Unidentified flying
object (commonly abbreviated as UFO or U.F.O.) is the popular term
for any aerial phenomenon whose cause cannot be easily or
immediately determined. Both military and civilian research show
that a significant majority of UFO sightings are identified after
further investigation, either explicitly or indirectly through the
presence of clear and simple explanatory factors. The United States
Air Force, who coined the term in 1952, initially defined UFOs as
those objects that remain unidentified after scrutiny by expert
investigators, though the term UFO is often used more generally to
describe any sighting unidentifiable to the reporting observer(s).
Popular culture frequently takes the term UFO as a synonym for
alien spacecraft. Some investigators now prefer to use the broader
term Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (or UAP), to avoid the
confusion and speculative associations that have become attached to
UFO.
Studies have established that only a small percentage of reported
UFOs are actual hoaxes, while the majority are observations of some
real but conventional object – most commonly aircraft, balloons, or
astronomical objects such as meteors or bright planets – that have
been misidentified by the observer as anomalies. A small percentage
of reported sightings (usually 5%– 20%) are classified as
unidentified flying objects in the strictest sense.
UFO reports became more common after the first widely publicized US
sighting – reported by private pilot Kenneth Arnold in 1947 – that
gave rise to the popular terms "flying
saucer" and "flying
disc". Since then, millions of people have reported
that they have seen UFOs.
Some scientists have argued that all UFO sightings are
misidentifications of prosaic natural phenomena and it has been
stated that most of the scientific community supports this
position. A scientist and prominent UFO researcher argued that most
UFO research is scientifically deficient, and that mythology and
cultism are frequently associated with the phenomenon. Non-prosaic
explanations of UFOs have received very little attention and
vritually no support in mainstream scientific literature. On the
other hand, it has been argued that there is limited awareness
among scientists of observational data, other than what is reported
in the popular press Historically, there was debate among certain
prominent scientists, including members of the AAAS, regarding
whether serious scientific investigation was warranted given
available empirical data.
The post World War II UFO phase in the United States began with a
famous 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. Although there were other 1947 U.S. sightings
of similar objects that preceded this, it was Arnold's sighting
that first received significant media attention and captured the
public's imagination. Arnold described what he saw as being "flat
like a pie pan", "shaped like saucers and were so thin I could
barely see them", "half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex in
the rear. They looked like a "big flat disk", and flew "like a
saucer would if you skipped it across the water". Arnold
descriptions were widely reported and within a few days gave rise
to the terms flying saucer and flying disk. Arnold sighting was
followed in the next few weeks by hundreds of other reported
sightings, mostly in the U.S., but in other countries as
well.
After reports of the
Arnold sighting hit the media, other cases began to be reported in
increasing numbers. In one instance a United Airlines crew sighting
of nine more disc-like objects over Idaho on the evening of July 4.
At the time, this sighting was even more widely reported than
Arnold, and lent considerable credence to Arnold
report.
American UFO
researcher Ted Bloecher, in his comprehensive review of newspaper
reports (including cases that preceded Arnold's), found a sudden
surge upwards in sightings on July 4, peaking on July 6 – 8.
Bloecher noted that for the next few days most American newspapers
were filled with front-page stories of the new "flying saucers" or
"flying discs". Reports began to rapidly tail off after July 8,
when officials began issuing press statements on the Roswell UFO
incident, in which they explained the debris as being that of a
weather balloon