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Think You've Seen a UFO? Here's What to Do Next, According to an Expert

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Via: Nerm_L • 4 months ago • 11 comments

By: Popular Mechanics Editors

Think You've Seen a UFO? Here's What to Do Next, According to an Expert

Having considered more than 1,000 cases, this analyst of unidentified anomalous phenomena has honed a rational process for revealing your mystery object.

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S E E D E D C O N T E N T

July 04, 2026 -- Reports of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) have been rising since the U.S. government established the National Defense Authorization Act of 2023. The act replaced the term "UFO," but it still sparks wonder like no other term for potential alien craft ever has.

The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), established in 2022, has dealt with well over 1,000 such reports. It has yet to find evidence of extraterrestrial technology.

But what do you do if you see a truly bizarre phenomenon that you can't explain? Like the more than 9,000 unidentified objects spotted near U.S. coastlines or the "Tic-Tac"-shaped UFO the Navy reported in 2004? Before you start seriously considering an alien presence on Earth, longtime UFO investigator Mick West recommends following a thoughtful, methodical procedure that should help eliminate the most unlikely explanations. That's because most skyward—or the increasingly spotted seaward—curiosities have a logical explanation. No aliens required.

West, who has dealt with about 1,000 UFO cases over nearly a decade, ultimately completing a deeper analysis of about 100 on a pro bono basis, believes in using logic and common sense while investigating such claims—including your own. That means following the clues and cross-referencing them with simultaneous events such as flights, weather phenomena like saucer-shaped lenticular clouds, ground camera images, and satellite data from companies like Starlink.

That may not necessarily lead to thrilling discoveries of alien encounters, but chipping away at the puzzle to reveal the truth can be enormously satisfying.

It's not enough to just see the anomaly—you need evidence, and video is a good candidate. Even better if you have audio of the event as well. If you have an original video, here's what you can do:

Turn to a program like Invisor, an app that displays and compares technical information about video, audio, and photo files. You can pull all kinds of information out of the media, such as the original date it was recorded, the resolution, the frame rates, and sometimes even the location as well.
Consult the free online tool FlightRadar24, because understanding the physical perspective of the camera shot is crucial. A green and brown map depicting U.S. physical features will pop up, dotted with dozens of tiny yellow airplane symbols. "You can figure out what's actually in the air at a particular time," West explains.
Drag and drop your video into Sitrec, a "situation recreation" tool that integrates flight data and video from any source and uses satellite imagery to recreate situations. It's a tool West himself has designed. An organization that prefers to remain anonymous paid him to develop and continue improving the app, and to help make it freely and publicly available on his website, Metabunk.org, a hub for UAP news, forum discussions, and debunking resources.

So what if you still have no idea what you're looking at? So far, AARO accepts UAP reports from official channels only, like the military and the Federal Aviation Administration. But you can post your anomaly on popular UFO databases like Enigma and MUFON and see what responses pop up.

And just maybe, yours will end up being the first true alien encounter.

This story uses reporting by Manasee Wagh

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