Updated: 6 March 2024
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Index
While seeing a UFO
Should I take a video or a photo?
How can I know if I am seeing a satellite or plane?
Before Submitting a sighting report:
What should I do if I see a UFO?
I reported my sighting to NUFORC. Isn’t that enough?
My sighting was a long time ago, should I still report it?
I am an aviator. Should I send my report to you?
I feel distressed or traumatized by my experience. Can you help me?
Should I report to you something I saw on YouTube or Television?
Should I report anomalous experiences other than UFOs to you?
Do you investigate abductions?
Submitting a sighting report:
What should I do with photographs or videos?
Do I need to use my real name?
I’m not a good artist. Do you still want my sketch?
How do I transmit my sketch to you?
I have more than one e-mail account, which one should I give you?
What are GPS coordinates?
You don’t ask a lot of detailed questions in your sighting report form. Why is that?
After Submitting a sighting report:
I clicked “Yes” on “Contact you for an investigation”. What can I expect?
What can I do to investigate my own sighting?
Will you run a background check on me?
I clicked “No” on “Contact you for an investigation.” Can I change my mind?
Do you charge a fee for the investigation?
Will you sell the rights to my story?
Will you sell my case file?
Should I take a video or a photo?
If you have a camera close to hand, take a video. Video is much more useful to the investigation than still photos. Most modern cameras will take video in HD or UHD (4k) by default, so there should be no need to adjust camera settings. Of course, we would like a high frame rate and the highest resolution available on your camera, but don’t take your eyes off the object to fiddle with the settings.
If you can tuck your elbows in and hold the camera with both hands, please do so. This will make for a more stable video.
As soon as you start shooting, start talking. State your location, the date, time, and describe what you are seeing in as much detail as you can.
Take note of your surroundings. We will need reference objects in the frame. A reference object is any object of known size and location relative to you. This includes trees, buildings, road signs, bridges, water towers, broadcast towers, hills, and more. Even the moon can be a good reference object. Clouds are generally poor reference objects, but may have to do in some circumstances.
Go easy on zooming in. In most cases, zooming in is of no value, and you risk losing your reference objects. Too much zooming in can cause the camera to lose focus, and too much zooming back and forth will make the video hard to analyze.
If you are in a car, it’s best to pull over and get out of the car for shooting the video, if you can do so safely. If you are indoors, and you can step outside quickly, then please do. Videos shot through windows or windshields are much more difficult to verify because of reflections.
How can I know if I am seeing a satellite or plane?
There are many smartphone apps that can help with this. Flight tracker apps like flightradar24 can identify most planes overhead in real time so long as you have a data connection.
On most planes, there is a visible anti-collision strobe that flashes once per second. If the plane is moving left to right at night, you might see a green light, and if moving right to left, a red light. If the plane is below 10,000 feet after sunset and moving toward you, you may see its very bright landing lights, visible from many miles away, and it may appear to be hovering in midair. Please note that no app can identify all possible aircraft (and no drones), and some apps filter out certain flights.
There are also satellite apps which do an excellent job of identifying satellites. On Android devices, heavens-above is the go to app, but there are other good ones on both Android and iOS. Make sure you have location services enabled for the app you are using.
The one satellite most commonly reported as a UFO is the International Space Station, which can be very bright because of its large size. We also get quite a few reports of Starlink trains, which are multiple satellites that are all launched together, and look like a string of pearls in a straight line moving together. There are Starlink launches almost every week, and they are launched from both California and Florida. All satellites are silent, and move in an almost straight line across the sky. They can’t stop or suddenly turn, but they can disappear without going over the horizon.
Drones are much harder to identify in real time. Unless they are close to you, you probably won’t hear them, and they can have a wide variety of lighting. The FAA requires drones at night to exhibit an anti-collision strobe light, and to stay below 400 feet, but the degree to which these requirements are complied with is unknown, and it certainly isn’t 100%. The FAA does provide a mobile app called B4UFly, which shows if an area is available for drone flight without waivers, but the same caveat about noncompliance applies.
What should I do if I see a UFO?
- It’s unlikely, but if you believe you may have been injured, seek medical help immediately.
- Locate any other witnesses and get their contact information, but do not discuss the details of the sighting with them. Encourage them to file their report at reportaufo.org .
- Secure any physical evidence to the best of your ability. Anything you find should be photographed in place with a size reference (a coin, a ruler, etc.) in the frame. Small items should be bagged and tagged if possible. Chain of custody is important, so dates, time, names, and places should be recorded. If you give it to anyone else (even us), please get a receipt.
- If you have photographs or video, you can make your own copy, but the best approach is to remove the flash memory from the camera (if possible), download and backup all the files on it, bag and tag it, and lock it up. Even if you can’t do this, please supply us the unaltered image or video file straight from the camera untouched by any software.
- Make a sketch of what you saw, and how it moved or changed. Make as many sketches as necessary to illustrate what happened. You do not need to be any sort of artist.
- Write down everything you can remember. Facts are important: dates, times, locations, directions, weather conditions, etc. If you are uncertain about directions, Google Earth might be helpful.
- Go to reportaufo.org and let us know what you experienced.
Please Note: Investigative priority will be assigned to UFO sightings that meet at least some of the following criteria:
- Sighting occurred recently.
- Multiple credible and reliable witnesses involved (witness must request an investigation)
- Daytime sighting
- Photo, video, or other physical evidence
- Sighting did not occur near a military operations or test area.
My sighting was a long time ago, should I still report it?
Yes, especially if you can offer some leads for us to follow, such as contemporaneous documentation or information about people who can corroborate your report. Perhaps your sighting will help someone else’s investigation, so please go ahead and send us your report and sketch.
You should note that the longer we have to go back in time, the more difficult it gets to conduct a proper investigation, and in some cases, we will label the case as “Historical” and may not perform a full investigation.
What can I do to investigate my own sighting?
There is quite a lot you can do in addition to the steps listed above. Of course, we would be interested in anything you discover. Here are a few suggestions:
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- Go into the Google Earth Pro app and try to nail down locations and directions. Also, you can use Google Earth to check directions and distances to nearby airports. Share what you learned with us.
- Check with local media and law enforcement. Did anyone call 911?
- Check with the local airport if they saw anything. If they have a control tower, was it staffed at the time of your sighting?
- Compare your sighting to our catalog of known flying objects (IFOs). Let us know if any look similar to what you saw.
I clicked “Yes” on “Contact you for an investigation?”. What can I expect?
If you click “Yes”, then we will first determine whether completing a meaningful investigation is within reach. We may need to conduct a preliminary investigation to determine this, and may contact you with questions about your report for this purpose. If we decide that an investigation is practicable, we will open a case file and assign an investigator to your case. An API field investigator should contact you shortly thereafter to begin the interview and evidence collection process. We will not use your contact information for any purpose other than the conduct of the investigation.
The primary purpose of the Aerial Phenomenon Investigations Team is to investigate unknown aerial object sightings reported by citizens. We do this with the cooperation of YOU, the Witness. Without YOU we cannot conduct a credible investigation.
When a citizen fills out one of our reporting forms, that begins a process of research and investigation. It’s important to realize that when a Witness selects YES to an investigation, then the team needs the Witnesses involvement and cooperation throughout the investigative process.
Typically, the Lead Investigator needs to conduct a telephonic interview to gather a range of facts, data, and context. This is essential to a meaningful, credible investigation that has some chance of a successful outcome. If you’re not comfortable with a telephonic interview, then you’ll at least need to respond to our occasional email requests for more information.
If you wish to make a report but do not feel comfortable interacting with the team, then select NO for an investigation. In this case, we will merely release the information you’ve provided in a redacted form and post it on our website as Uninvestigated. This way, the public still has access to your reported sighting or experience in its raw form.
We try to make our investigations as painless as possible. We understand that a sighting can be an unnerving experience. But, with your help, we have the chance to fully research and investigate your experience and, possibly, even explain it.
I already reported my sighting to NUFORC, isn’t that enough?
No. It’s fine to report your sighting to NUFORC, but raw, uninvestigated sightings have very little weight on their own. We investigate in depth, and write and publish carefully redacted investigation reports with as much information about the sighting and its context as we can find. View some of our Case Summary videos, or have a look at our report template if you want more information.
What should I do with photographs or videos?
We will need all your photographs and videos as they were originally, right out of the camera with no modification or processing of any sort. We need the image metadata intact, so posting them on imgur or any other service that strips metadata won’t work. If your camera has an SD card, we would like the physical card (we will return it to you, or send you a replacement). If the videos are too large to e-mail, we will arrange for you to upload them to a private cloud service.
If the pictures or videos were taken through a window or a windshield, we will need to know that.
If you have images in camera RAW format, we would be delighted to take those – no processing required on your end.
In addition, please do the following:
- As soon as possible after the sighting, take a picture or video of an accurate clock with the same camera. Let us know what time zone the clock is set for.
- If possible, take pictures or videos of the same scene in closely similar light conditions using the same camera. Any photos or videos you took just before or just after the event are also very valuable.
- If the images or videos were taken at night, please provide a daylight view of the same scene.
Do I need to use my real name?
We strongly encourage you to use your real name. We will protect your anonymity rigorously. Your name and other Personally Identifying Information (PII) will not be published, and will only be available to those inside API who have a need to know. The fact that we know who you are in real life, even though we don’t share that information, adds to the quality and credibility of the report.
If this does not assure you sufficiently, then you may use a pseudonym, but this is the name we will use when we contact you, and we will not be able to verify your identity should that prove necessary.
What will my contact information be used for?
We will keep your contact information private, and will not use it for any other purpose than conducting our investigation and any possible follow-up. You won’t receive any e-mails or phone calls from us not relevant to your case. Of course, you can contact us whenever you see fit.
I have more than one e-mail account, which one should I give you?
It’s your choice, but it should be an account that you check at least once per week, and if you have large files to upload to us, then the one you use to log into Google is best. If you don’t use Google, that is OK, we can still work out the file transfer.
What are GPS coordinates?
GPS coordinates are numbers that tell you where you are on the Earth – the same numbers a GPS receiver will give you if it is working properly. These are the Latitude (north or south), and the Longitude (east or west).
If you don’t know the GPS coordinates you were at during your sighting, that is ok. If you know how to use an app like Google Earth Pro to obtain those coordinates, that is very helpful to us. It should be the coordinates of where you were when the sighting occurred. If you were in a moving vehicle at the time, please let us know.
I am an aviator, and was in the cockpit at the time of my sighting. Should I report my sighting to you or to NARCAP?
This section of the FAQ is under re-construction.
Will you run a background check on me?
The short answer is no – we don’t routinely run background checks on witnesses. If there were some extraordinary circumstance in which we felt this was necessary, then we would ask your permission first. In some cases, in which you claim certain credentials relevant to the case, we may ask you to document that to add credibility to the report.
Do you investigate abductions?
We are reluctant to investigate abductions because of possible adverse impact to the witness. Anyone who believes they have been subject to trauma or abuse should seek help from qualified professionals, not from UFO Investigators. The primary goal should be the health and well-being of the witness, not documenting the case.
We will listen without judgment, but there is very little we can do with abduction memories other than record them, which is something witnesses can do without our help. If there is other evidence in a particular case, such as a second witness, a photograph, etc., then we would be interested in helping to establish the facts concerning that information.
I’m not a good artist. Do you still want my sketch?
Yes, absolutely. We have had many helpful sketches from unskilled artists, and we prefer a hand drawn sketch to something made with a computer drawing or paint program.
Also, we want your sketch even if you took a video or photos of the object(s) in question.
How do I transmit my sketch to you?
One easy way is to snap a picture of the sketch and e-mail it to us, or attach it to the report form. We will be in touch by e-mail, so you will have the address you need. If the file is too large, we can provide a cloud folder you can upload it to. Alternatively, you can scan your sketch or sketches and send us a .pdf file.
You don’t ask a lot of detailed questions in your report form. Why is that?
It is because we want you to tell us what details you think are important, and we want to avoid suggesting anything to you. It’s not until we have your story as you best remember it that we will begin asking for more details that we think are important. That is all part of the investigative process.
I clicked “No” on “Contact you for an investigation.” Can I change my mind?
Yes. If you clicked “No” we will only contact you once to acknowledge your report, and possibly to arrange the transfer of any large files. The report is for information only, but you can change your mind.
You have a couple of options if you decide you would like us to investigate your case.
- You can re-report your case, and check “yes”. Please be sure to tell us that this is a re-report.
- Use our Contact Form. and tell us you would like us to investigate.
I feel distressed or traumatized by my experience. Can you help me?
All API can do is help you learn the facts about your experience, and possibly help you explain some or all of what you saw. We will listen to your story without judgement, but emotional and mental distress should only be treated by trained professionals. We recommend that you seek out a qualified therapist with a legitimate doctoral degree in psychology or an MD Psychiatrist, and avoid hypnotherapists.
Do you charge a fee for investigating cases?
No. We will never ask you for money. Be wary of anyone who does want you to pay anything whatever for them to investigate your case.
Will you sell my case file?
No. We may share your case file with specifically vetted organizations in order to further the investigation, but we will not sell it. If we do share it, it will be with your knowledge and consent.
Will you sell the rights to my story?
No. We can’t do that anyway. You own your story.
We do not solicit such offers, but if someone contacts us offering to buy your story, we will pass that offer on to you. If you want to proceed with selling your story, we recommend you retain someone (an entertainment lawyer, for example) experienced in that sort of transaction before agreeing to anything.
Should I report to you something I saw on YouTube or Television?
We’re all about first hand reports. If you are personally in contact with a principal witness, who is willing to work with us, then please encourage them to contact us. Otherwise, no.
Should I report anomalous experiences other than UFOs to you?
Yes, particularly if it seems to be related to a UFO sighting, but if it is too far out of our wheelhouse, we may decline to investigate. Go ahead and give us a short report and we’ll get back to you.