Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight... words many of us may have uttered as we gazed at the night sky. But what if that bright light wasn't a star at all, but instead, something mysterious, even frightening, that we couldn't explain?
These unidentified flying objects, otherwise known as UFOs, have been sighted throughout history, with one prominent example being the sighting of Halley's Comet. The comet was first documented by Chinese astronomers in 240 B.C. and was known for terrifying people on several occasions.
UFOs were often associated with religious implications, with some people passing them off as visits from angels or other celestial beings. Even today's UFO hunters have compared the religious icons and symbols seen in old paintings to corresponding to UFO sightings.
While science was eventually able to explain the comets streaking through the night sky, there are still many incidents that have yet to be explained. UFOs are represented as everything from a funny cartoon character or a lovable ET to something as terrifying as the War of the World Martian attackers or even biological entities that take over our bodies such as that of Invasion of the Body Snatchers or other theatrical thrillers.
Modern enthusiasm for UFOs started in 1947 when an American businessman named Kenneth Arnold reported strange lights and bright unidentified objects near Mount Rainer, Wash. His report of a flat object shaped like a pan, helped to coin the phrase, "flying saucer."
That year brought hundreds of UFO sightings, with the most famous being the July 8 Roswell incident in which an alien spacecraft allegedly crashed in the desert killing the aliens within it, whose bodies were then retrieved by the government. Later, the Air Force released statements saying it had been merely debris from a downed weather balloon.
Since that now infamous incident, the UFO craze has skyrocketed and the division between those who believe and those who don't isn't always easy to determine. Even scientists and others who study the phenomenon of UFO sightings across the U.S. and the world admit that between five and 20 percent of unidentified sightings can't be identified in any way, shape or form.
So, what are these bright and shining lights in the sky? Are they creatures from another world? Aliens come to say hello or possibly even to take over our planet?
Despite the public's widespread interest in UFOs and all things related, there really hasn't been much serious scientific study of UFOs or acknowledgment in scientific literature. Any official study by the government ended in 1969 when the Condon Report stated that the study of UFOS couldn't be justified, and that conclusion was the one endorsed by the National Academy of Scientists. Even so, another review by a UFO subcommittee of the AIAA disagreed and said that at least 30 percent of the cases the government has studied were yet to be explained.
In addition, no government officials anywhere in the world has ever come out and said one way or another that UFOs are either real or not real, or if they were a concern for national defense. Despite that, there have been investigations over the years done by the military and governments in the U.S. and other countries. The first known semi-public study was done by the U.S. Air Force in 1947 when they created Project Sign, to study the UFO phenomenon and there were numerous other studies both classified and non-classified over the years leading up to this day.
Another Air Force venture well known to UFO enthusiasts is the 1950s creation of Project Blue Book to study UFOs. Before the project ended in Dec. 1969, it had collected more than 12,000 incidents of UFO sightings. Despite such an overwhelming number of incidents, Blue Book members concluded that UFOs were either extraterrestrial in nature or even anything more than either someone trying to get publicity through a hoax, mass hysteria of the people who said they saw them or misidentifying some sort of natural or manmade object.
Sightings of UFOs are announced frequently, with some incidents causing great alarm, such as the recent shutdown of the airports in China due to a rash of UFO sightings in October and November 2010. A quick scan of the Internet will show hundreds of sightings from things as simple as a bright light in the sky to something as dramatic and frightening as alien abductions or cattle mutilations.
What are these unidentified sightings and flying objects? There doesn't appear to be a concrete answer to that age old question, but that won't stop mankind from looking up into the sky and wondering, am I really alone? Or is there anyone else out there either friend or foe?
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