Define UFO (rather) specifically and ufology will move forward

Copyright 2017, InterAmerica, Inc.

UFO: Unidentified (obviously), flying (of course), object (something seemingly tangible)

A UFO should be something with apparent tangibility, an object that is flying above or near the ground, and is blatantly not something familiar to the observer.

A UFO isn’t a light in the sky. Lights in the sky can be anything, meteorological phenomena that is odd, for instance.

Unless a weird light seems to be attached to something equally weird, such sightings should be ignored, dismissed.

Those kinds of sightings have cluttered the UFO data streams, and divert investigators from checking on flying anomalies that appear to be solid craft or something with a substantive corporeality.

Observers, who mistake Venus, for a UFO are not qualified to be named in UFO witness lists. They are stupid people, merely compromising UFO sightings with ignorant sensory data.

UFOs are things flying above, not blobs or lights in water.

Something (un)identified should have proximity to the viewer, the observer. Flicks of light or dark forms seen far off could be anything – an errant cloud, a balloon, a large bird, a kite, anything that gets airborne.

(Here's a photo of a kite but one that also has captured a UFO -- boxed in red -- from snowdeal.org)

A UFO should be close enough to be seen as truly odd.

A UFO designation should only be ascribed to something that moves with purpose, even if that movement is erratic but not deviating from seeming intention, as a balloon in the wind might.

Sticking with a categorical definition of UFO, as the term was intended initially, will eliminate the massive accumulation of sightings that are meaningless for the searcher of odd craft that could be something flown by sentience.

Discarding the term UAP, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, will winnow the flying saucer litany to that which purports to be something worthwhile to investigate, rather than a catch-all for stuff that is the purview of people attracted to anything that is up, up and away.

UFO: an unknown, flying object.

RR

Many ways to perceive things (UFOs among them)

Click HERE for explication of theme. (It will edify you about how perception has more facets than one.)