U.F.O Unidentified flying object (U.F.O.) is the popular term for any apparent aerial phenomenon whose cause cannot be easily or immediately identified by the observer. The United States Air Force, which coined the term in 1952, initially defined UFOs as those objects that remain unidentified after scrutiny by expert investigators, though today the term UFO is colloquially used to refer to any unidentifiable sighting regardless of whether it has been investigated. Another widely known acronym for UFO in Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian is OVNI (Objeto Volador No Identificado). Some investigators now prefer to use the broader term Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (or UAP), to avoid the confusion and speculative associations that have become attached to UFO. The term UFO is popularly taken as a synonym for alien spacecraft and generally most discussions of UFOs revolve around this presumption. Most people do not understand that term U.F.O. is an abbreviation for anything unexplained in the air thus it also includes atmospheric phenomena, etc... UFO enthusiasts, contactees, and devotees have created organizations and religions that have adopted extraterrestrial themes, and in general the extraterrestrial UFO concept has evolved into a prominent mythos in modern culture. UFO sightings by the masses increased precipitously after a widely publicized incident reported by private pilot Kenneth Arnold in 1947 that also gave rise to the popular terms "flying saucer" and "flying disc." Studies have established that most UFO sightings are observations of some real but conventional object which are most commonly aircrafts, balloons, or astronomical objects such as meteors or bright planets that have been misidentified by the observer as anomalies, while a small percentage of reported UFOs are hoaxes. The possibility that all UFO sightings are misidentifications of known natural phenomena inspired some debate in the scientific community about whether scientific investigation was warranted given the paucity of available empirical data. Very little peer-reviewed literature has been published in which scientists have proposed, studied or supported non-prosaic explanations for UFOs. Nevertheless, UFOs as a cultural phenomenon continues to be the subject of serious academic research and amateur investigators continue to advocate that UFOs represent real and unexplained events, usually associated with alien encounters. False examples of U.F.O. Studies show that after careful investigation, the majority of UFOs can be identified as ordinary objects or phenomena. The most commonly found identified sources of UFO reports are: Astronomical objects (bright stars, planets, meteors, re-entering man-made spacecraft, artificial satellites, and the moon) Aircraft (Aerial advertising and other aircraft, missile launches or testing planes)Balloons (weather balloons, prank balloons, large research balloons)Other atmospheric objects and phenomena (birds, unusual clouds, kites, flares)Light phenomena (mirages, Fata Morgana, moon dogs, searchlights and other ground lights, etc.)Hoaxes Unexplained aerial observations have been reported throughout history. Some were undoubtedly astronomical in nature: comets, bright meteors, one or more of the five planets, that can be seen with the naked eye, planetary conjunctions, or atmospheric optical phenomena such as parhelia and lenticular clouds. An example is Halley's Comet, which was recorded first by Chinese astronomers in 240 B.C. and possibly as early as 467 B.C. An optical phenomenon is any observable event which results from the interaction of light and matter. The most common optical phenomenon is widely known rainbow. Parhelia or also known as sun dogs an atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often on a luminous ring or halo on either side of the sun. (formed by ice crystals) Sundogs may appear as a colored patch of light to the left or right of the sun. They can be seen anywhere in the world during any season, but they are not always obvious or bright. Sundogs are best seen and are most conspicuous when the sun is low. Lenticular clouds are stationary lens-shaped clouds that form at high altitudes, normally aligned perpendicular to the wind direction. Lenticular clouds can be separated into altocumulus standing lenticularis, stratocumulus standing lenticular, and cirrocumulus standing lenticular. Halley's Comet or Comet Halley is the best-known of the short-period comets, and is visible from Earth every 75 to 76 years. Halley is the only short-period comet that is clearly visible to the naked eye from Earth, and thus the only naked-eye comet that might appear twice in a human lifetime. History of U.F.O Although UFOs likely have been spotted since biblical times, the first major reports started on June 24, 1947 when Pilot Kenneth Arnold spotted nine disk shaped objects near Mt. Rainier, Washington. Mr. Arnold described that these objects moved like a rock skipping over water. Therefore the name "flying saucers" were coined. Several other sightings occurred in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho on June 24, 1947. Many of these sightings involved similar objects to those sighted by Kenneth Arnold. Since then many organisations recorded and investigated countless examples of the U.F.Os. Examples : · Tanzania - Two cave paintings from Tanzania, both are estimated to be up to 29,000 years old. One is located in Itolo and depicts several disc shaped objects. The other painting is from Kolo shows four entities surrounding a women. On this painting the entity is looking down from some sort of box (i.e. U.F.O.) and is wearing a strange protective suit. · Italy - 10,000 B.C. Cave painting which is from year 10,000 BC and is from Val Camonica, Italy. It appears to depict two beings in protective suits holding strange implements. · America - Petroglyphs dating back thousands of years ago by ancient Indians in the American Southwest. According to Indian folklore, two objects collided high in the sky and one crash-landed in the region of Death Valley. Some men arrived (presumably in another ship) and spent some time repairing the damaged craft and were observed by the local Indians. · Africa - 6000 BC from Tassili, Sahara Desert, North Africa. Strange cave painting depicts a man in a strange protective suit with a strange circular object hovering at the rear part of the painting. · Bible - Some unexplainable verses in the bible also prove existence of some strange beings on planet earth. They called them the “Giants”. “Numbers 13:33 And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.“ „Deuteronomy 2:20-21 That also was accounted a land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummims; A people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; but the LORD destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead:“ Crop circles Crop circles are sizeable patterns created by the flattening of crops such as wheat, barley, rye, or maize. The term crop circle entered the Oxford Dictionary in 1990. In 1991, self-described pranksters Doug Bower and Dave Chorley confessed that they started the crop circle phenomenon in 1978. Their work is continued by other groups of crop circle makers such as the circlemakers arts collective founded by John Lundberg in the early 1990s. Prior to this admission, many seriously entertained the idea that crop circles were not man-made, and even after the disclosure of the prank, there were paranormal enthusiasts, ufologists, and anomalistic investigators who continued to offer alternative explanations which are heavily criticized by skeptical groups such as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Creators of circles in crops In 1991, two men from Southampton, England, announced that they had conceived the idea as a prank at a pub near Winchester, Hampshire, during an evening in 1976. Inspired by the 1966 Tully Saucer Nests, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley made their crop circles using planks, rope, hats and wire as their only tools: using a four-foot-long plank attached to a rope, they easily created circles eight feet in diameter. The two men were able to make a 40-foot (12 m) circle in 15 minutes. Bower's wife had become suspicious of him, noticing high levels of mileage in their car. Eventually, fearing that his wife suspected him of adultery, Bower confessed to her, and subsequently, he and Chorley informed a British national newspaper. Chorley died in 1996, and Doug Bower has made crop circles as recently as 2004. Bower has said that, had it not been for his wife's suspicions, he would have taken the secret to his deathbed, never revealing that it was a hoax. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidentified_flying_object http://ufo.jack.sk/ufo-obrazky/kruhy-v-obili-piktogramy/ http://www.crystalinks.com/ancientaircraft.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_circle http://www.ufosnw.com/history.htm http://www.aufob.org/articles.php?article_id=18