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)

Do you not have a section or category for paranormal subjects? I'm sure someone has written about ghosts. Or you could take a look categorizing under philosophy and religion. Finally, the term UFO Nuts may be showing some bias and could be considered derogatory. What do you think? The appropriate term would be Ufologist I think.Mary Ash 02:36, 26 July 2010 (UTC) (UTC)~~Mary Ash~~ Putting in ~~~~ signs your name; you're getting it twice

Do you not have a section or category for paranormal subjects? I'm sure someone has written about ghosts. Or you could take a look categorizing under philosophy and religion. Finally, the term UFO Nuts may be showing some bias and could be considered derogatory. What do you think? The appropriate term would be Ufologist I think.

There is a brief article on ghosts that certainly could be expanded. In general, though, there's nothing on the paranormal or paranormal intelligence. I'd personally welcome an objective article that establishes some concepts. CZ: Anthropology Workgroup might be a good choice.

I would agree that "ufology" is an acceptable term for someone that specializes in interpreting UFO reports. Any group, of course, can have nuts among it; the Politics Workgroup is aware of many. :-(

To get the best collaborative work on controversial topics, avoid sensationalism and things that come across as conspiracy. When dealing in political and security subjects, for example, it's often wise to present text from documents, perhaps side-by-side with laws or treaties. Putting in ~~~~ signs your name ...said Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:59, July 25, 2010

(unindent) I just changed the second workgroup from Biology to Psychology, since most of the biological aspects of the matter have to do with perception. However, most of the cases for which reliable explanations exist, they are based on physical, chemical or classified military knowledge, so these workgroups might have to be considered as well. --Daniel Mietchen 21:24, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not a three-workgroup-only subject. I was thinking of biology in the astrobiological sense, but perceptual psychology certainly is an issue. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:31, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Hello and welcome to Citizendium

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)

Am I Free to Do Some Minor Edits or Will I Be Banned?

Am I free to make some minor edits to this article or will I be banned. The description of Ufology needs some tweaking. I would like to rewrite this Wikipedia definition which is far less negative and lacks potential bias.

Ufology (pronounced /juːˈfɒlədʒiː/) is a neologism coined to describe the collective efforts of those who study reports and associated evidence of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). While ufology does not represent an academic field of research and is widely described as a pseudoscience, UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years by governments, independent groups, and scientists. The term derives from UFO, which is pronounced as an acronym, and the suffix -logy, which comes from the Ancient Greek λογία (logiā).

Please advise.

Mary Ash 02:04, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

No, you won't be banned. I'd appreciate, though, some discussion, so I can understand your concerns. In the above definition, I would avoid the words "and associated evidence". Evidence has a legal meaning; "data" would not. I tried to be neutral in the current definition, and, as I remember, paraphrased some mission statements from ufology groups.

From my perspective, it's a legitimate area of observation. Where it gets to be problematic is where there are unsubstantiated claims of coverups, or there are also unsupported allegations of alien (i.e., paranormal or extraterrestrial) intelligence.

There is evidence that the U.S. government tried to avoid public hysteria. Arguably, the Air Force stopped active study before the CIA did because the Air Force's responsibilities are more for current operations -- they didn't see any immediate threat and didn't want to expend funds. Howard C. Berkowitz 03:06, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Added info about UFO databases maintained by MUFON and NUFORC

Added information about the databases maintained by both organizations. MUFON offers a live UFO "Weather Map" tracking UFO reports and a searchable data base. NUFORC offers a database that goes back at least 20 years and includes location, time and type of object seen. Mary Ash 02:02, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Made some changes to the first paragraph

Mostly to clean-up superfluous language and combine repeating sentences. Feel free to revert if I messed something up. D. Matt Innis 19:39, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I added a mainstream view: if there is extraterrestrial intelligence, radio is the most likely initial form, as being actively investigated by the SETI Project. Also, I put transpersonal psychology into Related Articles but it belongs somewhere -- Mack very much considers this relevant to visitations and abductions. Howard C. Berkowitz 19:57, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Not sure that is has much to do with unidentified flying objects, but it is good information. Maybe we can develop that idea further down in the article if it isn't already (I haven't gotten far). D. Matt Innis 20:54, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

The relevance is that a number of scientists are not prone to accept the physical visitations, as they believe radio is a better Occam's Razor explanation (Occam's electric razor?). Howard C. Berkowitz 21:15, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

lede rewrite

that's perfect, howard! I had those words on the tip of my tongue but couldn't spring them loose.... Hayford Peirce 02:44, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Added a couple respected researchers

I added a couple science based UFO researchers to the article. Both are physicists. I also removed about 10 words, perhaps less, that were probably not accurate. Not all UFO groups or Ufologists are conspiracy theorists. Some could be but you can not state that all are. I will add more information later, stuff that I never had the opportunity to do so, but that will be in a couple days. Mary Ash 08:32, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Inflammatory and bias?

Below is what is written in the article:

"Sightings increased greatly following the Second World War; mass hysteria began as many were conflated into claims of "flying saucers" or other "vehicles from outer space" that many people believed were directed by extraterrestrial intelligences. In 1947 the U.S. government began studying them, often in classified projects. There is, however, a distinct difference between unidentified aerial objects and these theoretical constructs. All investigators and scientists readily concede that the explanation of some aerial sightings remains unidentified even after the most intense examination. Most dismiss the notion, however, that there is any concrete evidence that Earth is being, or has been, visited by creatures from other worlds. The U.S. government is not known to have specific investigations underway, although there is a group for the study of unidentified aerospace..."

I find the statement concerning mass hysteria biased or opinionated. I would like to see documentation i.e. scientifically based references showing there was mass hysteria.

There are UFO flaps but not usually hysteria unless you consider the people who were frightened by the War of the Worlds broadcast by Orson Welles. That's another subject. I have not edited the above material but I would like to see it toned down, if possible.Mary Ash 16:33, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Mary here about the use of "mass hysteria" -- that was, as I recall from living through that era, a phrase that was actually used from time to time by UFO skeptics, BUT for us to use it here with no citations or references is not very professional. Today the phrase implies (almost) people running panicked through the streets, and this was certainly not the case. "Mass delusion" might be used instead, but even that implies that millions of people were being deluded. How many people, I wonder, actually reported "flying saucers"? I really doubt that it was more than somewhere in the thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Possible.... Hayford Peirce 16:40, 7 January 2011 (UTC)