UFO & ALIEN STORIES - Strange Stories From the National UFO Reporting Center
Since its founding in 1974, the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) has served as a non-judgmental hub where you can share—via hotline or written report—any potentially otherworldly experience you’ve had. The online archive contains thousands of these stories, which range from UFO and alien sightings to other unexplained phenomena. The NUFORC doesn’t question the veracity of the reports, and it doesn’t always speculate about possible causes, either. In fact, the organization encourages a healthy skepticism about what you read on its site.
Decide for yourself whether each eerie tale below is the result of extraterrestrial intervention, military experimentation, a scientific anomaly, or just a misunderstanding—that is, if you believe them at all.
Too Much Hair, Too Little Time // 1969
On a weekend trip to Boulder, Colorado, in 1969, a young member of the Air Force was in bed when his motel room suddenly darkened, “followed by a bright flash of light.” The next day, he realized his half-inch-long hair was now almost two inches long, a mystery that his roommate “totally freaked out” about when he returned to the base in Aurora, Colorado. “He wasn’t sure what to think of my story, but did realize there was glaring physical evidence,” the airman recalled. Though he didn’t remember anything else from that night, he speculated in his report that he had been abducted (and presumably taken to a place where time passes more quickly than it does on Earth). “I still have trouble remembering many things, as it has always been very ‘foggy’ since that time,” he said.
The Long-Armed Collector // 1971
At about 10 p.m. one summer night in 1971, two teenage girls crept from their houses in Sunnyvale, California, and met up for a neighborhood stroll. All was still and silent for an hour or so, until they came upon a 20- to 30-foot flying ship hovering as low as the streetlights “probably a full five-minute walk ahead” of them. The friends watched it drift toward some nearby apartment buildings and appear to survey them, bobbing slightly up and down. “It had these great enormous arms on the sides that slowly swiveled around and they had lines on the ends, like ropes, but they weren’t ropes,” one of the friends explained in her report.
It didn’t make noise or light up, and it looked more like wood than metal. She got the impression it was “collecting things,” though she couldn’t see what was inside. The girls fled in terror when the aircraft abruptly turned its attention on them, and they tried in vain to convince the one friend’s father that they had seen something truly extraordinary. “He dismissed it and said it was probably just a weather balloon,” the witness wrote. “If I am sure of anything, it is that that thing was no weather balloon.”
Cows Gone Wild // 1975
Scared now, brown cow? / kmatija/iStock via Getty Images
Two friends were driving along the quiet country roads of La Fontaine, Indiana, after a fishing trip one evening in 1975. About a quarter mile away, a flying disc “with white lights revolving around it” appeared and lowered itself gradually until it was completely obscured by a nearby house. They followed it behind the house, but found only “cows running all over the road, frightened and mooing.” The cows had apparently torn right through the electric fence, and a neighbor soon showed up to see what all the fuss was about. “He asked if we knew what had happened because cows just don't break down an electric fence for nothing,” the witness said. “We didn’t say anything about what we had just seen.”
A Fiery Hoberman Sphere // 1991
A normal Hoberman sphere. / membio/iStock via Getty Images
Late one evening in 1991, a young man and his girlfriend parked the car in a peaceful spot overlooking the port of Olympia, Washington, and passed about half an hour “talking about life and random things.” Suddenly, what they thought was one abnormally bright star split into a sphere comprising roughly 20 points of light—much like a Hoberman sphere expands ("I found out many years later what a Hoberman Sphere is, and just about crapped myself the first time I saw one in motion its movement looked so similar," the witness noted)—and rotated rapidly before contracting back into a single bright light. That light then glowed red and spit out five identical red lights, one by one, which pulsated in a synchronized manner as they flew through the sky in a straight line and eventually vanished. The witness actually managed to capture video footage of the event, but the camera only showed “a blank screen with a few strange flickering whitish dots on it that seem to come and go.”
“I am (after seeing it) hard pressed to believe it to be anything of ‘known’ terrestrial technology,” he wrote. “I have resigned to the likelihood that I will never know what it was at all.”
The Ides of March Sightings // 1995
On March 15, 1995, the NUFORC received an influx of calls across several states from witnesses who saw a bright object flying through the night sky. The first of these so-called “Ides of March sightings” was reported by two men in Florida, who described it as “luminous,” “white,” and “disc-shaped,” though subsequent descriptions from others varied. A Tennessee caller thought it was more of a “blue-green 'cloud of light'” that emitted sparks before vanishing, and a Missouri State Highway Patrol sergeant said it was a green light that turned yellow and suddenly snuffed out “like a light being switched off.” He also explained that many people called the patrol’s 911 dispatch line to report their own sightings, and one person claimed his cell phone and car radio both died when the UFO got close. Other reports came from Virginia, West Virginia, and Missouri.
“In summary, it appears that one or more egg-shaped objects, radiating intensely bright green, blue-green, and yellow light, and periodically spewing out a cloud of sparks, streaked over at least seven states, stopping from time to time, and the whole event occurred in a matter of minutes,” the NUFORC summarized in a case brief. The Phoenix Lights // 1997
In March 1997, Arizona played host to what the NUFORC dubbed “perhaps the most dramatic UFO sighting” reported in a few years. Dozens of people from all over the state phoned the hotline to report having seen a group of white or red lights in a V formation flying across the sky. One man with flight experience estimated that the lights were about 1000 feet from the ground, and multiple people claimed the display was totally silent—making it unlikely that airplanes were responsible. When that same observer phoned Luke Air Force Base about the event, the operator told him they had received calls from many other witnesses, too. But according to the NUFORC, the base later claimed that nobody had called them about it.
After these “Phoenix Lights” received national media attention several months later, the military finally offered an explanation: The lights were just leftover flares that the Maryland Air National Guard had dropped at the end of an operation in Arizona. But some people remain unconvinced.
Elk, Abducted // 1999
Please do not beam up the elk. / ericfoltz/iStock via Getty Images
Three foresters were planting seedlings in Washington’s mountains when a gently wobbly disc-shaped aircraft appeared and drifted toward a herd of elk. Nearly all the animals fled together, but one set off in a different direction. The UFO positioned itself over the lone elk and beamed it right off the ground, though the observers couldn’t discern any “visible means of support,” attached to it. The UFO wobbled more, seemingly struggling with the weight of its prey, and eventually rose so high that the witnesses couldn’t see it anymore. They assumed the elk had somehow ended up inside the aircraft.
When NUFORC director Peter Davenport traveled to Washington to conduct an investigation, he was shown the carcass of a pregnant elk that had been found dead just a few miles from the UFO sighting. As for whether that was the same sorry creature that the UFO had supposedly targeted, we’ll almost definitely never know.
The Vanishing Silver Ship // 1979
From his front step in Wenatchee, Washington, a man watched a silver triangular aircraft with “no discernible fuselage, no wings or other protruding control devices” coast slowly over the tops of 150-foot-tall poplar trees. “A jet liner could not have stayed airborne at such a sedate rate of speed,” he recalled, and this was significantly larger than a Boeing 747. There wasn’t much time to wonder about the physics that kept the craft in flight, because it was drifting straight toward Burch Mountain. “My immediate thought was that a monstrous crash was imminent,” the witness explained, but it never came to pass. Instead, the UFO just disappeared.
The NUFORC actually vouched for this particular onlooker. “One of two excellent reports from [the] same witness,” they wrote in a note below his report. “We know this witness, and have spoken with him on several occasions. He formerly served in the U.S. military, and held a high security clearance.”
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The Glowing Gray Nighttime Visitor // 1982
A man in Leicester, England, awoke one night in 1982 to find a soft light illuminating his room. It was coming from the face of a 4-foot-tall gray creature that resembled the classic aliens from 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The witness, “overwhelmed with a feeling of calm and peace,” pinched himself several times to make sure he wasn’t simply dreaming and scanned the room in vain for some other explanation. Knowing he’d have a tough time convincing anyone he was telling the truth, he nudged his wife awake so she could bear witness, too. But as soon as she stirred, the room went completely black and the visitor vanished. “Did I imagine or dream the whole thing?” he wrote in his report. “Absolutely one million percent no.”
The Disembodied Search Beam // 1988
Three friends were on their way home from an INXS concert in Pittsburgh when they encountered a ball of light sweeping a “very bright beam of light” over the dark road and its surroundings. They promptly pulled over, and two of them exited the car so they could get a better look. (The third friend “remained in the car, screaming.”) Though the light resembled a helicopter’s search beam, “there was no hint of any craft or body emitting the beam, even when it faced away from us.” Furthermore, the whole scene was completely silent. They quickly returned to the car when the beam drew closer, and it suddenly darted away and disappeared into the night. When they resumed their journey, the radio played static before cutting out completely. “We heard a commentator say ‘…further evidence that there is life on Mars…’ and then it went back to static,” the witness reported.
Out-of-this-world alien stories from 2022
Metallic spheres zooming past military jets, mysterious signals inside the world's largest telescope, and theories on why we have yet to make contact.
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Scientists have established a new council to answer the question: "What should humans do after aliens contact us?" (Image credit: Getty)
A metallic sphere zooms across the flight path of a military jet. A mysterious signal in the world's largest telescope sparks international alarm. And scientists discover that potential Martian life may have wiped itself out eons ago. It's been a busy year for all things out there. Here are seven out-of-this-world discoveries about aliens from 2022.
Zooming metallic sphere
U.S. Navy videos of alleged UFO sightings were previously available but had not been officially declassified. (Image credit: U.S. Navy)
In May, during the first public hearing on unidentified flying objects (UFOs) since the 1960s, Pentagon officials unveiled previously classified footage of a metallic sphere zipping across the flight path of a military jet. Recorded for just a few split-second frames in a video taken through the cockpit window of an FA-18 fighter jet in 2021, the strange object was also observed by the Navy pilot flying the jet and was picked up by the plane's sensors — but military experts say they have no clue what it was.
The officials were quizzed by lawmakers about the findings of a June 2021 report that detailed 144 Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings. They were also asked about a rumored incident at Malmstrom Air Base in Montana that saw 10 nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) rendered inoperable while a glowing red orb was seen overhead. They did not divulge any details to confirm or deny the story.
Credible claims abound that most UAPs are prototype U.S., Chinese or Russian surveillance drones; hypersonic test vehicles; or even airborne trash. Both the Pentagon and NASA have announced new investigations that will attempt to separate these Earthly objects from any that could defy terrestrial explanation. Watch this space.
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LIGO's search for an alien mother ship
An artist's image of an alien starship as viewed from a planet's surface. (Image credit: Coneyl Jay)
Searching for weird objects in our own skies is one thing, but scientists have also proposed a way to look for them farther from home. By using one of the world's largest lasers, the U.S.-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), scientists said in December that they could scan the skies for the ripples in space-time left in the wake of large alien spaceships.
And by "large," they mean truly colossal — a ship would need to weigh roughly the same as Jupiter, travel at one-tenth the speed of light, and be within 326,000 light-years of Earth to make waves strong enough for LIGO to pick up. If that seems a little unrealistic, consider that the scientists also think a ship with an advanced warp-drive engine could produce detectable gravitational ripples; even leaving behind a signature for us to reverse engineer the technology.
Official protocol for contacting aliens
Scientists have established a new council to answer the question: "What should humans do after aliens contact us?" (Image credit: Getty)
Despite all this talk of looking for aliens, scientists are still stumped on what we should do if we were to find them. That's why, in November, a group of policy experts and scientists announced the establishment of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Detection Hub, a cross-disciplinary organization that will build a new alien contact protocol.
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A previous contact protocol had been written by the SETI Institute in 1989, but the document is largely focused on how discoveries should be shared with the public and other scientists, and offers only a vague sketch of a realistic international response to extraterrestrial communication — telling scientists to seek advice from the United Nations.
The new protocol will attempt to give humanity a little more cross-life-form social skills, helping scientists pick out potentially intelligent signals in space and deciphering their meaning, while also coming up with procedures, to be enforced through treaties, on how to respond to ET should it ever phone Earth.
An alien signal... or not
The spurious signals were spotted by China's enormous FAST telescope, the largest radio telescope in the world. (Image credit: Xinhua/Ou Dongqu)
For just one day in June, the moment of first contact with intelligent aliens looked like it had already arrived, after scientists at China's enormous Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope claimed it was "likely" they picked up trace signals from an extraterrestrial civilization. The claims quickly went viral, spreading across Chinese state media and the Chinese social media platform Weibo before being reported by the international press.
But disappointment soon followed when Dan Werthimer, a SETI scientist and co-researcher on the project that spotted the signals, announced that they were almost certainly from human sources. Werthimer told Live Science that the narrow-band radio signal, at first so exciting to scientists because it usually comes only from artificial sources, originated from Earth-based interference that appeared inside the giant telescope much like an alien signal would. This isn't the first time space message watchers have been falsely alerted — another famous set of signals detected between 2011 and 2014 turned out to have been made by scientists microwaving their lunches. It almost certainly won't be the last.
A possible solution to the Fermi paradox
The paradox wonders why, given the staggering number of galaxies, stars, and worlds, we see no other signs of intelligent life beyond our planet. (Image credit: NASA)
Perhaps the hardest part of alien contact is convincing them we're worth talking to. In December, a new paper proposed an interesting solution to the so-called Fermi paradox, or the apparent lack of other intelligent beings in spite of the almost infinite number of other worlds. Perhaps, to a distant observer, the research suggested, we look pretty boring.
Advanced aliens, the study argues, are probably interested only in signs of sophisticated technology rather than life alone and could have even visited Earth before humans evolved. It is only with the advent of radio technology in the 1930s that humanity would produce a technological signature for intelligent aliens to pick up on our existence, and even then, these messages usually get garbled into gibberish after traveling a light-year.
Perhaps it's that there are no intelligent civilizations within 1 light-year of our planet but there are plenty farther out. Or maybe they picked up on our radio signals years ago and their response, traveling at the finite speed of light, is on its way.
Collapsed alien civilization?
Alien spaceships above rocky planet. (Image credit: Angela Harburn/Shutterstock)
In May, scientists came up with another solution to the Fermi paradox, this time suggesting that advanced aliens might never contact us because they have rejected a growth-based system entirely.
Their new hypothesis proposes that, as space-faring civilizations grow in scale and technological development, they eventually reach a crisis point where innovation no longer keeps up with energy demands. What comes next is collapse. The only alternative path is to reject a model of "unyielding growth" in favor of maintaining equilibrium, but at the cost of a civilization's ability to expand across the stars and come into contact with humans.
Martian microbes doomed by climate change
A dust storm rampages over Mars. (Image credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech)
Finally, it's possible that most life wipes itself out before it can even make itself known. In October, a climate modeling study of primordial Mars proposed that Mars and Earth may have once had similar atmospheres and were home to similar early microbes that consumed hydrogen to produce methane.
But because Mars is farther from our star than Earth is, it was more reliant on a fog of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen, to maintain hospitable temperatures for life. So, as ancient Martian microbes ate hydrogen (a potent greenhouse gas) and produced methane (a significant greenhouse gas on Earth but less potent than hydrogen), they faced harsher consequences for eating into their planet's heat-trapping blanket than their cousins on Earth did, eventually making Mars too cold to foster the evolution of complex life.
The scientists' proposal, if accurate, could suggest that life may not be innately self-sustaining in every conducive environment it pops up in, and that it can easily wipe itself out by accidentally destroying the foundations for its own existence — a disquieting thought in our time of biodiversity loss, irreversible resource extraction and climate change.
Most Convincing Alien Abduction Stories In Modern History
If you're a skeptic, these UFO sightings will convince you the truth is out there—and it may not be from Earth
UFO sightings we can’t 100% explain
UFOs (and all the weirdness that comes with them) are in the news again after a whistleblower testified to Congress that the U.S. government has secretly been collecting and reverse-engineering UFOs for decades. Another shocking bit of testimony from this hearing: Nonhuman “biologics” were collected from some UFOs as part of this highly classified program. While these allegations haven’t been proven true, they’ve thrust UFO sightings and aliens back into the national spotlight, with the public asking one of humanity’s biggest and oldest questions: Are we alone in the universe?
Everyone has an opinion when it comes to extraterrestrial life. Some think these alien tales are bogus conspiracy theories, some are open to speculation and others are entirely taken with these mysteries of the universe, cameras poised and tinfoil hats at the ready. Whether you’re a believer or a skeptic, UFO sightings bring out a little wonder (and a little fear!) in all of us. Take a look at these stories of UFO sightings and alien encounters, and make of them what you will. Most important, keep looking to the sky.
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Katrina and her friends
Henderson, Nevada, 2024
One of the latest UFO sightings happened on May 31, 2024. According to TMZ, Katrina and her friends were enjoying a night out in Henderson, Nevada, when something extraordinary caught their attention. At around 10 p.m., they spotted a bright, round light shimmering in the sky. TMZ acquired a video showing this mysterious object moving in a diagonal pattern before shifting up and down. At one point, a plane zooms past, but it never gets too close to the potential UFO.
John Shepherd and the lights
Kensington, Prince Edward Island, Canada, 2014
During another recent UFO sighting, which took place on June 4, 2014, John Sheppard was camping near Kensington, Canada, at the Twin Shores campground. Late that evening, as he was extinguishing a bonfire, he noticed several lights dancing in the sky over the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Sheppard captured 22 minutes of this unusual sighting on his cellphone and sent the footage to the Mutual UFO Network of Canada (MUFON), a nonprofit organization focused on studying UFOs. This incident was later listed as one of the top 10 MUFON sightings of 2014.
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The Betty and Barney Hill case
Rural New Hampshire, 1961
This may just be one of the most famous UFO sightings and alien abduction cases in history. Betty and Barney Hill were driving on a rural New Hampshire road one night when a bright light seemed to start following them. When they eventually got home, it was daylight, their clothes were dirty and ripped, their watches had stopped working—and they couldn’t remember a thing. During sessions with a psychiatrist, they later recalled being probed and violated by aliens during an abduction. The case was investigated by Project Blue Book and inspired several movies and documentaries.
Barbara Lamb and the lizard man
Claremont, California, 2006
A woman named Barbara Lamb, a psychotherapist who observed crop circles, claimed that a reptilian figure appeared in her house one day, reports Vanity Fair. He was tall and had piercing yellow eyes, she said. While Lamb was normally not fond of snakes and lizards, the reptile appeared friendly and welcoming, so she reached out to touch his hand. Then the lizard man vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. Sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, right?
Zimbabwe children and the end of the world
Ruwa, Zimbabwe, 1994
In September 1994, several UFOs allegedly hovered near a school in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, reports Vanity Fair. The children who observed these UFOs were terrified when they were asked to explain what had happened. They described beings with big heads, no noses (just two holes), no mouths and long black hair. The children said they were dressed in dark suits and communicated telepathically. “I think it’s about something that’s going to happen,” said one little girl. “What I thought was maybe the world’s going to end. They were telling us the world’s going to end. I don’t even know. It just popped up in my head. He never said anything. He talked just with his eyes.”
The Rendlesham Forest Incident
Suffolk, England, 1980
Known as “Britain’s Roswell,” the Rendlesham Forest Incident is one of the most famous UFO sightings ever reported. The reason? The witnesses involved in the December 1980 event were U.S. military personnel and considered highly credible witnesses. They reported seeing an alien aircraft zoom through the forest. When they went to check it out, it seemed as though strange hieroglyphics were written all over the craft. It turns out that this was most likely a prank played on the U.S. soldiers by the British military.
The O’Hare International Airport saucer
Chicago, 2006
On Nov. 7, 2006, United Flight 446 was about to depart from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport when a dozen United Airlines employees spotted an odd metallic craft hovering over the gate. The employees reported that it hung in the air for several minutes before finally shooting into the clouds at breakneck speed. The strangest part? The UFO did not register on the airport’s radar, despite all the witnesses. The FAA declined to investigate, chalking up the alleged UFO sighting to a “weather phenomenon.”
The Melbourne 350
Melbourne, Australia, 1966
This is another tale of a UFO sighting that could inspire the next great science fiction book. Around 350 students and teachers of Westall High School in Melbourne, Australia, saw an unbelievable sight on April 6, 1966, shares the New York Post. They were all looking incredulously at five planes that were attempting to corner and capture a UFO. This went on for a while before the UFO zipped away, out of sight. It is reported that the headmaster of the school and even strange men in black suits told the students and teachers never to say anything about it, even though it was witnessed by hundreds of people.
The Broad Haven Primary School drawings
Broad Haven, Wales, 1977
The BBC reports that in 1977, a group of children from Broad Haven Primary School claimed to have seen a UFO near their playground. The teachers of the school refused to believe them, but when the children were separated and asked to draw pictures of the experience, they all came up with the same drawing of a flying saucer. An interesting fact, indeed.
The Frederick Valentich disappearance
Bass Strait, Australia, 1978
Australian pilot Frederick Valentich was flying over the Bass Strait when he encountered something he couldn’t identify, according to an Australian news source. He got on his radio to notify air traffic control that there was a strange vessel, the likes of which he had never seen before, circling him, as if taunting him. “It is hovering, and it is not an aircraft,” were the last words Valentich said before he and his plane disappeared forever.
Fred Crisman and Harold Dahl
Maury Island, Washington, 1947
In 1947, Harold Dahl was out on Puget Sound with his son and his dog. History.com recounts that Dahl saw six strange aircraft overhead, one of which fell an estimated 1,500 feet out of the sky and into the water below. The metal debris hurt his son and killed his dog. Dahl told his supervisor at work, Fred Crisman, what had happened, and Crisman came and verified it for himself. Soon afterward, a man in a black suit supposedly came to Dahl and warned him not to speak of the incident again—it is said that this UFO sighting inspired the action movie Men in Black.
The Pentagon sighting
Arlington, Virginia, 1952
A 1952 incident in which seven unidentified objects appeared over secure airspace near the Pentagon was captured on film. The crafts were registered on radar, and jets were immediately sent to investigate these suspicious, strange objects. However, when the American jets approached that airspace, the seven objects disappeared from radar. When the jets landed, the objects returned to the radar screen once more.
President Harry S. Truman was notified, and Air Force Intelligence Director General John Samford held a press conference, saying that there were reports “made by credible observers of relatively incredible things. It’s this group of observations that we are attempting to resolve.” There was no resolution, which seems to be the case with many UFO sightings.
The Muscarello Exeter incident
Exeter, New Hampshire, 1965
A hitchhiker named Norman Muscarello saw five strange red, flashing lights in the woods. As TV station WMUR recounts, the source of the lights suddenly came toward him at a frightening speed. Muscarello dove into a ditch to avoid being hit before flagging down a motorist. The police investigated the area, and they saw an aircraft with the same bright red lights speed off out of sight. Today, the event is celebrated with a yearly Exeter UFO Festival.
Steven Allen and the jumbo UFO
Stephenville, Texas, 2008
Years ago, an unfathomably large aircraft hovered above Stephenville, Texas. Many people in the community saw it, and according to NPR, a pilot named Steven Allen reported that the unusual aircraft was flying at an estimated 3,000 miles per hour and being chased by fighter jets. People also claimed the UFO was “bigger than a Walmart” and totally silent as it flew through the air.
Richard French and the drowned UFOs
Coast of St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, 1950s
In the 1950s, Lieutenant Colonel Richard French’s job was to explain away UFO phenomena to the government. There was only one problem: Lt. Col. French saw alien ships with his own eyes, reports the Daily Mail.
At a Citizen Hearing on Disclosure in 2013, the then-83-year-old French told the truth for the first time about what he saw as a young man in the waters of St. John’s, Newfoundland: two UFOs that had crashed and sunk … and aliens trying to fix them. They succeeded and took off. He didn’t mention UFOs in his report at the time.
PBS Programs All About Aliens
From extraterrestrial beings to UFOs, there's countless theories and reported sightings of life from other galaxies. Whether you believe in Grays or are simply interested in learning more, below are some stories that might spark your interest. You can check out these otherworldly programs here or on the PBS app.
Martians: How Aliens Invaded Earth
From the invading aliens of ‘War of the Worlds’ to post-world war escapism literature and even real-life scientific exploration today, the stories of Martians have changed throughout time. Find out how we’ve gone from viewing Mars as a pre-existing utopia populated by alien races to actually seeing the planet as a potential new home for earthlings.
What If the Galactic Habitable Zone LIMITS Intelligent Life?
Our solar system is a tiny bubble of habitability suspended in a vast universe that mostly wants to kill us. In fact, a good fraction of our own galaxy turns out to be utterly uninhabitable, even for suns — like stellar systems. Is this why most of us haven’t seen aliens?
What If Humanity Is Among The First Spacefaring Civilization
Half of the universe is filled with expansionist alien civilizations, and it’s only a matter of time before they’ll reach us. OK, that sounded a little sensationalist. But it’s also the conclusion of one astrophysics paper. Let’s see how they figure this, and whether we should take it seriously.
How to Find ALIEN Dyson Spheres
On our search for alien lifeforms we scan for primitive biosignatures, and wait and hope for their signals to happen by the Earth. But that may not be the best way. Any energy-hungry civilization more advanced than our own may leave an indisputable technological mark on the galaxy. And yes, we’re very actively searching for those also. Time to update you on the hunt for galactic empires.
NOVA Universe Revealed: Alien Worlds Preview
Ultra-sensitive telescopes have transformed alien planet-hunting from science fiction into enthralling hard fact. Join NOVA on a visit to exotic worlds orbiting distant suns to answer an age-old question with thrilling new science: are we alone?
The REAL Possibility of Mapping Alien Planets!
This is the craziest proposal for an astrophysics mission that has a good chance of actually happening. A train of spacecraft sailing the sun’s light to a magical point out there in space where the Sun’s own gravity turns it into a gigantic lens. What could such a solar-system-sized telescope do? Pretty much anything. But definitely map the surfaces of alien worlds.
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How To Know If It's Aliens
There’s one rule on Space Time: It’s never Aliens. But every rule has an exception and this rule is no exception because: It’s never aliens, until it is. So is it aliens yet? On this Space Time we’re going to examine all the best case scenarios for life beyond Earth.
Alien Abduction and UFOs: Why Are Grays So Common?
Grey Aliens, sometimes called Zeta Reticulans, Roswell Greys, or just Grays, are defined by their humanoid forms, long limbs, large black eyes, small noses, thin mouths, and of course, gray skin or gray clothing. They are some of pop culture’s most recognizable representations of extraterrestrial life. But where did this depiction of extraterrestrials come from?
First Contact: An Alien Encounter
Mixing a fictional narrative with documentary interviews, "First Contact: An Alien Encounter" tells the dramatic story of an encounter with an extraterrestrial artifact and explores the new tools we have available in the search for life beyond earth.
There Was Nobody Here We Knew
In early quarantine, a Pakistani couple in northern Virginia bicker and ruminate about extraterrestrial and terrestrial border-crossings of multiple kinds, after spotting what they believe is a UFO outside their home. 'There Was Nobody Here We Knew' is as much about finding answers as it is about looking inward to understand how we arrived at where we are and where we are headed.
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