IFOs

Identified Flying Objects (IFOs)

It has been generaly estimated that up to 90% of all reported UFO sightings are eventually identified. While a small percentage of UFO reports are deliberate hoaxes, most are misidentifications of natural and man-made phenomena.

However, the actual percentages of IFOs vs. UFOs depend on who is doing the study and can vary widely depending on criteria. For example, scientists for the Battelle Memorial Institute, who did a study for the USAF of 3201 UFO cases in the 1950's, ended up with 22% being unidentified, using the stringent criteria that all four analysts had to agree that the case had no prosaic explanation, whereas agreement of only two analysts was needed to list the case as explained.

In contrast, much more conservative numbers for the percentage of UFOs were arrived at individually by Allen Hendry, who was the chief investigator for the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS). CUFOS was founded by Dr. Allen Hynek (who had been a consultant for the Air Force’s Project Blue Book) to provide a serious scientific investigation into UFOs. Hendry spent 15 months personally investigating 1,307 UFO reports. In 1979, Hendry published his conclusions in The UFO Handbook: A Guide to Investigating, Evaluating, and Reporting UFO Sightings. Hendry admitted that he would like to find evidence for extraterrestrials but noted that the vast majority of cases had prosaic explanations. Hendry’s conclusions were:

"Out of 1,307 cases: 1,194 (91.4%) had clear prosaic (non-extraterrestrial) explanations; 93 (7.1%) had possible prosaic explanations; and 20 (1.5%) were unexplained.

Statistics: 28% of the UFO reports were bright stars or planets; 1.7% were the tip of the crescent moon; 18% were advertising plane banners (usually seen edge-on rather than the face-on); and 9% were fireballs and reentering space debris.

Distortions in the atmosphere can cause celestial bodies to appear to “dart up and down,” “execute loops and figure eights,” “meander in a square pattern,” or even “zigzag.” This helps explain why celestial bodies can so easily fool observers.

In 49 of the UFO reports caused by celestial bodies, the witness’ estimated distance to the UFO ranged from 200 feet to 125 miles! Similarly, some witnesses believed that the UFO was “following them” even though the celestial body was actually stationary. Even the police and other reliable witnesses can easily be fooled by sightings of stars and planets.

Reentering space debris or meteors may appear as a string of lights, which can be misinterpreted as lights coming from windows of a spacecraft.
The human brain then creates the illusion of a spacecraft based on this misinterpretation, which then fools the observer."

Common misidentifications of man-made phenomena include:

Balloons (meteorological or passenger).
Military aircraft.
Flashing landing lights of conventional aircraft.
Unconventional aircraft or advanced technology (i.e., the SR-71 Blackbird or the B-2 Stealth bomber).Advertising planes.
Artificial earth satellites.
Hovering aircraft (such as helicopters).
Blimps.
Rockets and rocket launches.
Kites.
Model aircraft.
Hang-gliders.
Fireworks.
Lasers aimed at the clouds.
Searchlights.
Deliberate hoaxes.
Jiffy Fire Starters.

Common misidentifications of natural objects include:

The moon, stars, and planets (for example, the cusps of the rising crescent moon in the tropics, and Venus at maximum brightness)
Unusual weather conditions (such as lenticular cloud formations, noctilucent clouds, rainbow effects, and high-altitude ice crystals).
Comets.
Meteor Swarms.
Near or large meteors.
Flocks of birds.
Swarms of flying insects.
Reflections from atmospheric inversion layers.
Hot ionized gas (natural or man-made).
Earth lights (luminous electrical events from low-level earthquakes and tectonic-geological phenomena.)
Ball lightning.
Atmospheric inversion layers.
Reflected light (especially through broken clouds).
Aurora borealis (northern lights).