How we checked this site
All 190 facts, the source for each, and how many checks it passed.
How it works
Each fact is written in our own words with its source open beside it. Our build script keeps a copy of the text of every source and checks that the key words and figures in each fact really appear there. If a check fails, the site won’t build. Anything that isn’t a sourced fact, such as a view or a joke, is labelled Our opinion or comes from Useless. The drawings are our own and simplified.
Our rules for this subject
- We never say aliens have been found, because no source we checked says so.
- We give the claim first, fairly, and then the evidence.
- Where a case is still unexplained, we say so.
- We quote sceptics and believers by name, and we label opinions.
Known disagreements
- How fast were Kenneth Arnold’s objects? The Smithsonian says he calculated about 1,200 mph and that some accounts say 1,700 mph. Britannica says he estimated several thousand miles per hour. All agree it was a guess timed between two mountains.
- Blue Book’s dates. The 1985 Air Force fact sheet kept by the US National Archives counts 12,618 sightings from 1947 to 1969, which includes the projects before Blue Book. Britannica’s UFO article gives the same total for 1952 to 1969. Same number, different start date.
- What the A in UAP stands for. The National Archives says some MoD branches use “unidentified aerial phenomena”. NASA notes that the US Congress changed its own definition from “aerial” to “anomalous” while NASA’s study was under way. Both are in use.
- Rendlesham. Nick Pope and two of the airmen call it the best-documented UFO incident ever. Sceptical investigators point to a fireball, a lighthouse and bright stars. Halt’s memo is real, and the MoD’s own records from the time show no unusual radar returns. We give both sides and let the records speak.
- The Navy videos. The US Defense Department still lists what the videos show as “unidentified”. NASA’s study team analysed one, GoFast, and found the object was most likely drifting with the wind. “Unidentified” and “explained” can both be fair at once: one is an official label, the other a careful best guess.
What we left out
- Claims made only in books, films or interviews that we couldn’t check against an official record or a reliable reference work.
- Reports in the MoD lists that are a single line with no follow-up; we mention only one Manx example to show what the lists look like.
- Witnesses’ names other than those already named in the official records and reference works we used.
The log
| # | Fact | Source | Checks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | UFO is short for “unidentified flying object”, a term that came from the US Air Force. | The National Archives (UK): UFOs research guide | 1 passed |
| 2 | To the military, a UFO means something in the sky that can be seen but not recognised. It does not mean something from another world. | The National Archives (UK): UFOs research guide | 1 passed |
| 3 | Britannica defines a UFO as any object or light in the sky that the person watching can’t readily identify. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 4 | Some branches of the UK Ministry of Defence prefer the term UAP, for “unidentified aerial phenomena”. | The National Archives (UK): UFOs research guide | 1 passed |
| 5 | The US Defense Department calls UAP a new term for what used to be called unidentified flying objects. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD report discounts sightings of extraterrestrial technology (8 March 2024) | 1 passed |
| 6 | When NASA’s UAP study began, the US Congress defined UAP as “unidentified aerial phenomena”. During the study, the term was changed to “unidentified anomalous phenomena”. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 2 passed |
| 7 | NASA describes UAP as observations of events in the sky that can’t be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena. | NASA Science: Unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) | 1 passed |
| 8 | AARO, the US government’s UAP office, says many cases are labelled “unidentified” simply because the sensors didn’t collect enough information to say what they were. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 9 | In the UK, official reporting and recording of UFO sightings began in the early 1950s. | The National Archives (UK): UFOs research guide | 1 passed |
| 10 | Until 1967 the Ministry of Defence destroyed its UFO files every five years, so many early records are lost. | The National Archives (UK): UFOs research guide | 1 passed |
| 11 | Since 1970, most surviving MoD UFO files have been reviewed for release at The National Archives, because so many people are interested. | The National Archives (UK): UFOs research guide | 1 passed |
| 12 | On 24 June 1947, private pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying past Mount Rainier in Washington State, USA. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: 1947, Year of the Flying Saucer (2022) | 1 passed |
| 13 | Arnold was an experienced pilot with 4,000 flying hours and a member of an Idaho search and rescue unit. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: 1947, Year of the Flying Saucer (2022) | 1 passed |
| 14 | He was making a detour to look for a crashed US Marine Corps transport plane, hoping to claim a $5,000 reward. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: 1947, Year of the Flying Saucer (2022) | 1 passed |
| 15 | Shortly before 3 p.m. he saw a bright flash and at first assumed it was sunlight glinting off a military plane. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: 1947, Year of the Flying Saucer (2022) | 3 passed |
| 16 | He said the flashes came from nine shiny objects flying in a formation about five miles long, each about 100 feet across with no tail he could see. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: 1947, Year of the Flying Saucer (2022) | 2 passed |
| 17 | He said they moved like a saucer skipping on water. | The National Archives (UK): UFOs research guide | 1 passed |
| 18 | He timed them flying from Mount Rainier to Mount Adams and worked out a speed of about 1,200 mph; some accounts say 1,700 mph. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: 1947, Year of the Flying Saucer (2022) | 2 passed |
| 19 | Britannica says Arnold estimated their speed at several thousand miles per hour, and calls the objects crescent-shaped. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 20 | A newspaper report then wrongly said the objects were saucer-shaped, which is how we got the phrase “flying saucer”. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 21 | Arnold strongly denied first calling them “flying saucers”, though stories at the time say he used the words saucer, disc and pie-pan. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: 1947, Year of the Flying Saucer (2022) | 1 passed |
| 22 | A reporter’s story for the Associated Press described “nine bright saucer-like objects”, and by that afternoon “flying saucers” had spread across the United States. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: 1947, Year of the Flying Saucer (2022) | 2 passed |
| 23 | In a report he sent to the US Air Force that July, Arnold drew a shape rather like the heel of a shoe, not a round saucer. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: 1947, Year of the Flying Saucer (2022) | 1 passed |
| 24 | The National Archives calls Arnold’s sighting the first report of “flying saucers”. | The National Archives (UK): UFOs research guide | 1 passed |
| 25 | The Smithsonian says nobody will ever know exactly what Arnold saw, and that it remains unexplained. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: 1947, Year of the Flying Saucer (2022) | 2 passed |
| 26 | The Smithsonian’s air and space museum urges everyone looking at the sky to use critical thinking about whatever they see. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: 1947, Year of the Flying Saucer (2022) | 1 passed |
| 27 | Arnold’s sighting kicked off a craze, and hundreds of UFO sightings began pouring in. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Reports of UFOs: 1947 Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 28 | The Roswell incident was the crash and recovery of a US Army Air Forces high-altitude balloon near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, which became the centre of a conspiracy theory about aliens. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 29 | A rancher, W.W. “Mac” Brazel, found unusual debris on a ranch near Roswell. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 30 | The debris included tinfoil, rubber strips and sticks. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 31 | Brazel took the find to the sheriff, who contacted the local military airfield. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 32 | The airfield put out a press release saying a “flying disc” had been recovered. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 33 | On 8 July 1947 the Roswell Daily Record’s headline read “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region”. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 34 | Almost at once, the military said the “saucer” was really a weather balloon carrying a radar target, a kind of box kite made of foil-covered paper on a balsa wood frame. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 2 passed |
| 35 | Brazel himself told a newspaper he didn’t believe the debris came from a weather balloon. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 36 | The story faded until a 1980 book, The Roswell Incident, called the weather balloon explanation a cover story. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 2 passed |
| 37 | Documents that surfaced in 1984 about a secret group called Majestic 12 were later found to be fake. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 2 passed |
| 38 | A 1995 “alien autopsy” film was later called a fraud by its own director. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 2 passed |
| 39 | Roswell now has an International UFO Museum and Research Center (opened 1992) and has held a UFO festival every year since 1996. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 40 | In 1994, after a member of Congress asked the Government Accountability Office to look into it, the US Air Force searched its records on Roswell. | U.S. Air Force: The Roswell Report: Case Closed | 1 passed |
| 41 | The 1994 Air Force report concluded that the debris came from a balloon-borne research project code-named Mogul. | U.S. Air Force: The Roswell Report: Case Closed | 1 passed |
| 42 | Project Mogul was a top-secret attempt to detect Soviet nuclear bomb tests. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 43 | Its balloons carried instruments high into the atmosphere to pick up the sound waves from an atomic bomb test. | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Reports of UFOs: 1947 Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 44 | So the book was right about one thing: the weather balloon story was wrong. It was a spy balloon. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 2 passed |
| 45 | The Air Force found nothing to show the Roswell incident was a UFO event, and no sign of a government cover-up. | U.S. National Archives: Project Blue Book, unidentified flying objects (with the 1985 Air Force fact sheet and the Roswell findings) | 2 passed |
| 46 | No records even hinted at the recovery of alien bodies or materials from space. | U.S. National Archives: Project Blue Book, unidentified flying objects (with the 1985 Air Force fact sheet and the Roswell findings) | 1 passed |
| 47 | A 1997 Air Force report said the “aliens” people described were probably human-shaped test dummies carried up by high-altitude research balloons. | U.S. Air Force: The Roswell Report: Case Closed | 1 passed |
| 48 | It said events that happened over many years had been merged in people’s memories into two or three days in July 1947. | U.S. Air Force: The Roswell Report: Case Closed | 1 passed |
| 49 | For many UFO enthusiasts, these explanations were simply more cover-up. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 50 | The Government Accountability Office published its own report on its search for Roswell records in July 1995. | U.S. Government Accountability Office: results of a search for records concerning the 1947 crash near Roswell (NSIAD-95-187, 1995) | 2 passed |
| 51 | Area 51 in Nevada, another favourite of alien stories, has only one confirmed use: testing aircraft. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Roswell incident | 1 passed |
| 52 | As reports grew, the US Air Force began an investigation called Project Sign in 1948. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 53 | Its investigators first thought UFOs were most likely advanced Soviet aircraft, though some suggested spacecraft from other worlds. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 54 | Sign became Project Grudge, which in 1952 was replaced by Project Blue Book, the longest-running official UFO inquiry. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 55 | Project Blue Book began in March 1952 and took reports from the public as well as the military. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Project Blue Book | 1 passed |
| 56 | It was based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Project Blue Book | 1 passed |
| 57 | It was named after the blue exam booklets used in American colleges, to suggest a careful, methodical approach. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Project Blue Book | 1 passed |
| 58 | Its staff created a standard questionnaire for sighting reports. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Project Blue Book | 1 passed |
| 59 | From 1947 to 1969, 12,618 sightings were reported to Project Blue Book (counting the earlier projects too). | U.S. National Archives: Project Blue Book, unidentified flying objects (with the 1985 Air Force fact sheet and the Roswell findings) | 1 passed |
| 60 | Britannica’s UFO article gives the same 12,618 total but dates it from 1952 to 1969. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 61 | Of those, 701 stayed “unidentified”. | U.S. National Archives: Project Blue Book, unidentified flying objects (with the 1985 Air Force fact sheet and the Roswell findings) | 1 passed |
| 62 | The unidentified cases included ones where there wasn’t enough information to match a known cause. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 63 | Most sightings got ordinary explanations; the biggest single group was mistaken military or civilian aircraft. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Project Blue Book | 1 passed |
| 64 | A CIA history declassified in 2014 says U-2 and later OXCART spy-plane flights accounted for more than half of all UFO reports in the late 1950s and most of the 1960s. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 65 | 1952 had 303 unexplained sightings, many of them over Washington, D.C., that July. Most years had about a dozen. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Project Blue Book | 2 passed |
| 66 | The 1952 Washington sightings, on radar and by eye, were put down to temperature inversions in the air over the city, though not everyone was convinced. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 67 | In 1953 a panel of scientists led by physicist H.P. Robertson met for three days and reviewed films and photographs of UFOs. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 2 passed |
| 68 | The panel concluded that 90 per cent of sightings could easily be put down to things like bright planets and stars, meteors, aircraft, balloons, birds and searchlights, and that there was no evidence for alien visitors. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 2 passed |
| 69 | Parts of the panel’s report stayed secret until 1979, which helped fuel suspicions of a cover-up. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 70 | A University of Colorado study led by physicist Edward Condon looked in detail at 59 sightings and found no evidence of anything but ordinary phenomena. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 2 passed |
| 71 | Project Blue Book was closed on 17 December 1969. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Project Blue Book | 1 passed |
| 72 | Its conclusions: no UFO was ever a threat to US security, and there was no evidence that the “unidentified” sightings were beyond known science or were vehicles from space. | U.S. National Archives: Project Blue Book, unidentified flying objects (with the 1985 Air Force fact sheet and the Roswell findings) | 2 passed |
| 73 | No physical evidence of anything from another world was collected during the project. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Project Blue Book | 1 passed |
| 74 | Astronomer J. Allen Hynek, the project’s lead scientist throughout, was privately critical of its lack of rigour and its emphasis on debunking. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Project Blue Book | 1 passed |
| 75 | Hynek later concluded that a small fraction of the most reliable reports pointed to visitors from space, and founded the Center for UFO Studies. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 2 passed |
| 76 | Blue Book’s declassified records have been at the US National Archives in Washington, D.C., since 1976, open to the public. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Project Blue Book | 1 passed |
| 77 | Today you read them on 94 rolls of microfilm in the National Archives’ reading room. | U.S. National Archives: Project Blue Book, unidentified flying objects (with the 1985 Air Force fact sheet and the Roswell findings) | 1 passed |
| 78 | The Rendlesham Forest sightings happened over two nights in late December 1980, near RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk, an airbase lent to the US Air Force. | The National Archives: briefing guide to records on UFOs (2012) | 1 passed |
| 79 | The National Archives calls it Britain’s best-known UFO incident. | The National Archives: UFO files highlights guide (August 2009 release) | 1 passed |
| 80 | It is often called “Britain’s Roswell”. | The National Archives: briefing guide to records on UFOs (2012) | 2 passed |
| 81 | Mysterious lights were seen to come down in the forest, and airmen who went to look reported lights they couldn’t identify moving through the trees. | The National Archives: briefing guide to records on UFOs (2012) | 2 passed |
| 82 | The next day, marks were allegedly found on the ground and on trees where the men said the UFO had landed. | The National Archives: briefing guide to records on UFOs (2012) | 1 passed |
| 83 | Two nights later the deputy base commander, Lt Col Charles Halt, took a team into the woods, saw several unidentified lights and recorded a live tape. | The National Archives: briefing guide to records on UFOs (2012) | 2 passed |
| 84 | In January 1981 Halt sent the Ministry of Defence an official report titled “Unexplained Lights”. | The National Archives: briefing guide to records on UFOs (2012) | 1 passed |
| 85 | The US airmen claimed a UFO had landed, leaving markings on the ground and radiation. | The National Archives: UFO files highlights guide (August 2009 release) | 1 passed |
| 86 | The Rendlesham papers were among the first UFO files the MoD released to the public, in 2001. | The National Archives: briefing guide to records on UFOs (2012) | 2 passed |
| 87 | The story became famous in 1983, when the News of the World published it. | The National Archives: briefing guide to records on UFOs (2012) | 1 passed |
| 88 | In 2001 the government told the House of Lords that Halt’s memo was the only US Air Force material the MoD held on the incident. | Hansard, House of Lords written answers: Rendlesham Forest incident (16 October 2001) | 1 passed |
| 89 | MoD records from the time show no evidence of unusual radar returns. | Hansard, House of Lords written answers: Rendlesham Forest incident (16 October 2001) | 1 passed |
| 90 | Sceptical investigators point out that a bright fireball burned up over southern England at about 3 a.m. on 26 December 1980, the time of the first sighting. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Rendle-Sham Case: Phony and Phonier, by Robert Sheaffer (2015) | 1 passed |
| 91 | They say the flashing light in the trees was the Orford Ness lighthouse, which stood in the direction the airmen were looking and flashed every five seconds, just like the “UFO”. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Rendlesham UFO Incident: A Study in Folly, by James McGaha and Joe Nickell (2014) | 1 passed |
| 92 | Local police soon worked out the lighthouse explanation, according to the same sceptical review. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Rendlesham UFO Incident: A Study in Folly, by James McGaha and Joe Nickell (2014) | 1 passed |
| 93 | Local police and a forester identified the ground marks as rabbit scrapings and the tree marks as cuts made by foresters. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Rendle-Sham Case: Phony and Phonier, by Robert Sheaffer (2015) | 1 passed |
| 94 | Halt’s radiation readings showed only background levels, says the sceptics’ account. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Rendle-Sham Case: Phony and Phonier, by Robert Sheaffer (2015) | 1 passed |
| 95 | The star-like objects in Halt’s memo were probably real stars: Sirius, Vega and Deneb. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Rendlesham UFO Incident: A Study in Folly, by James McGaha and Joe Nickell (2014) | 1 passed |
| 96 | In the sceptics’ summary, the whole case comes down to three ordinary night lights seen together: a fireball, a lighthouse and some stars. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Rendle-Sham Case: Phony and Phonier, by Robert Sheaffer (2015) | 1 passed |
| 97 | Nick Pope, who once assessed UFO reports part-time for the MoD, wrote a book with two of the airmen calling it the best-documented and most compelling UFO incident ever. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Rendlesham UFO Incident: A Study in Folly, by James McGaha and Joe Nickell (2014) | 2 passed |
| 98 | Sceptics note the story has grown with each retelling, with new claims added years later. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Rendle-Sham Case: Phony and Phonier, by Robert Sheaffer (2015) | 1 passed |
| 99 | Today Forestry England runs a UFO trail in Rendlesham Forest. | Forestry England: Rendlesham Forest | 1 passed |
| 100 | On 31 March 1993, police and military witnesses across central England reported bright lights, more than 30 sightings in six hours. | The National Archives: UFO files highlights guide (August 2009 release) | 2 passed |
| 101 | Most of those 1993 sightings turned out to be a Russian rocket, which had launched the Cosmos 2238 satellite, burning up as it re-entered the atmosphere. | The National Archives: UFO files highlights guide (August 2009 release) | 1 passed |
| 102 | In 1993–94, dozens of Londoners reported a brightly lit oval object. It was an advertising airship, and some people refused to believe it. | The National Archives: UFO files highlights guide (August 2009 release) | 2 passed |
| 103 | Not everything is solved: an account in the MoD files of objects tracked by NATO radars and F-16 fighters over Belgium in 1990 says they remain unexplained. | The National Archives: UFO files highlights guide (August 2009 release) | 1 passed |
| 104 | The Ministry of Defence closed its UFO hotline and email address on 1 December 2009. | The Independent: Ministry of Defence closes UFO unit (4 December 2009) | 1 passed |
| 105 | The MoD said it “has no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extra-terrestrial life”, but that in over 50 years no UFO report had shown any evidence of a threat to the UK. | The Independent: Ministry of Defence closes UFO unit (4 December 2009) | 2 passed |
| 106 | It said there was no defence benefit in investigating sightings. | The Independent: Ministry of Defence closes UFO unit (4 December 2009) | 1 passed |
| 107 | Ring the old number and a recording told you it was no longer MoD policy to record, respond to or investigate UFO sightings. | The Guardian: Seen a UFO? Don’t call the MoD (4 December 2009) | 1 passed |
| 108 | The Guardian put the number of sightings the unit had dealt with at more than 11,000. | The Guardian: Seen a UFO? Don’t call the MoD (4 December 2009) | 1 passed |
| 109 | The MoD has published lists of the UFO reports it received from 1997 to 2009, with dates, times, places and a short description. | GOV.UK: UFO reports in the UK, 1997 to 2009 (Ministry of Defence FOI release) | 1 passed |
| 110 | One 2004 report from Douglas, Isle of Man, described a silver disc with solar panels. It turned out to be a twin-propeller ATR 42 Euromanx aeroplane. | Ministry of Defence: UFO reports 2004, whole of the UK (FOI release on GOV.UK) | 2 passed |
| 111 | On 19 April 2001 someone on the Isle of Man reported three very large objects flying in formation, which split up and headed off south-east. | Ministry of Defence: UFO reports 2001 (FOI release on GOV.UK) | 1 passed |
| 112 | In April 2020 the US Defense Department officially released three unclassified Navy videos: one from November 2004 and two from January 2015. | U.S. Department of Defense: statement on the release of historical Navy videos (27 April 2020) | 2 passed |
| 113 | The videos had already been circulating after unauthorised releases in 2007 and 2017. | U.S. Department of Defense: statement on the release of historical Navy videos (27 April 2020) | 1 passed |
| 114 | It released them to clear up confusion about whether the footage was real, or whether there was more to it. | U.S. Department of Defense: statement on the release of historical Navy videos (27 April 2020) | 1 passed |
| 115 | The Department said the things seen in the videos remain characterised as “unidentified”. | U.S. Department of Defense: statement on the release of historical Navy videos (27 April 2020) | 1 passed |
| 116 | One, known as the Gimbal video, was filmed by fighter pilots with the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier group off the US East Coast in 2014–15. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 3 passed |
| 117 | Another, the GoFast video, seems to show a small object skimming above the ocean at great speed. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 1 passed |
| 118 | NASA’s study team used the numbers on the display to work out that the object was at about 13,000 feet, more than four miles above the sea behind it. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 1 passed |
| 119 | The impression of speed comes at least partly from the fast-moving jet itself, about 435 mph, plus parallax. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 1 passed |
| 120 | The object moved about 390 metres in 22 seconds, roughly 40 mph: a typical wind speed at that height. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 2 passed |
| 121 | The object was colder than the ocean, so there was no sign of heat from an engine. It was most likely drifting with the wind. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 2 passed |
| 122 | NASA added that more data would allow a firmer conclusion. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 1 passed |
| 123 | AARO explains that motion parallax can make a still or slow object look fast to a fast-moving observer: the background rushes past, not the object. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 124 | Asked whether it has found any evidence of extraterrestrial technology, the US Defense Department’s AARO answers: “No.” It says examination of sightings is ongoing. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 125 | AARO says no single explanation covers most UAP reports. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 126 | Civilian pilots are encouraged to report UAP sightings to air traffic control. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 127 | AARO says it will announce when there is a way for the public to report. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 128 | In March 2024 AARO published a review of nearly 80 years of US government work on UAP, going back to 1945. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD report discounts sightings of extraterrestrial technology (8 March 2024) | 2 passed |
| 129 | It found no verifiable evidence that any UAP sighting was extraterrestrial activity. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD report discounts sightings of extraterrestrial technology (8 March 2024) | 1 passed |
| 130 | It found no verifiable evidence that the US government or private companies ever had access to alien technology. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD report discounts sightings of extraterrestrial technology (8 March 2024) | 1 passed |
| 131 | Every official investigation, at every level of secrecy, concluded that most sightings were ordinary objects and misidentifications. | U.S. Department of Defense: statement on the Historical Record Report on UAP, Volume 1 (8 March 2024) | 1 passed |
| 132 | AARO looked at claims from about 30 people it interviewed. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD report discounts sightings of extraterrestrial technology (8 March 2024) | 1 passed |
| 133 | It put claims of hidden alien-technology programmes down largely to “circular reporting”: a small group repeating inaccurate stories heard from others over decades. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD report discounts sightings of extraterrestrial technology (8 March 2024) | 1 passed |
| 134 | AARO said it believed most of the people repeating the claims did so sincerely, without any wish to mislead. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD report discounts sightings of extraterrestrial technology (8 March 2024) | 1 passed |
| 135 | AARO’s report for May 2023 to June 2024 covered 757 UAP reports. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD examining unidentified anomalous phenomena (November 2024) | 1 passed |
| 136 | Its director said AARO had resolved hundreds of cases to everyday things such as balloons, birds, drones, satellites and aircraft. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD examining unidentified anomalous phenomena (November 2024) | 1 passed |
| 137 | He said only a very small percentage of reports are potentially anomalous. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD examining unidentified anomalous phenomena (November 2024) | 1 passed |
| 138 | He also said AARO had found no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD examining unidentified anomalous phenomena (November 2024) | 1 passed |
| 139 | More than 900 reports lacked enough scientific data to analyse, and are kept in case new information turns up. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD examining unidentified anomalous phenomena (November 2024) | 1 passed |
| 140 | AARO says reports cluster near US military bases and sensors. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD examining unidentified anomalous phenomena (November 2024) | 1 passed |
| 141 | AARO’s director said reports near national security sites must be taken seriously and investigated scientifically, because unidentified objects can be a safety risk. | U.S. Department of Defense News: DOD examining unidentified anomalous phenomena (November 2024) | 1 passed |
| 142 | In one resolved case, infrared video turned out almost certainly to be birds: the infrared glow pulsed at the rate of wing beats. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office: official UAP imagery | 1 passed |
| 143 | In others, objects drifting at the speed and direction of the wind were judged almost certainly to be balloons. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office: official UAP imagery | 1 passed |
| 144 | Some cases stay unresolved simply because the footage is too poor, such as 30 seconds of mobile phone video. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office: official UAP imagery | 2 passed |
| 145 | NASA’s independent study team (2023) said there is, to date, no conclusive evidence in the peer-reviewed scientific literature that UAP come from beyond Earth. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 1 passed |
| 146 | It said extraterrestrial life must be the explanation of last resort, used only after every other possibility is ruled out. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 1 passed |
| 147 | NASA’s study team published its final report on 14 September 2023. | NASA Science: Unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) | 1 passed |
| 148 | The US Defense Department received 247 new UAP reports between March 2021 and August 2022, compared with 263 in the 17 years before. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 2 passed |
| 149 | By 2023 AARO had collected more than 800 reported events. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 1 passed |
| 150 | NASA’s team said the stigma around reporting UAP is an obstacle, and that its own involvement could help reduce it. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 1 passed |
| 151 | It suggested smartphone apps that collect pictures and sensor data from many observers at once. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 1 passed |
| 152 | Venus is one of the most confused objects in the sky, especially when it is low near the horizon. | NASA Night Sky Network: Identifying UFOs and UAPs (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) | 1 passed |
| 153 | Venus is the third brightest object in the sky, after the Sun and the Moon. | NASA Science: Venus facts | 1 passed |
| 154 | A bright light such as Venus often seems to move, and can even seem to “follow” a car. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 3 passed |
| 155 | Sirius, Jupiter and Mercury are also often reported as UFOs, and bright planets lined up near the horizon can look like a formation of strange lights. | NASA Night Sky Network: Identifying UFOs and UAPs (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) | 2 passed |
| 156 | Other “UFOs” can be rocket launches, comets, military jets, weather balloons, satellites, meteors and fireballs, and odd clouds. | NASA Night Sky Network: Identifying UFOs and UAPs (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) | 3 passed |
| 157 | AARO says bright planets like Venus and Jupiter, and meteors, can look as if they are hovering or manoeuvring. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 158 | High-altitude balloons for weather and research often have no markings and can look strange from some angles. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 159 | The US National Weather Service alone launches hundreds of balloons a day; worldwide, thousands go up every day. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 2 passed |
| 160 | Windblown plastic bags, foil party balloons and birds can look odd because of their small size and unpredictable motion; even radar can be fooled. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 2 passed |
| 161 | Ordinary planes can look strange from unusual angles, in poor visibility or through infrared cameras. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 162 | Drones can move erratically and fast, may have no visible lights, and are often too small for radar to classify. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 163 | Some remote-control model aircraft are even built to look like flying saucers. | NASA Night Sky Network: Identifying UFOs and UAPs (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) | 1 passed |
| 164 | Rocket launches can leave glowing spirals and lingering exhaust plumes high in the sky. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 165 | Sunlight flashing off a satellite’s solar panels can make a bright light that is often mistaken for a fast UAP or an “orb”. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 166 | Starlink is a network of thousands of low-orbit internet satellites, launched in groups of fifty or more. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Great Starlink Racetrack UFO Flap of 2022, by Mick West (2023) | 2 passed |
| 167 | Before they spread out, a new batch circles Earth as a “train” that looks like a long string of bright lights. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Great Starlink Racetrack UFO Flap of 2022, by Mick West (2023) | 1 passed |
| 168 | When the first trains appeared in May 2019 they were often reported as UFOs, including by airline pilots. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Great Starlink Racetrack UFO Flap of 2022, by Mick West (2023) | 3 passed |
| 169 | A satellite high overhead can still be in sunlight when it’s dark on the ground, which is why trains show up just after sunset or before sunrise. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Great Starlink Racetrack UFO Flap of 2022, by Mick West (2023) | 2 passed |
| 170 | In 2022, pilots reported pulsing “racetrack” lights circling far away; amateur investigators matched every video they could date and place to Starlink satellites. | Skeptical Inquirer: The Great Starlink Racetrack UFO Flap of 2022, by Mick West (2023) | 1 passed |
| 171 | Lenticular clouds form downwind of hills and mountains, look a lot like science-fiction flying saucers, and are thought to be one of the most common explanations for UFO sightings worldwide. | Met Office: Unusual cloud formations (lenticular clouds) | 2 passed |
| 172 | They are quite unusual in the British Isles, but do sometimes appear. | Met Office: Unusual cloud formations (lenticular clouds) | 1 passed |
| 173 | Camera lenses can turn a single point of light into something that looks saucer-shaped. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 174 | Some photo “UFOs” are lens flare or other camera artefacts. | NASA Night Sky Network: Identifying UFOs and UAPs (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) | 1 passed |
| 175 | Reflections in windows and glasses can overlay one view on another. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 176 | Judging the distance and speed of a light in a blank sky is very unreliable, because there is nothing to compare it with. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 177 | Radar is more reliable in some ways, but can’t always tell aircraft from meteor trails, rain or layers of warm and cold air. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 178 | At least some sightings have been hoaxes. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 179 | Most psychologists who have studied “alien abduction” stories doubt they involve aliens, and point to a common experience called sleep paralysis. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: unidentified flying object (by Seth Shostak) | 1 passed |
| 180 | Compressing video adds artefacts to it, so AARO wants original, uncompressed camera files. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 181 | If you know the date, time and direction, free planetarium software such as Stellarium can show what was in the sky. | NASA Night Sky Network: Identifying UFOs and UAPs (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) | 1 passed |
| 182 | Your local astronomy club can help, so note the date and time, how long you watched, its path and speed, and how bright it was. | NASA Night Sky Network: Identifying UFOs and UAPs (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) | 1 passed |
| 183 | If you saw it long after sunset, it is less likely to have been a sunlit balloon or an unlit aircraft. | NASA Night Sky Network: Identifying UFOs and UAPs (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) | 1 passed |
| 184 | Check for recent meteor showers and things that are common in your area. | NASA Night Sky Network: Identifying UFOs and UAPs (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) | 1 passed |
| 185 | NASA’s skywatching team says it is important to be respectful about other people’s sightings, because everyone who looks up long enough sees something they can’t explain at first. | NASA Night Sky Network: Identifying UFOs and UAPs (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) | 2 passed |
| 186 | Their goal is to turn a UFO into an IFO: an identified flying object. | NASA Night Sky Network: Identifying UFOs and UAPs (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) | 1 passed |
| 187 | Investigators say the most useful thing is to record the time and the location of both you and the object. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 188 | With a time and place, a sighting can be checked against air traffic, balloon-tracking and satellite-tracking records. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 189 | Phone photos carry useful hidden data, such as GPS position and time stamps. | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (US Department of Defense): frequently asked questions | 1 passed |
| 190 | NASA’s team said eyewitness reports can be interesting and compelling, but can’t be reproduced and usually lack the details needed for a firm answer. | NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) | 1 passed |