The Snæfellsjökull appointment
The account
Beings from another world would land at the foot of Iceland's mystical glacier on a set day and at a set hour.
What investigators found
Nothing happened at the announced time; the episode shows how a prediction can mobilize crowds without any evidence.
The story
Snæfellsjökull, an ice-covered volcano in western Iceland, has had a mystical reputation ever since Jules Verne chose it as the entrance to the center of the Earth. In 1993, a British man announced that extraterrestrial beings would land there on the night of November 5, at an exact time. The news spread, and hundreds of people traveled to the area, along with foreign press crews.
At the appointed hour, nothing appeared in the sky. Some participants later said the crowd had scared the visitors away, and others that they had come without being seen. With no record of any landing, the case remained a curiosity of Icelandic ufology and an example of a failed prophecy.