The first modern sighting in 1947 has given us the terms UFO and Flying Saucer. This has perhaps turned out to be one of the most unfortunate associations in the field of Ufology.

The UFO acronym should not immediately infer extraterrestrial visitations or physical spacecraft from another world, but what the acronym actually means - Unidentified Flying Object.

Unfortunately this is not the case. In a Weird Poll conducted recently we asked what did the term UFO mean? Over 85% of people we questioned equated the term UFO with an alien spacecraft.

Over 95% of reported Unidentified Flying Object sightings are re-classified as Identified Flying Objects. They are planes, birds, satellites, planets, clouds, stars and even on occasion the Moon. Yet there appears to be a public appetite for any sighting to be an Alien Craft. A persons belief system heavily influences their perception of the sighting. In the excitement, and sometimes the fear of the moment, what is perceived can take on characteristics that distort the reality behind the sighting. Lights become windows, disk like shapes are implied and distance and size are incorrectly estimated.

Even when experienced UFO investigators inform a witness of the true nature of their sighting there can be a reluctance to accept it. A typical response, which shows how deeply the phenomenon has penetrated the human psyche, is "No, it wasn't a flare it was definitely a UFO!" What the witness means by UFO is of course an alien spaceship.

Some investigators and experts have stopped using the term UFO and prefer UAP, (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) as it does not carry the same connotations. It would be a great loss to stop using the term UFO, but what other choice do we have?