Part Two: Classification Systems

Roger McGuinn of The Byrds once put it this way: If you want to be a rock-and-roll star, it's a relatively straightforward affair. "Just get a guitar and learn how to play." Musical rhetoric aside, much the same can be said of a UFO investigator. No special degrees or licenses are required -- just a few basic chords.

As you go about making your UFO album, you'll find yourself returning to those chords again and again. The first one, presented in this chapter, is a basic UFO sorting system. When you've mastered it, you'll gain the virtuoso ability to recognize and classify potential UFOs. It stands to reason that, as a UFO hunter, this basic skill will enable you to assess a sighting's importance, determining how much time and energy, and what instrumentation, you want to bring to bear on a particular case. A report of a bright white light that lines up with Venus's known position in the sky at the time, for example, should attract much less attention than, say, a competing case involving multiple witnesses, radar returns, and indications of a physical impact on the environment, such as broken tree limbs, scorched grass, piles of debris, and so on.

A classification system is necessary not only as a starting point, but also as an end result. Once your investigation is concluded, in other words, you should be able to assign the original stimulus to a particular and specific category, beginning, in broadest terms, with "identified" and "unidentified."

Identified means that a particular phenomenon or object can be attributed to a known natural or artificial source, be it a star, planet, weather balloon, or advertising blimp.

By the same token, unidentified does not in and of itself connote an extraterrestrial spaceship; it merely indicates that the source or stimulus of the original sighting remains unknown and unidentified. Although all known phenomena may have been ruled out as a possible explanation, other unknown, but perfectly mundane, phenomena may have been operative at the time. Put another way: Unidentified Flying Object means only that the object was unidentified after investigation, not that it was from another planet and necessarily hellbent on abducting humans and/or mutilating horses and cattle, or otherwise wreaking high-tech alien havoc on the residents of Earth.

As humans, we have a built-in classification system to begin with, one that compares present experiences with past ones on an "as like" basis. Most of us have seen airplane landing lights at one time or another, Venus shining like a searchlight in the evening or morning sky, a full moon peeping through ragged clouds, and whatnot.

It's only when "Venus" suddenly executes an abrupt right-angle turn or divides into two smaller lights that streak away at high speed that we find our attention attracted and realize we may, in fact, be in the middle of a UFO sighting.

One of the most thoroughly investigated and well-documented UFO reports in history is that of Trans-en-Provence, so named for the small French village in which it occurred.

On the evening of January 8, 1981, Renato Nicolai was working in his garden when he heard a whistling noise. What he would later describe to government investigators as "a device in the form of two saucers, one inverted over the other," then allegedly touched down on his property about 200 feet away. About 5 feet thick and the color of lead, the device reportedly rested on the ground for only a matter of seconds before lifting back up in the air above some pine trees and shooting away to the northeast. A circular ring just over 6 feet in diameter was partially scoured into the ground.

Even when things are this unusual, the natural human impulse is to classify and dismiss what we see. The French contractor at Trans-en-Provence, for example, felt he was witnessing some sort of secret aerial device built and flown by the French military.

Other witnesses in similar sightings have suggested that apparently inexplicable objects were weather balloons or the Goodyear blimp, anything, in fact, but a UFO.

Contrary to public opinion, we are not primed to see UFOs everywhere at the drop of a proverbial hat. And most UFO reporters are not unabashed publicity seekers.

Conservative indications are that fewer than 1 in 20 UFO sightings are ever reported to anyone other than immediate family members and friends. Indeed, many witnesses start out in denial. Startled and surprised by what they see, they generally make repeated efforts to explain it to themselves or dismiss it altogether before even considering the possibility of classifying it as an Unidentified Flying Object.

The intended end goal of any proper UFO investigation, of course, is to sort through all possible explanations in order to arrive at the most likely solution. Sometimes the UFO hunter can easily attribute a sighting to some mundane source, natural or artificial. At the same time, other sightings will remain unidentified or unknown after the investigator's best attempts to explain.

As we'll see, however, a classification of "unknown" presents its own problems and requires its own further classification system if the UFO hunter is to make any sense of the phenomenon at all.

One such system comes to us from the air force, which used it to evaluate the quality of the unknowns. Were they worthy of further investigation? Or were they just too vague and amorphous, too cloudy, to pursue at all?

The system, developed by the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, also home of Project Blue Book, held, first of all, that would-be witnesses had to time the duration of the sighting itself. When a sighting was less than 15 seconds, according to the ATIC guidelines, "the probabilities are great that it is not worthy of follow-up. As a word of caution, however, should a large number of individual observers concur on an unusual sighting of a few seconds' duration, it should not be dismissed."

The air force observed, no doubt correctly, that sightings of extremely short duration generally turned out to be meteors, incoming space debris like satellites falling out of orbit, or some other mundane object only briefly glimpsed.

The air force also placed value on multiple witnesses and a sighting's geographical range. "As an example," the ATIC memorandum noted, "twenty-five people at one spot may observe a strange light in the sky. This, however, has less weight than two reliable people observing the same light from different locations. In the latter case a position-fix is indicated." Of course, it goes without saying that 25 witnesses in a single location will hold more weight than two witnesses also at a single locale.

The air force considered the investigator's proximity to the case crucial as well. That makes sense. Obviously if you live in Albany or Trenton, the chances of personally investigating any UFO case, however compelling, in, say, Denver or San Francisco -- never mind France or Russia -- are greatly diminished. Although much can be inferred and confirmed by telephone, a personal, on-site investigation is best.

The air force also placed some emphasis on the reliability of the witness; the more reliable the witness -- the more professional, the more educated, the more sane -- the more the air force encouraged investigators to pursue the case. This is a subjective call, admittedly, but one we have to consider. Rightly or wrongly, most of us regard a 57-year-old astronomer or retired fighter pilot as somehow more reliable -- and therefore more believable -- than, say, a couple of high-school kids in a parked car. Chalk it up to human nature.

To some extent, however, the perception is correct. The astronomer and the fighter pilot are trained observers. They are familiar with much of what happens in the sky simply because that's what they get paid to do. At the same time, an advanced degree in astronomy or a pilot's license does not confer infallibility.

For that matter, one of the most famous hoaxes in UFO history was perpetrated by a former navy officer with a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry. Ultimately, it is up to the individual investigator to establish or confirm the credentials and bona fides of his or her witnesses, and to corroborate their sighting as best he or she can.

The air force also considered the amount of elapsed time between when the UFO was sighted and when it was actually reported or investigated. ATIC recommendations noted that "if the information cannot be obtained within seven days, the value of such information is greatly decreased." However, in cases where "physical evidence exists," the air force conceded, "a follow-up should be made even if some of the above criteria have not been met."

Ideally, any case should be investigated as soon as possible after it comes to the investigator's attention, but this is not always feasible. Most of us have day jobs and family lives, as do most witnesses. Coordinating schedules is not always easy. Nor are all of us suited to the personal interview situation and its demands. Moreover, much valuable historical UFO information remains essentially unplumbed and unmined.

In one prominent example, the front-page headline of the Roswell (New Mexico) Daily Record once announced in bold type that the Army Air Force had recovered a flying disc nearby. That headline, dated Tuesday, July 8, 1947, lay buried in the Record's files for more than 30 years, until it was discovered by UFOlogists in the late 1970s, setting off an investigation that has resulted in at least four books and that continues to this day.

So the air force's 7-day limit should be taken with a grain of salt. Besides, some investigations should be historical by nature and design. A few years back, for example, I approached the Sunday magazine supplement of my local newspaper with the idea for an article based on San Antonio residents who had previously reported UFOs. Part of the purpose of the article was to see whether the average citizen still stood by, or even remembered, his or her sightings years after the fact. From the offices of the Mutual UFO Network in nearby Seguin, Texas, I was able to examine the files of some 10 past reports, the oldest having occurred a decade previously. Only one or two witnesses no longer lived in San Antonio. Somewhat to my surprise, the others remembered their sightings as if they had happened yesterday. "I'll never forget it as long as I live," was an almost universal response. Equally interesting, despite the passage of time, was the fact that the events dredged up from contemporary memory were remarkably consistent with the original report, with little or no embellishment on the witnesses' part.

I was able to conclude that, whatever the source of the UFO stimulus, its impact and impression on percipients was both dramatic and relatively permanent. So, although sooner is no doubt better than later as a general rule of thumb, a week or more of elapsed time between a UFO event and the onset of an investigation isn't necessarily the kiss of death the air force would have us believe.

The intended results of any investigation should also be considered. If you want to examine how the national press treated UFO reports during the Korean War, for instance, or the origin of the phrase "little green men" and its derogatory association with the UFO phenomenon in general, it doesn't make much difference when you get started -- only how deep you're willing to dig. And believe it or not, these questions are important. They help us place individual sightings in cultural or historical context, provide a referential base of meaning for the language used by witnesses, and illuminate the social significance of the phenomenon as a whole.

Such searches also help with the broader goal: deciding whether a UFO is worth investigating in the first place. Once you have made that decision in the affirmative, you must be able to categorize the particular sighting -- to place it in the appropriate slot so it can be compared with other similar sightings that have come before. Toward that end, a usable classification system is a must.

The first classification system to gain widespread currency among civilian UFO investigators was that proposed by the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek in The UFO Experience (Henry Regnery Company, Chicago, 1972). Hynek certainly knew whereof he spoke; from the summer of 1947 until December 1969, he had served as the air force's scientific consultant on UFO reports. The Hynek system had the advantage of being both simple and, as it turned out, memorable. (In fact, cinematic wunderkind Steven Spielberg would base one of the highest-grossing motion pictures of all time, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, on Hynek's evocative nomenclature.)

Hynek's system was based on both numbers and phenomenology. Most UFOs were reported as brilliant light sources seen in the nighttime sky, so his first category, or classification, was the self-explanatory "nocturnal light."

Although significantly fewer in number, many UFOs were seen by the cold light of day, and the majority of these tended to be shaped like a circular plate or saucer, hence the popular phrase "flying saucer," and Hynek's second category, "daylight discs."

Some daylight discs were reported by witnesses and, simultaneously, captured by radar. To these cases Hynek assigned the descriptive term "radar-visual."

All of the above, tantalizing as any single case might have been, still represented remote observations, whether by human beings or electronic monitoring equipment. More troubling -- and therefore ultimately more interesting -- were those UFO reports that could loosely be defined as "close encounters." And UFO researchers found the closer the better in terms of the potential information that could conceivably be gathered for review.

Hynek was willing to consider the air force's basic contention that most UFO reports represented the simple misperception of ordinary objects or phenomena -- particularly when the UFO was seen at a distance. But Hynek also felt that the "misperception" theory tended to lose credence and viability in those cases in which percipients claimed to have actually touched, or been taken aboard, a landed UFO.

Hynek broke close encounter cases into three separate categories: those of the first, second, and third kind. All were assumed to have taken place within 500 feet of the UFO stimulus.

A close encounter of the first kind, subsequently abbreviated as CE I, was a UFO report in which the witness or witnesses claimed that the UFO physically approached within 500 feet of their position but otherwise left no lasting impression or residual effects on the surrounding environment. In other words, it was a visual sighting only.

At 6:05 on the morning of February 6, 1966, at Nederland, Texas, for instance, one of the most famous close encounters involved at least three witnesses and lasted for approximately 5 minutes. As the primary witness described it, "the neighborhood was lit up in a red glow. My first thought was that a police car was parked nearby or a fire truck. I called to my wife that something must be wrong in the neighborhood and to come and see. Suddenly I realized the light was coming from overhead. I looked up and saw the outline of an object moving out past the pitch of my roof, approximately 250 to 500 feet high. The red glow was coming from beneath the object, about center. It appeared as a stream of light coming from inside through a hole."

A close encounter of the second kind (CE II) represented a sighting in which the UFO was not only seen at a distance of 500 feet or less, but also during which "measurable physical effects on the land and on animate and inanimate objects are reported."

The Trans-en-Provence sighting mentioned earlier is a perfect example of a CE II case. The witness was within 500 feet or less of the object, landing traces were found, and scientists were later able to determine an implied physical effect on the environment apparently caused by the UFO source. In this case, physical effects were most pronounced in plant samples, which registered a measurable reduction in the green pigment known as chlorophyll.

Many CE II cases involve individuals whose car engines stall and headlights go out, as was reported by two witnesses at Loch Raven Dam, Maryland, on October 26, 1958. The pair had just driven over the dam and were approaching a bridge when they noticed "a large, flat, sort of egg-shaped object" hovering about 100 feet above its superstructure, at which point the car's electrical system apparently failed.

The engine died and the dashboard lights and headlights went out. Then "a brilliant flash of white light" emanated from the object and both witnesses "felt heat on our faces." A "dull explosion" was heard, the object began rising vertically and disappeared from view in a matter of 5 to 10 seconds.

A CE III was defined, in Hynek's words, as one "in which animated entities (often called `humanoids,' `aliens,' or `occupants') have been reported."

One of the more celebrated and controversial CE III cases involved policeman Lonnie Zamora of Socorro, New Mexico. On the afternoon of April 24, 1964, Zamora said he broke off chasing a speeding motorist when his attention was distracted by a descending object emitting flames. It finally passed out of sight behind a small hill.

Eventually, Zamora was able to drive his patrol car within 150 feet of the object, which, he said, now resembled an egg-shaped craft parked atop metallic legs at the bottom of a gully. Two white-cloaked figures stood nearby, he reported, and he could see a kind of insignia on the side of the craft. At Zamora's approach the two figures reportedly climbed inside the craft, which then took off vertically and shot off horizontally.

To his dying day, Hynek remained concerned and perplexed by the growing new category of UFO reports known as "abductions" (sometimes referred to as CE IVs), those instances in which witnesses claim to have been "beamed" or otherwise transported aboard UFOs against their will, often in a state of physical paralysis. The most famous such case, perhaps because it was one of the first, involved Betty and Barney Hill of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On the evening of September 19, 1961, the two were returning home from vacation in Niagara Falls along an isolated highway when they reportedly experienced two hours of "missing time." Under hypnosis, the Hills filled in their memory gap with an account of abduction. While inside the starship, both said, they were subjected to invasive medical procedures performed by alien beings dressed in shiny black uniforms and caps. Afterward, the Hills were allegedly returned to their car and allowed to go on their way.

Although more serviceable than anything the air force ever managed, the Hynek classification system also had its shortcomings, as was readily apparent.For example, not all daylight UFOs were shaped like discs. Triangle-,cigar-, box-, boomerang-, teapot-, and globe-shaped UFOs have also been reported, and not just once or twice, but on numerous occasions.

Moreover, not all nocturnal lights are necessarily simple pinpricks of luminosity. Multicolored beams and rays of light have been reported over the years, as have diffuse areas of illumination that can only be described as glowing shapes.

And then there were the "high-strangeness" cases, those reports in which the UFO allegedly "morphed," or changed shape, divided into two or three, disappeared from view altogether, or otherwise violated the known norms of physics. Nor were the reported physical effects always lined up like neat ducks in a row. Sometimes a UFO seemed to burn, scar, or otherwise harm its nearby percipients -- on rare, unconfirmed occasions fatally -- while at other times the effect, or by-product, of a UFO close encounter could only be described as healing or beneficial, almost enlightening, in nature. To paraphrase Forrest Gump: "UFO is as UFO does."

Indeed, one has only to review a small number of the abduction cases that can now be found somewhere in the media almost every day to see the principle illustrated. Some abductees claim that the aliens are brutal, inflicting untold pain and torture with each new encounter. Others, however, say that the aliens are benevolent visitors, here to help us transcend our own frailties so the human species can prevail.

Given all the fine distinctions, it fell to computer scientist Jacques Vallee, author of several pioneer UFO studies, to fine-tune Hynek's system of UFO case classification. In its final version (see chart), Vallee maintained Hynek's basic distinction of UFO sightings as either distant or extremely near events. To reflect the fact that certain aspects of the UFO phenomenon often seem related to anomalous experiences in general (poltergeists, near-death, out-of-body experiences, and so on) he added the category of Anomaly to those proposed by Hynek.

Columns running vertically down Vallee's chart reflect the various categories. His first is Anomaly (AN). Fly-By (FB) and Maneuver (MA), are basically equivalent to Hynek's distant encounters (that is, Nocturnal Lights, Daylight Discs, and Radar/Visuals), with the difference that Vallee's terms ultimately reflect the behavior of the phenomenon itself, as opposed to the circumstances (day, night, radar) of the actual sighting. Vallee's final category is also the Close Encounter (CE).

Now that you know how to classify UFO reports, you're ready to venture out in the field on your own.