Continuing mystery and controversy

There is something of potential importance within the UFO mystery, and it is two-fold, according to Don Berliner, a longtime UFO investigator and an independent aviation/science writer. He also is Chairman of the Fund for UFO Research, located in Alexandria, Virginia.

First of all, there are the detailed descriptions from veteran airline and military pilots of objects seen at close range in broad daylight.

"These were said to have been solid, metallic-looking objects with sharp edges and simple geometric shapes that were completely unlike any known aero-spacecraft, and displayed performance--extreme speed within the atmosphere, violent maneuvers and spectacular acceleration--that was even farther from the norm," Berliner told SPACE.com.

Secondly, there is the "excessive zeal" shown by the U.S. Air Force when claiming to have solved the UFO mystery, Berliner suggested. "Statistics were manipulated, intelligent adult witnesses were treated like naive children, explanations were fabricated, scientific theories were twisted to fit, information known to have been false was released to Congress and the public, and portions of witnesses' testimony were ignored when they clashed with prepared explanations."

All of these claims, Berliner added, can be supported with quotes from Air Force documents, letters, reports and public statements.

Still, there are many UFO sightings that deserve to be chalked up to more down-to-Earth explanation, Berliner said.

"Most reasonable persons, no matter what their conclusions, agree that the great majority of UFO reports are easily explained as misidentified conventional phenomena. It is the remaining five to ten percent that constitute the continuing mystery and controversy," he concluded.