Top 100 UFO Cases - Revealed!

Section 3 : Some comments on the above list

Clearly this method of compiling a list of the “top” cases is biased in favour of older cases. The older the case, the more books have been published since that case. Thus, an incident in 1947 discussed in 20% of UFO books published since that date will rank higher than an incident in, say, 1999 which has been discussed in 100% of the relevant sample of UFO books published since that date. Also, since my sample of UFO/SETI books is limited to those in English, there is a strong bias in favour of books by authors from the USA and the United Kingdom (who, in turn, appear to have a strong bias in favour of writing about cases from the USA and the United Kingdom).

More importantly, it should be noted that I am not suggesting that UFO books are in fact written solely with the objective of presenting the best available evidence.

The objectives of authors of ufologists are not in fact limited to presenting the best case in support of an argument. Entertaining stories are included in book after book, almost regardless of their evidential value. Furthermore, some authors appear to be lazy and others are ignorant of the range of cases - thus, discussions of cases in the few books some of them have read (particularly Ruppelt, Keyhoe and Condon) get recycled endlessly – sometimes almost verbatim.

The contents of the list of the most frequently discussed UFO cases
indicate to me that the authors of most UFO books are not primarily
concerned with highlighting the best cases and/or are unaware of the
best cases.

The list above of the “Top 100” cases therefore has about as much connection to a list of the “Best 100” cases as the weekly “Top 10” popular music charts have to a list of the “best music”. The weekly “Top 10” music charts are lists of the music with the most sales. This is arguably not the same as the best music. Music charts frequently include items that would cause a music connoisseur to shudder (e.g. “The Birdie Song” by The Tweets , Black Lace's “Agadoo”, the Macarena, and anything by certain heavy-metal bands (see Footnote 02 and Footnote 03). Similarly, the fact that Adamski’s sighting is in the list of the Top 100 at all (let alone as the Number 3 case) may cause some shudders.

On the positive side, it makes sense for authors to illustrate their points by reference to cases that readers may be familiar with (i.e. the "classics") so that basic details can be assumed rather than having to have everything spelt out in detail. It is notable that when various ufologists have advanced lists of the “best” UFO cases, generally the only ones that are referred to in subsequent discussions are ones which are included within the “Top 100” list above.

If a ufologist mentions during an online debate his list of the “best” cases and (as happens fairly frequently) includes one or more cases which are not within the “Top 100” list above, the cases not within the “Top 100” are generally ignored in any subsequent discussion. When ufologists do give a list of the “best” cases, they rarely provide references to material relating to these cases. If a case within such a list is not well known, rather than ask for relevant references most readers appear to simply ignore that case. Any ufologist or group preparing a list of the “best” cases may wish to keep this point in mind and include relevant references to any less well known cases.

It is notable that the above list has a considerable degree of overlap with some of the polls of ufologists discussed in Parts 5 to 9 of this article, particularly those polls which involved the largest number of researchers. I would highlight in particular the oldest poll, i.e. Vallee’s poll discussed in Part 5 – the results of which were published in 1966. Jacques Vallee himself commented that the sightings nominated in his survey were “ranked practically in the order of the publicity they have received, regardless of their intrinsic value or their convincing character … Clearly, the group take it for granted that the most publicized cases are the most convincing, when even a small amount of research would have brought to light an entirely different type of reports” (see Footnote 04).

Skeptics have frequently complained that ufologists have failed to nominate the “best” cases (see Part 2) and in the absence of any response which points them at the best available evidence have tended, not unreasonably, have tended to focus upon those cases which are not frequently discussed.

However, various authors have commented on the apparent confusion between the “best” cases and those which are merely the “best publicized”. For example, Hilary Evans has written that he tends to agree with the comment of Belgian ufologist Jacques Scornaux that “The refutability of a case is directly proportional to the publicity it receives” (see Footnote 05). In a comment similar to the remarks made by Hilary Evans and Jacques Scornaux, Jacques Vallee has suggested that “The cases that receive a high level of media publicity are especially suspect” (see Footnote 06).

Jacques Vallee has suggested that Dr Menzel concentrated on the most publicized cases, rather than the best cases. He has commented that “… very few of the cases [Dr Menzel] studies would be worthy of consideration in an objective system of analysis where weights are distributed according to well-defined criteria, and not according to the amount of publicity the case has received in ‘enthusiast’ circles obviously unconcerned with scientific analysis” (see Footnote 07). Similarly, Vallee has suggested that “[UFO] reports are analyzed one at a time, with an amount of energy directly proportional to the publicity that they have received in specialist ‘enthusiast’ reviews or in the press, radio and television. A side effect of this process is that the most interesting reports are completely unknown to the public and to civilian scientists who might, otherwise, have a very different attitude towards the subject. The more widely discussed cases, such as Washington in 1952, are rather poor and, in our files, would be considered second rate” (see Footnote 08).

Given the number of complaints that skeptics do not address the “best” cases but merely weak cases (even if well publicized), it is very surprising that ufologists have not been more active in preparing lists of the “best” cases. In the few instances where ufologists have sat in a room together to draw up an agreed list of the “best” cases, they have subsequently done a rather poor job of drawing attention to those lists (see, for example, Part 10 and Part 11 of this article in relation to the National Enquirer’s Blue Ribbon Panel and the Rockefeller Briefing Document respectively).

In these circumstances, skeptics can hardly be blamed for having concentrated on the cases most frequently discussed in the UFO literature.


If your favourite case is not included within the “Top 100” list above, all I can say is:

(1) Blame the authors of the relevant books. They selected which cases to discuss the most, not me. The list of the “Top” 100 cases certainly does not represent my personal “Best” 100 cases.

(2) Feel free to conduct a similar exercise yourself or draw up your own list on the basis of your own (preferably expressly stated) criteria. Various possible qualitative and quantitative criteria are discussed in the final parts of this article (i.e. Part 15-29).


The next time you hear someone refer a skeptic or scientist to the UFO literature generally (or are tempted to do so yourself), pause for a moment and remember the content of the above list of the Top 100 UFO Cases. These are the sightings they will come across most frequently.

Is that what you want? If not, you will need to be more helpful than merely suggesting they read “the literature”.

[edit on 21-1-2008 by IsaacKoi]

REFERENCES

[Footnote 01]: “KCC” stands for “Koi Chrono Core”, a 1,800 page draft chronology of UFO and SETI events by Isaac Koi which can be downloaded from the Internet free of charge:
as a 1.6 Mb zipped file: /re7ae
as a 9.1 Mb unzipped file: /oahe7
Also, a PDF version is available at the end of the page below:
www.ufoinfo.com...

[Footnote 02] See:
news.bbc.co.uk...

[Footnote 03] See:
news.bbc.co.uk...

[Footnote 04] See “Challenge to Science : The UFO Enigma” (1966) by Jacques Vallee and Janine Vallee at page 286 (in Appendix 5) of the Ballantine Books paperback edition, at page 236 of the Tandem paperback.

[Footnote 05] Hilary Evans in his “The Evidence for UFOs” (1983) at pages 16-17 (in Chapter 1) of the Aquarian softcover edition, citing Inforespace, Brussels, No. 4 (Namur photo); no. 44 (Scornaux).

[Footnote 06] Jacques Vallee in his “Confrontations” (1990) at page 15 (in the Introduction) of the Ballantine Books paperback edition.

[Footnote 07] Jacques Vallee in his “Anatomy of a Phenomenon” (1965) at page 90 (in Chapter 4) of the Henry Regnery hardback edition (with the same page numbering in the Tandem paperback edition), pages 97-98 of the Ballantine Books paperback edition, page 130 of the 1966 revised and enlarged Ace Star paperback edition.

[Footnote 08] Jacques Vallee in his “Anatomy of a Phenomenon” (1965) at page 90 (in Chapter 4) of the Henry Regnery hardback edition (with the same page numbering in the Tandem paperback edition), page 91 of the Ballantine Books paperback edition, page 124 of the 1966 revised and enlarged Ace Star paperback edition.

[edit on 21-1-2008 by Palasheea]

Again an awesome post by you IsaacKoi !

It will take some time to get through all of this , at quick glance there seem to be some good cases that are unknown to me, so i'll be reading those with much interest.

Thanks for this great overview of the top 100 UFO cases !

Flagged and starred

Been looking forward to this since you mentioned it was coming.

Thanks for posting it!

Very comprehensive list, but there were a few things I was surprised by. You said you wanted to create a list of the best cases to use as examples, but you chose to include Gulf Breeze despite all the controversy that surrounds it. Also, I'm sort fo surprised at the inclusion of Jimmy Carter's sighting, but not Ronald Reagan's.

Good list.

The majority of good 'cases' suffer from something similar to a 'central tendency' in statistics.

That is, there are one or two central facts that are cited that seem to 'prove' the case, and other aspects are minimized.

A lot of the cases are based on 'how could this be anything else but real'?

Some cases have a feature that is not easily explained in prosaic terms.

Many jump to a conclusion, that may seem, on the surface, to be unassailable.

So a good way to analyze these, imo, is to try and find each case's 'central feature' and try to analyze if a premature 'conclusion' has been reached.

In the Kenneth Arnold case, the central feature is that it is one of the first modern-day reportings. The premature conclusion might be that seeing 'something' flying does not mean it was intelligently controlled, nor does that mean the controllers were non-terrestrial.

In the Betty Hill case, the central feature could be the hard-to-explain scratches on the tops of Barney's shoes. The premature conclusion might be that the similar stories were not due to contamination (from Betty's "dream").

In the Pascagoula, Mississippi case (Hicks and Parker), the central feature might be the recording of comments made when Hicks and Parker were left alone in the room. The premature conclusion might be that they did not know they were being recorded.

...and so on.

However in many cases, I find that teasing out a conventional explanation is at least as interesting as pursuing an ET hypothesis.

For instance, the Betty and Barny Hill case has some features that seem to indicate the military was involved!

Again, good list. HTH.

Extraordinary work IsaacKoi.

As always.

reply to post by IsaacKoi


Dear Isaac,
i was waiting for this thread, just in order to say you this: you are the BEST researcher i've ever seen, there's always something to learn with you:
thank you for putting efforts here, thank you for denying ignorance at its best, thank you for sharing what you know with us.
You are the best, PERIOD.


[edit on 21/1/2008 by internos]

reply to post by IsaacKoi


Probably the most intelligent thing I have read in this UFO forum. I urge all to not only READ it but UNDERSTAND it before they make their next post/thread.

Many thanks for the generous comments so far on this article.

I hope that this thread proves to be a useful resource, particularly to those relatively new to ATS/ufology.

All the best,

Isaac

Thanks Isaac!

I will read and research all the cases you mentioned in your article.

not only does this list provide a butt load of quality information, but it also advances the field of ufology by filtering through all the crap thats floating out there.

While I'm sure there are other genuine UFO cases that have not made the list, this is a great start for any interested person in UFOs to start.

Starred and Flagged friend!

Many thanks.

very nice work and a star for your time

however it baffles me how the Roswell incident came in the
list lower than the Betty and Barney Hill abductions. I would
have at least expected Roswell to be in the top 2 if not #1 due
to the continued hype still today of area 51 and groom lake.
But I don't know what your criteria was for the selections
so I may be off base. But anyway, it was interesting to see
the cases lined up in order. I was reading down the list and saw
that most of them I recognize. While only a few I didn't.

Great work mate!

It must have taken you quite sometime!
Do they pay you for this? If not, they should!

Let me get through it and I'll add my 2 cents later!

Good stuff!
Thanks again!

Is it bad that I'm only 20 years old and have heard of every single freaking case on that list? I really need to get out more.

Maybe I'll go to Saturn. John told me it's such a beautiful place, and I've been wanting to relax for quite a while.

Despite hearing of each case before, I never went into such a depth that IssacKoi has done. There are so many details that I had not know before -- it's almost as if this is a mini-encyclopedia of informational wealth. Every single new member on ATS should be required to read this before posting, since it contains crucial material.

[edit on 1/22/2008 by SonicInfinity]

Originally posted by IsaacKoi
Music charts frequently include items that would cause a music connoisseur to shudder (e.g... anything by certain heavy-metal bands

Brilliant work, Isaac. An invaluable resource for all concerned. I was hoping that Valentich would score higher than he did. We need more Aussie authors to help his popularity!

Anyway, at least this time you never insulted Iron Maiden personally. However, I still growl at the way in which you diss the best genre of music ever created by man. Up the Irons! (I'm seeing them live in T-minus 360 hours, 15 minutes and counting...)

Originally posted by SimonSays
it baffles me how the Roswell incident came in the
list lower than the Betty and Barney Hill abductions.
But I don't know what your criteria was for the selections
so I may be off base.

Hi,

Just to be clear, the criteria used was simply the frequency of discussion of each incident in a sample of over 900 UFO/SETI books I've read in the last few years. Think of it as similar to a music "top 10" chart based on numbers of sales of a CD.

The Hill abduction was discussed in more of the relevant sample of books than Roswell, possibly because it has been debated over a longer period. Don't forget, while the Roswell incident happened first (in 1947) it was very quickly dismissed by the media (and UFO researchers) and only featured in about 1 book between 1947 and the late 1970s - when the incident was investigated by Stan Friedman and the whole thing took off in a big way.

Kind Regards,

Isaac

Whoa what a post! Seriously, if I could flag twice I'm your man.

By the way, you must be out of this solar system being able to rattle up all of this. Where do you find the time? Don't you have a job?

GOOD WORK!

Originally posted by Horusnow
you must be out of this solar system being able to rattle up all of this. Where do you find the time? Don't you have a job?

GOOD WORK!

Thanks for the kind words.

As for my job, it keeps me rather busy - as do my family. My participation in ufology is therefore limited to grabbing a few minutes/hours here and there, with the occasional burst of effort.

That's why I've got about 10 major unfinished projects on my computer at the moment, with no firm end-date for any of them...

Awesome list! That must have been a lot of work!

I may have missed them, but I didn't see references to:

The Phoenix Lights Case
The Varginha Case (alien manhunt in South America)
South African Schoolchildren Case (where kids drew pics of the aliens, crafts, etc.)

Still an excellent compilation though!