Talk:Unidentified flying object: Difference between revisions

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Currently there is a much overlap between the two articles. The ufology one talks about the various studies and UFO organizations, while the UFO article should, IMO, mainly detail the history of strange aerial sightings and perhaps offer speculations on the possible causes of why the sightings have allegedly occurred: psychological reasons, misidentification of celestial and meteorological phenomena, hoaxes etc, and finally something about the ETH and other fringe theories. The 'UFOs in popular culture' should be changed to 'UFOs in modern culture' and expanded discuss the impact of UFOs in the media, entertainment industry, new age/religion etc.

That said, I suggest moving the relevant UFO investigation sections to the ufology article.

Any opinions? 80.221.43.22 (talk) 10:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:50, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

i seen several times in sky in night times a star like a witch is moving in high speed . but i didn't think that could be a universal dead particle[any star ,stone , similar ones] hence i think why should this could be ufo. pleas repeat to dis message . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.192.206.100 (talk) 08:32, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They're going to come for you now....  :) McCaster (talk) 03:47, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The airline pilots who reported high flying objects probably saw U2 spy aircraft.

Take a look at the Stealth bomber from directly in front and it has a classic saucer shape. I reckon somebody saw such a plane on a test flight and reported it as a UFO.

Most of these UFO nuts can't accept that we are probably alone in the galaxy at least. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.93.199.154 (talk) 12:52, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any idea how massive this galaxy is? The sheer numbers involved in calculating the billions and billions of stars and star systems, and hundreds of billions of planets, and knowing that well over 99.9% of this Galaxy remains unexplored, how could you possibly make such an arrogantly ignorant claim? We know practically nothing about interstellar planets in our own tiny fraction-of-a-dot Galaxy, let alone the entire Universe, as we are pigeon holed to Earth and naturally its the only damn planet we have ever known personally, and guess what, Earth amounts to FAR less than a grain of sand. That was an extremely ignorant claim my friend. Go watch Carl Sagan's Cosmos, maybe, and you might just get a grasp on how vast this Universe is.--206.28.43.164 (talk) 17:38, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As I first time contributor here, I am finding it difficult to discuss improvements to the article without at least some general discussion of the topic. However, I also understand that this is not a discussion forum.

Overall, the main article is well-done and balanced. I offer a few observations below.

1. UAP is preferable to UFO for a couple of reasons absent from the article. In the context of the more credible incidents, only the term “unidentified” is accurate, or is not an assumption. Human beings and our sensors detect what appear to be objects, and there have been incidents in which evidence suggested physical reality, such as indentations in soil that suggested that an object with physical mass and weight came to rest on the surface of the Earth. But for the most part, there is a visual “sighting” and sometimes radar corroboration which suggests but does not prove the presence of a physical object. Our senses and sensors can easily be fooled, even by our own technology. While it may be that I am splitting hairs, what appears to be an object could also be, for example, a hologram. Therefore, the acronym UFO assumes the presence of an object.

The term “flying” is also problematic. Granted, the word “flying” is used to describe the movement of lighter than air vehicles, but “flying” usually refers to heavier than air craft which use air moving past an airfoil to create lift. Again, I may be splitting hairs, but it is difficult to reconcile the non-ballistic movements at impossibly high speeds described in many incidents with what we would define as “flying”. If a UAP was a heavier than air object that remained above the Earth’s surface by use of a science and technology that defied gravity, is it flying? If the UAP is not a physical object but we perceive movement through our atmosphere, is it flying?

2. The last sentence of the second full paragraph of the main article is “Only between 5% to 20% of anomalous sightings can be classified as unidentified in the strictest sense (see below for some studies).” “Only” is a minimizing term, similar to “merely”. The subjective decision to use it here is more argumentative than informative. Consider how inappropriate the use of “only” is with the exact same percentages, but applied to different topics:

Only between 5% to 20% of domestic airline flights are crashing shortly after takeoff.

Only between 5% to 20% of this car model are exploding violently after a rear impact.

Only between 5% to 20% of test subjects suffered a fatal brain hemorrhage after taking this drug.

I would delete the word “only”. Further, there is no frame of reference to justify “only” anymore than there would be to substitute the word “incredibly”, although the latter arguably makes more sense. The high end of the range, 20%, is a higher percentage than many people might expect, and certainly doesn’t justify the word only:

Twenty percent of anomalous sightings can be classified as unidentified in the strictest sense.

Really? One in five anomalous sightings are unidentified?

I offer my observations because the quality of the main article is better than I expected, and because the topic overall suffers from assumptions, imprecise use of terms and ridicule. Those who ridicule the topic exhibit intellectual cowardice, and the best weapon against ridicule is accurate use of terms, eliminating or at least acknowledging assumptions, and as much objectivity as possible. Duncanives (talk) 03:43, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about UFOs, a very common term, known to most English speakers. An article about UAPs would be an entirely different thing, using terminology known only to enthusiasts and a handful of others. It would attract a different readership. Create such an article if you wish, but WIkipedia MUST have an article on UFOs.

I have no problem with tidying up the language. It has improved a lot over the past 6 months, from a pretty poor start, but more help on that front is always welcome.

As for ridiculing UFOlogists, it's the bad science and poor intellectual rigour shown by many that leads to such things as the unhealthy state this article WAS in until recent times. It may sound rude, but since they claim to be scientific, they deserve ridicule.

Now, back to maintaining a balanced article. HiLo48 (talk) 04:29, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Someone's messed around with this article. The lead image shows a debunking of an apparent UFO sighting from a space craft. It should not be the main image for this article. A more traditional UFO image should be used. 68.146.81.123 (talk) 18:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with that, but why two of the images of the collage are from Billy Meier? Considering the story he told, I think less popular footage but still showing UFO taken by anonymous people should be used. I will consider changing that collage if nobody has something against that decision. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.36.109.229 (talk) 08:58, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My fault, there are not two from Billy Meier, they are 2/3 of the total! It definitively needs more variety —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.36.109.229 (talk) 09:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Now deleted as a copyvio. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:57, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{edit semi-protected}} Entire page requires grammatical and syntax clean-up.

109.152.153.134 (talk) 19:53, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: Thanks for the observation. The edit semi-protected template is used to request specific changes. If you want to detail some of the changes in a 'please change X to Y' manner, please start another edit request. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 21:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please merge section from "1561 Nuremberg event" in the Sun dog article. --79.168.10.241 (talk) 20:22, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]