UFO Diaries: UFO's Real or Hoax? P1

Ufology is a neologism coined to describe the collective efforts of those who study unidentified flying object (UFO) reports and associated evidence. While ufology does not represent an academic field of research, UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years by governments and independent academics. None of these studies have officially concluded that any reports are caused by extraterrestrial spacecraft (e.g., Seeds 1995:A4). Some studies were neutral in their conclusions, but argued the inexplicable core cases called for continued scientific study. However, "the vast majority of UFOs that have been scrutinized by qualified investigators turn out to have rather mundane explanations".
Astrophysicist Peter A. Sturrock suggests that a lack of funding is a major factor in the institutional disinterest in UFOs: "If the Air Force were to make available, say, $50 million per year for ten years for UFO research, it is quite likely that the subject would look somewhat less disreputable ... however, an agency is unlikely to initiate such a program at any level until scientists are supportive of such an initiative. We see that there is a chicken-and-egg program. It would be more sensible, and more acceptable to the scientific community, if research began at a low level."
This is a theory that most UFO sightings are misunderstood phenomena such as ball lightning or visual illusions.
Carl G. Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst, in his 1957 work, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, explained UFOs as objects of the collective unconscious and modern archetypes. In a brief final chapter of his book, Jung also expressed his opinion that some UFOs could be real "nuts-and-bolts" of unknown nature.
In psychology, the study of UFO sightings has revealed information on misinterpretation, perceptual illusions, hallucination. Many have questioned the reliability of hypnosis in UFO abduction cases.
UFO-related claims that are based solely on eyewitness accounts are subject to a range of issues that may be involved with eyewitness memory. Under some circumstances, eyewitness memory is unreliable. In addition, there is some evidence that memory of an event can be unconsciously altered to suit a desired interpretation of what was remembered. For example, it is possible a person who has reported a UFO sighting may be reinterpreting an older memory to fit a desired explanation. One study has reported that participants who reported recovered memories of abduction by aliens were more prone than a control group to exhibit false recall. However, the authors note as a limitation, that a small sample size was used in the study. In addition, the study did not address the alternative hypothesis that only a subgroup of those who reported abductions could account for the observed differences; i.e. it is possible some of the group claiming abduction were more prone to false recall while others were not.

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