Mystery Timeline｜1946–1988
The UFO boom, the tsuchinoko and lake monster crazes, the Slit-Mouthed Woman, and other mysteries that captivated Japan from the postwar years to the end of the Showa era.
The 1947 incident in which the American businessman Kenneth Arnold saw nine high-speed flying objects near Mount Rainier from his private plane. It gave rise to the term "flying saucer" and is the starting point of modern UFO history.
A 1947 incident in New Mexico in which the US military announced it had recovered a "flying disc" from debris found on a ranch. It became synonymous with UFO crash theories.
The incident on January 7, 1948, in which Air Force fighter pilot Captain Thomas Mantell crashed and died while chasing a UFO over Kentucky. It was rumored that he was "shot down by a UFO," but he is thought to have blacked out from lack of oxygen after climbing too high.
The original "contactee," who claimed to have met a Venusian and set off a worldwide UFO boom. He is known for photos of a bell-shaped "Adamski-type saucer," but many have pointed to fabrication.
A type of alien said to be tall, blond and blue-eyed, resembling the people of Northern Europe. Spread by 1950s "contactees" who claimed to have met aliens, they were portrayed as peace-preaching "space brothers," in sharp contrast to the small Greys.
A monster about 3 meters tall seen in 1952 in the town of Flatwoods, West Virginia. It is said to have appeared just after a glowing object fell from the sky, and is known in Japan as "the 3-meter alien."
The July 1952 incident in which unidentified lights repeatedly appeared over Washington, D.C., the U.S. capital, and showed up on airport radar. Fighters were scrambled, and the Air Force held a major press conference explaining it as a weather phenomenon.
An alien about one meter tall with gray skin, a large head and black almond-shaped eyes. The most typical image of an alien, it spread through abduction accounts such as the Hill case of the 1960s.
Accounts of being taken aboard a UFO by aliens and examined. They spread from the 1961 Hill case. "Missing time," a gap in memory, is said to be a feature, but psychology explains such accounts through sleep paralysis and memories created under hypnosis.
The 1961 incident in which an American couple, the Hills, said they were taken aboard a UFO during a night drive and examined by aliens. Their memories were said to have resurfaced under regression hypnosis, and it became the prototype of "alien abduction."
An affair in 1960s Spain in which huge numbers of letters arrived from supposed aliens from the planet "Ummo," along with reports of UFO landings and photos. Photos of a UFO bearing the same symbol as the letters caused a sensation, but in 1993 a Spanish man confessed it was a hoax.
A phenomenon in which livestock such as cattle are found with parts such as the eyes, tongue or organs cut away and apparently drained of blood. It was frequent in 1970s America and attributed to aliens, but investigations explain it as animals and insects feeding after death.
The 1972 incident in which junior high school students in the Kera district of Kochi City, Kochi Prefecture, said they captured a small UFO. The silver, hat-shaped object reportedly vanished and reappeared each time they took it home. It is counted among Japan's three great UFO incidents.
The incident in April 1974 in Nikoro, Kitami, Hokkaido, in which a farmer said he encountered a small alien and an orange glowing disc and was taken inside the disc. He testified that he was taken again and again afterward, and it is sometimes counted among Japan's three great UFO incidents.
An incident in 1975 in which two elementary school boys in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, said an alien emerged from a UFO that landed in a vineyard and tapped one of them on the shoulder. It is known as Japan's best-known close encounter with aliens.
A group of gods in the Sumerian mythology of ancient Mesopotamia. In the 1970s the writer Zecharia Sitchin claimed they were "aliens from the planet Nibiru who created humanity," and the idea spread in the world of UFOs and conspiracy theories, but historians reject it.
A phenomenon in which crops such as wheat are flattened into circles or complex geometric patterns. Many were found in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s and were said to be UFO landing marks, but in 1991 two men came forward saying they had made them with planks and rope.
A strong radio signal from space received by an American radio telescope in 1977. It was so striking that "Wow!" was written on the printout. It drew attention as a possible signal from extraterrestrial intelligence, but it has never been received again.
Insect-like aliens said to have a triangular, mantis-like head with large eyes and a long, thin body. They began to appear in alien abduction accounts around the 1990s, often described as beings that supervise the Greys.
UFOs shaped like long, slender cigars, often told of as "motherships" carrying small disc-shaped UFOs. In 2017, the cigar-shaped interstellar object Oumuamua was discovered, causing a stir.
