Unidentified flying object have held our attention for at least егэ

This confused speculating lasted only a few weeks. Then the investigation narrowed down to the Soviets and took off on a much more methodical course of action.

When World War II ended, the Germans had several radical types of aircraft and guided missiles under development. The majority of these projects were in the most preliminary stages but they were the only known craft that could even approach the performance of the objects reported by UFO observers. Like the Allies, after World War II the Soviets had obtained complete sets of data on the latest German developments. This, coupled with rumors that the Soviets were frantically developing the German ideas, caused no small degree of alarm. As more UFO’s were observed near the Air Force’s Muroc Test Center, the Army’s White Sands Proving Ground, and atomic bomb plants, ATIC’s efforts became more concentrated.

Wires were sent to intelligence agents in Germany requesting that they find out exactly how much progress had been made on the various German projects.

The last possibility, of course, was that the Soviets had discovered some completely new aerodynamic concept that would give saucer performance.

While ATIC technical analysts were scouring the United States for data on the German projects and the intelligence agents in Germany were seeking out the data they had been asked for, UFO reports continued to flood the country. The Pacific Northwest still led with the most sightings, but every state in the Union was reporting a few flying saucers.

At first there was no co-ordinated effort to collect data on the UFO reports. Leads would come from radio reports or newspaper items. Military intelligence agencies outside of ATIC were hesitant to investigate on their own initiative because, as is so typical of the military, they lacked specific orders. When no orders were forthcoming, they took this to mean that the military had no interest in the UFO’s. But before long this placid attitude changed, and changed drastically. Classified orders came down to investigate all UFO sightings. Get every detail and send it direct to ATIC at Wright Field. The order carried no explanation as to why the information was wanted. This lack of an explanation and the fact that the information was to be sent directly to a high-powered intelligence group within Air Force Headquarters stirred the imagination of every potential cloak-and-dagger man in the military intelligence system. Intelligence people in the field who had previously been free with opinions now clammed up tight.

The era of confusion was progressing.

Early statements to the press, which shaped the opinion of the public, didn’t reduce the confusion factor. While ATIC was grimly expending maximum effort in a serious study, «certain high-placed officials» were officially chuckling at the mention of UFO’s.

In July 1947 an International News Service wire story quoted the public relations officer at Wright Field as saying, «So far we haven’t found anything to confirm that saucers exist. We don’t think they are guided missiles.» He went on to say, «As things are now, they appear to be either a phenomenon or a figment of somebody’s imagination.»

A few weeks later a lieutenant colonel who was Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Fourth Air Force was widely quoted as saying, «There is no basis for belief in flying saucers in the Tacoma area [referring to a UFO sighting in the area of Tacoma, Washington], or any other area.»

The «experts,» in their stories of saucer lore, have said that these brush-offs of the UFO sightings were intentional smoke screens to cover the facts by adding confusion. This is not true; it was merely a lack of coordination. But had the Air Force tried to throw up a screen of confusion, they couldn’t have done a better job.

When the lieutenant colonel from the Fourth Air Force made his widely publicized denunciation of saucer believers he specifically mentioned a UFO report from the Tacoma, Washington, area.

The report of the investigation of this incident, the Maury Island Mystery, was one of the most detailed reports of the early UFO era. The report that we had in our files had been pieced together by Air Force Intelligence and other agencies because the two intelligence officers who started the investigation couldn’t finish it. They were dead.

For the Air Force the story started on July 31, 1947, when Lieutenant Frank Brown, an intelligence agent at Hamilton AFB, California, received a long-distance phone call. The caller was a man whom 111 call Simpson, who had met Brown when Brown investigated an earlier UFO sighting, and he had a hot lead on another UFO incident. He had just talked to two Tacoma Harbor patrolmen. One of them had seen six UFO’s hover over his patrol boat and spew out chunks of odd metal. Simpson had some of the pieces of the metal.

The story sounded good to Lieutenant Brown, so he reported it to his chief. His chief OK’d a trip and within an hour Lieutenant Brown and Captain Davidson were flying to Tacoma in an Air Force B-25. When they arrived they met Simpson and an airline pilot friend of his in Simpson’s hotel room. After the usual round of introductions Simpson told Brown and Davidson that he had received a letter from a Chicago publisher asking him, Simpson, to investigate this case. The publisher had paid him $200 and wanted an exclusive on the story, but things were getting too hot, Simpson wanted the military to take over.

Simpson went on to say that he had heard about the experience off Maury Island but that he wanted Brown and Davidson to hear it firsthand. He had called the two harbor patrolmen and they were on their way to the hotel. They arrived and they told their story.

I’ll call these two men Jackson and Richards although these aren’t their real names. In June 1947, Jackson said, his crew, his son, and the son’s dog were on his patrol boat patrolling near Maury Island, an island in Puget Sound, about 3 miles from Tacoma. It was a gray day, with a solid cloud deck down at about 2,500 feet. Suddenly everyone on the boat noticed six «doughnut-shaped» objects, just under the clouds, headed toward the boat. They came closer and closer, and when they were about 500 feet over the boat they stopped. One of the doughnut-shaped objects seemed to be in trouble as the other five were hovering around it. They were close, and everybody got a good look. The UFO’s were about 100 feet in diameter, with the «hole in the doughnut» being about 25 feet in diameter. They were a silver color and made absolutely no noise. Each object had large portholes around the edge.

As the five UFO’s circled the sixth, Jackson recalled, one of them came in and appeared to make contact with the disabled craft. The two objects maintained contact for a few minutes, then began to separate. While this was going on, Jackson was taking photos. Just as they began to separate, there was a dull «thud» and the next second the UFO began to spew out sheets of very light metal from the hole in the center. As these were fluttering to the water, the UFO began to throw out a harder, rocklike material. Some of it landed on the beach of Maury Island. Jackson took his crew and headed toward the beach of Maury Island, but not before the boat was damaged, his son’s arm had been injured, and the dog killed. As they reached the island they looked up and saw that the UFO’s were leaving the area at high speed. The harbor patrolman went on to tell how he scooped up several chunks of the metal from the beach and boarded the patrol boat. He tried to use his radio to summon aid, but for some unusual reason the interference was so bad he couldn’t even call the three miles to his headquarters in Tacoma. When they docked at Tacoma, Jackson got first aid for his son and then reported to his superior officer, Richards, who, Jackson added to his story, didn’t believe the tale. He didn’t believe it until he went out to the island himself and saw the metal.

Jackson’s trouble wasn’t over. The next morning a mysterious visitor told Jackson to forget what he’d seen.

Later that same day the photos were developed. They showed the six objects, but the film was badly spotted and fogged, as if the film had been exposed to some kind of radiation.

Then Simpson told about his brush with mysterious callers. He said that Jackson was not alone as far as mysterious callers were concerned, the Tacoma newspapers had been getting calls from an anonymous tipster telling exactly what was going on in Simpson’s hotel room. This was a very curious situation because no one except Simpson, the airline pilot, and the two harbor patrolmen knew what was taking place. The room had even been thoroughly searched for hidden microphones.

That is the way the story stood a few hours after Lieutenant Brown and Captain Davidson arrived in Tacoma.

After asking Jackson and Richards a few questions, the two intelligence agents left, reluctant even to take any of the fragments. As some writers who have since written about this incident have said, Brown and Davidson seemed to be anxious to leave and afraid to touch the fragments of the UFO, as if they knew something more about them. The two officers went to McChord AFB, near Tacoma, where their B-25 was parked, held a conference with the intelligence officer at McChord, and took off for their home base, Hamilton. When they left McChord they had a good idea as to the identity of the UFO’s. Fortunately they told the McChord intelligence officer what they had determined from their interview.

In a few hours the two officers were dead. The B-25 crashed near Kelso, Washington. The crew chief and a passenger had parachuted to safety. The newspapers hinted that the airplane was sabotaged and that it was carrying highly classified material. Authorities at McChord AFB confirmed this latter point, the airplane was carrying classified material.

In a few days the newspaper publicity on the crash died down, and the Maury Island Mystery was never publicly solved.

Later reports say that the two harbor patrolmen mysteriously disappeared soon after the fatal crash.

They should have disappeared, into Puget Sound. The whole Maury Island Mystery was a hoax. The first, possibly the second-best, and the dirtiest hoax in the UFO history. One passage in the detailed official report of the Maury Island Mystery says:

Both———(the two harbor patrolmen) admitted that the rock fragments had nothing to do with flying saucers. The whole thing was a hoax. They had sent in the rock fragments [to a magazine publisher] as a joke. ——— One of the patrolmen wrote to———[the publisher] stating that the rock could have been part of a flying saucer. He had said the rock came from a flying saucer because that’s what———[the publisher] wanted him to say.

The publisher, mentioned above, who, one of the two hoaxers said, wanted him to say that the rock fragments had come from a flying saucer, is the same one who paid the man I called Simpson $200 to investigate the case.

The report goes on to explain more details of the incident. Neither one of the two men could ever produce the photos. They «misplaced» them, they said. One of them, I forget which, was the mysterious informer who called the newspapers to report the conversations that were going on in the hotel room. Jackson’s mysterious visitor didn’t exist. Neither of the men was a harbor patrolman, they merely owned a couple of beat-up old boats that they used to salvage floating lumber from Puget Sound. The airplane crash was one of those unfortunate things. An engine caught on fire, burned off, and just before the two pilots could get out, the wing and tail tore off, making it impossible for them to escape. The two dead officers from Hamilton AFB smelled a hoax, accounting for their short interview and hesitancy in bothering to take the «fragments.» They confirmed their convictions when they talked to the intelligence officer at McChord. It had already been established, through an informer, that the fragments were what Brown and Davidson thought, slag. The classified material on the B-25 was a file of reports the two officers offered to take back to Hamilton and had nothing to do with the Maury Island Mystery, or better, the Maury Island Hoax.

Simpson and his airline pilot friend weren’t told about the hoax for one reason. As soon as it was discovered that they had been «taken,» thoroughly, and were not a party to the hoax, no one wanted to embarrass them.

The majority of the writers of saucer lore have played this sighting to the hilt, pointing out as their main premise the fact that the story must be true because the government never openly exposed or prosecuted either of the two hoaxers. This is a logical premise, but a false one. The reason for the thorough investigation of the Maury Island Hoax was that the government had thought seriously of prosecuting the men. At the last minute it was decided, after talking to the two men, that the hoax was a harmless joke that had mushroomed, and that the loss of two lives and a B-25 could not be directly blamed on the two men. The story wasn’t even printed because at the time of the incident, even though in this case the press knew about it, the facts were classed as evidence. By the time the facts were released they were yesterday’s news. And nothing is deader than yesterday’s news.

As 1947 drew to a close, the Air Force’s Project Sign had outgrown its initial panic and had settled down to a routine operation. Every intelligence report dealing with the Germans’ World War II aeronautical research had been studied to find out if the Russians could have developed any of the late German designs into flying saucers. Aerodynamicists at ATIC and at Wright Field’s Aircraft Laboratory computed the maximum performance that could be expected from the German designs. The designers of the aircraft themselves were contacted. «Could the Russians develop a flying saucer from their designs?» The answer was, «No, there was no conceivable way any aircraft could perform that would match the reported maneuvers of the UFO’s.» The Air Force’s Aeromedical Laboratory concurred. If the aircraft could be built, the human body couldn’t stand the violent maneuvers that were reported. The aircraft-structures people seconded this, no material known could stand the loads of the reported maneuvers and heat of the high speeds.

Still convinced that the UFO’s were real objects, the people at ATIC began to change their thinking. Those who were convinced that the UFO’s were of Soviet origin now began to eye outer space, not because there was any evidence that the UFO’s did come from outer space but because they were convinced that UFO’s existed and only some unknown race with a highly developed state of technology could build such vehicles. As far as the effect on the human body was concerned, why couldn’t these people, whoever they might be, stand these horrible maneuver forces? Why judge them by earthly standards? I found a memo to this effect was in the old Project Sign files.

Project Sign ended 1947 with a new problem. How do you collect interplanetary intelligence? During World War II the organization that was ATIC’s forerunner, the Air Materiel Command’s secret «T-2,» had developed highly effective means of wringing out every possible bit of information about the technical aspects of enemy aircraft. ATIC knew these methods, but how could this be applied to spaceships? The problem was tackled with organized confusion.

If the confusion in the minds of Air Force people was organized the confusion in the minds of the public was not. Publicized statements regarding the UFO were conflicting.

A widely printed newspaper release, quoting an unnamed Air Force official in the Pentagon, said:

The «flying saucers» are one of three things:

Solar reflections on low-hanging clouds.

Small meteors that break up, their crystals catching the rays of the sun.

Icing conditions could have formed large hailstones and they might have flattened out and glided.

A follow-up, which quoted several scientists, said in essence that the unnamed Air Force official was crazy. Nobody even heard of crystallized meteors, or huge, flat hailstones, and the solar- reflection theory was absurd.

Life, Time, Newsweek, and many other news magazines carried articles about the UFO’s. Some were written with tongue in cheek, others were not. All the articles mentioned the Air Force’s mass- hysterical induced hallucinations. But a Veterans’ Administration psychiatrist publicly pooh-poohed this. «Too many people are seeing things,» he said.

It was widely suggested that all the UFO’s were meteors. Two Chicago astronomers queered this. Dr. Gerard Kuiper, director of the University of Chicago observatory, was quoted as flatly saying the UFO’s couldn’t be meteors. «They are probably man-made,» he told the Associated Press. Dr. Oliver Lee, director of Northwestern University’s observatory, agreed with Dr. Kuiper and he threw in an additional confusion factor that had been in the back of many people’s minds. Maybe they were our own aircraft.

The government had been denying that UFO’s belonged to the U.S. from

the first, but Dr. Vannevar Bush, the world-famous scientist, and Dr.

Merle Tuve, inventor of the proximity fuse, added their weight.

«Impossible,» they said.

All of this time unnamed Air Force officials were disclaiming serious interest in the UFO subject. Yet every time a newspaper reporter went out to interview a person who had seen a UFO, intelligence agents had already been flown in, gotten the detailed story complete with sketches of the UFO, and sped back to their base to send the report to Project Sign. Many people had supposedly been «warned» not to talk too much. The Air Force was mighty interested in hallucinations.

Thus 1947 ended with various-sized question marks in the mind of the public. If you followed flying saucers closely the question mark was big, if you just noted the UFO story titles in the papers it was smaller, but it was there and it was growing. Probably none of the people, military or civilian, who had made the public statements were at all qualified to do so but they had done it, their comments had been printed, and their comments had been read. Their comments formed the question mark.

CHAPTER THREE

Table of Contents

The Classics

1948 was only one hour and twenty-five minutes old when a gentleman from Abilene, Texas, made the first UFO report of the year. What he saw, «a fan-shaped glow» in the sky, was insignificant as far as UFO reports go, but it ushered in a year that was to bring feverish activity to Project Sign.

With the Soviets practically eliminated as a UFO source, the idea of interplanetary spaceships was becoming more popular. During 1948 the people in ATIC were openly discussing the possibility of interplanetary visitors without others tapping their heads and looking smug. During 1948 the novelty of UFO’s had worn off for the press and every John and Jane Doe who saw one didn’t make the front pages as in 1947. Editors were becoming hardened, only a few of the best reports got any space. Only «The Classics» rated headlines. «The Classics» were three historic reports that were the highlights of 1948. They are called «The Classics,» a name given them by the Project Blue Book staff, because: (1) they are classic examples of how the true facts of a UFO report can be twisted and warped by some writers to prove their point, (2) they are the most highly publicized reports of this early era of the UFO’s, and (3) they «proved» to ATIC’s intelligence specialists that UFO’s were real.

The apparent lack of interest in UFO reports by the press was not a true indication of the situation. I later found out, from talking to writers, that all during 1948 the interest in UFO’s was running high. The Air Force Press Desk in the Pentagon was continually being asked what progress was being made in the UFO investigation. The answer was, «Give us time. This job can’t be done in a week.» The press respected this and was giving them time. But every writer worth his salt has contacts, those «usually reliable sources» you read about, and these contacts were talking. All during 1948 contacts in the Pentagon were telling how UFO reports were rolling in at the rate of several per day and how ATIC UFO investigation teams were flying out of Dayton to investigate them. They were telling how another Air Force investigative organization had been called in to lighten ATIC’s load and allow ATIC to concentrate on the analysis of the reports. The writers knew this was true because they had crossed paths with these men whom they had mistakenly identified as FBI agents. The FBI was never officially interested in UFO sightings. The writers’ contacts in the airline industry told about the UFO talk from V.P.’s down to the ramp boys. Dozens of good, solid, reliable, experienced airline pilots were seeing UFO’s. All of this led to one conclusion: whatever the Air Force had to say, when it was ready to talk, would be newsworthy. But the Air Force wasn’t ready to talk.

Project Sign personnel were just getting settled down to work after the New Year’s holiday when the «ghost rockets» came back to the Scandinavian countries of Europe. Air attaches in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway fired wires to ATIC telling about the reports. Wires went back asking for more information.

The «ghost rockets,» so tagged by the newspapers, had first been seen in the summer of 1946, a year before the first UFO sighting in the U.S. There were many different descriptions for the reported objects. They were usually seen in the hours of darkness and almost always traveling at extremely high speeds. They were shaped like a ball or projectile, were a bright green, white, red, or yellow and sometimes made sounds. Like their American cousins, they were always so far away that no details could be seen. For no good reason, other than speculation and circulation, the newspapers had soon begun to refer authoritatively to these «ghost rockets» as guided missiles, and implied that they were from Russia. Peenemunde, the great German missile development center and birthplace of the V-l and V-2 guided missiles, came in for its share of suspicion since it was held by the Russians. By the end of the summer of 1946 the reports were widespread, coming from Denmark, Norway, Spain, Greece, French Morocco, Portugal, and Turkey. In 1947, after no definite conclusions as to identity of the «rockets» had been established, the reports died out. Now in early January 1948 they broke out again. But Project Sign personnel were too busy to worry about European UFO reports, they were busy at home. A National Guard pilot had just been killed chasing a UFO.

On January 7 all of the late papers in the U.S. carried headlines

similar to those in the Louisville Courier: «F-51 and Capt. Mantell Destroyed Chasing Flying Saucer.» This was Volume I of «The Classics,» the Mantell Incident.

At one-fifteen on that afternoon the control tower operators at Godman AFB, outside Louisville, Kentucky, received a telephone call from the Kentucky State Highway Patrol. The patrol wanted to know if Godman Tower knew anything about any unusual aircraft in the vicinity. Several people from Maysville, Kentucky, a small town 80 miles east of Louisville, had reported seeing a strange aircraft. Godman knew that they had nothing in the vicinity so they called Flight Service at Wright-Patterson AFB. In a few minutes Flight Service called back. Their air Traffic control board showed no flights in the area. About twenty minutes later the state police called again. This time people from the towns of Owensboro and Irvington, Kentucky, west of Louisville, were reporting a strange craft. The report from these two towns was a little more complete. The townspeople had described the object to the state police as being «circular, about 250 to 300 feet in diameter,» and moving westward at a «pretty good clip.» Godman Tower checked Flight Service again. Nothing. All this time the tower operators had been looking for the reported object. They theorized that since the UFO had had to pass north of Godman to get from Maysville to Owensboro it might come back.

At one forty-five they saw it, or something like it. Later, in his official report, the assistant tower operator said that he had seen the object for several minutes before he called his chiefs attention to it. He said that he had been reluctant to «make a flying saucer report.» As soon as the two men in the tower had assured themselves that the UFO they saw was not an airplane or a weather balloon, they called Flight Operations. They wanted the operations officer to see the UFO. Before long word of the sighting had gotten around to key personnel on the base, and several officers, besides the base operations officer and the base intelligence officer, were in the tower. All of them looked at the UFO through the tower’s 6 x 50 binoculars and decided they couldn’t identify it. About this time Colonel Hix, the base commander, arrived. He looked and he was baffled. At two-thirty, they reported, they were discussing what should be done when four F-51’s came into view, approaching the base from the south.

The tower called the flight leader, Captain Mantell, and asked him to take a look at the object and try to identify it. One F-51 in the flight was running low on fuel, so he asked permission to go on to his base. Mantell took his two remaining wing men, made a turn, and started after the UFO. The people in Godman Tower were directing him as none of the pilots could see the object at this time. They gave Mantell an initial heading toward the south and the flight was last seen heading in the general direction of the UFO.

By the time the F-51’s had climbed to 10,000 feet, the two wing men later reported, Mantell had pulled out ahead of them and they could just barely see him. At two forty-five Mantell called the tower and said, «I see something above and ahead of me and I’m still climbing.» All the people in the tower heard Mantell say this and they heard one of the wing men call back and ask, «What the hell are we looking for?» The tower immediately called Mantell and asked him for a description of what he saw. Odd as it may seem, no one can remember exactly what he answered. Saucer historians have credited him with saying, «I’ve sighted the thing. It looks metallic and it’s tremendous in size. … Now it’s starting to climb.» Then in a few seconds he is supposed to have called and said, «It’s above me and I’m gaining on it. I’m going to 20,000 feet.» Everyone in the tower agreed on this one last bit of the transmission, «I’m going to 20,000 feet,» but didn’t agree on the first part, about the UFO’s being metallic and tremendous.

The two wing men were now at 15,000 feet and trying frantically to call Mantell. He had climbed far above them by this time and was out of sight. Since none of them had any oxygen they were worried about Mantell. Their calls were not answered. Mantell never talked to anyone again. The two wing men leveled off at 15,000 feet, made another fruitless effort to call Mantell, and started to come back down. As they passed Godman Tower on their way to their base, one of them said something to the effect that all he had seen was a reflection on his canopy.

When they landed at their base, Standiford Field, just north of Godman, one pilot had his F-51 refueled and serviced with oxygen, and took off to search the area again. He didn’t see anything.

At three-fifty the tower lost sight of the UFO. A few minutes later they got word that Mantell had crashed and was dead.

Several hours later, at 7:20P.M., airfield towers all over the Midwest sent in frantic reports of another UFO. In all about a dozen airfield towers reported the UFO as being low on the southwestern horizon and disappearing after about twenty minutes. The writers of saucer lore say this UFO was what Mantell was chasing when he died; the Air Force says this UFO was Venus.

The people on Project Sign worked fast on the Mantell Incident. Contemplating a flood of queries from the press as soon as they heard about the crash, they realized that they had to get a quick answer. Venus had been the target of a chase by an Air Force F-51 several weeks before and there were similarities between this sighting and the Mantell Incident. So almost before the rescue crews had reached the crash, the word «Venus» went out. This satisfied the editors, and so it stood for about a year; Mantell had unfortunately been killed trying to reach the planet Venus.

To the press, the nonchalant, offhand manner with which the sighting was written off by the Air Force public relations officer showed great confidence in the conclusion, Venus, but behind the barbed-wire fence that encircled ATIC the nonchalant attitude didn’t exist among the intelligence analysts. One man had already left for Louisville and the rest were doing some tall speculating. The story about the tower-to-air talk. «It looks metallic and it’s tremendous in size,» spread fast. Rumor had it that the tower had carried on a running conversation with the pilots and that there was more information than was so far known. Rumor also had it that this conversation had been recorded. Unfortunately neither of these rumors was true.

Over a period of several weeks the file on the Mantell Incident grew in size until it was the most thoroughly investigated sighting of that time, at least the file was the thickest.

Unidentified flying object (commonly abbreviated as UFO or U.F.O.) is the popular term for any aerial phenomenon whose cause cannot be easily or immediately identified. Both military and civilian research show that a significant majority of UFO sightings have been identified after further investigation, either explicitly or indirectly through the presence of clear and simple explanatory factors.

Quotes[edit]

• Not long before his death, the prominent Italian psychologist and theologian Bruno Sammaciccia decided to disclose his experiences with a group of Space People, which started in 1956 and continued into the late 1970s… Bruno Sammaciccia’s fascinating account of what was to be a long-term, large-scale case of contact with the Space People was recently documented by the author Stefano Breccia, who included it in his book Mass Contacts, first published in Italian in 2006. Sammaciccia’s story gives many details and captures brilliantly the different characters of some of the people involved…. On their first encounter the friends were told: “This is a critical time in human history. We are not here to conquer, because there is nothing to conquer. We have been on Earth for many centuries, living in secret bases around the planet.” And in response to concerns about their strongly ethical perspective on life compared to that of humans: “Our goodness and truth will be stronger than human doubts.”
  • Gerard Aartsen in The Friendship Case: Space Brothers teach lessons of brotherhood – excerpt, Share International (2011)

• In confirmation of Benjamin Creme’s insistence that the Space Visitors are utterly harmless, author Stefano Breccia, who had some encounters of his own, says in the documentary based on Sammaciccia’s account: “They said they were incapable of causing harm to anyone. Even their devices [which were consciously impregnated with their sense of ethics and morality] would refuse to harm anyone. Indeed, they said if they weren’t able to avoid hurting someone, then in that case they would self-destruct.”
  • Gerard Aartsen in The Friendship Case: Space Brothers teach lessons of brotherhood – excerpt, Share International (2011)

• Sammaciccia’s story gives many details and captures brilliantly the different characters of some of the people involved…. On their first encounter the friends were told: “This is a critical time in human history. We are not here to conquer, because there is nothing to conquer. We have been on Earth for many centuries, living in secret bases around the planet.” And in response to concerns about their strongly ethical perspective on life compared to that of humans: “Our goodness and truth will be stronger than human doubts.”
  • Gerard Aartsen in The Friendship Case: Space Brothers teach lessons of brotherhood – excerpt, Share International (2011)

• The Space Brothers are the people from other planets in our solar system who come to Earth to assist us, not just humanity as a whole, but our elder brothers, the Masters of Wisdom in a major transition in consciousness, a realization or reawakening to the spiritual realities of life, to our real spiritual nature that we have lost sight of.
  I am aware that there are many reports of people who claim to be in contact with people from outer space. A lot of people say that they come from out of this solar system because our science tells us the other planets in our system are uninhabited and even uninhabitable. According to the Ageless Wisdom Teachings, and this is the background from which I speak and write, life is universal. You cannot go anywhere where there is no life because life is the underlying principle of everything that exists. It’s just that because we are so conditioned by life on the solid physical plane, and we do not have etheric vision, which is the ability to see the higher planes material reality above the dense physical, liquid and gaseous physical, that we take for granted that other planets are uninhabited. So most contactees say the space people in the UFOs must be from out of the solar system. However, based on my study and research of the Ageless Wisdom, I believe that the Space Brothers are from within our solar system.
  • Gerard Aartsen in Spirituality and the UFO Phenomenon: an interview with Gerard Aartsen, by Jason Francis, UFO Digest, (8 September 2012)

• In all the serious cases of contacts with space people that I have researched, some historical, some more recent, they are seen as morally far advanced compared to ourselves, working and living according to the highest ethical standards. This was reported not only by the early contactees of the 1950s, but also by the people in the Friendship case in Italy and South America, more recent contactees such as Giorgio Dibitonto from Italy and Carlos Diaz from Mexico, as well as by high-profile individuals who have testified about their encounters. When you look at it closely, it is astounding to find so many people talking about the goodness and wisdom of the people from space.
  • Gerard Aartsen in Spirituality and the UFO Phenomenon: an interview with Gerard Aartsen, by Jason Francis, UFO Digest, (8 September 2012)

• The whole purpose of the cover up by the military and economic interests is to maintain their control over society. I mean, as soon as the general populace would know about alternative ways of living, of relating, ways that are not based on competition and greed for fear of ‘the other’, but rather on empathy, sharing and justice for all, I am sure that would spell the end for the existing powers. Until now people have been led to believe that the only way to survive in this world is to fend for yourself, your own community, your own country. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and the space people are living proof that there are other, more viable and more peaceful ways of living together as one human race.
  • Gerard Aartsen in Spirituality and the UFO Phenomenon: an interview with Gerard Aartsen, by Jason Francis, UFO Digest, (8 September 2012)

• Today, the American Government has dropped its original attitude of disbelief and admitted that it has over eighteen hundred authentic cases on its files. The British Air Ministry is more cautious, but grudgingly admits that it also has a secret department to deal with or to discourage questions… The American Government, however… hints that it is not in the public interest for it to publish all it knows… Ever since the cliché ‘Flying Saucer’ was coined, the greatest and most exciting mystery of our age has been automatically reduced to the level of a music hall joke. The comics of Vaudeville and the comedians of State and Science banded together, most successfully, to encourage humanity… to laugh at what it does not understand… From then on, anyone who said ‘I have seen a flying saucer’ or, worse, ‘I believe in flying saucers’ was considered… a crank.
  • George Adamski & Desmond Leslie, Flying Saucers Have Landed, (1957)

• Despite evidence to the contrary (and there is enough of it to fill many volumes), there is still a widespread notion…that flying saucers are some kind of American joke… that the mystery has already been cleared up… we can thank those semi-scientists and self-appointed ‘experts’ who have simply failed to study the facts. Too many glib pontifications have been issued to the faithful by those who should know better… to say… that they cover all the cases on record is a flagrant untruth for which a Higher Justice may, or may not forgive them…. Although I quote less than two hundred incidents, these have been selected from nearly two thousand cuttings, reports, articles, manuscripts and ancient documents supplied to me by kind helpers from many countries…
  • George Adamski & Desmond Leslie, Flying Saucers Have Landed, (1957)

• A red glow in the clouds over Godman Field, Kentucky—a disk the size of the Pentagon, lurking, silently, above a fighter base—a construction dwarfing the Queen Mary [British ocean liner…1,019.4 ft (310.7 m)] supported by dull orange flames that lit up the cloud base and caused Captain Mantell, of the U.S.A.A.F., to be dispatched in his tiny pursuit plane to investigate. When Mantell found it, his voice came over the radio, full of excitement. It was immense, he said, a colossal metallic thing, 500-1,000 feet in diameter, and cruising at 250 m.p.h. He was going to try to overtake it… the giant began climbing at 400 m.p.h. It accelerated faster than any jet, and Mantell went streaking up in pursuit…
  • George Adamski & Desmond Leslie, Flying Saucers Have Landed, (1957)

• Ex Cathedra spoke Authority. First, Mantell had been ‘chasing the planet Venus’. Will some kind illusionist kindly explain how the planet Venus could appear as a disk 500 feet across, going at 200 m.p.h.; afterwards climbing rapidly and emitting orange flames? Later, we read of a new official explanation, that Mantell had hit a ‘Skyhook’ meteorological balloon and crashed…. Well, say he had? Would it tear his plane to pieces? I am quite willing, for anyone who will pay my expenses, to pilot a fighter plane through a Skyhook balloon any time of the day or night and observe the results, without very much fear of hurting myself. But when has a Skyhook ever cruised along at 250 m.p.h., or risen sharply at 400 m.p.h., with orange flames, etc., etc., into the bargain? But officially Mantell had chased the planet Venus, metamorphosed later into a Skyhook balloon, and thus, alas, met his death…
  • George Adamski & Desmond Leslie, Flying Saucers Have Landed, (1957)

• As I approached him… He made me understand that their coming was friendly. Also, as he gestured, that they were concerned with the radiation going out from earth. I asked if this concern was due to the explosions of our bombs with their resultant vast radio-active clouds? He understood this readily and nodded his head in the affirmative.
  • George Adamski & Desmond Leslie, Flying Saucers Have Landed, (1957)

• The idea is that the citizens of each nation, through these efforts, will grow into closer united friendship with their countrymen, without discrimination or divisions of any kind. In time it is hoped that these national efforts will overflow into worldwide understanding and friendship.
  • George Adamski, quoted in The Friendship Case: Space Brothers teach lessons of brotherhood – excerpt, Share International (2011)

• People are gradually beginning to realize that these sightings are not bunk. I thought it was bunk until I saw one … Now don’t tell me I had been drinking tequila, or that I was seeing spots before my eyes! … you did not offer any explanation for the saucers. Thus far, there certainly is no adequate explanation. All I can say is that if one ever actually sees one, he has seen the most awe-inspiring, strange and unaccountable sight that he’ll ever see in his lifetime. … Space does not permit me to go into detail as to why the object was not a balloon, a kite, a plane, or some such object. … I have lost so much sleep thinking about the contraption, I wish I had never seen the darn thing in the first place.
  • L. J. Alger M.D. from Grand Forks, N.D., in a letter to Flying magazine, as quoted in The Mail Box, Flying (September 1950)

• It is with considerable disappointment you cannot give the explanation of these aircraft as I felt certain they belonged to our government. They have apparently meant no harm, but used as an instrument of destruction in combination with our atomic bomb the effects could destroy life on our planet. … We have not taken this lightly. It is to us of very serious concern, as we are as interested in the welfare of our country as you are.
  • Kenneth Arnold in a telegram to the Commanding General of Wright Field in Ohio, who requested information on his sighting of June 24, 1947.

• If our government knows anything about these devices, the people should be told at once. A lot of people out here are very much disturbed. Some think these things may be from another planet. But they aren’t harming anyone and I think it would be the wrong thing to shoot one of them down – even if it can be done. Their high speed would completely wreck them.
  • Kenneth Arnold in telephonic conversation with Henry Heil of the Chicago Times, as quoted by in ‘Flying discs’ called real by 2 air veterans, Chicago Times (7 July 1947)
• … well, right here we’ve seen something, I’ve seen something, hundreds of pilots have seen something … in the skies. We have dutifully reported these things. And we have to have 15 million witnesses before anybody is going to look into the problem … seriously? Well this is utterly fantastic. This is more fantastic than flying saucers or people from Venus or anything as far as I am concerned.
  • Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1977, while attending the First International UFO Congress in Chicago, curated by Fate to mark the 30th anniversary of the «birth» of the modern UFO age, Pilot Kenneth Arnold 1977 still angry about disbelief, YouTube.

• The (British) government took the threat of UFOs so seriously in the 1950s that UK intelligence chiefs met to discuss the issue, newly-released files show… Ministers even went on to commission weekly reports on UFO sightings from a committee of intelligence experts… the papers also include a wartime account claiming prime minister Winston Churchill ordered a UFO sighting be kept secret to prevent «mass panic»… the latest batch of UFO files released from the Ministry of Defence to the National Archives shows that, in 1957, the committee received reports detailing an average of one UFO sighting a week… The files also include an account of a wartime meeting attended by Winston Churchill in which, it is claimed, the prime minister was so concerned about a reported encounter between a UFO and RAF bombers, that he ordered it be kept secret for at least 50 years to prevent «mass panic». Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFO sightings for the MoD, said: «The interesting thing is that most of the UFO files from that period have been destroyed… But what happened is that a scientist whose grandfather was one of his [Churchill’s] bodyguards, said look, Churchill and Eisenhower got together to cover up this phenomenal UFO sighting, that was witnessed by an RAF crew on their way back from a bombing raid…The reason apparently was because Churchill believed it would cause mass panic and it would shatter people’s religious views.
  • BBC News Churchill ordered UFO cover-up, National Archives show (5 August 2010)

• With hundreds of thousands of nebulae, each containing thousands of millions of suns, the odds are enormous that there must be immense numbers which possess planets whose circumstances would not render life impossible… I, for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilization here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures, or that we are the highest type of mental and physical development which has ever appeared in the vast compass of space and time. (from an article written by Churchill in 1939, revised during the 1950s but never published, discovered in 2017 in the Churchill Museum in the USA: ‘Are we alone in the Universe?’)
  • Winston Churchill, quoted in Winston Churchill and UFOs, by Phyllis Power, Share International, April 2017

• Most of the UFOs visiting this planet come from Mars and Venus. Most of them, even the Venusian ones, are made on Mars, which is a kind of great industrial planet. All of them are of subtle, etheric, not dense physical, matter. They can lower the vibrational rate of that matter until it comes within the range of our sight, so for a limited period they are visible. Normally, unless you have etheric vision, they would be invisible, but to the Martians, the Venusians and so on, they are visible because they are in that same kind of energy. If you went to Mars, you would see nothing, yet there are more people on Mars than on this planet. Their technology is thousands of years ahead of ours at the present time, but when we have the new Technology of Light, which will be as soon as the planet settles down, the principle of sharing is governing and there are no wars, the Technology of Light will give us all the energy we need directly from the sun… That will speed up our evolution tremendously from a technical point of view.
  • Benjamin Creme in UFOs FAQ, Share International Magazine (April 1999)

• President Kennedy was not aware of the Space Brothers per se, nor was he aware of the source of information. But he was aware of certain individuals in the diplomatic corps of America who were agents of the Space Brothers. He thought highly of their advice and information, and acted on it. It was always given through that agency in the diplomatic service.
  Likewise, President George W.Bush, when he was in office, was informed by such an agent in the diplomatic service that there would be an attack on America – the White House, the Pentagon and major buildings – which came to pass on 9/11. The government was warned three months in advance of this event and did nothing about it.
  • Benjamin Creme, UFOs: Their Spiritual Mission Conference Q & A, Part 1, Share International magazine (March 2010)

• There are leaders around the world who believe in this phenomenon, and do not know why the leading countries like America, Russia and the European nations do not ‘come clean’. They do not want to do it themselves because they do not want to be out of step. But they think it is perfectly believable that the UFOs are from some place, not necessarily Mars or Venus, but some place outside our solar system…These leaders may not know that, but they do believe in the existence of UFOs and in some cases would like to make it known. The South American countries, especially Brazil, have suggested that the truth should be made known, but nothing has come of it.
  • Benjamin Creme, UFOs: Their Spiritual Mission Conference Q & A, Part 1, Share International magazine (March 2010)
• Now there are 14 masters plus Maitreya… That is one group of helpers which come to help humanity get through this difficult period between the Age of Pisces and the Age of Aquarius… The other group, another major group are the Masters who come from some of the  other planets of our own system…. This system  like all systems is a cohesive unit. All the planets are related and all carry on their work in relation to the Plans of our own sun. Our sun is the center of this solar system and there is an interplanetary force, interplanetary being relationship at the center of this system as a whole, and the spiritual masters of this planet are in the closest contact with the spiritual identities in each of the planets of our system.
  • Benjamin Creme, A new civilization dawns. The emergence of the World Teacher and the role of UFOs, Lecture in Tokyo, Japan, 84 mins, 36 seconds, (8 May 2010)

• There is an interplanetary parliament of which our Spiritual Hierarchy and Maitreya is the expression of this planet. All the planets have their representatives in the interplanetary parliament. At that parliament, Maitreya focused for the other planets, the aims and the problems of Earth. It was concluded that an extraordinary movement of succor of help for the Earth had to be mounted by as many of the planets as wished to. It is not without reason the first evidence of what came to be called flying saucers, UFOs… happened soon after the end of the war. (43:36)
  This planet is a conscious part of a solar system which acts together, which has a parliament for all the planets… (56:37)
  • Benjamin Creme in A new civilization dawns. The emergence of the World Teacher and the role of UFOs Lecture in Tokyo, Japan. Full video (8 May 2010)

• In 1945-46-46 & so on… ordinary airline pilots, crew & passengers would see  would see outside their planes… these extraordinary dome shaped… ships… and no one knew where they came from… no one knew what they were.In the beginning most the… governments thought… the Russians thought they were made by the Americans. The Americans thought they were made by the Russians… no one knew precisely how they came to be there, what they were doing and how they had this extraordinary freedom of the air, this ability to appear and disappear and to go at fantastic speeds way out of sight of the planes that they had stood beside for a few minutes. For a few years it was an unexplainable phenomenon.   We made jokes about it. Flying saucers… no one knew… 
  • Benjamin Creme, Lecture in Tokyo, Japan (8 May 2010)

• In 1953 a book was published by… Desmond Leslie called «Flying Saucers Have Landed»…  traced the history… of flying saucers, UFOs…  down through the centuries… for hundreds and hundreds… thousands of years.. He had done tremendous amount of research and  found that the phenomenon of flying saucers was pretty well universal and had existed on and off for thousands of years…  51:14     then an American man called George Adamski came on the scene…  it was arranged that they (space brothers & Adamski) met in the desert in eastern California… he made the story known. Desmond Leslie heard about it, they met & they published this book together, «Flying Saucers Have Landed» the last chapter which is about a meeting in the desert of GA with a man who… claimed to have come from the planet venus.   Meanwhile there was  group of Americans set back half a mile or so away who watched the whole scene through binoculars and could bear testimony to the event… Adamski became very well known… travelled the world & gave lectures….the idea of people coming from other planets was extraordinary… (50:33)
  • Benjamin Creme, Lecture in Tokyo, Japan (8 May 2010)

• The governments of the world who are responsible for the covering up for over 60 years of the truth about UFOs, flying saucers… kept from the public the vital information that this planet is a conscious part of a solar system which acts together, which has a parliament for all the planets…The beings coming in the… UFOs are  100% friendly, 100% on a powerful deep spiritual mission to help humanity A) to avoid self destruction thru nuclear war and B) to aid  & guide in every way possible those who can respond to them and who are not afraid of them.. and are aware that they are friendly  55:17, that they have never harmed a soul on planet earth… And yet have constructed against them mainly by the American government and its agencies, not necessarily by the American government, but by the agencies of the American administration a series of lies, of innuendos, of blinds which have made even the strongest awareness of and contact with UFOs such a nonsense to the majority that most people are too afraid or too embarrassed, too shy to do anything about it. And yet it is one of the great happenings  in our life today that we are being helped in a great spiritual mission… (56:37)   
  • Benjamin Creme in A new civilization dawns. The emergence of the World Teacher and the role of UFOs, Lecture in Tokyo, Japan,(duration 84:36), (8 May 2010)

• [I wonder whether the work the EO did covering the Arnold sighting may have been the pinnacle of press coverage of the UFO phenomenon, and whether the coverage has been in decline ever since. Today’s press coverage of UFOs is lamentable.] For the life of me, I cannot understand why members of the press are not clamoring for information about the UFO issue. [The disinterest of the press] is even more interesting than the apparent presence on our planet of the UFOs themselves.
  • Peter Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center, as quoted in The sighting by Phil Wright, East Oregonian (16 June 2017)

• Some years ago I had a conversation with a layman about flying saucers — because I am scientific I know all about flying saucers! I said «I don’t think there are flying saucers’. So my antagonist said, «Is it impossible that there are flying saucers? Can you prove that it’s impossible?» «No», I said, «I can’t prove it’s impossible. It’s just very unlikely». At that he said, «You are very unscientific. If you can’t prove it impossible then how can you say that it’s unlikely?» But that is the way that is scientific. It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible. To define what I mean, I might have said to him, «Listen, I mean that from my knowledge of the world that I see around me, I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence.» It is just more likely. That is all.
  • Richard Feynman in The Character of Physical Law (1964)

• Anyway, I have to argue about flying saucers on the beach with people, you know. And I was interested in this: they keep arguing that it is possible. And that’s true. It is possible. They do not appreciate that the problem is not to demonstrate whether it’s possible or not but whether it’s going on or not.
  • Richard Feynman in The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist (1998)

• Aliens are currently all around us, and are watching us all the time. They are not hostile towards us, rather, they want to help us but we have not grown enough in order to establish direct contact with them.”
  • Lachezar Filipov, Aliens ‘already exist on earth’, Bulgarian scientists claim, Telegraph, (26 November 2009)

• Ending the secrecy surrounding the UFO/ET subject is a laudable goal. It is long overdue. It would transform the world in ways both simple and profound. And yet it is fraught with danger. The covert projects which have been running UFO related programs for nearly 60 years are not interested in a disclosure which upsets their apple cart. They want such a disclosure to transform their apple cart into a freight train. And they potentially have the power and connections to do it… I write about the kind of disclosure the world needs. An honest one. An open one. One which replaces secrecy with democracy. A disclosure which is peaceful, scientific and hopeful. But then there is the disclosure the powers that be would like to see: Manipulated. Calculated to consolidate power and engender fear. Configured in such a way that chaos and a deepening need for Big Brother is carefully inculcated into the masses. We have seen the plans and it is not a pretty picture. I write this as a warning. A warning that the wolves in sheep clothes are very cunning indeed. And have almost limitless resources… Evil steps in when good people do nothing… We stand at the beginning of a new time, and a new world awaits us. But we must embrace it, and help create it. For if we are passive, others will have their way- at least in the short run.
  • Steven Greer, When Disclosure Serves Secrecy (1999)

• These are reconnaissance, and civilizations that are visiting the planet certainly increased after we started detonating atomic weapons, there’s clear evidence that they have a concern about our destructive capabilities and weapons of mass destruction, and if you look at the modern era of sightings of so-called UFOs, those increased markedly after we developed atomic and nuclear weapons, and the hydrogen bomb… We have many top-secret witnesses who were present at nuclear facilities where these extraterrestrial vehicles would come in to observe and to see what we’re doing…
  • Steven Greer in 3 people from my team, including ex-CIA director, were assassinated – ufologist, RTNews, Sophie Shevardnadze (15 February 2019)

• There are a lot of people… who’d make you think that there’s a risk of some kind of alien invasion or threat. It’s the other way around, we’re viewed as the threat, the human civilisation right now is viewed as a very unstable civilisation that has not attained a peaceful world situation, which should have happened at the end of World War 2, and has not yet happened. So I think that these civilisations are waiting for us to grow up as a civilisation, and until then, there’s not going to be any overt action by them unless some catastrophic event was to happen.
  These civilisations range from hundreds of thousands to millions of years more developed than ours, and it appears that they are working somehow together in observing the planet. But the caricature of, so to say, an alien that’s been put out there, that’s mostly a counter-intelligence perspective that has been done by the CIA…. most of the information people see out there on the subject is disinformation created by the intelligence community for its psychological warfare value.
  • Dr. Steven Greer in 3 people from my team, including ex-CIA director, were assassinated – ufologist, RTNews, Sophie Shevardnadze (15 February 2019)

• We’re all using jets and cars, oil and gas, and we don’t need them. We haven’t needed them for decades. It’s the decision that has been made because to bring out these new technologies would be too disruptive to the current macroeconomic system…. climate change and pollution… are all solvable problems, but they are not going to be solved by tinkering around the edges with solar power or wind power.
  We need really bold new scientific discoveries… Certainly, countries all over the world have a prevalent interest in having this information come out, because the big talk is about climate change… and resource depletion. The fact of the matter is, the technologies for going from one star system to another involves very advanced science and physics, that would get us off oil, gas and coal very quickly. But therein lies the problem: it’s a multi-trillion dollar economic question of bringing out this information. …the first thing a scientist is going to say…is: what technology are they using to get here? …when it’s answered, it’s the end of oil.
  • Steven Greer in 3 people from my team, including ex-CIA director, were assassinated – ufologist, RTNews, Sophie Shevardnadze (15 February 2019)

• Staged UFO events feature craft with seams and rivets. That’s the way to tell ours from theirs.
  • Steven Greer quoted by Traci L. Slatton, Review of Dr. Steven Greer’s Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Fascinating and Poignant, Medium, (19 May 2020)

• Decades ago, visitors from other planets warned us about where we were headed and offered to help. But instead we, or at least some of us, interpreted their visits as a threat, and decided to shoot first and ask questions after… The veil of secrecy must be lifted and it has to be lifted now, before it is too late.
  • Paul Hellyer, Minister of Defense, Canada, 1963-1968, Speech at the National Press Club, Washington DC, April 2008

• They are very much afraid we might be stupid enough to start using atomic weapons again and that would be very bad for us and them as well… We are polluting our waters and our air, and we are playing around with these exotic weapons… and they [space brothers] don’t like that. They’d like to work with us to teach us better ways, but only, I think, with our consent.
  • Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Ex-Defense Minister Says Aliens Would Give Earth Tech If We Were Less Warlike, Popular Science, Douglas Main, (6 January 2014)

• (How do you answer UFO skeptics?) I get them to read my books and others; because there’s so much literature on the subject, that it is just amazing. And the skeptics, by large, have never done any reading on it. And it’s just like, take any other subject, physics or something that you are not familiar with, you can be skeptical of some of the rules and things people say if you haven’t taken time out to learn about it…. You have to read the books and get the evidence, and then you can check it out for yourself.
• There’s all kinds of proof, but only if you know where to look and taken the trouble to go and look… The United States government is the principle villain. Why is a good question, you should ask them, because basically, at a hearing we held a couple of years ago in Washington, the consensus of the witnesses at the hearing, of whom I was one, was that it was power and greed. They cover it up under the cloak of national security, but we all, I think the consensus of all of us who gave evidence there was that it had nothing to do with national security, it was a cover story to keep people from demanding answers, and that the real reasons were power and greed.
  • Paul Hellyer, The truth is out there? UFO conference claims government conspiracy, Nikki Jamieson, Calgary Herald, April 15, 2015

• Dr. Steven Greer is a global authority on extraterrestrials who has previous works with Sirius and Unacknowledged and now founder of the Disclosure Project, brings this documentary to talk about shattering the bounds of secrecy of the ET phenomenon. People seeing UFO’s (Unidentified Flying Objects) is not a new phenomenon. What has been sightings spoken has turned into sightings being video’s with cell phones making it impossible to deny that, at the very least, something is happening in our world. Dr. Greer has submitted briefings to five presidents on the subject and with information that he has gathered.
  While the government creates their own narrative based on fear, Dr. Greer wants to put the facts together in this brutally honest documentary. He believes that it is possible to create a relationship between humans and Extraterrestrials (ET). This documentary brings groundbreaking video/photographic evidence along with the interviews of Princeton’s PEAR lab Adam Curry, civil rights attorney Daniel Sheehan and CIA’s Dr. Russel Targ. These interviews are as equally important as with what Dr. Greer has to share. The most important is Greer’s story of being visited as a child and through learning joint meditation with the ET’s, he was able to create the CE5 protocol which allows goodwill telepathy inviting ET’s to know where the good guys are.
  • Jeri Jacquin, in Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind, MilitaryPress (6 April 2020)

• Recently, the press has been filled with reports of sightings of flying saucers. While we need not give credence to these stories, they allow our imagination to speculate on how visitors from outer space would judge us. I am afraid they would be stupefied at our conduct. They would observe that for death planning we spend billions to create engines and strategies for war. They would also observe that we spend millions to prevent death by disease and other causes. Finally they would observe that we spend paltry sums for population planning, even though its spontaneous growth is an urgent threat to life on our planet. Our visitors from outer space could be forgiven if they reported home that our planet is inhabited by a race of insane men whose future is bleak and uncertain.
  • Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Upon Accepting The Planned Parenthood Federation of America Margaret Sanger Award (5 May 1966)

• After a couple of years of intense research into eyewitness accounts of dramatic flying saucer sightings and encounters, it started to dawn on me, dimly at first, that science is not a democracy. It doesn’t really matter how many people have reported observations if the observations make no physical sense. We don’t take a vote to see if flying saucer attributes, such as antigravity, force fields, and speeds of thousands of miles per hour in the lower atmosphere, are technically achievable. Such features either exist or they do not, and they are judged on compatibility with existing proofs and the results of confirmatory research. There are many strange and even unbelievable phenomena that have been proven and re-proven to exist in the nuclear physics model of the universe, but the capabilities of your common flying saucer are not in this set.
  • James Mahaffey (2017). Atomic Adventures. Pegasus Books. p. 322. ISBN 978-1-68177-785-6.

• Along with the briefcase with the nuclear codes, the President of the country is given a special ‘top secret’ folder which is entirely devoted to the extra-terrestrials who visited our planet. The report is provided by the special secret service which deals with the extra-terrestrials in our country.
  • Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, Off-air comments after an interview on Russian TV, (7 December 2012)

• I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomenon is real, although it’s been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it’s leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it.
• I’ve been in military and intelligence circles, who know that beneath the surface of what has been public knowledge, yes — we have been visited. Reading the papers recently, it’s been happening quite a bit.
  • Edgar Mitchell, [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1037471/Apollo-14-astronaut-claims-aliens-HAVE-contact—covered-60-years.html Apollo 14 astronaut claims aliens HAVE made contact — but it has been covered up for 60 years, Daily Mail UK, Story on Mitchell’s Interview with Nick Margerisson for The Night Before on Kerrang! Radio, UK, (23 July 2008)

• The origin of Earth-dwelling or -visiting space folk is exclusively limited to our solar system, with the majority being Martians and Venusians. Mars and Venus are the two planets within the solar system most influential for Earth. Mars, like almost every other celestial body in the universe is populated, yet, ordinarily their inhabitants cannot be perceived for they are of etheric matter (in the case of Mars this shift from the dense-physical state occurred some three million years ago). Creme states that Mars is bustling with nine billion people; typical Martians would look like smaller-sized humans. Overall, Mars is spiritually on a par with Earth but technologically tremendously superior because they did not make the many “mistakes” humankind did… Creme divides Martians into three categories of spiritual evolution: those who are like gods to us; those of lesser but still remarkable spiritual progress; and those of very low spiritual quality. Moreover, contrary to humans, Martians are mostly holding fast to the Plan; however, unlike Earth, Mars has hitherto not witnessed the creation of a Christ. Like Earth, Mars is not considered a “sacred planet.” Both are in their fourth round (of a total of seven) in terms of planetary evolution, which renders them lagging behind the other ten [sic] planets of the solar system. (p. 301)
  • Lukas Pokorny in Handbook of UFO Religions, Volume: 20, ISBN: 9789004435537, Chapter 12, Maitreya, Crop Circles, and the Age of Light.., (22 Feb 2021)

• Vulcan, the planet closest to the sun, is the most advanced having recently completed its seventh round of planetary evolution and thus transitioned to the highest level etheric matter. Vulcan is also home to the headquarters of the Interplanetary Parliament with its representative being the “most distinguished”… Consisting of envoys of all twelve planets where they are parts of the respective Hierarchies, the Interplanetary Parliament’s objective is to assist each other in pursuing the Plan. Collaborative efforts are fed through emotional links in addition to the fact that all the planets are intertwined energetically. Hence, every single planet affects the other parts of this interplanetary energetic network. Furthermore, the Parliament is connected to an even higher organisational entity, the Galactic Federation of Light, which encompasses civilisations across the universe… Unsurprisingly, our solar system’s Interplanetary Parliament is also in constant contact with other Interplanetary Parliaments, such as, most importantly, that of Sirius. Following Vulcan in terms of planetary evolution and representing altogether the Seven Sacred Planets are Mercury and Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus. The non-sacred ones are Mars and Earth, Pluto, the 1977 discovered 2060 Chiron orbiting Pluto and not the Sun [sic], and the 2002 discovered trans-Neptunian Quaoar.
  • Lukas Pokorny in Handbook of UFO Religions, Volume: 20, ISBN: 9789004435537, Chapter 12, Maitreya, Crop Circles, and the Age of Light.., (22 Feb 2021)

• Creme explains that etheric matter is tantamount to dark matter, which had already been discovered by Wilhelm Reich. He called it the “orgone.” In this regard, Creme recommends scientists to turn to the esoteric literature such as Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine in lieu of, for example, building cyclotrons worth many billions of pounds… What is more, Creme unveiled that the universe would follow the Big Bounce scenario… so the current scientific mainstream theory of Big Rip/Heat Death would be wrong. According to Creme, spiritual progress generally expresses itself in rarefying matter density be it in people or entire planets; hence, upon completing its seventh evolutionary round Vulcan shifted to the most subtle etheric matter.. In this regard, Creme, for example, confirms Adamski’s famous account in which he reported to have attended a meeting of the Parliament in late March 1962 on Saturn.
  • Lukas Pokorny in Handbook of UFO Religions, Volume: 20, ISBN: 9789004435537, Chapter 12, Maitreya, Crop Circles, and the Age of Light.., (22 Feb 2021)

An article written by Winston Churchill in 1939, revised during the 1950s but never published, has recently been discovered in the Churchill Museum in the USA: ‘Are we alone in the Universe?’ Written on the verge of World War II, with crucial political events to occupy his mind, Churchill’s interest would have been stimulated by the recent notorious US radio version of War of the Worlds (adapted by Orson Welles from the novel by H.G.Wells), that had many panicking that an ‘alien invasion’ was actually taking place. The article was originally written before the period, particularly in the 1950s, of many reports of UFOs and great public interest in the phenomenon.

• Astrophysicist Mario Livio, the first person to be shown this newly discovered manuscript, points out that Churchill posited the existence of many other suns with families of planets, decades before the actual discovery of extrasolar planets in the 1990s. What impresses Livio about Churchill’s article is how he approached the question of alien life with a ‘scientist’s mind’…although Churchill interestingly posits Mars and Venus as possible hosts for life, he in no way entertains the possibility of etheric matter that can explain the existence of life on planets in our solar system and that underpins the accounts of space people in the writings of Benjamin Creme and George Adamski (borne out by countless sightings and other accounts). All the same, intriguingly, the very fact that he wrote the article might suggest that Churchill, a third-degree initiate, could have had an intuition that life outside our planet can, and indeed – as he himself says – must, exist… In the late 1950s, Churchill revised the article a little, changing the title from its original ‘Are we alone in space?’ to the more specific ‘Are we alone in the Universe?’ By then there had been very many publicized encounters with UFOs and the space people and George Adamski had published his world famous books, Flying Saucers have landed in 1953 and Inside the Space Ships in 1955.
  • Phyllis Power in Winston Churchill and UFOs, Share International, April 2017

• Hypnotism will become more and more a tool of scientific investigation. Telepathy will be proven without a doubt, and utilized, sadly enough in the beginning, for purposes of war and intrigue. Nevertheless telepathy will enable your race to make its first contact with alien intelligence.
  • Jane Roberts, in The Early Sessions: Book 2, Session 45, Page 21

• When science progresses on various planes, then such visitations become less accidental and more planned. However, since the inhabitants of each plane are bound by the particular materialized patterns of their ‘home,’ they bring this pattern of camouflaged vitality with them. Certain kinds of science cannot operate without it. When the inhabitants of a plane have learned mental science patterns, then they are to a great degree freed from the more regular camouflage patterns … the flying saucer appearances come from a system much more advanced in technological sciences than yours.
  So strong is this tendency for vitality to change from one apparent form to another, that what you have here in your flying saucers is something that is actually not of your plane nor of the plane of its origins. What happens is this: When the ‘flying saucer’ starts out toward its destination, the atoms and molecules that compose it (and which are themselves formed by vitality) are more or less aligned according to the pattern inflicted upon it by its own territory. As it enters your plane, a distortion occurs. The actual structure of the craft is caught in a dilemma of form. It is caught between transforming itself completely into earth’s particular camouflage pattern, and retaining its original pattern.
  • Jane Roberts, in Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness, p. 101-102

• Unknown aerial objects have in fact been observed over many of our nuclear weapons bases and other nuclear facilities, and in some cases the appearance of these objects coincided with compromising the operational readiness of our nuclear weapons… If they wanted to destroy them, with all the powers they seem to have, they could have done that job. So I personally don’t think that it was a hostile intent.
  • Robert Salas, US Air Force Captain (Ret.); Former nuclear missile launch officer, Witness Testimony-UFO’s at Nuclear Weapons Bases, press conference, National Press Club, Washington DC, (27 September 2010) See also: Former Airmen to Govt.: Come Clean on UFOs ABC News (27 Sept 2010)

• What struck me more than the book’s UFO stories, however, was the common thread weaving among them of breathtaking alterations in consciousness associated with the experiences – sensations of leaving the body, of flying through the air or being «carried along by the wind,» and receiving «startling and novel insights into the nature of reality» that reverberated thereafter with profound, life-changing effects.
  • Susan M. Watkins, in Speaking of Jane Roberts, p. 2 (2001)

• (Gardner) writes about various kinds of cranks with the conscious superiority of the scientist, and in most cases one can share his sense of the victory of reason. But after half a dozen chapters this non-stop superiority begins to irritate; you begin to wonder about the standards that make him so certain he is always right. He asserts that the scientist, unlike the crank, does his best to remain open-minded. So how can he be so sure that no sane person has ever seen a flying saucer, or used a dowsing rod to locate water? And that all the people he disagrees with are unbalanced fanatics? A colleague of the positivist philosopher A. J. Ayer once remarked wryly «I wish I was as certain of anything as he seems to be about everything». Martin Gardner produces the same feeling.
  • Colin Wilson in The Quest For Wilhelm Reich , pp. 2-3

• These left me in no doubt that something was trying to communicate with us, but that direct communication would be counterproductive. It seemed to be an important part of the scheme to create a sense of mystery.
  • Colin Wilson in Alien Dawn, p. 352 (1998)

The Great Approach by Benjamin Creme (2001)[edit]

• All Hierarchies of all the planets in this system are in touch with each other, and everything that takes place in an extraterrestrial sense takes place under Law. All the planets of our system are inhabited, but if you were to go to Mars or Venus you would see nobody because they are in physical bodies of etheric matter, finer, subtler, than gas. If you were to go there and had etheric vision they would be as real to you as they are to each other, but if do not have etheric vision — and the bulk of humanity do not as yet have etheric vision… to all intents and purposes these planets would seem to be uninhabited. p. 133

• [Mr. Creme was asked: «Was the spacecraft that crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 a genuine “alien” craft with aliens as crew?»] The occupants of the spacecraft were coming from Mars. The crash was not an accident but a deliberate act of sacrifice on the part of each individual in the spaceship. Normally those spaceships cannot crash — they are made of etheric matter, so they have no weight, they cannot be destroyed. The occupants deliberately brought down the vibrational rate of the matter into the dense physical and crashed the spaceship, so that we would have the evidence of the spaceship and five spacemen who could be studied and seen to be certainly similar to humans on this planet, if not identical. The American authorities have known this for years but of course the evidence — the vehicle and its occupants, because they were really etheric — disintegrated quickly back into the etheric. However, autopsies were carried out on the bodies and there is a film of this, so we have major evidence that this whole UFO question is real. p. 133

• What we call the “Space Brothers”, the people who use the vehicles we call UFOs… have put around our planet a ring of light which keeps it on its axis… this ring allows it, within karmic limits, to be held so that the poles do not flip, which is predicted by many ‘prophets of doom’… Nothing can shift that ring of light which is put in place by our Space Brothers. Without their help this planet would probably be in chaos. One of the major activities of the Space Brothers is to neutralize the pollution with which we are destroying our planet — caused in the main by nuclear radiation which is pouring out from the nuclear powerhouses all over the world. p. 134

• The planet is already polluted to a degree which is now dangerous. Pollution is the greatest killer of all diseases of humanity, and much of it is of nuclear radiation. The advice of Maitreya and the Masters will be to close down immediately all nuclear-fission power stations in the world. They could be replaced tomorrow with a safe, fusion process of nuclear power as an interim measure before the coming Technology of Light. One of the main factors in maintaining our eco-system is our Space Brothers: we owe them an enormous debt.

• There are various tales in magazines and newspapers of people being taken up, experimented on, and things being inserted under their skin and so on. All of this is totally untrue. There is not a single instance of such happenings. All of these stories are the result either of the fevered astral imagination of people who want to feel these things and do so in an astral sense, which they then describe to others and so build up a climate; or work of certain negative forces in the world whose aim is to keep from the public the reality of the extra-terrestrial connection of this planet.

• All the planets at Hierarchic level are interconnected and are all in communication. This solar system acts as a unit — it is not one planet and a whole lot of dead planets. They are all teeming with life at different stages. We are at a midway stage; Venus is unbelievably evolved compared with this planet, as is Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn and various other planets. They have no need to carry out experiments on us; they know. p. 135

• They create the crop circles as a means of letting us know, obliquely, that they are here — that the Space Brothers are real. Only they could simultaneously, in fields all over the south of England, in a few seconds, create unbelievably complex and beautiful crop circles. p. 135

• The Space Brothers, who use the UFOs, perform their task of salvage, which is their real work on this planet, in a way which does not infringe our free will. They leave tangential proof of their presence. They create the crop circles, for example, in corn, which is seasonal and after a time is cut down. Governmental officials bribe farmers to cut the corn as soon as the circles appear. This is happening all over the world: there is a huge international conspiracy against the revelation of the true nature of the UFO phenomenon. p. 137

• The Space Brothers — in particular the Martians with their advanced technology — have placed this ring of cosmic light around our planet, which holds the Earth in its axis, intact. The Martians have the ability to use light like that because they have not made our mistakes. p. 235

[edit]

(full text online)

• Since the mid-1950s, classified projects connected to extraterrestrial matters have operated outside of constitutionally required oversight and control by the President and Congress. This constitutes a grave and ongoing threat to US national security and global security and peace. The implications of this subject are such that no aspect of life on Earth will be unaffected by its Disclosure. We are acutely aware that this subject is highly controversial and suffers from great social opprobrium within certain elite circles and within the mainstream media.

• Indeed, secrecy on the subject has, in part, been maintained by a carefully orchestrated psychological nexus of ridicule, fear, intimidation and disinformation that makes it difficult for any public figure to openly address the matter… Because of this misguided secrecy, the wondrous new sciences related to advanced energy generation, propulsion and transportation have been withheld from the people. These advances include the generation of limitless clean energy from the so-called zero point energy field and quantum vacuum flux field from the space around us, and propulsion that has been termed (incorrectly) anti-gravity. The field of electromagnetic energy that is teeming all around us and which is embedded within the fabric of space/time can easily run all of the energy needs of the Earth – without pollution, oil, gas, coal, centralized utilities or nuclear power.

• The world will not find justice and peace so long as half of the world’s population lives in poverty while the other half cannibalizes the Earth to maintain its standard of living. This dire situation can and must be transformed into a world of abundance, clean and plentiful energy and genuine sustainability. On this foundation, with these new sciences, technologies and a new consciousness, we can move forward as a people, united and in peace. Then and only then will we be welcome amongst the other civilizations of the cosmos.

• The so-called MJ-12 or Majestic group that controls this subject operates without the consent of the people, or the oversight of the President and Congress. It functions as a transnational government unto itself, answerable to no one. All checks and balances have been obliterated. While as a governing entity it stands outside of the rule of law, its influence reaches into many governments, corporations, agencies, media and financial interests. Its corrupting influence is profound and, indeed, it has operated as a very powerful and embedded global RICO whose power to date remains unchecked. Upwards of $100 billion of USG funds go annually into this operation, also known as the ‘black budget’ of the United States — enough to provide universal health care to every man, woman and child in America.

• Interests in Europe, the Vatican and Asia, especially France and China, are urging Disclosure. If the United States does not move forward, these other interests will, and America will be left behind and become increasingly irrelevant in the world. This cannot be allowed to happen. The European and Asian arenas will move with or without US involvement at some point in the very near future, as well they should. Six decades of secrecy is enough.

• We are also morally obliged to warn you of an existing highly secretive plan to use advanced technologies to hoax an ‘alien attack’ on Earth. There exists within the direct control of this Majestic group assets capable of launching such a false flag operation and virtually every person on Earth, as well as most leaders, would be deceived by it. Components of this operation have been tested on the public over the past 50 years…

Before Disclosure: Dispelling the Fog of Speculation, by Gerard Aartsen (2016)[edit]

(full text online)

• Untangling facts from disinformation. With speculation in the field of Ufology and exopolitics increasing exponentially by the year, or so it seems, and the craft visiting from outer space making their presence felt more visibly by the day, let us not waste any time acknowledging the proverbial elephant (or mothership) in the room: If the modern world was unaware of the space visitors and their intentions before the 1950s contactees began to write and speak about their experiences, why are researchers today ignoring their information and do we allow our perception to be obscured by the disinformation that was meant to discredit them?

• If we go back to the spate of contacts that inaugurated the modern age of Ufology in the early 1950s, the one outstanding fact is that none of the contactees, whose accounts were not contaminated by the disinformation campaign, had anything but positive experiences to share. The message they were asked to convey, even if just a few short years after the end of World War II and under the palpable threat of nuclear war, was one of empowerment for the human race: We must avoid further armed conflict if we are to prevent self-annihilation, and it is feasible to create a peaceful future through international co-operation and making sure everyone’s basic needs are met, as an expression of the oneness of humanity.

• However, being engaged in a nuclear and conventional arms race with the Soviet Union, the Western industrial-military complex, which includes the fossil and nuclear fuel industry, felt this message was not in their interest. So much so, that governments and their military who needed the public’s support for their ideological warfare and global arms race, decided in the mid-1950s that, despite the cover-up of the army’s salvaging of one or more crashed flying saucers, the contactees’ message of international co-operation for peace and brotherhood was being too well received. An indication of this popularity can be found in the fact that, within three years of its publication Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953), the book which included George Adamski’s initial contact experience, was reprinted twelve times in the US alone and published in seven (!) other languages.

• We should be very careful about embracing any information involving extraterrestrial visitors or technology that reaches us via ‘government insiders’ or ‘whistle blowers’ who may or may not have worked at secret laboratories, for the simple fact that we can never be certain whether their information wasn’t deliberately planted to feed or increase the public’s fear and confusion. Many of the ‘secret space programme’ (SSP) claims, for instance, coming from ‘whistle blowers’, seem to rest on a statement allegedly made by the late Lockheed Skunk Works engineer Ben Rich: “We now have the technology to take ET home.” But military aviation historian Peter Merlin, who attended many of his talks, explains that this statement was merely misconstrued from a successful tagline which Mr Rich used at the end of his talks since 1983: “The Skunk Works has been assigned the task of getting [the movie character] E.T. back home.” (Peter R. Merlin (2013), ‘Taking ET home: The birth of a modern myth’. SUNlite, Shedding some light on UFOlogy and UFOs Vol.5, No.6, November-December, pp.17-19)

• Given these circumstances, claims of ‘secret space programmes’ that involve humanity’s power elite roaming the solar system with the help of “off-world allies” cannot be scrutinized for accuracy, and are only corroborated by fellow ‘whistleblowers’ whose backgrounds are equally unclear and whose sources cannot be scrutinized either.

• Because attempts to silence these harbingers of a different, saner way of life with offers of money or intimidation did not bring the desired effects, it was decided to discredit their experiences and defame their character. At the same time, film makers were enlisted to seed confusion in the public mind with features such as Invaders from Mars (1953), Earth vs the Flying Saucers (1956), Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), et cetera. So obvious was this effort that Flying Saucer Review eventually published a ‘Special Editorial’ in its issue of March-April 1959 stating: “We abhor this trend to condition world opinion through films and other media to fear the space ships.” (Special Editorial, ‘Why This Horror From Space Trend?’. Flying Saucer Review, Vol.5, No.2, March-April 1959, p.15)

• As I indicated in the explication of the research method I use for my work, there are at least four plausible explanations for ‘abduction’ experiences: (1) when people adopt the prevailing terminology – ‘abduction’ – for what is basically a consensual contact experience, even if the strangeness of the memories induced feelings of fear e.g. Travis Walton no longer refers to his contact experience as an ‘abduction’ but as “an ambulance call” (‘Travis Walton shares new theory on Fire in the Sky alien abduction’. Open Minds TV, 2 July 2012) (2) when secretive government or military agencies stage a hypnosisor drug induced experience intended to confuse and mislead the public about the true nature of the extraterrestrial presence; or when sensitive people either (3) have an overactive imagination, or (4) tap into the thoughtform that has built up around this phenomenon, and convince themselves it happened to them, just as dreams are real at the time of the dreaming. (Priorities for a Planet in Transition, Gerard Aartsen, 2015) pp.172-74;)

• In order to decide if information can be trusted to reflect some level of truth or reality beyond strictly subjective experiences, we only need to see if it finds confirmation from several angles, or at least more than one, from people across time, disciplines and/ or social strata. This is essential in a field like Ufology, because tangible proof will be impossible until the time of open contact. After all, as a result of the disinformation campaign that has been going on for decades, even ‘disclosure’ by governments or their agencies will have to be subject to doubt simply because they depend on public support for their (geo) political agendas. Readers will note that our approach, therefore, is not a case of looking for confirmation of set beliefs to the exclusion of contradictory evidence, but rather a tool to eliminate disinformation, misinformation, and speculation.

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

• Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence
• «Before Disclosure: Dispelling the Fog of Speculation» by Gerard Aartsen (full text online)] (2016)
• End the UFO/ET Disclosure nonsense! Video compilation (2015)
• Special Presidential Briefing for President Barack Obama (Topic: the massive UFO cover-up) 23 January 2009 by Dr. Steven Greer (PDF)

From Academic Kids

(Redirected from Flying saucer)

UFO redirects here. For other uses, see UFO (disambiguation).

A UFO or unidentified flying object in the original, literal sense is any airborne object or optical phenomenon, detected visually or by radar, whose nature is not readily known. Interest in these objects stems from continued speculation that some of them may be the products of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Perhaps the best scientifically accepted definition of a UFO was provided by the late astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek: «A UFO is the reported perception of an object or light seen in the sky or upon the land the appearance, trajectory, and general dynamic and luminescent behaviour of which do not suggest a logical, conventional explanation and which is not only mystifying to the original percipients but remains unidentified after close scrutiny of all available evidence by persons who are technically capable of making a common sense identification, if one is possible.»

History

Strange unidentified apparitions in the sky and on the ground have been reported throughout history. Ancient Roman records occasionally mention «shields» and even «armies» seen in the sky. In 1896-97, unidentified «airships» were reported in the United States, though some of these reports are now known to have been deliberate hoaxes. There were several reports of unidentified aeroplanes in the Scandinavian countries in the 1930s. In Europe during World War II, «Foo-fighters» (luminous balls that followed airplanes) were reported by both allied and axis pilots. In 1946, there was a «wave» of «ghost rockets» seen over Scandinavia.

The modern phase in UFOs started with a claimed sighting by American businessman Kenneth Arnold on June 24 1947, near Mount Rainier, Washington. Arnold said he saw nine bright objects flying at «incredible speed» at 10,000 feet altitude. Though the UFOs Arnold witnessed were not by strict definition saucer-shaped, he described their movements as being similar to that of a saucer skipping over water, hence the origin of the term flying saucer. Arnold’s claims subsequently received significant mainstream media and public attention.

UFO sightings of a similar nature were subsequently reported throughout the United States and in other countries. The resulting press publicity given to early UFO sightings undoubtedly helped stimulate further sightings worldwide. In early reports, the objects were observed alone or in formation and were shaped like «discs,» «rockets,» or «cigars.» The objects observed during the day were often described as saucer-shaped and metallic-silver in color. Objects observed during the evening hours were of various colors.

Origins of the terms «flying saucer» and «UFO»

On January, 24, 1878, John Martin, a Texas farmer, is said to have seen a dark flying object in the shape of a disk «flying at wonderful speed,» and allegedly used the word «saucer» to describe it. If verifiable, this would be the first known use of the word «saucer» to describe an unidentified flying object. Some seventy years later in 1947, the media used the term «flying saucers» to describe Kenneth Arnold’s sighting.

The nine objects Kenneth Arnold said he saw were not strictly saucer-shaped. Arnold initially described and drew a picture of eight of the objects as being thin and flat, circular in the front but truncated in the back and coming to a point. (See Kenneth Arnold for drawing and verbal descriptions) Another, later drawing was of a ninth, somewhat larger object with a boomerang or crescent shape, more resembling a flying wing style aircraft. However, several years later, Arnold said he had described their movement as a kind of skipping, like a saucer skimmed over water. He complained that the press misquoted him, picking up the «like a saucer» phrase, and reported it as a «flying saucer».

Another term commonly used by the media to describe the objects in the late 1940s and ’50s was «flying disks.»

By mid-1950, a Gallup poll revealed that the term «flying saucer» had become so deeply ingrained in the American vernacular, that 94% of those polled were familiar with it, making it the best-known term commonly appearing in the news, easily beating out others like «universal military training» (75%), «bookie» (67%), or «cold war» (58%).

Hollywood science fiction movies in the 1950s, such as The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Forbidden Planet (1956), and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), all depicting flying saucer-like craft, further entrenched the term as a cultural icon. So did popular books on the subject such as Frank Scully’s Behind the Flying Saucers (1950), Donald Keyhoe’s The Flying Saucers Are Real (1950) and Flying Saucers From Outer Space (1953), and «contactee»-oriented books, such as George Adamski’s] Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953).

«Flying Saucer» was the preferred term for most unidentified aerial sightings through the late 1940s to 1960’s, even for those that were not actually saucer-shaped. By the late 1960s, the term «UFO» was more commonly used. Use of «UFO» instead of «flying saucer» was first suggested in 1952 by Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, the first director of the U. S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book, who felt that «flying saucer» failed to capture the diversity of the sightings. His suggestion was quickly adopted by the Air Force, who also briefly used «UFOB» through about 1954. Ruppelt recounted his experiences with Project Blue Book in his memoir, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956) online (http://www.nicap.dabsol.co.uk/Rufo.htm).

An unforseen difficulty with the term «UFO» is that it often leads to semantic debates between skeptics and advocates. Skeptics often argue that «UFO» simply means that the object was «unidentified» by those making the sighting and doesn’t mean the object is unexplainable, much less extraterrestrial. In contrast, researchers like Hynek have argued that the term should be strictly limited to those sightings that have been intensively investigated and still defy conventional explanation, which was the actual definition adopted by the Air Force in official directives in the 1950s.

E.g., Air Force Regulation 200-2, issued in 1954, defined a «UFOB» as «any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object.» Furthermore, investigation of «UFOBs» was stated to be for the purposes of national security and to ascertain «technical aspects.» Obviously such concerns would not apply to the usual explanations for most UFO sightings, such as natural phenomena or man-made conventional objects, except, perhaps, previously unknown foreign aircraft.

Thus the «U» in «UFO,» instead of standing for «Unidentified,» would more aptly stand for «Unexplained» or «Unconventional.» Along these lines, Paul Hill, an early NACA/NASA aerospace engineer, titled his 1970s book on the subject, Unconventional Flying Objects.

The acronym equivalent of UFO in Spanish, Portuguese, and French is OVNI, which literally translated in English would be «Object flying of no identification» (e.g., in Spanish, Objeto Volador No Identificado). See UFO.

UFOs and popular culture

Regardless of any ultimate explanation, UFOs constitute an international cultural phenomenon of the last half-century. Since the mid-1900’s, UFOs have been the subject of a very large number of books, motion pictures, songs, documentaries and other media. UFO topics were amongst the most popular on early computer Bulletin board systems, and millions of people have some degree of interest in the subject. There have also been notable hoaxes involving UFO reports, some which have received substantial press attention.

A 1996 Gallup poll reported that 71% of the United States’ population believed that the government was covering up some information about UFOs.

Typical reported characteristics of UFOs

• Saucer, toy-top, or disk-shaped «craft» without visible or audible propulsion. (day and night)
• Rapidly-moving lights or lights with apparent ability to rapidly change direction — the earliest mention of their motion was given as «saucers skipping on water»
• Large triangular «craft» or triangular light pattern
• Cigar-shaped «craft» with lighted windows (Meteor fireballs are sometimes reported this way).

The number of different shapes, sizes, and configurations of claimed UFOs has been large, with descriptions of chevrons, equilateral triangles, spheres, domes, diamonds, shapeless black masses, eggs, and cylinders. Skeptics argue this diversity of shapes, size and configurations points to a socio-psychological explanation. Other researchers argue that the large diversity of UFO shapes points to a possible paraphysical origin. Still others argue that there is a large diversity in the shapes and sizes of human flying craft, reflecting different origins, propulsion systems, and purposes, so such diversity in UFOs is not necessarily unexpected or inexplicable.

Another argument is that the true underlying shape may, in some cases, be concealed or distorted by the ionization of air around the objects, believed by some researcher advocates, such as NASA engineers Paul Hill and James McCampbell, to be a characteristic of the propulsion system. Air ionization could also partly explain the diversity of colors reported, as different air molecules are excited at different energy levels, as well as the electric, neon-like glow around the objects often reported, similar to what happens with polar auroras. However, some feel that such speculation is overly premature because the very actuality of UFOs as alien craft is itself problematic.

Other advocates, arguing for the non-conventional interpretation, reply that the volume of impressive sightings reported by witnesses, from commercial airline pilots to United States presidents, and occasionally captured on film and radar, possesses strong consistency and cannot be explained away simply as mundane phenomena (weather balloons, aircraft, Venus, etc.).

One writer contends that UFO mass sightings—sometimes called «flaps»—are «a hard core of genuinely unusual sightings … surrounded by a great deal more misidentification, wishful thinking and general flakiness.» [1] (http://www.strangemag.com/invadersfromelsewhere1.html)

Other researchers, such as Jacques Vallee, argue that if UFO sightings are motivated by some mechanism through which the public can release hidden fears and satisfy a psychological need for fantasies, why did «UFO waves» not coincide with such science-fiction feats such as Orson Welles’ radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds in 1938, or the motion-picture versions of Flash Gordon (1936-37)? Vallee points out that the theory regarding how the general public generates and propagates UFO reports as a way of releasing psychological tensions, is denied by the absence of correlation between notable periods of interest in science fiction and major peaks of UFO activity. It should also be noted that no single, comprehensive «psychological» theory to explain the generation of all UFO reports has yet been proposed. A notable attempt on the basis of his theory of archetypes was made by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in his book _Flying Saucers_ (1959). Jung, however, also felt that at least some UFOs were «nuts and bolts» craft, based on physical evidence such as simultaneous radar contact.

Analyses

Ufology is the study of UFO reports and associated evidence.

UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years, varying widely in scope and scientific rigor. Governments or military agencies of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, and the Soviet Union, are known to have carried out the investigation of UFO reports at various times. Despite a strong residue of extremely puzzling cases, no national government has ever publicly suggested that UFOs represent any form of alien intelligence. However, this may be changing. As recently as May 2005, the Brazilian Air Force disclosed highly classified case files to civilian investigators, including over 100 photographs taken by Air Force investigators during mass Amazon River sightings in 1977 (called «Operation Saucer»). [2] (http://www.ufo.com.br/materiaespecial/operacaoPrato.htm) Classified documents released over the years in the U.S. also indicate that at least some segments within the U.S. Air Force and agencies such as the CIA favored the extraterrestrial hypothesis, despite public denials to the contrary. E.g., the U.S. Air Force’s first public UFO investigation, Project Sign, is said to have secretly come to the conclusion that some of the most puzzling cases studied were best explained as extraterrestrial. (See «Official Government Studies—United States» below)

Perhaps the best known study was Project Blue Book, conducted by the United States Air Force from 1952. Even before Blue Book was shut down in 1969, however, it became clear that its investigations, particularly after the departure of Edward J. Ruppelt, were often (though not in every case) little more than public relations exercises designed to debunk widely publicized «sightings.» Still, even though Blue Book had directives to reduce the number of unidentifieds to a minimum, 6% of over 12,000 cases remained unexplained. Other studies commissioned by the Air Force, such as the one conducted by the Battelle Memorial Institute from 1952-1954, had much higher percentages of unknowns. The Battelle Institute found, e.g., that 22% of some 3200 Air Force cases they studied remained unexplained, and for the very best cases, the percentage of unknowns was as high as 35%.

Despite these unexplained cases, the general opinion of the mainstream scientific community is probably that all UFO sightings ultimately result from ordinary misidentification of natural and man-made phenomena, deliberate hoaxes, or psychological phenomena such as optical illusions or lucid dreaming/sleep paralysis (often given as an explanation for purported alien abductions). Statistics compiled by U.S. Air Force studies found that the strong preponderance of identified sightings were due to misidentifications, with hoaxes and psychological aberrations accounting for only a few percent of all cases. Still many academics feel that the subject is a waste of time, due to a number of factors. Unreliability of witness testimony is often cited.

It has been suggested, however, that rather few academics have actually researched the topic themselves or become personally familiar with the literature. Some academics have argued that this constitutes unacceptable bias, and that while current evidence may be lacking, new evidence should be evaluated objectively as it arises. Some in the scientific community feel there is enough evidence to warrant further investigation efforts, comparing it to the period in the history of meteorite research or atmospheric electrical phenomena such as sprites or ball lightning when there was only witness testimony available. In such examples, the eyewitness accounts of such phenomena eventually proved correct despite initial skepticism, denial, and sometimes hostility from many scientists. Others point out that it is erroneous to claim the evidence is only observational and that a number of recorded physical effects also exist that are amenable to research by the physical sciences. These include simultaneous radar contact, photographs/movies/videos, radiation increases, electromagnetic interference, and physiological/biological effects. (See Science and UFOs section below)

While most academics prefer to ignore the subject, others, including mostly amateur and some professional scientific researchers, continue to investigate. Unfortunately, quality of investigations by amateur researchers can vary enormously.

Probably the most favored theory among advocates is the more conventional extraterrestrial hypothesis, though the Interdimensional hypothesis and the Paranormal/Occult Hypothesis for UFOs are sometimes given as possibilities by some.

It is erroneous to assume that the only question of interest provided by the subject is whether UFOs represent alien intelligence. There have been studies of UFOs and UFO enthusiast subcultures from a folklore or anthropological perspective, and some feel the subject, at the very least, may provide new insights in the fields of psychology (both individual and social), sociology, and communications.

Scientific UFO Field Studies

Norway

One established non-military station, which has seriously monitored UFOs, including anomalous lights, is project Hessdalen AMS in Norway.

United States

Challenged to explain sightings of unidentified lights and luminous phenomena in the hills around Piedmont, Missouri, Dr. Harley Rutledge established Project Identification in 1973 to gather scientific data.

Official Governmental Studies

Canada

In the early 1950s, Project Magnet was created to investigate the possibility of discs powered by magnetic propulsion. The equipment was designed to detect gamma rays, magnetic fluctuations, radio noises and gravity or mass changes in the atmosphere. One of these monitoring stations was located at Shirley Bay, Canada.

United States

In response to the June/July 1947 wave of UFO sightings and resulting publicity, the U.S. government began a number of formal studies of UFOs:

• From July 9 to July 30, 1947, Army Air Force Intelligence studied the 16 best UFO sightings of the previous months, mostly those reported by military and civilian pilots, and concluded that the «flying saucer situation» was neither imaginary nor adequately explained as natural phenomena: «something is really flying around.»

• In response to the earlier study, the engineering and intelligence divisions of the Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, under the direction of General Nathan Twining, further reviewed the data. Twining’s memo of September 23, 1947, likewise concluded the craft were real, further defined their described characteristics, and urged that the subject should be treated seriously, including a formal investigation by multiple government agencies besides the Air Force. Both the Air Intelligence and Material Command studies concluding saucer reality were classified and not publicly acknowledged for many years.

• Twining’s memo resulted in the United States Air Force founding Project Sign in late 1947, the first publicly acknowledged government UFO study. In late summer, 1948, Project Sign issued an intelligence estimate that UFOs were real craft and extraterrestrial in origin. USAF Chief of Staff General Hoyt S. Vandenberg ordered the report destroyed citing lack of physical proof. In late 1948 Project Sign was renamed Project Grudge allegedly with a high-level mandate to debunk UFO sightings. Grudge was active until early 1952, when it too was renamed and upgraded in status by the Pentagon, becoming Project Blue Book, which lasted until 1969. Since Project Blue Book was dissolved, the United States government reports that they have had no formal study of UFO reports.

• In December 1948, mysterious Green Fireballs were sighted over sensitive military and government research facilities in New Mexico, such as Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, astronomer and noted meteor expert, was requested by the Air Force to investigate, with extensive help from military intelligence and the FBI. Based on the objects’ many anomalous characteristics, La Paz quickly concluded the objects were artificial, perhaps secret Russian spy devices. However, scientists at Los Alamos privately told Project Blue Book head, Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, they thought the green fireballs were extraterrestrial probes. But the green fireballs were seen by so many people of high repute, including LaPaz and scientists at Los Alamos, that everybody agreed they were real. Secret conferences were convened at Los Alamos to study the phenomenon and in Washington by the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. In December 1949, Project Twinkle, a network of observation and photographic stations was established but never fully implemented. It was discontinued two years later, with the official conclusion that the phenomenon was probably natural in origin. LaPaz and others never agreed.

• The Robertson Panel was organized by the Central Intelligence Agency in late 1952, in response to a wave of UFO sightings, especially in the Washington DC area, which included highly-publicized radar contacts and jet intercepts. So many persons tried to contact authorities (primarily the Air Force) regarding UFO reports that day-to-day duties were adversely impacted. The CIA feared that this level of publicity (described by Hoyt S. Vandenberg as “mass hysteria”) could be utilized by enemies of the United States. The Robertson Panel convened for 12 hours to study this problem and offer solutions. Among their proffered solutions was a campaign of official public ridicule using the mass media, authoritative figures, and celebrities to decrease public interest in the subject and thus reduce the strain on intelligence channels. Further, they recommended that civilian UFO groups be spied upon because of their influence on the public and the possibility that they might be used by enemies of the U.S. Many ufologists believe the Robertson Panel recommendations were put into effect and the resulting official debunkery relegated the subject matter permanently to the fringe, both in the mainstream media and scientific communities. Also after the Robertson Panel, Project Blue Book was reduced in status and stripped of most of duties of investigating serious UFO cases, which were instead secretly turned over to a newly-formed division of the Air Defense Command. Directives were also issued not to discuss the unexplainable cases with the public and to reduce the percentage of unknowns to a minimum.

• Project Blue Book Special Report #14 (1951-1954) was a scientific statistical study of all collected Air Force UFO cases (3200) commissioned by Project Blue Book and carried out by the Battelle Memorial Institute. Chief conclusions were that unexplained cases constituted 22% of the total and the highest quality cases (such as from airline pilots or simultaneous radar/visual sightings) were nearly twice as likely to remain unexplained as the poorest reports. They also compared physical properties of the explained and unexplained sightings, such as reported speed, brightness, duration, and number, and found they differed at a highly statistically significant level, strongly indicating that the difference in the two categories was quite real. Nonetheless, when the Air Force publicly revealed the study in 1955, they instead claimed it scientifically proved that UFOs did not exist and that only 3% of reports were unexplained.

• The Condon Committee (1966 to 1969), commissioned by Project Blue Book while under pressure from a Congressional inquiry after a new wave of sightings in 1965 and 1966, was a landmark but still controversial study which supported the misidentification-delusion-hoax explanation for UFO reports, and furthermore argued that no available evidence warranted further scientific study. The conclusions were quickly endorsed by the National Academy of Science (NAS), but a more detailed review by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) criticized the NAS position and the Condon Report conclusions, which they noted did not match the actual data. About 30% of the cases examined by the Condon Committee itself were «well-documented but unexplainable» and formed the «hard core of the UFO controversy.» They recommended a moderate level, ongoing scientific study of UFOs.

Ultimately, the official U.S. Air Force public position was that UFO reports were due almost entirely to misidentification of ordinary aerial phenomena, delusion, or hoaxes. Both contemporary and modern critics, however, argue that some of the listed studies harbored an unacceptable degree of bias, were involved in sloppy science of dubious validity, or even perpetrating a cover up. Furthermore, the official Air Force position was frequently at odds with internal, classified documents, many later released under the Freedom of Information Act, which proved that the subject was treated far more seriously by the Air Force and other government agencies, like the CIA and FBI, than the public had been led to believe. In addition, many documents still remain classified or are heavily censored even when released, such as those of the CIA. Sometimes lawsuits have had to be filed to get even the censored documents released to the public.

Besides the listed studies, others are believed to have unofficially existed, but details are generally not known. E.g., Generals Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall are believed by some to have started an Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU) at the end of World War II. In a 1987 query to the U.S. Army Director of Counterintelligence, it was acknowledged that the IPU did indeed exist, but was disbanded in the late 1950s. It was then stated, «All records pertaining to this unit were surrendered to the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations [AFOSI] in conjunction with operation BLUEBOOK.» The IPU records supposedly retained by AFOSI remain classified and have never been released.

Civilian UFO Investigation groups

There have been a number of civilian groups formed to study UFO’s and/or to promulgate their opinions on the subject. Some have achieved fair degrees of mainstream visibility while others remain obscure.

The groups listed below have embraced a broad variety of approaches, and have seen a correspondingly wide variety of responses from mainstream critics or supporters

United States

• Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) (1952-1988): Started and run by Jim and Coral Lorenzen; New Mexico based with many state branches; stressed scientific field investigations with a large staff of consulting Ph.D. scientists. history (http://mimufon.org/1970%20articles/Apro_History.htm)
• National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) (1956-1980): Washington D.C. based; largest and most politically influential of early UFO research organizations, with many scientists and high ranking military officers involved. Run by Donald Keyhoe for most of its duration, author of many best-selling UFO books. Research through 1963 summarized in The UFO Evidence, edited by Richard Hall; eventually absorbed by CUFOS (below). research archive (http://www.nicap.org)
• Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) (1969- ): Started by Walt Andrus; Texas based, largest current U.S. UFO organization with branches in most states; stress field investigations and symposiums. home page (http://www.mufon.com)
• Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) (1973- ): Started by astronomer, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, consultant to Project Blue Book; Chicago based, small research organization stressing scientific analysis of UFO cases; currently run by Dr. Mark Rodeghier; contains much archival information, including old NICAP files. home page (http://www.cufos.org)
• Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR) (1976- ): Small, Maryland based, scientifically oriented group with many Ph.D. scientists providing research grants for UFO research; does a lot of photoanalysis. home page (http://www.fufor.com)
• National Institute of Discovery Science (NIDS) (1996- ): Small, private, controversial, somewhat clandestine Las Vegas based scientific research group with insider government scientists and military people, stressing UFO and paranormal research. home page (http://www.nidsci.org)

Political Action Groups

• Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS) (~1978- ): Small, Arizona based research and judicially oriented organization filing many FOIA applications and lawsuits to declassify and release government UFO information. home page (http://www.caus.org/home.shtml)
• Paradigm Research Group (PRG) & Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee (X-PPAC) (1996- ): Small, Washington D.C. based group founded and headed by political activist/lobbyist Stephen Bassett, pushing for government UFO disclosure. home page (http://www.paradigmclock.com)
• Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI) (1990- ): Maryland based, founded and run by the controversial Dr. Steven Greer. Education and lobbying group that runs the Disclosure Project, an effort to get government disclosure on UFOs and other topics, claiming to currently have over 400 government, military, and intelligence witnesses. home page (http://www.cseti.org)

Science and UFOs

Since the late 1940s, people throughout the world have become familiar with UFO reports. These reports have been attributed to a wide range of causes including planets, stars, meteors, cloud formations, ball lightning, deliberate hoaxes, experimental military aircraft, hallucinations, and extraterrestrial spacecraft. Despite the large number of reports and great public interest, the scientific community has shown little interest in UFOs. This may be due in part to the fact that there are no public or government funds to support UFO research. Scientists also assume that the 1969 Condon Report settled the issue, hence UFO data is no longer worth examining. It has also been contended that the CIA’s 1953 Robertson Panel recommendations of official public ridicule through the mass media has made the subject scientifically and politically taboo. Each of these may have had some impact in dampening the interest of the scientific community in regards to UFO research.

Other reasons often cited for the disdain shown by many scientists for the subject are:

• Arguments that aliens could not be here because of the distances and energies required for interstellar travel in a reasonable period of time, according to present-day understanding of physical law
• Lack of indisputable physical evidence
• The unreliability or scientific inadequacy of many reports
• The many circumstances that can lead to misidentification of ordinary objects seen at a distance in the sky—a scientific skeptical approach can cast reasonable doubt on the «strangeness» of cases that appear at first glance to be very impressive.
• The general sensationalization surrounding the subject, including the perception that many amateur researchers lack proper scientific training and instead have a «readiness to believe»

While many scientists would agree that the sighting of a genuine extraterrestrial craft is not an impossibility, some also argue that that the patterns of reported UFO behavior do not personally strike them as rational. E.g., why would sightings occur with great frequency for decades without any attempt by the alien intelligence to commmunicate its presence unambiguously? Or if an extraterrestrial civilization was engaged in mapping or otherwise investigating the earth, as some have hypothesized, why would it take so long, when present-day terrestrial technology, such as satellites, can do the job so quickly?

Proponents, however, note that there are counterarguments to all of these objections. Some of these are:

• Many of the skeptical arguments rest on hidden assumptions about alien intentions and technology. Why would aliens necessarily make their presence unambiguously known? Why would alien interests necessarily be restricted to simple physical surveys? Why assume interstellar travel to be nearly impossible, basically an assumption that alien science and technology would not be that much more advanced than that of present-day humans?
• Some arguments show a lack of knowledge of the available evidence. E.g., many sightings are not of distant «lights in the sky,» which might easily be simple misidentifications, but are of structured objects at close range, often with associated physical effects and evidence (see below).
• Why focus on only poor cases when there are also many high-quality, unexplainable ones, even when investigated by trained scientists, such as those involved with the Battelle Institute investigation for the U.S. Air Force in the 1950’s or the 1960’s Condon Commission?

The Condon Report’s negative conclusions seem to have been particularly damaging to the likelihood of large numbers of scientists involving themselves seriously in the investigation of UFOs. However, the conclusions section of the report was written by Condon, who expressed public disdain for the subject long before the investigation was concluded. Subsequent reviews by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and more recently by a scientific panel organized by Dr. Peter Sturrock [3] (http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc535.htm), have shown that the conclusions section was badly at variance with the report’s actual contents, where about 30% of the cases examined could not be explained. When the report came out in late 1969, atmospheric physicist Dr. James E. McDonald wrote a paper called «Science in Default,» criticizing the Condon Report for bad science and mainstream science as well for its failure to deal with the subject. [4] (http://www.cufon.org/cufon/mcdon2.htm) Nonetheless, other scientists have found the positive evidence presented by Sturrock and others in support of UFO reality to be unpersuasive.

Recently, hopes that this theme might be about to become respectable again were raised when a peer reviewed article on UFOs and SETI appeared in JBIS, the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. A good introduction to this aspect of the subject is given by one of the authors, astronomer Bernard Haisch, in his website [5] (http://www.ufoskeptic.org), an introduction to the area for scientists, which has a link to the JBIS article.

Still, the general perception in the scientific community remains that, if UFO reports pose a scientific problem at all, it has more to do with psychology and the science of perception than with physical science. Indeed, most reports simply comprise narrative accounts of what someone saw or thought he saw in the sky. Sometimes the reports involve more than one witness, and sometimes an event is witnessed from two or more different locations. There have, however, also been mass sightings, sometimes involving hundreds or even thousands of witnesses.

Some feel that physical scientists cannot get involved in the UFO problem unless there is associated physical evidence. If there is no physical evidence, then it is contended there is no way that physical scientists can contribute to the resolution of this problem.

One objection to this argument is that even eyewitness accounts can be treated with scientific methods to obtain important information. E.g., witnesses to meteor fireballs can be interviewed to reconstruct trajectories, and this often leads to recovery of meteorite fragments. Accuracy and reliability of individual accounts is not essential if large numbers of sightings are analyzed, because statistical analysis can reveal important trends. One example of applying such techniques in researching UFO reports occurred during investigations of the mysterious Green Fireballs that suddenly appeared over sensitive military and research installations in New Mexico in the late 1940s. Hundreds of witnesses were interviewed to determine object characteristics and also to try to recover fragments through determination of trajectories.

A massive statistical analysis of UFO cases, called Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14, was commissioned by the USAF and carried out from 1952 to 1954 by the Battelle Memorial Institute (see United States government studies above). Statistician Dr. David Saunders, a member of the Condon Commission, recommended compiling a statistical data base of cases to determine trends, which eventually resulted in a catalog of over 10,000 cases compiled by Saunders and others. [6] (http://www.cufos.org/UFOCAT.html) Various other researchers have also compiled such databases, such as Dr. Jacques Vallee, [7] (http://ufoinfo.com/magonia/index.shtml) or Larry Hatch, who maintains a public database of thousands of cases with online statistical analyses. [8] (http://www.larryhatch.net)

It has also been argued by various people, such as physicist Dr. Michio Kaku, that the demand for hard physical evidence (the fabled «alien hubcap») is an unreasonably restrictive one. People like Kaku note that much of physical science consists of indirect physical evidence, such as spectrograms of stars to determine composition. Nobody, e.g., demands an actual piece of a neutron star for analysis.

There have, in fact been many UFO reports accompanied by physical evidence of various kinds, both direct and indirect. Hynek’s close encounter scale would define indirect physical evidence as data obtained from «close encounters of the first kind,» i.e. data obtained from afar, such as radar contacts or photographs. More direct physical evidence comes from «close encounters of the second kind,» interactions occurring at close range, which include so-called «landing traces,» and physiological effects.

Some fraction of these cases have been shown to be deliberate hoaxes. However, another fraction, including those researched by governmental and military authorities, have been labeled unidentified or unexplainable. Analyses of most cases have results that are ambiguous or inconclusive. However, even the ambiguous physical cases should be amenable to statistical analysis to reveal possible underlying trends across cases.

A list of various physical evidence cases includes:

• Radar contact and tracking, sometimes from multiple sites. These are often considered among the best cases since they usually involve trained military personnel, simultaneous visual sightings, and aircraft intercepts. One such recent example were the mass sightings of large, silent, low-flying black triangles in 1989 and 1990 over Belgium.
• Photograpic evidence, including still photos, movie film, and video, including some in infrared spectrum (rare).
• Recorded visual spectrograms (extremely rare)—(see Spectrometer)
• Recorded gravimetric and magnetic disturbances (extremely rare)
• Landing physical trace evidence, including ground impressions, burned and/or dessicated soil, burned and broken foliage, metallic and other traces (see e.g. Height 611 UFO Incident), magnetic anomalies, and increased radiation levels. A well-known example from 1980 was the USAF Rendlesham Incident in England. Another from 1964 occurred at Socorro, N.M. and was considered one of the most inexplicable of the USAF Project Blue Book cases. Catalogs of several thousand such cases have been compiled, particularly by researcher Ted Phillips.[9] (http://www.ufoevidence.org/topics/physicaltracecases.htm)[10] (http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc201.htm)
• Physiological effects on people and animals including temporary paralysis, skin burns and rashes, corneal burns, and symptoms resembling radiation poisoning, such as the Cash-Landrum incident in 1980. One such case dates back to 1886, a Venezuelan incident reported in Scientific American magazine. [11] (http://www.nuforc.org/GNSciAm.html)
• Biological effects on plants such as increased or decreased growth, germination effects on seeds, and blown-out stem nodes (usually associated with physical trace cases or crop circles)
• Electromagnetic interference effects, including stalled cars, power black-outs, radio/TV interference, magnetic compass deflections, and aircraft navigation, communication, and engine disruption.[12] (http://www.ufoevidence.org/topics/emeffects.htm)
• Remote radiation detection, some noted in FBI and CIA documents occurring over government nuclear installations at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1950, also reported by Project Blue Book director Ed Ruppelt in his book. [13] (http://ufologie.net/books/ruppeltbook15.htm)
• Actual hard physical evidence, such as the 1957 Ubatuba, Brazil, magnesium fragments analyzed in the Condon Report and by others. The 1964 Socorro incident also left metal traces, analyzed by NASA.
• Evidence associated with alleged alien abduction cases, such as unexplained scars or «scoop marks» and «alien implants» recovered by surgery.
• Misc: Recorded electromagnetic emissions, such as microwaves detected in the well-known 1957 RB-47 surveillance aircraft case, which was also a visual and radar case; [14] (http://ufologie.net/htm/rb47.htm) polarization rings observed around a UFO by a scientist, theorized by Dr. James Harder as intense magnetic fields from the UFO causing the Faraday effect. [15] (http://ncas.sawco.com/ufosymposium/harder.html)

Despite the low opinion of the subject matter probably held by most scientists, many reported physical effects would seem to be ripe for scientific analysis. A comprehensive scientific review of physical evidence cases was carried out by the 1997 Sturrock UFO panel.[16] (http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/articles/ufo_reports/sturrock/toc.html) Dr. Jacques Vallee claims many scientists are interested in investigating UFOs but prefer to work quietly in the background because of the attached «ridicule factor.» Vallee refers to these scientists as the «invisible college.»

Some scientists and engineers have attempted to «back-engineer» the possible physics behind UFOs through analysis of both eyewitness reports and the physical evidence. Examples are former NASA engineer James McCampbell in his book Ufology online (http://www.nicap.dabsol.co.uk/ufology.htm) and NACA/NASA engineer Paul Hill in his book Unconventional Flying Objects. Among subjects tackled by both McCampbell and Hill was the question of how UFOs can fly at supersonic speeds without creating a sonic boom. McCampbell’s solution of a microwave plasma parting the air in front of the craft is currently being researched by Dr. Leik Myrabo, Professor of Engineering Physics at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as a possible advance in hypersonic flight.[17] (http://www.rpi.edu/dept/mane/deptweb/faculty/member/myrabo.html)

Some recently reported developments in electronic warfare mimic electromagnetic interference and physiologic effects described in UFO cases dating back to the 1940s and 1950s, and may conceivably be examples of military back-engineering efforts. In 1997, the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board issued a report on 21st Century Air Force weaponry, in which they described microwave directed energy weapons that could be used to stall vehicles, making them easy targets for bombing. The same weapon is also reported capable of disrupting aircraft navigation and communication systems, as well as ground electronics and power grids. [18] (http://www.memagazine.org/backissues/nov03/features/airpow/airpow.html) A microwave crowd control weapon causing heating and intense pain was announced in 2001. [19] (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1470) Other microwave weapons have been proposed that would cause loss of bodily functions. [20] (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000CBC91-B6FD-1E51-A98A809EC5880105) (See also wonder weapons)

Identified Flying Objects (IFOs)

It has been estimated that up to 90% of all reported UFO sightings are eventually identified. While a small percentage of UFO reports are deliberate hoaxes, most are misidentifications of natural and man-made phenomena.

Allen Hendry was the chief investigator for the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) (http://www.cufos.org/). CUFOS was founded by Dr. Allen Hynek (who had been a consultant for the Air Force’s Project Blue Book) to provide a serious scientific investigation into UFOs. Hendry spent 15 months personally investigating 1,307 UFO reports. In 1979, Hendry published his conclusions in The UFO Handbook: A Guide to Investigating, Evaluating, and Reporting UFO Sightings. Hendry admitted that he would like to find evidence for extraterrestrials but noted that the vast majority of cases had prosiac explanations. Hendry’s conclusions were:

• «Out of 1,307 cases: 1,194 (91.4%) had clear prosaic (non-extraterrestrial) explanations; 93 (7.1%) had possible prosaic explanations; and 20 (1.5%) were unexplained.

• Statistics: 28% of the UFO reports were bright stars or planets; 1.7% were the tip of the crescent moon; 18% were advertising plane banners (usually seen edge-on rather than the face-on); and 9% were fireballs and reentering space debris.

• Distortions in the atmosphere can cause celestial bodies to appear to “dart up and down,” “execute loops and figure eights,” “meander in a square pattern,” or even “zigzag.” This helps explain why celestial bodies can so easily fool observers.

• In 49 of the UFO reports caused by celestial bodies, the witness’ estimated distance to the UFO ranged from 200 feet to 125 miles! Similarly, some witnesses believed that the UFO was “following them” even though the celestial body was actually stationary. Even police and other reliable witnesses can easily be fooled by sightings of stars and planets.

• Reentering space debris or meteors may appear as a string of lights, which can be misinterpreted as lights coming from windows of a spacecraft. The human brain then creates the illusion of a spacecraft based on this misinterpretation, which then fools the observer.»

Common misidentifications of man-made phenomena include:

• Balloons (meteorological or passenger).
• Military aircraft.
• Flashing landing lights of conventional aircraft.
• Unconventional aircraft or advanced technology (i.e., the SR-71 Blackbird or the B-2 Stealth bomber).
• Advertising planes.
• Artificial earth satellites.
• Hovering aircraft (such as helicopters).
• Blimps.
• Rockets and rocket launches.
• Kites.
• Model aircraft.
• Hang-gliders.
• Fireworks.
• Lasers aimed at the clouds.
• Searchlights.
• Deliberate hoaxes.
• Jiffy Fire Starters.

Common misidentifications of natural objects include:

• The moon, stars, and planets (for example, the cusps of the rising crescent moon in the tropics, and Venus at maximum brightness)
• Unusual weather conditions (such as lenticular cloud formations, noctilucent clouds, rainbow effects, and high-altitude ice crystals).
• Comets.
• Meteor Swarms.
• Near or large meteors.
• Flocks of birds.
• Swarms of flying insects.
• Reflections from atmospheric inversion layers.
• Hot ionized gas (natural or man-made).
• Earth lights (luminous electrical events from low-level earthquakes and tectonic-geological phenomena.)
• Ball lightning.
• Atmospheric inversion layers.
• Reflected light (especially through broken clouds).
• Aurora borealis (northern lights).

Popular hypotheses for explaining UFOs

Depending on who is doing the evaluation, between about 3% and 30% of all cases remain unexplained. The remaining residue of unexplained UFO sightings constitute a debate on their ultimate origin. Some of the more popular hypotheses for explaining UFOs are:

• The Extraterrestrial Visitation Hypothesis
• The Paranormal/Occult Hypothesis
• The Interdimensional Hypothesis
• The Psychological-Social Hypothesis
• The Natural Explanation Hypothesis, e.g. ball lightning
• The Earthlights/Tectonic Stress Hypothesis
• The Man-made Craft Hypothesis (see Military flying saucers)
• More than one explanation—various combinations of the above

Evidence and explanations

Some feel that UFO study is still a worthwhile topic because of open questions, especially due to occasional reports of UFOs from professional or military astronomers or pilots — individuals whose careers, and often their very lives, rely on their ability to recognize and assess aircraft, weather conditions, distances, and other factors vital to flight. Some Ufologists argue such cases are more difficult to dismiss as misidentification of mundane objects. Gordon Cooper and Edgar Mitchell are two NASA astronauts who have expressed an interest in UFOs, and both have decried what they consider the biased attitudes of some professionals; Cooper claims to have seen UFOs in the early 1950s.

It is also noted that UFO evidence goes beyond just eyewitness accounts. There is sometimes corroborating evidence such as simultaneous radar contact, photographs/movies/video, or physical interactions with the environment, e.g., electromagnetic interference, physiological effects, or «landing traces.» (see Science and UFOs section)

Skeptics and ufologists both agree that the vast majority of cases can be explained as natural phenomena, usually misidentification of objects that viewers are either unfamiliar with or see in unusual conditions. These turn out to be honest mistakes. Only a few percent of sightings have have been actual hoaxes.

After investigation, most UFOs actually become IFOs — Identified Flying Objects. However, a small residual, from 3% to 30% depending on who is doing the counting, remain unexplained. The 1950s Battelle Memorial Institute statistical study, commissioned by Project Blue Book, found that it was actually the better cases with the better witnesses and evidence that tended to defy explanation. Their percentage of unexplained cases out of 3200 studied was 22%, which went up to 35% for the best cases.

However, even if the overwhelming majority of all UFOs become IFOs, one well documented case such as the Chile 1997 radar/visual case confirmed by the government in Santiago [21] (http://ufologie.net/htm/offichili.htm) is sufficient to negate the ‘null hypothesis’. Similarly, Physicist Michio Kaku states that although «perhaps 99% of all sightings of UFO’s can be dismissed as being caused by familiar phenomena» that «What is disturbing, to a physicist however, is the remaining 1% of these sightings, which are multiple sightings made by multiple methods of observations. Some of the most intriguing sightings have been made by seasoned pilots and passengers aboard air line flights which have also been tracked by radar and have been videotaped. Sightings like this are harder to dismiss.»[22] (http://www.mkaku.org/articles/physics_of_space_travel.shtml)

On the other hand, many still inexplicable cases are either ignored by the media or, if a purported skeptic offers an explanation that fails to fit the facts (e.g., Zig-zagging formation of lights and confirmed by radar are blamed on misinterpreting ‘Jupiter’), it is often taken up by the press and the case is closed, as far as the media is concerned.

It is sometimes said that «extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence», but many pro-research groups only claim that the topic deserves further investigation, not that UFOs are necessarily alien craft. The threshold of evidence for further investigation is lower than that for a conclusion about the nature of UFOs.

Skeptics say there are indeed genuine sightings of strange flying objects, which are usually logically explained, that no physical evidence of an alien spacecraft has ever been produced, and that many claims have been proven as fraudulent. They also note that the burden of proof lies with whomever makes a claim. On the other hand, however, Marcello Truzzi, (sociology professor at Eastern Michigan University) contends that some self-described skeptics are misusing the term (or even misrepresenting their opinions): «Since ‘skepticism’ properly refers to doubt rather than denial — non-belief rather than belief — critics who take the negative rather than an agnostic position but still call themselves ‘skeptics’ are actually pseudo-skeptics and have, I believed, gained a false advantage by usurping that label.»[23] (http://www.anomalist.com/commentaries/pseudo.html)

Supporters also often argue that the subject is prejudiced by ridicule and stigma, (Kaku agrees with this; in the article cited above he writes that «There is no funding for anyone seriously looking at unidentified objects in space, and one’s reputation may suffer if one pursues an interest in these unorthodox matters»), and that an extremely large body of compelling evidence not as yet disproved or effectively countered also exists, including photography, motion video, and multiple independently corroborated sworn affidavits.

Evidence and suppression

Some also contend regarding physical evidence that it exists abundantly but is swiftly and sometimes clumsily suppressed by governmental entities, not always uniform, with a strong agenda to insulate a population they regard as psychologically not yet prepared for the social, theological, and security implications of such a reality. See the Brookings Report.

Hoaxes

Among the many witnesses who report UFO sightings, a small percentage (only 2-3% according to U.S. Air Force statistics) have been exposed as hoaxers. Some have held to their stories in spite of persuasive evidence of a hoax, and the determination of specific cases as hoaxes has been contentious. The cases listed below—if lacking conclusive evidence—are at least widely suspected of hoaxing, though some still have defenders among prominent researchers:

• George Adamski, contactee.
• Ed Walters of the Gulf Breeze, Florida UFO reports.
• Majestic 12, purportedly a secret, high-level United States UFO study group.
• The Maury Island Incident
• Billy Meier, contactee.
• The Ummo affair, a series of detailed letters and documents allegedly from extraterrestrials.

Psychology

The study of UFO claims over the years has led to valuable discoveries about atmospheric phenomena and psychology. In psychology, the study of UFO sightings has revealed information on misinterpretation, perceptual illusions, hallucination and fantasy-prone personality, which may explain why some people are willing to believe hoaxers such as George Adamski. Many have questioned the reliability of hypnosis in UFO abduction cases.

Paranormal, Mystical and Occult crossover

The field of UFOs does not always necessarily overlap the paranormal, although in practice it often does. Some researchers — such as John Keel and Jacques Vallee — argue that there is a direct relationship between UFOs and paranormal phenomena.

Also, some religious sects have made UFO’s a part of their core beliefs. See Paranormal and Occult Hypotheses About UFOs.

Many ancient religious paintings contain images that have been interpreted as UFO’s and alien beings. Some also believe that over long periods of history, nonhuman intelligences have influenced certain religions and customs.

Conspiracies

UFOs are sometimes claimed to be part of an elaborate UFO conspiracy theory in which the government is said to be intentionally covering up the existence of aliens, or sometimes collaborating with them. There are many versions of this story; some are exclusive, while others overlap with various other conspiracy theories.

There is also the speculation that UFO phenomena are tests of experimental aircraft or advanced weapons. In this case UFOs are viewed as failures to retain secrecy, or deliberate attempts at disinformation: to deride the phenomenon so that it can be pursued unhindered. This theory may or may not feed back into the previous one, where current advanced military technology is considered to be adapted alien technology. (See also: skunk works and Area 51)

It’s also been suggested that all or most human technology and culture is based on extraterrestrial contact. See also ancient astronauts

Notable UFO-related sightings and events

List of major UFO sightings

In December 1980, a UFO sighting known as the Rendlesham Incident near Ipswich, UK helped to increase the level of interest as a signed letter from the USAF (known as the Halt Memo) confirmed that something had been seen.

Prominent UFO Researchers

• Dr. Jacques F. Vallee
• Dr. J. Allen Hynek
• Dr. James E. McDonald
• Dr. Harley D. Rutledge
• Dr. James Harder
• Donald Keyhoe
• Richard Hall
• Dr. Bruce Maccabee
• Stanton Friedman
• John Keel
• Dr. Carl Jung
• Albert K. Bender
• Philip J. Klass
• Dr. Donald Menzel

Theories

• Extraterrestrial hypothesis
• Interdimensional hypothesis
• UFOs as unknown natural phanomena
• Mass hysteria
• Archetype
• Biological hypothesis
• Astronautical theory
• Mass delusion
• Covert manipulation
• Military exercise
• Secret aircraft

Movies and TV

• Hangar 18
• UFO (TV series)
• U.F.O. (1993 movie)
• Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
• ET: The Extra Terrestrial

See also

• Alien
• Alien abduction
• Ancient astronauts
• Anomalous phenomenon
• Black triangles
• Conspiracy theory
• Crop circle
• Forteana
• Hollow earth
• List of magazines of anomalous phenomena
• Military flying saucers
• Prophet Yahweh
• Scientific skepticism
• UFO conspiracy theory
• Ufology
• Ummo
• Roswell UFO incident
• The X-Files

External links

• National UFO Reporting Center (http://www.nwlink.com/~ufocntr/)
• Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) (http://www.cufos.org/)
• Project Blue Book Archive (http://www.bluebookarchive.org) Online version of USAF Project Blue Book microfilm
• National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (http://narcap.org/)
• National Institute for Discovery Science (http://www.nidsci.org)
• Society for Scientific Exploration (http://www.scientificexploration.org)
• UFO Evidence homepage (http://www.ufoevidence.org/)
• Mutual UFO Network homepage (http://www.mufon.com/)
• Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (http://www.csicop.org) (CSICOP)
• The Disclosure Project (http://www.disclosureproject.org) (nonprofit research project)
• UFO Sighting Guide (http://www.ufo-sighting-guide.com/)
• The Coalition for Freedom of Information (http://freedomofinfo.org/) (sponsored by the Sci-Fi Channel)
• Government Documents (http://rinf.com/conspiracies/ufo.html)
• Bill Chalker’s The OZ Files Australia’s UFO History (http://www.theozfiles.com/index.html)
• ufoskeptic.org (http://www.ufoskeptic.org/welcome.html)
• Jim Marrs — Author of Many UFO And Alien Related books (http://www.jimmarrs.com/)
• Verga, Maurizio, «Nazi UFOs & Wonder Weapons (http://www.naziufos.com/)«.
• «The Phoenix Lights Mystery (http://www.lightsoverphoenix.com/)«.
• Jeffrey, Kent, «Roswell: Anatomy of a Myth (http://www.roswellfiles.com/storytellers/KentJeffrey1.htm)«.
• Landman, Jack, «Mexico City, August 6th, 1997 (http://www.jman5.com/mexufo.htm)«.
• Lindemann, Michael, «Mexico City, August 6, 1997: An Analysis (http://www.purgatory.com/xcommunication/viewtext.cfm?tfile=mexico-video-dialog.txt&page=vis)«. CNI News.
• Holman, J. L., et. al., «Mexico City, August 6, 1997 (http://www.holman.net/ufo/archives/pics/mexico/ufomex6aug(1).mov)«. UFON. (MOV file format)
• BBC article on Mexican Airforce videotape (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3707057.stm)
• ufoevidence.org: Alien wreckage found at Tunguska, say Russian scientists (http://www.ufoevidence.org/feature/Tunguska.htm)
• Edward J. Ruppelt The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (http://www.nicap.org/rufo/contents.htm) (Project Bluebook)
• Roswell Rods (http://www.roswellrods.com)
• Victorian UFO Research Society (VUFORS) (http://www.ozemail.com.au/~vufors) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
• UFO Historical Archives — The Book Of THoTH (http://www.book-of-thoth.com/sections-listarticles-35.html)bg:НЛО

ca:OVNI
da:Ufo (objekt)
de:UFO
eo:Nifo
es:OVNI
fr:Objet volant non identifié
it:UFO
ja:UFO
nl:UFO
no:UFO
pl:UFO
pt:OVNI
ru:НЛО
fi:UFO
sv:UFO
zh:不明飛行物

An unidentified flying object (UFO) is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are identified as known objects or atmospheric phenomena, while a small number remain unexplained.

Scientists and skeptic organizations such as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry have provided prosaic explanations for a large number of claimed UFOs being caused by natural phenomena, human technology, delusions, or hoaxes. Small but vocal groups of «ufologists» favour unconventional, pseudoscientific hypotheses, some of which go beyond the typical extraterrestrial visitation claims and sometimes form part of new religions.

While unusual sightings have been reported in the sky throughout history, UFOs did not achieve their current cultural prominence until the period after World War II, escalating during the Space Age. The 20th century saw studies and investigations into UFO reports conducted by governments (such as Projects Grudge and Sign in the United States, and Project Condign in the United Kingdom), as well as by organisations and individuals.

People have observed the sky throughout history, and sometimes seen unusual sights: such as comets, bright meteors, one or more of the , planetary conjunctions, and atmospheric optical phenomena such as parhelia and lenticular clouds. One particularly famous example is Halley’s Comet: this was recorded first by Chinese astronomers in 240 BC and possibly as early as 467 BC. As it reaches the inner solar system every 76 years, it was often identified as a unique isolated event in ancient historical documents whose authors were unaware that it was a repeating phenomenon. Such accounts in history often were treated as supernatural portents, angels, or other religious omens.^[1] While UFO enthusiasts have sometimes commented on the narrative similarities between certain religious symbols in medieval paintings and UFO reports,^[2] the canonical and symbolic character of such images is documented by art historians placing more conventional religious interpretations on such images.^[3]

In the Pacific and European theatres during World War II, round, glowing fireballs known as «foo fighters» were reported by Allied and Axis pilots. Some proposed Allied explanations at the time included St. Elmo’s fire, the planet Venus, hallucinations from oxygen deprivation, or German secret weapons.^[11] In 1946, more than 2,000 reports were collected, primarily by the Swedish military, of unidentified aerial objects over the Scandinavian nations, along with isolated reports from France, Portugal, Italy and Greece. The objects were referred to as «Russian hail» (and later as «ghost rockets») because it was thought the mysterious objects were possibly Russian tests of captured German V1 or V2 rockets. Most were identified as natural phenomena as meteors.^[12]

The popular UFO craze by many accounts began with a media frenzy surrounding the reports on June 24, 1947, that a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier in the United States. At the time, he claimed he described the objects flying in a saucer-like fashion, leading to newspaper accounts of «flying saucers» and «flying discs».^[13][14] Soon, reports of flying saucer sightings became a daily occurrence with one particularly famous example being the Roswell incident where remnants of a downed observation balloon were recovered by a farmer and confiscated by military personnel. The story received scant attention at the time, but interest in it revived in the 1990s with the publicity surrounding the television broadcast of an Alien autopsy video marketed as «real footage» but later admitted to be a staged «re-enactment». Various UFO claimants said that they had interacted with the aliens driving the spacecraft and a few said they had visited the crafts themselves. In 1961, the first alien abduction account was sensationalized when Barney and Betty Hill went under hypnosis after seeing a UFO and reported recovered memories of their experience that became ever more elaborate as the years went by.

As media accounts and speculation were running rampant in the US, by 1953 intelligence officials (Robertson Panel) worried that «genuine incursions» by enemy aircraft «over U.S. territory could be lost in a maelstrom of kooky hallucination» of UFO reports.^[15] Media were enlisted to help debunk and discourage UFO reports, culminating in a 1966 TV special, “UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy?”, in which Walter Cronkite «patiently» explained to viewers that UFOs were fantasy.^[15] Cronkite enlisted Carl Sagan and J. Allen Hynek, who told Cronkite, “To this time, there is no valid scientific proof that we have been visited by spaceships».^[16] Fellow NICAP official Donald E. Keyhoe wrote that Vice Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the first director of the CIA, «wanted public disclosure of UFO evidence».^[17]

A 1969 National Academy of Sciences panel reviewed the Condon Report and concurred with its finding, observing that, “While further study of particular aspects of the topic (e.g., atmospheric phenomena) may be useful, a study of UFOs in general is not a promising way to expand scientific understanding of the phenomena.” Referencing the panel’s conclusions, the Pentagon announced that it would no longer investigate UFO reports. According to Keith Kloor, the «allure of flying saucers» remained popular with the public into the 1970s, spurring production of such sci-fi films, as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Alien, which «continued to stoke public fascination». Kloor writes that by the late 1990s, «other big UFO subthemes had been prominently introduced into pop culture, such as the abduction phenomenon and government conspiracy narrative, via best-selling books and, of course, The X-Files«.^[16]

The USAF’s Project Blue Book files indicate that approximately 1% of all unknown reports^[18] came from amateur and professional astronomers or other telescope users (such as missile trackers or surveyors). In 1952, astronomer J. Allen Hynek, then a consultant to Blue Book, conducted a small survey of 45 fellow professional astronomers. Five reported UFO sightings (about 11%). In the 1970s, astrophysicist Peter A. Sturrock conducted two large surveys of the AIAA and American Astronomical Society (AAS). About 5% of the members polled indicated that they had had UFO sightings.

Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who saw six UFOs, including three green fireballs, supported the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs and said scientists who dismissed it without study were «unscientific». Another astronomer, Lincoln LaPaz, headed the United States Air Force’s investigation into green fireballs and other UFO phenomena in New Mexico. LaPaz reported two personal sightings, of a green fireball and a disc. (Both Tombaugh and LaPaz were part of Hynek’s 1952 survey.) Hynek took two photos through the window of a commercial airliner of a disc that seemed to keep pace with his aircraft.^[19]

Astronomer Andrew Fraknoi rejected the hypothesis that UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft and responded to the «onslaught of credulous coverage» in books, films and entertainment by teaching his students to apply critical thinking to such claims, advising them that «being a good scientist is not unlike being a good detective». According to Fraknoi, UFO reports «might at first seem mysterious», but «the more you investigate, the more likely you are to find that there is LESS to these stories than meets the eye».^[20]

In a 1980 survey of 1800 members of amateur astronomer associations by Gert Helb and Hynek for CUFOS, 24% responded «yes» to the question «Have you ever observed an object which resisted your most exhaustive efforts at identification?»^[21]

The term «UFO» (or «UFOB») was coined in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a «UFOB» was «any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object». Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and «technical aspects» (see Air Force Regulation 200-2).

During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as «flying saucers» or «flying discs» due to the term being introduced in the context of the Kenneth Arnold incident. The Avro Canada VZ-9AV Avrocar was a concept vehicle produced during the 1950s, which was a functional aircraft with a saucer shape.^[23] UFOs were commonly referred to colloquially, as a «Bogey» by Western military personnel and pilots during the cold war. The term «bogey» was originally used to report anomalies in radar blips, to indicate possible hostile forces that might be roaming in the area.^[24]

The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concerns about national security, and, more recently, in the 2010s, for unexplained reasons.^[25][26] Nevertheless, various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat, and nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as «An unidentified flying object; a ‘flying saucer’». The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe.^[27]

As an acronym, «UFO» was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF’s official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, «Obviously the term ‘flying saucer’ is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced yoo-foe) for short.»^[28] Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include «flying flapjack», «flying disc», «unexplained flying discs», and «unidentifiable object».^[29][30][31]

In popular usage, the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft,^[27] and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some ufologists and investigators prefer to use terms such as «unidentified aerial phenomenon» (UAP) or «anomalous phenomena», as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).^[32] «Anomalous aerial vehicle» (AAV) or «unidentified aerial system» (UAS) are also sometimes used in a military aviation context to describe unidentified targets.^[33]

While technically a UFO refers to any unidentified flying object, in modern popular culture the term UFO has generally become synonymous with alien spacecraft;^[34] however, the term ETV (ExtraTerrestrial Vehicle) is sometimes used to separate this explanation of UFOs from totally earthbound explanations.^[35]

UFOs have been subject to investigations over the years that varied widely in scope and scientific rigor. Governments or independent academics in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Peru, France, Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Spain, and the Soviet Union are known to have investigated UFO reports at various times. No official government investigation has ever publicly concluded that UFOs are indisputably real, physical objects, extraterrestrial in origin, or of concern to national defense.

Among the best known government studies are the ghost rockets investigation by the Swedish military (1946–1947), Project Blue Book, previously Project Sign and Project Grudge, conducted by the USAF from 1947 until 1969, the secret U.S. Army/Air Force Project Twinkle investigation into green fireballs (1948–1951), the secret USAF Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14^[36] by the Battelle Memorial Institute, and the Brazilian Air Force’s 1977 Operação Prato (Operation Saucer). France has had an ongoing investigation (GEPAN/SEPRA/GEIPAN) within its space agency Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES) since 1977; the government of Uruguay has had a similar investigation since 1989.

Studies show that after careful investigation, the majority of UFOs can be identified as ordinary objects or phenomena. The most commonly found identified sources of UFO reports are:

A 1952–1955 study by the Battelle Memorial Institute for the USAF included these categories. An individual 1979 study by CUFOS researcher Allan Hendry found, as did other investigations, that fewer than one percent of cases he investigated were hoaxes and most sightings were actually honest misidentifications of prosaic phenomena. Hendry attributed most of these to inexperience or misperception.^[38]

On October 31, 2008, the National Archives of Brazil began receiving from the Aeronautical Documentation and History Center part of the documentation of the Brazilian Air Force regarding the investigation of the appearance of UFOs in Brazil. Currently, this collection gathers cases between 1952 and 2016.^[39]

In Canada, the Department of National Defence has dealt with reports, sightings and investigations of UFOs across Canada. In addition to conducting investigations into crop circles in Duhamel, Alberta, it still considers «unsolved» the Falcon Lake incident in Manitoba and the Shag Harbour UFO incident in Nova Scotia.^[40]

Early Canadian studies included Project Magnet (1950–1954) and Project Second Storey (1952–1954), supported by the Defence Research Board.

Thousands of documents released under FOIA also indicate that many U.S. intelligence agencies collected (and still collect) information on UFOs. These agencies include the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), FBI,^[31] CIA, National Security Agency (NSA), as well as military intelligence agencies of the Army and U.S. Navy, in addition to the Air Force.^{[note 1]}

The investigation of UFOs has also attracted many civilians, who in the U.S formed research groups such as NICAP (active 1956–1980), Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) (active 1952–1988), MUFON (active 1969–), and CUFOS (active 1973–).

On November 24, 2021, the Pentagon announced the formation of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, a new intelligence group to investigate unidentified objects that may compromise the airspace of the United States.^[44]

Following the large U.S. surge in sightings in June and early July 1947, on July 9, 1947, United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) intelligence, in cooperation with the FBI,^[31] began a formal investigation into selected sightings with characteristics that could not be immediately rationalized, such as Kenneth Arnold’s. The USAAF used «all of its top scientists» to determine whether «such a phenomenon could, in fact, occur». The research was «being conducted with the thought that the flying objects might be a celestial phenomenon,» or that «they might be a foreign body mechanically devised and controlled.»^[45] Three weeks later in a preliminary defense estimate, the air force investigation decided that, «This ‘flying saucer’ situation is not all imaginary or seeing too much in some natural phenomenon. Something is really flying around.»^[46]

A further review by the intelligence and technical divisions of the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field reached the same conclusion. It reported that «the phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious,» and there were disc-shaped objects, metallic in appearance, as big as man-made aircraft. They were characterized by «extreme rates of climb [and] maneuverability», general lack of noise, absence of a trail, occasional formation flying, and «evasive» behavior «when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar», suggesting a controlled craft. It was therefore recommended in late September 1947 that an official Air Force investigation be set up. It was also recommended that other government agencies should assist in the investigation.^{[note 2]}

Projects Sign (1947–1949), Grudge (1948–1951), and Blue Book (1951–1970)

Project Sign’s final report, published in early 1949, stated that while some UFOs appeared to represent actual aircraft, there was not enough data to determine their origin.^[47]

The Air Force’s Project Sign was created at the end of 1947, and was one of the earliest government studies to come to a secret extraterrestrial conclusion. In August 1948, Sign investigators wrote a top-secret intelligence estimate to that effect, but the Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg ordered it destroyed. The existence of this suppressed report was revealed by several insiders who had read it, such as astronomer and USAF consultant J. Allen Hynek and Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, the first head of the USAF’s Project Blue Book.^[48]

Another highly classified U.S. study was conducted by the CIA’s Office of Scientific Investigation (OS/I) in the latter half of 1952 in response to orders from the National Security Council (NSC). This study concluded UFOs were real physical objects of potential threat to national security. One OS/I memo to the CIA Director (DCI) in December read that «the reports of incidents convince us that there is something going on that must have immediate attention … Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such a nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or any known types of aerial vehicles.» The matter was considered so urgent that OS/I drafted a memorandum from the DCI to the NSC proposing that the NSC establish an investigation of UFOs as a priority project throughout the intelligence and the defense research and development community. It also urged the DCI to establish an external research project of top-level scientists, now known as the Robertson Panel to analyze the problem of UFOs. The OS/I investigation was called off after the Robertson Panel’s negative conclusions in January 1953.^[49]

Project Sign was dismantled and became Project Grudge at the end of 1948. Angered by the low quality of investigations by Grudge, the Air Force Director of Intelligence reorganized it as Project Blue Book in late 1951, placing Ruppelt in charge. J. Allen Hynek, a trained astronomer who served as a scientific advisor for Project Blue Book, was initially skeptical of UFO reports, but eventually came to the conclusion that many of them could not be satisfactorily explained and was highly critical of what he described as «the cavalier disregard by Project Blue Book of the principles of scientific investigation».^[50] Leaving government work, he founded the privately funded CUFOS, to whose work he devoted the rest of his life. Other private groups studying the phenomenon include the MUFON, a grassroots organization whose investigator’s handbooks go into great detail on the documentation of alleged UFO sightings.

Air Force Regulation 200-2,^[51] issued in 1953 and 1954, defined an Unidentified Flying Object («UFOB») as «any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object.» The regulation also said UFOBs were to be investigated as a «possible threat to the security of the United States» and «to determine technical aspects involved.» The regulation went on to say that «it is permissible to inform news media representatives on UFOB’s when the object is positively identified as a familiar object» but added: «For those objects which are not explainable, only the fact that ATIC [Air Technical Intelligence Center] will analyze the data is worthy of release, due to many unknowns involved.»^[51]

A public research effort conducted by the Condon Committee for the USAF and published as the Condon Report arrived at a negative conclusion in 1968.^[52] Blue Book closed down in 1970, using the Condon Committee’s negative conclusion as a rationale, thus ending official Air Force UFO investigations. However, a 1969 USAF document, known as the Bolender memo, along with later government documents, revealed that non-public U.S. government UFO investigations continued after 1970. The Bolender memo first stated that «reports of unidentified flying objects that could affect national security … are not part of the Blue Book system,» indicating that more serious UFO incidents already were handled outside the public Blue Book investigation. The memo then added, «reports of UFOs which could affect national security would continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedures designed for this purpose.»^{[note 3]} In addition, in the late 1960s a chapter on UFOs in the Space Sciences course at the U.S. Air Force Academy gave serious consideration to possible extraterrestrial origins. When word of the curriculum became public, the Air Force in 1970 issued a statement to the effect that the book was outdated and cadets instead were being informed of the Condon Report’s negative conclusion.^[53]

Controversy surrounded the report, both before and after its release. It has been observed that the report was «harshly criticized by numerous scientists, particularly at the powerful AIAA … [which] recommended moderate, but continuous scientific work on UFOs.»^[52] In an address to the AAAS, James E. McDonald said he believed science had failed to mount adequate studies of the problem and criticized the Condon Report and earlier studies by the USAF as scientifically deficient. He also questioned the basis for Condon’s conclusions^[54] and argued that the reports of UFOs have been «laughed out of scientific court».^[55] J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer who worked as a USAF consultant from 1948, sharply criticized the Condon Committee Report and later wrote two nontechnical books that set forth the case for continuing to investigate UFO reports.

Ruppelt recounted his experiences with Project Blue Book, a USAF investigation that preceded Condon’s.^[56]

According to a 1979 New York Times report, «records from the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and other Federal agencies» («about 900 documents — nearly 900 pages of memos, reports and correspondence») obtained in 1978 through the Freedom of Information Act request, indicate that «despite official pronouncements for decades that U.F.O.’s were nothing more than misidentified aerial objects and as such were no cause for alarm … the phenomenon has aroused much serious behind‐the‐scenes concern» in the US government. In particular, officials were concerned over the «approximately 10%» of UFO sightings which remained unexplained, and whether they might be Soviet aircraft and a threat to national security.^[57] Officials were concerned about the «risk of false alerts», of «falsely identifying the real as phantom”, and of mass hysteria caused by sightings. In 1947, Brigadier General George F. Schulgen of Army Air Corps Intelligence, warned “the first reported sightings might have been by individuals of Communist sympathies with the view to causing hysteria and fear of a secret Russian weapon.”^[57]

In November 2011, the White House released an official response to two petitions asking the U.S. government to acknowledge formally that aliens have visited this planet and to disclose any intentional withholding of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings. According to the response:

The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race…no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye….

The response further noted that efforts, like SETI and NASA’s Kepler space telescope and Mars Science Laboratory, continue looking for signs of life. The response noted «odds are pretty high» that there may be life on other planets but «the odds of us making contact with any of them—especially any intelligent ones—are extremely small, given the distances involved.»^[58][59]

On June 25, 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report on UAPs.^[60] The report found that the UAPTF was unable to identify 143 objects spotted between 2004 and 2021. The report said that 18 of these featured unusual movement patterns or flight characteristics, adding that more analysis was needed to determine if those sightings represented «breakthrough» technology. The report said that «some of these steps are resource-intensive and would require additional investment.»^[61] The report did not link the sightings to extraterrestrial life.^[62][63]

The Uruguayan Air Force has conducted UFO investigations since 1989 and reportedly analyzed 2,100 cases of which they regard approximately 2% as lacking explanation.^[64]

In March 2007, the French space agency CNES published an archive of UFO sightings and other phenomena online.^[65]

French studies include GEPAN/SEPRA/GEIPAN within CNES (French space agency), the longest ongoing government-sponsored investigation. About 22% of the 6,000 cases studied remain unexplained.^[66] The official opinion of GEPAN/SEPRA/GEIPAN has been neutral, stating on their FAQ page that their mission is fact-finding for the scientific community, not rendering an opinion. They add they can neither prove nor disprove the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH), but their Steering Committee’s clear position is that they cannot discard the possibility that some fraction of the very strange 22% of unexplained cases might be due to distant and advanced civilizations.^[67] Possibly their bias may be indicated by their use of the terms «PAN» (French) or «UAP» (English equivalent) for «Unidentified Aerospace Phenomenon» (whereas «UAP» is normally used by English organizations stands for «Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon», a more neutral term). In addition, the three heads of the studies have gone on record in stating that UFOs were real physical flying machines beyond our knowledge or that the best explanation for the most inexplicable cases was an extraterrestrial one.^[68][69][70]

In 2008, Michel Scheller, president of the (3AF), created the Sigma Commission. Its purpose was to investigate UFO phenomenon worldwide.^[71] A progress report published in May 2010 stated that the central hypothesis proposed by the COMETA report is perfectly credible.^[72] In December 2012, the final report of the Sigma Commission was submitted to Scheller. Following the submission of the final report, the Sigma2 Commission is to be formed with a mandate to continue the scientific investigation of UFO phenomenon.^[73][74]

Alleged UFO sightings gradually increased since the war, peaking in 1978 and 2005. The total number of sightings since 1947 are 18,500, of which 90% are identifiable.^[75]

The UK’s Flying Saucer Working Party published its final report in June 1951, which remained secret for over fifty years. The Working Party concluded that all UFO sightings could be explained as misidentifications of ordinary objects or phenomena, optical illusions, psychological misperceptions/aberrations, or hoaxes. The report stated: «We accordingly recommend very strongly that no further investigation of reported mysterious aerial phenomena be undertaken, unless and until some material evidence becomes available.»^[76]

Eight file collections on UFO sightings, dating from 1978 to 1987, were first released on May 14, 2008, to The National Archives by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).^[77] Although kept secret from the public for many years, most of the files have low levels of classification and none are classified Top Secret. 200 files are set to be made public by 2012. The files are correspondence from the public sent to the British government and officials, such as the MoD and Margaret Thatcher. The MoD released the files under the Freedom of Information Act due to requests from researchers.^[78] These files include, but are not limited to, UFOs over Liverpool and Waterloo Bridge in London.^[79]

On October 20, 2008, more UFO files were released. One case released detailed that in 1991 an Alitalia passenger aircraft was approaching London Heathrow Airport when the pilots saw what they described as a «cruise missile» fly extremely close to the cockpit. The pilots believed a collision was imminent. UFO expert David Clarke says this is one of the most convincing cases for a UFO he has come across.^[80]

A secret study of UFOs was undertaken for the Ministry of Defence between 1996 and 2000 and was code-named Project Condign. The resulting report, titled «Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Defence Region», was publicly released in 2006, but the identity and credentials of whomever constituted Project Condign remains classified. The report confirmed earlier findings that the main causes of UFO sightings are misidentification of man-made and natural objects. The report noted: «No artefacts of unknown or unexplained origin have been reported or handed to the UK authorities, despite thousands of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena reports. There are no SIGINT, ELINT or radiation measurements and little useful video or still IMINT.» It concluded: «There is no evidence that any UAP, seen in the UKADR [UK Air Defence Region], are incursions by air-objects of any intelligent (extraterrestrial or foreign) origin, or that they represent any hostile intent.» A little-discussed conclusion of the report was that novel meteorological plasma phenomenon akin to ball lightning are responsible for «the majority, if not all» of otherwise inexplicable sightings, especially reports of black triangle UFOs.^[81]

On December 1, 2009, the Ministry of Defence quietly closed down its UFO investigations unit. The unit’s hotline and email address were suspended by the MoD on that date. The MoD said there was no value in continuing to receive and investigate sightings in a release, stating that «in over fifty years, no UFO report has revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom. The MoD has no specific capability for identifying the nature of such sightings. There is no Defence benefit in such investigation and it would be an inappropriate use of defence resources. Furthermore, responding to reported UFO sightings diverts MoD resources from tasks that are relevant to Defence.» The Guardian reported that the MoD claimed the closure would save the Ministry around £50,000 a year. The MoD said it would continue to release UFO files to the public through The National Archives.^[82]

UFO reports, Parliamentary questions, and letters from members of the public were released on August 5, 2010, to the UK National Archives. «In one letter included in the files, a man alleges Churchill ordered a coverup of a WW II-era UFO encounter involving the Royal Air Force».^[83][77]

Critics argue that all UFO evidence is anecdotal^[84] and can be explained as prosaic natural phenomena. Defenders of UFO research counter that knowledge of observational data, other than what is reported in the popular media, is limited in the scientific community and further study is needed.^[85][86] Studies have established that the majority of UFO observations are misidentified conventional objects or natural phenomena—most commonly aircraft, balloons including sky lanterns, satellites, and astronomical objects such as meteors, bright stars and planets. A small percentage are hoaxes.^{[note 4]} Fewer than 10% of reported sightings remain unexplained after proper investigation and therefore can be classified as unidentified in the strictest sense. According to Steven Novella, proponents of the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) suggest these unexplained reports are of alien spacecraft, however the null hypothesis cannot be excluded; that these reports are simply other more prosaic phenomena that cannot be identified due to lack of complete information or due to the necessary subjectivity of the reports. Novella says that instead of accepting the null hypothesis, UFO enthusiasts tend to engage in special pleading by offering outlandish, untested explanations for the validity of the ETH, which violate Occam’s razor.^[87]

Ufology is not considered credible in mainstream science.^[88] The scientific community has generally deemed that UFO sightings are not worthy of serious investigation except as a cultural artifact.^{[89][55][52][90][91][92][93]}

Studies of UFOs rarely appear in mainstream scientific literature. When asked, some scientists and scientific organizations have pointed to the end of official governmental studies in the U.S. in December 1969, following the statement by the government scientist Edward Condon that further study of UFOs could not be justified on grounds of scientific advancement.^[52][94]

Jacques Vallée, a scientist and ufologist, claimed there were deficiencies in most UFO research, including government studies. He criticized the mythology and cultism often associated with UFO sightings, but despite the challenges, Vallée contended that several hundred professional scientists — a group both he and Hynek termed «the invisible college» — continued to study UFOs quietly on their own time.^[85]

UFOs have become a prevalent theme in modern culture,^[85] and the social phenomena have been the subject of academic research in sociology and psychology.^[88]

In 2021, astronomer Avi Loeb launched The Galileo Project,^[95] intended to collect and report scientific evidence of extraterrestrials or extraterrestrial technology on or near Earth via telescopic observations. While Loeb’s initiative does not take a position on the question of whether UFOs were a phenomenon worthy of study, his arguments have been criticized by other scientists for their extravagance.^[96][97][98]

Besides anecdotal visual sightings, reports sometimes include claims of other kinds of evidence, including cases studied by the military and various government agencies of different countries (such as Project Blue Book, the Condon Committee, the French GEPAN/SEPRA, and Uruguay’s current Air Force study).

A comprehensive scientific review of cases where physical evidence was available was carried out by the 1998 Sturrock panel, with specific examples of many of the categories listed below.

A scientifically skeptical group that has for many years offered critical analyses of UFO claims is the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI).

One example is the response to local beliefs that «extraterrestrial beings» in UFOs were responsible for crop circles appearing in Indonesia, which the government and the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) described as «man-made». Thomas Djamaluddin, research professor of astronomy and astrophysics at LAPAN stated: «We have come to agree that this ‘thing’ cannot be scientifically proven. Scientists have put UFOs in the category of pseudoscience.»^[104]

UFOs have been the subject of investigations by various governments who have provided extensive records related to the subject. Many of the most involved government-sponsored investigations ended after agencies concluded that there was no benefit to continued investigation.^[105][106] These same negative conclusions also have been found in studies that were highly classified for many years, such as the UK’s Flying Saucer Working Party, Project Condign, the U.S. CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel, the U.S. military investigation into the green fireballs from 1948 to 1951, and the Battelle Memorial Institute study for the USAF from 1952 to 1955 (Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14).
Some public government reports have acknowledged the possibility of the physical reality of UFOs, but have stopped short of proposing extraterrestrial origins, though not dismissing the possibility entirely. Examples are the Belgian military investigation into large triangles over their airspace in 1989–1991 and the 2009 Uruguayan Air Force study conclusion (see below).

In 2007, former Arizona governor Fife Symington claimed he had seen «a massive, delta-shaped craft silently navigate over Squaw Peak, a mountain range in Phoenix, Arizona» in 1997.^[107]
Apollo 14 astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell claimed he knew of senior government employees who had been involved in «close encounters», and because of this, he has no doubt that aliens have visited Earth.^[108]

In May 2019, The New York Times reported that American Navy fighter jets had several instances of unidentified instrumentation and tracking data while conducting exercises off the eastern seaboard of the United States from the summer of 2014 to March 2015. The Times published a cockpit instrument video which appeared to show an object moving at high speed near the ocean surface as it appeared to rotate, and objects that appeared capable of high acceleration, deceleration and maneuverability. In two separate incidents, a pilot reported his cockpit instruments locked onto and tracked objects but he was unable to see them through his helmet camera. In another encounter, flight instruments recorded an image described as a sphere encasing a cube between two jets as they flew about 100 feet apart.^[109] The Pentagon officially released these videos on April 27, 2020.^[110] The United States Navy has said there have been «a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years».^[111]

In March 2021, news media announced a comprehensive report is to be compiled of UFO events accumulated by the United States over the years.^[112]

On April 12, 2021, the Pentagon confirmed the authenticity of pictures and videos gathered by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), purportedly showing «pyramid shaped objects» hovering above the USS Russell in 2019, off the coast of California, with spokeswoman Susan Gough saying «I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel. The UAPTF has included these incidents in their ongoing examinations.»^{[113][114][115][111]} In May 2021, military pilots recalled their related encounters, along with camera and radar support, including one pilot’s account noting that such incidents occurred «every day for at least a couple of years», according to an interview broadcast on the news program, 60 Minutes (16 May 2021).^[116][117] Science writer and skeptic Mick West suggested the image was the result of an optical effect called a bokeh which can make out of focus light sources appear triangular or pyramidal due to the shape of the aperture of some lenses.^[118][119]

On June 25, 2021, U.S. Defense and intelligence officials released the Pentagon UFO Report on what they know about a series of unidentified flying objects that have been seen by American military pilots.^[120] NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that the UFO sightings by pilots «may not be extraterrestrial.»^[121]

In December 2021, further official governmental investigations into UAPs and related, along with annual unclassified reports presented to Congress, have been authorized and funded.^[122] Some have raised concerns about the new investigations.^[123]

UFOs are sometimes an element of conspiracy theories in which governments are allegedly intentionally «covering up» the existence of aliens by removing physical evidence of their presence or even collaborating with extraterrestrial beings. There are many versions of this story; some are exclusive, while others overlap with various other conspiracy theories.

In the U.S., an opinion poll conducted in 1997 suggested that 80% of Americans believed the U.S. government was withholding such information.^[124][125] Various notables have also expressed such views. Some examples are astronauts Gordon Cooper and Edgar Mitchell, Senator Barry Goldwater, Vice Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter (the first CIA director), Lord Hill-Norton (former British Chief of Defense Staff and NATO head), the 1999 French COMETA study by various French generals and aerospace experts, and Yves Sillard (former director of CNES, new director of French UFO research organization GEIPAN).^[65]

It has also been suggested by a few paranormal authors that all or most human technology and culture is based on extraterrestrial contact (see also ancient astronauts).

In May 2001, a press conference was held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., by an organization called the Disclosure Project, featuring twenty persons including retired Air Force and FAA personnel, intelligence officers and an air traffic controller.^{[126][127][128][129][130][131][132]} They all gave a brief account of their claims that evidence of UFOs was being suppressed and said they would be willing to testify under oath to a Congressional committee. According to a 2002 report in the Oregon Daily Emerald, Disclosure Project founder Steven M. Greer is an «alien theorist» who claims «proof of government coverup» consisting of 120 hours of testimony from various government officials on the topic of UFOs, including astronaut Gordon Cooper.^[133]

On September 27, 2010, a group of six former USAF officers and one former enlisted Air Force man held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on the theme «U.S. Nuclear Weapons Have Been Compromised by Unidentified Aerial Objects»^[134] in which they claimed they had witnessed UFOs hovering near missile sites and even disarming the missiles.

From April 29 to May 3, 2013, the Paradigm Research Group held the «Citizen Hearing on Disclosure» at the National Press Club. The group paid former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel and former Representatives Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Roscoe Bartlett, Merrill Cook, Darlene Hooley, and Lynn Woolsey $20,000 each to hear testimony from a panel of researchers which included witnesses from military, agency, and political backgrounds.^[135][136]

The void left by the lack of institutional or scientific study has given rise to independent researchers and fringe groups, including the (NICAP) in the mid-20th century and, more recently, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON)^[137] and the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS).^[138] The term «Ufology» is used to describe the collective efforts of those who study reports and associated evidence of unidentified flying objects.^[139]

Some private studies have been neutral in their conclusions but argued that the inexplicable core cases call for continued scientific study. Examples are the Sturrock panel study of 1998 and the 1970 AIAA review of the Condon Report.

Photograph of an unusual atmospheric occurrence observed over Sri Lanka, forwarded to the UK Ministry of Defence by RAF Fylingdales, 2004

Ufology is a neologism describing the collective efforts of those who study UFO reports and associated evidence.

Some ufologists recommend that observations be classified according to the features of the phenomenon or object that are reported or recorded. Typical categories include:

Popular UFO classification systems include the Hynek system, created by J. Allen Hynek, and the Vallée system, created by Jacques Vallée.^{[citation needed]}

Hynek’s system involves dividing the sighted object by appearance, subdivided further into the type of «close encounter» (a term from which the film director Steven Spielberg derived the title of his 1977 UFO movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

Jacques Vallée’s system classifies UFOs into five broad types, each with from three to five subtypes that vary according to type.

UFOs have constituted a widespread international cultural phenomenon since the 1950s. Gallup Polls rank UFOs near the top of lists for subjects of widespread recognition. In 1973, a survey found that 95 percent of the public reported having heard of UFOs, whereas only 92 percent had heard of U.S. President Gerald Ford in a 1977 poll taken just nine months after he left the White House.^[140][141] A 1996 Gallup Poll reported that 71 percent of the United States population believed the U.S. government was covering up information regarding UFOs. A 2002 Roper Poll for the Sci-Fi Channel found similar results, but with more people believing UFOs are extraterrestrial craft. In that latest poll, 56 percent thought UFOs were real craft and 48 percent that aliens had visited the Earth. Again, about 70 percent felt the government was not sharing everything it knew about UFOs or extraterrestrial life.^[142][143]

Another effect of the flying saucer type of UFO sightings has been Earth-made flying saucer craft in space fiction, for example the United Planets Cruiser C57D in Forbidden Planet (1956), the Jupiter 2 in Lost in Space, and the saucer section of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek. UFOs and extraterrestrials have been featured in many movies.

The intense secrecy surrounding the secret Nevada base, known as Area 51, has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component of UFO folklore. In July 2019, more than 2 million people responded to a joke proposal to storm Area 51 which appeared in an anonymous Facebook post.^[144] Two music festivals in rural Nevada, «AlienStock» and «Storm Area 51 Basecamp», were subsequently organized to capitalize on the popularity of the original Facebook event.^[145]

An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object observed in the sky that is not readily identified. Most UFOs are later identified as conventional objects or phenomena. The term is widely used for claimed observations of extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Terminology

The term “UFO” (or “UFOB”) was coined in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a “UFOB” was “any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object.” Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or “technical aspects” (see Air Force Regulation 200-2).

During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as “flying saucers” or “flying discs”. The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security, and, more recently, in the 2010s, for unexplained reasons. Nevertheless, various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security, nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as “An unidentified flying object; a ‘flying saucer’.” The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe.

The acronym “UFO” was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF’s official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, “Obviously the term ‘flying saucer’ is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short.” Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include “flying flapjack”, “flying disc”, “unexplained flying discs”, and “unidentifiable object”.

The phrase “flying saucer” had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he claimed he described the objects flying in a saucer-like fashion, leading to newspaper accounts of “flying saucers” and “flying discs”.

In popular usage, the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft, and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some ufologists and investigators prefer to use terms such as “unidentified aerial phenomenon” (UAP) or “anomalous phenomena”, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP). “Anomalous aerial vehicle” (AAV) or “unidentified aerial system” (UAS) are also sometimes used in a military aviation context to describe unidentified targets.

Unidentified Flying Object (fiction)

Studies

Studies have established that the majority of UFO observations are misidentified conventional objects or natural phenomena—most commonly aircraft, balloons, noctilucent clouds, nacreous clouds, or astronomical objects such as meteors or bright planets with a small percentage even being hoaxes. Between 5% and 20% of reported sightings are not explained, and therefore can be classified as unidentified in the strictest sense. While proponents of the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) suggest that these unexplained reports are of alien spacecraft, the null hypothesis cannot be excluded that these reports are simply other more prosaic phenomena that cannot be identified due to lack of complete information or due to the necessary subjectivity of the reports.

Almost no scientific papers about UFOs have been published in peer-reviewed journals. There was, in the past, some debate in the scientific community about whether any scientific investigation into UFO sightings is warranted with the general conclusion being that the phenomenon was not worthy of serious investigation except as a cultural artifact. UFOs have been the subject of investigations by various governments who have provided extensive records related to the subject. Many of the most involved government-sponsored investigations ended after agencies concluded that there was no benefit to continued investigation.

The void left by the lack of institutional or scientific study has given rise to independent researchers and fringe groups, including the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in the mid-20th century and, more recently, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS). The term “Ufology” is used to describe the collective efforts of those who study reports and associated evidence of unidentified flying objects.

UFOs have become a prevalent theme in modern culture, and the social phenomena have been the subject of academic research in sociology and psychology.

Early history

Unexplained aerial observations have been reported throughout history. Some were undoubtedly astronomical in nature: comets, bright meteors, one or more of the five planets that can be readily seen with the naked eye, planetary conjunctions, or atmospheric optical phenomena such as parhelia and lenticular clouds. An example is Halley’s Comet, which was recorded first by Chinese astronomers in 240 BC and possibly as early as 467 BC. Such sightings throughout history often were treated as supernatural portents, angels, or other religious omens. Some current-day UFO researchers have noticed similarities between some religious symbols in medieval paintings and UFO reports though the canonical and symbolic character of such images is documented by art historians placing more conventional religious interpretations on such images.

The 1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg as printed in an illustrated news notice. UFO enthusiasts have described the phenomenon as an aerial battle of extraterrestrial origin. Skeptics find the phenomenon likely to have been a sun dog

• On April 14, 1561, residents of Nuremberg described the appearance of a large black triangular object. According to witnesses, there were also hundreds of spheres, cylinders and other odd-shaped objects that moved erratically overhead.
• On January 25, 1878, the Denison Daily News printed an article in which John Martin, a local farmer, had reported seeing a large, dark, circular object resembling a balloon flying “at wonderful speed.” Martin, according to the newspaper account, said it appeared to be about the size of a saucer, one of the first uses of the word “saucer” in association with a UFO.
• In April 1897, thousands of people reported seeing “airships” in various parts of the United States. Many signed affidavits. Scores of people even reported talking to the pilots. Thomas Edison was asked his opinion, and said, “You can take it from me that it is a pure fake.”
• On February 28, 1904, there was a sighting by three crew members on the USS Supply 300 miles (483 km) west of San Francisco, reported by Lieutenant Frank Schofield, later to become Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Battle Fleet. Schofield wrote of three bright red meteors – one egg shaped and the other two round – that approached beneath the cloud layer, then “soared” above the clouds, departing after two to three minutes. The largest had an apparent size of about six Suns, he said.
• The three earliest known pilot UFO sightings, of 1,305 similar sightings catalogued by NARCAP, took place in 1916 and 1926. On January 31, 1916, a UK pilot near Rochford reported a row of lights, resembling lighted windows on a railway carriage, that rose and disappeared. In January 1926 a pilot reported six “flying manhole covers” between Wichita, Kansas, and Colorado Springs, Colorado. In late September 1926 an airmail pilot over Nevada said he had been forced to land by a huge, wingless, cylindrical object.
• On August 5, 1926, while traveling in the Humboldt Mountains of Tibet’s Kokonor region, Russian explorer Nicholas Roerich reported, members of his expedition saw “something big and shiny reflecting the sun, like a huge oval moving at great speed. Crossing our camp the thing changed in its direction from south to southwest. And we saw how it disappeared in the intense blue sky. We even had time to take our field glasses and saw quite distinctly an oval form with shiny surface, one side of which was brilliant from the sun.” Another description by Roerich was of a “shiny body flying from north to south. Field glasses are at hand. It is a huge body. One side glows in the sun. It is oval in shape. Then it somehow turns in another direction and disappears in the southwest.”
• In the Pacific and European theatres during World War II, “foo fighters” (metallic spheres, balls of light and other shapes that followed aircraft) were reported and on occasion photographed by Allied and Axis pilots. Some proposed Allied explanations at the time included St. Elmo’s fire, the planet Venus, hallucinations from oxygen deprivation, or German secret weapons.
• In 1946, more than 2,000 reports were collected, primarily by the Swedish military, of unidentified aerial objects over the Scandinavian nations, along with isolated reports from France, Portugal, Italy and Greece. The objects were referred to as “Russian hail” and later as “ghost rockets” because it was thought that the mysterious objects were possibly Russian tests of captured German V1 or V2 rockets. Although most were thought to be such natural phenomena as meteors, more than 200 were tracked on radar by the Swedish military and deemed to be “real physical objects.” In a 1948 top secret document, Swedish authorities advised the USAF Europe that some of their investigators believed these craft to be extraterrestrial in origin.

Investigations

UFOs have been subject to investigations over the years that varied widely in scope and scientific rigor. Governments or independent academics in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Peru, France, Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Spain, and the Soviet Union are known to have investigated UFO reports at various times.

Among the best known government studies are the ghost rockets investigation by the Swedish military (1946–1947), Project Blue Book, previously Project Sign and Project Grudge, conducted by the USAF from 1947 until 1969, the secret U.S. Army/Air Force Project Twinkle investigation into green fireballs (1948–1951), the secret USAF Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 by the Battelle Memorial Institute, and the Brazilian Air Force’s 1977 Operação Prato (Operation Saucer). France has had an ongoing investigation (GEPAN/SEPRA/GEIPAN) within its space agency Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES) since 1977; the government of Uruguay has had a similar investigation since 1989.

Project Sign

Main article: Project Sign

Project Sign in 1948 produced a highly classified finding (see Estimate of the Situation) that the best UFO reports probably had an extraterrestrial explanation. A top secret Swedish military opinion given to the USAF in 1948 stated that some of their analysts believed that the 1946 ghost rockets and later flying saucers had extraterrestrial origins. (For document, see Ghost rockets.) In 1954 German rocket scientist Hermann Oberth revealed that an internal West German government investigation, which he headed, had arrived at an extraterrestrial conclusion, but this study was never made public.

Project Grudge

Main article: Project Grudge

Project Sign was dismantled and became Project Grudge at the end of 1948. Angered by the low quality of investigations by Grudge, the Air Force Director of Intelligence reorganized it as Project Blue Book in late 1951, placing Ruppelt in charge. Blue Book closed down in 1970, using the Condon Committee’s negative conclusion as a rationale, thus ending official Air Force UFO investigations. However, a 1969 USAF document, known as the Bolender memo, along with later government documents, revealed that non-public U.S. government UFO investigations continued after 1970. The Bolender memo first stated that “reports of unidentified flying objects that could affect national security … are not part of the Blue Book system,” indicating that more serious UFO incidents already were handled outside the public Blue Book investigation. The memo then added, “reports of UFOs which could affect national security would continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedures designed for this purpose.” In addition, in the late 1960s a chapter on UFOs in the Space Sciences course at the U.S. Air Force Academy gave serious consideration to possible extraterrestrial origins. When word of the curriculum became public, the Air Force in 1970 issued a statement to the effect that the book was outdated and that cadets instead were being informed of the Condon Report’s negative conclusion.

USAF Regulation 200-2

Air Force Regulation 200-2, issued in 1953 and 1954, defined an Unidentified Flying Object (“UFOB”) as “any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object.” The regulation also said UFOBs were to be investigated as a “possible threat to the security of the United States” and “to determine technical aspects involved.” The regulation went on to say that “it is permissible to inform news media representatives on UFOB’s when the object is positively identified as a familiar object,” but added: “For those objects which are not explainable, only the fact that ATIC [Air Technical Intelligence Center] will analyze the data is worthy of release, due to many unknowns involved.”

Project Blue Book

Main article: Project Blue Book
J. Allen Hynek, a trained astronomer who served as a scientific advisor for Project Blue Book, was initially skeptical of UFO reports, but eventually came to the conclusion that many of them could not be satisfactorily explained and was highly critical of what he described as “the cavalier disregard by Project Blue Book of the principles of scientific investigation.” Leaving government work, he founded the privately funded CUFOS, to whose work he devoted the rest of his life. Other private groups studying the phenomenon include the MUFON, a grass roots organization whose investigator’s handbooks go into great detail on the documentation of alleged UFO sightings.

Like Hynek, Jacques Vallée, a scientist and prominent UFO researcher, has pointed to what he believes is the scientific deficiency of most UFO research, including government studies. He complains of the mythology and cultism often associated with the phenomenon, but alleges that several hundred professional scientists—a group both he and Hynek have termed “the invisible college”—continue to study UFOs in private.

Scientific studies

The study of UFOs has received little support in mainstream scientific literature. Official studies ended in the U.S. in December 1969, following the statement by the government scientist Edward Condon that further study of UFOs could not be justified on grounds of scientific advancement. The Condon Report and its conclusions were endorsed by the National Academy of Scientists, of which Condon was a member. On the other hand, a scientific review by the UFO subcommittee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) disagreed with Condon’s conclusion, noting that at least 30 percent of the cases studied remained unexplained and that scientific benefit might be gained by continued study.

Critics argue that all UFO evidence is anecdotal and can be explained as prosaic natural phenomena. Defenders of UFO research counter that knowledge of observational data, other than what is reported in the popular media, is limited in the scientific community and that further study is needed.

No official government investigation has ever publicly concluded that UFOs are indisputably real, physical objects, extraterrestrial in origin, or of concern to national defense. These same negative conclusions also have been found in studies that were highly classified for many years, such as the UK’s Flying Saucer Working Party, Project Condign, the U.S. CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel, the U.S. military investigation into the green fireballs from 1948 to 1951, and the Battelle Memorial Institute study for the USAF from 1952 to 1955 (Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14).

Some public government reports have acknowledged the possibility of physical reality of UFOs, but have stopped short of proposing extraterrestrial origins, though not dismissing the possibility entirely. Examples are the Belgian military investigation into large triangles over their airspace in 1989–1991 and the 2009 Uruguayan Air Force study conclusion (see below).

Some private studies have been neutral in their conclusions, but argued that the inexplicable core cases call for continued scientific study. Examples are the Sturrock panel study of 1998 and the 1970 AIAA review of the Condon Report.

United States

U.S. investigations into UFOs include:

• The Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU), established by the U.S. Army sometime in the 1940s, and about which little is known. In 1987, British UFO researcher Timothy Good received from the Army’s director of counter-intelligence a letter confirming the existence of the IPU. The letter stated that “the aforementioned Army unit was disestablished during the late 1950s and never reactivated. All records pertaining to this unit were surrendered to the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations in conjunction with operation BLUEBOOK.” The IPU records have never been released.
• Project Blue Book, previously Project Sign and Project Grudge, conducted by the USAF from 1947 until 1969
• The secret U.S. Army/Air Force Project Twinkle investigation into green fireballs (1948–1951)
• Ghost rockets investigations by the Swedish, UK, U.S., and Greek militaries (1946–1947)
• The secret CIA Office of Scientific Investigation (OS/I) study (1952–53)
• The secret CIA Robertson Panel (1953)
• The secret USAF Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 by the Battelle Memorial Institute (1951–1954)
• The Brookings Report (1960), commissioned by NASA
• The public Condon Committee (1966–1968)
• The private, internal RAND Corporation study (1968)
• The private Sturrock panel (1998)
• The secret Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program which was funded from 2007 to 2012.

Thousands of documents released under FOIA also indicate that many U.S. intelligence agencies collected (and still collect) information on UFOs. These agencies include the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), FBI, CIA, National Security Agency(NSA), as well as military intelligence agencies of the Army and U.S. Navy, in addition to the Air Force.

The investigation of UFOs has also attracted many civilians, who in the U.S formed research groups such as NICAP (active 1956–1980), Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) (active 1952–1988), MUFON (active 1969–), and CUFOS (active 1973–).

In November 2011, the White House released an official response to two petitions asking the U.S. government to acknowledge formally that aliens have visited this planet and to disclose any intentional withholding of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings. According to the response, “The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race.” Also, according to the response, there is “no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.” The response further noted that efforts, like SETI and NASA’s Kepler space telescope and Mars Science Laboratory, continue looking for signs of life. The response noted “odds are pretty high” that there may be life on other planets but “the odds of us making contact with any of them—especially any intelligent ones—are extremely small, given the distances involved.”

Post-1947 sightings

Following the large U.S. surge in sightings in June and early July 1947, on July 9, 1947, United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) intelligence, in cooperation with the FBI, began a formal investigation into selected sightings with characteristics that could not be immediately rationalized, such as Kenneth Arnold’s. The USAAF used “all of its top scientists” to determine whether “such a phenomenon could, in fact, occur.” The research was “being conducted with the thought that the flying objects might be a celestial phenomenon,” or that “they might be a foreign body mechanically devised and controlled.” Three weeks later in a preliminary defense estimate, the air force investigation decided that, “This ‘flying saucer’ situation is not all imaginary or seeing too much in some natural phenomenon. Something is really flying around.”

A further review by the intelligence and technical divisions of the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field reached the same conclusion. It reported that “the phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious,” that there were objects in the shape of a disc, metallic in appearance, and as big as man-made aircraft. They were characterized by “extreme rates of climb [and] maneuverability,” general lack of noise, absence of trail, occasional formation flying, and “evasive” behavior “when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar,” suggesting a controlled craft. It was therefore recommended in late September 1947 that an official Air Force investigation be set up to investigate the phenomenon. It was also recommended that other government agencies should assist in the investigation.

Project Sign

This led to the creation of the Air Force’s Project Sign at the end of 1947, one of the earliest government studies to come to a secret extraterrestrial conclusion. In August 1948, Sign investigators wrote a top-secret intelligence estimate to that effect, but the Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg ordered it destroyed. The existence of this suppressed report was revealed by several insiders who had read it, such as astronomer and USAF consultant J. Allen Hynek and Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, the first head of the USAF’s Project Blue Book.

Another highly classified U.S. study was conducted by the CIA’s Office of Scientific Investigation (OS/I) in the latter half of 1952 in response to orders from the National Security Council (NSC). This study concluded UFOs were real physical objects of potential threat to national security. One OS/I memo to the CIA Director (DCI) in December read:

the reports of incidents convince us that there is something going on that must have immediate attention … Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such a nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or any known types of aerial vehicles.

The matter was considered so urgent that OS/I drafted a memorandum from the DCI to the NSC proposing that the NSC establish an investigation of UFOs as a priority project throughout the intelligence and the defense research and development community. It also urged the DCI to establish an external research project of top-level scientists, now known as the Robertson Panel to analyze the problem of UFOs. The OS/I investigation was called off after the Robertson Panel’s negative conclusions in January 1953.

Condon Committee

Main article: Condon Committee

A public research effort conducted by the Condon Committee for the USAF, which arrived at a negative conclusion in 1968, marked the end of the U.S. government’s official investigation of UFOs, though various government intelligence agencies continue unofficially to investigate or monitor the situation.

Controversy has surrounded the Condon Report, both before and after it was released. It has been observed that the report was “harshly criticized by numerous scientists, particularly at the powerful AIAA … [which] recommended moderate, but continuous scientific work on UFOs.” In an address to the AAAS, James E. McDonald stated that he believed science had failed to mount adequate studies of the problem and criticized the Condon Report and earlier studies by the USAF as scientifically deficient. He also questioned the basis for Condon’s conclusions and argued that the reports of UFOs have been “laughed out of scientific court.” J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer who worked as a USAF consultant from 1948, sharply criticized the Condon Committee Report and later wrote two nontechnical books that set forth the case for continuing to investigate UFO reports.

Ruppelt recounted his experiences with Project Blue Book, a USAF investigation that preceded Condon’s.

Notable US cases

• The Roswell UFO incident (1947) involved New Mexico residents, local law enforcement officers, and the U.S. military, the latter of whom allegedly collected physical evidence from the UFO crash site.
• The Mantell UFO incident January 7, 1948
• The Betty and Barney Hill abduction (1961) was the first reported abduction incident.
• In the Kecksburg UFO incident, Pennsylvania (1965), residents reported seeing a bell shaped object crash in the area. Police officers, and possibly military personnel, were sent to investigate.
• The Travis Walton abduction case (1975): The movie Fire in the Sky (1993) was based on this event, but greatly embellished the original account.
• The “Phoenix Lights” March 13, 1997
• 2006 O’Hare International Airport UFO sighting

Brazil

On October 31, 2008, the National Archives of Brazil began receiving from the Aeronautical Documentation and History Center part of the documentation of the Brazilian Air Force regarding the investigation of the appearance of UFOs in Brazil. Currently this collection gathers cases between 1952 and 2016.

Canada

In Canada, the Department of National Defence has dealt with reports, sightings and investigations of UFOs across Canada. In addition to conducting investigations into crop circles in Duhamel, Alberta, it still considers “unsolved” the Falcon Lake incident in Manitoba and the Shag Harbour UFO incident in Nova Scotia.

Early Canadian studies included Project Magnet (1950–1954) and Project Second Storey (1952–1954), supported by the Defence Research Board.

France

On March 2007, the French space agency CNES published an archive of UFO sightings and other phenomena online.

French studies include GEPAN/SEPRA/GEIPAN (1977–), within CNES (French space agency), the longest ongoing government-sponsored investigation. About 22% of 6000 cases studied remain unexplained. The official opinion of GEPAN/SEPRA/GEIPAN has been neutral, stating on their FAQ page that their mission is fact-finding for the scientific community, not rendering an opinion. They add they can neither prove nor disprove the Exterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH), but their Steering Committee’s clear position is that they cannot discard the possibility that some fraction of the very strange 22% of unexplained cases might be due to distant and advanced civilizations. Possibly their bias may be indicated by their use of the terms “PAN” (French) or “UAP” (English equivalent) for “Unidentified Aerospace Phenomenon” (whereas “UAP” as normally used by English organizations stands for “Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon”, a more neutral term). In addition, the three heads of the studies have gone on record in stating that UFOs were real physical flying machines beyond our knowledge or that the best explanation for the most inexplicable cases was an extraterrestrial one.

In 2008, Michel Scheller, president of the Association Aéronautique et Astronautique de France (3AF), created the Sigma Commission. Its purpose was to investigate UFO phenomenon worldwide. A progress report published in May 2010 stated that the central hypothesis proposed by the COMETA report is perfectly credible. In December 2012, the final report of the Sigma Commission was submitted to Scheller. Following the submission of the final report, the Sigma2 Commission is to be formed with a mandate to continue the scientific investigation of UFO phenomenon.

The most notable cases of UFO sightings in France include the Valensole UFO incident in 1965, and the Trans-en-Provence Case in 1981.

Italy

According to some Italian ufologists, the first documented case of a UFO sighting in Italy dates back to April 11, 1933, to Varese. Documents of the time show that an alleged UFO crashed or landed near Vergiate. Following this, Benito Mussolini created a secret group to look at it, called Cabinet RS/33.

Alleged UFO sightings gradually increased since the war, peaking in 1978 and 2005. The total number of sightings since 1947 are 18,500, of which 90% are identifiable.

In 2000, Italian ufologist Roberto Pinotti published material regarding the so-called “Fascist UFO Files”, which dealt with a flying saucer that had crashed near Milan in 1933 (some 14 years before the Roswell, New Mexico, crash), and of the subsequent investigation by a never mentioned before Cabinet RS/33, that allegedly was authorized by Benito Mussolini, and headed by the Nobel scientist Guglielmo Marconi. A spaceship was allegedly stored in the hangars of the SIAI Marchetti in Vergiate near Milan.

Julius Obsequens was a Roman writer who is believed to have lived in the middle of the fourth century AD. The only work associated with his name is the Liber de prodigiis (Book of Prodigies), completely extracted from an epitome, or abridgment, written by Livy; De prodigiis was constructed as an account of the wonders and portents that occurred in Rome between 249 BC-12 BC. An aspect of Obsequens’ work that has inspired much interest in some circles is that references are made to things moving through the sky. These have been interpreted as reports of UFOs, but may just as well describe meteors, and, since Obsequens, probably, writes in the 4th century, that is, some 400 years after the events he describes, they hardly qualify as eye-witness accounts.

Notable cases

• A UFO sighting in Florence, October 28, 1954, followed by a fall of angel hair.
• In 1973, an Alitalia airplane left Rome for Naples sighted a mysterious round object. Two Italian Air Force planes from Ciampino confirmed the sighting. In the same year there was another sighting at Caselle airport near Turin.
• In 1978, two young hikers, while walking on Monte Musinè near Turin, saw a bright light; one of them temporarily disappeared and, after a while, was found in a state of shock and with a noticeable scald on one leg. After regaining consciousness, he reported having seen an elongated vehicle and that some strangely shaped beings descended from it. Both the young hikers suffered from conjunctivitis for some time.
• A close encounter reported in September 1978 in Torrita di Siena in the Province of Siena. A young motorist saw in front of him a bright object, two beings of small stature who wore suits and helmets, the two approached the car, and after watching it carefully went back and rose again to the UFO. A boy who lived with his family in a country house not far from there said he had seen at the same time “a kind of small reddish sun”.
• Yet in 1978, there has been also the story of Pier Fortunato Zanfretta, the best known and most controversial case of an Italian alleged alien abduction. Zanfretta said (also with truth serum injected) to have been kidnapped by reptilian-like creatures on the night of 6 December and 7 December while he was performing his job at Marzano, in the municipality of Torriglia in the Province of Genoa; 52 testimonies of the case from other people were collected.

United Kingdom

The UK’s Flying Saucer Working Party published its final report in June 1951, which remained secret for over 50 years. The Working Party concluded that all UFO sightings could be explained as misidentifications of ordinary objects or phenomena, optical illusions, psychological misperceptions/aberrations, or hoaxes. The report stated: “We accordingly recommend very strongly that no further investigation of reported mysterious aerial phenomena be undertaken, unless and until some material evidence becomes available.”

Eight file collections on UFO sightings, dating from 1978 to 1987, were first released on May 14, 2008, to The National Archives by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Although kept secret from the public for many years, most of the files have low levels of classification and none are classified Top Secret. 200 files are set to be made public by 2012. The files are correspondence from the public sent to the British government and officials, such as the MoD and Margaret Thatcher. The MoD released the files under the Freedom of Information Act due to requests from researchers. These files include, but are not limited to, UFOs over Liverpool and the Waterloo Bridge in London.

On October 20, 2008, more UFO files were released. One case released detailed that in 1991 an Alitalia passenger aircraft was approaching London Heathrow Airport when the pilots saw what they described as a “cruise missile” fly extremely close to the cockpit. The pilots believed that a collision was imminent. UFO expert David Clarke says that this is one of the most convincing cases for a UFO he has come across.

A secret study of UFOs was undertaken for the Ministry of Defence between 1996 and 2000 and was code-named Project Condign. The resulting report, titled “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Defence Region”, was publicly released in 2006, but the identity and credentials of whomever constituted Project Condign remains classified. The report confirmed earlier findings that the main causes of UFO sightings are misidentification of man-made and natural objects. The report noted: “No artefacts of unknown or unexplained origin have been reported or handed to the UK authorities, despite thousands of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena reports. There are no SIGINT, ELINT or radiation measurements and little useful video or still IMINT.” It concluded: “There is no evidence that any UAP, seen in the UKADR [UK Air Defence Region], are incursions by air-objects of any intelligent (extraterrestrial or foreign) origin, or that they represent any hostile intent.” A little-discussed conclusion of the report was that novel meteorological plasma phenomenon akin to ball lightning are responsible for “the majority, if not all” of otherwise inexplicable sightings, especially reports of black triangle UFOs.

On December 1, 2009, the Ministry of Defence quietly closed down its UFO investigations unit. The unit’s hotline and email address were suspended by the MoD on that date. The MoD said there was no value in continuing to receive and investigate sightings in a release, stating

in over fifty years, no UFO report has revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom. The MoD has no specific capability for identifying the nature of such sightings. There is no Defence benefit in such investigation and it would be an inappropriate use of defence resources. Furthermore, responding to reported UFO sightings diverts MoD resources from tasks that are relevant to Defence.”

The Guardian reported that the MoD claimed the closure would save the Ministry around £50,000 a year. The MoD said that it would continue to release UFO files to the public through The National Archives.

Notable cases

According to records released on August 5, 2010, British wartime prime minister Winston Churchill banned the reporting for 50 years of an alleged UFO incident because of fears it could create mass panic. Reports given to Churchill asserted that the incident involved a Royal Air Force (RAF) reconnaissance aircraft returning from a mission in France or Germany toward the end of World War II. It was over or near the English coastline when it was allegedly intercepted by a strange metallic object that matched the aircraft’s course and speed for a time before accelerating away and disappearing. The aircraft’s crew were reported to have photographed the object, which they said had “hovered noiselessly” near the aircraft, before moving off.According to the documents, details of the coverup emerged when a man wrote to the government in 1999 seeking to find out more about the incident and described how his grandfather, who had served with the RAF in the war, was present when Churchill and U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower discussed how to deal with the UFO encounter. The files come from more than 5,000 pages of UFO reports, letters and drawings from members of the public, as well as questions raised in Parliament. They are available to download from The National Archives website.

In the April 1957 West Freugh incident in Scotland, named after the principal military base involved, two unidentified objects flying high over the UK were tracked by radar operators. The objects were reported to operate at speeds and perform maneuvers beyond the capability of any known craft. Also significant is their alleged size, which – based on the radar returns – was closer to that of a ship than an aircraft.

In the Rendlesham Forest incident of December 1980, U.S. military personnel witnessed UFOs near the air base at Woodbridge, Suffolk, over a period of three nights. On one night the deputy base commander, Colonel Charles I. Halt, and other personnel followed one or more UFOs that were moving in and above the forest for several hours. Col. Halt made an audio recording while this was happening and subsequently wrote an official memorandum summarizing the incident. After retirement from the military, he said that he had deliberately downplayed the event (officially termed ‘Unexplained Lights’) to avoid damaging his career. Other base personnel are said to have observed one of the UFOs, which had landed in the forest, and even gone up to and touched it.

Uruguay

The Uruguayan Air Force has conducted UFO investigations since 1989 and reportedly analyzed 2,100 cases of which they regard approximately 2% as lacking explanation.

Astronomer reports

The USAF’s Project Blue Book files indicate that approximately 1% of all unknown reports came from amateur and professional astronomers or other users of telescopes (such as missile trackers or surveyors). In 1952, astronomer J. Allen Hynek, then a consultant to Blue Book, conducted a small survey of 45 fellow professional astronomers. Five reported UFO sightings (about 11%). In the 1970s, astrophysicist Peter A. Sturrock conducted two large surveys of the AIAA and American Astronomical Society (AAS). About 5% of the members polled indicated that they had had UFO sightings.

Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who admitted to six UFO sightings, including three green fireballs, supported the Extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs and stated he thought scientists who dismissed it without study were being “unscientific.” Another astronomer was Lincoln LaPaz, who had headed the Air Force’s investigation into the green fireballs and other UFO phenomena in New Mexico. LaPaz reported two personal sightings, one of a green fireball, the other of an anomalous disc-like object. (Both Tombaugh and LaPaz were part of Hynek’s 1952 survey.) Hynek himself took two photos through the window of a commercial airliner of a disc-like object that seemed to pace his aircraft.

In 1980, a survey of 1800 members of various amateur astronomer associations by Gert Helb and Hynek for CUFOS found that 24% responded “yes” to the question “Have you ever observed an object which resisted your most exhaustive efforts at identification?”

Claims of increase in reports

In 2011, MUFON reported that UFO sightings referred to their offices had increased by 67% over the past three years as of June, 2011. According to MUFON international director Clifford Clift, “Over the past year, we’ve been averaging 500 sighting reports a month, compared to about 300 three years ago 7 percent,”.

According to the annual survey of reports conducted by Canadian-based UFO research group Ufology Research, reported UFO sightings doubled in Canada between 2011 and 2012.

In 2013 the Peruvian government’s Departamento de Investigación de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (Anomalous Aerial Phenomena Research Department), or “DIFAA”, was officially reactivated due to an increase in reported sightings. According to Colonel Julio Vucetich, head of the air force’s aerospace interests division (who himself claims to have seen an “anomalous aerial object”), “On a personal basis, it’s evident to me that we are not alone in this world or universe.”

In contrast, according to the UK-based Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP), reports of sightings in Britain to their office had declined by 96% from 1988 to 2012.

Identification of UFOs

Main article: Identification studies of UFOs

Fata Morgana, a type of mirage in which objects located below the astronomical horizon appear to be hovering in the sky just above the horizon, may be responsible for some UFO sightings.

Studies show that after careful investigation, the majority of UFOs can be identified as ordinary objects or phenomena. The most commonly found identified sources of UFO reports are:

• Astronomical objects (bright stars, planets, meteors, re-entering man-made spacecraft, artificial satellites, and the Moon)
• Aircraft (aerial advertising and other aircraft, missile launches)
• Balloons (toy balloons, weather balloons, large research balloons)
• Other atmospheric objects and phenomena (birds, unusual clouds, kites, flares)
• Light phenomena mirages, Fata Morgana, ball lightning, moon dogs, searchlights and other ground lights, etc.
• Hoaxes

A 1952–1955 study by the Battelle Memorial Institute for the USAF included these categories as well as a “psychological” one.

An individual 1979 study by CUFOS researcher Allan Hendry found, as did other investigations, that only a small percentage of cases he investigated were hoaxes (<1 %) and that most sightings were actually honest misidentifications of prosaic phenomena. Hendry attributed most of these to inexperience or misperception.

Claims by military, government, and aviation personnel

Since 2001 there have been calls for greater openness on the part of the government by various persons. In May 2001, a press conference was held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., by an organization called the Disclosure Project, featuring twenty persons including retired Air Force and FAA personnel, intelligence officers and an air traffic controller. They all gave a brief account of what they knew or had witnessed, and stated that they would be willing to testify to what they had said under oath to a Congressional committee. According to a 2002 report in the Oregon Daily Emerald, Disclosure Project founder Steven M. Greer has gathered 120 hours of testimony from various government officials on the topic of UFOs, including astronaut Gordon Cooper and a Brigadier General.

In 2007, former Arizona governor Fife Symington came forward and belatedly claimed that he had seen “a massive, delta-shaped craft silently navigate over Squaw Peak, a mountain range in Phoenix, Arizona” in 1997.

On September 27, 2010, a group of six former USAF officers and one former enlisted Air Force man held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on the theme “U.S. Nuclear Weapons Have Been Compromised by Unidentified Aerial Objects.” They told how they had witnessed UFOs hovering near missile sites and even disarming the missiles.

From April 29 to May 3, 2013, the Paradigm Research Group held the “Citizen Hearing on Disclosure” at the National Press Club. The group paid former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel and former Representatives Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Roscoe Bartlett, Merrill Cook, Darlene Hooley, and Lynn Woolsey $20,000 each to hear testimony from a panel of researchers which included witnesses from military, agency, and political backgrounds.

Apollo 14 astronaut Dr Edgar Mitchell claimed that he knew of senior government employees who had been involved in “close encounters” and because of this he has no doubt that aliens have visited Earth.

Main article: Extraterrestrial hypothesis

While technically a UFO refers to any unidentified flying object, in modern popular culture the term UFO has generally become synonymous with alien spacecraft; however, the term ETV (ExtraTerrestrial Vehicle) is sometimes used to separate this explanation of UFOs from totally earthbound explanations.

Associated claims

Besides anecdotal visual sightings, reports sometimes include claims of other kinds of evidence, including cases studied by the military and various government agencies of different countries (such as Project Blue Book, the Condon Committee, the French GEPAN/SEPRA, and Uruguay’s current Air Force study).

A comprehensive scientific review of cases where physical evidence was available was carried out by the 1998 Sturrock panel, with specific examples of many of the categories listed below.

• Radar contact and tracking, sometimes from multiple sites. These have included military personnel and control tower operators, simultaneous visual sightings, and aircraft intercepts. One such example were the mass sightings of large, silent, low-flying black triangles in 1989 and 1990 over Belgium, tracked by NATO radar and jet interceptors, and investigated by Belgium’s military (included photographic evidence). Another famous case from 1986 was the Japan Air Lines flight 1628 incident over Alaska investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
• Photographic evidence, including still photos, movie film, and video.
• Claims of physical trace of landing UFOs, including ground impressions, burned or desiccated soil, burned and broken foliage, magnetic anomalies, increased radiation levels, and metallic traces. (See, e. g. Height 611 UFO incident or the 1964 Lonnie Zamora’s Socorro, New Mexico encounter of the USAF Project Blue Book cases.) A well-known example from December 1980 was the USAF Rendlesham Forest incident in England. Another occurred in January 1981 in Trans-en-Provence and was investigated by GEPAN, then France’s official government UFO-investigation agency. Project Blue Book head Edward J. Ruppelt described a classic 1952 CE2 case involving a patch of charred grass roots.
• Physiological effects on people and animals including temporary paralysis, skin burns and rashes, corneal burns, and symptoms superficially resembling radiation poisoning, such as the Cash-Landrum incident in 1980.
• Animal/cattle mutilation cases, that some feel are also part of the UFO phenomenon.
• Biological effects on plants such as increased or decreased growth, germination effects on seeds, and blown-out stem nodes (usually associated with physical trace cases or crop circles)
• Electromagnetic interference (EM) effects. A famous 1976 military case over Tehran, recorded in CIA and DIA classified documents, was associated with communication losses in multiple aircraft and weapons system failure in an F-4 Phantom II jet interceptor as it was about to fire a missile on one of the UFOs.
• Apparent remote radiation detection, some noted in FBI and CIA documents occurring over government nuclear installations at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1950, also reported by Project Blue Book director Edward J. Ruppelt in his book.
• Claimed artifacts of UFOs themselves, such as 1957, Ubatuba, Brazil, magnesium fragments analyzed by the Brazilian government and in the Condon Report and by others. The 1964 Lonnie Zamora incident also left metal traces, analyzed by NASA. A more recent example involves a tear drop-shaped object recovered by Bob White and was featured in a television episode of UFO Hunters.
• Angel hair and angel grass, possibly explained in some cases as nests from ballooning spiders or chaff.

Ufology

Main article: Ufology

Ufology is a neologism describing the collective efforts of those who study UFO reports and associated evidence.

Researchers

Main article: List of ufologists

Sightings

Main article: List of reported UFO sightings

Organizations

Main article: List of UFO organizations

Categorization

Some ufologists recommend that observations be classified according to the features of the phenomenon or object that are reported or recorded. Typical categories include:

• Saucer, toy-top, or disk-shaped “craft” without visible or audible propulsion.
• Large triangular “craft” or triangular light pattern, usually reported at night.
• Cigar-shaped “craft” with lighted windows (meteor fireballs are sometimes reported this way, but are very different phenomena).
• Other: chevrons, (equilateral) triangles, crescent, boomerangs, spheres (usually reported to be shining, glowing at night), domes, diamonds, shapeless black masses, eggs, pyramids and cylinders, classic “lights.”

Popular UFO classification systems include the Hynek system, created by J. Allen Hynek, and the Vallée system, created by Jacques Vallée.

Hynek’s system involves dividing the sighted object by appearance, subdivided further into the type of “close encounter” (a term from which the film director Steven Spielberg derived the title of his 1977 UFO movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

Jacques Vallée’s system classifies UFOs into five broad types, each with from three to five subtypes that vary according to type.

Scientific skepticism

A scientifically skeptical group that has for many years offered critical analysis of UFO claims is the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI).

One example is the response to local beliefs that “extraterrestrial beings” in UFOs were responsible for crop circles appearing in Indonesia, which the government and the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) described as “man-made”. Thomas Djamaluddin, research professor of astronomy and astrophysics at LAPAN stated: “We have come to agree that this ‘thing’ cannot be scientifically proven. Scientists have put UFOs in the category of pseudoscience.”

Conspiracy theories

See also: UFO conspiracy theory, Steven M. Greer, Men in black, and Brookings Report

UFOs are sometimes an element of conspiracy theories in which governments are allegedly intentionally “covering up” the existence of aliens by removing physical evidence of their presence, or even collaborating with extraterrestrial beings. There are many versions of this story; some are exclusive, while others overlap with various other conspiracy theories.

In the U.S., an opinion poll conducted in 1997 suggested that 80% of Americans believed the U.S. government was withholding such information. Various notables have also expressed such views. Some examples are astronauts Gordon Cooper and Edgar Mitchell, Senator Barry Goldwater, Vice Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter (the first CIA director), Lord Hill-Norton (former British Chief of Defense Staff and NATO head), the 1999 French COMETA study by various French generals and aerospace experts, and Yves Sillard (former director of CNES, new director of French UFO research organization GEIPAN).

It has also been suggested by a few paranormal authors that all or most human technology and culture is based on extraterrestrial contact (see also ancient astronauts).

Famous hoaxes

Main article: List of UFO-related hoaxes

• The Maury Island incident
• George Adamski, over the space of two decades, made various claims about his meetings with telepathic aliens from nearby planets. He claimed that photographs of the far side of the Moon taken by the Soviet lunar probe Luna 3 in 1959 were fake, and that there were cities, trees and snow-capped mountains on the far side of the Moon. Among copycats was a shadowy British figure named Cedric Allingham.
• Ed Walters, a building contractor, in 1987 allegedly perpetrated a hoax in Gulf Breeze, Florida. Walters claimed at first having seen a small UFO flying near his home and took some photographs of the craft. Walters reported and documented a series of UFO sightings over a period of three weeks and took several photographs. These sightings became famous, and are collectively referred to as the Gulf Breeze UFO incident. Three years later, in 1990, after the Walters family had moved, the new residents discovered a model of a UFO poorly hidden in the attic that bore an undeniable resemblance to the craft in Walters’ photographs. Most investigators, like the forensic photo expert William G. Hyzer, now consider the sightings to be a hoax.

In popular culture

Main article: Extraterrestrials In Fiction

UFOs have constituted a widespread international cultural phenomenon since the 1950s. Gallup Polls rank UFOs near the top of lists for subjects of widespread recognition. In 1973, a survey found that 95 percent of the public reported having heard of UFOs, whereas only 92 percent had heard of U.S. President Gerald Ford in a 1977 poll taken just nine months after he left the White House. A 1996 Gallup Poll reported that 71 percent of the United States population believed that the U.S. government was covering up information regarding UFOs. A 2002 Roper Poll for the Sci-Fi Channel found similar results, but with more people believing that UFOs are extraterrestrial craft. In that latest poll, 56 percent thought UFOs were real craft and 48 percent that aliens had visited the Earth. Again, about 70 percent felt the government was not sharing everything it knew about UFOs or extraterrestrial life.

Another effect of the flying saucer type of UFO sightings has been Earth-made flying saucer craft in space fiction, for example the United Planets Cruiser C57D in Forbidden Planet (1956), the Jupiter 2 in Lost in Space, and the saucer section of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek, and many others.

UFOs and extraterrestrials have been featured in many movies.

See also

• Extraterrestrial Life
• Extraterrestrial Hypothesis
• Exotheology
• Extraterrestrial Intelligence
• Extraterrestrials In Fiction
• Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence
• Metaphysical Realms
• The Invisible Realm of Existence
• The Realm of Invisible Existence: Spirit, Angels, Jinn and Satan
• Supernormal Phenomena
• Roswell UFO Incident
• What is Ufology?
• UFO Religion
• Unidentified Flying Objects By United States Department Of Defense

Adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unidentified Flying Object (fiction)

The 1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg as printed in an illustrated news notice. UFO enthusiasts have described the phenomenon as an aerial battle of extraterrestrial origin. Skeptics find the phenomenon likely to have been a sun dog

Fata Morgana, a type of mirage in which objects located below the astronomical horizon appear to be hovering in the sky just above the horizon, may be responsible for some UFO sightings.