If the only strange things seen in the sky were a few oddly moving lights at night, or some specks glinting in the sun,
there would be no UFO issue. But there have been many close range observations of these strange objects. Often by multiple
witnesses and sometimes with radar confirmation. In addition, physical traces of various kinds have been left behind, and
witnesses have experienced physical and medical effects.
Supported by declassified documents from the US National Archives, US Navy pilot Cmdr Graham Bethune describes the encounter
with a huge 90m (300ft) discoid UFO in 1951 on the way back from a classified mission to Iceland: "We had 31 people [relief
crews] on board and a psychiatrist, plus the crew. We all witnessed it".
Some with four-way confirmation: ground visual, ground radar, airborne visual and airborne radar -- as early as 1950s, watch
LtCol Brown NPCC 2001 testimony, who worked in the US Air Force's Office of Special Investigations on project Grudge, the
precursor to Project Bluebook. Such radar/visual UFO cases include the Washington DC 1952, the Bentwaters England 1956, the
landmark RB-47 1957 case.
Definition of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects):
"A UFO is an object or light seen in the sky or on land, whose appearance, trajectory, motions, lights and colors do not
have an obvious conventional or natural explanation, and which cannot be explained, not only by the original witness, but
by scientists or technical experts who try to make a common sense identification after examining the evidence." -- Center
for UFO Studies
In popular culture the terms UFO and "flying saucer" are used alternatively and are both synonymous with extra-terrestrial
(alien) craft. According to multiple surveys over the last several decades and from different countries: ~8% of people think
they have seen a UFO. Over 150.000 UFO sightings have been documented in the last 60 years and recorded in various
databases, but the total number of UFO sightings is estimated to be in the millions. There are several thousand sightings
reported each year, yet surveys show that only a small percentage of those who see a UFO report the sighting.
Of all of the reported sightings, a "core" between 5% and 25% (depending on the sample) remain unidentifiable to expert
examination. These are the real UFOs i.e. inexplicable "high quality and strangeness" cases (the rest being cases with
insufficient information or misinterpreted astronomic or meteorological phenomena, optical illusions, balloons, aircraft,
birds etc). Deliberate fraudulent reports / hoaxes are relatively few, under 5%.
Although the term "flying saucer" infers a disk-like craft (which is a common type seen near the ground), most UFOs observed
in daylight, when the shape and details can be seen, are described as having simple symmetrical geometric shapes:
disk/saucer, sphere/round, egg/oval/elliptical, cigar/cylinder, conical/ice-cream cone, triangular/pyramid, fireball/"orbs"
and variety of sizes (more details in the "Technical Overview" page).
Dr. J. Allen Hynek (past Chairman of the Astronomy Department of Northwestern University) served as the scientific
consultant to US Air Force's official UFO investigation, initially the secret Project SIGN and later the well-known Project
"Blue Book". He did field-investigations and talked to claimed UFO eye-witnesses for 2 decades (between 1948-1969). Starting
out as a skeptic, who tried to "explain away" the phenomenon (in an attempt to explain the Michigan 1966 sightings, Hynek
came up with the infamous "swamp gas" idea, which became something of a national joke), he later became convinced of the
UFO reality and admitted that Project Blue Book had misled the public.