In the records of Tuthmosis III, there is a description of a circle of fire appearing in the sky, and then increasing in number, and shining brightly even in the daytime sky

During Alexander the Great’s siege of one Phonecian city, accounts from both sides describe great silver objects appearing in the sky. Apparently, one even sent down a beam of light, which destroyed the city walls.

Tapestries showing the life of the Virgin Mary show a 1950s style flying saucer lurking in the background.

The citizens of Nuremberg described the sky filling with balls of light and a range of tube-shaped objects, described by one account as a ‘ frightful spectacle’

A radio dramatisation of the H.G. Wells story ‘War of the Worlds’, in which men from Mars invade Earth, caused mass hysteria, as millions believed it to be a genuine news announcement.

During the Second World War, both sides encountered airborne objects that hovered around them, and were apparently steered by and intelligent force. Whilst the Allies presumed that it was some form of German technology, the Germans presumed that it was some kind of Allied technology. However, neither side had anything with those capabilities.

Kenneth Arnold, a successful businessman, was flying in Washington state, when he saw a bright flash, and became aware of nine ‘unusual’ aircraft, flying across the sky in formation. When he landed, he told his story and it became a world-wide phenomenon. In combination with the Roswell incident, only days later, his experiences launched the age of modern UFO sightings. It was also this sighting which first coined the term ‘flying saucer’.

The crash near Roswell, New Mexico, sparked a new generation of UFO myths and theories, as well as the belief that the government was concealing its contact with an alien species.

Project Sign, an air force investigation into the recent rash of UFO sightings, concluded that the UFOs were actually interplanetary spacecraft. However, after this conclusion was refused and the investigative team was purged, the investigation was renamed Project Grudge, and began to come to very different conclusions, describing events as flocks of birds, or military aeroplanes.

George Adamski, a Polish immigrant, claimed to have seen a landed spacecraft, and talked to its occupants, in Southern California. He started a trend of so-called ‘contactees’, people who claimed to have met and even talked to aliens – and this trend continued throughout the 1950s. Many of these aliens carried a message about preventing nuclear war, and looked very like humans.

Betty and Barney Hill become the first people to claim to be abducted by aliens, recalling their experiences through hypnosis.

Crop circles appear across Britain. However, dozens of them were proved to be fakes, casting serious doubt on the theory that they were left by the landing of alien saucers.

Bob Lazar claimed in a television interview, that he had worked on analysing an alien spacecraft in a special area of the secret airforce base ‘Area 51’.