Misidentification hypothesis

Table 2 summarizes the quality distribution of the same sightings as categorized in Table 1. Of prime importance is the fact that the better the quality of the sightings, the more likely to be an Unknown and the less likely to be listed as Insufficient Information. These results are precisely what one would expect if the Unknowns were fundamentally different from those reports in the astronomical, balloon, aircraft, or other categories and also completely contradict the oft made statement that “There are no interesting UFO sightings that are reliable and no reliable sightings that are interesting” (Ref. 2). The fundamental question raised by these data is “If the Unknowns are not aircraft, balloons, astronomical, or miscellaneous, or even the ones for which there was insufficient data, then just what are they?”

The first question to ask in attempting to determine the identity of the Unknowns is “Is there any difference between the characteristics of the Unknowns as described by witnesses and the characteristics of the Knowns? If on the average the two groups are similar, then one might be justified in concluding that the Unknowns are just “missed” knowns. Several different chi-square statistical analyses were conducted to check this aspect. The characteristics included were size, shape, color, speed, duration of observation, and brightness.

Very unfortunately, maneuverability was not one of the characteristics included in the chi-square test, though it is certainly one of the more distinguishing characteristics of the Unknowns as compared to the Knowns. Many attempts were made to load the comparison by, for example, including the “insufficient data” cases and the “probable” knowns or by deleting the astronomical sightings (which had an excess of green objects) in the color comparisons. The results consistently showed that the probability that the Unknowns were just missed knowns was less than 1%! This point cannot be stressed too strongly: Unknowns are not the poorly reported sightings, are not the ones for which there is insufficient data for a professional investigator to identify and are clearly and distinctly different from the Knowns.^[1]