Unidentified flying object - UFO's
A UFO or unidentified flying object is any real or apparent flying object which remains unidentified after investigation.
The UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek described a UFO as "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."
Some people believe UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft, but most scientists and academics say there is no compelling evidence to support such a conclusion. Such skeptical attitudes adhere to a standard of research attributed to Carl Sagan that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". As a result, claims that UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft are generally dismissed through lack of evidence. Because of such beliefs, in pop culture, UFO is commonly used to refer to any hypothetical alien spacecraft, even ones that would be identified as such, despite the etymology.
History
Ancient accounts
Unusual aerial phenomena have been reported throughout history. Some of these strange apparitions may have been astronomical phenomena such as comets or bright meteors, or atmospheric optical phenomena such as parhelia. Examples of these reports include:
During the reign of the Pharaoh Thutmose III around 1450 BC, there is a description of multiple "circles of fire" brighter than the sun and about 5 meters in size that appeared over multiple days.[1] They finally disappeared after ascending higher in the sky.
The army of Alexander the Great in 329 BC, as they were crossing a river into India, saw "two silver shields" in the sky that dove repeatedly on their military columns causing panic. In 322 BC when Alexander was besieging Tyre in Phoenicia, another "flying shield" moving in triangular formation with smaller "shields" approached. Supposedly the larger object shot beams of light at the city shattering its walls and other defenses [2][3]. Alexander's army quickly took advantage of the situation and seized the city. The objects then departed.
The Roman author Julius Obsequens writes that in 99 BC, "in Tarquinia towards sunset, a round object, like a globe, a round or circular shield, took its path in the sky from west to east."
On September 24, 1235, General Yoritsume and his army observed unidentified globes of light flying in erratic patterns in the night sky near Kyoto, Japan. The Generals advises told him not to worry -- it was merely the wind causing the stars to sway. [4]
Circa 1491-1492, famous explorer Christopher Columbus had an account, in his journal, of lights that had seemed to come out of the sea, and vanished into the air.
On April 14, 1561 the skies over Nuremberg, Germany were reportedly filled with a multitude of objects seemingly engaged in an aerial battle. Small spheres and discs were said to emerge from large cylinders.[5] (image right)
These sightings were usually treated as supernatural portents, angels, and other religious omens. Some contemporary investigators believe them to be the ancient equivalent of modern UFO reports.
First modern reports
Before the terms "flying saucers" and "UFO"s were coined, there were a number of reports of strange, unidentified aerial phenomena. These reports date from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century. They include:
On January 25, 1878, The Denison Daily News wrote that local farmer John Martin had reported seeing a large, dark, circular flying object resembling a balloon flying "at wonderful speed."
On November 17, 1882, astronomer E. W. Maunder of the Greenwich Royal Observatory described in the Observatory Reports "a strange celestial visitor" that was "disc-shaped," "torpedo-shaped," or "spindle-shaped." It was said to be very different in characteristics from a meteor fireball. Years later, Maunder wrote it looked exactly like the new Zeppelin dirigibles. The strange object was also seen by several other European astronomers.[6]
In the late nineteenth century, sightings of large airships, often using searchlights, were sometimes conflated with extraterrestrial visitors. One of the most famous early reports was an 1897 crash of an airship of unknown origin in Aurora, Texas. Local news reported the recovery of the body of a "Martian pilot" in the crash.
On February 28, 1904, there was a sighting by three crew members on the U.S.S. Supply 300 miles west of San Francisco, reported by Lt. Frank Schofield, later to become Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet. Schofield wrote of three bright red egg-shaped and circular objects flying in echelon formation that approached beneath the cloud layer, then changed course and "soared" above the clouds, departing directly away from the earth after 2 to 3 minutes. The largest had an apparent size of about six suns. [7]
The so-called Fαtima incident or "The Miracle of the Sun," witnessed by tens of thousands in Fαtima, Portugal on October 13, 1917, is believed by some researchers to actually be a UFO event.
Between 1932 and 1937, there were hundreds of reports of large "ghost planes" over the Scandinavian nations, often reported using powerful searchlights and accompanied by multi-colored lights at much higher altitudes.
In both the European and Japanese aerial theatres during World War II, "Foo-fighters" (balls of light and other shapes that followed aircraft) were reported by both Allied and Axis pilots.
On February 25, 1942, an unidentified craft was detected over the California region. The craft stayed aloft despite taking at least 20 minutes worth of flak from ground batteries. The incident later became known as the Battle of Los Angeles, or the West coast air raid.
In 1946, there were over 2000 reports of unidentified aircraft in the Scandinavian nations, along with isolated reports from France, Portugal, Italy and Greece, then referred to as "Russian hail," and later as "ghost rockets," because it was thought that these mysterious objects were Russian tests of captured German V1 or V2 rockets. This was subsequently shown not to be the case, and the phenomenon remains unexplained. Over 200 were tracked on radar and deemed to be "real physical objects" by the Swedish military. A significant fraction of the remainder were thought to be misperceptions of natural phenomena, such as meteors.
Modern UFO era
The post World War II UFO phase in the United States began with a reported sighting by American businessman Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947 while flying his private plane near Mount Rainier, Washington. He reported seeing nine brilliantly bright objects flying across the face of Rainier towards nearby Mount Adams at "an incredible speed", which he calculated at at least 1200 miles an hour by timing their travel between Rainier and Adams. His sighting subsequently received significant media and public attention. Arnold would later say they "flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water" and also said they were "flat like a pie pan", "shaped like saucers," and "half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex in the rear. ...they looked like a big flat disk." (One, however, he would describe later as being almost crescent-shaped.) Arnold's reported descriptions caught the media's and the public's fancy and gave rise to the terms flying saucer and flying disk.
Arnold's sighting was followed in the next few weeks by several thousand other reported sightings, mostly in the U.S., but in other countries as well. Perhaps the most significant of these was a United Airlines crew sighting of nine more disc-like objects over Idaho on the evening of July 4. This sighting was even more widely reported than Arnold's and lent considerable credence to Arnold's report. For the next few days most American newspapers were filled with front-page stories of the new "flying saucers" or "flying discs." Starting with official debunkery that began the night of July 8 with the Roswell UFO incident, reports rapidly tapered off, ending the first big U.S. UFO wave.
Starting July 9, Army Air Force intelligence, in cooperation with the FBI, secretly began a formal investigation into the best sightings, which included Arnold's and the United crew. The FBI was told that intelligence was using "all of its scientists" to determine whether or not "such a phenomenon could, in fact, occur." Furthermore, 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." (Maccabee, 5) Three weeks later they concluded that, "This 'flying saucer' situation is not all imaginary or seeing too much in some natural phenomenon. Something is really flying around." [8] A further review by the intelligence and technical divisions of the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field reached the same conclusion, 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 either manual, automatic, or remote control. It was thus recommended in late September 1947 that an official Air Force investigation be set up to investigate the phenomenon. [9] This led to the creation of the Air Force's Project Sign at the end of 1947, which became Project Grudge at the end of 1948, and then Project Blue Book in 1952. Blue Book closed down in 1970, ending the official Air Force UFO investigations.
Use of "UFO" instead of "flying saucer" was first suggested in 1952 by Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, the first director of Project Blue Book, who felt that "flying saucer" did not reflect the diversity of the sightings. Ruppelt suggested that "UFO" should be pronounced as a word "you-foe". However it is generally pronounced by forming each letter: "U.F.O." His term was quickly adopted by the Air Force, which also briefly used "UFOB" circa 1954. (See next paragraph.) Ruppelt recounted his experiences with Project Blue Book in his memoir, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956), also the first book [10] to use the term.
Air Force Regulation 200-2, issued in 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." Furthermore, Air Force personnel were directed not to discuss unexplained cases with the press.[11]
UFOs in popular culture
Beginning in the 1950s, UFO-related spiritual sects, sometimes referred to as contactee cults, began to appear. Most often the members of these sects rallied around a central individual, who claimed to either have made personal contact with space-beings, or claimed to be in telepathic contact with them. Prominent among such individuals was George Adamski, who claimed to have met a tall, blond-haired Venusian named "Orthon," who came to warn us about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Adamski was widely dismissed, but an Adamski Foundation still exists, publishing and selling Adamski's writings. At least two of these sects developed a substantial number of adherents, most notably The Aetherius Society, founded by British mystic George King in 1956, and the Unarius Foundation, established by "Ernest L." and Ruth Norman in 1954. A standard theme of the alleged messages from outer-space beings to these cults was a warning about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. More recent groups organized around an extraterrestrial theme include Ummo, Heaven's Gate, Raλl, and the Ashtar Command. Many of the early UFO sects, as well as later ones, share a tendency to incorporate ideas from both Christianity and various eastern religions, "hybridizing" these with ideas pertaining to extraterrestrials and their benevolent concern with the people of Earth.
The notion of contactee cults gained a new twist during the 1980s, primarily in the USA, with the publication of books by Whitley Strieber (beginning with Communion) and Jacques Vallee (Passport to Magonia). Strieber, a horror writer, felt that aliens were harassing him and were responsible for "missing time" during which he was subjected to strange experiments by 'grey aliens'. This newer, darker model can be seen in the subsequent wave of "alien abduction" literature, and in the background mythos of The X Files and many other TV series.
However, even in the alien abduction literature, motives of the aliens run the gamut from hostile to benevolent. For example, researcher David Jacobs believes we are undergoing a form of stealth invasion through genetic assimilation. The theme of genetic manipulation (though not necessarily an invasion) is also strongly reflected in the writings of Budd Hopkins. The late Harvard psychiatrist John Mack (1929-2004) believed that the aliens' ethical bearing was to take a role as "tough-love" gurus trying to impart wisdom. James Harder says abductees predominantly report positive interactions with aliens, most of whom have benevolent intentions and express concern about human survival.
An interesting 1970s-era development was a renewal and broadening of ideas associating UFOs with supernatural or preternatural subjects such as occultism, cryptozoology, and parapsychology. Some 1950s contactee cultists had incorporated various religious and occult ideas into their beliefs about UFOs, but in the 1970s this was repeated on a considerably larger scale. Many participants in the New Age movement came to believe in alien contact, both through mediumistic channeling and through literal, physical contact. A prominent spokesperson for this trend was and is actress Shirley MacLaine, especially in her book and miniseries, Out On a Limb. The 1970s saw the publication of many New Age books in which ideas about UFOs and extraterrestrials figured prominently.
Another key development in 1970s UFO folklore came with the publication of Erich von Dδniken's book Chariots of the Gods. The book argued that aliens have been visiting Earth for thousands of years, which he purported to explain UFO-like images from various archeological sources as well as unsolved mysteries. Such ideas were not exactly new. For example, earlier in his career, astronomer Carl Sagan in Intelligent Life in the Universe (1966) had similarly argued that aliens could have been visiting the Earth sporadically for millions of years. "Ancient astronauts" proposals inspired numerous imitators, sequels, and fictional adaptations, including one book (Barry Downing's The Bible and Flying Saucers) which interprets miraculous aerial phenomena in the Bible as records of alien contact. Many of these interpretations posit that aliens have been guiding human evolution, an idea taken up earlier by the novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
UFOs constitute a widespread international cultural phenomenon of the last half-century. Folklorist Thomas E. Bullard writes, "UFOs have invaded modern consciousness in overwhelming force, and endless streams of books, magazine articles, tabloid covers, movies, TV shows, cartoons, advertisements, greeting cards, toys, T-shirts, even alien-head salt and pepper shakers, attest to the popularity of this phenomenon. 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 President Gerald Ford in a 1977 poll taken just nine months after he left the White House. (Bullard, 141) A 1996 Gallup poll reported that 71 percent of the United States' population believed that the 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 were 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. [12]
Research
Ufology is a neologism coined to describe the collective efforts of investigators who study UFO reports and associated evidence. While ufology does not represent an academic research program, UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years, varying widely in scope and scientific rigor. Governments or independent academics in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, and the Soviet Union are known to have investigated UFO reports at various times. Among the best-known major studies was:
The Ghost rockets study (1946-1947) by the Swedish and Greek militaries
Project Blue Book, probably the best known study, previously Project Sign and Project Grudge, conducted by the United States Air Force from 1947 until 1970.
The Green Fireballs/Project Twinkle investigation (1948-1951), by the USAF
The Robertson Panel (1953), organized by the CIA
The Brookings Report (1960), commissioned by NASA
The Condon Committee (1966-1968), commissioned by the USAF
The Sturrock Panel (1998), a private scientific study
The French GEPAN/SEPRA studies (1977-2004), by the French government, run by the French space agency CNES
The French COMETA (1996-1999), a private study by high French military officers and aerospace experts, many associated with SEPRA
No national government has ever publicly suggested that UFOs represent any form of alien intelligence. However, a few internal, classified government studies have suggested this or had individuals associated with them who have held such opinions. Examples are the 1948 Estimate of the Situation by Project Sign personnel and the heads of the French GEPAN/SEPRA studies, who have publicly supported the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis.
UFO categorization
Some researchers 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. (day and night)
Rapidly-moving lights or lights with apparent ability to rapidly change direction"
Large triangular "craft" or triangular light pattern
Cigar-shaped "craft" with lighted windows (Meteor fireballs are sometimes reported this way).
Other: chevrons, equilateral triangles, spheres, domes, diamonds, shapeless black masses, eggs, and cylinders.
Hynek system
J. Allen Hynek developed another commonly used system of description, dividing sightings into six categories. It first separates sightings into distant- and close-encounter categories, arbitrarily setting 500 feet as the cutoff point. It then subdivides these close and distant categories based on appearance or special features. The three distant-encounter categories are:
Nocturnal Lights (NL): Anomalous lights seen in the night sky.
Daylight Discs (DD): Any anomalous object, generally but not necessarily "discoidal", seen in the distant daytime sky.
Radar/Visual cases (RV). Objects seen simultaneously by eye and on radar.
Subgroups of the distant category of sightings correlate with evidentiary value. RV cases are usually considered to have the highest value because of radar corroboration, whereas NL cases have the lowest because it is so easy to mistake lights seen at night for prosaic phenomena such as meteors, bright stars, or aircraft. RV reports are also fewest in number, while NL are most common.
Hynek also defined three "close encounter" (CE) subcategories:
CE1: Strange objects seen nearby but without physical interaction with the environment.
CE2: A CE1 case that leaves physical evidence (e.g. soil depressions, vegetation damage) or causes electromagnetic interference (see below).
CE3: CE1 or CE2 cases where "occupants" or entities are seen. (Hence the title of Steven Spielberg's movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.)
Like the RV cases, CE cases are considered higher in evidentiary value because they include measurable physical effects, and because objects seen up close are less likely to be the result of misperception. Like the RV cases, these tend to be relatively rare.
Hynek's CE classification system has since been expanded to include such things as alleged alien abductions and cattle mutilation phenomena.
Vallee System
Jacques Vallee has devised a UFO classification system which is preferred by many UFO investigators over Hynek' system as it is considerably more descriptive than Hynek's, especially in terms of the reported behavior of UFOs.
Type - I (a, b,c, d)- Observation of an unusual object, spherical discoidal, or of another geometry, on or situated close to the ground (tree height, or lower), which may be associated with traces - thermal, luminous, or mechanical effects.
a - On or near ground.
b - Near or over body of water.
c - Occupants appear to display interest in witnesses by gestures or
luminous signals.
d - Object appears to be "scouting" a terrestrial vehicle.
Type - II (a, b,c) - Observation of an unusual object with vertical cylindrical formation in the sky, associated with a diffuse cloud. This phenomenon has been given various names such as "cloud-cigar" or "cloud-sphere."
a - Moving erratically through the sky
b - Object is stationary and gives rise to secondary objects (sometimes referred to as "satellite objects")
c - Object is surrounded by secondary objects
Type - III (a, b,c, d,e)- Observation of an unusual object of spherical, discoidal or elliptical shape, stationary in the sky.
a - Hovering between two periods of motion with "falling-leaf" descent, up and down, or pendulum motion
b - Interruption of continuous flight to hover and then continue motion
c - Alters appearance while hovering - e.g., change of luminosity, generation of secondary object, etc.
d - "Dogfights" or swarming among several objects
e - Trajectory abruptly altered during continuous flight to fly slowly above a certain area, circle, or suddenly change course
Type IV (a, b,c, d) - Observation of an unusual object in continuous flight.
a - Continuous flight
b - Trajectory affected by nearby conventional aircraft
c - Formation flight
d - Wavy or zig-zag trajectory
Type V (a, b,c)- Observation of an unusual object of indistinct appearance, i.e., appearing to be not fully material or solid in structure.
a - Extended apparent diameter, non-point source luminous objects ("fuzzy")
b - Starlike objects (point source), motionless for extended periods
c - Starlike objects rapidly crossing the sky, possibly with peculiar trajectories
Source: 1. Jacques and Janine Vallee: Challenge To Science: The UFO Enigma, LC# 66-25843
Physical evidence
Besides visual sightings, cases sometimes have alleged associated physical evidence. Some of these cases have been shown to be deliberate hoaxes. Others have been shown to be explainable as natural or manmade phenomena. The remaining fraction have been labeled unidentified or unexplainable. Analyses of such cases have results that are usually ambiguous or inconclusive.
A list of various purported physical evidence cases from government and private studies includes:
Radar contact and tracking, sometimes from multiple sites. These cases often involve trained military personnel and control tower operators, 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, tracked by multiple NATO radar and jet interceptors, and investigated by Belgium's military (included photographic evidence). [13] Another famous case from 1986 was the JAL 1628 case over Alaska investigated by the FAA. [14]
Photograpic evidence, including still photos, movie film, and video [15]
Recorded gravimetric and magnetic disturbances (extremely rare)
Landing physical trace evidence, including ground impressions, burned and/or desiccated soil, burned and broken foliage, magnetic anomalies, increased radiation levels, and metallic traces. [16]
Physiological effects have been reported including skin burns and symptoms resembling radiation poisoning. [17]
Animal/Cattle Mutilation cases, that some feel are also part of the UFO phenomenon. Such cases can and have been analyzed using forensic science techniques. [18]
Biological effects on plants such as increased or decreased growth, germination effects on seeds, and elongated and blown-out stem nodes (usually associated with physical trace cases or crop circles) [19]
Electromagnetic interference (EM) effects, including stalled cars, power black-outs, radio/TV interference, magnetic compass deflections, and aircraft navigation, communication, and engine disruption. [20]
Remote nuclear 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. [21]
Hard physical evidence cases, such as 1957, Ubatuba, Brazil, magnesium fragments analyzed by the Brazilian government and in the Condon Report and by others. The 1964 Socorro/Lonnie Zamora incident also left metal traces, analyzed by NASA.
Misc. electromagnetic phenomena, such as microwaves detected in the well-known 1957 RB-47 surveillance aircraft case, which was also a visual and radar case; [22] polarization rings claimed to be observed around a UFO by a scientist, explained by James Harder as intense magnetic fields from the UFO causing the Faraday effect. [23]
These various reported physical evidence cases have been studied by various scientist and engineers, both privately and in official governmental studies (such as Project Blue Book, the Condon Committee, and the French GEPAN/SEPRA). A comprehensive scientific review of physical evidence cases was carried out by the 1998 Sturrock UFO panel.[24]
Explanations and Opinions
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.
Nevertheless, many cases remained unexplained. An Air Force study by Battelle Memorial Institute scientists in 1954 of 3200 USAF cases found 22 percent were unknowns, and with the best cases, 35 percent remained unsolved. Similarly about 30 percent of the UFO cases studied by the 1969 USAF Condon Committee were deemed unsolved when reviewed by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).[25] The official French government UFO scientific study (GEPAN/SEPRA) from 1976 to 2004 listed about 14 percent of 5800 cases as inexplicable. [26]
Despite the unexplained cases, many skeptics of the phenomenon in the mainstream scientific community, such as astronomer Carl Sagan, have continued to say that no UFO sighting requires extraordinary explanations. [27] Instead, it is asserted that all may still be ultimately explained by the usual prosaic explanations of misidentification of natural and man-made phenomena, hoaxes, and various psychological phenomena. Proponents, however, counter that these are all unprovable arguments by assertion and also contradicted by the scientific studies that have been conducted which have already rejected such prosaic explanations as inadequate.
Skeptics say that most evidence is ultimately derived from notoriously unreliable eyewitness accounts. Very little in the way of solid physical evidence has been reported, and because UFO sightings are transitory events, there is no opportunity for the repeat testing called for by scientific method. Ockham's razor is invoked by such skeptics since it is considered less incredible for the explanations to be the result of scientifically verified phenomena rather than resulting from novel mechanisms (e.g. the extraterrestrial hypothesis).
Popular ideas for explaining UFOs
To account for hardcore unsolved cases, a number of explanations have been proposed by both proponents and skeptics. Among proponents, some of the more common explanations for UFOs are:
The Extraterrestrial Visitation Hypothesis (ETH) (most popular)
The Interdimensional Hypothesis
The Paranormal/Occult Hypothesis
The hypothesis that they are time machines or vehicles built in a future time.
Similarly, skeptics usually propose the following explanations:
The Psychological-Social Hypothesis
The man-made craft hypothesis (see Military flying saucers)
The unknown natural phenomena hypothesis, e.g. ball lightning, sprites
The Earthlights/Tectonic Strain hypothesis
Usually a combination of explanations is cited to explain all cases, and even proponents will sometimes invoke skeptical explanations, such as man-made craft, to possibly account for some unsolved cases.
Identified flying objects (IFOs)
It has been estimated from various studies that 50-90 percent of all reported UFO sightings are eventually identified, while typically 10-20 percent remain unidentified (the remainder being "garbage cases" with insufficient information). Studies also show only a tiny percentage of UFO reports to be deliberate hoaxes; most are honest misidentifications of natural and man-made phenomena.
Generally studies indicate that misidentifications fall into three basic categories: astronomical causes (planets, stars, meteors, etc.), aircraft, and balloons. These typically account for 80-90 percent of the IFOs, with all other causes (such as birds, clouds, mirages, searchlights, etc.) being rare and accounting for the remainder.
The actual percentages of IFOs vs. UFOs depends on who is doing the study and can vary widely depending on the used database, evaluation criteria, personal biases, and politics. Results can also fluctuate from year to year.
Hoaxes
Among the many people who have reported UFO sightings, some have been exposed as hoaxers. Not all alleged hoax exposures are certain, however, and many claimants have stuck by their stories, leaving the determination of specific cases as hoaxes contentious. Some of the controversial subjects include these:
Contactees such as George Adamski, who said he went on flights in UFOs. (Some believers even contend he had real experiences and later fictionalized others, leaving the subject murky.)
Billy Meier, some of whose photographs have been discredited.
Ed Walters of the Gulf Breeze, Florida UFO reports.
Documents surrounding Majestic 12, a purportedly supersecret high-level United States UFO information management group formed during the Truman administration.
The Maury Island Incident
The alleged Aztec UFO crash [28]
The Ummo affair, a series of detailed letters and documents allegedly from extraterrestrials.
An online list of reportedly discredited sightings [29]
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.
Carl G. Jung, the Swiss analytical psychologist, published a book about UFOs in 1957 (Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies). In it, he approached them, without addressing the question of their existence, as objects of the collective unconscious and modern archetypes.
Conspiracy theories
UFOs are sometimes an element of conspiracy theories 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.
Allegations of evidence suppression
Some also contend that physical evidence of UFOs is sometimes swiftly and clumsily suppressed by governments, aiming to insulate a population they regard as unprepared for the social, theological, and security implications of such evidence. See the Brookings Report.
There have been allegations of suppression of UFO related evidence for many decades. (See also Men in Black) Some examples are:
On July 7, 1947, William Rhodes took photos of an unusual object over Phoenix, Arizona.[30] The photos appeared in a Phoenix newspaper and a few other papers. According to documents from Project Bluebook, an Army counter-intelligence (CIC) agent and an FBI agent interviewed Rhodes on August 29 and convinced him to surrender the negatives. The CIC agent deliberately concealed his true identity, leaving Rhodes to believe both men were from the FBI. Rhodes said he wanted the negatives back, but when he turned them into the FBI the next day, he was informed he wouldn't be getting them back. [31] The photos were extensively analyzed and would eventually show up in some classified Air Force UFO intelligence reports. [32]
A June 27, 1950, movie of a "flying disk" over Louisville, Kentucky, taken by a Louisville Courier-Journal photographer, had the USAF Directors of counterintelligence (AFOSI) and intelligence discussing in memos how to best obtain the movie and interview the photographer without revealing Air Force interest. One memo said "it would be nice if OSI could arrange to secure a copy of the film in some covert manner," but if that wasn't feasible, one of the Air Force scientists might have to negotiate directly with the newspaper. [33]
In another 1950 movie incident from Montana, Nicholas Mariana filmed some unusual aerial objects and eventually turned the film over to the U.S. Air Force, but insisted that the first part of the film, clearly showing the objects as spinning discs, had been removed when it was returned to him. [34]
During the military investigation of Green Fireballs in New Mexico, UFOs were photographed by a tracking camera over White Sands Proving Grounds on April 27, 1949. The final report in 1951 on the green fireball investigation said there was insufficient data to determine anything. But documents later uncovered by Bruce Maccabee indicate that triangulation was accomplished. The data reduction and photographs showed four objects about 30 feet in diameter flying in formation at high speed at an altitude of about 30 miles. Maccabee says this result was apparently suppressed from the final report. [35]
The Robertson Panel: This is a CIA initiated plan intended to suppress any and all UFO and/or alien reports. Since shrinks are used, those reporting these matters are to be treated as being mentally ill, thus have no credibility and/or social standing at all. It was initiated in 1952 after Washington, D.C. was involved in a major UFO incident, to ostensibly prevent panic that could be taken advantage of by hostile powers, such as the USSR. This protocol is still being followed today.
Project Blue Book director Edward J. Ruppelt reported that, in 1952, a U.S. Air Force pilot fired his jet's machine guns at a UFO, and that the official report which should have been sent to Blue Book was quashed. 1952 newspaper articles of USAF jets being ordered to shoot down saucers[36]
Astronaut Gordon Cooper reported suppression of a flying saucer movie filmed in high clarity by two Edwards AFB range photographers on May 3, 1957. Cooper said he viewed developed negatives of the object, clearly showing a dish-like object with a dome on top and something like holes or ports in the dome. The photographers and another witness, when later interviewed by James McDonald, confirmed the story. Cooper said military authorities then picked up the film and neither he nor the photographers ever heard what happened to it. The incident was also reported in a few newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times. The official explanation, however, was that the photographers had filmed a weather balloon distorted by hot desert air. [37]
On January 22, 1958, when NICAP director Donald Keyhoe appeared on CBS television, his statements on UFOs were precensored by the Air Force. During the show when Keyhoe tried to depart from the censored script to "reveal something that has never been disclosed before," CBS cut the sound, later stating Keyhoe was about to violate "predetermined security standards" and about to say something he wasn't "authorized to release." What Keyhole was about to reveal were four publicly unknown military studies concluding UFOs were interplanetary (including the 1948 Project Sign Estimate of the Situation and Blue Book's 1952 engineering analysis of UFO motion). [38]
Astronomer Jacques Vallee reported that in 1961 he witnessed the destruction of the tracking tapes of unknown objects orbiting the Earth. (However, Vallee indicated that this didn't happen because of government pressure but because the senior astronomers involved didn't want to deal with the implications.)
In 1965, Rex Heflin took four widely-published Polaroid photos of a hat-shaped UFO near Santa Ana, California. Two years later (1967), two men posing as NORAD agents confiscated three prints. Just as mysteriously, the photos were suddenly returned to his mailbox in 1993. [39]
A March 1, 1967 memo directed to all USAF divisions, from USAF Lt. General Hewitt Wheless, Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, stated that unverified information indicated that unknown individuals, impersonating USAF officers and other military personnel, had been harassing civilian UFO witnesses, warning them not to talk, and also confiscating film, referring specifically to the Heflin incident. AFOSI was to be notified if any personnel were to become aware of any other incidents. [40].
In the 1986 JAL radar/visual case over Alaska (see Physical evidence/radar), FAA manager John Callahan stated that he briefed the CIA, President Reagan's scientific staff, and others on the FAA's analysis of the radar and voice data tapes. At the end of the briefing, Callahan said the CIA advised that they were "confiscating all the data, this event never happened, we were never here, and you are all sworn to secrecy." In addition, they were advised to not notify the media as "it would scare the public." [41]
In the documentary "First on the Moon: The Untold Story," astronaut Buzz Aldrin says he, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins all saw a UFO shadowing their spacecraft. "There was something out there, close enough to be observed, and what could it be?" Alderin explained. He says NASA knew about the UFO but covered up the information.[42][43]
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