Steven Novella, one of my favorite skeptical bloggers, has a great article on his Neurologica blog about the news reports that surfaced recently regarding the US Navy’s new reporting guidelines for unidentified aerial phenomena. Seems the Navy is trying to assist its pilots in avoiding any stigma attached with reporting such phenomena. The word “UFO” is, of course, used by the reporters writing articles about the new policy even though it is being avoided by the Navy. There’s so much social baggage that comes along with that term. As Novella points out, the reporting itself is part of the problem. Seems silly that people writing on the topic gravitate so much to some sort of extraterrestrial hypothesis. This is not the point of the new guidelines, more the complete opposite. We should be concerned for sightings of unexplained objects in our airspace, both from a security and safety standpoint. It behooves us to investigate the source of these sightings. I have little doubt some terrestrial, physical, or psychological source will be discovered. Then again, of course, it’s possible it’s aliens or spiritual entities (if such things exist), just wildly improbable. 😉