Talk:Unidentified flying object

Added metadata and some notes
This is a reasonable start for a collaborative project, and, blessedly, does not read like a conspiracy theory. It may need to be contextualized with articles on extraterrestrial intelligence and, indeed, expansions on radar, technical and imagery intelligence/photogrammetry, and phenomena of witnessed observation.

As the text began, there seemed a strong implication that UFO necessarily equated to alien. I'm certainly not dismissing the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), but I think that a fair article also has to comment on the possibility of incorrect reports. The more dramatic the claim, the better the evidence need be.

The article may need to address the possibility that some sightings were highly classified experiments, and certainly other phenomena with an obscure but natural origin. I did provide some CIA references that indicate that at least some observations suggest something was present and could not be explained with the knowledge of the time. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:40, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Name of the article
As you can see, I've Moved it, and created a bunch of Redirects. Hayford Peirce 16:23, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the Workgroups
I didn't have a clue as to what I should do there! Hayford Peirce 16:38, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * My thinking is that aviation and flight is generally engineering (and sensors), biology deals with the nonhuman aspect, and sociology with the issue of mass belief systems. Certainly, other workgroups could be involved, such as military from the specific investigations, psychology especially from the perspectives of cognition and sensory capabilities, etc.


 * While I'm not sure how much time I'll spend on it, I hope this can be an example of a controversial, borderline-fringe issue that can be objective from the start. It's not an issue on which I have strong personal opinions. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:59, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Ditto. Fortunately, I don't think we have any UFO nuts in our Citizenry at the moment. Hayford Peirce 17:41, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Hello and welcome to Cirizendium
Mary, please note that I reformatted some of your notes more correctly. If you will study the edit page, you will see how my edits were done. When using an online source for a note, rather than simply enclosing the URL in brackets, thus [url], it is much better to include a title of some sort within the brackets, thus [url Title] with one space between the end of the url and title. In that way, the note simply displays the title as a link. That avoids the actual url being displayed as a link because urls are often very long and do not make the actual title of the online source clearly visible.

Also, Citizendium uses subpages:


 * Related Articles: This where we place links to related articles within Citizendium. In other words. the relate Articles subpage replaces Wikipedia's "See also" section.


 * Bibliography: This where we place links to books and journal articles that provide information related to the main article.


 * External links: This where we place hyperlinks to online website sources of related information.

With that in mind, what you denoted as "Notes" all pointed to a specific line or paragraph in the main article text, just as they should. However, what you denoted as "References" do not point to any specific line or paragraph in the main article and therefore would be much better placed in either the "Bibliography" or the "External Links" subpages. Since they are all hyperlinks to online website sources, I plan to move them to the "External Links" subpage. Milton Beychok 17:52, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Scope of article
Mary, no one person, at CZ, defines the scope of an article, although Editors may guide it. Please make comments like "(Removed stuff about SETI and aliens as this would make a great separate article. This article is about UFOs not aliens)" on this Talk Page, not in an edit note where it is not really preserved in an archival way.

As long as the Hayek classification contains the Close Encounters of the Third and Fourth Kinds, then aliens are very much germane to the article. As long as the Vallee classification contains "This type of experience could include Near Death Experiences, religious visions and out-of-body experiences (OBEs).", the paranormal is within the scope of the article.

If these classifications were limited to physical aspects of movement, then things such as visual and radar resolution would still be relevant.

I would like that material restored and discussed. Since I inserted it into the article, that's not a formal ruling as an Engineering Editor, but I think it's absolutely relevant. The article began with references all from the UFO community, and that isn't balanced. Note that the added material is not all from skeptics. Howard C. Berkowitz 19:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm puzzled why the material from the Air Force and CIA, specifically dealing with UFO investigation, was moved, while material from Hayek and Vallee was kept in place. Lundahl is often considered the world authority on photographic interpretation, and the CIA documents indicate that the U.S. government did have some policy of avoiding things that might upset the public. Howard C. Berkowitz 19:00, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Moving Text Around for Article
I moved the stuff down so the article will flow better. When I looked at the article the history and conspiracy stuff chopped it up.

I do believe the UFO article should stand alone as it is about UFOs. The shape, size, classifications, etc. Conspiracy theories, aliens whatever would make great sub topics and articles in their own right.

Also, I left the comments in the article summary section so users would know what action was taken. Mary Ash 19:50, 22 July 2010 (UTC)Mary Ash


 * I agree 100% with Howard on this, Mary. I don't see how you can have an article about UFOs without incorporating all of the baloney aspects of it -- that's what at least half the readers are going to be interested in.  Remember, this is not a newspaper, or even a paper encyclopedia, with severe constraints on space.  We can have articles as long as they need to be. I see that your deletions have now been restored.  Now is the time to discuss them.  Like many things in life, rules and guidelines at CZ are not black and white, alas.  On the one hand, we say, Be bold.  But by that we really mean, Be bold, but not TOO bold.  In other words, start a new article, go into an existing article, even if it appears to have been primarily written by two Nobel Laureates, and make edits, add a paragraph, delete a sentence, that sort of stuff.  Go to the Welcome to Citizendium page and correct some grammar, add a sentence or two.  BUT don't reformat the entire page, removing half the text and changing the colors.  That's being TOO bold.  It doesn't mean that you can't *eventually* do it -- it just means that FIRST your proposed changes should be thoroughly discussed on the Talk page and some sort of consensus reached.  What we absolutely do NOT want here at CZ are the "revert" wars at Wikipedia.  In the three years I've been here only a couple have ever started -- and the Constabulary or Editor-in-Chief quickly stopped them.  A couple of people left as a result, but if that's the sort of activity they want, they should stick with WP.  So, as I said above, Be bold -- but not *too* bold! Hayford Peirce 20:04, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * And please use our system of indentations as you go down the page replying to comments -- thanks! Hayford Peirce 20:04, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll be happy to indent, if you tell me how... Mary Ash 20:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)Mary Ash
 * Ah, just use colons to indent your replies. One, two, three, four, or more, as the case may be.
 * Look here.
 * And here.
 * And here again -- using the EDIT mode on this page -- you'll see the colons coming down the page. Once in a while, if there are so many of them that the text is getting scrunched, someone will start all over again at the left margin but will write (unindent) to start off the text.

(unindent) Like this. Thanks -- it's all pretty easy! Hayford Peirce 20:20, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * As far as flow, I see it entirely relevant to have the history early in the article. It sets a context, which is one of our goals -- just as I put in seealso to extraterrestrial intelligence. As the article was, it jumped directly into Hynek and Vallee, which easily gives an impression these are widely accepted and there is no controversy about UFOs. Indeed, the "flying saucer" reference in the lede is something I found distracting, but I referenced and contextualized rather than removed.


 * I've never worked on WatchNOW so I can't comment. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:24, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Culturally, it's not inappropriate to link Vallee to the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:25, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Edit summary
If you want people to be aware of it, edit summaries are a bad place to leave anything that should be kept -- they are only visible in the last watchlist or recent changes. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Shapes
"According to the National UFO Reporting Center statistics" Could you elaborate on these statistics? Are these visual, photographic, or imaging radar assignments of shapes? Which are correlated with at least multiple independent observers in a plausible geometry? Howard C. Berkowitz 20:28, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The statistics are from reports submitted to the National UFO Reporting Center. The center collects data from pilots, peace officers and fields calls from everyone including reporters. It is probably the largest UFO data collection center privately maintained by Peter Davenport. The statistics will vary based on the types of reports submitted by witnesses. As to linking Vallee with Close Encounters, I was planning to add that to the article. Someone beat me to it. That's part of writing together. I based the article on the subject of UFOs which are unidentified flying objects. Segueing into classifications of UFOs, followed by their history, would make sense. The article is about what UFOs look like followed by their history. At least that's how I envisioned it. This is a collaborative effort, but I am the original author who had the article diagrammed in my head. I was having great fun putting the article together, and looked forward to editing from others, once I had completed what I had written.


 * Finally, I submitted over 300 articles to wikiHow which is where I learned what little wiki syntax I know. I'd appreciate any help offered when it comes to wiki syntax when the article is done. I am sure you have editors here who do just that. I used to do that at wikiHow where I have 5,000 plus articles polished up and edited doing what they call New Article Boost.


 * Mary Ash 20:38, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, Mary. Just read the blue banner at the top of the Edit page of this Talk page to see how indents are used. It will only take a few moments of your time. Meanwhile, I fixed your indenting. Milton Beychok 20:47, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Speaking as an individual who happens to be an Engineering Workgroup Editor, and not making a formal ruling, it bothers me that your draft seems to be using only sources that tend to assume that there are significant numbers of UFOs, and, in some cases, alien involvement. "Statistics" from a center really don't mean much without context and analysis. In aircraft accident investigation, for example, eyewitness reports, sometimes even from expert observers, are not just thrown out as evidentiary.


 * To take another area where seemingly expert observations have not necessarily proven definitive, see battle damage assessment. What I'm suggesting is that I would find a draft article much more in CZ style if it identifies, from the start, differences of opinion.


 * I'm sorry, but I really can't accept the idea of an authoritative article "about what UFOs look like," certainly with classifications that involve entities and humanoids, and about shapes without a discussion of the sensors and their angular resolution. I think the historical context, which I certainly didn't complete, is essential at the start. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:54, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

The article is about what UFOs reportedly look like

 * The article is about reported characteristics of what UFOs look like. A good source for UFO reports is the National UFO Reporting Center database. The database compiles reported witness sightings based on location, time, shape, etc. It is one of the few databases available as there are few places that accurately compile such information. The history of UFOs and related information are secondary and could stand alone as separate related articles.

Mary Ash 21:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)Mary Ash

Other engineering/astronomy editors?
Mary, no single person at CZ can insist on the scope of coverage of an article, although an Editor who has not added to the article comes close. In general, we prefer consensus.

I'm afraid I do not consider the above scope to be the base of a neutral CZ article. At the most basic, it sounds as if it makes the assumption that UFOs are real and witness reports are invariably accurate. That has a strong flavor of conspiracy theory.

Take a less controversial subject, battle damage assessment. Bomber pilots are experts, but long experience has proven their reporting must be confirmed.

This article seems to leap into the classification systems of UFO reporting organizations with a strong bias that there is a major UFO issue. What would strike me as a fair article would first go into the plausibility of widespread, verifiable existence of unknown objects, and, if it is focused on visual observation, some of the observer and cognitive issues there. It would certainly address the history and the increase in sighting reports. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I disagree: This is a straight up objective style or reporting
This article is a straight up, objective style of reporting. The article uses established facts from various credible and established sources. Later, if I ever get there, there will be information from skeptics. Unfortunately I've spent most of this day defending what little I wrote. I will have my husband, who is a scientist and amateur astronomer, review this article for scientific objectivity. Also, the article clearly states it is about UFOs. It is up to the reader to decide whether they exist or not. An objective article should allow the reader to make a decision based on a fact based article versus one that combines fact with opinion. It's best to use reputable sources, which I have, and then allow the reader to decide. Mary Ash 21:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)Mary Ash


 * Mary, CZ isn't a newspaper in which sometimes the editors or reporters feel it is necessary to report two sides of a question as if they are equally worthy. For instance, if we have an article about Flat-earthers, we will report what advocates of that view actually say and think, BUT we do not give them 50% of the article. We give them, in fact, about 5% or so, we put them in a historical context, etc., but we basically write an article in which the best scientific, expert opinion is the context.  The same, I fear, must be the case in any sort of article about UFOs, crop circles, Moon-landing hoaxes, etc. There is much that can be written about these topics in an objective way, but it has to be made clear that some studies, opinions, references, etc. are more mainstream and more highly valued than others.  In an article about Homeopathy, for instance, we would give greater weight to a 5-year study of its value by the Harvard Medical School than we would to a publication by a homeopathic center in Calcutta. All of the "information" that comes from your UFO-study center about the purported shapes of UFOs is going to have be strictly qualified.  You can say that *they* say there are ovals, triangles, etc., but all of this is going to have to dealt with in a way that is close to outright skepticism. It is *they* who have to offer evidence that what they say is scientific evidence -- not just babble from True Believers. Hayford Peirce 22:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Statement not opinion in context of Hynek and Vallee
The following was removed with only an edit summary. Please explain deletions on the Talk Page because edit summaries are transient."Some classifications of sightings specifically assume not only an object that could not be explained, but indications of a nonhuman intelligence, either extraterrestrial or terrestrial but paranormal."

Please do not keep deleting things with which you disagree without discussing them here.

This is not "opinion" in the sense of something not sourced, but directly derived from contextualizing the Hynek and Vallee categorizations:
 * Hynek "
 * 1) Close Encounter of the Third Kind: Seeing humanoid like creatures associated with the UFO. There is usually no interaction between the human witness and the humanoid. In some reports there have been interactions reported between the UFO witness and the humanoids.[1]
 * 2) Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Interaction between the UFO witness and abduction by humanoid entities."
 * Vallee's "
 * 1) AN3: entities. This could include ghosts, yetis (Abominable Snowman), elves, spirits and crytozoology.
 * 2) AN4: The witness reports interaction with the entities within the reality of the entities themselves. This type of experience could include Near Death Experiences, religious visions and out-of-body experiences (OBEs)"

It's generally not our practice to list groups favoring something, and its opponents as "skeptics". Indeed, in the Homeopathy article and discussion, the word "skeptic" was banned. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:40, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia not an acceptable source
I changed the sourcing, and detail, of the attribution that a character in the Spielberg movie was patterned after Vallee. Wikipedia is not an acceptable source for Citizendium articles, if for no other reason that it is unstable. While we do import WP articles, a practice being reevaluated, our rules require they be changed substantially and content added.

Howard C. Berkowitz 22:58, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

National UFO Reporting Center
I've been looking at the data base of NUFORC. As far as I can tell, they are narrative reports from people who have seen unexplained objects, in their own words. There does not appear to be any analysis of the described course tracks or visual characteristics, much less any attempt to correlate with other observations.

On the home page, the closest thing to correlation is "FLASH!!  POSTED TUESDAY EVENING,  JULY 06, 2010 - Events across the United States and Canada on the evening of Sunday, July 04, 2010.

"Over the last 48 hours, NUFORC has received almost 100 similar reports of very peculiar events, which have been witnessed across the U. S. and Canada on July 4th, and perhaps on July 3rd, as well. The sightings are a phenomenon for which we have no ready explanation.  Many of the reports from both days have been submitted by seemingly serious-minded individuals, many of whom apparently witnessed the events with multiple other witnesses present.

"To date, we have received reports of the phenomenon from the following U. S. states and Canadian provinces: California; Connecticut; Washington, D.C.; Florida; Georgia; Illinois; Indiana; Kentucky; Massachusetts; Manitoba; Michigan; Minnesota; Missouri; North Dakota; Nebraska; New Jersey; New York; Ohio; Oklahoma; Pennsylvania; Tennessee; Texas; Virginia; Vermont; and Washington State.

"The reports are similar, in that the witnesses have described seeing strange red, orange, or yellow “fireballs,” which have been seen either to hover in the night sky, or to streak overhead, sometimes individually, and on some occasions in clusters. In some instances, the objects were observed against a clear, cloudless sky, and in other cases, they were observed below solid or broken overcast.  "

Is it too much to expect that, perhaps, minimal respectable analysis would plot the sightings against geographic position and time? Perhaps that the changes in color, movement, etc., might be associated with different parts of the flight path? Howard C. Berkowitz 23:06, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an acceptable source according to the CZ User Guide
Wikipedia is an acceptable source.

Mary Ash 23:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)Mary Ash

Please cite. There is no page CZ: User Guide. I know of multiple-editor situations where there were several rulings that WP was not a source -- this became especially a problem with Eduzendium. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:31, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

A Constable's Comment about Sandboxes
I don't think this question has arisen before (if so, it was back with all the articles about the Uighor prisoners or whatever) but let's think it over for a moment:

If I decide I want to originate and then write an article about Billie Jean King, for instance, and I don't want anyone else messing around with it until I've got it *just* right, then I've got two choices:

1.) I can start a new article in Mainspace or whatever we want to call it.

2.) Or I can start a new article called User:Hayford Peirce/Sandbox/Billie Jean King or however it's actually done and then write the entire article in there at my leisure, free from interference from anyone else. When it's finished, I can then either Move it to Mainspace or do a cut-and-paste or whatever.

I think all of that is pretty clear.

What I *don't* think I can do is to start an article Unidentified flying object, for instance, then have a number of other Authors work on it in a very substantial way, and THEN move the entire article to a sandbox, thereby putting it off-limits to all the other Authors.

In other words, I think that an article in a Sandbox has to be a NEW article that other people haven't worked on, not one such as Unidentified flying object.

What are your thoughts on this? As a Constable, I don't think that it would be permitted, but I freely admit that I could be wrong about it. Hayford Peirce 23:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hayford, while it's not quite the same as an Author doing a MOVE from userspace, there have been cases where an Editor moved to userspace with the offer that the entire article could be moved back once the Editor believed it of mainspace quality. I'm not sure I remember cases where the quality was met and things moved back.


 * Again, those were usually things where there was not work by other authors. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:28, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Tried Several Times to Post This Comment
Removed: To recognize a previously seen object, the visual system must overcome the variability in the object's appearance caused by factors such as illumination and pose. Developments in computer vision suggest that it may be possible to counter the in£uence of these factors, by learning to interpolate between stored views of the target object, taken under representative combinations of viewing conditions. Daily life situations, however, typically require categorization, rather than recognition, of objects. Due to the open-ended character of both natural and arti¢cial categories, categorization cannot rely on interpolation between stored examples. [6]

Unneeded as the NUFORC cites witness reports. Only the witness can evaluate what they saw and I am sure most can figure out the difference between a circle, triangle or light. Also, Davenport does weed out obvious hoaxes.

Mary Ash 23:16, 22 July 2010 (UTC)Mary Ash


 * Mary, our procedure is that you discuss and then remove text. It is very much needed, as witnesses alone are rarely accepted as unimpeachable in court, much less in engineering. From engineering experience, I'm not at all sure that witnesses can accurately differentiate among circles, triangles and lights -- the cited material discussed that the human brain tries to match them to previous experience. There is abundant literature on object recognition, and its difficulties, in things that have nothing to do with UFOs.


 * Please restore the material you deleted. By "Davenport does weed out obvious hoaxes", what are their criteria? What independent organizations, having no stake in UFO matters, have reviewed their reliability? Are you saying they are more reliable than Art Lundahl, who was open even on photographic interpretation?Howard C. Berkowitz 23:24, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Reverts and unexplained deletions--constables?
I replaced a Wikipedia sourcing with a reference to the Internet Movie Database, which disagreed with WP. The IMDB additional information was reverted, in favor of Wikipedia, at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Unidentified_flying_object&oldid=100691828

At http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Unidentified_flying_object&oldid=100691827, I provided a citation about the difficulties of visual shape characterization, from a peer-reviewed journal. Again, it was deleted.

There is a Wikipedia citation for Carl Sagan under "skeptics". I properly wikilinked the Drake Equation.

Howard C. Berkowitz 23:19, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

This is an official Editorial ruling
Mary, when I reformatted some of your "Notes", you have reverted them to their original format. Your formatting is simply incorrect and I have tried to help you by reformatting them ... and I explained that above earlier in this Talk page. I am going to once more reformat them correctly and, in doing so, I am making an official editorial ruling that you are NOT to revert them again. I am also agreeing with Howard Berkowitz that Wikipedia articles are not reliable sources and you are NOT to revert that removal again. If you do so, I will ask a Constable to take the appropriate action. I regret having to make an official ruling but you are seemingly willfully reverting simple edits of reformatting your notes. Milton Beychok 23:36, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what I did but I apologize. Finally, you have worn me out in one day. I thought Wikipedia was tough but you guys have them beat. The article is all yours.


 * I have tried to start working on the skeptical viewpoint but I give up. I'm tired and I have a headache.


 * And I'm outta here! Mary Ash 23:46, 22 July 2010 (UTC)Mary Ash


 * Please, Mary, just try again. But first take the time to read and study all of the CZ help articles and "how to" articles, some of which were spelled out by Hayford Pierce on your Talk page when he created your account. It also helps to study the main articles and Talk pages of some existing articles. In other words, take 3 or 4 days just to read and study our CZ system before you try again. Milton Beychok 00:25, 23 July 2010 (UTC)