What’s Right With Ufological Investigation

Lest anyone rush to judgment and condemn ufologists as always incompetent, amateurish, or cultists bent on confirming a belief, a look at the Phoenix Lights, the Yukon Mothership, and the Incident at Exeter demonstrates just the opposite. Much effort and a high degree of skill went into the investigation of events that truly merited such attention. These examples clearly fit a checklist of reasons to regard them as promising UFOs:

1. The three sightings were authentic events with documentation to show that they were more than a hoax, rumor, or media fabrication.
2. The objects observed had obvious intrinsic interest.
3. Descriptions of the objects were rich in information.
4. Witnesses of the objects were dependable, credible persons.
5. Corroborating testimony supported each case. This support came from the testimonies of multiple witnesses in all three, and from the instrumental evidence of photography in Phoenix.
6. The evidence was detailed enough that investigators could “do some science” with it and add to their understanding, for example triangulation of objects in the Phoenix and Yukon cases allowed determination of distance or size from the reported observations.
7. The testimonies provided coherent accounts and largely confirmed one another.
8. Some descriptions matched previous experience and these similarities tied the cases to other UFO descriptions.9)A thorough investigation gathered testimony and supplemental evidence directly from the witnesses, with inspection of the site and with regard for exact positions, time, and angular size of the object.
9. All three cases underwent critical examination both by ufologists and skeptics in an effort to find conventional alternatives, yet survived (at least for a while) as genuinely puzzling anomalies.

A consideration of what is best in ufological investigation could start with recognition that these “Ten Commandments” for identifying quality UFO cases fulfill reasonable, rule-of-thumb selection criteria that could apply (at least with some modification) to any anomaly. The three examples represent undeniable experiential events, describe robust, intriguing observations, and rest on abundant, detailed testimony from multiple sources. In the word of the witnesses these sightings amounted to far more than nonde-script lights in the distance. Something curious, something strange and worthy of investigation, was clearly afoot.

The three cases exemplify the investigators’ obvious passion for thoroughness. Investigators in all three cases collected extensive files of sightings and as much supplemental evidence as possible, like video-tapes. Field investigations and follow-up interviews of witnesses also filled in the informational gaps to gather as much firsthand information as humanly possible. If ufologists arrived at wrong conclusions the reason was not a lack of raw data.

Another strength was a willingness to listen to the witnesses, to take them seriously and not be too quick to second-guess or over-interpret what they said. The investigators followed the lead of their informants and accepted their descriptions as the factual foundation on which to base interpretation, so that, for example, if witnesses said they saw a dark, V-shaped form behind the lights, this object becomes the given reality to explain. At least ufologists did not completely distort testimonies and force them to conform to some preordained idea.

When the time came to bring narrative order to the collection of reports and tell a coherent story of what the witnesses observed, the results in these three examples held close to the testimonial evidence. The Phoenix story included multiple UFOs, some triangular and at least one circular, crossing the state and passing over or near the city. The Yukon story made room for people at various positions along 200 miles of highway seeing the same giant craft. The Exeter story had a flashing red UFO appear twice over a farm and scare two motorists the same night. Rather than invent a story without foundation in the testimonies, the investigators combined individual stories to encompass multiple accounts and different points of vantage, resulting in a “big picture” narration that is hypothetical yet firmly based on the full body of testimony. If ufologists erred, they could say with fairness that they simply followed the lead of the witnesses.

Ufologists typically—and understandably—have a desire to find UFOs as the cause of a spectacular case. This will-to-believe stigmatizes ufology with suspicions that its practitioners are uncritical and determined to make a UFO out of flimsy evidence or no evidence at all, but these three examples show quite a different picture. Extensive investigations probed each case, and far from any image of true believers enjoying a holiday of self-confirmation, ufologists did not automatically leap to the conclusion that a UFO caused the sightings. Jasek considered a list of conventional possibilities for the Yukon object but rejected each one for due cause. Ufologists identified the 10 p.m. Phoenix Lights as flares but built a sound case that the 9 p.m. lights were not flares. Such explanations for Exeter as advertising aircraft, a kite hoax, or KC-97 tankers met with effective refutation from investigators who truly did their homework. Of course ufologists wanted these cases to be UFOs, but they based their defense on reason and evidence rather than hope and delusion.