Editing Unidentified flying object (section)

==History==
{{Ufo}}

===Early history before the 20th century===
{{More citations needed section|date=January 2024}}
People have always observed the sky and have sometimes seen what, to some, appeared to be unusual sights including phenomena as varied as [[comet]]s, bright [[meteors]], one or more of the [[Classical planet|five planets that can be readily seen with the naked eye]], [[Conjunction (astronomy)|planetary conjunctions]], and atmospheric [[Optical phenomenon|optical phenomena]] such as [[sun dog|parhelia]] and [[lenticular cloud]]s.{{Citation needed|reason=secondary sources needed connecting any of this to UFO history|date=August 2023}} One particularly famous example is [[Halley's Comet]]: first recorded by Chinese astronomers in 240 BC and possibly as early as 467 BC as a strange and unknown "guest light" in the sky.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.wired.com/2011/03/0330ancient-chinese-see-halleys-comet/|title= March 30, 240 B.C.: Comet Cometh to Cathay|author= |date= March 30, 2011|publisher= Wired|access-date= June 23, 2024|archive-date= February 13, 2021|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210213020656/https://www.wired.com/2011/03/0330ancient-chinese-see-halleys-comet/|url-status= live}}</ref> As a bright comet that visits the inner solar system every 76 years, it was often identified as a unique isolated event in ancient historical documents whose authors were unaware that it was a repeating phenomenon.{{Citation needed|reason=missing source for facts or claim|date=August 2023}} Such accounts in history often were treated as [[supernatural]] portents, [[angel]]s, or other religious [[omen]]s.{{Citation needed|reason=source needed for claim and for connection to UFO history|date=August 2023}} While UFO enthusiasts have sometimes commented on the narrative similarities between certain religious symbols in medieval paintings and UFO reports,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/16589 |title=Do UFOs Exist in the History of Arts? |last=Giordano |first=Daniela |date=November 13, 2006 |work=American Chronicle |publisher=Ultio, LLC |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120819213933/http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/16589 |archive-date=August 19, 2012 |access-date=September 6, 2013}}</ref> the canonical and symbolic character of such images is documented by art historians placing more conventional religious interpretations on such images.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Cuoghi |first=Diego |date=2004 |title=The Art of Imagining UFOs |journal=[[Skeptic (U.S. magazine)|Skeptic]] |volume=11 |issue=1 |publisher=[[The Skeptics Society]] |url=http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/archives/vol11n01.html |access-date=September 6, 2013 |archive-date=October 3, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121003170149/http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/archives/vol11n01.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Some examples of pre-contemporary reports about unusual aerial phenomena include:
* [[Julius Obsequens]] was a [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] writer who is believed to have lived in the middle of the fourth century AD. The only work associated with his name is the ''Liber de prodigiis'' (Book of Prodigies), completely extracted from an epitome, or abridgment, written by [[Livy]]; ''De prodigiis'' was constructed as an account of the wonders and portents that occurred in [[Rome]] between 249 and 12 BCE. An aspect of Obsequens' work that has inspired excitement in some UFO enthusiasts is that he makes reference to things moving through the sky. The descriptions provided bear resemblance to observations of [[meteor showers]]. Obsequens was also writing some 400 years after the events he described, thus the text is not an eyewitness account. No corroboration with those amazing sights of old with contemporary observations was mentioned in that work.<ref>Julio Obsecuente, ''Libro de los Prodigios (restituido a su integridad, en beneficio de la Historia, por Conrado Licóstenes)'', ed. Ana Moure Casas (Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas, 1990)</ref><ref>Giulio Ossequente, ''Il Libro dei prodigi'', ed. Solas Boncompagni (Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee, 1992)</ref>
* [[Shen Kuo]] (1031–1095), a [[Song Dynasty|Song Chinese]] government [[Scholar-bureaucrat|scholar-official]] and prolific polymath inventor, wrote a vivid passage in his ''[[Dream Pool Essays]]'' (1088) about an unidentified flying object. He recorded the testimony of eyewitnesses in 11th-century [[Anhui]] and [[Jiangsu]] (especially in the city of [[Yangzhou]]), who stated that a flying object with opening doors would shine a blinding light from its interior (from an object shaped like a pearl) that would cast shadows from trees for ten [[Li (unit)|miles]] in radius, and was able to take off at tremendous speeds.<ref>Dong, Paul. (2000). ''China's Major Mysteries: Paranormal Phenomena and the Unexplained in the People's Republic''. San Francisco: China Books and Periodicals, Inc. {{ISBN|0-8351-2676-5}}. pp 69–71.</ref> [[File:Basilea1566.jpg|thumb|220px|The celestial phenomenon over Basel in 1566.]]
* A woodcut by Hans Glaser that appeared in a broadsheet in 1561 has been featured in popular culture as the [[1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg|"celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg"]] and connected to various [[ancient astronaut]] claims.<ref name="Vallee">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XINLC2ubHqwC&pg=PT71 | title=Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times | publisher=Tarcher |author1=Vallee, Jacques |author2=Aubeck, Chris | year=2010 | isbn=978-1585428205}}</ref> Skeptic and debunker [[Jason Colavito]] argues that the woodcut is "a secondhand depiction of a particularly gaudy sundog", a known [[Sun dog|atmospheric optical phenomenon]].<ref name=Colavito-121212>{{cite web | url=http://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2012/12/the-ufo-battle-over-nuremburg.html | title=The UFO Battle over Nuremburg | website=jasoncolavito.com | date=December 12, 2012 | access-date=July 12, 2013 | first=Jason | last=Colavito | author-link=Jason Colavito | archive-date=December 20, 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121220012851/http://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2012/12/the-ufo-battle-over-nuremburg.html | url-status=live }}</ref> A similar report comes from [[1566 celestial phenomenon over Basel|1566 over Basel]] and, indeed, in the 15th and 16th centuries, many leaflets wrote of "miracles" and "sky spectacles" which bear resemblance to natural phenomena which were only more fully characterized after the scientific revolution.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Borchert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rPRTzgEACAAJ |title=The book of miracles: Facsimile of the Augsburg manuscript from the Collection of Mickey Cartin |date=2013 |publisher=Taschen |isbn=978-3-8365-4285-2 |language=de |access-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-date=July 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230730031603/https://books.google.com/books?id=rPRTzgEACAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>
* On January 25, 1878, the ''[[Denison, Texas|Denison]] Daily News'' printed an article in which John Martin, a local farmer, had reported seeing a large, dark, circular object resembling a balloon flying "at wonderful speed". Martin, according to the newspaper account, said it appeared to be about the size of a saucer from his perspective, one of the first uses of the word "saucer" in association with a UFO. At the time, [[Balloon (aeronautics)|ballooning]] was becoming an increasingly popular and sophisticated endeavor, and the first controlled-flights of such devices were occurring around that time.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/17732 |title=Before the Wright Brothers ... There Were UFOs |last=Booth |first=B J |work=American Chronicle |publisher=Ultio, LLC |date=December 8, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120819213938/http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/17732 |archive-date=August 19, 2012 |access-date=September 6, 2013}}</ref>
{{multiple image
| perrow            = 2
| align             = left
| total_width       = 340
| header            = UFO-like alleged sightings before the 20th century
| image1            = Himmelserscheinung über Nürnberg vom 14. April 1561.jpg
| caption1          = [[1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg]] as printed in an illustrated news notice.
| image2            = Mystery airship SFCall Nov 22 1896.jpg
| caption2          = November 22, 1896 illustration of a "[[mystery airship]]" published in ''[[The San Francisco Call]]''
| image3            = Mystery airship SFCall Nov 29 1896.jpg
| caption3          = November 29, 1896 illustration of another "[[mystery airship]]" published in ''[[The San Francisco Call]]''
| image4            = Mystery airship The Saint Paul Globe (Minn) April 13 1897.jpg
| caption4          = "[[Mystery airship]]" illustrated in ''[[The St. Paul Globe]]'', April 13, 1897
}}
* From November 1896 to April 1897, United States newspapers carried numerous reports of "[[mystery airship]]s" that are reminiscent of modern UFO waves.{{sfn|Cohen|1981|p=1}} Scores of people even reported talking to the pilots. Some people feared that [[Thomas Edison]] had created an artificial star that could fly around the country. On April 16, 1897, a letter was found that purported to be an enciphered communication between an airship operator and Edison.{{sfn|Cohen|1981|p=86}} When asked his opinion of such reports, Edison said, "You can take it from me that it is a pure fake."{{sfn|Keel|1996|pp=29–31|ps=, stating date of April 22, 1897}} The coverage of Edison's denial marked the end of major newspaper coverage of the airships in this period.{{sfn|Cohen|1981|p=88}}

===20th century and after===
{{See also|Investigation of UFO reports by the United States government|UFO conspiracy theories}}

In the Pacific and European theatres during [[World War II]], round, glowing fireballs known as "[[foo fighter]]s" were reported by Allied and Axis pilots. Some explanations for these sightings included [[St. Elmo's fire]], the planet [[Venus]], [[Asphyxia|hallucinations from oxygen deprivation]], and German secret weapons (specifically [[V-2 rocket|rockets]]).<ref>{{cite magazine|date=January 15, 1945|title=Foo-Fighter|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,775433,00.html|url-status=dead|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080417042038/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,775433,00.html|archive-date=April 17, 2008|access-date=May 16, 2013}}</ref> In 1946, more than 2,000 reports were collected, primarily by the Swedish military, of unidentified aerial objects over the Scandinavian nations, along with isolated reports from France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece. The objects were referred to as "Russian hail" (and later as "[[ghost rockets]]") because it was thought the mysterious objects were possibly Russian tests of captured German [[V-1 flying bomb|V1]] or [[V-2 rocket|V2]] [[rocket]]s, but most were identified as natural phenomena as meteors.<ref>[[#Swords & Powell|Swords & Powell 2012]], p. 63</ref>
{{multiple image
| perrow = 2
| align = left
| total_width = 380
| image_gap =7
| background color = mintcream
| header = Science fiction depictions of spacecraft similar to [[flying saucer]]s before the first widely-reported UFO sighting in 1947
| image1 = The War of the Worlds by Henrique Alvim Corrêa, original graphic 05.jpg
| caption1 =Illustration from 1903 by [[Henrique Alvim Corrêa]] showing the first Martian emerging from a cylinder that had fallen from the sky for an edition of ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'' by H. G. Wells.
| image2 = Le-chevalier-illusion-no-839-conrad.jpg
| caption2 = Cover of French pulp magazine ''Le Chevalier Illusion'' from December 29, 1912 portraying a flying machine spreading a toxic gas among the passengers and crew of a ship below
| image3 = ModernElectrics1912-02.jpg
| caption3 = A "space flyer" depicted on the February 1912 cover of ''[[Modern Electrics]]'' as an illustration for the science fiction story ''[[Ralph 124C 41+]]'' by [[Hugo Gernsback]]
| image4 = Science and Invention Feb 1922 pg912 - War of the Future.jpg
| caption4 = Illustration by [[Frank R. Paul]] from February 1922 in ''Science and Invention'' showing [[Nikola Tesla]]'s vision of warfare in the future with sea and air craft "controlled and directed" by radio waves

| image5 = Münchhausen Lands On Mars by Hugo Gernsback in Amazing Stories April 1928 page 39.jpg
| caption5 = Illustration for a story by [[Hugo Gernsback]] in pulp [[science fiction]] magazine ''Amazing Stories'' from April 1928 (originally published on 1915 with similar illustrations in ''[[The Electrical Experimenter]]'')

| image6 = Science Wonder Stories Nov 1929 - flying saucer.jpg
| caption6 = Depiction of a [[flying saucer]] by illustrator [[Frank R. Paul]] on the October 1929 issue of [[Hugo Gernsback]]'s pulp [[science fiction]] magazine ''[[Science Wonder Stories]]''

| image7 = Amazing stories quarterly 1930win.jpg
| caption7 =Cover of ''[[Amazing Stories]]'' winter 1930 issue depicting a disc-shaped spacecraft

 | image8 = Amazing Stories August 1946 back cover.png
| caption8 = Back cover of ''[[Amazing Stories]]'' illustrated by [[Frank R. Paul]] in August 1946 featuring many disc-shaped spacecraft (published about a year before the flying disc wave of 1947)
}}
Many scholars, especially those arguing for the [[Psychosocial UFO hypothesis#Science fiction aspects of the UFO mythos|psychosocial UFO hypothesis]], have noted that UFO characteristics reported after the first widely publicized modern sighting by [[Kenneth Arnold]] in 1947 resembled a host of science fiction tropes from earlier in the century.<ref>Jeffrey J. Kripal, ''Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred'', University of Chicago Press, 2010, pp. 206–208. {{ISBN?}}</ref><ref>Bertrand Meheust, ''Science Fiction et Soucoupes Volantes''  Mercure de France, 1978</ref><ref>Michel Monnerie, Le Naufrage des Extra-terrestres, Nouvelles Editions Rationalistes, 1979.</ref><ref>Michel Meurger, ''Alien Abduction : L'enlèvement Extraterrestre de la Fiction à la croyance – Scientifictions: la Revue de l'Imaginaire Scientifique; numero 1, volume 1''  Encrage, 1995 (in French)  253pp.</ref><ref>Michel Meurger, "Surgeons from Outside"  ''Fortean Studies'' # 3  (1996) pp. 308–321.</ref><ref>Jacques Vallee, ''Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact Contemporary Books'', 1988, p. 167.</ref><ref>Martin S. Kottmeyer, ''Magonia'' #90; November 2005, pp. 3–15. "[http://magonia.haaan.com/2010/enginestoppers/ Engine Stoppers] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131001033541/http://magonia.haaan.com/2010/enginestoppers/ |date=2013-10-01 }}"</ref>

By most accounts, the [[1947 flying disc craze|popular UFO craze]] in the US began with a media frenzy surrounding the reports on June 24, 1947, of a civilian pilot named [[Kenneth Arnold]] who described seeing "a group of bat-like aircraft flying in formation at high speeds" near [[Mount Rainier]] that he said were "moving like a saucer would if skipped across water" which led to headlines about "flying saucers" and "flying discs".<ref>{{cite book |last=Pasulka |first=D.W. |title=American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology |isbn=978-0190692889 |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2019 |pages=237 |quote=the standard assumption that the UFO mythos was born in the year 1947}}</ref><ref name=Eghigian4August2021>{{cite web |url=https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/ufos-and-the-boundaries-of-science/ |title=UFOs and the Boundaries of Science |last=Eghigian |first=Greg |date=4 August 2021 |publisher=Boston Review |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230410030607/https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/ufos-and-the-boundaries-of-science/ |archive-date=10 April 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Garber|first=Megan|title=The Man Who Introduced the World to Flying Saucers|newspaper=The Atlantic|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/the-man-who-introduced-the-world-to-flying-saucers/372732/ |access-date=February 2, 2017|archive-date=November 11, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111183726/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/the-man-who-introduced-the-world-to-flying-saucers/372732/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Saturday Night Uforia Audioplex: Edward R. Murrow – The Case ForOf The Flying Saucer (April 7, 1950 broadcast)|url=http://www.saturdaynightuforia.com/audioplex/audioplexhtml/murrowcaseofflyingsaucer.html|access-date=February 2, 2017|website=www.saturdaynightuforia.com|archive-date=July 18, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190718182303/https://www.saturdaynightuforia.com/audioplex/audioplexhtml/murrowcaseofflyingsaucer.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Only weeks after Arnold's story was reported in 1947, [[Gallup, Inc.|Gallup]] published a poll asking people in the United States what the "flying saucers" might be. Already, 90% had heard of the new term. However, as reported by historian Greg Eghanian, "a majority either had no idea what they could be or thought that witnesses were mistaken" while "visitors from space were not initially among the options that anyone had in mind, and Gallup didn't even mention if anyone surveyed brought up aliens.<ref name=Eghigian4August2021 /><ref name=Eghigian2017>{{cite web |url=https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/march-2017/more-human-than-alien-researching-the-history-of-ufos |title=More Human Than Alien: Researvching the History of UFOs |last=Eghigian |first=Greg |date=14 March 2017 |publisher=Perspectives on History |access-date=8 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230621171135/https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/march-2017/more-human-than-alien-researching-the-history-of-ufos |archive-date=21 June 2023}}</ref><ref name=Eghigian5August2021>{{cite web |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/ufos-uapswhatever-we-call-them-why-do-we-assume-mysterious-flying-objects-are-extraterrestrial-180978374/ |title=UFOs, UAPs – Whatever We Call Them, Why Do We Assume Mysterious Flying Objects Are Extraterrestrial? |last=Eghigian |first=Greg |date=5 August 2021 |publisher=Smithsonian Magazine |access-date=8 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230611013718/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/ufos-uapswhatever-we-call-them-why-do-we-assume-mysterious-flying-objects-are-extraterrestrial-180978374/ |archive-date=11 June 2023}}</ref>
Within weeks, reports of flying saucer sightings became a daily occurrence<ref>{{Cite web|title=Flying saucers still evasive 70 years after pilot's report {{!}} The Spokesman-Review|url=https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/jun/25/flying-saucers-still-evasive-70-years-after-pilots/|access-date=2021-12-30|website=www.spokesman.com|date=June 25, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220812160716/https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/jun/25/flying-saucers-still-evasive-70-years-after-pilots/|archive-date=12 August 2022}}</ref> with one particularly famous example being the [[Roswell incident]] in 1947 where remnants of a downed [[observation balloon]] were recovered by a farmer and confiscated by military personnel.<ref>{{cite book |last=Olmsted |first=Kathryn S. |date=2009 |title=Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 |location=Oxford, UK |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=184 |isbn=978-0199753956 |quote=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.}}</ref> UFO enthusiasts in the early 1950s started to organize local "saucer clubs" modeled after [[science fiction]] [[fan club]]s of the 1930s and 1940s, with some growing to national and international prominence within a decade.<ref name=Eghigian4August2021 /> In 1950, three influential books were published—[[Donald Keyhoe]]'s ''[[The Flying Saucers Are Real]]'', [[Frank Scully]]'s ''Behind the Flying Saucers'', and [[Gerald Heard]]'s ''The Riddle of the Flying Saucers''. Each guilelessly proposed that the [[extraterrestrial UFO hypothesis]] was the correct explanation and that the visits were in response to detonations of [[Nuclear weapon|atomic weapons]]. These books also introduced Americans to, as Eghanian puts it, "the crusading [[whistleblower]] dedicated to breaking the silence over the alien origins of unidentified flying objects".<ref name=Eghigian4August2021 /> [[File:Interview with C. G. Jung in Küsnacht (Carl Gustav Jung), Swiss psychiatrist, depth psychologist 4 (cropped).tif|thumb|Jung in 1955]]Media accounts and speculation ran rampant in the U.S., especially in connection to the [[1952 Washington, D.C., UFO incident|1952 UFO scare in Washington, D.C.]] so that, by 1953, the intelligence officials ([[Robertson Panel]]) worried that "genuine incursions" by enemy aircraft "over U.S. territory could be lost in a maelstrom of kooky hallucination" of UFO reports.<ref name="Lewis-Kraus-30-4-21">{{cite magazine|last1=Lewis-Kraus|first1=Gideon|date=April 30, 2021|title=How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously|magazine=The New Yorker magazine|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230623023008/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously|archive-date=23 June 2023}}</ref> A Trendex survey in August 1957, ten years after the Arnold incident, reported that over 25% of the U.S. public "believed unidentified flying objects could be from outer space".<ref name=Eghigian4August2021 /> The cultural phenomenon showed up within some intellectual works such as the 1959 publication of ''Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky'' by [[Carl Jung]], a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded [[analytical psychology]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jung |first1=Carl |translator-last1=Hull |translator-first1=R. F. C. |title=Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies |language=en |publication-place=Broadway House, London |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |publication-date=1959 }}</ref>

Starting in 1947, the U.S. Air Force began to record and investigated UFO reports with [[Project Sign]] looking into "more than 250 cases" from 1947 to 1949. It was replaced by [[Project Grudge]] up through 1951.<ref name=Eghigian19December2017>{{cite web |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/secret-government-program-track-ufos-its-not-first-180967597/ |title=That Secret Government Program to Track UFOs? It's Not the First |last=Eghigian |first=Greg |date=19 December 2017 |publisher=Smithsonian Magazine |access-date=8 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230606110707/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/secret-government-program-track-ufos-its-not-first-180967597/ |archive-date=6 June 2023 }}</ref> In the third U.S. Air Force program, from March 1952 to its termination in December 1969,<ref>Michael D. Swords; "UFOs, the Military, and the Early Cold War Era", pp. 82–121 in "UFOs and Abductions: Challenging the Borders of Knowledge" David M. Jacobs, editor; 2000, University Press of Kansas, {{ISBN|0700610324}}; p. 103.</ref> "the U.S. Air Force cataloged 12,618 sightings of UFOs as part of what is now known as [[Project Blue Book]]".<ref name="Mathis 6 July 2023">{{cite magazine |last1=Mathis |first1=Joel |date=6 July 2023 |title=What we know from decades of UFO government investigations |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/ufo-alien-spacecraft-investigation-timeline |magazine=National Geographic |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230708085036/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/ufo-alien-spacecraft-investigation-timeline |archive-date=8 July 2023}}</ref> In the late 1950s, public pressure mounted for a full declassification of all UFO records, but the CIA played a role in refusing to allow this.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Haines |first1=Gerald K. |date=1997 |title=A Die-Hard Issue: CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947–90 |url=https://www.cia.gov/static/105bd8290b90de13ee136fecc9fe863f/cia-role-study-UFOs.pdf |journal=Studies in Intelligence |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=67–84 |access-date=8 July 2023 |archive-date=February 12, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240212210937/https://www.cia.gov/static/105bd8290b90de13ee136fecc9fe863f/cia-role-study-UFOs.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> This sense was not universal in the CIA, however, as fellow [[National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena|NICAP]] official [[Donald E. Keyhoe]] wrote that Vice Admiral [[Roscoe Hillenkoetter]], the first director of the CIA, "wanted public disclosure of UFO evidence".<ref>
{{cite book
 |first=Donald E.
 |last=Keyhoe
 |author-link=Donald E. Keyhoe
 |title=Aliens from space; the real story of unidentified flying objects
 |edition=
 |year=1973
 |publisher=[[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]]
 |location=[[Garden City, New York]]
 |isbn=0-385-06751-8
 |url=https://archive.org/details/aliensfromspacer00keyh
 }}</ref> Official U.S. Air Force interest in UFO reports went on hiatus in 1969 after a study by the University of Colorado led by Edward U. Condon and known as the [[Condon Report]] concluded "that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge" and that further time investigating UFO reports "cannot be justified".<ref name="Mathis 6 July 2023"/>
[[File:Keyhoe - The Flying Saucers Are Real, cover.jpg|thumb|180px|Cover of the 1953 book ''[[The Flying Saucers Are Real]]'' by [[Donald Keyhoe]]]]
[[File:Amazing Stories October 1957.jpg|thumb|180px|Cover of the pulp science fiction magazine ''[[Amazing Stories]]'' from October 1957]]
From the 1960s to 1990s, UFOs were part of American popular culture's obsession with the [[supernatural]] and [[paranormal]]. In 1961, the first [[alien abduction]] account was sensationalized when [[Barney and Betty Hill]] underwent [[hypnosis]] after seeing a UFO and reported [[Recovered-memory therapy|recovered memories]] of their experience that became ever more elaborate as the years went by.<ref>{{Cite news |date=October 23, 2004 |title=Betty Hill, 85, Figure in Alien Abduction Case, Dies |work=[[The New York Times]] (online) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/us/betty-hill-85-figure-in-alien-abduction-case-dies.html |access-date=January 29, 2020 |archive-date=June 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170620020420/http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/us/betty-hill-85-figure-in-alien-abduction-case-dies.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1966, 5% of Americans reported to Gallup that "they had at some time seen something they thought was a 'flying saucer'", 96% said "they had heard or read about flying saucers", and 46% of these "thought they were 'something real' rather than just people's imagination".<ref>{{cite web |first=Lydia |last=Saad |title=Gallup Vault: Eyewitnesses to Flying Saucers |date=April 12, 2016 |url=https://news.gallup.com/vault/190592/gallup-vault-eyewitnesses-flying-saucers.aspx |access-date=8 July 2023 |publisher=Gallup |archive-date=23 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230523023423/https://news.gallup.com/vault/190592/gallup-vault-eyewitnesses-flying-saucers.aspx |url-status=live}}</ref> Responding to UFO enthusiasm, there have always been consistent yet less popular efforts made at [[debunking]] many of the claims,<ref name="Eghigian4August2021" /> and at times the media was enlisted including a 1966 TV special, "UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy?", in which [[Walter Cronkite]] "patiently" explained to viewers that UFOs were fantasy.<ref name="Lewis-Kraus-30-4-21" /> Cronkite enlisted [[Carl Sagan]] and [[J. Allen Hynek]], who told Cronkite, "To this time, there is no valid scientific proof that we have been visited by spaceships".<ref name="Kloor1">{{cite web |last1=Kloor |first1=Kieth |date=April 3, 2019 |title=UFOs Won't Go Away |url=https://issues.org/ufos-wont-go-away/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211108080728/https://issues.org/ufos-wont-go-away/ |archive-date=November 8, 2021 |access-date=November 8, 2021 |website=Issues. Vol. XXXV, No. 3, Spring 2019 |publisher=Arizona State University}}</ref>

Such attempts to disenchant the zeitgeist were not very successful at tamping down the mania. [[Keith Kloor]] notes that the "allure of flying saucers" remained popular with the public into the 1970s, spurring production of such sci-fi films, as ''[[Close Encounters of the Third Kind]]'' and ''[[Alien (film)|Alien]]'', which "continued to stoke public fascination". Meanwhile, [[Leonard Nimoy]] narrated a popular occult and mystery TV series [[In Search of... (TV series)|''In Search of...'']] while daytime talk shows of [[Mike Douglas]], [[Merv Griffin]], and [[Phil Donahue]] featured interviews with alien abductees and people who credulously reported stories about UFOs .<ref name="Eghigian4August2021" /> In the 1980s and 1990s, UFO stories featured in such pulp "true crime" serials as ''[[Unsolved Mysteries]]''<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Sparks |first1=Glenn G. |last2=Pellechia |first2=Marianne |last3=Irvine |first3=Chris |date=June 1998 |title=Does television news about UFOs affect viewers' UFO beliefs?: An experimental investigation |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01463379809370102 |journal=Communication Quarterly |language=en |volume=46 |issue=3 |pages=284–294 |doi=10.1080/01463379809370102 |issn=0146-3373 |access-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-date=July 9, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230709205846/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01463379809370102 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> while the 33 Volume [[Time Life|Time-Life]] series ''[[Mysteries of the Unknown]]'' which featured UFO stories sold some 700,000 copies.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-09-22 |title=The 1980s Book Series That Literally Claimed It Had To Be Read To Be Believed |url=http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-1980s-book-series-that-literally-claimed-it-had-to-be-read-to-be-believed |access-date=2023-07-09 |website=Atlas Obscura |language=en |archive-date=July 4, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240704110017/https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-1980s-book-series-that-literally-claimed-it-had-to-be-read-to-be-believed |url-status=live }}</ref> Kloor writes that by the late 1990s, "other big UFO subthemes had been prominently introduced into pop culture, such as the abduction phenomenon and [[Conspiracy theory|government conspiracy narrative]], via best-selling books and, of course, ''[[The X-Files]]''".<ref name="Kloor1" />

Eghigian notes that, by this point, the UFO problem had become "far more interesting to ponder than to actually solve."<ref name=Eghigian4August2021 /> Interest was particularly fevered in the 1990s with the publicity surrounding the television broadcast of an ''[[Alien Autopsy (1995 film)|Alien autopsy]]'' video marketed as "real footage" but later admitted to be a staged "re-enactment".<ref name=Time>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983764-1,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091216074850/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983764-1,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 16, 2009|title=Autopsy or Fraud-topsy?|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|author=Corliss, Richard|author-link=Corliss, Richard|date=November 27, 1995 | access-date=April 23, 2010}}</ref> Eghigian writes that "there had always been outlier abduction reports dating back to the '50s and '60s" but that in the '80s and '90s "the floodgates opened, and with them a new generation of UFO advocates". Leaders among them were the artist [[Budd Hopkins]], horror writer [[Whitley Strieber]], historian [[David M. Jacobs|David Jacobs]], and [[Harvard]] psychiatrist [[John E. Mack|John Mack]]. They all defended the "veracity of those claiming to have been kidnapped, examined, and experimented upon by beings from another world", writes Eghigian, as "new missionaries who simultaneously played the role of investigator, therapist, and advocate to their vulnerable charges".<ref name="Eghigian4August2021" /> Eghigian says that Mack "signaled both the culmination and end of the headiest days of alien abduction". When Mack began working with and publishing accounts of abductees—or "experiencers", as he called them—in the early 1990s, he brought a sense of legitimacy to "the study of extraterrestrial captivity". By the late 1990s, however, the Harvard Medical School initiated a review of his position which allowed him to retain tenure. However, after this review, as the review board chairman Arnold Relman later put it, Mack was "not taken seriously by his colleagues anymore". Claims of alien abduction have continued, but no other clinicians would continue to speak of them as real in any sense.<ref name="Eghigian4August2021" /> Nonetheless, these ideas persisted in popular opinion. According to a 1996 poll by ''[[Newsweek]]'', 20% of Americans believed that UFOs were more likely to be proof of alien life than to have a natural scientific explanation.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://today.yougov.com/topics/technology/articles-reports/2022/10/04/more-half-americans-believe-aliens-probably-exist |title=A growing share of Americans believe aliens are responsible for UFOs |last=Orth |first=Taylor |date=4 October 2022 |publisher=YouGov PLC (citing 1996 Newsweek poll) |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230531002256/https://today.yougov.com/topics/technology/articles-reports/2022/10/04/more-half-americans-believe-aliens-probably-exist |archive-date=31 May 2023 }}</ref>

In December 2017, a new round of media attention started when ''The New York Times'' broke the story of the secret [[Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program]] that was funded from 2007 to 2012 with $22 million spent on the program.<ref name="NYT-20171216">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html|title=Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program|last1=Cooper|first1=Helene|date=December 16, 2017|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=December 16, 2017|last2=Blumenthal|first2=Ralph|last3=Kean|first3=Leslie|archive-date=December 21, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171221235856/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="NYT-20200514">{{cite news |last1=Blumenthal |first1=Ralph |last2=Kean |first2=Leslie |title=Navy Reports Describe Encounters With Unexplained Flying Objects – While some of the encounters have been reported publicly before, the Navy records are an official accounting of the incidents, including descriptions from the pilots of what they saw. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/us/politics/navy-ufo-reports.html |date=May 14, 2020 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=May 15, 2020 |archive-date=May 15, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200515001002/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/us/politics/navy-ufo-reports.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Following this story, along with a series of sensationalized [[Pentagon UFO videos]] leaked by members of the program who became convinced that UFOs were genuine mysteries worth investigating, there was an increase in mainstream attention to UFO stories. In July 2021, Harvard astronomer [[Avi Loeb]] announced the creation of his [[The Galileo Project|Galileo Project]] which intended to use high-tech astronomical equipment to seek evidence of extraterrestrial artifacts in space and possibly within Earth's atmosphere. This was followed closely by the publication of Loeb's book ''Extraterrestrial'', in which he argued that the first interstellar comet ever observed, [['Oumuamua]], might be an artificial light sail made by an alien civilization.<ref name="Eghigian4August2021" /> Two government sponsored programs, [[NASA's UAP independent study team]] and the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] were charged in part by Congressional fiat to investigate UFO claims more fully,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bock |first1=Michael |date=23 December 2022 |title=NASA to Set Up Independent Study on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena |url=https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-announces-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-study-team-members/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230610082955/https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-announces-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-study-team-members/ |archive-date=10 June 2023 |access-date=23 June 2023 |website=NASA }}</ref><ref>[[Kathleen Hicks]] [https://media.defense.gov/2021/Nov/23/2002898596/-1/-1/0/ESTABLISHMENT-OF-THE-AIRBORNE-OBJECT-IDENTIFICATION-AND-MANAGEMENT-SYNCHRONIZATION-GROUP.PDF (23 November 2021) Establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230523013816/https://media.defense.gov/2021/Nov/23/2002898596/-1/-1/0/ESTABLISHMENT-OF-THE-AIRBORNE-OBJECT-IDENTIFICATION-AND-MANAGEMENT-SYNCHRONIZATION-GROUP.PDF |date=May 23, 2023 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Vergun |first1=David |date=19 April 2023 |title=DOD Working to Better Understand, Resolve Anomalous Phenomena |url=https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3368109/dod-working-to-better-understand-resolve-anomalous-phenomena/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613180406/https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3368109/dod-working-to-better-understand-resolve-anomalous-phenomena/ |archive-date=13 June 2023 |access-date=13 June 2023 |website=DOD News }}</ref> adopting the new moniker "unexplained aerial phenomenon" (UAP) to avoid associations with past [[sensationalism]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bad-data-not-aliens-may-be-behind-ufo-surge-nasa-team-says/ |title=Bad Data, Not Aliens, May Be behind UFO Surge, NASA Team Says |last=Leonard |first=David |date=9 June 2023 |publisher=Scientific American |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230611131604/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bad-data-not-aliens-may-be-behind-ufo-surge-nasa-team-says/ |archive-date=11 June 2023 }}</ref> On 17 May 2022, members of the [[United States House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation]] held [[2022 United States Congress hearings on UFOs|congressional hearing]]s with top military officials to discuss military reports of UAPs.<ref>{{USCongRec|2022|D545|date=May 17, 2022}}</ref> It was the first public congressional hearing into UFO sightings in the US in over 50 years. Another Congressional hearing took place on July 26, 2023, featuring the [[David Grusch UFO whistleblower claims|whistleblower claims]] of former U.S. Air Force (USAF) officer and intelligence official David Grusch.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Merchant |first=Nomaan |date=26 July 2023 |title=Whistleblower tells Congress the US is concealing 'multi-decade' program that captures UFOs |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/26/ufos-uaps-congress-whistleblower-spy-aliens/01081d9a-2bce-11ee-a948-a5b8a9b62d84_story.html |access-date=27 July 2023 |archive-date=26 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230726223917/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/26/ufos-uaps-congress-whistleblower-spy-aliens/01081d9a-2bce-11ee-a948-a5b8a9b62d84_story.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=De Avila |first=Joseph |date=26 July 2023 |title=UFOs Are a Common Sight, Former Military Official Tells Congress |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-oversight-committee-congress-ufo-hearing-ceeceae6 |archive-date=27 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230727031909/https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-oversight-committee-congress-ufo-hearing-ceeceae6 |url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Cooper |first=Helene |date=26 July 2023 |title=Lawmakers and Former Officials Press for Answers on U.F.O.s |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/26/us/politics/ufo-hearing.html |access-date=27 July 2023 |archive-date=27 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230727033839/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/26/us/politics/ufo-hearing.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

A Harris Poll in 2009 found that 32% of Americans "believe in UFOs".<ref>{{cite book |last=Pasulka |first=D.W. |title=American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology |isbn=978-0190692889 |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2019 |page=7 |quote=the standard assumption that the UFO mythos was born in the year 1947}}</ref> A ''[[National Geographic]]'' study in June 2012 found that 36% of Americans believe UFOs exist and that 10% thought that they had spotted one.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ufos-exist-americans-national-geographic-survey/story?id=16661311 |title=UFOs Exist, Say 36 Percent in National Geographic Survey |last=Harish |first=Alon |date=27 June 2012 |publisher=ABC News |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230609235400/https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ufos-exist-americans-national-geographic-survey/story?id=16661311 |archive-date=9 June 2023 }}</ref> In June 2021 a [[Pew]] research poll found that 51% in the United States thought that UFOs reported by people in the military were likely to be evidence of intelligent life from beyond the Earth.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/30/most-americans-believe-in-intelligent-life-beyond-earth-few-see-ufos-as-a-major-national-security-threat/ |title=Most Americans believe in intelligent life beyond Earth; few see UFOs as a major national security threat |last1=Kennedy |first1=Courtney |last2=Lau |first2=Arnold |date=30 June 2021 |publisher=Pew |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230603161538/https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/30/most-americans-believe-in-intelligent-life-beyond-earth-few-see-ufos-as-a-major-national-security-threat/ |archive-date=3 June 2023 }}</ref> In August 2021, [[Gallup, Inc.|Gallup]], with a question not specific to military reports, only found that 41% of adults believed some UFOs involve alien spacecraft from other planets. This Gallup poll showed 44% of men and 38% of women believed this. This average of 41% in 2021 was up from 33% in a 2019 Gallup poll with the same question. Gallup further found that college graduates went in 2019 from being the least likely educational group to believe this to being on par in 2021 with adults who have no college education.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.gallup.com/poll/353420/larger-minority-says-ufos-alien-spacecraft.aspx |title=Larger Minority in U.S. Says Some UFOs Are Alien Spacecraft |last=Saad |first=Lydia |date=20 August 2021 |publisher=Gallup |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230523014539/https://news.gallup.com/poll/353420/larger-minority-says-ufos-alien-spacecraft.aspx |archive-date=23 May 2023 }}</ref> An October 2022 poll by ''[[YouGov]]'' only found that 34% of Americans believe that UFOs are likely to involve alien life forms.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://today.yougov.com/topics/technology/articles-reports/2022/10/04/aliens-ufos-yougov-poll-september-9-12-2022 |title=Aliens and UFOs: YouGov Poll: September 9–12, 2022 |last=Linley |first=Sanders |date=4 October 2022 |publisher=YouGov PLC |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230425114950/https://today.yougov.com/topics/technology/articles-reports/2022/10/04/aliens-ufos-yougov-poll-september-9-12-2022 |archive-date=25 April 2023}}</ref>

Historian Greg Eghigian wrote in August 2021 that "over the last fifty years, the mutual antagonism between paranormal believers and skeptics has largely framed discussion about unidentified flying objects" and that "it often gets personal" with those taking seriously the prospect that UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin dismissing those who consider UFOs to be worth studying as "narrow-minded, biased, obstinate, and cruel" while the skeptics brushed off "devotees" as "naïve, ignorant, gullible, and downright dangerous". Such "mudslinging over convictions is certainly familiar to historians of religion, a domain of human existence marked by deep divisions over interpretations of belief", and science too has found itself engaged increasing amounts of "boundary work" (which is "asserting and reasserting the borders between legitimate and illegitimate scientific research and ideas, between what may and what may not refer to itself as science") with regard to UFO questions. Eghigian points out our current "stark divide did not happen overnight, and its roots lie in the postwar decades, in a series of events that—with their news coverage, grainy images, celebrity crusaders, exasperated skeptics, unsatisfying military statements, and accusations of a government cover-up—foreshadow our present moment".<ref name=Eghigian4August2021 />

UFOs have been taken up by religious studies scholars in various scholarly books.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kripal |first=Jeffrey J. |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226453897.001.0001 |title=Authors of the Impossible |date=2010 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |doi=10.7208/chicago/9780226453897.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-226-45387-3 |access-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240708214149/https://www.bibliovault.org/BV.landing.epl?ISBN=9780226453866 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Davison |first=Andrew |date=2019-10-02 |title=Astrotheology: Science and Theology Meet Extraterrestrial Life |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2019.1670968 |journal=Theology and Science |volume=17 |issue=4 |pages=551–554 |doi=10.1080/14746700.2019.1670968 |s2cid=211965883 |issn=1474-6700 |access-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240708214204/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14746700.2019.1670968 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cusack |first=Carole M. |date=2019 |title=D. W. Pasulka, American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/asrr201910263 |journal=Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=258–259 |doi=10.5840/asrr201910263 |s2cid=213855394 |issn=1946-0538 |access-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240708214149/https://www.pdcnet.org/asrr/content/asrr_2019_0010_0002_0258_0259 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Jeffrey Kripal, chair of the Department of Religion at [[Rice University]], has said that "both the material and the mental dimensions [of UFOs] are incredibly important to get a sense of the full picture".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.rice.edu/news/2021/jeffrey-kripal-how-think-about-ufo-phenomenon |title=Jeffrey Kripal on how to think about the UFO phenomenon |last=Shilcutt |first=Katharine |date=30 June 2021 |publisher=Rice University News and Media Relations Team |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230213224448/https://news.rice.edu/news/2021/jeffrey-kripal-how-think-about-ufo-phenomenon |archive-date=13 February 2023}}</ref> As Adrian Horton writes "from ''[[The X-Files]]'' to ''[[Men in Black (franchise)|Men in Black]]'', ''[[Close Encounters of the Third Kind]]'' to ''[[Star Wars]]'' to [[Marvel Cinematic Universe|Marvel]], [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] has for decades provided an engrossing feedback loop for interest in the extraterrestrial: a reflection of our fears and capaciousness, whose ubiquitous popularity has in turn fueled more interest in UFOs as perennially compelling entertainment tropes not to be taken seriously". Horton observes that these "alien movies have generally reflected shifting cultural anxieties, from the existential terror of nuclear war to foreign enslavement to loss of bodily control". American entertainment has explored both "hostile aliens" as well as the "benevolent, world-expanding encounters" seen in films such as [[Steven Spielberg]]'s ''[[Close Encounters of the Third Kind]]'' and ''[[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jun/25/how-pop-culture-has-shaped-our-understanding-of-aliens |title=How pop culture has shaped our understanding of alien |last=Shilcutt |first=Adrian |date=25 June 2021 |publisher=Guardian News |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230605002338/https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jun/25/how-pop-culture-has-shaped-our-understanding-of-aliens |archive-date=5 June 2023 }}</ref> In her research on the relationship of media to UFO beliefs, [[Diana Walsh Pasulka]], a professor of philosophy and religion at the University of North Carolina, says that what is seen on a screen, "if it conforms to certain criteria, is interpreted as real, even if it is not real and even if one knows it is not real" and that "screen images embed themselves in one's brain and memories" in ways that "can determine how one views one's past and even determine one's future behaviors".<ref>{{cite book |last=Pasulka |first=D.W. |title=American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology |isbn=978-0190692889 |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2019 |pages=82 |quote=the standard assumption that the UFO mythos was born in the year 1947}}</ref>

===Notable cases and incidents===
{{See also|List of reported UFO sightings}}

====Britain====
* The [[Rendlesham Forest incident]] was a series of reported sightings of unexplained lights near Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, England in late December 1980 which became linked with claims of UFO landings.

====France====

The most notable cases of UFO sightings in France include:
* the [[Valensole UFO incident]] in 1965.
* the [[Trans-en-Provence Case]] in 1981.
[[File:Roswell Daily Record. July 8, 1947. RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region. Full front page.jpg|thumb|A [[Roswell incident|Roswell]] Daily Record on July 8, 1947, reporting a UFO case]]

====United States====
* In the [[Kecksburg UFO incident]], Pennsylvania (1965), residents reported seeing an object crash in the area.
* In 1975, [[Travis Walton (UFO witness)|Travis Walton]] claimed to be abducted by aliens. The movie ''[[Fire in the Sky]]'' (1993) was based on this event, but greatly embellished the original account.
* The "[[Phoenix Lights]]" on March 13, 1997

====Famous hoaxes====
{{See also|List of UFO-related hoaxes}}
* The [[Maury Island incident]]
* [[George Adamski]], over the space of two decades, made various claims about his meetings with telepathic aliens from nearby planets. He claimed photographs of the [[far side of the Moon]] taken by the Soviet lunar probe [[Luna 3]] in 1959 were fake, and that there were cities, trees and snow-capped mountains on the far side of the Moon. Among copycats was a shadowy British figure named [[Cedric Allingham]].
* Ed Walters, a building contractor, in 1987 allegedly perpetrated a hoax in [[Gulf Breeze, Florida]]. Walters claimed at first having seen a small UFO flying near his home and took some photographs of the craft. Walters reported and documented a series of UFO sightings over a period of three weeks and took several photographs. These sightings became famous, and are collectively referred to as the [[Gulf Breeze UFO incident]]. Three years later, in 1990, after the Walters family had moved, the new residents discovered a model of a UFO poorly hidden in the attic that bore an undeniable resemblance to the craft in Walters' photographs. Most investigators, like the forensic photo expert William G. Hyzer,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Posner |first=Gary P. |date=July 1992 |title=The Gulf Breeze 'UFOs' |journal=Tampa Bay Sounding |publisher=Tampa Bay Mensa |location=Seminole, FL |access-date=July 13, 2013 |url=http://www.gpposner.com/Gulf_Breeze.html |archive-date=July 3, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703032208/http://www.gpposner.com/Gulf_Breeze.html |url-status=live }}</ref> now consider the sightings to be a hoax.