STARGAZERS have reportedly witnessed other-worldly activity here on Earth – some even claim to have been abducted.
Check out the most thought-provoking reported alien encounters and abductions.
The term “flyer saucer” originated in 1947 and was the result of a reporter misquoting a pilot who believed he saw a UFO.
Kenneth Arnold, the misquoted pilot, said the aircraft he claimed to see had wings.
But just six weeks later, the words “flying saucer” were headlining newspapers covering the Roswell Incident, a famous alleged alien spaceship crash.
Both Betty and Barney underwent intense hypnosis trials to try to recall just what happened on the night of September 19, 1961.
A light had been trailing their car along a remote road in New Hampshire – when they arrived home, neither of them could remember a two-hour period during the drive.
The Hills’ experience inspired many of the tropes seen in alien-centric science fiction.
“A kind of green light appeared in the western sky. This was right after sundown. It got brighter and brighter,” Carter wrote in a report to a non-governmental UFO-hunting agency.
“And then it eventually disappeared. It didn’t have any solid substance to it, it was just a very peculiar looking light.”
Carter was blunt about what he had seen during his presidential campaign and promised to publicize “every piece of information” the United States had about UFOs.
As president, he backed off his vow citing military and national security.
The Rendlesham Forest Incident
Witnesses described a “strange glowing object” with a “pulsing red light on top”.
Several people have been credited with pranking the Air Force patrolmen stationed in Woodbridge.
Kevin Conde, a former US military policeman who claimed he organized the hoax, said “It wasn’t a UFO, it was a 1979 Plymouth Volare [a standard-issue American police car]”.
Despite debunkers analyzing and pranksters coming forward, witnesses still stand by their beliefs.
The Rendlesham Forest Incident has been immortalized with a trail and model UFO erected where the original was reportedly seen.
USS Theodore Roosevelt
Pilots taking off from the USS Roosevelt reported almost colliding with a mysterious object off the coast of Virginia.
The New York Times reported that the pilots were disturbed by the near misses – they reasoned that related military and government programs would know they were training there and would not use the space for drone testing.
The Times story concluded with the Roosevelt and the pilots shipping off to the Persian Gulf to engage in the conflict in the Middle East.
This year, Nasa commissioned a nine-month study of open-source information on UFOs.
Recent hearings and reports indicate the US government views unidentified aircraft through the lens of national security and operates with the utmost seriousness.
