Campfire Stories---Space Aliens/UFOs

Space travel captured most of the world’s attention during the Great Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s.  It was an exciting time with the Soviet Union taking an early lead but the United States finally winning:

1957, October 4--------First Satellite in Earth Orbit---Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1

            1959, September 13---First Spacecraft on the Moon---Soviet Union’s Luna 2
            1961, April 12-----------First man in Earth Orbit---Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin
            1961, May 5-------------First American in Space (Sub-Orbital)---Alan Shepard
            1962, February 20------First American in Earth Orbit---John Glenn
            1962, April 26-----------First American Spacecraft on Moon---Ranger IV
            1965, June 3-------------First American Space Walk---Ed White in Gemini 4
            1969, July 20------------First Manned Moon Landing---US's Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin in Apollo 11

Our preoccupation with space travel during the '60s also had a direct impact on the BML beliefs and myths of that time.  Ralph Lael’s 1965 alien abduction story caused a lot of excitement, while Herbert Bailey’s 1968 article in Argosy magazine describing large squadrons of UFOs appearing nigthly over Brown Mountain proved to be the height of the ‘aliens among us’ craze.  Since no proof of space aliens or UFOs has surfaced anywhere in the world in the ensuing 45 years, the public’s interest in extraterrestrials has greatly subsided; althought stories of other dimensions, time travelers, and benevolent beings are still heard.