History is an irresistible, inexorable force, moving on and plowing through time to leave many things simply buried in its wake even as it carves and barrels its way to the future. Of course there are the discoveries and artifacts from past times that we know of and which have helped to shape our vie of what the world was once like and how it developed. We know of the past through the various pieces of it we manage to dig up throughout the world, which illuminate history and allow us to cobble and piece together a cracked, often foggy window through which we can glimpse past events. However, sometimes a relic or artifact will emerge that shatters that window through time, sending spiderwebs of cracks through what we thought we could see and distorting our sense of what we think we know, something so jarringly out of place as to make us question even reality itself. Here are some of the strange objects from the depths of time that have been dug up only to remain anomalies stuck in some fringe realm of history like strange ancient insects in amber, and indeed by all rights should not even exist at all.

Probably the most widely known ancient technological anomaly was found quite by chance in 1900, when sponge divers off the remote coast of the Greek island of Antikythera found an ancient shipwreck that held ensconced within it a device from the far corners of history that would eventually go on to baffle the scientific world. At first the artifact looked to be merely a rusted out misshapen blob of bronze corroded and degraded over millennia banished under water, and it was placed in the National Museum of Archaeology in Athens along with other artifacts from the wreck, where it sat collecting dust for years before anyone would take another look at it, seemingly an unimportant, ugly mass of metal and rock at the time.

It was the archaeologist Valerios Stais who first realized that there was perhaps more to this strange lump of crud than met the eye, when he uncovered what appeared to be a whole gear wheel embedded within its mishmash. Stais surmised that this was perhaps part of some complex ancient machine, but at the time the scientific community was skeptical of this, and so the exciting discovery sat there without any further serious research for several more decades, a mere curious anomaly that no one could really make any sense of or was even willing to try. It would not be until the 1970s that another close look was taken at it, and what would come to be called the Antikythera Mechanism would finally have its ancient mysteries revealed after 2,000 years of being buried at the bottom of the sea.

A portion of the Antikythera Mechanism

In the 1970s, advanced imaging procedures allowed archeologists to peer into the device for the first time, and they were astounded by what they found. Rather than a solid clump of bronze and rock, it was found that there were dozens of complex gears, dials, and rotating hands embedded within, all precisely positioned into some sort of clockwork machine, with some marked with cryptic inscriptions. Over the years the complexity of this amazing machine was slowly revealed, and it quite frankly stumped the scientific community. Here was an ancient machine entwined with the mists of time, utilizing complicated, incredibly precise gear works far ahead of its time, with the earliest such machines of this quality previously thought to have emerged in around the 14th century. It was amazingly, impossibly advanced for its era, far beyond what was thought possible, and by all rights this thing should not have existed at all, but there it was.

At first it was unknown as to just what the purpose of the device could have possibly been, and it was often speculated at first to be some sort of navigational device. However, later research would show it to have most likely been a sort of early analog computer of sorts, in this case one for making precise astronomical calculations and mapping out the positions and movements of the sun, moon, planets, stars, as well as track the lunar phase and predict lunar and solar eclipses. Although there are parts still missing, reconstructions have shown that such is the amazing craftsmanship, sophistication, and ingenuity of the device that it was shockingly accurate, and could even compensate for the extra quarter-day in the astronomical year, long before the idea of a leap year had even been introduced into the mainstream Julian calendar. Considering that it is all still a mystery as to who built the machine, how it was made, or why it ended up on that unassuming ship, as well as the fact that nothing else remotely like it has been found from that era, the Antikythera Device is quite a perplexing anomaly indeed.

While the Antikythera Mechanism is the one of the most studied such historical oddity it is certainly not the strangest, and for that we have to take a look at some of the supposed discoveries of objects that physically should not exist at all. In June of 1936 there was a truly bizarre discovery made in London, Texas, in the United States, by a middle-aged couple who had been just out for a leisurely stroll near their home. During their walk, Max and Emma Hahn spotted something odd on the ground ahead of them and went to investigate what looked to be a rock with a piece of wood strangely protruding from it.

Curious as to why there should be this length of wood sticking out of a rock in the middle of nowhere, Max took it home and went about breaking the rock open. After breaking pieces of the rock away with a hammer and chisel, the couple were startled to see that the wood appeared to be the remnants of a handle of some sort of metal hammer head firmly encased within the rock. This is quite odd enough as it is, but it would get even stranger still when they took the unusual finding to a museum and the rock itself was found to be more than 400 million years old, and the head of the hammer itself was estimated at perhaps 500 million years old, with parts of its handle having supposedly begun to turn to coal over the eons as a testament to its vast age. Yet the object was obviously artificial, perfectly formed and the head possessing iron with a purity that could not occur in nature, unmistakably a hammer. How could this be?

The discovery was baffling, as of course there could not have been anyone around to fashion such a hammer so long ago, so was this the work of aliens, time travelers, or what? Creationists were certainly quick to jump on the discovery as well, and speculation soared. However, in the end although it is certainly odd, there is likely a more rational explanation. The problem is that the type of rock the hammer was found in, ancient limestone, is soft and could have been soluble and malleable enough to mold and form a concretion around the object over time under the right conditions, meaning a modern object such as a hammer could feasibly find its way into the midst of 400-million-year-old rock replete with fossils of long extinct organisms.

The London Hammer

Although this would be very rare and unusual, it still is seen as more probable than a modern human being losing a hammer hundreds of millions of years ago. In the end we will probably never know, as the so-called London Hammer has not since been studied and the hammer head itself has never been reliably carbon dated for its age, just the rock around it. Making answers all the more elusive is the fact that the mysterious hammer now resides at the Creation Evidence Museum, which is obviously run by creationists who don’t seem to want it examined any further, meaning we will likely never know what is going on here or even what truth any of it holds.

The London Hammer is reminiscent of other seemingly modern tools, parts, and equipment that have been anomalously found within stone or other materials that are often millions of years old. In 1820 some tools such as hammers and picks were found suspended in a layer of ancient limestone 50 feet below the ground at a stone quarry in Aix-en-Provence, France. Then, in 1852 a drill bit of all things was found ensconced within a solid chunk of coal that had been buried within a bed of ancient prehistoric clay and boulders in Scotland. There was no sign of any puncture in the coal or any indication as to how the drill bit could have been inserted within it, suggesting that it had been there when the coal formed, hundreds of millions of years ago.

More recently, in 1961 a group of friends in Olancha, California were looking for geodes when they found within one of them a modern spark of all things, and allegedly a geologist estimated the object as being 500,000 years old. In October of 1996 a group of researchers in the Kaluga region of western Russia located a screw complete with the fully formed head and nut embedded within rock that was found to be 300 to 350 million years old. Examination by various scientists showed that the object is most certainly artificial, but as to how it got into that rock no one knows.

The mysterious ancient spark plug

Some other anomalous ancient artifacts are a little harder to adequately classify, and defy easy categorization. In 1885, a strange object was found by an iron smelter at a foundry in Vocklabruck, Austria. There, within a block of solid coal, was discovered a perfectly-formed cuboid object of what seemed to be iron or some other type of metal, measuring 2.64 by 2.64 by 1.85 inches and weighing 1.73 pounds, its purpose unknown. The outlandish cube-like object was sent to the Salzburg Museum, where it was analyzed by the Austrian physicist Karl Gurls and found to be made not of iron, but rather of a strange alloy composing steel and nickel, although it would later be deemed to be actually made of a forged iron.

Further analysis showed that the object, whatever it was, was too precise in shape and made of too refined a metal to have been caused by any known naturally occurring phenomenon such as a meteorite strike, and was most likely machine-tooled and even probably just a part of a larger device or mechanism, although what type no one knows. What has come to be known as the Salzburg Cube or the Wolfsegg Iron has apparently been studied by scientists at the Geological Institute of Austria, who have also come to the conclusion that it seems to indeed be indeed artificial, and the object has even been featured in an 1886 edition of the scientific journal Nature, as well as an 1887 issue of the French journal L’Astronomie.

What was this strange object and how did it get within a chunk of coal dating to tens of millions of years ago? Was it truly a manufactured object, and if so what sort of enigmatic mechanism did it once belong to? It is difficult to tell for sure, as the Salzburg Cube has since disappeared completely, leaving only these vague 19th century reports behind. It might have been lost, misplaced, mislabeled, or filed away in some darkened backroom of a museum collection somewhere gathering dust, perhaps even stolen for unknown reasons. We only know for sure that it did exist, but without modern scientific analysis we will probably never know for sure what it was. Mysterious technology of the ancients, aliens in prehistory, time travelers, or unknown natural phenomena? Who knows?

Another truly bizarre historic discovery was made near Nampa, in Idaho, the United States in 1889 by workers who were in the process of digging a water well. The project necessitated drilling equipment, and at a depth of 300 feet under the earth a very strange object was spat forth from the steam pump of the machine, regurgitated up from the subterranean depths. There lying upon the ground was a miniature, brown figurine of some sort, which upon examination seemed to be made of some sort of clay. The figure had come up with a myriad of chunks and balls of the same material, and it was all coated with what was believed to be iron oxide. What was truly remarkable about the figurine was that it was a very skillfully carved likeness of what seemed to be a human woman, striking in its detail, including even faint markings that might be meant to represent clothing and jewelry. George Frederick Wright, a geologist at the Boston Society of Natural History, would later describe its discovery and the figure itself:

The record of the well shows that they had penetrated first about fifty feet of soil, then about fifteen feet of basalt, and afterwards passed through alternate beds of clay and quicksand, down to a depth of about three hundred feet when the sand pump began to bring up numerous clay balls, some of them more than two inches in diameter, densely coated with iron oxide. There is no ground to question the fact that this image came up in the sand pump from the depth reported. The object is about an inch and a half long, and remarkable for the perfection with which it represents the human form. It was a female figure, and had the lifelike lineaments in the parts which were finished that would do credit to the classic centers of art.

The Nampa Figurine

The thing is, how did it get into that strata deep down in the earth? The mysterious figurine was sent to be studied, and was found to have quartz grains that had been cemented by iron molecules, hinting at a vast age, and the rock where it was found was estimated to be around 2 million years old. This is obviously strange considering that this was the age of Homo habilis and Homo erectus, and these human ancestors at this point in time were not making detailed clay figurines, and even if they were why should it resemble in any way at all a modern human woman complete with clothing and jewelry? The so-called Nampa Figurine has of course been used to challenge current theories of human evolution and migration, with one researcher and author of The Hidden History of the Human Race, Michael Cemo, writing of it:

Other than Homo sapiens sapiens, no hominid is known to have fashioned works of art like the Nampa figurine. The evidence therefore suggests that humans of the modern type were living in America at the Plio-Pleistocene age which dates about 2 million years ago. According to current Darwinian theories of evolution, figurines like the Idaho image are made only by humans of the modern type, who came into existence only about 200,000 years ago.

It is a far-out theory indeed, and there have been other ideas as well, such as that this was dropped off by a time traveler or that it was, of course, aliens. However, skeptics have pointed out that the figurine may be more modern than it seems, and may have been lying on the surface before drilling even began, or that it was even an intentionally crafted hoax. Nevertheless, much controversy and debate has surrounded the Nampa Figurine, and its origins remain wreathed in mystery and lost to time. Equally as perplexing and controversial is a discovery allegedly made in 1938 in the Baian-Kara-ula mountains on the border of China and Tibet, by Chinese archeologist and professor Chi Pu Tei. His expedition purportedly came across an underground network of tunnels, caves, and caverns that seemed to have been artificially excavated, leaving smooth glazed walls suggesting some immense heat had been used. Tsum claimed that within this strange subterranean world they had found pictograms carved into the walls, which depicted star systems, the sun, and the moon, and even more bizarrely graves that supposedly held the remains of tiny humanoids measuring about 4 feet tall and with outsized heads. Perhaps even stranger were the objects they found half buried in the earth all around them.

The objects in question were a series of over 700 perfectly circular discs measuring up to a foot across, and which were said to have two grooves that emanated out from a perfectly round, 3/4″ hole in the center to form a double spiral. Within the spirals were claimed to be minuscule hieroglyphics of an unknown type, so small that they were barely visible to the naked eye, and which required a magnifying glass to make out in any significant detail. Although this would have been seen as a monumental discovery, the discs allegedly found themselves locked away in storage at Beijing university for decades until 1962, when Chinese archeologist Tsum Um Nui supposedly took a look at them and the story would get even more bizarre still.

After careful analysis of the discs, this Tsum Um Nui claimed that he had actually managed to decipher them, and that they told an epic tale and often tragic tale of visitors from the stars. According to Nui, the discs spoke of a spaceship that had crashed into the mountains carrying a contingent of alien beings called the Dropa. The crash smashed the ship beyond their ability to repair, and so these mysterious beings had been forced to find refuge in the mountains and adapt to life on Earth, creating the tunnels and caverns in the process. The discs even supposedly give the harrowing account of some of these Dropa being mercilessly slaughtered by the Han Chinese.

It sounds completely absurd, and the general scientific community agreed, refusing to publish Nui’s paper on the matter and generally looking upon his claims with raised eyebrows and outright disdain. According to some accounts, the archeologist was even forbidden from even talking about the discs anymore after that, but the whole weird tale caught the attention of Russian scientist W. Saitsew, who apparently acquired some of the discs and studied them himself in 1968. Saitsew allegedly found the composition of the discs to be quite odd, comprised of a strange mix of cobalt and other metals that made the surface nearly impenetrably hard and deepening the mystery of the hieroglyphs etched upon them. He also claimed to have discovered that when placed on a specialized turntable the discs hummed and oscillated as if they had once held an electrical charge or served as conductors of some type.

It is unclear what happened to what have come to be known as the Dropa Discs after this, and Tsum Um Nui himself allegedly fled China to Japan, where he vanished into obscurity. We are left with very little to go on, and indeed there is much to cast doubt on whether the Dropa Discs ever even existed at all. For one there are no discs now to examine, with the estimated 712 discs all allegedly disappearing over the years. There is also rather suspiciously a lack of any photographic documentation of them at all. The only supposed photographs of the Dropa Discs were purportedly taken by the Austrian engineer Ernst Wegerer, who apparently located two of the discs during a visit to the Banpo Museum in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province in 1974. However, the photographs are fairly controversial and the discs themselves are obscured by camera flash.

Alleged photo of the Dropa Discs

Other damning evidence against the existence of the Dropa Discs is that there are no real official scientific papesr written on them, with only the writings of Tsum Um Nui, the Russian scientists, and some second or third hand accounts to go on, and these are of questionable veracity at best. In fact, Tsum Um Nui appears to have no mention in any university or academic institution as an archeologist, and indeed it has been pointed out that Tsum Um Nui isn’t even a real Chinese name at all. There are likewise no official museum records to show that such discs were ever within their collections, nor is there any official documentation of the Chi Pu Tei expedition that supposedly found them in the first place, and indeed there is no way to know if it ever happened at all. Considering such a lack of any concrete evidence, if the Dropa Discs ever did exist then the Chinese have gone through great efforts to cover it all up. Perhaps more likely is that this is an intriguing archeological urban legend that has sort of taken up a life of its own. Regardless, these mysterious discs crafted by unknown hands have continued to be discussed and debated to this day.

With such mindbogglingly strange artifacts of course there have been numerous theories proposed over the years. One is that, in cases like that of the Antikythera Mechanism our understanding human technological development may be incorrect or skewed. Perhaps these ancient peoples were more advanced than previously thought, but we are still left with the conundrum that such discoveries are isolated and unique. If these civilizations had access to the ability to create such marvels, then where is the documentation of them and their schematics and plans? Indeed, if this technology was available shouldn’t there be more of these artifacts to be found rather than just single anomalies? Or was this perhaps just an expensive and exclusive technology and there are perhaps more examples out there that simply haven’t been found? There is no way to know.

Other ideas branch further out into the fringe. Besides the obvious creationist theories, there are the ideas that this is evidence of ancient aliens meddling with human affairs, that these are evidence of time travel, or even that it is all indicative of some sort of inter-dimensional phenomena. Perhaps it is even something beyond our ability to understand, some new phenomenon that we have no inkling of. Whatever the case may be, there sure have been some strange things dug up from the earth and from below the sea, and these ancient mysteries will likely go on to puzzle and baffle for some time to come.

Neutron star: a celestial object of very small radius (typically 18 miles/30 km) and very high density, composed predominantly of closely packed neutrons; thought to be formed form by the gravitational collapse of the remnant of a massive star after a supernova explosion, making it essentially a stellar corpse and too small to be a black hole.

Relativistic jet: beams of ionised matter accelerated close to the speed of light; associated with central black holes, galactic stellar black holes and neutron stars.

Rule of neutron stars and relativistic jets: relativistic jets do not come out of neutron stars with strong magnetic fields.

Until now.

According to their study published in the journal Nature, Astronomer Jakob van den Eijnden of the University of Amsterdam and his team of researchers observed a strange, unexpected and thought-to-be-impossible radio emission coming from Swift J0243.6+6124, a slow-spinning neutron star 24,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Cassiopeia, discovered on October 3, 2017, with NASA’s orbiting Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. This neutron star is part of a binary system, feeding off of a much larger star. The neutron’s gravity pulled the material and gas away from the other star and formed a disc between them. When it got big enough, the neutron star’s gravity pulled the disc in and energy created converted into the relativistic jet detected by the Swift satellite.

An illustration of a black hole

Except that it’s impossible for a dense dead star to create relativistic jets. Well, now make that improbable. In an article in The Conversation, astronomer and study co-author James Miller-Jones says this event requires a new theory on neutrons and jets.

“Recent theoretical work has suggested that under certain circumstances it might be possible to launch jets from the extraction of the neutron star’s rotational energy. In our case, this could have been enabled by the high rate at which matter was falling inwards. It would also explain why the jets that we saw were about 100 times weaker than seen in other neutron stars with weaker magnetic fields.”

Still here? Is this a big deal? Nathalie Degenaar, University of Amsterdam astronomer and study co-author, thinks so.

“This discovery not only means we have to revise our ideas about jets from such systems, but also opens up exciting new areas of research.”

A black hole eating a neutron star

In other words … more jobs for astronomers! James Miller-Jones agrees in ScienceAlert:

“Whatever the explanation, our result is a great example of how science works, with theories being developed, tested against observations and revised in light of new experimental results.”

Finally, a win for science! Crack open those science books, participate in science fairs, study your math and look at the stars. You too could be destined for an exciting career with good job potential in the field of astronomy.

In my book, Silver Screen Saucers: Sorting Fact from Fantasy in Hollywood’s UFO Movies, I devote an entire chapter to Hollywood’s historical engagement with the concept of alien abduction. The chapter documents the evolution of UFO abduction movies over six decades; it also features interviews with selected abductees (or “experiencers”), eliciting their personal perspectives on Hollywood’s depictions of a phenomenon that, to them, is closer to science fact than science fiction. One of the experiencers I interviewed is a gentleman named Peter Faust, who came to prominence in the mid-1990s following the publication of the bestselling book, Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens, which was written by Harvard psychiatrist John Mack and devotes an entire chapter to Peter’s story. Peter was one of Mack’s early patients and appeared alongside the Pulitzer Prize-winning author in a 1994 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Peter claims his experiences trace back to his youth, and his first conscious recollection of them came in 1988 at the age of 33. John Mack would later invite Peter to participate in his group therapy sessions, and it was through these, and also through hypnosis, that he began to find the missing pieces of his puzzle.

During our interview, I asked Peter if his experiences are ongoing. He replied that, although their physical component has ceased, the effect of his experiences, both physical and mental, continues to be felt in his daily life. In this sense, he said, his experience is ongoing and will likely never end. When I asked him if he misses what he perceived to be his direct interactions with otherworldly intelligences, he told me:

“When you come back from that experience and go back into ordinary reality, trying to pay the mortgage and the bills and plan for retirement, you know, just back into human existence, there’s a gap there. You’ve reached a state of bliss, you’ve had contact with the divine, or whatever you want to call it, and thereafter there’s always a part of you that thinks ‘those are my people, those are my tribe, that’s my real home,’ and there’s a sense of longing for that, because you’ve had that taste of it. So in that regard I miss it. But I don’t focus on it because I have to live in this world. I think that’s what’s hard for many people who’ve had the contact experience.”

Dr John E. Mack, pioneering researcher of the abduction phenomenon. Peter Faust was an early patient of Mack’s and a core case study in his bestselling book, Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens.

Here follows my full interview with Peter Faust…

RG: UFOs and Hollywood – what are your immediate thoughts?

PF: It seems to me that Hollywood has a history of sensationalizing the phenomenon and consistently presenting it as traumatic – that the beings are malevolent, and that there’s a threat of invasion.

RG: What’s your emotional state while watching abduction-themed entertainment products? Do they provoke in you a visceral reaction, or are you able to view them with detachment?

PF: They absolutely elicit a visceral reaction in me of the initial trauma and the disbelief that I felt at the time. It has been very difficult for me to watch these films without being triggered, so I avoid most of them, although I have seen a few over the years. The last one I saw was The Fourth Kind (2009).

The Fourth Kind (2009)

Aside from trauma, the other reaction I have is “This is not the whole story.” It’s disheartening that Hollywood leaves its exploration of the phenomenon at the level of trauma, invasion, and abuse, and that it hasn’t moved into the next level, which I personally have experienced, where these intelligences are trying to break through our consciousness and have a communion with us, a conversation with us, and are trying to impart a message to us.

RG: To what extent are your own experiences reflected in these products?

PF: I would say the initial aspects – the sense of “this can’t be happening,” “am I going crazy?, who do I trust, who do I tell?” The obsessional aspect of it – Close Encounters of the Third Kind captured that well. The complete shattering of one’s belief system and a feeling of alienation, of going crazy, of losing your mind, and the effect that it has on your family and loved ones.

Richard Dreyfuss at the verge of madness in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).

RG: After becoming aware of your experiences in adulthood did you find yourself drawn to UFO-themed entertainment media in the hope of finding answers?

PF: When I first went to Dr. Mack with my experiences in my 30s, he immediately said to me “Please don’t read any material or watch any films on this subject, and don’t talk to anybody else, so that our regression hypnosis sessions are not tainted by an overlay of what you’ve read or seen in the media.” So I did not look at any of these films or read anything on this topic until 1995 or 1996 after John’s book had come out.

RG: Are there any film or TV depictions of the experiencer phenomenon you’ve found to be particularly truthful or authentic?

PF: I would say that there isn’t one film that I can remember that depicts all of it, although I would say there are elements in all these movies that reflect parts of the experience. CertainlyClose Encounters of the Third Kind reflected the obsessional tone of it. Communion reflected another tone, and I would say that Taken reflected the feeling and importance of the individual recognizing their experiences and then finding others who have experienced the same. In that show there was a recognition among the characters that they were not alone in their experiences, that they were not isolated, that they were part of a collective experience, whereas in Communion it was more isolated to the individual.

Communion (1989).

Another movie, Knowing, was good in the sense that it depicted a consciousness trying to reach us and show us that there are worrying events occurring that they’re aware of, and they’re trying to connect with us. It shows an individual following the threads and coming to the point where he has actual contact with these beings.

RG: What facets of the experiencer phenomenon would you like to see filmmakers explore more in the future?

PF: What I would love to see Hollywood explore more is the arc of one person, or several people’s lives, who seem to not be connected, and who individually go through the process of horror and disbelief and then move through that to acceptance, then moving to a more mutual contact with the beings to discover their true intent. I don’t want to see any more straight horror films on this subject. I think the general public is ready for a film that depicts people waking up, having the experience, following the experience, people no longer traumatized by the experience, and then moving toward something larger and more profound.

Contact (1997).

A movie more along the lines of Contact. That film took it to the next level. None of the existing films show the transformation that happens for the individual. I think the subject as a whole is challenging Hollywood to explore the next arc of this ongoing story, which is ‘how will the collective consciousness of humanity respond to this larger reality?’ So in this sense, Contact, Knowing, and even Interstellar are the only films I can think of which depict a higher intelligence trying to communicate a message to us that’s to our benefit, but their methods of communication are mysterious and sometimes scary. Contact and Interstellar actually show us going out into space to meet these higher intelligences, whereas in the 1950s movies, the aliens came to us. But now we’re starting to have the technology to be able to go out there and meet them, and Hollywood is starting to depict that – that we can decipher their communication, we can decipher that they’re trying to connect with us, and that they’re actually trying to help us.

RG: What do you feel is the overall cultural effect of UFO-themed movies?

PF: It’s been a slow process of disclosure over sixty years using the mediums of our time, the mediums of communication, which are film and television. And I think ultimately humanity is being prepared for contact.

RG: Is this disclosure a planned political strategy, or is it a natural cultural process?

PF: Yes, it’s cultural. If we take a step back and put conspiracy theories to one side, I fundamentally believe that there is a collective form of preparation going on through mass media; we’re preparing ourselves for the possibility of contact. The media in any of its forms, from the town crier, to the newspaper, to the radio, to film and television, to the Internet, has always been a way for consciousness to expand; for humanity to broaden its view.

Knowing (2009).

RG: So, you feel that Hollywood has part to play in this process of awakening and acceptance? That Hollywood wields enough power as a medium to influence what people will think, and ultimately do?

PF: Absolutely, because all the seeds of our imagination are planted through film and television at this point in our history, and through the media more broadly. And if the seeds are “don’t react with terror,” “don’t react with fear,” “don’t react with a SWAT team,” then we’ll be more predisposed to that.

Tens-of-thousands of individuals the world over continue to report physical and/or mental interactions with otherworldly intelligences. Regardless of one’s personal perspective on this phenomenon, it is clear that, but for a few exceptions, Hollywood’s treatment of the subject has been crude and simplistic. All of the UFO experiencers I’ve spoken with over the years share the view that the entertainment industry should move beyond the genre trappings of sci-fi and horror, past even the explicitly “alien,” and focus instead on the “human;” on the frequently reported psychologically and spiritually transformative aspects of these experiences—whatever they may represent—at both individual and collective levels.

If you’ve never done any research on the UFO topic, you might be forgiven for thinking that the only people who see them are hicks with worrying family trees; certainly this is the stereotype that has been perpetuated by Hollywood. In reality, however, UFOs are reported by men and women from all walks of life, and from all social and economic backgrounds: from burger-flippers to bankers, sex-workers to surgeons, pot-washers to politicians. With this in mind, it should could come as little surprise that those who spend their working days in the skies above us also see their fair share of anomalous aerial phenomena. Indeed, cases of pilot encounters with UFOs stand among the most credible and dramatic ever recorded in the history of this enduring enigma.

Here are five of the the most compelling…

#5. Alderney Sighting, 2007

Captain Ray Bowyer got the fright of his life on 23 April 2007 while piloting a routine passenger flight from Southampton, England, to Alderney in the Channel Islands. Over a 15 minute period, he and his passengers witnessed two UFOs so large and imposing that Bowyer–a pilot with 18 years of flying experience–wanted nothing more than to land his aircraft as soon as humanly possible “and have a cup of tea.” Typical Brit.

Bowyer would later recall:

I found myself astounded but curious, but at 12 miles’ distance these objects were becoming uncomfortably large, and I was glad to descend and land the aircraft. Many of my passengers saw the objects as did the pilots of another aircraft, 25 miles further south [a plane near Sark, which confirmed the presence, general position and altitude of the first object from the opposite direction].

The encounter was thoroughly investigated but remains unexplained. Bowyer conservatively maintains that what he and his passengers witnessed was “definitely nothing from around these parts.”

#4. USS Nimitz Radar/Visual Encounter, 2004

At around 12:30 EST on November 14, 2004, an operations officer aboard the guided missile cruiser USS Princeton contacted two airborne US Navy jet fighters from USS Nimitz, instructing the pilots to change their course and investigate an unidentified blip that was showing up on the Princeton’s radar. The first fighter aircraft was piloted by Commander David Fravor, with his weapon systems officer in the back seat. The second jet was piloted by Commander Jim Slaight.

The weather conditions that day were near perfect: blue sky, no cloud cover, calm sea. When the jet fighters–both FA-18F Super Hornets–arrived at the site of the radar blip, the crew of four could see nothing untoward in the air. Below them, however, on the surface of the sea, they noticed an area “the size of a Boeing 737 airplane with a smoother area of lighter color at the center,” as if the waves were breaking over a large object just under the surface. Moments later, the crew noticed a strange object hovering erratically some 50 feet above the disturbance in the water. Both pilots later described the unidentified object as resembling a large bright white “Tic Tac” between 30 and 46 feet in length, with no visible engine or exhaust plume.

As Commander Fravor started a circular descent towards the object, it began ascending along a curved path, keeping a safe distance from the F-18 and mirroring its trajectory. Fravor then attempted to plunge his fighter below the object. No chance. The UFO accelerated “like a bullet from a gun” and was lost from his sight in less than two seconds. The nature and origin of the object remain a mystery (at least officially).

In 2017, Fravor spoke publicly about his “Tic Tac” encounter as part of a broader and ongoing public initiative to draw attention to the Pentagon’s shadowy UFO study program (now allegedly shut down), officially titled the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).

#3. The Death of Thomas Mantell, 1948

On 7 January 1948, Captain Thomas Mantell, a 25 year old Kentucky Air National Guard Pilot, died while in pursuit of an Unidentified Flying Object. Mantell, who was honored with the Distinguished Flying Cross for his part in the Battle of Normandy, was one of four pilots ordered by the 156^th Fighter Squadron to investigate UFO reports coming in to a number of military bases in Kentucky that afternoon, including Goldman Field at Fort Knox and Clinton County Army Airfield. The UFO was reported by military personnel as being up to 300 ft. in diameter, and white with a red border at the bottom.

The pilots, who were in radio communication with the control tower at Fort Knox, were ordered to approach the object, but it was now at a considerable altitude and appeared as little more than a dot in the sky. The pilots were then advised to break off direct pursuit and to level their altitude, a suggestion ignored by Mantell, who continued to climb in chase of the object. As Mantell got closer to the UFO, he told the control tower it looked “metallic,” and was of “tremendous size.” They would be some of his last words. It is thought that he blacked out soon after due to lack of oxygen. His plane spiralled to the ground, crashing on a farm south of Franklin, Kentucky. The cause of Mantell’s crash as listed by the Air Force officially remains “undetermined.”

#2. The Vanishing of Frederick Valentich, 1978

Yet another aircraft would be lost in an apparent UFO encounter in 1978. On October 21, at 7:12 pm, 20-year-old Frederick Valentich and the Cessna 182L light aircraft he was piloting mysteriously vanished over Australia’s Bass Strait. Shortly prior to his disappearance Valentich had advised Melbourne air traffic control that he was being orbited by a large craft some 300 meters above him. Valentich said the craft was long, with a shiny metal surface and a green light on it. He reported that the craft was approaching him from the Southwest. Moments later, the young pilot made what would be his final statement to air traffic control – or to anyone: “[the] strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again. It is hovering and it’s not an aircraft.” This was followed by 17 seconds of “metallic scraping sounds.” No trace of Valentich or his aircraft was ever found. The cause of his disappearance remains undetermined.

#1. Japan Airlines Close Encounter, 1986

This case, involving a Japanese Airlines Boeing 747 cargo plane en route from Paris to Tokyo, is arguably the most compelling example to date of an aircraft coming dangerously close to airborne technological objects seemingly not of terrestrial origin.

On November 17, 1986, at 5.11 pm local time, while flying at 35,000 feet over northeastern Alaska, veteran pilot Captain Kenju Terauchi, along with his first officer and flight engineer, noticed unusual lights some 2000 feet below and to the left of their 747. After a few minutes, the lights changed their position and suddenly appeared directly in front of the aircraft, and at much closer proximity—so close, in fact, that they lit up the cockpit and Terauchi said he could feel heat on his face. They now resembled two pairs of squarish arrays of pulsating “amber and whitish” lights. The captain estimated them to be “about the same size as the body of a DC-8 jet.” The objects then positioned themselves side-by-side.

Terauchi asked Anchorage flight control if it was tracking any objects near the aircraft. Negative. Terauchi would later note that his communication with flight control was garbled for several minutes, seemingly due to interference on the part of the UFOs. As the mysterious objects moved off to the left, the pilot sighted a third UFO some eight miles away; the aircraft’s radar detected it too, and it remained onscreen for several minutes. It was big—very big—and the smaller two objects were flying towards it. As Terauchi and co. looked behind them, they could see in the distance the “silhouette of a giant spaceship,” which was reflecting the lights from the ground. Terauchi would later refer to this immense Saturn-shaped object as the “mothership” and estimated it to be the size of “two aircraft carriers.” It remained behind them as the captain radioed Anchorage requesting permission to take evasive manoeuvres. Permission was granted, but the huge UFO held its position.

Meanwhile, Anchorage flight control had been in touch with the Air Force at Elmendorf Regional Operational Control Center to see if they were tracking anything anomalous—they were, but by 5.28 it had gone. At 5.40, Anchorage asked Terauchi if he would like to have jets scrambled to intercept, but he declined, fearing for the safety of the fighter pilots.

After a terrifying 30 minutes, Terauchi and his crew finally lost sight of the UFOs and landed his 747 safely at Anchorage, whereupon an investigation was launched by the FAA, which concluded that it could not confirm the event and that a split radar return was involved. Meanwhile, the debunking group CSICOP concluded that Captain and crew had simply misidentified the planets Jupiter and Mars. Years later, John Callahan, former Division Chief for Accidents and Investigations branch of the FAA, testified publicly to his first-hand knowledge of a CIA cover-up of flight data relating to this event.