The Harborough Mail this week posted a story about a UFO sighted from Great Bowden and asks the question “Is this a UFO?”. My answer to that would be, “YES” of course it is, because we cannot Identify it and it is flying. Maybe they should have asked, “Is this extraterrestrial?”, but I suppose this is implied by the word UFO as it’s taken on this meaning and lost the Unidentified Flying Object that it was originally used for.
This leads me to wonder when does an object become a UFO and who deems it so? This is an extract from wikipeadia…
Some, such as the USAF, who originally coined the term in 1952, define UFOs as only those objects remaining unidentified after scrutiny by expert investigators, while other definitions call something a UFO from the time it is first reported as being unidentified.
So this odd shaped object in the sky could indeed be called a UFO.
2 Responses to “Market Harborough UFO”
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Jonny Atom
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I am the reporter who wrote this story and there was some debate in the office as to the wording of the headline. Of course strictly speaking it is a UFO – because it is clearly a flying object which we cannot identify.
But we took the decision to use the headline ‘Is this a UFO?’ because we felt that the average person takes the term UFO to mean alien craft. The final decision was also no doubt made by my editor because it’s a snappier headline which fit on the page.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Hi Ian
Thanks for the comment. I really enjoyed the article and hope me being slightly pedantic on the semantics of ‘UFO’ didn’t come across in a derogatory way. I often muse about these sorts of things. Many years ago I worked as a graphic designer on a local paper and know the banter that goes around the office.
Keep up the good work.