When you see something, what makes you decide to call it a "UFO", if you decide to call it that? And what makes you decide to not call it a "UFO", if you decide to not call it that?
Luis Elizondo, who was in charge of the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) for a number of years, identified five characteristics common to UFOs. Those characteristics are:
1) Anti-gravity -- The ability of a craft to fly without any apparent means of propulsion or lift (e.g., propellers, wings, jet engines, exhaust plumes, etc).
2) Instantaneous Acceleration -- The ability of a craft to reach hypersonic speeds in mere seconds or less.
3) Hypersonic Velocity -- A craft's ability to reach speeds far in excess of 3,700 miles per hour (5 times the speed of sound) and without "signatures" such as vapor trails or sonic booms.
4) Low Observability -- The ability of a craft to conceal itself from or jam any kind of radar even when it is visible to the naked eye.
5) Trans-Medium Travel -- The ability of a craft to travel through outer space, inside Earth's atmosphere, and under water.
I would add an additional observable to that list:
6) Impossibly huge size (impossible for us, that is). These are comparatively rare, but some UFOs have been estimated to be as much as twice the size of an aircraft carrier or even larger. The UFO that I saw back in 1995 was at least that large, if not larger.
Added to all of the above is the fact that these objects have been witnessed by military and civilian observers since at least World War II. No earthbound civilization that I know of could have possessed such advanced technology that far back, or even today for that matter.
All of these characteristics mean that in my opinion, it is highly unlikely that these crafts are of human origin, and that is why I call them "UFOs."
