UFO Trivia
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66 free UFO trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This UFO trivia quiz covers the whole strange history of unidentified flying objects, from Kenneth Arnold's nine shining objects over Mount Rainier in 1947 and the Roswell balloon crash that became a legend, through Project Sign, Grudge and Blue Book, the Robertson Panel and the Condon Report, to the modern era of the Pentagon's Tic Tac and Gimbal videos, AATIP and the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. Along the way you will meet the famous cases and characters: Betty and Barney Hill and the Zeta Reticuli star map, Travis Walton and Fire in the Sky, the Phoenix Lights, Rendlesham Forest, the Belgian triangle wave, the Ariel School children in Zimbabwe, the Tehran F-4 encounter, Bob Lazar and Area 51, J. Allen Hynek and his close-encounter scale, foo fighters, ghost rockets and the Majestic 12 hoax. Some questions are easy for anyone who has watched a documentary; a few will test genuine UFO buffs. Every answer has been checked against primary sources, mainly the Wikipedia articles on each incident and investigation, and each explanation adds one further detail. Believers and skeptics are equally welcome. Play, see your score, and share it with the truth-seekers in your group chat.
30 of 66 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which U.S. Air Force captain coined the acronym 'UFO'?
Edward J. Ruppelt
Edward J. Ruppelt, Project Blue Book's first chief, is credited with the term: he wrote that 'flying saucer' was misleading for objects of every conceivable shape.
Q 02Which term have NASA and the Pentagon adopted in place of 'UFO'?
UAP
UAP has spread because 'UFO' became tied to alien spaceships, and the broader term avoids that cultural baggage.
Q 03Near which mountain did pilot Kenneth Arnold report a chain of nine shining objects on June 24, 1947?
Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier was where a Marine Corps C-46 transport had crashed, and Arnold was detouring to hunt for it because finding the wreck carried a $5,000 reward.
Q 04Which 1997 film grew out of a comic book inspired by UFO folklore?
Men in Black
Men in Black drew on 1950s UFO lore: ufologist Albert Bender said three men in dark suits had warned him to stop investigating.
Q 05The debris found near Roswell in 1947 came from a balloon train belonging to which top-secret program?
Project Mogul
Project Mogul flew microphones on high-altitude balloons to listen for Soviet atomic tests, a secret that the 1947 weather-balloon story kept hidden.
Q 06Which rancher found tinfoil, rubber, tape and beams scattered across a New Mexico ranch in 1947?
Mac Brazel
Mac Brazel took his find to Roswell's sheriff, and after the uproar the Roswell Daily Record ran 'Harassed Rancher Who Located Saucer Sorry He Told About It'.
Q 07Which retired Air Force officer claimed in 1978 the Roswell weather-balloon story was a cover?
Jesse Marcel
Jesse Marcel told ufologist Stanton Friedman the debris was extraterrestrial, and the 1980 book The Roswell Incident built its crash story on his account.
Q 08The famous 1947 Roswell debris was found on a ranch outside which small New Mexico town?
Corona
Corona was the nearby town, but the case took Roswell's name because the sheriff there called Roswell Army Air Field, whose officers collected the debris.
Q 09Which rocketry pioneer did much of his early work in Roswell in the 1930s?
Robert H. Goddard
Robert H. Goddard could test there for years because Charles Lindbergh persuaded the Guggenheim family to fund his rocket work.
Q 10Project Blue Book was headquartered at which Air Force base?
Wright-Patterson, Ohio
The base is also where Project Sign's Air Materiel Command review had been written in 1949.
Q 11In History's 2019 drama Project Blue Book, which Game of Thrones actor played astronomer J. Allen Hynek?
Aidan Gillen
Aidan Gillen played Hynek, who joined the Air Force's UFO studies as a skeptic and ended up founding his own Center for UFO Studies in 1973.
Q 12Which Air Force UFO project did Project Blue Book replace in March 1952?
Project Grudge
Project Grudge had largely set out to write reports off, and after unhappy generals intervened, Blue Book took its place in March 1952.
Q 13Which Air Force chief of staff rejected Project Sign's 1948 'Estimate of the Situation' for lack of proof?
Hoyt Vandenberg
Q 21Betty and Barney Hill's 1961 abduction claim was set in which U.S. state?
New Hampshire
New Hampshire's Division of Historical Resources later put up a historical marker where the Hills said the strange craft first approached.
Q 22Ufologists linked the star map Betty Hill said aliens showed her to which star system?
Zeta Reticuli
Zeta Reticuli was schoolteacher Marjorie Fish's match, but 1990s Hipparcos star distances broke it, and Fish herself later gave the idea up.
Q 23Which 1966 best-seller told Betty and Barney Hill's abduction story?
The Interrupted Journey
The Interrupted Journey was later turned into The UFO Incident, a 1975 NBC television film about the couple's claimed abduction.
Hoyt Vandenberg, as Blue Book's first chief later told it, wouldn't accept interplanetary craft without physical proof, so the estimate was sent back and died.
Q 14What did the 1953 Robertson Panel recommend as a way to dampen popular interest in UFOs?
A public education campaign
A public education campaign, run through TV, films and articles, was meant to strip UFOs of the special status and aura of mystery they had acquired.
Q 15Which agency convened the Robertson Panel?
The CIA
The CIA pushed for the panel after UFO reports climbed to a record high during the summer 1952 wave of sightings.
Q 16Which institution hosted the Air Force-funded project that produced the 1968 Condon Report?
University of Colorado
The University of Colorado team concluded that further extensive UFO study probably couldn't be justified, and the Air Force closed Project Blue Book in response.
Q 17Which Blink-182 musician co-founded the UFO company that first released the Navy's unidentified-object videos?
Tom DeLonge
Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy put the Navy clips out between December 2017 and March 2018, and the Pentagon officially released them in 2020.
Q 18What was Hynek's explanation for 1966 Michigan sightings that became a famous punchline?
Swamp gas
Swamp gas was Hynek's explanation for only some of the reports, but the press derided it and newspaper cartoonists turned the phrase into a punchline.
Q 19Which Steven Spielberg film gave UFO consultant J. Allen Hynek a cameo?
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind took its name from Hynek's classification of UFO reports, and he watches the alien craft arrive in the finale.
Q 20Which French filmmaker played scientist Claude Lacombe in Steven Spielberg's 1977 film?
François Truffaut
François Truffaut played a scientist modeled on Jacques Vallée, the French ufologist whom Spielberg had consulted while making the film.
Q 24Which director made Nope, the 2022 film about a UFO stalking a California horse ranch?
Jordan Peele
Jordan Peele's UFO in Nope turns out to be no spaceship but a territorial, predatory animal that devours people who look straight at it.
Q 25Forestry worker Travis Walton vanished for five days in 1975 in which state?
Arizona
Arizona police suspected Walton's crew, who had fled believing him dead, and they took polygraph tests over whether they had killed him.
Q 26Travis Walton's account was adapted into which 1993 film?
Fire in the Sky
Fire in the Sky loosely adapted Walton's 1978 book The Walton Experience, which was then reissued under the film's title.
Q 27The Phoenix Lights of March 13, 1997 were traced to aircraft from which pilot training program?
Operation Snowbird
Operation Snowbird's A-10 jets explain both sightings: one formation flew over Phoenix, while a different A-10 flight later dropped illumination flares.
Q 28Which governor joked about the Phoenix Lights with a costumed aide, then later said he had seen a UFO himself?
Fife Symington
Fife Symington said the alien-costume stunt was meant to calm a state gripped by panic, and a decade passed before he revealed his own sighting.
Q 29The Rendlesham Forest incident of December 1980 took place outside which air base?
RAF Woodbridge
RAF Woodbridge's east gate is where a security patrol first saw lights dropping into the forest, and deputy base commander Charles Halt later led men in.
Q 30Skeptics attribute the pulsing glow seen by Rendlesham airmen to which structure?
Orfordness Lighthouse
Orfordness Lighthouse was the only light that the police called to the scene said they could see, which is why skeptics think the airmen followed its beam.