Unidentified flying object

See also: Extraterrestrial intelligence

Unidentified flying objects (UFOs or U.F.O.s) are aerial phenomena that cannot be readily explained as natural or man-made. Most sightings of 'UFO's turn out to be explained by aircraft, birds, heavenly bodies, or other everyday objects. Some can be explained as errors produced internally to a radar, electro-optical, or other sensor, some arise from sensory illusions, and some are hoaxes.

The Kenneth Arnold sighting

UFOs became popularly known as flying saucers after a story in the East Oregonian newspaper, on June 26, 1947, reported salesman Kenneth Arnold's sighting of extremely fast-moving, "saucer-like objects" while flying a private plane. A follow-up newspaper story coined the term "flying saucer" to describe the objects that Arnold reported sighting.

In the USA, sightings increased sharply after the Kenneth Arnold sighting, and most were conflated into claims of "flying saucers" or other "vehicles from outer space" that some believed were directed by extraterrestrial intelligences—some skeptics called this "mass hysteria" or "mass delusion". In 1947 the U.S. government began studying them, often in classified projects.

All investigators concede that some aerial sightings remain unexplained even after examination, but most dismiss the notion that there is any credible evidence that Earth is being, or has been, visited by creatures from other worlds. The U.S. government is not known to have specific investigations underway, but the French space agency CNES has a group for the study of 'unidentified aerospace phenomena.' Among scientists, electronic contact is considered much more likely, resulting in active programs such as the radio-oriented Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Roswell incident

In July 1947, a press release issued by the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) public information officer stated that the field's 509th Bomb Group had recovered a crashed "flying disk" from a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. The next day, the press reported the Commanding General of the Eighth Air Force as stated that, in fact, a radar-tracking balloon had been recovered by the RAAF personnel, not a "flying disc." A press conference was shown debris from the crashed object, which seemed to confirm the weather balloon description.

However, thirty years later, in 1978, Major Jesse Marcel, who had been involved with the original recovery of the debris, was interviewed by a ufologist, Stanton T. Friedman. In that interview, Marcel claimed that the military had covered up the recovery of an alien spacecraft. The story was rapidly embellished with allegations of further cover-ups, autopsies of alien bodies, and intimidation of witnesses.

After congressional pressure, the General Accounting Office directed the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force to conduct an investigation. This led to two reports. "The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert" concluded that the material recovered in 1947 was probably debris from a secret government program, 'Project Mogul', which used high altitude balloons to detect sound waves generated by Soviet atomic bomb tests and ballistic missiles. The second report, released in 1997, concluded that reports of recovered alien bodies were probably a combination of mistaken memories of military accidents and of the recovery of anthropomorphic dummies in military programs, and hoaxes perpetrated by witnesses and UFO proponents.

"The Air Force research did not locate or develop any information that the "Roswell Incident" was a UFO event nor was there any indication of a "cover-up" by the Government. Information obtained through exhaustive records searches and interviews indicated that the materials recovered near Roswell was consistent with a balloon devise of the type used in a then classified project. No records indicated or even hinted at the recovery of "alien" bodies or extraterrestrial materials."

Ufology

There is a movement, loosely called ufology or Ufology, that investigates and reports phenomena. Much of the reporting is anecdotal and unscientific, but some of the leadership of UFO research centers, such as Mark Rodeghier of the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and French born UFO researcher Jacques Vallée, participate in much more technical discussions, such as the 1997 symposium on physical evidence from UFOs. Physicist Stanton Friedman is an established UFO researcher. Another is physicist Dr. Bruce Maccabee, who was a member of National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and who later started the Fund for UFO Research. Maccabee has investigated numerous UFO sightings including the Kennet Arnold UFO sighting, the JAL UFO sighting, the Iran Jet case in 1976 and the Gulf Breeze UFO sightings.

Other organizations, such as the Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE), study UFOs, but not as their sole focus. Peter Sturrock, now Emeritus Professor of Physics at Stanford University, who directed the 1997 "Physical Evidence from UFO Reports" study, "expressed the opinion that this problem will be resolved only by extensive and open professional scientific investigation, and that an essential prerequisite of such research is that more scientists acquire an interest in this topic." However, Philip Klass has written that "SSE’s annual conferences typically feature several pro-UFO speakers, but no UFO-skeptics. For example, at SSE’s 1996 conference there were four pro-UFO speakers, but no skeptics.

In June 2010, James Carrion, formerly international director of the Mutual UFO Network, set up the Center for UFO Truth, to "answer one question – did the United States and its allies purposely create the UFO myth as part of a cold war deception operation? It makes sense to include the subject of CUT’s research efforts in its title."

Criteria for reliable observation

Visual light spectrum

The 1997 symposium said "The panel expressed the opinion that detailed analysis of photographic evidence was unlikely by itself to yield evidence sufficient to convince a neutral scientist of the reality of a new strange phenomenon unless a number of additional detailed conditions are met.... They also expressed concern that, now that modern digital techniques are easily available in photo laboratories, it may never be possible to rule out possible hoaxes without convincing, corroborative eye-witness accounts."

Photography

Richard Haines discussed UFO photography, and observations on best photographic and interpretive practice. "...one must be careful to fully document seemingly unimportant details concerning the person taking the photograph, the social situation which surrounded the photograph(s), the camera-lens-film data, the developing-printing- enlarging activities and the manner in which the photograph came to the attention of the investigator. Since such a photograph image is only as credible as the photographer who took it, one must exercise "due diligence" in each of the above areas. Many older UFO photographs remain useless artifacts of the UFO enigma because the investigator did not or could not obtain all of the relevant background information. "

Luminosity

Considerable attention was given to luminosity of objects, which were often described as very bright lights. This is especially important in the reports of the French astronomer and UFO researcher, Jacques Vallée. He described six visual sightings, with estimates of power into the megawatt range. "Vallée cautioned the panel that the estimates of luminosity presented at the workshop are raw approximations derived from a comparison of the estimated intensity in the visible band with the intensity of known sources, such as the full moon and automobile headlights, and from assumptions concerning the distance and perhaps size of the source. The panel noted that the human eye is a very poor device for measuring absolute luminosities: the state of dark adaptation of the eye affects the amount of light reaching the retina, and different parts of the retina respond differently to light. Furthermore, the above luminosity estimates were apparently based on the assumption of isotropic emission. This may be a reasonable assumption for a natural phenomenon, but could be inappropriate if a case involves a technological device. For instance, aircraft landing lights are highly anisotropic. A 1 kW source that is beamed with a half-angle of 3.6 degrees has the same intensity as a 1 Mw isotropic emitter. Furthermore, the distance estimates may be quite dubious. Hence the power estimates derived for the above cases must be considered quite uncertain."

Radar

See also: Radar MASINT

While radar technology has improved constantly since 1947, the 1997 symposium warned against accepting radar reports without other confirmation. With UFOs, the challenge is having a radar within range of a sighting, and agetting full access to military records, as military radar is far more informative about object analysis than is civilian air traffic control. In the 1990s, however, the Swiss and French militaries provided UFO researchers with substantial access. Two incidents provided correlated visual and radar information.

However, even advanced military radars may reject contacts that do not meet preprogrammed plausibility parameters. While ballistic missile defense, space launch and surveillance, and Radar MASINT systems have a wider tactical range, typical air defense radars will not display contacts that have speeds above Mach 4-6.

History

Since the advent of aviation, there have been both instrumental and visual detections of things that could not be explained at the time. The term "gremlin" was used to describe, among other electronic phenomena, unexplained readings from World War II radar systems. There are also many misidentifications, such as the interpretation of the radar detection of the incoming Japanese force at the Battle of Pearl Harbor as incoming friendly B-17 bombers.

When the AN/FPS-50 early warning radar, part of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), went into service in 1960, it soon reported a massive Soviet missile attack on the U.S., which proved to be due to unexpected reflections of the radar beam from the Moon.

Project BLUE BOOK

In 1947, the U.S. Air Force began 'Project Blue Book' to collate UFO sightings. It was terminated after the Condon Report (see later) led the Secretary of the Air Force to decide there was no national security value to continuing investigations. A total of 12,618 sightings were reported to the Project, of which 701 remained "Unidentified." Records of the project are in the U.S. National Archives.

Another Air Force report, on the Roswell Incident, was issued in 1997. The J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) (see below) disputes this report.

Central Intelligence Agency

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents indicate that the agency monitored the UFO situation from 1952. In 1952, the CIA reacted to the new rash of sightings by forming a special study group within the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) and the Office of Current Intelligence (OCI). Edward Tauss reported for the group that most UFO sightings could be easily explained, but recommended that the Agency continue monitoring the problem, in coordination with the Air Force Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC). He also urged that CIA conceal its interest from the media and the public, "in view of their probable alarmist tendencies".

Upon receiving the report, Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI) Robert Amory, Jr. assigned responsibility for the UFO investigations to OSI's Physics and Electronics Division. Amory, who asked the group to focus on the national security implications of UFOs, was relaying DCI Walter Bedell Smith's concerns. Smith wanted to know whether or not the Air Force investigation of flying saucers was sufficiently objective and how much more money and manpower would be necessary to determine the cause of the small percentage of unexplained flying saucers. Smith believed "there was only one chance in 10,000 that the phenomenon posed a threat to the security of the country, but even that chance could not be taken." According to Smith, it was CIA's responsibility by statute to coordinate the intelligence effort required to solve the problem. Smith also wanted to know what use could be made of the UFO phenomenon in connection with US psychological warfare efforts.

Condon Report

After the BLUE BOOK report, in 1967, the Air Force issued a contract, to the University of Colorado, for the study of UFOs. The principal investigator from the University was Dr. E.U. Condon, director of the National Bureau of Standards from 1946 to 1950. The project gained some support from the Central Intelligence Agency.

The 'Condon Report' was published in 1969. A panel of the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the report and observed

The Report recognizes that there remain UFO sightings that are not easily explained. The Report does not suggest, however, so many reasonable and possible directions in which an explanation may eventually be found, that there seems to be no reason to attribute them to an extraterrestrial source without evidence that is much more convincing. The Report also shows how difficult it is to apply scientific methods to the occasional transient sightings with any chance of success. 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. On the basis of present knowledge the least likely explanation of UFOs is the hypothesis of extraterrrestrial visitations by intelligent beings.

French space agency

In 1977, CNES, the French space agency, set up a unit to record witness accounts of supposedly abnormal phenomena observed in the sky.

They noted there is a perfectly normal explanation for the vast majority of “sightings”, such as the Moon rising, unusual clouds or space debris re-entering the atmosphere. They classified 1600 sightings into four categories:

• Type A: Complete identification of the phenomenon
• Type B: Probable identification.
• Type C: Inadequate information for analysis
• Type D: Observations are consistent and accurate but cannot be explained in terms of conventional phenomena. 9% of sightings were in this category.

UFO Classification

In the United States, there are two well known UFO groups: the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) founded by J. Allen Hynek, who was the chairman of astronomy at Northwestern University; and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) lead by Allen Utke, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Wisconsin State University. There is also work by a French-born researcher, Jacques Vallée.

Hynek originally doubted that the reports had any substance, but later changed his mind during his research with Project BLUE BOOK.. CUFOS collects UFO reports, maintains a UFO research library, and offers two publications concerning the UFO phenomena.

There are two major systems for classifying the reports, first based on shape and other visually observed characteristics, movement, and interaction with the environment or possible entities. In addition, some large data bases categorize by shape or other aspects of visual observations.

Some of these classifications assume not only an object that could not be explained, but also indications of a nonhuman intelligence, either extraterrestrial or terrestrial. While mainstream science does work in a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, its focus has been on intelligently generated radio signals, not physical visitation.

Hynek's Classification

• Observational aspects
  • Nocturnal Disks: Objects seen in the night sky. This is the most commonly reported sighting.
  • Daylight Disks: UFOs that could be seen flying high in the sky or close to the ground. Oval or round disks are commonly seen with this type of UFO sighting.
  • Radar Visual: UFOs that are seen on radar screens while also being visually confirmed by eyewitnesses on the ground.
  • (not listed in classification, but radar-only would seem needed)
• Behavioral aspects
  • Close Encounter of the First Kind: UFOs that are seen within 200 yards of the witness. There is no interaction between the witness and the UFO.
  • Close Encounter of the Second Kind: Electrical equipment such as a car ignition may operate strangely. Other electrical equipment may malfunction while the UFO is present. Other forms of interaction may include physical effects to plants, animals or human beings. There could be traces of burned grass for example.
  • Close Encounter of the Third Kind: Seeing humanoid like creatures associated with the UFO. There is usually no interaction between the witness and the humanoid.
  • Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Interaction between the witness and abduction by humanoid entities.

Jacques Vallée's UFO Classification

• AN1: Viewing anomalous lights or explosions in the sky that do not affect the witness or the environment.
• AN2: Reports that show lasting effects such as flattened grass, poltergeist activity or anomalous photographs.
• AN3: Cases that include entities. This could include ghosts, yetis (Abominable Snowman), elves, spirits and cryptozoology.
• AN4: The witness reports interaction with the entities within the reality of the entities themselves. This type of experience could include near-death experiences, religious visions and out-of-body experiences (OBEs).
• MA1: A UFO that drops, maneuvers, loops.
• MA2: A UFO that includes a physical interaction with the environment while performing drops, maneuvers or loops. An example of this would be seeing a UFO near a power plant.
• MA3: Witnessing entities on board a UFO while performing the above mentioned maneuvers.
• MA4: The UFO witness observes the listed actions and goes through a transformational experience during the event.
• MA5: The UFO witness suffers serious or injury as a result of seeing a UFO in the sky.

UFO shapes

UFOs have been reported in varying shapes and colors. According to the National UFO Reporting Center statistics, 12,023 lights were reported, 6,020 triangles were reported, 5,181 circles and 4,784 disks were reported as of July 2010. Reports in the database are transcriptions of witness self-reports and are not cross-indexed, correlated, or evaluated.

Categorizing shapes is considered a challenging problem in both visual perceptual psychology and computer vision.

To recognize a previously seen object, the visual system must overcome the variability in the object's

appearance caused by factors such as illumination and pose. Developments in computer vision suggest that it may be possible to counter the in£uence of these factors, by learning to interpolate between stored views of the target object, taken under representative combinations of viewing conditions. Daily life situations, however, typically require categorization, rather than recognition, of objects. Due to the open-ended character of both natural and arti¢cial categories, categorization cannot rely on interpolation between

stored examples.

Note that the cited study deals with recognition of previously seen objects. The categorization of objects of a type never before encountered is more difficult.

The home page of the National UFO Reporting Center notes

Events across the United States and Canada on the evening of Sunday, July 04, 2010

Over the last 48 hours, NUFORC has received almost 100 similar reports of very peculiar events, which have been witnessed across the U. S. and Canada on July 4th, and perhaps on July 3rd, as well. The sightings are a phenomenon for which we have no ready explanation. Many of the reports from both days have been submitted by seemingly serious-minded individuals, many of whom apparently witnessed the events with multiple other witnesses present. The reports are similar, in that the witnesses have described seeing strange red, orange, or yellow “fireballs,” which have been seen either to hover in the night sky, or to streak overhead, sometimes individually, and on some occasions in clusters. In some instances, the objects were observed against a clear, cloudless sky, and in other cases, they were observed below solid or broken overcast.

The center did not plot the events by time, by location, or correlate appearance and movement versus time or observer position. It can be noted that on the nights of July 4 in the United States, there routinely is a high incidence of unusual lights in the sky; July 4 — U.S. Independence Day — is customarily greeted with fireworks. Indeed, an exceptionally high incidence of lights in the sky was reported on July 4, 2009, by the Mutual UFO Network.

The National UFO Reporting Center does input unverified data showing date, time, location and type of UFO sighted. The Mutual UFO Network tracks data using the live UFO Stalker map.

MUFON maintains a searchable UFO Case Management System. The researcher can search by date, shape, or location.

MUFON investigators may be assigned to a reported UFO sighting. The results of the investigation may never be revealed or be revealed once a complete investigation is done.

It should be noted that bright lights of normal origin, against a dark sky, can produce visual afterimages of substantial duration. Point sources can appear to have trails of light.

This is not to suggest that there were no unexplainable reports among these. It is extremely difficult to correlate among the witness reports. The U.S. is not covered by precision radar and there may be no other non-visual sensors. Air Traffic Control uses transponder, not radar, tracking.

Cultural effects

UFO reports have changed over time. In the late forties, when aircraft speeds were approaching new levels such as the speed of sound, reports emphasize the speed of the object: Kenneth Arnold emphasized that his objects moved as fast as 1200 mph, a speed unattainable in 1947 but routine today. Later, when high-performance aircraft became mundane, reports more often described levitation and hovering. Does this demonstrate that UFOs are "unreal phantoms that blend in with their times?" Probably, but not necessarily: it only proves that there is a cultural dimension in our assumptions about what constitutes unusual behaviour. A New York Times editorial titled "Out of This World, Out of Our Minds" observed that:

...our cultural love affair with little green men has gone through the stages of many passionate relationships—the fear and hopefulness of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" in 1951; the quirky cuddliness of Ray Walston as "My Favorite Martian" in the '60s. We laugh, we cry, and then we scream again.

Off screen, however, we seem to have drifted apart: sightings rarely capture the popular imagination. Now that cellphone cameras are all but ubiquitous, there isn’t a moment that can’t be snapped—so if the truth really were out there, we’d see it. And we haven't.

That isn't to say that the number of sightings has dwindled. Groups like the National UFO Reporting Center receive hundreds of reports each month, and The Weekly World News supplies the latest in otherworldly headlines. ("Alien Tells Larry King to Leave CNN," the newspaper reported on June 29.)

...But these days, U.F.O. sightings rarely cause a stir outside of Mr. McGinness’s pages or Web sites for buffs, says John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org. "The 'Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky' no longer resonates with the public the way it did when a tricorder or talking computers seemed miraculous," he said.

While the public eye has been most attracted by close encounters, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project emphasizes a systematic search for radio signals.