Many years ago, early in the predawn several hours before sunrise, I saw a spectacular light show from a missile launch from Cape Canaveral, several hundred miles away. Simultaneously, a good friend of mine, a policeman witnessed the same event while from his patrol car. He had recently moved from up north and had never seen a night launch before. The next day he called me up to tell me about his UFO. It was clear from his description and the time that we had seen the same thing, but his experience did differ significantly from mine. He is an intelligent and level-headed man, whose judgement I highly respect, and a highly trained observer because of his profession, but he simply was not qualified to report on celestial phenomena. I could not convince him he had seen a routine and quite ordinary event. It took a call to the local newspaper to get the particulars of the sighting and a careful reconstruction of angles, times,etc. before I had convinced him that I was not pulling his leg and we were talking about the same thing. He wanted to believe, suggestion took over and he unwittingly embellished his own memories of a tiny flickering red flame into a full-fledged spacecraft, with a distinct saucer shape, visible surface features, and a trajectory of pauses, starts and several right angle turns. He wanted to believe.

This (and several other not-quite-as-dramatic examples) is why I cannot accept anecdotal evidence even from the most credible untrained observers. Amateur astronomers are the most qualified (professionals spend very little time actually looking at the sky). Sailors are plagued with artificial lights, meteorologists are good sky observers, but they rarely observe nightime phenomena. Pilots are qualified, but they have been known to chase planets, maneuver violently to avoid cockpit reflections, and otherwise react incorrectly when disoriented or under unusual circumstances. They also spend most of their time managing the aircraft and its systems and instruments, not staring out the windows and studying the sky. Very often their night vision is compromised by the cockpit displays and lights. We all make mistakes when we're excited. When you add confusion and disorientation to unusual circumstances and conditions, even the most prosaic phenomena can appear exceptional.

Add to this the fact that most UFO reports are not presented directly to us, so we can question and evaluate the observer, but are hearsay extracted second or third hand, passed from mouth to mouth, and usually from reporters or publications with a pre-existing agenda to proselytize the concept, it is no wonder that their reporting, even if honest, simply cannot be trusted. For a brief time I worked for a UFO publication as a volunteer researcher, and I had an opportunity to study some typical UFO reports. I concede the magazine made a conscious effort to be critical and skeptical, but I kept catching the management subconsciously making excuses; rather than saving the alien spacecraft explanation for after all other possibilities had been exhausted; the facts were often distorted to match that hypothesis. One case in particular comes to mind, when I pointed out the unusual lights displayed by a UFO were consistent with navigation lights on aircraft, I was told, with a straight face, "UFOs may very well display these lights deliberately to disguise themselves as airplanes". How can you reason with people like this?

I have seen several unusual objects while observing (all amateur astronomers
have!) which I cannot explain. Many others were just as strange and wonderful but were later ruled out as ordinary objects viewed under extraordinary circumstances. But even my "unknowns" are still just that, unknown. I save the fantastic explanation for last, I don't reach out to it first. Under that criterion, it is POSSIBLE some of the things I've seen MIGHT have been alien spacecraft. But I simply don't have enough information to rule out the more mundane explanations and until I do I must choose the conservative one. That is what critical thinking and skepticism is all about.

No one would be more delighted than I to learn that UFOs are visiting earth from distant worlds; I'm currently writing a book on SETI--I am not at all hostile to the concept of alien civilizations, I'd be ecstatic to learn tomorrow that the UFOs are real. But I have to go with my head, not my heart, and the data is just not there, and those who claim it is do not convince me. I would love to have you prove me wrong, but so far you haven't even come close.