These Celebs May Have Spotted UFOs

The number of possible celebrity UFO experiences circulating out there in the big, wide world might surprise you. Then again, maybe it won't; according to a poll conducted last year, more than half of Americans believe there's intelligent, alien life somewhere in the universe. Even NASA scientists acknowledge that we're probably not alone in the universe. And on the anniversary of the Roswell UFO incident, which occurred 69 years ago this week, now seems like as good a time as ever to wonder if the truth really is out there.

Here's what we know about the most infamous UFO incident in history: Sometime during the first week of July in 1947, an unidentified object crashed to the ground near Roswell, New Mexico, leaving strange debris scattered throughout the area. After investigation, the Roswell Air Force Base (RAAF) issued a press release stating that a strange flying disk had been found. Local newspapers ran headlines claiming that the wreckage of an alien spaceship had been recovered, and the story was quickly picked up nationally. Although the RAAF quickly issued a second press release stating that they had merely found the remains of a weather balloon, the belief that what actually happened involved aliens has shown surprising resilience: Even decades later, Roswell remains synonymous with UFOs and government cover-ups. The FBI is still releasing cranky statements about the incident.

Chances are we'll never know if the Roswell conspiracy theorists were on to something or not, but clearly, there are plenty of people who believe they've had their own close encounters of the third kind. Here are 12 of the most high-profile UFO believers:

1. Russell Crowe

In 2013, the actor tweeted a video featuring two mysterious, glowing objects near his apartment in Sydney, Australia. "Canon 5D, No Flash, can't be a lense flare because it moves, camera is fixed," he elaborated in a later tweet.

2. Sammy Hagar

The rock star has spoken to numerous outlets about his belief in UFOs. In 2011, he discussed a dream involving alien abduction with television personality Dr. Drew, saying, "I felt like there was a cord plugged into my head." In an interview with MTV that same year, he said, "My opinions about the UFO stuff, well, I could write a whole book just devoted to that. I love it, man. I’m into it deep."

3. Victoria Beckham

Beckham tweeted a picture of an unexplained object outside her Beverley Hills home in 2011. "UFO hovering about our house last night!" she wrote.

4. Dan Aykroyd

Aykroyd may be known for his role in The Blues Brothers, but he's also a noted believer in extraterrestrials. He even gave an exclusive interview to Open Minds, a UFO theorist website, discussing his beliefs, and he's the subject of the 2006 documentary Dan Akyroyd Unplugged on UFOs . "[Studies] reveal that most of [UFO] sightings could be explained through conventional means... but many of the sightings were unexplained," he said in the film.

5. Billy Ray Cyrus

In 2011, the country singer tweeted his sighting of not one, but six suspected alien aircraft during a sunset. "OK... my first UFO sighting," he wrote. "Looks like 5 or 6 disk like shapes hovering. Special moment 4 DAD."

6. Jimmy Carter

Former POTUS Jimmy Carter isn't quite a celebrity, but he has gone on the record about his experience with a possible UFO sighting. "I and about 25 men were standing around and all of a sudden, in the Western sky, we saw a strange light coming toward us," he said on Larry King Live.

7. Katy Perry

The pop star hasn't experienced a sighting of her own, but she told MTV News that she believed in life on other planets. "I’m so into extraterrestrial stuff. … It’s very difficult for me to look up into the sky in the middle of the night and not think that our planet is one of … a bajillion," she said.

8. Fran Drescher

The star of The Nanny told the Huffington Post that she and her ex-husband, Peter Marc Jacobson, both saw aliens in separate encounters while driving with their fathers. "You know, it's funny because Peter and I both saw [aliens] before we knew each other, doing the same thing, driving on the road with our dads," she said. "We were both in junior high. A few years later, we met, and we realized that we had the same experience. I think that somehow we were programmed to meet. We both have this scar. It’s the exact same scar on the exact same spot.”

Jacobson, however, isn't totally on board with the idea of it having been an alien experience; according to HuffPo, he believes Drescher's scar to have been from "a drill bit or burning herself holding a hot cup of water."

9. Sigourney Weaver

Weaver once told German magazine TV Spielfilm, “We are not alone in the universe. I think there’s a department in government which is exclusively dedicated to quashing reports about aliens. And that’s so unfair. It would be nice if we weren’t just able to read about it in the tabloids.”

10. Aaron Eckhart

In a 2011 about the film Battle: Los Angeles, Eckhart discussed a sighting of a mysterious object. "I was out in the desert in New Mexico and I saw something weird," he said according to Collider. "That’s all I know. I won’t go into detail, but something was moving fast. I don’t rule it out."

11. Tom DeLonge

The former member of Blink-182 mentioned his interest in UFOs in a Rolling Stone interview earlier this year. He didn't speak about any of his own experiences, but he was knowledgeable about other sightings. Speaking about an incident involving airships in 1897 (yes, 1897, well over a century ago), he told Rolling Stone, "They went across the country and landed in certain cities, and mayors and senators met with the pilots. ... And then they completely disappeared. No one knows who they were."

12. Tom Cruise

Although he hasn't ever spoken about seeing one himself, noted Scientologist Tom Cruise has commented before about the possibility of intelligent life in the universe. "Are you really so arrogant as to believe we are alone in this universe? Millions of stars, and we're supposed to be the only living creatures? No, there are many things out there we just don't know," he once told a German newspaper.

Images: Wikimedia Commons (2)