What Got Everyone Interested in ETs and UFOs???

Just curious. I think it would be interesting to see what event/story/television show, etc. started everyone's interest in ETs and UFOs.

For me, I believe that it was a television show here in the US several years ago called "Project Blue Book", or something close to that. Every week's show was a particular case from the 'Blue Book' Files.

Anyway, I would find it interesting to see what started everyone's interest.

What sparked interest for me was a sighting of a football field size craft by my family members one early 80's July afternoon. I never saw it with my own eyes and the pictures taken of it all came out pitch black even though there was plenty of light available. Pics before and after event came out perfect??... I was just a young boy back then and when I was told this story I was in awe and to this day my family claims this was a true event.
More recently the Chicago O'Hare sighting has kept me more aware of what could be out and about in our skies. I beleive that event was real and should of not been taken lightly especially post 9/11.

I aint interested but I can assume what it was that got so many interested.
I would say it was two things:

1. Science Fiction
2. Govt. Secret Projects (like the stealth)

My father had a sighting when he was 9, which he told me and I was instantly hooked.

Also, from a very early age I've gazed into the stars and knew that there's something out there, be it in orbit or a million light years away.

It was probably the balls of light in my bedroom when I was about 4 that I had to step over to go get help, (I was petrified). That and Star Trek, which I believed to be real.

I've had 3 sightings, all of which were with other people at the time.

And what keeps me moving forward in my interest is the undeniable evidence that points to the fact that the government is covering something up even if we don't know what that something is.

A week or so before my registration date I was watching a show on one of the documentary channels. They had an audio clip they claimed was from one of the space shuttle mission. In the clip the astronaut said “The alien spacecraft is still with us”.
Later that night I Googled that phrase and end up at ATS.
Been here ever since.

A recurring dream I have where I am about 7 years old and I'm always running the same way on the same side of my parent's house when I look up and see the sky and it's just filled with ships. And I mean filled. There are more ships than there are empty sky.

I've been having that dream for about 20 years now.

Since I was little I have always been interested in ET's/UFO's. When I was young, I had several experiences in my bedroom while sleeping or going to sleep that still have me scratching my head. All I remember is being absolutley terrified. I felt that was tiny and that there was something big standing over me but other than that I don't remember anything else.

This happened a few times and I would usually wander down the stairs kind of moaning and my Mom would say that it was almost as if I was in a trance. I've read about sleep paralysis, and I think thses experiences could be related to that condition but to this day I cannot "remember" exactly made me so scared.

I also feel that I have been taught stuff when I was asleep and that I may need to do something important in the future but I have no idea what. I'm a normal guy but I do like to research this topic. Also, I've never had a sighting that I remember. Lastly, with all of the evidence and sightings over the years I have a hard time believing that every single UFO report is false. IF even one is accurate then that is a huge event in history IMHO. Later.

Unfortunately for me, I've never had a sighting... I went on Google's video section and typed in UFO and watch over 28 documentaries and video taped conferences... So far its undeniable!

My mom had a sighting when she was 9-10 years old, and can't remember about 4 hours. All my life, ever since I can remember, I've had different sightings, and lost a lot of time. Strange dreams in between the time lapses, so yeah, I'm very interested.

Science fiction and shows from the 70's like Project Blue Book, In Search Of, and all of the Von Dankien, (spelling), stuff, has always fascinated me.

Can't remember what hooked me, though developing what was to be a life-long interest in sci fi at a very early age obviously had something to do with it...

In retrospect, I think that may well have been the catalyst. It's an easy step from TV and film portrayals of alien life to studying real sightings. As a child, through primary and secondary school, I was ridiculed for my interest in UFOs. But it never stopped me.

In fact, I seem to remember believing that negative comments were, somehow, faintly ridiculous. Why do you believe in UFOs you t**t, they'd ask with biting humour. Well, they're there, and have been seen by lots and lots of people, so why don'tyou believe, I'd ask in return. Unfortunately, logic was never a useful tool when arguing with schoolboys in the 1970's...

I first got into it when i was a kid. I never trusted the government so i always felt that there was something more out there then what the public knows. I still haven't seen a ufo yet. I got really into it when i was a teenager. Since then i've had burning questions i wish were answered.

This site claims that kenneth arnold (a pilot from 1947) may have started the ufo craze.Apparently he was the firt one to call them "flying saucers" www.dotguy.net...

i was hooked right after i saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind as well as Star Wars and Battle Star Galactica and Buck Rogers...

My grandmother was (and still is) very into UFOs, and always had these books lying around her house when I was a child. Stuff like Communion and many others, some of which were New Age-type stuff. She's always been out there, and claims to have had several sightings. So that's what first sparked my interest in the subject. As I got older, life took me in different directions, and I had other priorities, so I sort of put aside my interest for a few years. I returned to it sporadically, and in recent years have stepped up my research.

When i was young, i always thought that there was other life out there, only we needed proof to make it offical. I had always thought that they were just waiting for proof. But then i saw the JFK hollywood movie and started looking around on the internt for consprices and such, this was a long time ago, late '90s when i was in middle school. Internet was a baby then. One consiricy site had a thing on Roswell and from that is went it started.

x-files, ring a bell?

I dont think anything like a t.v show or alien experience peaked my curiosity im more interested in knowing the whole picture and the ''truth''. It all seems very unresistable.

Originally posted by silverking
This site claims that kenneth arnold (a pilot from 1947) may have started the ufo craze.Apparently he was the firt one to call them "flying saucers" www.dotguy.net...

i heard it was the media who coined the phrase "flying saucer" when kenneth arnold said he seen a ufo that looked like a upside down plate...
i could be wrong on that tho and sorry if i am "silverking"

i got into the subject because i could not believe god made this planet in 6 days and only this planet i was taught that when i was very young and didnt believe it then and when you look at the sky at night and see all of the stars, i find it so hard to think, that the only life existing, is on this one and only planet.
i havent seen a ufo (damn it) but all of them videos cannot be CGIs or hoaxs and the best videos are from NASA.

keep looking up