Encounters
The famous cases, told straight: what the witnesses reported, when and where, which beings they described, and what investigators and sceptics have made of it since. Each case links to the species people saw.
1947Roswell
Foster ranch, near Roswell, New Mexico, USA
A rancher found strange debris; the Army announced it had recovered a 'flying disc', then said it was a weather balloon. Decades later the story acquired crashed craft, bodies and a cover-up. The debris was a classified balloon project; the bodies came later.
Conventionally explainedGrey
1952Flatwoods
Flatwoods, Braxton County, West Virginia, USA
A group followed a bright object to a hilltop at night and fled from a ten-foot hooded figure with glowing eyes. A meteor, a barn owl and fear are the accepted explanation, and the town has made the monster its emblem.
Conventionally explainedFlatwoods Monster
1952Adamski
Near Desert Center, California, USA
The founding contactee encounter. Adamski walked alone into the desert and returned saying he had met a fair-haired man from Venus who warned of nuclear danger. His book sold widely, and the fair visitor became the Nordic.
DisputedVenusianNordic
1955Kelly–Hopkinsville
Kelly, near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, USA
Eleven people at a farmhouse said small silver creatures with huge ears and glowing eyes besieged them for hours, floating and shrugging off gunfire. Police found a terrified family and shot-out screens, and nothing else.
DisputedHopkinsville Goblin
1957Villas Boas
Near São Francisco de Sales, Minas Gerais, Brazil
A Brazilian farmer said he was taken from his tractor at night by small beings in helmets and, aboard their craft, had an encounter with a female humanoid. Reported four years before the Hill case, it is the earliest detailed abduction account.
UnresolvedGreyHybrid
1961Betty and Barney Hill
US Route 3, White Mountains, New Hampshire, USA
The first widely publicised alien abduction. A New Hampshire couple driving home at night saw a light that followed their car, lost two hours of time, and under hypnosis in 1964 described being taken aboard a craft and examined by small grey beings.
DisputedGrey
1966Point Pleasant
Point Pleasant, West Virginia, USA
For thirteen months, residents reported a tall winged figure with glowing red eyes near an old munitions works. The sightings ended with the Silver Bridge collapse, and John Keel's book made the creature an omen.
Conventionally explainedMothmanoid
1973Pascagoula
Pascagoula River, Mississippi, USA
Two shipyard workers fishing at night said three wrinkled, clawed beings floated them into an oval craft. A hidden police recording of the men, made when they believed they were alone, is the case's best-known evidence.
UnresolvedPascagoula Being
1975Travis Walton
Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, near Snowflake, Arizona, USA
A logger vanished for five days after his crew watched him approach a glowing craft and fall under a beam of light. His return, his polygraph results and the crew's tests made the case a national controversy and, later, a film.
DisputedGreyNordic
1976Allagash
Eagle Lake, Allagash Wilderness Waterway, Maine, USA
Four art students on a canoe trip saw a bright object over the lake and lost time. Twelve years later, under hypnosis, they described being taken aboard and examined. One of the four later said the abduction part was invented.
Hoax claimedGrey
1978Zanfretta
Torriglia, near Genoa, Italy
An Italian night watchman said he was taken by ten-foot, green, scaled beings at a villa near Genoa; his colleagues found him in shock. Under hypnosis he described several abductions over the following years. It is Europe's best-known reptilian case.
UnresolvedReptilian
1980Rendlesham Forest
Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England
American airmen at a British base reported lights and a craft in the forest over three nights. A deputy base commander's memo and tape recording made it Britain's best-known case. No beings were seen; a lighthouse is the usual explanation.
Disputed
1985Strieber
A cabin in upstate New York, USA
A horror novelist described being taken from his cabin by small beings and examined. His 1987 memoir Communion, with a Grey face on the cover, became a bestseller and put the image in every bookshop in the world.
UnresolvedGrey
1994Ariel School
Ruwa, near Harare, Zimbabwe
During a morning break, dozens of schoolchildren said a craft landed beyond the playground and small beings with large eyes approached them. Their drawings and interviews, recorded within days, make it the largest child-witness case on record.
UnresolvedGrey
1996Varginha
Varginha, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Three young women reported a crouched, red-eyed creature in a vacant lot; rumours of a crash and a military capture followed. The army says the women saw a disabled man. Brazil's most famous case remains open.
DisputedVarginha Creature