Unidentified flying object

Photo from New Jersey, USA

An unidentified flying object (or UFO) is an object in the sky which cannot be identified.

Identified flying objects (IFOs)

Studies estimate that 50-90% of all reported UFO sightings are identified later. Most are natural or man-made objects that looked strange. 80-90% of UFOs are identified as one of three things:

1. astronomical causes (for example: planets, stars, or meteors)
2. aircraft
3. balloons (including weather balloons)

New term

Since the 2020s, people have come up with the following terminology:

• Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
• Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena

Therefore, it is common to hear "UFO" and "UAP" while listening to people talk about this topic.

Unidentified Flying Object Media

• "GIMBAL" Pentagon UFO video, January 2015

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  An example of picture showing a ship that appears to be floating above the horizon.

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  SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch from Vandenberg, CA - October 7 2018 - 45131925812

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  The celestial phenomenon over Basel in 1566.

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  Cover of the 1953 book The Flying Saucers Are Real by Donald Keyhoe

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  Cover of the pulp science fiction magazine Amazing Stories from October 1957

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  A document about a sighting of a UFO that occurred on December 16, 1977, in the state of Bahia, Brazil

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  J. Allen Hynek (left) and Jacques Vallée

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  Jacques Vallée by Christopher Michel

Other websites

• Wikinews - UFO Archive
• CIA educational summary on UFO Archived 2007-05-09 at the Wayback Machine (working link or what? Maybe it should be used this link Archived 2019-10-01 at the Wayback Machine instead?)
• NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts
• BBC article on Mexican Air-force videotape
• NASA UFO Hacker Video Interview Archived 2007-11-13 at the Wayback Machine
• Popularmechanics Article - When UFOs Arrive: February 2004 Cover Story Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
• Allan Hendry, The UFO Handbook: A Guide to Investigating, Evaluating, and Reporting UFO Sightings, 1979, Doubleday & Co., ISBN 0-385-14348-6