Hangar 18 (film)

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Contents 7
Hangar 18 (film)
Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater Photo: United States Senate · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons
DateJuly 1980
TopicsCrashes & retrievals (topic), Beings & bodies (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic)
PeopleBarry Goldwater
TestimonyShellenberger testimony, p. 92
Year1980 in UFO history
Timeline1980 on the UAP Timeline
Sources18

Hangar 18 is a 1980 science-fiction thriller from Sunn Classic Pictures, starring Darren McGavin and Robert Vaughn, about a government cover-up of a crashed alien spacecraft. It dramatised the legend that alien craft and bodies were stored in a "Hangar 18" at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.[1][2]

Plot

The 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio received its first C-17 Globemaster III Jan. 21,2010. The aircraft is on loan from…
The 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio received its first C-17 Globemaster III Jan. 21,2010. The aircraft is on loan from… Photo: United States Air Force · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

In the film, a UFO collides with a satellite launched from the Space Shuttle and crashes in the Arizona desert. Two astronauts who witnessed the collision uncover a government plan to hide the craft and its dead occupants in a hangar at an Air Force base, against the backdrop of a presidential election.[1][3]

The legend

US National Park Service marker for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
US National Park Service marker for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Photo: Pi3.124 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

In a radio interview on 11 October 1974 writer Robert Spencer Carr claimed that bodies from a 1948 crash at Aztec, New Mexico, were held in Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson. The Air Force said there was no such hangar and noted the similarity of his story to a 1968 novel, The Fortec Conspiracy. The legend was also fuelled by Senator Barry Goldwater's account of being refused entry to a restricted room at the base.[2][4]

Production and influence

Skyline of Roswell, New Mexico, looking south along Main St
Skyline of Roswell, New Mexico, looking south along Main St Photo: Vasiliymeshko · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

In November 1979 local newspapers reported that Roswell was being scouted for the film. Its director, James L. Conway, described it as a modern dramatisation of the Roswell incident, and folklorist Thomas E. Bullard called it an example of "nascent Roswell mythology". The film was a modest commercial success and, with press coverage of Carr's claims, helped bring the crash-retrieval idea into popular culture; it later inspired a 1990 Megadeth song. There is no evidence that the government influenced the production.[2][3]

People and topics

USGS digital orthophoto of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio
USGS digital orthophoto of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio Photo: United States Geological Survey (USGS) · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons
  • Hangar 18 — The legendary hangar at Wright-Patterson said to hold alien craft and bodies.
  • Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
  • Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
  • U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
  • Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — The Ohio air base that housed Project Blue Book and is linked to the Hangar 18 legend.
  • Barry Goldwater — U.S. senator and Air Force Reserve general who said he was denied access to UFO material at Wright-Patterson.
  • Crash retrieval — The alleged recovery of crashed non-human craft by governments.

On the Timeline

Illustration of a jet meeting an unknown object
Illustration: a jet meeting an unknown object. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.

See every 1980 event on the UAP Timeline →

References

Further reading

This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.

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