Latest cables

AARO — Sixth release

The sixth batch of PURSUE files is published, with more promised on a rolling basis.

SRC: pursue-sixth-2026

The Presidents’ File — First tranche published

The Pentagon releases a first tranche of 162 files, including FBI, State Department and NASA documents. It draws no conclusions; many files have not yet been analysed.

SRC: aljazeera-2026

AARO — PURSUE

The Department of War starts releasing UAP files on WAR.GOV/UFO under the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, with AARO among the partners.

SRC: pursue-2026

The Presidents’ File — Trump orders files released

After Obama tells a podcast that aliens are “real” but he hasn't seen them, and then clarifies he saw no evidence in office, Trump posts that he will direct agencies to identify and release government files on UAP and UFOs.

SRC: nbc-trump-2026

MKULTRA — Gottlieb's testimony published

The National Security Archive publishes the 1975 closed-session Church Committee testimony of Sidney Gottlieb, who ran the programme.

SRC: nsarchive-2025

Consciousness — Theories tested

The Cogitate Consortium publishes in Nature a preregistered adversarial test of integrated information theory (IIT) and global neuronal workspace theory (GNWT) with 256 participants.

SRC: cogitate-2025

Gimbal and GoFast — AARO on GoFast

AARO publishes a case resolution: high confidence the GoFast object did not move at anomalous speed. The apparent speed is put down to motion parallax.

SRC: aaro-gofast-2025

AARO — Annual report

The FY2024 report covers 757 new reports; 21 cases merit further analysis. AARO is now reviewing more than 1,600 cases in total.

SRC: aaro-fy24-report · dod-fy24-release

AARO — Criticism in the House

At a House Oversight hearing, the chair says AARO's historical report was heavily criticised and that the office itself lacks transparency.

SRC: house-hearing-2024

Consciousness — New York Declaration

The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness is announced at New York University: strong support for mammals and birds, a realistic possibility for all vertebrates and many invertebrates.

SRC: ny-declaration-2024

Roswell — AARO historical review

The Pentagon's AARO publishes a review of US government UAP records: no evidence of recovered extraterrestrial technology, and for Roswell it restates the Air Force's Project Mogul finding.

SRC: aaro-hrr

2023 House UAP hearing — AARO's historical review

AARO releases Volume I of its historical record report: no empirical evidence of reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology, and the claims largely the result of circular reporting.

SRC: space-aaro-2024

AARO — Historical review

AARO publishes Volume I of its historical review. It finds no evidence that any US investigation ever confirmed extraterrestrial technology, and no evidence of hidden reverse-engineering programmes.

SRC: aaro-hrr-2024

Project Blue Book — AARO reviews the files

The Pentagon's AARO publishes its historical review. Working with the National Archives, it went through 7,252 Blue Book files holding 65,778 digital records.

SRC: aaro-hrr-2024

Gimbal and GoFast — NASA's study

NASA's independent UAP study team estimates the GoFast object at about 13,000 feet and 40 mph, consistent with drifting on the wind.

SRC: nasa-uapist-2023

Consciousness — AI assessed

Nineteen researchers, led by Patrick Butlin and Robert Long, publish a report deriving ‘indicator properties’ from scientific theories and applying them to recent AI systems.

SRC: butlin-long-2023

USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” — Testimony to Congress

Cdr David Fravor (ret.) testifies under oath before a House Oversight subcommittee about the 2004 encounter.

SRC: house-hearing-2023 · fravor-statement-2023 · house-hearing-video

2023 House UAP hearing — The hearing

Graves, Grusch and Fravor are sworn in and testify before the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs in Rayburn 2154.

SRC: hearing-transcript · graves-statement · grusch-statement · fravor-statement

Gimbal and GoFast — Graves testifies

Ryan Graves tells a House subcommittee under oath that radar data shown at the Gimbal debrief displayed a fleet of objects not visible in the clip.

SRC: house-hearing-2023

2023 House UAP hearing — Hearing announced

Committee staff memo sets out the purpose: firsthand accounts, pilots' reporting channels, and government transparency.

SRC: hearing-memo

2023 House UAP hearing — Pentagon response

A Defense Department spokesperson says AARO has found no verifiable information that any such programmes have existed or exist.

SRC: fox-dod-2023

2023 House UAP hearing — Claims go public

The Debrief publishes Grusch's claim that the US holds intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin.

SRC: debrief-2023

‘Oumuamua — Hydrogen, not engines

Bergner and Seligman report in Nature that hydrogen trapped in water ice, formed by cosmic rays during its journey and released as it warmed, explains the acceleration without fine-tuning.

SRC: bergner-2023

Giza Pyramids — North face corridor

A follow-up muon study measures a corridor-shaped structure behind the chevrons on the north face: about 9 metres long, about 2 by 2 metres in section.

SRC: scanpyramids-natcomms-2023

Giza Pyramids — Hancock replies

Graham Hancock publishes a point-by-point response, defending his theory of a lost civilisation of the Ice Age and citing erosion on the Great Sphinx.

SRC: hancock-response-2023

AARO — Mandate widened

The FY2023 NDAA rewrites the law: AARO must deliver annual reports and a report on the government's historical record on UAP.

SRC: us-code-3373 · aaro-hrr-2024

Giza Pyramids — Archaeologists object

The Society for American Archaeology writes to Netflix about the series Ancient Apocalypse, saying there is no archaeological evidence for an advanced global Ice Age civilisation.

SRC: saa-letter-2022

AARO — AARO created

Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks renames and expands the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group as AARO. Dr Sean Kirkpatrick is named director on 20 July.

SRC: aaro-establishment-2022

2023 House UAP hearing — ‘Credible and urgent’

According to The Debrief, the Inspector General finds the complaint ‘credible and urgent’. No ICIG document saying so has been published.

SRC: debrief-2023

2023 House UAP hearing — Complaint to the ICIG

Grusch files a PPD-19 ‘urgent concern’ disclosure with the Intelligence Community Inspector General, alleging UAP information is being kept from Congress.

SRC: hearing-transcript · debrief-2023

AARO — Written into law

The FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Pentagon to set up an office for UAP, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence.

SRC: us-code-3373 · aaro-establishment-2022

Pentagon release 2020 — Task force replaced

The UAPTF's work passes to a new group, the AOIMSG, which in July 2022 becomes AARO.

SRC: aaro-hrr-2024

USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” — ODNI assessment

The Director of National Intelligence publishes a preliminary assessment of 144 UAP reports; most remain unexplained for lack of data.

SRC: odni-2021

The Presidents’ File — ODNI preliminary assessment

The intelligence community reports on 144 UAP reports from US government sources: one identified with high confidence as a large, deflating balloon; the others remain unexplained.

SRC: odni-2021

Pentagon release 2020 — Preliminary assessment

The DNI reports on 144 UAP reports from 2004 to 2021: one explained, the rest unresolved. The Pentagon orders a plan to make the task force's mission permanent.

SRC: odni-2021 · kirby-2021

Trans-en-Provence — Still class D

GEIPAN's updated case page keeps the classification D, unexplained despite the information it holds, and publishes the original documents.

SRC: geipan-case · geipan-history

USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” — Pilots on television

Fravor and Dietrich describe the encounter on CBS's 60 Minutes.

SRC: cbs-60min-2021 · cbs-60min-video

The Presidents’ File — Obama on late-night TV

On The Late Late Show with James Corden, Barack Obama says there is footage and records of objects in the skies “that we don't know exactly what they are”.

SRC: nbc-obama-2021

Rendlesham Forest — Forty years on

BBC News revisits the case: a forester calls the landing marks rabbit scrapes, airman John Burroughs describes a red, sun-like object, and the former MoD desk officer recalls closing the file.

SRC: bbc-2020

Pentagon release 2020 — Task force approved

Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist approves the UAP Task Force, led by the Navy. The Pentagon announces it on 14 August.

SRC: uaptf-2020

Pentagon release 2020 — Senate asks for a report

The Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the 2021 intelligence bill backs the UAP Task Force at the Office of Naval Intelligence and asks the DNI for a full assessment within 180 days of enactment.

SRC: srpt-116-233

The Presidents’ File — Trump on Roswell

In a campaign-hosted interview with his son, Donald Trump says of Roswell: “I won't talk to you about what I know about it, but it's very interesting.” On declassifying, he will “have to think about that one.”

SRC: nbc-trump-2020

USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” — Official release

The Department of Defense releases FLIR1, Gimbal and GoFast “to clear up any misconceptions” about whether the footage is real.

SRC: dod-release-2020 · navair-foia

Gimbal and GoFast — Official release

The Department of Defense releases Gimbal, GoFast and the 2004 FLIR1 clip, saying they reveal no sensitive capabilities.

SRC: dod-release-2020 · navair-foia

Pentagon release 2020 — Official release

The Department of Defense authorises the release of the three videos “to clear up any misconceptions” about whether they were real, and posts them on the Navy's FOIA site.

SRC: dod-release-2020 · navair-foia

Belgian UFO wave — Thirty years on

Press retrospectives note the case is still unresolved and that Gen. De Brouwer initially suspected US experimental aircraft, which the US denied.

SRC: theweek-2020

Dead Sea Scrolls — All sixteen are fakes

An independent team led by Colette Loll of Art Fraud Insights reports that none of the museum's 16 fragments is authentic.

SRC: motb-investigation · natgeo-2020

USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” — The ship's crew speak

Popular Mechanics publishes accounts from five former sailors of the strike group, including USS Princeton radar operator Kevin Day and systems technician Gary Voorhis.

SRC: pm-princeton-2019

USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” — Navy confirms

Navy spokesman Joseph Gradisher confirms the recording dates (14 Nov 2004 for FLIR1) and that the Navy classifies the objects as unidentified aerial phenomena.

SRC: navy-dates-2019

Gimbal and GoFast — Navy confirms

A Navy spokesman confirms the recording dates and says the Navy considers the phenomena in the videos unidentified.

SRC: navy-dates-2019

Pentagon release 2020 — Navy confirms the clips

A Navy spokesman confirms the recording dates of the three circulating videos and says the Navy considers the phenomena in them unidentified.

SRC: navy-dates-2019

‘Oumuamua — The ISSI review

An international team convened at ISSI Bern reviews all data in Nature Astronomy and finds every observation consistent with a purely natural origin.

SRC: issi-2019

Gimbal and GoFast — Pilots on the record

The New York Times publishes accounts from Lt Ryan Graves and other pilots of the VFA-11 “Red Rippers” squadron.

SRC: nyt-2019

Pentagon release 2020 — Navy reporting rules

The Navy sets up a standard way for its personnel to report unidentified aerial phenomena. The Air Force adopts it in November 2020.

SRC: odni-2021

‘Oumuamua — The light-sail paper

Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb explore solar radiation pressure on a sheet under a millimetre thick, and note their results apply to any light probe designed for interstellar travel.

SRC: bialy-loeb-2018

Dead Sea Scrolls — Five fragments fail

Tests by Germany's Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) raise suspicions about all five fragments the Museum of the Bible submitted; the museum takes them off display.

SRC: motb-investigation

‘Oumuamua — An unexpected push

Micheli et al. report a non-gravitational acceleration at 30-sigma significance and find comet-like outgassing a viable explanation. JPL: by 2 January 2018 it was about 40,000 km beyond where gravity alone would have put it.

SRC: micheli-2018 · jpl-2018

USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” — Video goes public

The New York Times publishes the FLIR1 footage in its report on the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.

SRC: nyt-2017

‘Oumuamua — Like nothing seen before

ESO announces a dark, reddish, highly elongated object; the same day Nature publishes Meech et al.: asteroid-like, no hint of cometary activity, about ten times longer than wide.

SRC: eso-2017 · meech-2017

Giza Pyramids — The Big Void

The ScanPyramids team reports a void at least 30 metres long above the Grand Gallery, seen with three different muon detection technologies.

SRC: scanpyramids-nature-2017

‘Oumuamua — Discovery

The University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS1 telescope picks up the object, later named 1I/2017 U1, ‘Oumuamua: Hawaiian for “a messenger from afar arriving first”.

SRC: nasa-oumuamua

Fine-tuned universe — Encyclopedia entry

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy publishes its entry on fine-tuning by Simon Friederich (substantive revision 26 February 2026).

SRC: sep-fine-tuning

Giza Pyramids — Merer's journal published

Pierre Tallet publishes the two best-preserved logbooks, which record limestone blocks carried by boat from Tura to Khufu's pyramid at Giza.

SRC: tallet-merer-2017

Consciousness — Illusionism named

Keith Frankish proposes the name ‘illusionism’ for the view that phenomenal properties do not exist but only seem to, building on Daniel Dennett's work.

SRC: frankish-illusionism

Rendlesham Forest — Halt adds radar claims

Retired, Halt says he has sworn statements from Bentwaters air traffic controllers who saw an object on radar, and alleges a cover-up.

SRC: huffpost-halt-2015

The Phoenix Lights — A postmortem

Skeptical Inquirer sets out the two-event explanation again: aircraft in formation for the ‘V’, a high-altitude flare drop for the later lights.

SRC: si-2015

Gimbal and GoFast — Both clips recorded

The Navy later gives this date for both Gimbal and GoFast. The New York Times dated the Gimbal clip 20 January 2015, off Jacksonville, Florida.

SRC: navy-dates-2019 · nyt-2019

The Vatican Observatory — Consolmagno as director

Br Guy Consolmagno, a meteorite specialist, is made director of the Vatican Observatory.

SRC: physicstoday-2017

Fine-tuned universe — Carroll's five objections

After a public debate with William Lane Craig, physicist Sean Carroll lists five objections to the fine-tuning argument for God on his blog.

SRC: carroll-2014

Gimbal and GoFast — Daily sightings

From the summer of 2014 to March 2015, Navy pilots training off the East Coast report unknown objects, after their radar systems are upgraded.

SRC: nyt-2019 · house-hearing-2023

Giza Pyramids — The papyri

A papyrus archive from the end of Khufu's reign is found at Wadi al-Jarf: sailors' accounts and logbooks.

SRC: tallet-merer-2017 · aera-mfa-lecture

Consciousness — Cambridge Declaration

At the Francis Crick Memorial Conference in Cambridge, scientists declare that non-human animals, including all mammals and birds and octopuses, possess the neurological substrates of consciousness.

SRC: cambridge-2012

Fine-tuned universe — Stenger replies

Stenger answers Barnes on arXiv, saying Barnes misunderstands and misrepresents the book.

SRC: stenger-2012

Fine-tuned universe — Barnes' review

Luke Barnes posts a 77-page review of the scientific literature on fine-tuning, using Stenger's book as the foil; a condensed version appears in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

SRC: barnes-2012

Belgian UFO wave — Hoax confessed

Patrick Maréchal tells RTL the Petit-Rechain photo was staged with a polystyrene model.

SRC: vrt-2011 · lefigaro-2011

Giza Pyramids — Wadi al-Jarf excavated

A French mission starts work at Wadi al-Jarf, a 4th-Dynasty harbour on the Red Sea used to reach the copper and turquoise mines of Sinai.

SRC: tallet-merer-2017

Fine-tuned universe — The sceptic's book

Victor Stenger publishes The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe is Not Designed for Us.

SRC: stenger-2012 · barnes-2012

The Vatican Observatory — The astrobiology study week

About thirty scientists meet at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences from 6 to 10 November. The final statement covers the origin of life, exoplanets and icy moons, and recommends support for SETI.

SRC: pas-2009 · catholicculture-2009

The Vatican Observatory — “Not at all new”

Br Guy Consolmagno writes in The Tablet that thinking about extraterrestrial life is not new for the Observatory or the Church.

SRC: consolmagno-2009

Rendlesham Forest — Into the National Archives

The MoD's Rendlesham file, DEFE 24/1948, opens at The National Archives as part of the transfer of the MoD UFO files. Halt's memo opens the file.

SRC: tna-defe-24-1948 · tna-highlights-2009 · tna-podcast-2009

The Vatican Observatory — “Brother alien”

Observatory director José Gabriel Funes tells L'Osservatore Romano that an extraterrestrial would also belong to the creation.

SRC: register-2009

The Phoenix Lights — Symington writes for CNN

In a signed CNN commentary Symington describes a ‘massive delta-shaped’ craft over Squaw Peak and calls the Air Force's flare explanation silly.

SRC: symington-cnn-2007

The Phoenix Lights — The governor's turn

Former governor Fife Symington, who in 1997 had shown off an aide in an alien costume, says he saw an enormous craft that night.

SRC: nbc-ap-2007

Trans-en-Provence — The sceptics' audit

The Observatoire Zététique publishes a chapter-length critique arguing that the marks fit skidding tyres and that GEPAN broke its own rules on speed and site protection.

SRC: oz-2007

USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” — The encounter

Navy aircraft from the Nimitz group investigate radar contacts off Southern California; one crew records the FLIR1 infrared video.

SRC: navy-dates-2019 · dod-release-2020

Consciousness — Reference entry

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy publishes its entry on consciousness, calling the problem arguably the central issue in theorising about the mind (substantive revision 2014).

SRC: sep-consciousness

Dead Sea Scrolls — Editions mostly out

By 2001 the majority of the official editions of the scrolls have been published.

SRC: iaa-discovery

Dead Sea Scrolls — The Christian-origins reading

Rodley and Thiering argue in Radiocarbon that the dates may be compatible with the view that figures in the scrolls were contemporaries of the founders of Christianity.

SRC: rodley-thiering-1999

Fine-tuned universe — Just Six Numbers

Astronomer Royal Martin Rees publishes Just Six Numbers, arguing that six numbers, from the relative strength of gravity and electromagnetism to the three dimensions of space, characterise the universe.

SRC: plus-rees-review · rees-catalogue

The Phoenix Lights — Two events, not one

Phoenix New Times publishes a one-year cover story separating the two events; an image analysis matching a video to the Sierra Estrella ridgeline puts the 10 p.m. lights behind the mountains.

SRC: ortega-1998

The Phoenix Lights — Flares acknowledged

A Maryland Air National Guard spokesman says eight of its A-10s were training over the Barry M. Goldwater range that night and jettisoned their remaining flares at high altitude.

SRC: lvsun-1997

Roswell — “Case Closed”

A second Air Force report attributes accounts of bodies to crash-test dummies and later accidents.

SRC: af-1997

The Phoenix Lights — The ‘V’, about 8:30 p.m.

A V-shaped pattern of lights is reported from north of Prescott at about 8:15 to south of Tucson by 8:45. In Scottsdale, Mitch Stanley sees it through a 10-inch telescope as planes flying in formation.

SRC: ortega-1997 · ortega-1998

The Phoenix Lights — The 10 p.m. lights

Up to nine bright lights appear southwest of Phoenix, hover for several minutes and disappear towards the Sierra Estrella. Several people videotape them.

SRC: ortega-1998

The Presidents’ File — Clinton answers Ryan

Lighting the city Christmas tree in Belfast, Bill Clinton answers a 13-year-old's letter: as far as he knows, no alien spacecraft crashed at Roswell. Four months earlier the GAO had published its Roswell records search.

SRC: clinton-belfast-1995 · gao-1995

Roswell — GAO records search

The GAO reports that Roswell AAF outgoing messages from 1946–49 were destroyed without documented authority and that the two surviving 1947 records describe a balloon.

SRC: gao-1995

Dead Sea Scrolls — Radiocarbon agrees

New radiocarbon measurements on 18 texts and two linen fragments agree well with the ages estimated from handwriting.

SRC: jull-1995

Consciousness — The hard problem

David Chalmers publishes “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness” in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, separating the ‘easy’ problems from the problem of experience.

SRC: chalmers-1995

Roswell — Front page

The New York Times reports that the Air Force report, issued on 8 September, traces the debris to Project Mogul, a once-secret balloon system for detecting nuclear tests.

SRC: nyt-1994

Roswell — Air Force report

The Air Force concludes the debris most likely came from a Project Mogul balloon train.

SRC: af-1995 · gao-1995

Belgian UFO wave — Statement to London

The Belgian Air Force sends an official statement on the incident to the UK Ministry of Defence. It surfaces in MoD files released by the UK National Archives in 2009.

SRC: tna-guide-2009

The Vatican Observatory — A telescope in Arizona

The Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT), built with Steward Observatory, is inaugurated on Mount Graham, Arizona, on 17–19 September 1993.

SRC: vo-history · vo-telescopes

Dead Sea Scrolls — The photographs get out

After years of dispute over access, the Biblical Archaeology Society publishes a two-volume edition of scroll photographs, and the Huntington Library opens its photographic security copies to scholars.

SRC: loc-exhibit-today

Belgian UFO wave — Petit-Rechain photo

An anonymous photograph of a lit triangle, taken near Verviers, is circulated and becomes the wave's icon.

SRC: vrt-2011 · wiki-be

Belgian UFO wave — F-16s scrambled

After reports from gendarmes and ground radar, two F-16s take off from Beauvechain and make repeated interception attempts with brief radar locks.

SRC: baf-report-1990 · wiki-be

Belgian UFO wave — First reports

Gendarmes and residents around Eupen report a large triangular object with bright lights.

SRC: wiki-be · baf-report-1990

Giza Pyramids — Workers' town dig begins

Ancient Egypt Research Associates, led by Mark Lehner, begin excavating Heit el-Ghurab, the settlement about 400 metres south of the Sphinx.

SRC: aera-lost-city

Fine-tuned universe — Weinberg's bound

Steven Weinberg publishes an anthropic upper bound on the cosmological constant in Physical Review Letters: it must not be so large that it prevents gravitationally bound structures from forming.

SRC: weinberg-1987

The Presidents’ File — Reagan at the UN

Ronald Reagan tells the UN General Assembly that differences would vanish “if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world”, then asks whether war is not the alien force already among us.

SRC: reagan-1987

Rendlesham Forest — Memo made public

The USAF releases the memo under the US Freedom of Information Act. The same year the News of the World puts it on its front page: “UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK”.

SRC: halt-memo-1981 · bbc-2020

Trans-en-Provence — Technical note no. 16

GEPAN publishes its report: signs of a large-scale event with mechanical deformation and heating, but interpretations too vague to confirm the witness.

SRC: gepan-nt16 · inra-analysis

Trans-en-Provence — GEPAN on site

GEPAN investigators visit the site, find the traces still visible and take a new series of soil and alfalfa samples.

SRC: geipan-case · gepan-nt16

Rendlesham Forest — The memo

Halt sends a one-page memo headed “Unexplained Lights” to the Ministry of Defence. It is not classified.

SRC: halt-memo-1981 · tna-highlights-2009

Trans-en-Provence — GEPAN waits

GEPAN learns of the case. After heavy rain over the weekend it decides not to go at once and asks the gendarmerie to send the samples to laboratories.

SRC: gepan-nt16

Trans-en-Provence — Gendarmes on site

Alerted by the witness's neighbours, the gendarmerie arrives around 11:30, takes his statement, photographs the trace and samples soil and wild alfalfa.

SRC: gepan-nt16 · gendarmerie-pv

Trans-en-Provence — The sighting

Around 5 p.m. the witness hears a whistling sound and sees a craft land below his terrace and leave within seconds. The whole observation lasts 30 to 40 seconds.

SRC: geipan-case · gepan-nt16

Rendlesham Forest — Halt goes out

Lt Col Halt and others visit the site, record radiation readings at three depressions and watch a pulsing red light and star-like objects. His memo dates this to 29 December.

SRC: halt-memo-1981 · bbc-2020

Rendlesham Forest — First night

Around 3 a.m., USAF security police outside RAF Woodbridge see lights in the forest; three patrolmen go in on foot. Halt's memo later gives the date as 27 December.

SRC: airmen-statements-1981 · halt-memo-1981 · bbc-2020

Roswell — The story returns

A National Enquirer article reports former intelligence officer Jesse Marcel's claim that he recovered UFO debris in 1947, and researcher Stanton Friedman meets Marcel. A book, The Roswell Incident, follows in 1980.

SRC: af-1995

MKULTRA — Seven boxes

CIA Director Stansfield Turner testifies to a joint Senate hearing about seven boxes of MKULTRA financial records found in the CIA's Retired Records Center: 149 subprojects, 185 outside researchers and 80 institutions.

SRC: senate-1977

MKULTRA — Church Committee report

The Senate Select Committee chaired by Frank Church publishes Book I of its final report, with a chapter on the testing and use of chemical and biological agents by the intelligence community.

SRC: church-1976 · church-ch17

MKULTRA — The White House and the Olson family

After the Rockefeller Commission's report, a White House memo proposes that President Ford express regret and offer the Olson family an apology on behalf of the government.

SRC: ford-olson-1975

MKULTRA — Files destroyed

The MKULTRA records are destroyed, on the instruction of CIA Director Richard Helms according to Senator Kennedy, and on the orders of the retiring chief of the Office of Technical Service with the Director's authorisation according to the CIA.

SRC: senate-1977 · nsarchive-2025

Project Blue Book — Terminated

The Secretary of the Air Force announces the end of Project Blue Book, citing the Colorado report, its review by the National Academy of Sciences and two decades of experience.

SRC: usaf-factsheet · nara-ufo-guide · af-bluebook-terminate-1969

The Presidents’ File — Carter sees a light over Leary

Jimmy Carter, waiting outside a Lions Club meeting in Leary, Georgia, sees a bright object that changes colour. On 18 September 1973, as Governor of Georgia, he files a sighting report with the International UFO Bureau. The Carter Library holds the report.

SRC: history-carter · nara-carter

Project Blue Book — Colorado report delivered

The University of Colorado sends the Air Force its UFO study (the Condon Report). It suggests defence work could continue without a special unit such as Blue Book.

SRC: condon-1968

Project Blue Book — Hynek before Congress

J. Allen Hynek, the Air Force's scientific consultant on UFOs, tells a House symposium that reports lacked follow-up and serious inquiry.

SRC: hynek-1968

MKULTRA — Inspector General's report

A CIA Inspector General report on MKULTRA is written; following its recommendations, unwitting drug testing on US citizens is later discontinued. The project ends in 1964.

SRC: senate-1977

Nikola Tesla — Museum opens

The Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, founded by government decree in 1952, opens to the public.

SRC: tesla-museum-history

MKULTRA — Death at the Statler

In the early hours of Saturday, after days of treatment in New York arranged through the CIA, Olson falls to his death from a tenth-floor room at the Hotel Statler.

SRC: senate-1977 · ford-olson-1975

MKULTRA — LSD in the Cointreau

At a meeting of Army and CIA scientists, CIA officers put LSD in a bottle of Cointreau. Frank Olson, an Army civilian employee at Fort Detrick, drinks about 70 micrograms without knowing.

SRC: senate-1977 · ford-olson-1975

Project Blue Book — Blue Book

After a reorganised Grudge is set up in October 1951, the project is renamed Project Blue Book in March 1952. Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt is its first chief.

SRC: nara-rg341 · aaro-hrr-2024

Nikola Tesla — To Belgrade

Through the efforts of his nephew Sava Kosanović, Tesla's personal belongings and papers are shipped to Belgrade and donated to the state.

SRC: tesla-museum-history

Project Blue Book — Renamed Grudge

Sign is renamed Project Grudge. Grudge is wound down in December 1949; the Air Force folds UFO reports into routine intelligence work.

SRC: nara-rg341 · aaro-hrr-2024

Project Blue Book — Project Sign set up

A memo from Maj. Gen. L. C. Craigie sets up Project Sign, the first Air Force UFO project. It starts work in January 1948.

SRC: nara-rg341 · aaro-hrr-2024

Roswell — Retraction

The Army shows balloon debris to the press in Fort Worth and the story is dropped.

SRC: af-1995

Roswell — “Flying disc” press release

Roswell Army Air Field announces it has recovered a flying disc; the Roswell Daily Record prints it on its front page and an FBI teletype the same day says the object resembles a weather balloon with a radar reflector.

SRC: rdr-1947 · gao-1995 · fbi-teletype-1947

Dead Sea Scrolls — The first cave

A young Bedouin shepherd finds the first scrolls. Similar finds follow in ten other nearby caves over the next nine years.

SRC: iaa-discovery · loc-exhibit-today

Nikola Tesla — Supreme Court on radio

In Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. v. United States, the Supreme Court holds most claims of one Marconi patent invalid, citing earlier work by Stone, Lodge and Tesla.

SRC: marconi-1943

Nikola Tesla — Trump's report

After examining the papers on 26–27 January, John G. Trump of MIT reports that they contain nothing of significant value to the war effort or hazardous in unfriendly hands.

SRC: trump-1943

Nikola Tesla — Papers seized

Days after Tesla's death at the Hotel New Yorker, the Office of Alien Property Custodian seizes all his property, about two truckloads, and moves it to a Manhattan warehouse.

SRC: fbi-tesla-file

Nikola Tesla — A ‘wall of force’

Tesla discloses a plan for a defensive beam, an ‘impenetrable wall of force’ around a country's borders, and says he will present it to the Geneva Conference.

SRC: fbi-tesla-file

Nikola Tesla — Tower demolished

After the project runs into financial difficulties, the unfinished tower is demolished for scrap to satisfy Tesla's debts.

SRC: tsc-tower

Nikola Tesla — Wardenclyffe

Construction begins at Wardenclyffe on Long Island: a brick laboratory and a 187-foot wooden tower meant for Tesla's global wireless system.

SRC: tsc-history

The Vatican Observatory — Ut Mysticam

Pope Leo XIII confirms the foundation of the Specola Vaticana with his motu proprio Ut Mysticam, after a telescope for the international Carte du Ciel star atlas was installed on the Leonine Tower.

SRC: vo-history · vo-telescopes

The Vatican Observatory — The calendar

Astronomers at the Vatican take part in the Gregorian reform of the calendar, the root the Observatory itself claims.

SRC: vo-history