Adyson Wright

April 2017

Colour Distribution of 500 Reports of Spheroid UAP1

in 2014 to 2017 from the NUFORC2 Online Database3

Some of the earliest memories of the modern ufological era were of

the prevalent glowing orange orbs following aircraft that were dubbed foo
fighters by the pilots who witnessed them. Such classic and interesting
reports are still mirrored in the present day, with a variety of colours. An
examination of reports of spherical orb shaped objects from the National
UFO Reporting Centers online database brought up hundreds of such
sightings in the past three years. 500 reports from 2014 to 2017 were
collected for this paper, to compare the sightings and categorize them by
colour, and determine the commonly reported orb.

Collecting the reports

All reports were collected in a search of the National UFO Reporting
Center Online Database report index by shape, using the "sphere" filter. All
were found within the years 2014 to 2017.

Reports were selected according to three simple object description

criteria:
1. Allowable object descriptions include sphere, orb, ball, globe,
and similar others (such as planetoid).
1
Acronym for Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon
2
Acronym for National UFO Reporting Center
3
URL: http://www.nuforc.org/webreports.html
 2. Object descriptions of lights are only selected if the description
includes adjectives such as large and bright. Points of light are not
considered to be spheroid.
3. Lights appearing to be attached to a larger craft are not included
(unless the craft is a spheroid).
All reports which have met the object description requirements are
referred to as Spheroids for the purpose of this paper.

Organizing the reports

The distribution of colouration of the spheroids is diverse. Nearly
every colour was used in the ROYGBIV spectrum, and additional colours
and shades needed to be included. The most commonly seen was orange
(36.8%), followed by red (20.2%) and then white (14%). There were a small
number of reports that fell into the black and metallic (predominantly silver)
categories. Some also had multiple colour combinations or changing
colours.

Figure 1
 A noticeable characteristic in object descriptions is an uncertainty in
determination of a colour, particularly between the red and orange colour
categories. A witness might describe the object as a red-orange orb or
an orange-reddish bright light, and so a determination was made to place
the report under the colour category of the first chosen descriptor (example:
orange-reddish would go into the orange category, because its the first
chosen word. Red-orange would go into the red category).

Figure 2

The occurrence of these misfitting colour variations was significant.

Of the 285 combined reports in the orange and red categories, 68 were
misfitting. Thats 23.85% of the 285 orange and red reports, and 13.6% of
the total 500 reports. This may mean that sightings of orange and red
objects have some relation. Understanding and demonstrating the
similarities and dissimilarities between apparently different UAP will go a
long way in constructing detailed categorization of the phenomenon.
 Interestingly, the 2016 Canadian UFO Survey4 released in March
2017 produced an analysis of reports5 organized by colour, with similar
colour distribution results as this paper. Orange was the most common
(27%), followed by white (23%). Red was conversely the fourth most
common (9%), and multicoloured lights were more than twice that of this
paper (13%) (fig. 3).

Figure 3 - The 2016 Canadian UFO Survey

Their chart incorporated all reports from 2016 and included sightings
of all shapes, where this paper only examined spheroids, which explains
some of their differences. The distributions of both datasets are similar

4
URL: http://www.canadianuforeport.com/survey/
5
URL: http://www.canadianuforeport.com/survey/images/colour2016.gif
despite the Canadian UFO Survey encompassing all object shapes. Can
we expect to find this colour distribution with all UAP types?

Summary and limitations

It is interesting to see the variations and the distribution of the
colouration in the reports. An enjoyable confidence is reached that a large
enough sample size was obtained in this study to accurately map the
distribution. This study is a summary of one facet of the appearances (the
colour) of spheroid UAP that is useful in conceptualizing these objects.

Future improvements to this study would include a larger data set

(>1000 reports), higher scrutinization in reviewing the reports, and
additional categorization based on the number of spheroids, flight
characteristics, and size. This study was directed solely by colour, with only
low scrutinization of the reports. But this is a limitation in the kinds of data
obtained, not a limitation of the value of the data.

How to find the reports

To save on paper and hard drive space, all 500 reports can be
accessed using a permanent link to a Google Drive spreadsheet6. Each
entry is an individual URL to the referenced report on the NUFORC online
database, and are organized by colour. Reports with object descriptions of
misfitting colour variations have also been indicated on the source sheet for
easier research.

Thank you to NUFORC for maintaining and keeping public such a

valuable resource.

6
URL: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hhRpc-YiXz-xtchP_5CHW5pOmfk-yDudCeuwBp95U34