Do you believe in UFOs? I am often asked this question, to which the answer, of course, is "yes". The question is actually no different from asking whether someone believes in aeroplanes.

Given that UFO reports are made, it is impossible not to believe in UFOs! Of course, what people generally mean with their "Do you believe in UFOs" question, is "Do you believe that some of the objects reported as UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin"

This may sound petty, but it is important, because the words that we use have a profound effect upon the message we convey. Let me give an example; Captain Edward Ruppelt, one of the heads of ‘Project Blue Book’ (the United States Air Force’s best known study into UFOs) wrote a book entitled ‘The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects’. In it, he freely admitted that when some of his less open-minded military colleagues wanted to discredit a witness, they would deliberately refer to the sighting using the term "flying saucer" rather than "unidentified flying object". The former sounded crankier.

Nowadays, the term ‘UFO’ often carries with it a somewhat eccentric image. When I investigated these phenomena for the Ministry of Defence, between 1991 - 1994, I was hampered by this image. It was very difficult to convince senior colleagues of the seriousness of any situation when I had to use the word ‘UFO’ in my briefing.

In an attempt to get round this difficulty, I experimented with some different terms; I tried "Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon" but it sounded cumbersome, and simply provoked the question "What’s that?" The trick, I discovered, was to pitch your message to the specific audience.

I eventually hit on a nice turn of phrase. When I had a UFO sighting that seemed to involve a craft of some sort, I would say there was evidence suggesting an unauthorised penetration of the United Kingdom Air Defence Region by a structured craft of unknown origin. Admittedly, this was a mouthful, but by using language that military Air Defence experts use, I found that people sat up and took notice.

But is any of this of use to Ufologists? I believe it should be. Our main difficulty in convincing people to take the UFO mystery seriously stems from the way in which the tabloids treat the subject, constantly highlighting the most quirky cases and theories. Perhaps if we described events in a more measured way, the subject might be treated with the seriousness it deserves. As if to prove the point, it’s interesting that the pilots whose aircraft nearly collided with a UFO on their descent to Manchester Airport in January 1995 reported their encounter to the Civil Aviation Authority using the "Airmiss" reporting system. No UFO report was ever submitted to the Ministry of Defence.