UFOs and UAP in America

Research for The Republic of the Sky and Disclodex.

  1940s – The Modern UFO Era Begins

In the wake of World War II, Americans turned their gaze skyward. The modern UFO era dawned in June 1947 when Kenneth Arnold's report of "saucer-like" craft over Washington state captured headlines. Just weeks later, the Roswell incident deepened the intrigue: an Army Air Field's announcement of a recovered "flying saucer," followed swiftly by an official backtrack attributing the debris to a mere weather balloon.¹

These events ignited widespread public fascination and suspicion. By decade's end, "flying saucers" had entered the American vocabulary, seeding a cultural phenomenon and a belief that the government might be hiding something unearthly.¹

  1950s – Saucers, Secrecy, and the Space Brothers

The 1950s witnessed the UFO topic move from fringe to front-page news. Sightings spiked — notably the 1952 national panic over "saucers" hovering above the Capitol — prompting the Air Force's formal studies (Projects Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book). Public interest ran high, fueled by the contactee movement exemplified by George Adamski's claims of chatty aliens from Venus.²

At the same time, authorities grew concerned that UFO hysteria could mask real threats. In 1953 the CIA's Robertson Panel advised debunking UFO reports as a matter of national security, leading to an official policy of gentle ridicule. By the decade's end, flying saucers were a cultural craze — but also the butt of late-night jokes — as the government sought to demystify the phenomenon and calm the public's post-war jitters.

  1960s – Mysteries Deepen and Ancient Astronauts

UFO narratives evolved in the turbulent '60s. The decade opened with the chilling Hill abduction story, introducing America to the now-familiar image of gray aliens conducting strange experiments.³ Meanwhile, a new genre of speculation took off on bookshelves: ancient astronaut theories suggested that gods and mythic beings were actually aliens who visited antiquity, an idea which captivated the public imagination by the decade's end.

Officialdom's interest persisted in a serious vein — the Condon Committee's study (1966–68) and the closure of Project Blue Book in 1969 aimed to put the UFO question to rest. Blue Book's records were archived (701 cases unresolved), and the Air Force publicly declared the phenomenon posed no threat or evidence of "little green men." Yet the mystery remained. Even as scientists like Carl Sagan urged rationality ("extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"), millions of ordinary Americans kept watching the skies, torn between skepticism and wonder.

  1970s – Abductions and Conspiracies Rise

In the 1970s, UFO mythology took a darker, more conspiratorial turn. Early in the decade, reports of alien abductions proliferated — ordinary Americans from different regions recounted strikingly similar tales of missing time, medical exams by otherworldly beings, and mysterious scars. What had been 1950s space-age optimism about "space brothers" evolved into anxiety about unwelcome intruders. This shift coincided with declining trust in authority: mid-decade investigations exposed genuine government cover-ups like the CIA's MKUltra mind-control abuses⁴, proving that real conspiracies existed. Against this backdrop, speculative narratives flourished.

The British TV hoax Alternative 3 — suggesting a secret Mars emigration plan — was taken seriously by many and folded into UFO lore.⁵ By decade's end, the UFO subject had become a perfect storm of entertainment, paranoia, and genuine mystery. Best-selling books and movies made the idea of alien contact commonplace, even as true believers and new religious movements (like Heaven's Gate and others in their infancy) began blending UFO beliefs with apocalyptic and spiritual themes. What was once lighthearted pop culture had, by the late '70s, acquired an edge of genuine fear and cosmic conspiracy.

  1980s – Stealth, Secrecy, and Saucers in the Dark

The UFO mythos went "dark" in the 1980s — both literally (with black, silent triangle craft roaming the night) and figuratively (with ever-deeper conspiracy rabbit holes). Superpower technological advances provided one explanation for some sightings: cutting-edge stealth aircraft, kept secret, could easily be mistaken for extraterrestrial craft by the public. Indeed, the late-'80s Belgian UFO wave of triangle craft hinted that some "UFOs" were likely human-made.⁶

At the same time, deliberate deception muddied the waters. Forged government memos about "MJ-12" fooled many UFO investigators until the FBI declared them a hoax⁷, and tales of Men in Black and other misinformation (some spread by intelligence agents themselves) sowed confusion. Yet the decade also produced whistleblower sensations: Bob Lazar's dramatic assertions about Area 51 and alien technology⁹ found an avid audience, despite lack of proof. By 1989, UFOs were firmly entrenched in Cold War pop culture and distrust — symbols of a government that, in the public imagination, might be hiding crashed saucers in Nevada hangars, alongside real stealth jets.

  1990s – UFOs Go Mainstream (and Online)

The 1990s cemented UFOs as a fixture of modern culture — equal parts entertainment, conspiracy, and earnest inquiry. A post-Cold War openness, combined with the democratization of the Internet, allowed UFO lore to spread like never before. Home camcorders and new media meant every mysterious light in the sky could find an audience. The Phoenix Lights of 1997 epitomized the decade: a massive unexplained sighting, widely witnessed and videotaped, yet officially glossed over — prompting public frustration and enduring mystery.¹⁰

Meanwhile, the UFO narrative intertwined with broader conspiracies. The decade began with books like Behold a Pale Horse indoctrinating readers into a grand unified conspiracy worldview. And as government archives slowly released some secrets (e.g. confirming psychic spying programs⁸ or re-examining Roswell), UFO believers felt vindicated that some wild stories had roots in truth. The mass suicide of the Heaven's Gate cult in 1997 provided a grim counterpoint, showing the dangers of uncritical belief. By the late '90s, UFO discussion straddled an unusual line: it was at once a pop-culture fad (aliens were mascots for TV shows, movies, toys) and a topic of serious Congressional and scientific interest. Even respected figures like astronomer Carl Sagan (who passed in 1996) warned of a "demon-haunted world" if rationality was not applied. The decade closed with UFOs firmly embedded in the public consciousness — and a new millennium on the horizon, poised to perhaps bring answers.

  2000s – New Millennium, New Evidence?

In the first decade of the 21st century, UFOs hovered at the periphery of public awareness — but significant developments were brewing in secrecy. The most pivotal case, the USS Nimitz encounter of 2004, would only become famous years later: naval aviators came upon a technology they couldn't explain — a tic-tac shaped object exhibiting instantaneous acceleration and agility far beyond any known aircraft.¹²

Unbeknownst to the public, the Pentagon had launched AATIP, a shadowy program to study such incidents and assess if advanced adversary drones or even "otherworldly" technologies were intruding on U.S. airspace. Throughout the 2000s, officialdom kept these efforts under wraps. UFO discourse persisted largely in niche forums and on shows like Coast to Coast AM, but lacked new evidence. In essence, the 2000s were the "calm before the storm." The groundwork was laid — intriguing military UAP encounters occurred, data was collected quietly, and a few insiders took the topic seriously — setting up an explosion of disclosure and debate in the next decade.

  2010s – Disclosure Efforts and Official Recognition

The 2010s were a watershed decade that transformed the UFO subject from tabloid fare to a legitimate defense and science issue — rebranded as UAP. The turning point came in late 2017 when news reports revealed that the U.S. government had been quietly studying UFOs after all, and even released Navy gun-camera videos of enigmatic objects.¹²

Suddenly, the topic had credibility and urgency. U.S. Navy pilots were reporting strange craft zipping around carrier groups, and the stigma that long plagued such reports began to fade. By acknowledging these encounters, the military essentially told the public: something is up there; we don't know what it is, and we're not dismissing it. This culminated in an official UAP report to Congress in 2021, which confirmed dozens of puzzling sightings and explicitly left the phenomenon "unresolved".¹⁴

In the span of a few years, UFOs went from the X-Files to the halls of Congress. Yet, for all the new openness, no definitive answers arrived — the extraterrestrial question remained open. Still, the 2010s ended with an unmistakable shift: governments, scientists, and the public were finally having serious, data-driven conversations about unidentified objects in our skies, setting the stage for even deeper inquiry in the 2020s.

  2020s – Transparency and the Push for Answers (2020–2025)

The 2020s have ushered in an era of unprecedented transparency and official engagement with the UFO/UAP mystery. In a few short years, the U.S. government went from quietly shelving UFO files to actively setting up offices and laws to address the issue. Military leadership encourages pilots to report UAP encounters, and those accounts are investigated rather than ignored.¹³ High-level whistleblowers and witnesses, such as David Grusch in 2023, have felt emboldened to tell Congress remarkable claims — including allegations of secret programs retrieving exotic craft.¹⁶ Although such claims remain unverified, they have spurred lawmakers to demand transparency, resulting in new legislation aiming to open the vaults.

NASA's entry into the fray and the establishment of AARO show that the topic is no longer relegated to fringe enthusiasts; it's treated as a legitimate subject for scientific and national security inquiry. By mid-decade, the term "UAP" has entered the common lexicon and news cycle, often discussed without the wink of skepticism that "UFO" once elicited. Importantly, despite this flurry of activity, the fundamental questions remain: What are these unexplained objects, and where do they come from?

The 2020s have been about pulling back the curtain — acknowledging something is going on — but definitive answers (terrestrial technology? foreign drones? natural phenomena? extraterrestrial craft?) are still forthcoming. What is clear is that after nearly 80 years, the subject has achieved a new level of respectability. Government and scientific institutions are actively engaged, the stigma is lifting, and the stage is set for potential breakthroughs. The American public — and indeed the world — might finally be on the verge of learning whether these long-discussed "flying objects" represent a profound discovery or a prosaic puzzle. The coming years promise to be pivotal in resolving what was once thought unresolvable in the saga of UFOs.

  Footnotes

1. https://people.com/roswell-incident-true-story-unsolved-mysteries-8722935 ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Adamski ↩ ↩²

3. https://allthatsinteresting.com/betty-and-barney-hill ↩ ↩²

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee ↩ ↩²

5. https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2017-06-20/forty-years-on-the-elaborate-television-hoax-that-shocked-the-world ↩ ↩²

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave ↩ ↩²

7. https://vault.fbi.gov/Majestic%2012 ↩ ↩²

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project_(U.S._Army_unit) ↩ ↩² ↩³

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar ↩ ↩²

10. https://www.fifesymington.com/former-arizona-governor-now-admits-seeing-ufo ↩ ↩²

11. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/march-26/heavens-gate-cult-members-found-dead ↩

12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_UFO_videos ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

13. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/23/us-navy-guidelines-reporting-ufos-1375290 ↩ ↩²

14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_Report_(U.S._Intelligence) ↩ ↩²

15. https://www.aaro.mil/Resources/ ↩

16. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/26/ufo-hearing-congress-evidence-david-grusch ↩ ↩²