Reference

UAP & Ufology Glossary

The language of the phenomenon — defined plainly, with an evidence-first eye.

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AATIP: The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program — a U.S. Department of Defense effort (made public in 2017) that studied reports of unidentified aerial phenomena encountered by the military.
Abduction: A reported experience in which a person believes they were taken, typically temporarily, by non-human entities. Such accounts are anecdotal and remain scientifically unverified.
Ancient Astronaut Theory: The hypothesis that intelligent extraterrestrials visited Earth in antiquity and influenced early human cultures. It is not accepted by mainstream archaeology but is a recurring theme in ufology.

Bolide: An exceptionally bright meteor (a fireball) that often explodes in the atmosphere. Bolides are a common conventional explanation for nighttime UFO sightings.

Cattle Mutilation: Cases of livestock found dead with seemingly precise injuries. Investigations typically attribute these to natural predation and decomposition, though they remain a fixture of UFO lore.
Close Encounter: A classification of UFO sightings on the Hynek scale. CE1 is a sighting at close range; CE2 includes physical effects; CE3 involves apparent occupants; later extensions add CE4 (abduction) and CE5 (deliberate contact).
Contactee: A person who claims ongoing communication or contact with extraterrestrial beings, distinct from a one-time witness or abductee.
Crash Retrieval: An alleged government recovery of a crashed craft of non-human origin and its occupants. The Roswell incident is the most famous claimed example.

Disclosure: The anticipated or ongoing release by governments of information about UAP. Recent congressional hearings and official reports are often framed as steps toward disclosure.

Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH): The proposal that at least some UAP are spacecraft operated by intelligent life originating beyond Earth. It is one of several competing frameworks.

Foo Fighter: Term coined by Allied pilots in World War II for fast-moving glowing objects observed near their aircraft, an early documented wave of unexplained aerial sightings.

GIMBAL: One of three U.S. Navy infrared videos (alongside FLIR1 and GoFast) officially released by the Pentagon, showing an object exhibiting unusual flight characteristics.
Greys: The most commonly described entity type in abduction and contact accounts: small, grey-skinned humanoids with large black eyes. A cultural archetype as much as a report category.

Hessdalen Lights: Recurring unexplained luminous phenomena in the Hessdalen valley, Norway, the subject of ongoing scientific monitoring — a rare case of sustained instrumented study.
Hynek Scale: A classification system for UFO encounters developed by astronomer J. Allen Hynek, ranging from distant sightings to close encounters.

Interdimensional Hypothesis (IDH): The idea that UAP originate not from elsewhere in space but from other dimensions or realities — an alternative to the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

Men in Black (MIB): Reported figures, often in dark suits, said to intimidate or silence UFO witnesses. Their existence is unverified and heavily mythologized.
MUFON: The Mutual UFO Network, one of the largest civilian organizations dedicated to investigating and cataloguing UFO reports.

Non-Human Intelligence (NHI): A deliberately broad term used in recent official and whistleblower contexts to describe a possible intelligence behind UAP without presupposing its origin.

Orb: A spherical, often luminous object reported in many sightings. Explanations range from drones and balloons to genuinely unexplained phenomena.

Project Blue Book: The U.S. Air Force's systematic study of UFOs from 1952 to 1969, which catalogued over 12,000 reports before concluding most had conventional explanations.

Roswell: The 1947 recovery of debris near Roswell, New Mexico — officially a weather/surveillance balloon — that became the foundational case of modern crash-retrieval lore.

Tic Tac: Nickname for the smooth, white, oblong object observed by U.S. Navy pilots off the coast of California in 2004 (the Nimitz encounter).
TR-3B: An alleged triangular black-project aircraft. No verified evidence confirms its existence; it is frequently invoked to explain triangle UFO sightings.

UAP: Unidentified Aerial (or Anomalous) Phenomena — the term increasingly preferred in official and scientific contexts over 'UFO,' reflecting an evidence-first stance.
UFO: Unidentified Flying Object — any aerial object or light that an observer cannot immediately identify. 'Unidentified' does not imply extraterrestrial.
Ufology: The study of UFO/UAP reports and related phenomena. It spans rigorous investigation and speculative belief; we aim for the former.
USO: Unidentified Submerged Object — an unexplained object observed entering, exiting, or moving through water.

Whistleblower: An insider who discloses non-public information about UAP programs. Recent high-profile testimony has driven renewed congressional and public attention.