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May 2010_june_july_2009.qxd 31/05/2010 6:15 PM Page 18 18 Top 10 most common explanations for UFOs Top 10 most common making them occasional candidates for flying explanations for UFOs disks. Even cockpit lights reflecting off a Continued from Page 17 canopy have been misidentified as high-speed UFOs (especially in the early years of UFO pursuits). 2. Aircraft Military aircraft often drop flares while conducting night training operations (or, in combat areas, as a means of diverting heat- seeking anti-aircraft missiles). material (giving them a polished or shiny These flares, unlike the tiny ones used to appearance), and can fly at altitudes as high as mark highway obstacles or for emergency use, 120,000 feet where winds aloft can sometimes are quite large and will burn brightly for up to a push them along at hundreds of knots, giving half an hour at a time and, when suspended from them the illusion of moving at high speeds. parachutes, can remain airborne for some time. Furthermore, when seen moving As such, if dropped in a cluster, they can While it is difficult to imagine that through a partly cloudy sky when winds can take on a beaded necklace effect that gives them anyone could mistake a modern airliner or blow in different directions at different the impression of either aircraft hovering in military jet for an extraterrestrial vehicle, there altitudes, sometimes pushing clouds in one formation or, if close enough together, can even are circumstances when an aircraft can appear direction and a balloon in the opposite, the appear to be a string of running lights or quite unusual, particularly to a highly excitable illusion of high speed is enhanced. 'portholes'. observer. To a public generally unfamiliar with For example, anyone who has ever seen 5. Satellites such ordnance and its characteristics, the effect a jet's landing lights diffused by thick fog (or can be spectacular and even frightening, making suddenly turned off during a steep ascent, flares an especially good candidate to be making the aircraft appear to abruptly vanish) mistaken for a UFO. could easily imagine they are witnessing This, in fact, may be the explanation something otherworldly. behind the mysterious lights that were seen Additionally, an aircraft flying through hanging over Phoenix, Arizona in 1997 (which thick clouds on a dark and windy night (when does, in fact, lie near a military training ground the sound of engines is often masked) could where evening bombing exercises are easily appear as a mysterious, bright object frequently held.) winking on and off and changing brightness as it moves silently through the darkness. 3. Birds, lens flare, reflections, and It can be problematic to identify a other abnormalities mysterious object in the sky as an aircraft during the daytime as well. For example, the brushed aluminum fuselage and wings of an aircraft can give off an eerie sheen at high As the demand for improved altitudes on a bright and sunny day. communications, weather forecasting and aerial This characteristic, when combined with surveillance grows, the orbital lanes around our the fact that most aircraft's navigation lights are planet are growing increasingly cluttered with a invisible in daytime and engine noise is often wide array of fast moving and highly reflective indiscernible from that height, can make it satellites of all sizes and configurations. appear to be a mysterious, silvery object To give you some idea of how cluttered moving swiftly across the sky. our skies are getting, the United States Space Also, if seen straight on, an aircraft can Surveillance Network (SSN) currently tracks appear to be hanging motionless, at least until it more than 8,000 man-made objects orbiting the makes a sudden turn, thereby mimicking the planet, of which about seven percent sudden stops and start movement often (approximately 560) are operational satellites. associated with UFOs and further enhancing its Often trapped in their orbits for years at Few people can accept the possibility otherworldly effect. a time, these silent sentinels of the skies can that something as seemingly commonplace as a While a fixed wing aircraft are less usually be picked out by anyone with a pair of bird could be mistaken for a UFO. likely to be misinterpreted as a UFO by a binoculars and some patience, so they are not an However, it must be realised that under growingly savvy flying public today, they were uncommon sight. certain circumstances-for example, when flying undoubtedly the cause of many early UFO However, as they can often appear to at very high altitudes (some birds have been reports when aircraft were less common and, as pulsate in intensity (a natural illusion created by spotted flying as high as 40,000 feet or more)- such, more 'unusual'. atmospheric inversion layers) and even 'wink birds can be highly reflective and, when wet, Blimps, helicopters, and VTOL aircraft out' when their angle to the sun changes, they even appear to glisten like metal, giving them an (fixed wing planes capable of hovering) are also doubtlessly account for at least some of the 'artificial' or metallic appearance. frequently mistaken as UFOs due to their many thousands of UFO sightings made over Additionally, bits of tin foil or panels of unconventional flight characteristics-in the years. corrugated metal driven skyward by high winds particular their ability to hover and then and strong updrafts, falling chunks of ice suddenly fly away. 4. Flares broken off from a high altitude airliner, and Normally, one has only to watch these other bits of aerial flotsam can also take on a vehicles for a few minutes to ascertain their true silvery sheen and appear quite luminescent, (Continued on Page 19)