Ufology

Artistic representation of UFOs—specifically, flying saucers.

Ufology (from UFO, acronym for Unidentified Flying Object, and Greek -λογία, -logiā, "-logy") (Template:Pron-en) is a neologism coined to describe the collective efforts of those who study unidentified flying object (UFO) reports and associated evidence. While ufology does not represent an academic field of research, UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years by governments and independent academics.

Ufology is not to be confused with UFO religion, a fringe religious belief.

Etymology

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, one of the first documented uses of the word ufology can be found in the Times Literary Supplement from January 23, 1959 in which it says, "The articles, reports, and bureaucratic studies which have been written about this perplexing visitant constitute 'ufology.'" This article was printed eight years after Edward J. Ruppelt of the United States Air Force (USAF) created the word UFO in 1951.

Historical background

The modern UFO mythology has three traceable roots: the late 19th century "mystery airships" reported in the newspapers of western United States, "foo fighters" reported by Allied airmen during World War II and the Kenneth Arnold "flying saucer" sighting near Mt. Rainier, Washington state on June 24, 1947. . UFO reports between the 'The Great Airship Wave' and the Arnold sighting were limited in number compared to the post-war period: notable cases include reports of "ghost fliers" in Europe and North America during the 1930s and the numerous reports of "ghost rockets" in Scandinavia (mostly Sweden) from May to December 1946. . Media hype of the late 1940s and early 1950s following the Arnold sighting brought the concept of flying saucers to the wider audience.

As the public's preoccupation in UFOs grew, along with the number of reported sightings, the United States military began to take notice of phenomenon. The UFO explosion of the early post-war era coincides with the escalation of the Cold War and the conflict in Korea. The U.S. military feared that secret aircraft of the Soviet Union, possibly developed from captured German technology, were behind the sightings. If real, the craft causing the sightings were thus of importance to national security. and of need for systematic investigation. By 1952, however, the official US government interest in UFOs started to fade as the USAF projects "Sign" and "Grudge" concluded, along with the CIA's Robertson Panel that UFO reports indicated no direct threat to national security. Official US government research into UFOs ended with the publication of the Condon Committee report in 1969. The report concluded that the study of UFOs in the past 21 years had achieved little if anything and that further extensive study of UFO sightings was unwarranted. It also recommended the termination of the USAF special unit Project Blue Book.

As the US government ceased officially studying UFO sightings, the same is true today for most governments of the world. The notable exception is France, which still maintains the GEIPAN , formerly known as GEPAN (1977-1988) and SEPRA (1988-2004), unit under the French Space Agency CNES. During the Cold War, the several governments, including those of Britain, Canada, Denmark Italy and Sweden collected UFO sightings. Britain's Ministry of Defence ceased accepting any new reports in 2010.

Current notable ufological research is done by various private groups and individuals.

Status as a field

Further information: List of Ufologists

Ufology has not been embraced by academia as a scientific field of study even though UFOs were during the late 1940s and early 1950s the subject of large-scale scientific studies. It has been characterized as being partly or totally a pseudoscience, a characterization rejected by ufologists

The lack of acceptance of ufology by academia as a field of study means that people can claim to be "UFO researchers", without the sorts of scientific consensus building and, in many cases peer review, that otherwise shape and influence scientific paradigms. Even among scientifically inclined UFO research efforts, data collecting was often done by amateur investigators.

Famous mainstream scientists who have shown interest to the UFO phenomena include Stanford physicist Peter A. Sturrock, astronomer J. Allen Hynek , computer scientist and astronomer Jacques Fabrice Vallee and University of Arizona meteorologist James E. McDonald.

Scientific UFO research suffers from the fact that the phenomena under observation do not usually make predictable appearances at a time and place convenient for the researcher.Ufologist Diana Palmer Hoyt argues that

The UFO problem seems to bear a closer resemblance to problems in meteorology than in physics. The phenomena are observed, occur episodically, are not reproducible, and in large part, are identified by statistical gathering of data for possible organization into patterns. They are not experiments that can be replicated at will at the laboratory bench under controlled conditions.

Skeptics, on the other hand, have argued that UFOs are not a scientific problem at all, as there is no tangle physical evidence to study. Skeptic Barry Markovsky argues that under scrutiny by qualified investigators, the vast majority of UFO sightings turn out to have mundane explanations. . Astronomer Carl Sagan stated on UFO sightings that "The reliable cases are uninteresting and the interesting cases are unreliable. Unfortunately there are no cases that are both reliable and interesting."

Peter A. Sturrock suggests that UFO studies should be compartmentalized into at least "the following distinct activities:"

1. Field investigations leading to case documentation and the measurement or retrieval of physical evidence;
2. Laboratory analysis of physical evidence;
3. The systematic compilation of data (descriptive and physical) to look for patterns and so extract significant facts;
4. The analysis of compilations of data (descriptive and physical) to look for patterns and so extract significant facts;
5. The development of theories and the evaluation of those theories on the basis of facts.

Denzler states that ufology as a field of study has branched into two different mindsets: the first group of investigators wants to convince the unbelievers and earn intellectual legitimacy through systematic study using the scientific method. The second group sees the follow-up questions concerning the origin and "mission" of the UFOs as more important than a potential academic standing.

Alleged academic ridicule

Stanton Friedman considers the general attitude of mainstream academics as arrogant and dismissive, or bound to a rigid world view that disallows any evidence contrary to previously held notions. Denzler states that the fear of ridicule and a loss of status has prevented scientists of pursuing a public interest in UFOs. J. Allen Hynek's famous comment regarding this subject is, "Ridicule is not part of the scientific method and people should not be taught that it is." Hynek said of the frequent dismissal of UFO reports by astronomers that the critics knew little about the sightings and should thus not be taken seriously.

Ufology and fringe theories

In addition to UFO sightings, certain supposedly related phenomena are of interest to some in the field of ufology, including crop circles (Colin Andrews), cattle mutilations (Linda Moulton Howe ) and alien abductions and implants (well-known abduction researchers include John E. Mack, David M. Jacobs, Budd Hopkins, Richard Boylan and Raymond Fowler). Some ufologists have also promoted UFO conspiracy theories, including the alleged Roswell UFO Incident of 1947 (Stanton Friedman, Kevin D. Randle ), the Majestic 12 documents (Stanton Friedman ) and UFO disclosure advocation (Michael Salla, Steven M. Greer ).

Skeptic Robert Sheaffer has accused ufology of having a "credulity explosion." He claims a trend of increasingly sensational ideas steadily gaining popularity within ufology. Sheaffer remarked "the kind of stories generating excitement and attention in any given year would have been rejected by mainstream ufologists a few years earlier for being too outlandish."

Likewise, James McDonald has expressed the view that extreme groups undermined serious scientific investigation, stating that a "bizarre "literature" of pseudo-scientific discussion" on "spaceships bringing messengers of terrestrial salvation and occult truth" had been "one of the prime factors in discouraging serious scientists from looking into the UFO matter to the extent that might have led them to recognize quickly enough that cultism and wishful thinking have nothing to do with the core of the UFO problem." In the same statement, McDonald said that: "Again, one must here criticize a good deal of armchair-researching (done chiefly via the daily newspapers that enjoy feature-writing the antics of the more extreme of such subgroups). A disturbing number of prominent scientists have jumped all too easily to the conclusion that only the nuts see UFOs".

Surveys of scientists and amateur astronomers concerning UFOs

In 1973, Peter A. Sturrock conducted a surveys among members of the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (1175 questionnaires mailed, 423 returned) and found no consensus concerning the nature and scientific importance of the UFO phenomenon, with views equally ranging from "impossible" to "certain" in reply to the question, "Do UFOs represent a scientifically significant phenomenon?" In a later larger survey conducted among the members of the American Astronomical Society (2611 questionnaires mailed, 1356 replies), Sturrock found out that opinions were equally diverse, with 23% replying "certainly", 30% "probably", 27% "possibly", 17% "probably not", and 3% "certainly not" to the question if the UFO problem deserves scientific study. Sturrock also asked in the same survey if the surveyee had witnessed any event which they could not have identified and which could have been related to the UFO phenomenon, with around 5% replying affirmatively.

In 1980, a survey of 1800 members of various amateur astronomer associations by Gert Herb and J. Allen Hynek of the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) found that 24% responded "yes" to the question "Have you ever observed an object which resisted your most exhaustive efforts at identification?"

Notable studies, panels, conferences in ufology

Further information: Identification studies of UFOs

Further information: List of government responses to UFOs

Project Sign, Project Grudge (USA, 1947-1949)

Main article: Project Sign

The first official USAF investigations of UFOs were Project Sign (1947-1949) an its successor Project Grudge (1949). Several hundred sightings were examined, a majority them of having a mundane explanation. Some sightings were classified as credible but inexplicable, and in these cases the possibility of an advanced unknown aircraft could not be ruled out.

The initial memos of the project took the UFO question seriously. After surveying 16 early reports, Lt. Col. George D. Garrett estimated that the sightings were not imaginary or exaggerations of natural phenomena. Lt. General Nathan F. Twining expressed the same estimate in a letter to Brig. General Schulgen.

'Flying Saucer' Working Party (UK, 1950–1951)

Main article: Flying Saucer Working Party

The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence, alarmed of reports of seemingly advanced unidentified aircraft, followed the example of the US military by conducting its own study on UFOs in 1950.. A research group was formed based on the recommendation of the eminent chemist Henry Tizard, and was involved in similar work as Project Sign. After less than a year the directorate, named the 'Flying Saucer' Working Party (FSWP) concluded that most observations were either cases of mistaken identity, optical illusions, psychological delusions or hoaxes, and recommended that no further investigation on the phenomena should be undertaken. In 1952, the directorate informed Prime Minister Winston Churchill, after his inquiry about UFOs, that they had found no evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft. The FSWP files were classified for fifty years and were released to the British public in 2001.

Project Blue Book (USA, 1951-1969)

Main article: Project Blue Book

As a continuation of Project Sign and Project Grudge in 1951, the USAF launched Project Blue Book, led by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt. Under Ruppelt, the collection and investigation of UFO sightings became more systematic. The project issued a series of status reports, which were initially classified, but declassified in September 1960 and made available in 1968.

Project Blue Book was terminated in December 1969, following the report of the Condon Committee (see below). Until then, 12 618 incidents had been investigated, the great majority of which could be explained by conventional means. 701 cases (around 6 %) remained "unidentified". Officially, the USAF concluded from the project that the phenomena investigated are of no concern to national security, and that there is no evidence the sightings categorized as "unidentified" are caused by extraterrestrial aircraft.

Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 (USA, 1952-1954)

Main article: Project Blue Book § Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14

Ruppelt contracted a team of scientists from the Battelle Memorial Institute to evaluate the early sightings gathered by the project. They conducted analysis, primarily statistical, on the subject for almost two years. The study concluded that more complete the data and better the report, the more likely it was that the report was classified as unidentified. However, the report emphasized the subjectivity of the data, and stated that the conclusions drawn from the study were not based on facts, but on the subjective observations and estimations of the individual. Furthermore, the report summary and conclusion stated that "unknowns" were not likely something beyond the era's technology, and almost certainly not "flying saucers".

Robertson Panel (USA, 1953)

Main article: Robertson Panel

Before the final Battelle report was published, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had developed an interest in UFOs as a national security (not scientific) issue, and set up a committee to examine existing UFO data. The panel, headed by mathematician and physicist Howard Percy Robertson met from 14 to 17 January 1953. It concluded unanimously that the UFO sightings posed no direct threat to national security, but did find that a continued emphasis on UFO reporting might threaten government functions by causing the channels of communication to clog with irrelevant reports and by inducing mass hysteria. Also, the panel worried that nations hostile to the US might use the UFO phenomena to disrupt air defenses. To meet these problems, the panel stated that a policy of public education on the lack of evidence behind UFOs was needed, to be done through the mass media, schools etc. It also recommended monitoring private UFO groups for subversive activities.

The recommendations of the Roberson Panel were partly implemented through a series of special military regulations.The December 1953 Joint-Army-Navy-Air Force Publication 146 (JANAP 146) made publication of UFO sightings a crime under the Espionage Act. The Air Force Regulation 200-2 (AFR 200-2) revision of 1954 made all UFO sightings reported to the USAF classified. AFR 200-2 revision of February 1958 allowed the military to deliver to the FBI names of those who were "illegally or deceptively" bringing UFOs to public attention.

Condon Committee (USA, 1966-1968)

Main article: Condon Committee

After the recommendations of the Robertson Panel, the USAF wanted to ends its involvement in UFOs and pass Project Blue Book to an another agency. In October 1966 the USAF contracted the University of Colorado, under the leadership of renowned physicist Edward U. Condon for $325,000 to conduct more scientific investigations of selected UFO sightings and to make recommendations about the project's future. The committee looked at ninety-one UFO sightings, of which it was unable to identify 30%. The report concluded that there was no "direct evidence" that UFOs were extraterrestrial spacecraft, that UFO research of the past 21 years had added nothing to scientific knowledge, and that further study was not justified. As a direct result of the Condon report, Project Blue Book was closed in December 1969.

Many ufologists, however, were not satisfied with the Condon report, and considered it a cover-up.

Project Identification (USA, 1973-1980)

In 1973, a wave of UFO sightings in south-east Missouri prompted Harley D. Rutledge, physics professor at the University of Missouri to conduct an extensive field investigation of the phenomenon. The findings were published in the book (not in any traditional scientific venue or format) Project Identification: the first scientific field study of UFO phenomena. Although taking a specific interest in describing unidentified aerial phenomena and not identifying them, the book goes in later chapters to reference the presumed intelligence of the sighted objects.

Studies by GEPAN, SERPA & GEIPAN (France, 1977–present)

Main article: Groupe d'études et d'informations sur les phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifiés

In 1977, the French Space Agency CNES Director General set up a unit to record UFO sighting reports. The unit was initially known as Groupe d’Etudes des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non identifiés (GEPAN), changed in 1988 to Service d'expertise de rentrée atmosphérique Phenom (SERPA) and in 2005 to Groupe d'études et d'informations sur les phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifiés (GEIPAN).

GEIPAN has found a mundane explanation for the vast majority of recorded cases, but in 2007, after 30 years of investigation, 1600 cases (circa 28 % of total cases) remain unexplained "despite precise witness accounts and good-quality evidence recovered from the scene." and are categorized as "Type D" In April 2010, GEIPAN statistics state that 23% of all cases are of Type D. Jean-Jacques Velasco, the head of SEPRA from 1983 to 2004, wrote a book in 2004 saying that 13.5% of the 5800 cases studied by SEPRA were without any rational explanation and stated that UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin.

United Nations 1977-1979

Because of the lobbying of Eric Gairy, the Prime Minister of Grenada, the United Nations General Assembly addressed the UFO issue in the late 1970s. On July 14, 1978 a panel, with Gordon Cooper, J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee among its members, held a hearing to inform the UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim about the matter. As a consequence of this meeting, the UN adopted decisions A/DEC/32/424 A/DEC/33/426, which called for "establishment of an agency or a department of the United Nations for undertaking, co-ordinating and disseminating the results of research into unidentified flying objects and related phenomena".

Physical evidence

Besides visual sightings, UFO cases sometimes involve direct or indirect physical evidence. Reports of these are often included in studies by the military and various government agencies. Direct physical evidences are rare, and involve actual artifacts coming from the UFO; indirect evidence, on the other hand, would be data obtained from afar, such as radar contact and photographs. More direct physical evidence involves physical interactions with the environment at close range—Hynek's "close encounter" or Vallee's "Type-I" cases—which include "landing traces," electromagnetic interference, and physiological/biological effects.

• Actual 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. Another example of possible physical evidence is the "Bob White object" a strange feather shaped object supposedly recovered by Bob White in 1985. The object was featured in the popular UFO show UFO Hunters
• Landing physical trace evidence, including ground impressions, burned and/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, considered one of the most inexplicable of the USAF Project Blue Book cases. An example from December 1980 was the USAF Rendlesham Forest Incident in England. Another less than 2 weeks later, in January 1981, occurred 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 1952 CE2 case involving a patch of charred grass roots. Catalogs of several thousand such cases have been compiled, particularly by ufologist Ted Phillips.
• So-called 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.
• Radar contact and tracking, sometimes from multiple sites. These are often considered among the best cases since they usually involve trained military personnel and control tower operators, simultaneous visual sightings, and aircraft intercepts. One such recent example were the mass sightings of alleged 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). Another famous case from 1986 was the JAL 1628 case over Alaska investigated by the FAA.
• Photographic evidence, including still photos, movie film, and video, including some in the infrared spectrum (rare).
• 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. One such case dates back to 1886 , a Venezuelan incident reported in Scientific American magazine.
• Electromagnetic interference (EM) effects, including stalled cars, power black-outs, radio/TV interference, magnetic compass deflections, and aircraft navigation, communication, and engine disruption. A list of over 30 such aircraft EM incidents was compiled by NASA scientist Dr. Richard F. Haines. The 1976 military case over Tehran, recorded in CIA and DIA classified documents, resulted in 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. This was also a radar/visual case. (Fawcett & Greenwood, 81-89; Good, 318-322, 497-502)
• 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.
• Misc: Recorded electromagnetic emissions, such as microwaves detected in the 1957 RB-47 surveillance aircraft case, which was also a visual and radar case; polarization rings observed around a UFO by a scientist, explained by Dr. James Harder as intense magnetic fields from the UFO causing the Faraday effect.

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.

Attempts have been made to reverse engineer the possible physics behind UFOs, assuming them to be ET craft. Examples are former NASA and nuclear engineer James McCampbell in his book Ufology online, NACA/NASA engineer Paul R. Hill in his book Unconventional Flying Objects, and Romanian/German rocketry pioneer Hermann Oberth. Among subjects tackled by McCampbell, Hill, and Oberth was the question of how UFOs can fly at supersonic speeds without creating a sonic boom. McCampbell's proposed 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.1995 Aviation Week article

UFO 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. (day and night)
• Rapidly-moving lights or lights with apparent ability to rapidly change direction and then suddenly stop, impossible for conventional aircraft.
• 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.)

From UFO Casebook:

• CE4+: aliens communicate with the observer, even abduct, experiment on the observers, others. UFO Casebook lists additional categories, in which the UFO and/or alien is captured/destroyed by military forces and/or civilians.

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.

Vallée system

Jacques Vallée has devised a UFO classification system which is preferred by many ufologists over Hynek’s 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

Funding issues

Astrophysicist Peter A. Sturrock suggests that a lack of funding is a major factor in the institutional disinterest in UFO’s: "If the Air Force were to make available, say, $50 million per year for ten years for UFO research, it is quite likely that the subject would look somewhat less disreputable ... however, an agency is unlikely to initiate such a program at any level until scientists are supportive of such an initiative. We see that there is a chicken-and-egg program. It would be more sensible, and more acceptable to the scientific community, if research began at a low level."

Explanations

Hypotheses involving the objective existence of UFOs

These hypotheses speculate that the phenomena derives wholly or in part from a phenomenon, rather than the mind of the observer.

The extraterrestrial hypothesis

The extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) theorizes that some UFO sightings are alien spacecraft.

A sub-set of the ETH, the Staging Hypothesis, prevalent up until the 1980s, speculated that extraterrestrials have "stage-managed" encounters as a deliberate policy to "educate" humanity.

Wilhelm Reich and ufologist Jerome Eden have the hypothesis that UFOs - or at least some of them - or the beings traveling in the UFOs - are hostile. They claim that the waste product of the UFO engines is what they call "Deadly Orgone" (DOR) which ruins the atmosphere, dries it out, and is one cause, if not the most important cause, of the development of deserts. They found this during their operations with the "Cloudbuster".

Eden, just like several other researchers, attributes the Cattle mutilations, cases such as "Snippy the horse", to aliens, and claims that these beings abduct persons, manipulate their feelings and thoughts, cause military aircraft to crash or disappear, but they do not make open contact to government or military. That they even try to "educate" mankind in the way that the human beings develop a spiritual attitude towards aliens and UFOs, hoping that the aliens arrive as the saviors for the big problems of mankind and earth, when, in fact, their agenda involves exploiting Earth's natural resources and destroying its water and atmosphere.

The advanced human aircraft hypothesis

Further information: military flying saucers

This is a theory that all or some UFO sightings are advanced, secret or experimental aircraft of earthly origin.

• During the 1980s, there were reports of "black triangle" UFOs. Some of these were the secret F-117 Nighthawk, which became known to the public in November 1988.
• Nazi Germany is known to have experimented with circular jet planes using the Coanda effect. At least one of the scientists involved was taken to the USA after WWII. Experiments with these designs and their descendants down the years may explain many sightings of circular UFOs.

There is a theory that the secret groups developing these aircraft in the USA, have been encouraging ufology to follow the extraterrestrial hypothesis line of thought, to cover up for sightings.

The Cosmic Trickster and Ultraterrestrial hypothesis

See also: interdimensional hypothesis and cryptoterrestrial hypothesis

Endorsed by ufologist John Keel (who coined the term "ultraterrestrial"), Jacques Vallée in his Passport to Magonia, Robert Anton Wilson, Mac Tonnies and Terence McKenna, this theory claims that UFOs have an objective reality, though of a kind humans cannot comprehend or understand.

A frequent sub-set of this theory conjectures that in the past the ultimate reality behind UFO is manifested as angels, demons, fairies and other "supernatural" beings. This over-laps both with the Staging Hypothesis and the Psychosocial Hypothesis.

Time travel or parallel worlds

Alternately, UFOs are craft that come from a parallel dimension or similar, or are human-manufactured craft from the future capable of time travel.

The "critter" or "sky beast" hypothesis

The theory of Trevor James Constable speculated that UFO sightings involve the sighting of exotic unknown life otherwise known as "Critters" or "Heat Critters". This theory seems to have some connections to Constable's interpretations on Wilhelm Reich's Orgone energy.

UFOs as supernatural beings

Main article: paranormal and occult hypotheses about UFOs

UFOs as perception or illusion

The mistaken observer hypothesis

This is a theory that most UFO sightings are misunderstood phenomena such as ball lightning or visual illusions. See Identified Flying Objects (IFOs).

Psychology

Carl G. Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst, in his 1957 work, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, explained UFOs as objects of the collective unconscious and modern archetypes. In a brief final chapter of his book, Jung also expressed his opinion that some UFOs could be real "nuts-and-bolts" of unknown nature.

In psychology, the study of UFO sightings has revealed information on misinterpretation, perceptual illusions, hallucination. Many have questioned the reliability of hypnosis in UFO abduction cases..

UFO-related claims that are based solely on eyewitness accounts are subject to a range of issues that may be involved with eyewitness memory. Under some circumstances, eyewitness memory is unreliable. In addition, there is some evidence that memory of an event can be unconsciously altered to suit a desired interpretation of what was remembered. For example, it is possible a person who has reported a UFO sighting may be reinterpreting an older memory to fit a desired explanation. One study has reported that participants who reported recovered memories of abduction by aliens were more prone than a control group to exhibit false recall. [1] However, the authors note as a limitation, that a small sample size was used in the study. In addition, the study did not address the alternative hypothesis that only a subgroup of those who reported abductions could account for the observed differences; i.e. it is possible some of the group claiming abduction were more prone to false recall while others were not.

Psychosocial Hypothesis

The Psychosocial Hypothesis, advocated in the early work of ufologist Hilary Evans, posits that some UFO sightings are hallucinations or fantasies and are caused by the same mechanism as various occult, paranormal, supernatural or religious experiences (compare alleged sightings of the Blessed Virgin Mary).

The Tectonic Strain and electro-staging theories

A few theorists have argued that UFO reports could be the results of possible natural phenomena such as earthquake lights (a somewhat disputed phenomenon within the mainstream scientific community) and the effect of natural (and in some cases artificial electromagnetic radiation) that allegedly causes altered states of consciousness.

(See also Tectonic Strain Theory)

UFO organizations

Main article: UFO organizations

• United States Air Force Project Blue Book: Small, public Air Force UFO investigation, from 1952 until discontinued in 1969. Preceded by Project Sign (1947–1948) and Project Grudge (1948–1952).
• Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) (1952–1988): Early, national U.S. civilian research organization with many PhD consulting scientists.
• National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP)(1956–1980), Early, national U.S. civilian research organization, very large and powerful at one time, with many scientists and military consultants.
• Mutual UFO Network (MUFON): Large, international, U.S. based civilian research organization stressing field investigations and data collection. MUFON is the largest civilian UFO research group in the United States today.
• Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS): Founded by Project Blue Book consultant, astronomer and ufologist J. Allen Hynek; stresses scientific investigations; large archives, including old NICAP files.
• Fund for UFO Research: Funds scientific UFO research; many consulting PhD scientists; does photoanalysis.
• National Institute of Discovery Science (NIDS): Private, somewhat clandestine organization with insider government scientists and military people stressing scientific forensic analysis of UFO and paranormal phenomena.
• Phenomena Research Australia (PRA): This group has grew out of the Aeronautical Research Laboratory – Melbourne, Victoria c1949.
• Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, (CSICOP), a UFO and paranormal skeptics organization, which classifies ufology as a pseudoscience and claims all UFO reports are ultimately explainable as mundane phenomena or hoaxes. CSICOP is the largest and most prominent group of UFO skeptics and debunkers in the United States.
• UFO-Norge, a Norwegian project dedicated to collect all material on observations and physical traces of UFO activity in Norway.
• Erich von Däniken's controversial theories (along with Peter Kolosimo), where he combines what he considers historical proof of extraterrestrial visits with a theory on extraterrestrial help in the evolution of humanity.
• SOBEPS: Société Belge d'Etude des Phénomènes Spatiaux(1971–2007). This group gained fame to have investigated the Belgian Wave (see Black triangle incidents).
• Disclosure Project
• Visión Ovni

Panel discussion on November 12, 2007

On November 12, 2007, Former Arizona Governor Fife Symington moderated a panel of former high-ranking government, aviation and military officials from seven countries at the National Press Club.

Sources

• Sergey Litsak, Explanatory UFO Dictionary with Equivalents in Russian, English and German. ETS Publishing House and Polyglossum, Inc; ISBN 5-86455-063-9. Dictionary contains 853 articles.
• Roth, Christopher F., "Ufology as Anthropology: Race, Extraterrestrials, and the Occult." In E.T. Culture: Anthropology in Outerspaces, ed. by Debbora Battaglia. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005.
• Peter A. Sturrock; The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence; Warner Books, 1999; ISBN 0-446-52565-0

See also

• List of ufologists
• Australian ufology
• UFO conspiracy theory
• List of major UFO sightings.
• Robertson Panel: CIA program initiated in 1952.

External links

• UFOs at Curlie
• Fenomenum (Brazilian site)