(A very big thank you to Lesley for inviting me to participate in this exciting new venture).

Someone asked me a question the other day, which set my teeth right on edge.

‘So you believe in UFOs?’

I wasn’t immediately sure why this question irked me so much. It may have been the loud and condescending tone my inquisitor used. Or it may have been the fact that several other patrons of the coffee shop turned to stare at me as if I’d just stepped off a flying saucer, complete with bald head and big, buggy eyes. I could have happily beaten my companion about the head with a chair leg at that moment – and I’m a very placid person, normally.

I quickly realized that the tone of his voice and his choice of words, could be seen as a loaded statement. Now, I don’t normally take issue with the word ‘believe’, although I’ve come across a number of people in the UFO community who do. When I use the word ‘believe’, I mean it in the sense of crediting something with veracity. However, I just knew this patronizing guy was using ‘believe’ in the sense of following a credo, having blind faith. That, I didn’t like. I don’t ‘believe’, in his sense of the word, in anything. For the first time, I understood why some people don’t like this word in association with UFOs.

I realized he was staring hard at me, with a smirk on his face, demanding an answer. How I restrained myself from slapping him in the face with his cream bun, I really don’t know.

‘Are you asking me if I consider it possible that some people have seen strange objects in the sky that they can’t identify?’, I said, ‘or are you asking me if I have blind faith that UFOs are space ships piloted by benevolent space brothers?’

‘Uh?’

‘Define believe and define UFO. Go on. Then, I’ll give you an answer’.

Just as I thought, to him, ‘UFO’ meant ‘alien spaceship’, not simply an unidentified flying object. There is a difference!

As I quietly explained my stance, the sniggers vanished from his face, and the faces of the ear-wigging coffee shop patrons. I explained that I believe, or credit with veracity, many accounts, by reliable witnesses, of UFO sightings. However, what UFOs are, I simply don’t know. All I do know, is that many of these UFOs have been observed by credible and reliable witnesses. It doesn't make them alien spaceships, just unknowns. I don't dismiss the possibility that some of these objects may have an extraterrestrial origin. But then again, I'm equally open to other explanations, just as long as they're credible, rational, and not based on blind faith.

I never thought I'd find myself getting hung up on UFO semantics. I certainly never thought I'd object to the word 'believe'. It's a perfectly good word, and far quicker than saying 'I consider it may be possible...', or some similar long-winded euphemism for 'believe'. Sitting in that coffee shop, I felt saddened that 'UFO' is taken by so many people to be synonymous with 'alien spaceship', which in turn, leads to those tired old cliches about little green men - and the usual sniggers.

How do we change this? I thought. Can we change it? The idea that UFO equals extraterrestrial spacecraft, which in turn equals funny ha ha ha, is immutably entrenched in the public psyche. I quickly realized that whatever terminology we use in relation to the UFO subject, it's attitudes that need to change, and the funny ha ha ha that needs eradicating, not words. So do I believe in UFOs? Heck, yes. But I'm not joining a UFO cult any time soon, nor will I be claiming to know what UFOs are. I believe in unidentified flying objects, whatever they are, because I've seen them, too.