What is that thing at the left?

Adam Baker | Flickr

This photo from Nevada seems to reflect something similar to what George Johnson saw.

Honestly, I don't know what I saw, although I have been thinking about it a lot. More precisely, I know exactly what I saw, but I have no idea what it was that I saw. A bright light shot across the sky from the mountains to the west of me, slowed almost to a stop, and then blinked out. That was it.

No star or planet, this thing -- whatever it was -- was huge, almost moon-sized, and it really came almost to a stop in the sky above me. And then it was simply gone.

What am I to make of this? I am by profession a scientist, and in my trade I deal with data I don't fully understand all the time. It is a scientist's job to gather data without jumping to conclusions, until the pattern of the data reveals underlying causes. Darwin said "science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them."

But what am I to make of a single data point, a single observation, one totally at variance with anything I have ever seen?

Perhaps I should ask someone from Illinois. Years ago, I wrote about the sighting of a UFO in nearby Illinois early one morning. It flew over Melvin Noll's miniature golf course about 4 a.m., the morning of Jan. 4, 2000.

Flew is perhaps too strong a word. It wasn't moving fast at all. Floated might be more like it. Melvin says he saw rows of windows. "It was all lighted up and so low that someone could have waved at me out the windows."

Melvin, after digesting this unusual sight for a few minutes, lit out for the local police station at Highland, Ill. The dispatcher called the police in Lebanon -- it was headed that way -- and they saw it, too. Later, as it moved west, so did other police. In addition to Melvin Noll, four Metro East police officers filed reports of seeing the object in the sky as it passed Lebanon, Shiloh, Millstadt and Dupo. At least two civilians also reported seeing the object as they drove to work early that morning.

I can think of three ways to account for Melvin's UFO, and my own.

1. They were both some sort of joke or hysteria, and there was, in fact, nothing real floating over Melvin and his miniature golf course, or over me and my horse. This doesn't seem to me a likely explanation. As far as Melvin's UFO is concerned, four independent police reports are no casual bit of nonsense, no encounter of the "after the bar closed" kind. Police are high quality observers, neither delusional nor fanciful. And the police who saw the UFO did not think it a joke. Indeed, two of the officers contacted the National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle the morning after the sighting. As far as my UFO is concerned, all I can say is "I know what I saw," and I was not, and am not, hysterical.
2. Melvin and my UFOs might be some sort of novel military craft, not known to the general public. Mine certainly didn't look like an aircraft - just a large bright light that moved funny in the sky. However, the police witnesses told reporters Melvin's object resembled a drawing of a "stealth blimp" that appeared recently in Popular Mechanics magazine. Was it an experimental military aircraft? There is no radar track to confirm or disprove -- the air traffic control tower at Scott Air Force Base was shut down at the time. The government denies all knowledge of any such craft. Still, this is where I would bet my money.
3. Melvin's UFO, and mine, might be UFOs. All those windows and brilliant glaring lights Melvin and the police saw don't sound like any blimp I ever heard of. How could a blimp generate enough power? But if it wasn't a blimp, what was it? Sherlock Holmes said that when you have eliminated the impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be true. I suspect Holmes would vote for the UFO.

A particularly interesting thing about Melvin's UFO becomes clear if you plot the five confirmed reports of police sightings on a map. The sightings move south and west on a slow swooping curve aimed right at -- St. Louis! The thought of just what in St. Louis is attracting UFOs beggars the imagination. I have no idea what a UFO could possibly find of interest west of Buffalo, Wyo.

So, bottom line, are there UFOs? I am not about to write a column saying "No, Virginia, there are no UFOs," for the same reason I will never write a column saying there is no Santa. UFOs, like Santa, are real for those able to see them. Kids don't see UFOs, and adults don't see Santa. The window of imagination opens differently for us than for our children, but no less vividly.

Of course, as a scientist I don't accept UFOs as anything more than highly unlikely, sort of in the same category as Santa Claus and jackalopes. But I myself have seen a jackalope, and I am personally acquainted with very together kids who say they have seen Santa.

So, I live quite comfortably in a world where reasonable people see UFOs. I can no more imagine a world without UFOs than one without Santa. If there were one, I suspect it would be a drab grey place, with no "X Files," no "Men in Black," no "Dark Knights." I wouldn't want to live there.

To read previous On Science columns, click on the subject: bats , tanning , type II diabetes, heart attack, home-run physics , mad cow disease , global warming I , global warming II , platypus , IQ ,  E85 , dinosaurs at Zoo , losing weight , testing evolution , cigarette addiction