at Ubatuba in 1957.

The secret US Army/Air Force Project Twinkle of 1948-51 investigated what?

Meanwhile the Battelle Memorial Institute compiled the secret Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14.

In a 1966 Gallup poll, what share of Americans said they had at some time seen what they thought was a flying saucer?

Some 96% had heard or read about flying saucers, and 46% of those thought they were 'something real'.

A 1973 survey found 95% of Americans had heard of UFOs, beating the 1977 recognition figure for which president?

Only 92% had heard of him nine months after he left the White House.