Editing Unidentified flying object (section)

===Scientific===
{{Main|Ufology#Research}}
Historically, ufology has not been considered credible in mainstream science.<ref name=ufosociology /> The [[scientific community]] has generally deemed that UFO sightings are not worthy of serious investigation except as a cultural artifact.<ref>[[#Sagan & Page|Sagan & Page 1996]]</ref><ref name="McDonald">{{cite web |url=http://puhep1.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/JEMcDonald/mcdonald_hcsa_68.pdf |title=Statement on Unidentified Flying Objects: Submitted to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics at July 29, 1968, Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, Rayburn Bldg., Washington, D.C., by James E. McDonald |last=McDonald |first=James E. |author-link=James E. McDonald |date=July 29, 1968 |access-date=September 6, 2013 |archive-date=January 5, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190105080523/http://puhep1.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/JEMcDonald/mcdonald_hcsa_68.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="COMETA">{{cite web |url=http://www.ufoevidence.org/topics/Cometa.htm |title=COMETA Report |publisher=ufoevidence.org |location=Seattle, WA |access-date=July 13, 2013 |archive-date=November 15, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191115111528/http://www.ufoevidence.org/topics/Cometa.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="McCarthy">[[#McCarthy 1975|McCarthy 1975]]</ref><ref name="Sturrock/Stanford">{{cite web |url=http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/1998/july1/ufostudy71.html |title=UFO study causes media sensation: 7/1/98 |last=Salisbury |first=David F. |date=July 1, 1998 |work=Stanford Report |publisher=[[Stanford University]] |location=Stanford, CA |access-date=May 16, 2013 |archive-date=April 11, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090411190007/http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/1998/july1/ufostudy71.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Menzel">[[#Menzel & Taves|Menzel & Taves 1977]]</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=UFO studies should be 'legitimate university subject', claims American professor |first=Andrew |last=Hough |url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/7584331/UFO-studies-should-be-legitimate-university-subject-claims-American-professor.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/7584331/UFO-studies-should-be-legitimate-university-subject-claims-American-professor.html |archive-date=January 11, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |location=London |date=April 13, 2010 |access-date=July 13, 2013}}{{cbignore}}</ref>
[[Image:Allen Hynek Jacques Vallee 1.jpg|thumb|[[J. Allen Hynek|Allen Hynek]] (left) and [[Jacques Vallée]]]]
Studies of UFOs rarely appear in mainstream scientific literature. When asked, some scientists and scientific organizations have pointed to the end of official governmental studies in the U.S. in December 1969, following the statement by the government scientist [[Edward Condon]] that further study of UFOs could not be justified on grounds of scientific advancement.<ref name="COMETA"/><ref>[[#Swords & Powell|Swords & Powell 2012]], pp. 306–332</ref>

Nevertheless, on 14 September 2023, NASA reported the appointment, for the first time, of a [[NASA Director of UAP Research]] (known earlier as U.F.O.), identified as [[Mark McInerney]], to scientifically, and transparently, study such occurrences.<ref name="NYT-20230914">{{cite news |last=Chang |first=Kenneth |title=NASA Introduces New U.F.O. Research Director – The role was created in response to the recommendations of a report that found the agency could do more to collect and interpret data on unidentified anomalous phenomena. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/14/science/nasa-ufo-uap-report.html |date=14 September 2023 |work=[[The New York Times]] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230914235331/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/14/science/nasa-ufo-uap-report.html |archive-date=14 September 2023 |access-date=15 September 2023 }}</ref>

====Status as a pseudoscience====
{{Excerpt|Ufology|Status as a pseudoscience}}
[[File:Jacques Vallée by Christopher Michel 12112024 4.jpg|thumb|Jacques Vallée]]
[[Jacques Vallée]], a scientist and ufologist, claimed there were deficiencies in most UFO research, including government studies. He criticized the mythology and cultism often associated with UFO sightings, but despite the challenges, Vallée contended that several hundred professional scientists—a group both he and Hynek termed "the invisible college"—continued to study UFOs quietly on their own time.<ref name="Revelations" />

====Studies====
UFOs have become a prevalent theme in modern culture,<ref name="Revelations">[[#Vallée 2008|Vallée 2008]]</ref> and the social phenomena have been the subject of academic research in sociology and psychology.<ref name=ufosociology>{{cite journal |last=Cross |first=Anne |date=March 2004 |title=The Flexibility of Scientific Rhetoric: A Case Study of UFO Researchers |journal=[[Qualitative Sociology]] |publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media|Springer]] |volume=27 |issue=1 |pages=3–34 |issn=0162-0436 |doi=10.1023/B:QUAS.0000015542.28438.41|s2cid=144197172 }}</ref>

{{Excerpt|Ufology|Current interest}}

====Sturrock panel categorization====

Besides anecdotal visual sightings, reports sometimes include claims of other kinds of evidence, including cases studied by the military and various government agencies of different countries (such as Project Blue Book, the Condon Committee, the French [[GEIPAN|GEPAN/SEPRA]], and Uruguay's current Air Force study).

A comprehensive scientific review of cases where physical evidence was available was carried out by the 1998 Sturrock panel, with specific examples of many of the categories listed below.
* Radar contact and tracking, sometimes from multiple sites. These have included military personnel and control tower operators, simultaneous visual sightings, and aircraft intercepts. One such example was the [[Belgian UFO wave|mass sightings]] of large, silent, low-flying black triangles in 1989 and 1990 over Belgium, tracked by [[NATO]] radar and jet interceptors, and investigated by Belgium's military (included photographic evidence). Another famous case from 1986 was the [[Japan Air Lines flight 1628 incident]] over [[Alaska]] investigated by the [[Federal Aviation Administration]] (FAA).
* Photographic evidence, including still photos, movie film, and video.
* Claims of physical trace of landing UFOs, including ground impressions, burned or desiccated soil, burned and broken foliage, magnetic anomalies{{Specify|date=February 2009}}, increased radiation levels, and metallic traces. (See, e.&nbsp;g. Height 611 UFO incident or the 1964 [[Lonnie Zamora incident|Lonnie Zamora]]'s [[Socorro, New Mexico]] encounter of the USAF Project Blue Book cases.) A well-known example from December 1980 was the USAF Rendlesham Forest incident in England. Another occurred in January 1981 in Trans-en-Provence and was investigated by GEPAN, then France's official government UFO-investigation agency. Project Blue Book head Edward J. Ruppelt described a classic 1952 CE2 case involving a patch of charred grass roots.
* Physiological effects on people and animals including temporary paralysis, skin burns and rashes, [[cornea]]l burns, and symptoms superficially resembling [[Acute radiation syndrome|radiation poisoning]], such as the [[Cash-Landrum incident]] in 1980.
* Animal/[[cattle mutilation]] cases, which some feel are also part of the UFO phenomenon.
* Biological effects on plants such as increased or decreased growth, germination effects on seeds, and blown-out stem nodes (usually associated with physical trace cases or [[crop circle]]s)
* [[Electromagnetic interference]] (EM) effects. A famous [[1976 Tehran UFO incident|1976 military case]] over [[Tehran]], recorded in CIA and DIA classified documents, was associated with communication losses in multiple aircraft and weapons system failure in an [[McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II|F-4 Phantom II]] jet interceptor as it was about to fire a missile on one of the UFOs.<ref>Fawcett & Greenwood, 81–89; [[#Good 1988|Good 1988]], pp. 318–322, 497–502</ref>
* Apparent remote radiation detection, some noted in FBI and CIA documents occurring over government nuclear installations at [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] and [[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]] in 1950, also reported by Project Blue Book director Edward J. Ruppelt in his book.
* Claimed artifacts of UFOs themselves, such as 1957, [[Ubatuba]], Brazil, [[magnesium]] fragments analyzed by the [[Federal government of Brazil|Brazilian government]] and in the Condon Report and by others. The 1964 Lonnie Zamora incident also left metal traces, analyzed by NASA.<ref>[[#Good 1988|Good 1988]], pp. 371–373</ref><ref>[[#Stanford|Stanford 1976]], pp. 112–154</ref> A more recent example involves a teardrop-shaped object recovered by Bob White and was featured in a television episode of ''[[UFO Hunters]]''<ref>{{cite episode |title=UFO Relics |series=UFO Hunters |series-link=UFO Hunters |network=[[History (U.S. TV channel)|History]] |airdate=May 6, 2009 |season=3 |number=33}}</ref> but was later found to be accumulated waste metal residue from a grinding machine.<ref>Pat Linse, Ean Harrison (2011) [https://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-10-12/#feature Bob White's Great UFO Artifact Mystery – This Solved!] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220429024657/https://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-10-12/#feature |date=April 29, 2022 }} Skeptic magazine, Vol 16 No 3</ref>
* [[Angel hair (folklore)|Angel hair and angel grass]], possibly explained in some cases as nests from [[Ballooning (spider)|ballooning spiders]] or [[Chaff (radar countermeasure)|chaff]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Heaven and hell : a compulsively readable compendium of myth, legend, wisdom, and wit for saints and sinners|date=2004|publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press|author=Faustino, Mara |isbn=0871136961|location=New York|oclc=55596198}}</ref>

====Scientific skepticism====

A [[scientifically skeptical]] group that has for many years offered critical analyses of UFO claims is the [[Committee for Skeptical Inquiry]] (CSI). One example is the response to local beliefs that "extraterrestrial beings" in UFOs were responsible for crop circles appearing in Indonesia, which the government and the [[National Institute of Aeronautics and Space]] (LAPAN) described as "man-made". Thomas Djamaluddin, research professor of astronomy and astrophysics at LAPAN stated: "We have come to agree that this 'thing' cannot be scientifically proven. Scientists have put UFOs in the category of [[pseudoscience]]."<ref name=Krismantari>{{cite news |title=Crop circles provide food for thought |first=Ika |last=Krismantari |url=http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/2/6/focus/7978671&sec=focus |work=[[The Star (Malaysia)|The Star]] |publisher=Star Publications |location=Petaling Jaya |date=February 6, 2011 |access-date=September 12, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121030122405/http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=%2F2011%2F2%2F6%2Ffocus%2F7978671&sec=focus |archive-date=October 30, 2012  }}</ref>