We've all heard stories about UFOs, but what are they?
Aliens, secret state-of-the-art technology,
or something else entirely.
Let's find out on today's episode of colossal questions.
UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object.
What's that exactly?
Well, technically speaking, it refers
to any unknown object in the sky that can't be officially IDed.
There's been thousands of reported UFO sightings
in the skies across the globe.
A vast majority of these sightings
have been since the 1940s and, mostly,
in the US, but not all of them.
More than one Roman historian wrote
about seeing strange things in the sky.
Residents of a Medieval city apparently saw 100 of spheres,
cylinders, and other aged objects flying
in all directions overhead.
But it wasn't until the 1940s that the number
of reported sightings skyrocketed.
Most think the phenomenon started with fighter pilots.
You see, while flying long missions at night,
pilots would sometimes report seeing
unexplained lights or other odd occurrences in the sky.
This was right around the time the government started
using the term UFO to describe these sorts of sightings.
The first report that really caught public attention
was made by American Pilot, Kenneth Arnold,
in June of 1947.
He reported seeing nine flying saucers
or flying disks flying fast and in formation.
Around the same time, the us military
recovered debris from a crash in Roswell, New Mexico.
This became known as the Roswell UFO incident.
One of the most famous UFO sightings in history.
Both of these sightings started to drum up
a ton of public interest in UFOs.
Before long, there were a slew of new sightings being
reported all over the country.
Stories of aliens and flying saucers had gripped the nation.
Legitimate or not, people seem to be seeing UFOs everywhere.
OK, so UFOs are definitely real.
As in, there are some objects in the sky
that just can't be IDed.
What actually are they?
Well, in the case of Kenneth Arnold,
there's no concrete explanation for what he witnessed.
But many at the time believed he saw a state-of-the-art jet
overhead from a nearby airbase.
And as for Roswell, it was a top secret military balloon
that crashed in the desert.
Officials rushed to the scene and shrouded the whole thing
in secrecy, not because of aliens but because,
their UFO was classified government property.
As for the rest, most UFO sightings
are later found to be normal objects like aircraft, weather
balloons, or even kites.
Others were caused by natural phenomena
like oddly-shaped clouds, meteors,
or electromagnetic activity.
Some sightings can be chalked up to good old-fashioned pranks.
Given the amount of interest in UFOs
and how much media coverage they can get,
pranksters, the world over, have seized on the chance
to cause a little chaos.
And, of course, there are a very few percentage of UFO sightings
that remain unexplained mysteries to this day.
In fact, in the age of high-def cameras,
images and footage of UFOs have even been officially released
by the US government.
Most of these show small pyramid or sphere-shaped UFOs
soaring through the sky and moving around
in ways that seem otherworldly.
What are they?
Well, they remain unidentified flying objects
until we can figure out what they are.
OK, so are UFOs real?
Yup, it's just that they almost always
turn out to be something perfectly explainable
in the end.
But for that tiny sliver of sightings
that simply can't be explained, well, I
guess we'll all just keep wondering.