Even if someone were lucky enough to spot a true UFO, getting a good video is no easy feat. A lot more information could be extracted from UFO videos, notes Sainio, if people would follow a few simple rules. First, use "SP," the slowest tape speed. Second, get reference points--like trees, telephone poles, buildings, and other aircraft, if possible--in the same shot as the UFO. Third, describe what you see as you are taping, as well as the time, wind, temperature, etc. It would also be extremely helpful, says Sainio, if people provided complete documentation with their video tapes, in other words, the camera type, direction in which it was pointed, etc.

But Sainio is not hopeful that such instruction will bear fruit. "The problem is that people who are interested are rare and sightings are rare, and the cross section of the two is even rarer," he says. "And that's another thing you learn. If you run across a bunch of people who are going out to find a UFO, they will. They will videotape a Cadillac headlight, or an airplane flying over, but they will come back with a UFO. I really shouldn't knock them, they're trying. But it wastes a whole lot of time."

That, in the end, is what it all comes down to. So far, the video evidence for UFOs has been a waste of time. If there were indeed strange craft in our skies, we ought to have some good clear home videos of them by now. That we don't suggests that there are no strange craft in our skies. But that conclusion, of course, is tentative.

I won't say, as some skeptics might, that such things are impossible. Anything is possible. And I would love to see the evidence of a real extraterrestrial craft on video. Once analyzed and certified by experts, a good video of a sharply defined, obviously manufactured, strangely-shaped object doing things that no human-made craft can do would go a long way toward convincing me and many others of the existence of "flying saucers." And certainly such a video would qualify as better proof for the existence of alien visitation than anything yet mustered.