ConUFOsion

Classifying UFOs shouldn't be this confusing. Either it's a bonafide spaceship or it's the planet Venus or it's... something we can't explain. But MUFON has to make it difficult. It's not enough to not know; when I file a case report, I have to be very specific about what the thing I don't know is and why I don't know what I don't know, even though I don't know. Because otherwise we wouldn't know, you know?

So, after all the witness testimony has been taken, after all the facts have been recorded, after all the magnetic anomalies have been anomalied and all the Geiger counters have been Geigered, yours truly has to decide if what was seen in the sky is something known or something unknown. And if I decide that it was "unknown," then I have to declare what kind of unknown it was. Was it an "Unknown -- UAV (unidentified aerial vehicle)" or an "Unknown - Other." Trouble is, it's hard to find anyone in MUFON who knows the difference.

I have already blogged about this here, so I won't repeat myself now, but since that first post there has been a new wrinkle. Because it seemed all my cases would end up being one kind of unknown or another, I had written to the MUFON National Training Director to try to get some clarification on this "Unknown" matter. Her response was, er... not exactly helpful.

She wrote this:

Hi Mark!
Unknown - UAV is Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. (Triangles, cigars, a craft).
Unknown other is orbs, spheres, cones, rods).
I hope that helps!
Yours,
Mxxxx

MUFON calls this an "Unmanned Aerial Vehicle." I call it a good smoke.

Actually it doesn't help, although I was relieved that she didn't mention ghosts. Here's the thing that doesn't help: Mxxxx has actually redefined "UAV." Up until I got her note, everything in the MUFON literature that I had ever seen defined a UAV as an "unidentified aerial vehicle" (see above), but now the MUFON National Training Director tells me that UAV stands for "unmanned aerial vehicle."

Uh... unmanned? Of course it's unmanned. If it was manned I wouldn't be investigating it, would I?

Anyway, I declared my Close Encounter case to be an "Unknown - UAV," because in my heart that's what I believe it to be. Come to think of it, I believe it in my head, too, and it's hard to argue with two organs.

And yet, it's possible that my State Director will argue with my head and my heart, because she has shown an alarming tendency so far to request changes in my reports. This could get ugly...