Toward that end, we have
proposed a rating scale meant to help citizens and scientists alike assess the reliability of UAP reports based on the type and quality of evidence. This won't solve most cases (more than half of the sightings reviewed by the U.S. government's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (
AARO) lack sufficient data for rigorous analysis). But it might help us reduce the number of "false alarms."
We start from the premise that most UAP reports stem from misunderstandings — people seeing unfamiliar objects in the sky that, if investigated fully, would have an ordinary explanation. These objects range from
balloons and drones (which together accounted for 91% of sightings between 1996 and 2024 that could be resolved by the AARO) to meteors,
flocking birds, and even rare atmospheric phenomena such as "
sprites" and "
elves."
