1. Introduction

“Best UFO Cases” by Isaac Koi

PART 1: Best UFO Cases: Introduction

Ufologists regularly complain that skeptics fail to address the best UFO cases.

On the other hand, skeptics frequently complain that “believers” refuse to nominate the best cases.

This article considers some of those complaints.

Due its length, this article has been split into several parts:

PART 1: Best UFO Cases: Introduction

PART 2: Challenges to produce lists of top cases

PART 3: Existing lists by various individuals

PART 4: Consensus lists : Introduction

PART 5: Consensus lists : Jacques Vallee’s poll (1965)

PART 6: Consensus lists : Ronald Story’s poll (1979)

PART 7: Consensus lists : Paul Kimball’s Vox Populi poll (2006)

PART 8: Consensus lists : Paul Kimball’s expert poll (2005/6)

PART 9: Consensus lists : Fortean Times expert poll (2007)

PART 10: Consensus lists : National Enquirer Panel

PART 11: Consensus lists : The Rockefeller Briefing Document

PART 12: Consensus lists : Conclusion

PART 13: The Top 100 UFO cases

PART 14: Top 10 cases within various categories

PART 15: Qualitative criteria: Introduction

PART 16 : Qualitative criteria: Credible witnesses

PART 17: Qualitative criteria: Multiple witnesses

PART 18: Qualitative criteria: Miscellaneous other criteria

PART 19: Quantitative criteria : Introduction

PART 20: Quantitative criteria : Hynek – Strangeness and Probability

PART 21: Quantitative criteria : Vallee’s SVP ratings

PART 22: Quantitative criteria : BUFORA’s case priority

PART 23: Quantitative criteria : Ballester/MUFON index

PART 24: Quantitative criteria : Olsen’s Reliability Index

PART 25: Quantitative criteria : Figuet’s hardest cases

PART 26: Quantitative criteria : Moravec's rating system

PART 27: Quantitative criteria : Miscellaneous other criteria

PART 28: Quantitative criteria : An experiment

PART 29: Quantitative criteria : Conclusion

PART 30: Best UFO Cases : Overall Conclusion

This article demonstrates that it is possible to find numerous lists of “the best cases” by individual UFO groups or researchers. However, if no consensus in relation to the contents of those lists exists, why should any skeptic pay any attention to those lists?

There are also several lists which represent (or at least have been said to represent) a consensus of leading ufologists on this issue. I’ll consider several of those lists in this article (several of which are not very well known even to experienced ufologists), and highlight several issues in relation to each of them.

One feature that of virtually all the relevant lists is a lack of indication of WHY the relevant cases were nominated. I will therefore also be covering various suggestions as to qualitative and quantitative criteria for selecting the best cases.

As an alternative approach, I thought that it might be interesting to find out which UFO cases are most frequently discussed in books about ufos and SETI. About four years later, I have prepared a “Top 100” list of UFO cases. That list appears as Part 13 of this article, but I hope the other elements of the article are also found useful.