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At What Age Did You Become Interested in UFOs?

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I was 7 or 8.
I would get up at night when everyone was asleep and look out my window, this was when we lived in Farmington NM and would have been '77 or '78.
I think I saw a weird cigar shaped thing floating through the neighborhood and fly up into the sky. It made no noise. My memory of it is very poor and it seems the knowledge of it has more weight then my memory. I do remember after that night telling people and my parents would tell me to be quite. A year later or so, that TV show "Project Bluebook" came out and the intro had all these drawn images of sighted craft.. The cigar-shaped one was in there and I remember yelling "that's the one I saw!" And the parent's promptly shushed me.. (that wasn't anything new for them)..
So.. I can only say I THINK i saw one.... but as a kid I would have lots of dreams of flying through space, so that might tie in to my love of all things space as well.
The unknown is fun, it's fun to hypothesize and reflect and pontificate.
The real present world isn't nearly as fun.. especially these days it's downright maddening.
 
At what age...?

Short answer: I don't know.

Long answer: I reeeeeeeeally don't know.

I always wanted to see a UFO but never did. (aww) The closest thing I've seen was a little tumbling light in the sky, when I was eight years old and our family want out into the country to see Halley's Comet. But I reckon it was a shooting star doing weird stuff. I remember being really little -- like three or four -- and going "UFO! UFO! UFO..." and nope it's only a plane. I was interested in space and sci-fi and related topics, really for as long as I can remember, folklore and anthropology for just as long. Since so early actually that I would anthropomorphise the planets in my head, much like Sailor Moon characters or something except that at that time I had never heard of Sailor Moon. So now I'm 33 and still interested. Although to be honest my interest in UFOs is still more as a source of stories than as a real phenomenon. I don't tend to think of them as "Real" in the strictest sense of literal truth, but I do believe in layers of truth -- of which the imagined and the unknown are valid parts. Among my friends I'm known as a sci-fi geek. And yes in my imagination at least, the UFOs are full of little aliens.
 
I have been interested since age 4 or 5.I can remember always watching unsolved mysteries and any other show or movie that had to do with the paranormal and reading every book i could get my hands on since age 5.I have and will always love these subjects and would like to say thanks to everyone involved in these fields and thanks to everyone interested in the too :)
 
6. That was my first sighting and by golly it was the most amazing. Also my father was always interested in the subject so he introduced me to some ideas and books when I grew old enough to read them.
 
I became interested while I was young, maybe 9 years old. I'm an American Indian, so the telling of folklore is very important family event. I could not help but ask about things I saw on tv, like bigfoot, just to hear an old story from my family's perspective. In my mind these were nothing more than fairy tales until I listened to my father and uncle talk about seeing flying saucers while serving in the Korean war, as well as seeing different versions in rural Oklahoma. Instead of just entertainment, these mysterious things were "real", that really spiked my curiosity. From then on I have been reading books and absorbing everything I could find on the subject.
 
It was about 1978/79, so I'd would have been 7/8 : my mum had taken me to see Close Encounters and since then I've had a keen interest - to this day the final scene where they all come out of the ship (the e.t's that is) still freaks me out. I fell out of interest in the subject till I got to about 18/19 and started studying physics and I bumped into a girl who was mad about the film and that got my interest going again. Over the passed 20 yrs or so I've dipped my toe in occasionally but since my son (who is now 5) started paying attention to the paracast while i drive, and asking me questions about Ben 10 and other "alien" related shows I read rediscovered my passion for the subject....
 
Having been born in 1951 and growing up in a city with a large U.S. Air Force presence, perhaps ufology came to me. This was a time when ufo flaps made it into the mainstream media. The dream of space travel seemed real and everyone was looking to the skies--either for saucers or incoming soviet missiles.
 
Age 7 - 1980
went to the library and picked up a book.
it did not depict what strange crap was going on in my life at all.
Brad
 
I was about 11 or so... it was the mid 90's so the X-Files was pretty huge at the time. I used to read this magazine called Nexus Magazine (Australian) which had a lot alternative news/conspiracy/UFO stuff... I remember borrowing a lot of books from the library about abductions and MJ12 and MIB etc. I recall being particularly interested in a Nexus story about Alex Collier (whatever happened to that crank?).
 
I was 12 years old. Read a book on the topic and the rest was history. I'm now 29, which is considered young in the field. I want to change that.
 
Terjarv said:
9 years old getting UFO, ancient astronaut, ghost, and bigfoot books from my elementary school library. This FRACKEN library also had the Betty and Barney hill story, which I read when I was 9 and couldn't sleep for weeks, I thought I was going to get abducted. Why are these books in elementary school libraries anyway?
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Same here. I remember sitting on the school bus intrigued at the old black and white photo's- "Why are these books in elem school libraries anyway?" I'm glad they were in mine.
 
Stagger Lee said:
Speaking of books
What book(s) would one recommend giving to say, a 9 or 10 yr old to introduce them to the subject?
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That's an interesting question, and my first inclination is to say, I wouldn't. After parenting for only 12 years we have always drawn lines between concrete reality and fantasy. I credit my daughter at age 3 for maintaining this as she was the one who explained to me that there was no such thing as the Easter bunny here on this earth. Since then we never faked Santa, or god, and I present as highly skeptical whenever either child asks about my interest in ufology or the paranormal.

I do not encourage their reading any of my books on the subject and I'm glad they have their own well stocked libraries filled with their own interests. For some odd reason, I get the same uneasy feeling about my kids taking the existence of aliens on earth seriously as I do about them seeing me drink alcohol. I'm not sure why about the former and know the latter is about me seeing adults in my life getting smashed and abusive.

I'm fine with my kids exploring ghosts, werewolves and Bigfoot but am critical about getting too close to the UFO topic. I think I have mental health fears regarding the subject matter after reading about so many in the field destabilizing. Ironically, I was hooked on ufo's before I turned 10 and still have most of my marbles.
 
It is a topic that is meant to be discovered and understood by the experienced. No book could do it justice. My family of 4 including me witnessed a UFO sighting 2 years ago and for my pre-teen boys that was all the schooling they needed. No books...saw it..know it..won't ever understand it....period...that was my explanation

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 4
 
Burnt State said:
That's an interesting question, and my first inclination is to say, I wouldn't. After parenting for only 12 years we have always drawn lines between concrete reality and fantasy. I credit my daughter at age 3 for maintaining this as she was the one who explained to me that there was no such thing as the Easter bunny here on this earth. Since then we never faked Santa, or god, and I present as highly skeptical whenever either child asks about my interest in ufology or the paranormal.

I do not encourage their reading any of my books on the subject and I'm glad they have their own well stocked libraries filled with their own interests. For some odd reason, I get the same uneasy feeling about my kids taking the existence of aliens on earth seriously as I do about them seeing me drink alcohol. I'm not sure why about the former and know the latter is about me seeing adults in my life getting smashed and abusive.

I'm fine with my kids exploring ghosts, werewolves and Bigfoot but am critical about getting too close to the UFO topic. I think I have mental health fears regarding the subject matter after reading about so many in the field destabilizing. Ironically, I was hooked on ufo's before I turned 10 and still have most of my marbles.
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That's actually good advice. My boys 6 and 8, only know of my interests through my watching a couple TV programs- I'll get the curious questions like "Is that real?" my usual response is to smile and say "it's still a mystery"
 
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