The Most Curious Cases of Extraterrestrial Encounters

Species of life alien to our own are definitely out there. How could this not be the case? With billions of stars just like our sun, in a universe that has been around for at least 14 billion years, it’s statistically impossible to imagine Earthlings are the only sentient life force. Aliens exist. Proving it is the work of UFOlogists all over the world. Are you a skeptic too? Well, according to the most recent study, you might be alone. About 45 percent of all Americans believe in the existence of intelligent alien civilizations in the universe. If you’re arguing that Americans aren’t known for their intelligence, you should know that one of the world’s most preeminent geniuses, the late Stephen Hawking, an American physicist, was instrumental in launching a program called SETI (search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence).

With help from Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, they built the giant SETI laboratory at UC Berkeley to research this statistical reality. And the Chinese, with all their ancient knowledge, have opened the world’s largest radar facility to listen for signs “out there". Furthermore, almost half the global population believes in the existence of extra-Earthly intelligent life. The survey of 24 countries found 47 percent of Earthlings believe. And, finally, it could be that Russians know something, because 67 percent of the Russian population believe that aliens exist. Direct evidence is the most convincing factor. Believe it or not, some people have either been abducted, witnessed extraterrestrial life or experienced phenomena that has no other Earthly explanation. Their stories are worth the perusal, if only for amusement.

Life On Mars

There’s no life on Mars. But that didn’t stop nearly a century of speculation and belief after it was discovered that the planet showed signs of martian life—large canals, valleys, canyons—carved into the planet’s surface. Theoretically, water, the main ingredient for life, caused the canyon-like formations. The word “martian” arrived in our vocabulary during the 1400s, derived from the Romans who admired the red planet and the very human god it represented to them. Imagine a stately Roman nobleman flattered by being called martian—like or resembling their revered god of war. The word as we know it today, referring to beings living on Mars, increased in use in the 1900s after Percival Lowell, a wealthy aristocrat who championed the field of astronomy, tried to convince the world that life on Mars exists. He went about this task by writing articles in such publications as The Atlantic, proclaiming that the canals on Mars were the work of an intelligent species, digging with their Martian tools. His theories held influence. Popular imagination of next-door planet Mars populated with Martian neighbors peaked in the 1970s after images of the planet began coming back from Mars Rover showing barren, lifeless and dry landscapes.

While a fraction of his legacy is crack-pot science, Lowell also left us a state-of-the-art telescope that he commissioned and built in 1895. The Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona is still in operation today. It goes without saying, he employed the telescope to prove his theories about intelligent life on Mars at the end of the nineteenth century, and early into the twentieth century, which he would not live to see disproved. Nor would he see the lasting influence he contributed to science fiction, having inspired H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Another late-nineteenth century wealthy and forward-thinking pioneer was Nikola Tesla. Tesla studied signals he believed were coming from Mars and designed a device in order to reciprocate communication. It was in 1899 when he detected those cosmic rays. And, though they may not have come from Mars, his discovery made him the founder of radio and remote-control technology, putting him ahead of his time amongst those who would go on to create programs like SETI.

Scientist Knows What Martians Look Like

Another early 1900s crack-pot scientific theory about Martian life came from Edmond Perrier, Director of the French Botanical Society. Perrier insisted plants and flowers thrived on Mars and supported a Martian population. And he knew what they looked like. Well, he wasn’t exactly sure, but he did say they were probably, in stature, like “the giant Scandinavians,” presumably robust and tall-growing, the result of a fertile planet which receives twice the amount of daylight sun rays as Earth. Perrier told the New York Times in 1912 that, besides being much larger than Earthlings, Martians would “[. . .] have enormous noses and large protruding eyes. Their eyes are probably blue and their hair is almost white. They have no necks, no waists, very prominent ears, and large heads and bodies, supported by very thin legs and very small feet.”

Perrier also believed they would have evolved superior intelligence, with a significantly more advanced civilization. In sharp contrast with H.G. Wells’ sci-fi dystopian portrayal of Martians, Perrier’s version has resonated with and influenced large swaths of pop culture as well, depicting aliens as we know them today. They’re benign and altruistic, with those large, eponymous map-pin shaped heads—much like E.T. It seems to me, if visiting aliens did possess human intelligence, they’d come to colonize, expand their empire and extract all the Earth’s resources they find most valuable. The biggest barrier is travel time. How can aliens travel from a billion light years away? (Are we there yet?) Just like the oceans used to keep civilizations on Earth separated, until the Age of Exploration led to the discovery of every single non-Western civilization, so is space like a massive sea insulating us from any alien civilizations across the space/time continuum. Or is it?

Roswell

The most high-profile Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) sighting and possible alien visitation occurred in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. It was an incident that turned into a legend, and a legend that is so enduring it has permeated popular culture. From Mulder and Scully referencing Roswell on the X-Files to a new television series called Roswell based on the town’s mythological status that premiered on the CW in February, everyone’s heard of Roswell even if they don’t know where it is or what happened there.   Officially, no one knows what happened there. But something happened. The debris from the collision of the UFO into the ground was collected. The rancher and his young son who found the wreckage had not seen the green streak of light nor the impact, but they gathered up the debris, took it home and even attempted restructuring it. When they came across the “bright wreckage,” they found pieces of reflective tinfoil, rubber strips, and “rather tough paper and sticks” leading them to attempt to restructure it into a kite. It was not a weather balloon, the rancher insisted, as he had seen those sorts of remnants in the past. The official report from the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) claimed it was a weather balloon. The wreckage contained no sign of metal, but a considerable amount of scotch tape that had been used. Also, lettering was found on some of the parts.

The Roswell Daily Record shared this information a week after the incident, publishing a press release from the public information officer at the RAAF. The press release stated that they had recovered a “flying disc” that crashed on a Roswell ranch. It wouldn’t be for 30 years until the UFO mythology of the event became a mainstream preoccupation fueled by The Roswell Daily Record’s mesmerizing headline, “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Regions.” UFOlogists, and other curious people, began excavating the incident’s mystery which had also been fecundated, in large part, by the military’s choice to retract its original report and call it a weather balloon instead. It’s hard to ignore that. Now, we’ll never know. However, it’s fully debunked in a 1997 government report which includes many Roswellian-related declassified United States Air Force documents called, The Roswell Report: Case Closed. The truth is out there.

Australian Encounters

Concern over UFOs hit international level in the 1950s when the Australian Flying Saucer Investigating Committee published a list of 55 UFO sightings in 1954. Australia’s Minister for External Affairs, R.G. Casey, responded by writing a letter to The Advertiser newspaper, publishing the existence of the report, announcing, “I have lists of the dates over the last several years on which people have reported having seen ‘flying saucers’ in Australia and have compared them with the dates on which the earth passes through the principal (sic) meteoric showers. There appears to be a noticeable relationship between these two sets of dates.” Mysteries solved. Case closed. Or not. In 1966 two incidents put Australia on the UFOlogist’s map. The first UFO sighting occurred on January 19 by Gerorge Pedley who told reporters, “Had anyone asked me five days ago if I believed in flying saucers I’d have laughed and thought they were nuts. But now I know better.” Pedley, a Tully, Queensland farmer, heard a hissing sound “like air escaping from a tyre,” looked up, and saw a swiftly spinning saucer-shaped disk, rising about 30 feet, then spinning off at tremendous speed. It disappeared within seconds. He said the grey object was about 25 feet wide. When Pedley drove his tractor over to where he’d seen it hovering and blast off from, he found a large, round impression in the swamp grasses and reeds, as if the craft had landed there. Pedley’s description, calling it “a nest” stuck. Henceforth, UFO lore chronicles it as the Tully “saucer nest” incident

Another close encounter occurred in the spring of that year, in Melbourne, Victoria. Westall High School science teacher Andrew Greenwood and many students reported seeing a UFO fly silently over their school. The phenomena occurred on April 6, 1966. Science teacher Andrew Greenwood said it looked like a silvery grey greenish disk with a slight purple hue, about twice the size of an average car. They watched it descend into an area behind the school. The incident was investigated by the Victoria Flying Saucer Research Society and the Phenomena Research Victoria. Both organizations determined it to be an unexplained case. The 1950s were a hotbed of UFO and other, other-Earthly-intelligence interest. From the farmer in the field experiencing alien activity to national agencies researching and studying the data, UFOlogy was taking root. Perhaps, Cold War psychology and lingering WWII fears gave it wind. Some theories say alien encounters increased due to WWII nuclear weapons activity—serving, as if, strobe lights announcing our presence to the outer universe. Donald Keyhoe, a former naval aviator for the Marine Corps held that view. After an aviation injury while serving abroad sent him back to the states, he was appointed Chief of Information for the precursor agency to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Ironically, Keyhoe introduced a substantial amount of legitimacy to UFOlogy after he wrote a book called, The Flying Saucers Are Real in 1950. He felt it was important for U.S. national security to track the incidents. In 1956, Keyhoe co-founded the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) which pushed for congressional hearings and investigation into UFOs. During an interview on CBS in 1958, he said that a U.S. Congressional committee, was looking at evidence that “will absolutely prove that the UFOs are machines under intelligent control,” at which point, CBS cut the audio portion of the live broadcast.

A French Encounter

Besides the many UFO sightings in Australia of 1954, France reported an inexplicable incident. Aimé Bousard, a 47-year-old farmer from La Vaureille, France, took off on his bike around 10:30 p.m. on October 26, 1954. Biking to town, he approached a place called La Badière and saw something on the side of the road resembling a man. At a closer view, it appeared to point “two powerful lamps projecting a very intense light, of light blue color” at him. Bousard said the being also had two green lights, weaker than the first two, emitting from each side of its head.

When it stood up, Bousard estimated the being was about five-feet three-inches tall, and, upon standing, Brousard reported, it caused “a pressure that I cannot describe,” like, “an extremely violent breath that projected me on [to] the other side of the road.” The paralyzing lamps left him frozen for about 10 minutes, unable to call out for help. After the being disappeared, he felt intense pain in his leg and right hand. The pain, caused by the landing after the strange force launched him across the road, was noted by the authorities, pointing out that the bike was in good condition. The authorities also found strange markings in the shape of a 28” diameter leaving evidence of recently agitated earth nearby the La Badière location.

The New Hampshire Highway Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill

In 1961, this particular incident, the New Hampshire highway encounter, would be classified in Project Blue Book, the third of three secret U.S. Air Force investigations into UFO activity. At any rate, the “Hill Abduction” caught the attention of government and medical professionals, not to mention American imagination. Betty and Barney Hill were driving down a New Hampshire highway on the nineteenth of September in 1961. It was just before midnight when they pulled over to examine a strange light in the distant sky. The next thing they knew, they were about 35 miles down the road and several hours had elapsed. Betty reported the event to Major Paul Henderson who was stationed at nearby Pease Air Force Base. Major Pease found two separate Air Force radar detections of unidentified flying objects the same night, just before midnight, which supported her claim. The sighting and testimony were filed in the then classified Air Force Project Blue Book study, its first fully documented sighting.

The record got stranger. Pulling over with anticipation to witness a satellite, a rather new invention in 1961, the couple instead saw a pancake-shaped metal aircraft with windows around the circumference. The flying saucer also possessed advanced flight ability and could hover and move in any direction at will. Barney freaked, screaming, “They’re going to capture us!” Jumping back in the car, they feared there was no way their ’57 Chevy Bel Air could outpace it. By the time they time-lapsed to their destination, their watches stopped working and their clothes were inexplicably torn and soiled. When nightmares plagued Betty, she began hypnosis therapy in 1964. With the help of a psychiatrist, the couple, in separate hypnotic states, revealed coordinating stories about grey beings with oversized eyes claiming to be from the Zeta Reticuli star system. Both recalled being abducted into the pancake-shaped metal disk and being examined, after which the aliens erased their memories. The examination included long needles probing their navels and other strange accounts. In 1965, the story went international after the Boston Traveller newspaper headlined a frontpage story with this title, “UFO Chiller: Did THEY Seize Couple?” The UPI picked up the story the next day, injecting enigmatic excitement directly into worldwide UFO folklore. Betty became a celebrity in UFO circles and their story seeped deep into the den of American consciousness.

International Space Station Sighting

In 2005 while Astronaut Leroy Chiao was commanding the International Space Station, he went out for a spacewalk with cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov and he noticed five lights which seemed to be crafts flying in formation. Chiao says he keeps an open mind but doesn’t believe any tangible evidence of alien encounters exist. “If there is life out there that’s so much more advanced than we are and they know either how to travel great distances in short amounts of time, or they’re able to come from a parallel universe to ours, why don’t they just come and show themselves?” Chiao ponders, with no explanation for the phenomenon he witnessed.

Fellow cosmonaut Sharipov missed the lights that whizzed by, but a former NASA engineer searched satellite images of the evening of Chiao’s sighting, and he found an image that fits the description.

The Lonnie Zamora Incident

Like Roswell, this incident also occurred in New Mexico. In 1964, on the evening of April 24th, Socorro County Sergeant Lonnie Zamora witnessed what appeared to be a local dynamite mine shack exploding. Leaving off a high-speed pursuit of a reckless driver in order to investigate the apparent mine explosion, he discovered a priceless mine of UFO lore instead. His sighting became the most detailed extraterrestrial investigation to date, including immediate examination by the FBI, the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force. Adding to the enigma, The Air Force’s Project Blue Book inquiry came up empty handed, officially listing the explanation of the case as “unknown.” As officer Zamora approached the source of the explosion, it looked as if it may have been an overturned car. But no. As he got closer, he witnessed a white oval, or egg-shaped, round, whitish, and shiny aluminum-like object with four legs propping it.

He also described two smallish people dressed in white standing next to it, which seemed normal, until the object lifted off from the ground and slowly rose away with a loud roaring that lasted for about ten seconds. He said three rocket-like engines jutting from the belly of the craft produced a bright orange and blue funnel-shaped, smokeless flame. And then, Sergeant Zamora told investigators, “It disappeared as it went over the mountain. It had no flame, [smoke or noise] whatsoever, as it was traveling over the ground,” A burnt spot in the desert shrub and dirt was left behind. His story was corroborated by separate tourists’ accounts of an oval object and bluish flame with a loud roar. Within days AP and UPI reporters showed up to Socorro, New Mexico and the story made worldwide headlines. Eventually, Officer Zamora became so fed up with his celebrity status and media scrutiny by UFOlogists and the curious he cut ties with them. The good news is you can visit the site courtesy of Socorro County Chamber of Commerce. The memorial includes a rock walkway around one of the suspected landing sites.

Britain’s Roswell

By the 1980, Britons could at last boast that extraterrestrials had, indeed, found a finer location to grace their presence. Suffolk, England. It was Christmas night, late, stretching into the 26th of December, when several U.S. servicemen stationed at a former Cold War Air Force base (fodder for theories of conspiracy if you ask me) detected a strange phenomenon. A bright light in the sky caught their attention. They described it as a metallic, glowing object with colored lights. Immediately heading into Suffolk’s Rendlesham Forest to investigate it, the servicemen reported that “the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy.” As they approached, they thought they saw something foreign move through the trees. One of the servicemen called the sighting a “craft of unknown origin.”

The next morning, they went back out to investigate what would be, in perpetuity, known as the Rendlesham Forest Incident, the area of the Forest where the encounter had occurred. They found burn marks, broken branches on nearby trees, and, significantly, three small impressions in a triangular pattern on the ground. The dirt from that clearing in the forest tested positive for radioactivity. The event was reported to the UK Ministry of Defense, who determined it posed no national security threat and, therefore, was not further investigated.

The Travis Walton UFO Incident

American forestry worker, Travis Walton, was abducted on November 5, 1975 from Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest while on duty. The logger wasn’t found for five days. Newspapers reported his missing person story. And he wasn’t alone. He and six coworkers spotted a saucer-shaped object hovering and making a high-pitched buzzing noise a little over a hundred feet out. Walton was the only crew member who hopped out of the truck to get a closer look. His fellow workers, frightened, drove off, abandoning Walton.

Waking on the side of the road with the flying saucer ascending into the sky, all he remembered upon initially approaching the UFO was a beam of blue-green light that knocked him unconscious. The next thing he recalled was coming to in a sterile environment atop an examination table. Three short, bald creatures were observing him. His attempts to fight them off were met with a human wearing a helmet bringing him to three other humans who put a plastic mask over his face. He remembers nothing else apart from waking up on the side of the dirt road. On the upside, The National Enquirer awarded him a $5,000 award for providing their best UFO case of the year.

A UK Artist’s Alien Encounters

Many people capitalize on their encounters with self-promoting media attention, and some make stories up toward that end. In 2014 Lloyd Canning told the British press that he was abducted by aliens in 2005. He said he saw a “massive” spaceship hovering over his car, after which he began receiving ideas projected directly into his head. He said, “I have had these crazy visions that just come over me.

When they happen it’s like I don’t have a choice—I just have to paint them.” He went on to say, “I think I was chosen because I was an artist, and they know they could channel through me.” In total, he claimed to be visited by six different UFOs with beings who he imagined might have come to visit through wormholes from a parallel universe or as time travelers from the future. A month later Canning posted the truth on his Facebook page, it’s out there. He lied. Just kidding.

A (Very) Close Brazilian Encounter

Some abduction stories are more bizarre than others. This one ventures into creepy territory. It took place in 1957 when this Brazilian farmer claimed to be abducted by extraterrestrials. Antônio Vilas-Boas was 23 years old and working as a farmer near Sāo Francisco de Sales, ploughing fields atop a tractor. It was October 16th and he was working at night to avoid the daytime heat. Suddenly he saw what looked like a red star approaching and growing larger until it was close enough to tell it was an egg-shaped craft with a rotating red light inside a cupola topping the craft. Boas was afraid. He attempted to flee on his tractor.

When its engine seized and failed to restart, he took to foot, but wasn’t fast enough. He was seized by five-foot-high humanoids wearing grey coveralls and helmets. They abducted him into their spaceship, sickened him with gases spraying out of the walls, and they drew blood samples from his chin. During the abduction a strange woman with cat-like features and white hair indicated, quite clearly, according to Boas, that she would raise her human-alien hybrid on her home planet. He claimed a gesture she made with her hands from her belly, upward, made him certain of the communication. His testimony included specific logistical descriptions about that exceedingly close encounter, and he stuck to his story his entire life.

The Andreasson Family Alien Abduction

Betty Andreasson and her family were apparently visited by extraterrestrials on the evening of January 25, 1967. The lights in their South Ashburnham, Massachusetts home began to flicker, the power went out and Betty said a reddish light from outside flooded the kitchen. Her dad peeked out and saw five smallish beings approaching with a hopping, floating motion. They had wide eyes, a slit for a mouth (unneeded as they only communicate telepathically) and large, bulb-like heads. Dressed in blue gowns, with three-fingered hands protruding from their sleeves, they levitated around the room examining Betty’s family members who had been put under a trance.

Betty claims she was boarded upon their ship, taken to their mother-ship and physically examined with foreign equipment for at least four hours. Subsequently, Betty stated that the visitors, who telepathically communicated with her, affirmed their mutual love for Jesus Christ. The beings, according to her, were angels who also let her know that Jesus would soon return to save humanity from an approaching apocalypse. They warned her that she would face many difficult trials but assured her that love would guide her through. Betty considered the experience a religious awakening. The aliens’ projections were not far off. Her husband would disappear, and her two sons would die in a car accident. However, Betty remarried another man, who also claims to have experienced an abduction.

World Chess President Abduction Story

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, also the former president of the Russian republic of Kalmykia, shared his abduction story, quite frankly, in a 2001 radio interview. Speaking about an experience that occurred on the 17th of September in 1997, Ilyumzhinov said, “They came in a flying saucer, picked me up, and I spent a whole day in outer space.”

He claimed he was abducted from his apartment. He said they were wearing yellow spacesuits and provided him with one. Ilyumzhinov also said, “We went off to their interplanetary ship. . .”. The enormous ship was so large that one wing was as spacious as a football field. It traveled to another planet and retrieved some sort of equipment. Interestingly, he thinks that the game of chess was originated from without our planet, possibly by aliens. When he requested, they accommodate his schedule and bring him back to Earth, they immediately complied. He came back with one question: “Why did they take me?” He claims to have had three witnesses: His driver, his minister and his assistant. They were all in the apartment at the time. One Russian official who took it seriously wanted a state inquiry. Other Russian officials feared Ilyumzhinov may have given the aliens secret information. Russians are believers!

The Dreamy Draw Dam Incident

Six months after Roswell, another strange sighting out in the vast Southwest desert was reported. There have been more than 3,000 recorded sightings in Arizona, alone, since 1950, but this one is peculiar. The incident took place just north of Phoenix in early October 1947. Not only was a UFO supposedly sighted crashing into a desert mesa just off Highway 51, its crashed craft discovered among the desert shrub the next day, but the remains of alien beings were also allegedly recovered! UFO lore says the remains were collected and frozen until Army officials retrieved them. We’ll have to wait in suspense until the Army releases the evidence.

Alien conspiracy theory has it that the government built the Dreamy Draw Dam in order to bury the evidence of the UFO and its extraterrestrial passengers. Conventional conspiracy theory contends that the dam, not built until 1973, was not a plot to cover up a UFO visit but built to prevent flooding into local neighborhoods. And, since the site is located on an old mercury mine, some theorize, prolonged effects of mercury on the nervous system might have caused hallucinations, like seeing UFOs and its inhabitants preserved. A group-psychosis explanation cannot be overruled in some of these cases!

The Phoenix Lights Phenomenon

UFO sightings from the Phoenix Lights incident, as it’s known in UFOlogy circles, was so compelling that 20th Century FOX produced a sci-fi film about it. Released in August of 2018, Phoenix Forgotten used real footage of the 1997 event to dramatize the story. Though the event is indelibly called “Phoenix Lights,” it was witnessed by observers in three states. People in Arizona, Nevada and the Mexican state of Sonora reported seeing a surprising show of lights on that March night in 1997. At the 2017 International UFO Congress in Scottsdale, Arizona some witnesses reported succumbing to a temporary amnesia following the sighting. However, UFO researcher, John Mann, from MUFON rhetorically stated, “Do we have evidence that it was an extraterrestrial event? No,” answered Mann, director of MUFON’s Arizona chapter, “We have evidence that it was an extremely bizarre event. We can’t put a label on it other than it was an anomaly.”

The event is significant because it was witnessed by hundreds of people. Even then Arizona Governor, Fife Symington, saw it!  What they saw was a boomerang-shaped, triangular formation of lights passing over the desert area. One person said the lights were all red, with the exception of a predominate white light at the nose of the formation. When former Governor Symington admitted seeing the craft in 2007, saying, “It remains a great mystery,” he also said that when he asked the military what it was, they responded, “no comment.” The incident remains unexplained.

Project Blue Book

Project Blue Book’s mystery would become a pop cult, sci-fi marvel. The enigmatic government program was featured on the fascinating ’90s niche sensation, Twin Peaks television series. Additionally, there’s a new American TV drama series called Project Blue Book based on real-life Project Blue Book cases. It aired for the very first time on History in January of this year! Project Blue Book is the third of three secret U.S. Air Force investigations into UFO activity. The first was called Project Sign which was an active study of UFO reports in 1948. Its conclusions, published in 1949, stated there was not enough evidence to determine the origins of objects that were unidentified. The files were opened to the public in 1961. Project Grudge, a similar study, following Project Sign, was only active in 1949.

In 1952, Project Blue Book, named after college testing booklets, would become the most significant study, running from 1952 until 1969 when funding was stripped. Its findings reported no threat by extraterrestrials, and no detection of extraterrestrial vehicles. It also determined that no technologies beyond “modern scientific knowledge” were discovered. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) memo stated that reports of UFOs would “continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedure designed for [Project Blue Book’s] purpose.” No one knows how many investigations into the paranormal, outside of national security threats, remain classified. Of course, there’s also the CIA and Pentagon research, a 2007-2012 “Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program,” pushed by UFO-obsessed Harry Reid, former Senate majority leader. Suspicions speculate that the program is still secretly active.

Flying Saucers From Mars

In 1955, Flying Saucers From Mars, a wildly popular book written under the name of Cedric Allingham, captured worldwide imagination. The author, who claimed to be an amateur astronomer and birdwatcher, told a story of a flying saucer sighting in 1954 and his direct contact with its captain, a human-looking Martian. Communicating via mental telepathy, the alien relayed its history, that it had come from Mars and had visited the moon and Venus. Blurry photos of the Martian and its saucer was pictured in his book.

Flying saucer stories were immensely popular in the fifties with dark images of alien spaceships often plastering front pages of tabloid media. Allingham’s book hooked public attention instantly. The only catch was, Allingham was not a real person, but rather, a created persona by astronomer and prankster Patrick Moore. The prank was apparently excellently executed. A hoodwinked science fiction book reviewer gushed, “I can say this: as a book, Allingham’s “Flying Saucers From Mars” is by a long, long way the best written, sanest, most unimpassioned and convincing that I have seen to date [. . .].” Going on, “It has none of the occultism that is making other Saucer treatises ridiculous.”

Water on Mars

The marks on Mars, canals, valleys, and canyons, were first detected by telescope in 1877 by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli. He called them “canali,” and his discovery suggested a possibility of life on Mars. However—let’s set the record straight—canals were not dug by intelligent life on Mars!! That theory fed the Martian craze that swept over the 20th century with help from science enthusiasts like Percival, Lowell and Tesla. Over a hundred years later, Mars Rover, NASA’s exploration bot, found evidence of a dry creek. Yes. The surface of Mars once flowed with water.

A few years later, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter found actual water! “This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water—albeit briny—is flowing today on the surface of Mars,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. To be clear, neither of NASA’s bots have detected Martian civilizations.

MUFON

If you need to report a UFO sighting, check in on the latest UFO activity or access in-depth research about UFO activity, Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) is your connection. Established in 1969, at the close of Project Blue Book, MUFON is the oldest UFO research and investigation organization. It exists for UFOlogy purposes, which are “the scientific study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity.” If you’re interested you may tune in to MUFON TV, it’s newly available online and through Amazon Prime.

As a research organization, MUFON relies more on a scientific approach to understanding extraterrestrial activity, however, more than a few members openly believe they possess psychic ability. The paranoid complain that MUFON has been “heavily infiltrated” by the NSA and the CIA in efforts to suppress evidence of extraterrestrial New World Order activity.

The Stanford, Kentucky Files

The very first UFO sighting probably occurred in 1440 B.C. in Ancient Egypt. Fiery disks were reported floating over the skies, according to the scribes of the pharaoh Thutmose III, however, these ancient records may be in dispute in what can only be imagined is an NSA cover up attempt. In 1973, these three women witnessed a bright red light appear from above on a cold, January night around eleven at night. Mona Stafford, Louise Smith, and Elaine Thomas all claim to have been abducted.

The women had gone out to dinner at a nearby town to celebrate Mona’s birthday and were returning to their hometown when a beam of bluish-white, lighted fog shot into their ’67 Chevy Nova. When the fog filled the car, they recall being abducted into an enormous metallic disk with a dome on top and red lights encircling it. The next thing they knew, they were back inside the car with burn marks on their skin and no memory of the time in between. The clock showed 1:20 a.m. when they arrived home, two hours later than the 35-minute drive should have taken. The story hit the headlines the next day after the women reported it to the police and the Navy. The case gained wide interest as each of the three women suffered future health problems which were determined to have originated from the UFO encounter.

Texas Man Escapes UFO

A few days prior to this man’s harrowing escape, a large UFO was spotted near the Dyess Air Force Base in Texas. Spectators claimed they had seen multiple orbs with pulsating lights. The objects reportedly lined up in two rows and then disappeared. A man from Texas reported seeing these lights and its ship a year before. He says he tried to shoot a laser at the UFO to see how it would respond, but the craft flew off. This time he was prepared.

He claims to have gotten these images of the UFO as it was trying to abduct him! He believes it may have come back to get him for shooting a laser at it. What we have here, is, supposedly, photographic evidence of an abduction attempt. All doubt must be rejected.

The Buff Ledge Incident

Two camp counselors of Buff Ledge girls camp sat on a dock at Lake Champlain. The Vermont sun was setting, the day’s camp duties were completed, and Michael Lapp and Janet Cornell were just hanging out. Admiring the bright light of Venus and complimenting the setting sun, they wondered if Venus seemed extra bright that night. [Enter suspenseful sci-fi sound-effect music.] “Wow! Venus is falling!” Michael shouted. It looked like the planet was growing larger, approaching the teenagers. As it approached it flattened out. They watched as three smaller lights seemed to emanate from the bright flattened object. The teens, astonished, watched as the three objects zipped about, as if performing a show to impress them.

The ships zipped into a triangle formation and two retreated. The existing UFO passed over Michael and Janet, disappearing and appearing, as if playing hide-and-seek. When it got close enough, a domed, clear cupula revealed two small creatures. Michael said they were hairless with long necks and over-sized heads. Their wide eyes stretched around the sides of their heads. When the beings began communicating with sign language and indicating they would be taking the teens with them, Michael recalls screaming, “We don’t want to go!” A beam targeting Michael and Janet triggered Michael to grab Janet and throw her and himself to safety, landing on the dock. The beam of light was so intense it felt as if they were floating and illuminated their flesh so that their bone structure was visible. At the conclusion of the experience they sat where they began, staring at the beautiful light of Venus.

The Jason Andrews Abduction Story

In 1995 when Jason Andrews was almost 12 years old, he told his mom that aliens have been abducting him from his bed at night. He said, “It’s always the light that comes first, then I see the tall one rise up at the foot of the bed.” Jason went on to say that others appear, smaller ones, everywhere. Meanwhile, he can’t speak or move, and is left to stare at them in that state. After breaking down and sobbing, “I hate them. I hate them,” he described the abduction. “They take me to an operating theater, like at the hospital. It’s all white and shiny. Sometimes it’s a circular room with a metal floor. It’s always cold. They’re there. The big one touches me but I don’t feel it, like as if I’ve had an anesthetic.” Turning to his mom, asking if she thought he was making it up, he was surprised to hear her say, “No.”

How could she? When Jason turned four, his mom witnessed his first near-abduction. It was a sweltering July afternoon in 1987 when a deluge from the skies poured over the family’s cottage. Thunder crashed from every direction and a single streak of lightning struck. Instantly, the child began speaking in numbers and equations. Complex mathematical sequences were enunciated in perfect order. When the windows and doors began shaking, as if by an earthquake, Jason turned to his parents and older brother and stated, “They’re waiting for me. I have to go.” Dad clutched the child, preventing him from walking out into the maelstrom, and held him until the little guy came out of a shaking trance. Not only did his mom believe Jason, she wrote a book describing his experiences.

“Warbling” Martians Abduct Colonel H.G. Shaw

Colonel Shaw reached his hand out and touched one of the strange beings, which warbled instead of speaking. They were silky soft to the touch. Very tall and slender, the Martians stood 7 feet high. When Shaw touched one of the beings, it was so light he lifted it with little effort, saying, “I should judge that the specific gravity of the creature was less than an ounce.”

At this point, one of the creatures attempted to abduct Shaw after it received a signal from its leader. Unable to lift the human, even with the three aliens working together, they gave up and headed back to their ship. Shaw described their retreat as “not as you or I walk, but with a swaying motion, their feet only touching the ground at intervals of about fifteen feet.” And off they went, levitating with a springing motion into their ship, it quickly whisked them away. Colonel Shaw’s final analysis: “I have a theory, which, of course, is only a theory, that those we beheld were inhabitants of Mars, who have been sent to the Earth for the purpose of securing one of its inhabitants.”

The Mysterious Men in Black

Digging back into UFO lore to the 1950s, reports of men dressed in black, showing up at the properties of folks who had reported UFOs began to surface. For instance, a person who witnessed UFO activity or other extraterrestrial sightings and filed a report about it would then report that two men dressed in black suits, hats and sunglasses would show up at their house.

Arriving unannounced, these menacing men clad in black would pull up in a black car and interrogate the person about the otherworldly incident. Oftentimes, the shadowy men would depart with intimidating warnings and sinister threats regarding the discussion of UFO events. Were they covert agents? Alien collaborators? No one knew. Dr. Herbert Hopkins’ experience with a man in black in the 1970s is truly peculiar.

Dr. Hopkins’ Men in Black Encounter

Dr. Hopkins, a family physician from Maine, was also an early UFOlogist. It was an autumn evening in 1976 and he was investigating a recent UFO file. He took a call from a man who wanted to discuss the file claiming to be with a New Jersey UFO organization. Approving the request and setting the receiver back on its cradle, Dr. Hopkins was shocked that by the time he flipped the porch light on the man was approaching the doorstep, as if he had teleported. Dressed completely in black except for a white shirt, Dr. Hopkins said he looked like an undertaker.

He noticed the plastic-like complexion of the man lacked eyebrows and eyelashes. His body was completely bald. Speech was mechanical and monotone, “as if you were hearing it from a machine that could talk,” said Dr. Hopkins. Looking at its mouth, he noticed it was just a slit, like a coin slot, no lips. It told him to destroy all the information he had collected about the UFO case. Like a machine running low on battery, the creepy man-in-black’s speech slowed to a lagging staccato, stating, “My – energy – is – running – low – must – g0 – now – goodbye.” After it left, Dr. Hopkins destroyed the entire UFO file.

The Chiles-Whitted UFO File

It looked like a rocket. They witnessed the red streak for about 15 seconds. So, what did they see? Eastern Air Lines pilots, Clarence Chiles and John Whitted, reported that at 2:45 on the morning of July 24, 1948, they witnessed a glowing object pass by their airplane. They said it appeared to rise up into clouds before disappearing. Their testimony, regarding the details of the unidentified flying craft, differs in only one aspect.

Cruising over Montgomery, Alabama at about 5,000 feet, they both saw a wingless, torpedo-shaped craft about 100 feet long accelerate with a tremendous burst of flames. But, while Chiles claimed to spot a well-lit cockpit, Whitted did not see a cockpit, and instead thought he saw a line of rectangular windows. There was no discernable sound reported. The bright object was also witnessed by Air Force ground crews, as well as by their crew chief, at nearby Robins Air Force Base. These reports seemed to corroborate the viability of the event’s occurrence.

Project Sign’s Chiles-Whitted Investigation – “Interplanetary!”

The Chiles-Whitted incident is probably the most significant UFO report of the 1948 U.S. Air Force Project Sign study. As not just one, but two commercial airline pilots (who also both served in WWII) witnessed a UFO event, the incident was deemed legitimate. It was taken so seriously by one arm of the Air Force, who published the results in a classified file deep inside Project Sign, that they secretly issued the possible explanation of the sightings to have been an interplanetary spaceship—you read that correctly—Project Sign called the craft “Interplanetary.”

The study included detailed, hand-drawn diagrams of the UFO encounter. It caught the attention of Air Force intelligence also. For their part, a covert research effort focused on the plausibility of the pilots discovering a secret Soviet weapon or Soviet spy rockets. However, by 1959 these explanations were summarily ditched in favor of Project Blue Book’s determination: the event was caused by meteor activity.

Hilary Porter’s Abduction Stories

March 20 is Alien Abduction Day, and we wonder how Hilary Porter honors the annual day of recognition? Ms. Porter, a British citizen, says, “I have been an alien abductee all my life.” Her first visitation by aliens happened when she was just five years old. Her creature was reptilian in appearance and it simply appeared in front of her as she was playing in a field outside her house. She screamed and cried, but nothing could stop it from probing her body with a sharp instrument. She blacked out after the experience. Following that, she says she has been abducted too many times to count. In general, she wakes with a migraine following the abduction, and sometimes with marks on her body. She documents the wounds and all of her experiences.

Veering slightly off topic, American Hilary Clinton, said she is for opening up Area 51 files. Though she’s not as UFO-obsessed as her former colleague Harry Reid, Clinton is for wider government access to UFO files. If you call them UFO files, she will correct you, “It’s unexplained aerial phenomenon.” Reiterating, “U.A.P. That’s the latest nomenclature,” Clinton explained to Jimmy Kimmel during a 2016 interview.

Green Balls of Fire

This reoccurring, inexplicable cosmic event which was first detected in the Southwestern skies of the United States during the 1940s, found its way into Project Sign files. But it was so perplexing a new study was created just for the green fireball phenomena. They called it Project Twinkle. One of the reasons the green balls of fire were so concerning is that they tended to occur near sensitive military research and weapons sites like Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratory. The first person put on the case was astronomer and meteor expert Dr. Lincoln LaPaz. Meteors were ruled out. Dr. LaPaz hypothesized the events were artificial, perhaps secret Soviet reconnaissance activity.

The head of Project Sign, Dr. Joseph Kaplan and others concluded in 1949 that the phenomena were natural, though unknown. Secret conferences were held at Los Alamos for further study. In December of that year, Project Twinkle was established. The green fireballs were first witnessed in 1948 in the skies over New Mexico and near Las Vegas. On December 12, Dr. LaPaz actually witnessed a green ball of fire, noting that it moved too slowly to be a meteor and lacked any trailing sparks or dust clouds. Project Twinkle was discontinued in December of 1951. The green balls of fire were determined, absolutely, to be some sort of natural phenomena. Open the files!

The Amy Rylance Abduction

This harrowing abduction tale went down in 2001. It was Friday, the fifth of October, when Amy Rylance and her husband Keith Rylance stayed on-site at a winery under development in Tiaro, Queensland, Australia. They were staying in a trailer along with their business partner, Petra Heller. It was bedtime and they were all in their beds, except Amy, who had fallen asleep on the couch while watching TV. A storm in the area woke Petra, who was confused by a peculiar beam of light which was being projected into the trailer through a window.

What she saw next was unbelievable. Amy, yet asleep, with her body in that position, appeared to be lifted and carried out the window by the beam of light. Petra watched in horror as Amy’s body was taken from the couch and levitated out the window. In a panic, Petra screamed. Keith woke, but not in time to see the source of the light. Petra fainted momentarily as she witnessed a disk-shaped UFO hovering and emanating a beam of light. Outside, Amy was nowhere to be found. Petra and Keith called the police.

Amy Rylance’s Ordeal

The police finally showed up about an hour and a half later, obviously very skeptical about the emergency call for a UFO abduction. While they were there, a call came in from the Mackay hospital, nearly 500 miles from Tiaro. Amy had been found at a gas station. Having woken up in a copse of trees, she wandered around until she found the light of the gas station and went for help. When they found her she was dehydrated and distressed. She was checked into the hospital and seen by a doctor.

What she recalls from the abduction ordeal is waking up alone in an illuminated rectangular room. She was lying on a bench while a male voice told her she would not be harmed if she remained calm. The man was tall and had a black mask covering his face. Her next recollection is waking on the ground among the trees. Strange marks were found on her heels and thighs. Also, her hair had inexplicably grown almost an inch in those short hours.

Peter Khoury’s Visitations

Another abduction story from Australia comes from Peter Khoury who insists he was visited for the first time in 1988. Khoury was actually born in Lebanon but moved to Australia in 1973. He met his wife, Vivian, in 1981. In February of 1988, he and his wife witnessed an extraordinarily odd display of moving lights. A few months later, in July, Peter experienced an unsettling phenomenon while lying in bed. Something grabbed his ankles, he felt suddenly numb, as if paralyzed, but remained conscious. It gets stranger.

Three to four diminutive hooded figures appeared next to his bed. Communicating telepathically with him, one being told him not to be afraid as they began to insert a long needle into his head. He blacked out. The next morning Vivian noticed dried blood on the side of his head. In 1992 Peter had an even more bizarre visitation experience, explicit in nature. Look it up if you’re into that kind of stuff.

The Gorman UFO Dogfight Incident

Back to 1948. In the skies of Fargo, North Dakota, the Gorman UFO dogfight proved to be a significant event. It was a crisp-clear cloudless night and George Gorman, WWII veteran fighter pilot, served as second lieutenant in the North Dakota National Guard. On the first of October, participating in National Guard exercises, he spotted a blinking light. He called into the control tower asking about air traffic other than his. None was detected. Gorman decided to pursue the source of the light he saw. It looked like a small “ball of light.” He made a couple more attempts to get a closer look at it. Down at the control tower, air traffic controller, L.D. Jensen detected the object through binoculars. At one point, Gorman dove from 14,000 feet toward the light at 11,000 feet, but then the object escaped with a vertical climb. Gorman continued to chase it until it went out of eyesight range.

He flew back to the airport and reported his sighting. He found it to be intelligent in nature. He told the investigators, “The object was not only able to out turn and out speed my aircraft . . . but was able to attain a far steeper climb and was able to maintain a constant rate of climb far in excess of my aircraft.” A few hours after the incident, Project Sign military officers showed up to question Gorman. Project Sign concluded that the object’s movements were an illusion or a weather balloon, and the bright light was probably Jupiter.

The Abductions of Jesse Long

This one’s a doozy. First abducted in 1957 while playing in a Tennessee field with his brother, who was also abducted, Jesse Long was taken into one alien spacecraft, and his brother into another. He wouldn’t recall these experiences, that happened at age five, until going through hypnosis years later. He recalled being taken into a craft. He lay on a hard table in a metallic room while aliens poked and prodded and implanted a small tracking device into his shin.  In 1991 he underwent surgery to remove the shin implant, which was presumed to be a shard of glass.

Later, it was studied, apparently, by scientists of the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, who suggested it was of inexplicable composition. He claims he was abducted again and again throughout his life, presumably tracked by the shin implant. He was also involved in a mass abduction during a conference. In 1990 he was driving to New Orleans when he and his vehicle were levitated and abducted into a UFO craft. He was told he had fathered nine alien-human hybrid children who were then presented to him. The alien-humans thanked him for spawning them. He stands by this account to this day.

“SAUCERS SWARM OVER CAPITAL”

This event rocked the nation, right at its capital, with wild headlines and outlandish news stories like, “SAUCERS SWARM OVER CAPITAL.” Another headline screamed, “JETS CHASE D.C. SKY GHOSTS.” And another, straight from the Washington Post read: “‘Saucer’ Outran Jet, Pilot Reveals.” It was the summer of 1952 during the last weeks of July when hysteria struck. By coincidence, Project Blue Book’s supervisor, U. S. Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt happened to be in D.C. at the time. He only learned of the event by reading local headlines. Reports of the sighting poured in. There were two main events, the first began on the 19th and the second on the 26th.

A Washington National Airport traffic controller was the first to spot seven brightly lit unidentified objects in the night sky on the 19th of July. Radar equipment confirmed his observations then tracked the strange objects maneuvering over the White House and the United States Capitol! Jet fighters were called to the scene from New Castle Air Force Base in Delaware. The objects reappeared on July 26th, prompting President Truman to have his aid contact the Project Blue Book supervisor to get some answers. During the call, Ruppelt informed the aid that the event may have been caused by a temperature inversion. On July 29, 1952, the Pentagon called its largest press conference since WWII. The “Washington Flap,” as it was called, was over nothing. Pentagon officials announced that the sightings had been of misidentified aerial phenomena or caused by a temperature inversion, stoking UFO lore. Into the classified Project Blue Book vault the D.C. UFO incident would go.

The Valentich UFO Sighting

Australian pilot, Frederick Valentich, was studying to become a commercial pilot in 1978 when he witnessed something very strange. On October 21, at 7:06 p.m., at an altitude of 4,500 feet in his single-engine Cessna 182L, he reported seeing a large unidentified aircraft illuminated with four bright lights.

He said it was moving at high speed. He told Melbourne air traffic control that the object orbited him, and from above he could see it had a shiny metal surface with a green light on its belly. He also reported engine problems. Air traffic control asked him to describe the aircraft. “It is hovering, and it’s not an aircraft,” Valentich said. Silence. Metallic, scraping sounds. Connection lost.

The Valentich Disappearance

An extensive search found nothing. The air and sea mission covering 1,000 square miles did not recover Valentich, nor his plane. No connection to an oil slick found the next day was established. Finally, in 1982, a report from the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation released its findings: “The reason for the disappearance of the aircraft has not been determined.” The report also stated that it was assumed to have been fatal. Theories ran wild, from a staged disappearance to getting in the crossfire of drug traffickers. In 1983 an engine part, a positive match to his Cessna model, was found washed ashore on Flinders Island.

It’s a curious case as the young Valentich was obsessed by UFO movies and reports of alien activity. Mysteriously, an observer from the ground who identified Valentich’s Cessna, also saw the green light that Valentich reported to air traffic control. This bit of evidence led UFOlogists to speculate that he and his plane were abducted or destroyed by alien craft. It remains one of the world’s inexplicable mysteries. Are you a believer now?