about and it was claimed that these were the remains of the crashed ship. Hoaxing by railroad telegraph operators, who reported an inordinate number of sightings, was also a factor. The
As noted above, one of the major arguments put forward by proponents of the view that UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin is the large number of impressive reports by reliable witnesses. However, such witnesses are just as liable as anyone else to the processes of constructive perception and thus to the attendant misidentification of known objects as UFOs. Klass (1981) has described several instructive cases. For example, who better to correctly identify objects in the sky than an experienced astronomer? One Arizona astronomer with “thousands of hours of experience in observing the night sky” (p. 312) saw, on the night of October 5,1973, a most “striking and unusual” UFO. He wrote a description of what he had seen and, being unable to identify it immediately, attempted to discover what it might have been. His investigation revealed that he had seen “the rocket-engine plume from a large air-force Titan 2 intercontinental ballistic missile being launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California;
Another case reported by Klass (1981) is extremely impressive. There were multiple independent witnesses, several UFOs appeared, and, in one instance, the presence of the UFOs seemed to terrify the dog of one of the witnesses. These strange events occurred on the night of March 3, 1968. In Columbus, Ohio, that night a science teacher walking her dog saw three small UFOs, which she observed through binoculars. They were flying in formation, she reported, and seemed to be “under intelligent control.” Her dog appeared to be “frightened to death” and lay on the ground whimpering. On the same night three witnesses in Nashville, Tennessee, reported seeing a huge metal saucer with many square windows glowing from the inside. The estimated altitude was about one thousand feet. The third report for this active evening came from Indiana, where a cigar-shaped UFO was seen that had a rocket-type exhaust and windows.
These reports seem to indicate an impressive phenomenon. What was going on in the sky that night? Klass (1981) reports that on that night a Russian Zond 4 launch rocket reentered the atmosphere. It “reentered on a southwest-to-northeast trajectory that took it across Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and southwestern New York State. As the rocket reentered it broke up into many luminous fragments as it traversed the atmosphere at very high speed” (p. 314). Many other people saw this spectacular reentry that night. It is important to note that the UFO witnesses did not see the reentry in addition to the UFOs. In this case we see the power of constructive perception. The witnesses reported windows, an exhaust, and a huge saucer—all details that weren’t there. These additions and embellishments were purely the creation of the witnesses’ minds—not because they were crazy, drunk, or stupid, but because that is the way the human brain works. It can be said that these witnesses did perceive what they said they did. This doesn’t mean, however, that what they perceived was the same as what was really there. Note, too, how inaccurate was the estimate of the object’s altitude made by the witness from Nashville, Tennessee. The witness estimated about one thousand feet while, in fact, the reentering rocket was miles high and scores of miles away. This type of gross inaccuracy frequently occurs when one sees a light in the sky with no background, as is the case at night. Under these circumstances, the many cues the brain uses to judge distance are not present, so no accurate basis for the judgment exists.
But what about the science teacher’s dog, whimpering on the ground? This witness certainly attributed the dog’s behavior to the three UFOs she saw through her binoculars. But if the objects she really saw were miles away, how can one explain the dog’s behavior? Actually, it can be explained very simply: It was a cold night and, as the witness stated later, her dog hated the cold. Given the extra time no doubt taken by the witness to watch the UFOs, the dog was most probably cold and simply wanted to go home. UFO witnesses commonly attribute to the UFO almost anything that happens while they are observing the UFO, ignoring more prosaic explanations.
Pilots are often thought to be among the most reliable witnesses when it comes to reporting things seen in the skies. On June 5, 1969, near St. Louis, Missouri, a UFO sighting occurred that involved pilot witnesses in three separate aircraft. A “squadron” of UFOs was reported, and two UFOs were seen on radar at the same time. A Federal Aviation Administration observer in one of the commercial aircraft involved estimated that the group of UFOs was only several hundred feet away from his aircraft and that they were going to strike the aircraft. He reported that the UFOs were colored like “burnished aluminum.” They were said to be shaped like a “hydroplane.” After this alarming incident was over, it was reported to the tower at St. Louis airport. The tower reported that there were two “unidentified targets” on radar. These targets were to the west of the first aircraft; the UFOs had been heading west. At this point a second commercial aircraft called to report that the UFOs had passed the aircraft moments previously and were still headed west. According to the pilot, the squadron of UFOs had “nearly collided with the aircraft,” but avoided disaster at the last second by maneuvers that suggested they were “under intelligent control.”
Can any nonextraordinary occurrence account for these simultaneous visual and radar reports? Klass (1981) demonstrates that the visual reports were due to a meteor and associated fireball “with a long, luminous tail of electrified air, followed by a smaller flaming fragment, also with a long tail, flying in trail behind” (p. 315). The fireball was moving from east to west and was the source of a large number of reports from all over the Iowa- Illinois-Missouri area. Thus, the actual object was more than one hundred miles north of the reporting aircraft. Yet pilots in all three aircraft mistakenly perceived the object as extremely near—in two cases only hundreds of feet away.
But what about the radar report of two unidentified targets? Amusingly, it turns out that the targets were two of the aircraft that reported the UFOs in the first place. In 1969 airport radar did not automatically identify planes that appeared on the screen. The operator had to place a written note next to the screen identifying each “blip.” Aircraft that were passing over rather than landing at a particular airport were not honored with such a written identification. None of the three aircraft that reported the UFOs was landing at St. Louis. Thus, when the first aircraft reported seeing the UFOs, the tower at St. Louis correctly reported that there were two “unidentified” targets in the area. There were—the two other aircraft that, moments later, also reported the UFOs. Modern airport radars now automatically identify all aircraft in their area by picking up a special signal from each aircraft’s transponder. Klass (1984–85) has noted that, as radars have become more sophisticated at correctly identifying aircraft and filtering out sources of error, the number of radar UFO reports has dropped almost to zero. Of course, if UFOs were real, one would expect the increased sophistication and sensitivity of modern radar to increase the number of UFOs seen on radar. By the 1990s the continued advances in radar technology had reduced the number of UFOs seen on radar esentially to zero. This at the same time that, as will be seen in the next chapter, UFOs were claimed to be swooping down left and right and kidnapping people.
A most frightening CE I took place on April 17, 1966. Two policemen chased a UFO at high speed for about sixty-five miles from eastern Ohio into western Pennsylvania, between 5 A.M. and 6 A.M. (Sheaffer 1981, chap. 19). This case is a classic demonstration of how a commonplace object, such as Venus in the dawn sky, can be misidentified as a UFO and endowed with the ability to move under intelligent control, creating the belief on the part of trained observers that they are witnessing something outside the realm of normal explanation. The most astonishing thing about this UFO, from the police officers’ point of view, was that it appeared to be “teasing” them. When they first saw the object, it was stationary in the sky. When they got into their cruiser and slowly moved toward it, it slowly moved away. When they increased their speed, the UFO increased its speed. When they slowed down, it slowed down, always keeping a constant distance from them. This is exactly the type of behavior that can convince UFO witnesses that the object is “under intelligent control”—it seems to be pacing them and responding to their own movements in a purposeful manner. This type of behavior is also characteristic of celestial bodies. The moon, for example, seems to pace a car as the car drives along a road at night. This happens because the moon is so far away that the movement of the car produces no change in the perceived position of the moon. It is obvious to adult observers that the moon is not really following the car, although children are often fooled by this illusion. The situation is much the same for an object such as the planet Venus. Venus is much too far away to change its position perceptibly as an automobile moves. However, Venus lacks the obvious visual features that make the moon so easy to identify. Venus is little more than a very bright, steady light in the sky. Further, the lack of visual features on Venus—such as the patterns of craters that exist on the moon—means an observer has no way to correctly
