History of ufo & defination of ufo

From time to time throughout history there have been reports of strange things seen in the sky. In 1946 a series of sightings occurred in Sweden. And in the summer of 1947 there were thousands of sightings in a six week period, and at least 350 people found themselves first and second-hand witnesses to what may have been an actual crash of a UFO with occupants. Since 1947, reports of UFOs have become increasingly numerous in the U.S. and other parts of the world. These reports continue in much the same form today.

UFO sightings are reported to MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) at Seguin, TX, and CUFOS (J. Allen Center for UFO Studies) in Chicago, IL, by a broad spectrum of the public, particularly through local law enforcement agencies. UFOs themselves are reported by many highly responsible people, e.g. military and civilian pilots, air traffic controllers, scientists, etc.

The majority of present-day sightings prove to be misinterpretations of natural phenomena: meteors, planets, and stars, or man-made objects such as airplanes, balloons, and satellites. These are referred to as identified flying objects (IFOs). A smaller number of reports cannot be investigated properly due either to lack of pertinent details or the inaccessibility of witnesses. In any given set of UFO reports, however, there remains a residue of about 5-10% which are truly puzzling, not only to witnesses, but to technically trained investigators who study the reports.

While UFO reports differ in many details, there are also a number of similarities recurring in such features as shape, maneuverability, appearance and disappearance, sound and color. There are several basic observational categories into which the unidentifieds may be classified.

The number of sightings worldwide must be in the millions, but there are over 106,000 entries on the UFOCAT (UFO Catalog) computer database. And over three thousand sightings have been cataloged by Dr. Richard Haines, a leading expert on sightings from aircraft, in his "Selected Sightings From Aircraft", observations from over 40 countries. "A long history of UFOs pacing aircraft or rockets, circling them, and fleeing when pursued by military jets, suggests some form of intelligence and curiosity."