Image courtesy of Pixabay, CCO

There has been an increase lately in the news concerning UFOs – Unidentified Flying Objects. I’m talking about serious journalism from respected media sources talking about something which was dismissed as tabloid junk for years. If you’ve always wanted to learn the unique vocabulary and terminology of flying saucers, this is your lucky day!

The U.S. military calls them unexplained aerial phenomenon, which is probably a better description. At least five Navy pilots reported, and some recorded, sightings of objects in the skies over the Atlantic coast in 2014 and 2015 with “no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes” which reached altitudes of 30,00 feet and “hypersonic speeds.” Until now, reporting such incidents could hurt careers. Many military and civilian pilots have consistently argued that the U.S. government needed to take sightings like these more seriously. It appears that is now the case. The U.S. Navy now has a task force to investigate every report.

Since the end of World War II and the beginnings of the Cold War, accounts of UFOs began to capture the imaginations of Americans. For many years they were called flying saucers, due to their reported shape. Air Force pilots called them bogeys, an unexplained radar blip. The word comes from a colloquial term for a ghost. They suddenly appear and just as quickly disappear. Speculation ran high that they were experimental aircraft, but more fanciful theories suggested that they were from deep space.

Whatever may be causing them, UFO sightings in the U.S. are not new. The earliest reports date back to the days of the Pilgrims. John Winthrop, first governor of what was then the Massachusetts Bay Colony recorded boaters witnessing a light over the water which “ran as swift as an arrow” back and forth for several miles. “Diverse other credible persons saw the same light, after, about the same place,” Winthrop added.

One of the most famous studies of UFOs was Project Blue Book, which was conducted by the Air Force between 1952 and 1969. It had two purposes

1. To determine if UFOs were a threat to U.S. national security
2. To scientifically analyze the data from all sightings

It was concluded that no UFO could credibly be considered a threat to the U.S., and there was no evidence that any of these objects was extraterrestrial. However, a small but significant number could not be explained in spite of all scientific research and data. It is this last conclusion of the report which has continued to excite the public.

Here are some of the most important vocabulary words and phrases associated with UFOs:

• Area 51 – An Air Force range and test site in the Nevada desert. It appears in satellite images, but is not on any map, making it probably the most secret military facility in the world.
• Close Encounter – Any contact with something extraterrestrial. There are three types 1) a sighting of a UFO, 2) an event in which something physical occurs, such as a crop circle, 3) a physical encounter with a creature not of this planet
• Crop Circles – Large geometric patterns of flattened crops such as wheat or corn which reportedly appear overnight. Most will be found in the English countryside.
• Extraterrestrial – Not from this planet
• Hill, Barney, and Betty – The first widely reported case of an “alien abduction” was this New Hampshire couple in September 1961.
• Pine Gap – A top-secret Australian military base, essentially the Australian equivalent of Area 51.
• Project Redlight – A frequently cited project in which captured aircraft is test-flown at Area 51.
• Roswell, New Mexico – Something crashed here on the night of July 2^nd, 1947 and was found by rancher Max Brazel. Whatever it was, the U.S. military took possession of it and have never fully explained what it was.
• SETI – The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. This program searched for signs of intelligent life in the universe using radio waves. It was abandoned in 1993.
• TAOS Hum – A mysterious humming noise reported by residents of Northeast New Mexico.
• Ufologist – Someone who studies the UFO phenomenon.
• Ufology – The study of UFO phenomenon.

Have you ever seen a UFO? What was your experience like?