25 UFO Conspiracy Theories That’ll Blow Your Mind

While the US government was dismissing the growing interest in UFOs in the 1950s, it was secretly running its own investigation. An operation code-named Project Blue Book ran for 17 years, amassing over 12,000 reports of UFOs to determine whether or not there were any risks to national security. The final report concluded that there wasn’t enough evidence to support any of the claims about UFOs.

However, it was criticized, even by former insiders, for not investigating rigorously enough and pushing toward a single conclusion.

Most UFO footage struggles to find legitimacy or even acknowledgment from officials. In 2017 though, A New York Times report released two videos taken from the cockpit of US jets. Pilots can be heard scrambling to understand what they are encountering, with a fast-moving object moving in the plane’s crosshairs. The most stunning part is that there is no clear method of propulsion as with man-made technology.

The most recent UFO program run by the Pentagon began in 200. It ran in tandem with the aerospace company of Robert Bigelow, who has said he is “absolutely convinced” that aliens have visited Earth in UFOs.

On July 20, 1969, ‘Buzz’ Aldrin became the second human being to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission. But there may have been another historic moment to that trip. According to a disputed account, Aldrin reported to NASA that he had encountered UFOs in space.

Years later, in a Q&A, he recounted that on the way to the moon, he saw a light ‘moving alongside’ the spacecraft, though was convinced that it didn’t come from alien life. The secrecy of his account has been used to accuse NASA of a cover-up.

Most UFO conspiracy theories claim government knowledge of extraterrestrial life. But one goes even further. Project Serpo is the name of an alleged secret US program where the government has been communicating with another planet, far outside our solar system.

The channel was supposedly established after an alien was rescued from the infamous Roswell crash site. And astronauts may even have been sent there on a top-secret mission. If you think that’s an ‘out-there’ theory, just wait until we get to number 15.

Before the blockbuster comedy movie starring Will Smith, it was UFO theorists who coined the term ‘men in black.’ This was a term used for government agents who would warn citizens from talking about UFO sightings throughout the 1950s and 60s.

The creator of the International Flying Saucer Bureau claimed to have been silenced for ‘knowing too much.’ One UFO researcher has called them ‘demonic supernaturals’, while others have speculated that they may even be aliens in disguise.

The world of UFOs has been intertwined with religion for decades. Back in the 1970s, a spiritual movement named Heaven’s Gate was founded, which believed a UFO would soon visit Earth to punish anyone not belonging to the group.

Over the next twenty, it attracted a small loyal following. They believed that the Hale-Bopp comet, which was projected to pass by Earth in 1997, was proof of the imminent arrival of extraterrestrials. Inside the comet was an alien spacecraft, signaling the coming rapture. Tragically, in 1997, these beliefs drove them to mass suicide, where 39 members ingested poison, in the hopes of ‘graduating’ to the Kingdom of Heaven.

UFO sightings aren’t confined to citizens in remote areas. In fact, on one evening on his 1969 campaign trail, future president Jimmy Carter spotted an unexplainable object. It flashed with vibrant colors, hovering in the air. Carter described it as appearing to be the same ‘size of the moon.’ After hovering briefly and changing colors, the craft shot away into the distance.

This permanently changed his views on UFOs and he promised to release government research to the public if he won the presidency. When he eventually did, Carter backflipped on this position, leaving many to wonder what he was hiding.

Airport employees see hundreds of aircraft taking off and landing every day. But what a dozen workers at O’Hare International Airport saw in 2006 stunned them. Hovering above Gate C-17 was a huge metallic object shaped like a saucer.

The incident was reported to the aviation authorities. But it was classed as a ‘weather phenomenon’ because of a lack of radar evidence. Other witnesses testified to the same object, estimated to be up to 24 feet wide, gliding through the air at high speeds and disappearing into the sky.

Often the task of investigating UFO reports falls to journalists. And when an Australian newspaper filed a Freedom of Information request with their government about any UFO sightings, they were suspicious about the response.

Mysteriously, all of their files had somehow been ‘lost.’ In one instance, a rural prison employee claimed to have been silenced by US officials, who had a military base nearby. Along with two co-workers, she had witnessed a UFO following their car. One of them was even able to take pictures. But once the US investigators got their hands on them, the pictures were never seen again.

At the height of the Cold War, the US government was dealing with a problem that threatened to destabilize how safe the public felt. Reports of UFO sightings were rising and many of them, at least in 1952, were concentrated around the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. Between July and August, there were dozens of reported sightings of ‘saucers’ flying above the city. Some of these came from pilots and radar operators.

Air Force jets were sent to investigate but found that they couldn’t keep up. A press conference was quickly called to reassure the public, blaming the sightings on the weather, but too many people had seen something strange.

UFOs have even gone on to inspire religions. In 1953, the Aetherius Society was founded in England. Followers believe that aliens are on a different spiritual plane from humans. The reason for their sporadic appearance in the sky, at times flashing, is because they become visible to us when their vibratory rate is lowered.

The teachings of the Aetherius Society mix Hinduism, nature worship, and psychic energy, and have reportedly attracted thousands of members worldwide. Current missions are aimed at achieving ‘World Peace and Devic Stabilization.’ If you think this group is bizarre, wait until you hear what a group of students reported in number 8!

During the Korean War, a group of American soldiers were attacked by a strange flying object. But it wasn’t gunfire. Instead, there were waves of white, colored blue-green. The soldiers opened fire, hoping to take the object down, but their bullets simply ricocheted off. One remembers feeling a ‘tingling sensation’ throughout his body. The object soon disappeared, as quickly as it had appeared.

However, over the next few days, one by one, each soldier fell violently ill. Eventually, they were all evacuated by ambulance. The nature of the vehicle or its weapons remains unknown, though physicists suspect that the symptoms align with the effects of radiation. The question is who – or what – had this kind of technology in 1951?

The death of nine hikers on a remote Russian mountain has for years been the center of an intense debate. Their bodies were found frozen with a variety of bizarre injuries — missing eyes, discolored skin, and high levels of radiation. Over a kilometer from their camping sight, each of them had rushed to cut their tents open, fleeing from something. Known as the ‘Dyatlov Pass Mystery, it is one of Russia’s most enduring mysteries.

A number of official investigations hit dead ends. Some believe that extra-terrestrial objects might hold the answer. The lead investigator heard that there were sightings of ‘glowing and pulsating’ objects in the sky and noticed that trees were strangely burnt on their tops.

This conspiracy theory claimed that chemicals were being sprayed out of the back of planes. The reason? It varies from weather control to poisoning the population. Observers point to the long white streaks sometimes left behind by airplanes as an example. It’s claimed that these are different from contrails — or condensation trails — which are created when water vapor comes into contact with low ambient temperatures outside the aircraft.

Back in the mid-twentieth century, areas of Britain were sprayed with chemicals as a part of testing the capability of germ warfare. A similar test was carried out in San Francisco. These tests were top-secret, leaving many to question whether governments are still hiding something.

The holy grail of all UFO conspiracy theories, Area 51 is a secretive American military facility in Nevada, 75 miles north of Las Vegas. Inside, researchers develop and test aerospace technology. According to many though, there is a much more sinister function. Reports of unidentified flying objects circulated the area since it was established.

These were intensified when Robert Lazar, who claimed to have been an ex-employee on the site, went public with allegations that Area 51 was indeed studying alien spacecraft. It wasn’t until 2013 that the US government officially acknowledged Area 51’s existence.

In the early hours after Christmas day of 1980, there were sightings of bright lights descending into Rendlesham forest, in the East of England. A glowing, colored light was seen by US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, who was on station nearby, along with what appeared to be a landing site. Two days later, radiation levels were taken, finding high readings right where the craft was spotted.

Thirty years later, in 2010, Lieutenant Halt stood by his experience and even signed an affidavit that he believed the events were linked to extraterrestrial life. Mysteriously, key documents from the investigation have gone missing.

Famed inventor Nikola Tesla brought the world countless inventions. At the turn of the 19th century, he was carrying out experiments into wireless communication in his reclusive Colorado Springs laboratory.

One night, he declared that he had received a ‘message from another world,’ in the form of coded tapping. He estimated that the signal was originating from Mars, around 62 million miles away. Astonishingly, he was later proven right. Researchers replicated Tesla’s measurements and found that there were similar signals, a natural phenomenon coming from one of Jupiter’s moons.

Just south of Melbourne, 200 students and school workers from Westall High School witnessed an extraordinary shape in 1966. What they later described as a large ‘mechanical object’, shaped like a ‘saucer’ moving rapidly up above.

The incident was seen by local residents too and even captured in a grainy, black and white photo. A teacher who was working at the school at the time later revealed that Air Force officers threatened to have him fired for speaking out.

A single sighting is one thing. But when over 100 people in Belgium saw exactly the same object, it became harder for authorities to dispute. The reports, first made in November 1989, featured a huge, triangular-shaped aircraft with three bright lights attached. These were backed up by radar detection from a Traffic Control Center.

When the next sighting happened in March of the following year, two Air Force jets were scrambled to chase it down. By the time they reached the reported area, pilots were able to catch glimpses of ‘unusual behavior.’ Astonishingly, the fighter jets were never able to catch up. Over time, reports faded and became less frequent, however, there was never any satisfying explanation for what happened.

Driving home one evening, a couple back to New Hampshire from Niagara Falls reported seeing a strange light in the sky, silently following their vehicle, gliding through the air and enlarging as it closed in on them and stopped them in their tracks. Barney and Betty Hill remember seeing humanoid-like figures at the edge of a ‘pancake’ shaped aircraft.

Strange occurrences followed, including finding their clothes ripped, their watches malfunctioning, patterns on their car, and an unknown pink powder. Even more bizarre was that more details were revealed through several sessions of hypnosis, where the Hills described the beings as small, with gray skin, and dark eyes. The features are eerily similar to number 1 on the list, so don’t go anywhere.

To much anticipation, a 17-minute long amateur-style video was broadcast on Fox television, claiming to be the real-life autopsy of an alien that had been recovered by the US military. The black and white footage was at times pixelated and distorted.

It showed what appeared to be government lab workers, dressed in hazmat suits and surrounded by medical instruments, cutting open and inspecting the body of an alien. The body is lifeless, with smooth skin, large bright eyes, and is presented completely naked. More than a decade after the video’s release, two producers behind the film claimed that while it was not entirely authentic it was a reconstruction of footage that had been damaged.

More famous than any other incident in UFO history, Roswell has earned a place in history. In 1947, the US Army revealed that they had recovered what was described as a ‘flying disc’ from a rancher close to Roswell, New Mexico. The nature of the finding was quickly changed when it began to be classified as a ‘weather balloon.

However, it was too late. Much of the public was convinced that the first concrete evidence of aliens had been found. Some eye-witnesses claimed to have even seen alien bodies being extracted from the area. In 1994, the US Air Force claimed that the disc was debris from a classified spying operation targeting the Soviets.

According to one documentarian, Jaime Shandera, a mysterious roll of film was delivered to his home one night in 1984. After developing the pictures, he realized that they were eight pages of top-secret documentation, revealing that a secret group of scientists, engineers, and government officials had been tasked to investigate the incident in Roswell.

The papers stated that four humanoid-like beings had been recovered from the Roswell crash in 1947. An FBI investigation found no truth to the claims and concluded they were a forgery. However, some details included in the document align with other classified information, meaning it was likely created by someone inside the intelligence field.

When two mummified bodies were presented to the public in the Mexican Congress, it created more questions than answers. As the session was live broadcast, viewers were able to see a ‘non-human’ figure, with outstretched heads and only 3 fingers on each hand.

According to the journalist who presented them, they were found in rural Peru and have been carbon-dated to 1,000 years old. Skeptics were quick to dismiss the bodies as a hoax. However, several tests carried out by laboratories, including by the Mexican Navy’s Scientific Institute for Health, found that there was ‘no evidence of assembly or manipulation.’

Usually, UFO sightings are confined to a small group of people. But there was nothing usual about the Ariel School Incident. On an otherwise normal Friday morning, children at the Zimbabwe school began hearing a buzzing sound, as though something was vibrating through the air. Seconds later, a silver object flew overhead and landed nearby.

After rushing over, all 62 children claimed to see the same thing — two small beings, in skin-tight uniforms, seeming to ‘glitch’ through the air. Whenever they made eye contact, the children could feel ‘telepathic’ communication. The school children were individually interviewed by a psychiatrist. He found all their accounts to be consistent. After a comprehensive investigation, there is still no explanation for the strange object – or the strange creatures.

Enjoyed this list? Check out 25 Odd Area 51 Facts You Probably Didn’t Know.