July 24 "Area 51" is born as a test site and base for U-2 spy planes.

August 20 The Sutton Farm near Kelly, Kentucky is terrorized by "creatures".

1956

April Carlos Allende annotates a copy of Morris K. Jessup's The Case for the UFO and sends it to the Office of Naval Research. He also sends several letters to Jessup himself. The annotations and letters tell the story of the purported Philadelphia Experiment.

August The National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomenon (NICAP) is organized. For several years, it will be the dominant UFO organization in the U.S.

1957

January Major Donald Keyhoe becomes the director of NICAP

July 17 RB-47 incident over Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma.

October 5 Antonio Villas-Boas abducted in Brazil.

November 4 Kirtland AFB sighting by CAA personnel.

1958

International Geophysical Year

January 16 Brazilian research team sees and photographs a UFO over Trindade Island off the coast of Brazil.

1959

February Private Gerry Irwin has a strange encounter outside Cedar City, Utah.

April 20 UFO writer Morris K. Jessup commits suicide.(?)

June 26 to 28 Father Gill and a group of native Papuans see UFOs at Boianai, Papua New Guinea.

1960

April - July Project Ozma: Astronomer Frank Drake listens for alien signals from space.

August 13 California Highway Patrolmen and Sheriff's deputies watch a UFO for over two hours near Corning, California.

1961

April 18 Joe Simonton gets free pancakes from a UFO occupant.

September 19 Betty and Barney Hill have an unusual abduction experience near Indian Head, New Hampshire.

October 2 The Salt Lake City, Utah UFO sighting.

1962

SR-71/A-12 testing begins at Area 51.

1964

April 24 Deputy Lonnie Zamora has a close encounter near Socorro, New Mexico.

April An alien craft purportedly lands at Holloman AFB, Alamogordo, New Mexico.

1965

September A wave of sightings begins at Exeter, New Hampshire.

December 9 Something crashes to earth near Kecksburg, Pennsylvania

1966

January 19 George Pedley finds a Saucer Nest at Tully, Australia.

March Wave of UFO sightings around Ann Arbor, Michigan. Professor J. Allen Hynek offers his famous "Swamp Gas Theory" as one possible explanation for some of the sightings and is widely ridiculed by the media.

Dr. James E. McDonald, an atmospheric physicist, comes to the forefront of UFOlogy.

April 17 Law officers chase a UFO from Ohio into Pennsylvania.

November 15 The mysterious winged creature known as "Mothman" begins a year-long series of appearances around Point Pleasant, West Virginia. 1967

The Air Force commissions the University of Colorado to study the UFO phenomenon. Headed by Dr. Edward Condon, the project becomes known as The Condon Study.

March 16 UFO incident at Malmstrom AFB in Montana.

May 20 Stephen Michalak is burned by a UFO at Falcon Lake in Canada.

September "Snippy" the horse, the first "mute" is found dead with the skin and flesh stripped from its head and neck and no blood in the carcass or on the ground.

October 4 Something crashes into the sea at Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada. December 3 Patrolman Herb Schirmer is abducted in Nebraska.

1968

The "Roush Hearings", a strongly pro-UFO seminar, is held in Washington, D.C. This is James. E. McDonald's high point, and the nearest thing to a Congressional investigation of UFOs that has ever taken place.

1969

Walter Andrus and a group of followers leave APRO to form MUFON

January The final report of the Condon Study is issued. It concludes that there is not enough scientific evidence to justify the study of UFOs.

December The Condon Report is the final blow to Project Bluebook and it is shut down.

Charged with mis-management, Donald Keyhoe is forced out as NICAP director.