That is the great underlying dilemma of those who deal with the subject once labeled as Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and now as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs).
If you go to my column on Facebook, you will see that I reproduced a good interview that I was given on Channel 4 by the journalistic team of the program “8 A.M.” broadcasted in February 2024.
There I briefly described several natural, optical and atmospheric phenomena that could give rise to reports of UAPs. And one of the interviewers, I think her name is Beatriz, asked me at one point: “And the others?
I should have answered: “the others” are more of the same. And of course, in my lecture “About things you can see in the sky”, and the one I gave in 2024, “Looking at the sky is a challenge”, I reviewed so many other objects, natural phenomena and products of human ingenuity, which can provoke the original reports of something that is unknown to the witnesses. So we may well say that we have objects and phenomena “unknown to witnesses”.
And because they are unknown to them, they cannot by themselves, and at the moment, identify them.
But the “unidentified” is not an inherent characteristic of the sighted, but it is a result of the process that the witnesses do in their minds. As has been well noted by handling the adjective in English, “unidentified” is a verb conjugated in the past tense. The more correct translation would be: “it was not identified”.
The new UAP designation raises something positive, and something that is not positive but has - in my opinion - its raison d'être and its explanation.
The positive thing is to refer not to “objects” but to “phenomena”, because it covers a broader category. A ball lightning is an interesting atmospheric phenomenon, that shines, that has a volume, that remains still or moves, that disappears when it discharges, but it is not a material object. It is a manifestation of energy. So using the term “phenomena” is more comprehensive than “objects” and responds to a reality.
A reality that even could be linked to artificially provoked phenomena that are related to electronics.
And here comes the second word used in the acronym UAP, and I am referring to “anomalous”, which means abnormal.
I know that some conscientious scholars of phenomena denounced as strange do not like this adjective. But if instead of “anomalous” they would speak of “extraordinary”, “incredible”, “extraterrestrial”, “magical”, “impossible”, they would like it much less.
That is why it was an intelligent initiative to qualify these phenomena as “anomalous”, because they develop speeds that exceed those so far achieved by aerial apparatus, because they make sudden displacements at closed angles, because they are being seen, captured by radar and video and suddenly disappear. What was that, what was there?
The materialization of the phenomenon is not only in the mind of the observer but also in the capture by other means. But the apparent materialization disappears as soon as the waves by which something is artificially created in the atmosphere, in space or in the sea are no longer emitted.
Therefore the word phenomenon fits perfectly to a different reality to which one has not been accustomed before, because the time of the BlueBook dealt with objects and various phenomena, but not with the characteristics that today's technology allows.
These current phenomena pose a much greater challenge for the researcher, because if he/she is not informed about them, he/she will tend to think that he/she is really in front of something pergined by a non-human mind, when that would unintentionally distort reality.
Since unidentified refers not to a category intrinsic to what is sighted, but to a lucubration of the observer and perhaps of those who study his case, the “U” of unidentified in the original designation in English, and the “N.I.” of unidentified in Spanish, are superfluous.
Perhaps the best adjective that fits in Spanish (which has also been used in French) is insólito. According to the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), insólito means unusual, strange or unaccustomed.
The best adjective in English is unusual , rather than unheard or unbelievable, which are other possible translations, because they do not fit the subject in question. So in English the letter U is kept.
In our case, our acronym UAPSG refers to Unusual, and in Spanish the I of GEFAI refers to Inusuales. What would have to disappear is the A with the meaning of aerial (in English), aéreos (in Spanish) to use the adjective anómalos.
But in doing this semantic analysis, I find what for me is a conceptual redundancy. If we say that something is anomalous, we do not need to say that it is unusual. It goes without saying that it is.
And this same consideration is valid for the English language. So in both cases we can only refer to anomalous phenomena.
In English, using the adjective Unidentified brings to mind the same adjective used in the acronym U.F.O., hence the general public tends to think that the new acronym refers to the same thing. But the reality is quite different.
There is a reason why the office created by the U.S. Department of Defense is called A.A.R.O., for All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which we consider more correct to say in Spanish as “en todos los ámbitos” (in all the environments) since we usually refer to the space, air or maritime domains in such a way.
I consider that this is appropriate and if we did that, our acronym would stand for Anomalous Phenomena Study Group (A.P.S.G.) and Grupo de Estudio de Fenómenos Anómalos(G.E.F.A.).
But to further adjust these anomalous phenomena to the current reality, it would be necessary to add the concept of “in all fields”, or to put it more condensed, in multiple fields.
In other words, the acronym in English would end up being All-environment Anomalous Phenomena Study Group (A.A.P.S.G.) and in Spanish, Grupo de Estudio de Fenómenos Anómalos en Todos los Ámbitos (G.E.F.A.T.A.).
Notwithstanding these considerations, as U.A.P.S.G. and G.E.F.A.I. are widely known and accredited acronyms, we will continue to use them as such but being aware that they do not fit the current reality.
Milton W. Hourcade
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