Talk:List of reported UFO sightings

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Hopeh Incident [9]

As that changes other editors are welcome to ammend this post, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ(talk) 00:41, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Maxial UFO

Good morning, Rjjiii. May I find a list of the not reliable fonts? Why is Leslie Kean not fiable? Who said so? Mcorrlo (talk) 06:36, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The cited story authored by Vanessa Fidalgo (which is essentially promoting her book UFO Sightseeings in Portugal) isn't an independent source either. Don't feel bad, finding sources that aren't WP:SENSATIONAL or WP:PROFRINGE has always been a problem at this list article. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Right. For a fringe viewpoint, Wikipedia's guidelines call for sourcing from the outside. This review highlights some of the issue with relying on eyewitness descriptions of UFOs from pilots. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:19, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Even so, I doubt that Leslie Kean is an unreliable source. She's a journalist. And if they don't accept her stories, why is a crook like Brian Dunning, a speculator, constantly quoted? I can't find a single case in which Dunning has found a legitimate UFO, perhaps because from the start he wanted to prove that there are no UFOs anywhere.

I have Kean's book, and it seems to me that she has chosen the cases she writes about very carefully. The question remains. Who determines the reliability of Leslie Kean or others? May I find a list? Mcorrlo (talk) 07:59, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Mcorrlo, In my opinion Kean's book would be a more reliable source (in the Wikipedia sense) only for something like getting a correct quote from someone. For what Dunning is cited for in this article (Trinity UFO Case), I think he counts as a reliable WP:FRIND source. If you disagree, you're welcome to ask for other opinions at WP:RSN. I'll accept consensus and move on. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 07:07, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Kean's work, and this book in particular has not been given any credibility by relevant experts. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:46, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why move?

Onemillionthtree, why the expansion and change in scope to the article? The article is already very large just including UFO reports. Many UFO reports make no mention of any kind of pilot or crew. The title is also ambiguous. "List of reported UFO sightings, close encounters or alien abductions" could refer to "reported alien abductions" or to "alien abductions" period as if there are real events. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:00, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would be happy to keep the article as UFO - it is easier to deal with all the information if it is kept within a narrower parameter - as a researcher at least, as we both are - but I already indicated the reason in the page move, which is I realized in the first sentence that the article is already intending to include the other two aspects: when I deleted at 17:17, 4 March 2025 I didn't see those indications. I wasn't intending to make an application for complete change - it is only to org. the article. If you like we could just change the 1st sentence and move the title to only UFO. Onemillionthtree (talk) 03:52, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Onemillionthtree, my preference is for the previous title. The policy Wikipedia:Article titles says that an appropriate article title is "not longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects." The reason that "reported" was added to the title is to make clear that it's documenting an aspect of culture and human experience, and that the article is not making any claim that craft exist. If the first sentence gives the wrong idea, I'm not averse to improving/clarifying it. Also, if any listed reports, like Utsuro-bune for example, are out of scope for the subject, they could be moved to the list of alleged extraterrestrial beings or just cut outright. There are such a vast number of UFO sightings reported that one encyclopedia article cannot possibly cover them all with any kind of context. The solution for this article has been to include sightings notable enough to warrant their own article, give that context in the subject's own article, and for sightings not notable enough for their own article to move the sightings down into the location-based lists. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:01, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Despite being hoaxes

"Despite being hoaxes, many of these are treated as "UFO sightings" by WP:RS." Not sure how this statement is validating hoaxes. If you could provide additional reason. You think hoaxes qualifies as relevant to the query "unidentified" because? If they were unidentified at the time of reportage but subsequently identified you think they are unidentified, identified, or? "Drones" you think is unidentified? (𒌋*𓆏)𓆭 03:14, 21 April 2025 (UTC) The intro. "Upon investigation, most UFOs are identified as known objects" (𒌋*𓆏)𓆭 03:20, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia articles aim to summarize reliable secondary coverage, so it is not so important whether I personally "think they are unidentified, identified, or?". The sources cited in this article and the linked articles are not making some huge distinction between these cases and less-resolved UFO sightings. For example, the Roswell debris has long been identified, but it remains the United States' most famous UFO. I did go back and remove Tunguska because it is a real event with associated UFO legends and so may well fall outside the scope of this article. Major hoaxes should likely be the article. The Maury Island incident, just as an example, is called "a reported encounter with a UFO" and "a UFO sighting". There are also potential issues with WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE, and to an extent WP:OR, if the article tries to create an inclusion criteria based on whether the UFO was ever truly identified. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:51, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Context

Several recent edits likely don't meet the policy WP:NPOV or the guideline WP:FRINGE. For example, this formatting alteration changes the text from:

According to Pliny the Elder, a spark fell from a star and grew as it descended until it appeared to be the size of the Moon. It then ascended and transformed into a torch. Astronomer Richard Stothers interpreted the report as a description of a bolide.

To:

A spark fell from a star and grew as it descended until it appeared to be the size of the Moon. It then ascended and transformed into a torch.

This moves the Classical account out of context and presents it in Wikipedia's voice. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:31, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've posted links to this section at WP:NPOVN, WP:FRINGE, and WT:WikiProject Paranormal. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:00, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the items in the Antiquity section appear to be fanciful descriptions of unusual clouds, shapes seen in the clouds, astronomical or weather phenomena framed within a religious or ancient cultural context. What reliable independent sources that are not WP:SENSATIONAL have explicitly defined them as UFO's? - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:12, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Unidentified Flying Objects in Classical Antiquity", Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 14:39, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh, Stothers. This particular work has been deprecated, and not just by Colavito. It shouldn't be treated as the authoritative compendium it is being used as. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:33, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]