Talk:Unidentified flying object

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Foo Fighter

No explanation as to why it belongs under Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. See Foo fighter; no connection to ETH. Does not belong in that place. Kortoso (talk)—Preceding undated comment added 19:53, 7 November 2013

Restructuring article?

How much willingness would there be among OGs familiar with this topic to restructure the article? I think there are a lot of places where the info cited to WP:RS is at odds with the way the article is organized. Rjjiii (ii) (talk) 03:46, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If most UFOs are just yet-to-be-identified flying objects, then the article could include a gallery of common/notable misidentifications: Talk:Unidentified flying object/Sandbox
A lot of the article's organization is confusing.
The top sections should probably be on the etymology and the scientific consensus. The "Etymology of key terms" section is kind of buried and the information in it is somewhat chaotic. "Prosaic explanations" is both buried and kind of weak.
The "Astronomer reports" section should probably be removed. This seems like a rebuttal to "Ufo people are goobers." The article doesn't need to frame UFO people as goobers, and it definitely doesn't need a character witness section to rebut that. The Andrew Fraknoi quote is fine, but could go into another section.
Much of the "Investigations of reports" section should just be a table with countries, programs, dates, refs, and links where available.
What is the "Studies" section meant to contain?
A big issue is that a lot minor detail is packed into a high-level article. There are some important things missing from the article, but it's already over 9,000 words. A step below UFO there is: flying saucer, alien abduction, ufology, UFOs in fiction, UFO conspiracy theories, several lists, Investigation of UFO reports by the United States government, Extraterrestrial UFO hypothesis, and so on. A lot of this fine-grained detail needs to be sorted out in the sub-articles.

Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 08:54, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The section featuring astronomers is an example of what I call a "POV quilt": reliably sourced tidbits added sequentially over time both in support and rebuttal of a particular viewpoint that form a kind of patch work, making an article read as if it is arguing with itself. Good call removing it and other similar constructions. As far as rewriting and restructuring, your improvements are welcome. I'm sure if others have a beef with your efforts they will say so here on the Talk page. Cheers, - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:58, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Renewed request to mention an important book

Please see (above) the expired topic titled "Request to add an External link." I suggest reconsidering your reluctance to give this book its due. In addition to the already offered reasons, a very favorable review by Kevin Randle (posted here) appears in the Fall 2024 issue (Vol. 38, No. 3) of Journal of Scientific Exploration. It seems to me that his concluding paragraph alone offers sufficient justification. SaucerDown (talk) 18:18, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ballester Olmos, the editor of the book, is a serious and well-informed researcher and I would support the inclusion of a link to it. Skeptic2 (talk) 19:42, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

edit request

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Unidentified flying object#Terminology says UAP can stand for unidentified aerial phenomena or unidentified anomalous phenomenon, but the article intro only mentions the anomalous meaning. Please include both at the start of the article.

Unidentified flying object#Terminology is also missing a quotation mark at the beginning of the sentence Unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP) first appeared in the late 1960s. Actually that needs to clarify the term has been around since the '60s, even though the phenomena have been around nuch longer. The term "unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP) first appeared in the late 1960s.

Wishing you safe, happy, productive editing. --173.67.42.107 (talk) 23:40, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please also remove the commas from the sentence The acronym, "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, for the USAF. (If i'm not mistaken, the first is incorrect, while the second might be OK but isn't necessary.) Thanks. --173.67.42.107 (talk) 11:59, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Punctuation aside, any changes or rewording of content need to be cited to a reliable source per our editorial policies regarding verification of content. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:37, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Partly done: Another editor fixed the quotation mark, I removed the commas. As for the rest: the lead already includes a note (the little 'a' beside 'UAP' in the lead sentence) explaining that "aerial" is also used, which I think is sufficient. And I don't believe adding "the term" is needed before "unidentified aerial phenomena", as the sentence is in the 'Terminology' section and follows a sentence that says, "The term UFO...", both of which provide the necessary context. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 00:01, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Article is drifting

This article is about unidentified airborne or aerial phenomena, not about submerged or 'transmedia' phenomena, which may or may not warrant separate articles. I have removed the drift and recentred the article on the title subject matter and removed a couple of 'woowoo' concepts creeping in. A UFO is simply unidentified. Ex nihil ^(talk) 13:07, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, additions like this are definitely inappropriate. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:07, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There already exists Unidentified submerged object with a long history of saves in the Internet Archive going back to 2006 (the current creation date is 2014; it was deleted once by AfD in 2010). There is no "See also" section in the UFO article, so there should be a link in the text or hatnote to keep lengthy submerged discussion out, imo. 5Q5|^✉ 12:53, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, 5Q5|^✉ but I added it under Distinguish from in header because it's getting a bit congested at the end of this article. At least it's in. Ex nihil ^(talk) 13:56, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]