01 · Overview

What This Guide Is

This is a practical identification guide produced by the What The Cryptid? News Network Field Research Division for the use of civilians who have observed, or believe they may have observed, an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. It is not a guide to alien contact. It is not a guide to extraterrestrial communication. It is not, under any circumstances, a guide to anything the Department of Cryptid Affairs has officially acknowledged exists.

It is a guide to identification. That is all.

A significant percentage of UAP reports reviewed by WTC's field team in the past twelve months were misidentifications of known aircraft, weather phenomena, satellites, planets, or objects released from aircraft. A smaller but statistically consistent percentage were not. This guide exists to help the civilian observer determine, with reasonable confidence, which category their sighting falls into.

We recommend reading it before you need it. In our experience, the period immediately following a UAP sighting is not the optimal time for research.

A Note on Terminology

The term UFO — Unidentified Flying Object — has been in common usage since the 1940s. The Department of Cryptid Affairs formally transitioned to the term UAP — Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon — in documentation produced after 2020, on the grounds that not all observed phenomena are objects in the conventional sense, and not all are flying in any direction that can be confidently described.

WTC uses both terms interchangeably in this guide. We note this not because the terminology matters to the phenomenon, but because it may matter to the reader's search history, which we understand some agencies monitor.

Why Identification Matters

There are three reasons to correctly identify what you observed.

The first is practical: a misidentified conventional aircraft is not a UAP, and treating it as one wastes resources — yours and ours. WTC receives a significant volume of reports each week. A portion of those reports are Venus.

The second is documentary: an accurate, detailed witness account of a genuine UAP is one of the most valuable data points available to researchers. An inaccurate account is worse than no account, because it introduces noise into a dataset that already has more noise than signal.

The third is personal: knowing what you saw — or knowing that you cannot know what you saw — is, in our experience, considerably less distressing than not knowing either way. Most people who contact WTC following a sighting are not looking for confirmation that what they saw was extraordinary. They are looking for a framework. This guide is that framework.

The DCA has not provided one. We have.

02 · Visual Identification

Shape

UAPs are reported in a limited number of consistent shapes. This consistency across reports from different continents, different decades, and different witnesses who have no documented contact with each other is one of the few genuinely anomalous features of UAP data.

Colour and Light

Colour is one of the more reliable identification markers, though it must be assessed in context. A white light at altitude at night is not inherently anomalous. A white light at altitude at night that changes colour without an obvious explanation for that change is worth noting.

Size

Size is the most difficult characteristic to assess without a reference point. A UAP at unknown altitude could be the size of a car or the size of a stadium and appear identical to an observer on the ground. WTC recommends using the following reference: hold your thumb at arm's length. An object smaller than your thumbnail at arm's length is at significant altitude or is genuinely small. An object larger than your thumbnail at arm's length is either at low altitude, very large, or both.

Document the apparent size against reference objects in the environment — trees, buildings, the width of the moon. The moon is approximately half a degree of arc across the sky. An object that appears larger than the moon is either very close, very large, or both.

03 · Behavioural Indicators

Movement Characteristics

Movement is the single most reliable distinguishing characteristic between conventional aerial objects and genuine UAPs. Conventional aircraft are constrained by physics. They require time to accelerate, decelerate, and change direction. They cannot stop instantaneously. They cannot reverse direction without a turn radius. They cannot travel at supersonic speeds at low altitude without producing a sonic boom.

UAPs are not reliably constrained by any of these factors.

Sound — Or the Absence of It

Conventional aircraft produce sound. The sound may be delayed — at altitude, an aircraft's position may appear ahead of its sound due to the speed of sound — but it is present. A large object at low altitude moving at speed that produces no sound is anomalous.

Some UAPs produce sound. Reported sounds include a low hum at a frequency described as felt rather than heard, a crackling or electrical sound, and a sound described as like the air being displaced rather than moved through. These descriptions are consistent across reports with no documented connection to each other.

Some UAPs produce infrasound — frequencies below the human hearing threshold. These are associated in some reports with feelings of unease, nausea, or the sense that something is wrong before the object is visually identified. If you feel an unexplained sense of unease and then observe a UAP, document that the sensation preceded visual identification.

Interaction with Environment

04 · Equipment Response

Why Equipment Matters

Witness testimony is valuable. Documented equipment response is more valuable. An account of an unusual object is a report. An account of an unusual object accompanied by a dead phone battery, a camera that refused to focus, and three minutes of missing time is a case file.

Document everything your equipment does during and after a sighting. The absence of equipment response is also worth documenting — not all UAPs produce electromagnetic effects, and knowing which ones do and which ones do not is relevant data.

Camera and Phone Behaviour

The most commonly reported equipment anomaly in UAP sightings is the inability to capture clear photographic or video evidence despite the equipment functioning normally before and after the sighting. Reported anomalies include: autofocus that will not lock on the object, exposure that overblows to white when aimed at the object, and images that appear to show the object but that are deleted or corrupted by the time the witness reviews the footage.

WTC notes: the majority of poor UAP photographs are the result of ordinary factors — camera shake, insufficient zoom, autofocus prioritising foreground objects, witness unfamiliarity with manual settings. Rule these out before attributing camera failure to the phenomenon.

Field Protocol — Camera Use During a Sighting

• Switch to manual focus before aiming at the object.
• Use the highest available video resolution and frame rate.
• Do not zoom — optical zoom reduces stability; digital zoom reduces resolution.
• Hold the camera against a stable surface if one is available.
• Continue recording for at least two minutes after the object is no longer visible.
• Back up all footage to a second device or cloud storage immediately following the sighting.
• Do not delete anything, including footage that appears to show nothing.

Vehicle Response

Vehicle engine failure in proximity to UAPs is documented in a subset of cases going back to the 1950s. The pattern is: engine cuts out without warning, all electrical systems fail simultaneously, the vehicle coasts to a stop. When the UAP departs or moves to a greater distance, the vehicle restarts normally or requires a standard restart procedure.

If your vehicle fails in proximity to a UAP, note: the dashboard reading at the moment of failure, the approximate distance to the object, the duration of the failure, and whether the vehicle restarted spontaneously or required manual restart. Note also whether your phone or other devices lost power simultaneously.

05 · Witness Response Patterns

What People Do Wrong

WTC has reviewed several hundred UAP witness accounts. The following errors are consistent across a significant percentage of those accounts, and they reduce the evidential value of what might otherwise be valuable sightings.

What to Do Instead

Observe continuously. Note the time immediately. Begin recording with whatever device is available. Note reference points — the object's position relative to fixed landmarks. Note the conditions — cloud cover, visibility, wind. Note your own physical state. Note the behaviour of anyone or anything else in the vicinity.

When the sighting ends, write down everything immediately. Do not discuss it with anyone else before you write it down — conversation contaminates memory. Write your account first, then talk.

06 · Documented Incident Types

Category A — Lights in the Sky

The largest category by volume. Single or multiple lights observed at altitude, behaving in ways inconsistent with known aircraft, satellites, or atmospheric phenomena. For every genuinely anomalous light report, WTC receives approximately twelve reports of Venus, aircraft at altitude, satellites, weather balloons, and drones.

Genuinely anomalous features include: lights that make right-angle turns, lights that accelerate from stationary to high speed without transition, lights that appear to respond to observation, and lights that move in coordinated formation without the timing constraints of conventional formation flying.

Documented Example — Levelland, Texas, 1957

Multiple independent witnesses over a two-hour period reported a glowing egg-shaped object that caused vehicle engines to stall in its proximity. The object was reported by a truck driver, a sheriff's patrol, a University of Texas student, and an army reserve officer. All accounts were consistent. The Air Force investigated and attributed the sightings to ball lightning. There was no thunderstorm that evening.

Category B — Structured Craft at Close Range

The smaller category by volume but larger by evidential weight. Sightings of objects at close enough range for structural details to be observed — hull features, markings, apparent windows, physical dimensions. Category B reports are the most likely to be misidentifications of experimental military aircraft. They are also the most likely to contain genuine anomalous data.

Documented Example — Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, 1980

Military personnel at RAF Bentwaters reported a structured object landing in Rendlesham Forest over three nights. Personnel who approached the object reported physical marks in the ground, radiation readings above background levels, and markings described as hieroglyphic-like symbols. The Deputy Base Commander dictated a memo describing the events in detail. The UK Ministry of Defence investigated and concluded there was no defence significance. The radiation readings have not been formally explained.

Category C — Physical Evidence

Cases in which a UAP sighting is accompanied by physical evidence — ground traces, material samples, physiological effects on witnesses, or recovered material. Category C is the smallest category by volume and the most contested. Physical evidence is the hardest category to fake and the hardest to authenticate.

Category D — Missing Time

A subset of close-encounter reports in which the witness experiences a period of time for which they have no conscious memory. WTC does not speculate on the mechanism of missing time events. We note that they are reported consistently across cultures and decades, and that hypnotic regression — sometimes used to recover memories — is not considered evidentially reliable.

Account for missing time in your report. Do not attempt to reconstruct what may have occurred during it without professional support.

07 · Regional Hotspots

Why Some Areas Report More Than Others

UAP sightings are not evenly distributed. Certain geographic areas produce significantly higher volumes of reports than their population density would predict. Several explanations have been proposed. WTC presents them without endorsing any.

Confirmed High-Frequency Regions

08 · What To Do During a Sighting

Step-by-Step Protocol

Follow this protocol in order if circumstances allow.

09 · What Not To Do

Explicitly Stated

This section contains items that field experience has indicated require explicit statement.

DCA File Excerpt

Partially Declassified Document

The following is reproduced from DCA Internal Memorandum UAP-CIVIL-2024-887, partially declassified under Freedom of Information provisions. Redactions are as received.

WTC notes that the above represents the complete content of the declassified portion of UAP-CIVIL-2024-887. We are pursuing the unredacted version under further FOIA provisions. The DCA has not responded to our most recent request. This is consistent with their established pattern of not responding to our requests.

WTC Field Assessment

Assessment by Harold Ridgeway, Lead Anchor

The question of whether UAPs represent extraterrestrial craft, classified human technology, natural phenomena not yet understood, or something else entirely is not one this guide is positioned to answer. That is not evasion. It is accuracy.

What this guide is positioned to say is the following: the phenomenon is real. The data is consistent. The institutional reluctance to engage with that data seriously is, at this point, itself a data point.

WTC has reviewed the available evidence. We have spoken with pilots, military personnel, scientists, and ordinary people who had ordinary days until something appeared in the sky that should not have been there. They are not, as a group, confused, credulous, or dishonest. They are people who saw something and cannot account for it by any conventional means available to them.

That is enough. It does not tell us what the phenomenon is. It tells us that the phenomenon exists, that it is worth taking seriously, and that the appropriate response is documentation, analysis, and the continued refusal to accept "we don't know and we're not looking" as an adequate answer from the agencies that exist, at least nominally, to look.

We will continue reporting.

Moderate does not mean safe. It means we do not yet have sufficient data to justify a higher classification. We are working on it.

Stay informed. Stay calm. Stay indoors if the situation warrants it.

Quick Reference Card

Print and Retain — Laminating Recommended

Anomalous Indicators — Check All That Apply

• Right-angle turns or direction changes without turn radius
• Instantaneous acceleration from stationary to high speed
• Stationary hovering without visible propulsion or audible sound
• No sound at low altitude and high speed
• Colour changes without obvious cause
• Light pulsing at irregular intervals
• Equipment failure — camera, phone, vehicle, compass
• Animal behaviour change before visual observation
• Physical sensations — heat, tingling, nausea, disorientation
• Object larger than thumbnail at arm's length
• Missing time

If two or more boxes are checked: You may have observed an anomalous aerial phenomenon. Proceed to full documentation protocol.

If zero boxes are checked: You probably observed a conventional aerial object. Venus is the most common misidentification. Check the position of Venus before filing a report.

Documentation Checklist

• Exact time noted
• Video recording begun
• Reference landmarks identified
• Conditions noted (cloud cover, visibility, wind)
• Physical state noted
• Animal behaviour noted
• Other witnesses noted (without contaminating their accounts)
• Direction of departure noted
• Speed of departure noted
• All recordings backed up

Do Not

• Move toward the object
• Signal or attempt communication
• Post to social media before documenting
• Discuss with others before writing your account
• Return to the location alone

Report To

"The checklist above will not tell you what you saw. It will tell you whether what you saw was worth reporting. In our experience, if you felt the need to reach for this card, it was." — WTC Field Research Division