How Many Categories Do We Need?

 I only use one category and that is Close Encounters of the Third Kind. According to Dr J Allen Hynek:

CE IIIK -UFO encounters in which an animated entity is present—these include humanoids, robots, and humans who seem to be occupants or pilots of a UFO

That is it. It is all you need.

However, Ted Bloecher could be considered the father of this type of report and pioneering work that attempted to get conservative Ufologists to take the incidents seriously. Bloecher suggested six sub-types for the close encounters of the third kind in Hynek's scale:^[

1. Aboard: an entity is observed only inside the UFO.
2. Both: an entity is observed inside and outside the UFO.
3. Close: an entity is observed near to a UFO, but not going in or out.
4. Direct: an entity is observed—no UFOs are seen by the observer, but UFO activity has been reported in the area at about the same time.
5. Excluded: an entity is observed, but no UFOs are seen and no UFO activity has been reported in the area at that time.
6. Frequence: no entity or UFOs are observed, but the subject experiences some sort of "intelligent communication".

I would argue regarding E; we have had report after report in which (and here we are supposing that this is all real and not pure pig-swill) objects and even entities observed by one person vanish of a second possible witness (a vehicle driver usually) approaches and they then reappear. I think that, based on our great lack of knowledge, if an entity conforms to descriptions in other reports then it needs to be included until a reason is found to exclude it.

Just to anger the fantasy prone people and grifters; "Bigfoot", "Moth man", "Mystery animals" etc., etc., are automatically excluded.

F we have a good few of but I would consign these to either psychological problems and even some form of dream state. In fifty years I have never come across any case that appears to be authentic telepathic intelligent communication. I do list these but they offer zero information regarding UFOs but a great deal on human psychology (and, no, I am not saying they are all "nuts").

Note that "abduction by entities" is not given a sub-type. It can be argued that B would cover that and it would have been interesting top see what Bloecher and his colleague on creating The Humanoid Catalogue (HUMCAT) David Webb might have come up with. Bloecher retired in the early 1980s and passed all of his work over to (very sadly) Budd Hopkins and Hopkins passed all of that along to David Jacobs so from the mid 1980s on things became a mess and eventually a grift.

I would not use the term "UFO abduction" any more but rather "Onboard experience" as in most cases there is no force or abduction.  In many cases it could be that partial recall or garbled recall via hypnosis by unprofessional Ufologists is creating the false "dragged aboard a UFO" narrative.

That written it has to be pointed out that there is the "mouse-trap" encounter. Stanford, Kentucky, 1976 and the Shamrock Cafe, UK, 1981 are typical of these. In both cases the three women were driving home and an object literally appeared out of nowhere -from a field or behind trees- and pounced. Car and passengers seized.  In these cases there is no question of it being a "Would you come aboard for a quick examination and we'll show you the ship at the same time?"

These seem to be chance incidents. In wildlife work we call it "opportunistic" -a car with the right sort of people are going along a road where an object has landed and it appears to be a deliberate "let's see if we can get lucky" routine (many incidents we may never hear of as percipients cannot remember or do not want to talk about it.

If we look at what is called the Kelly Cahill case from Australia then at least three cars and the occupants thereof were taken in a perfect mouse-trap sweep. In these cases (if true -I have to keep putting that there otherwise the uptight folk start screaming) there can be no question that these are forced onboard experiences -my next book (and the previous four) deals with several such encounters.

I class all of them as CE3K and those in which only an entity is seen is classed as Alien Entity.  Ufology is not and never has been a science despite some great researchers having been involved. Using lots of categories makes them think the public and journalists will think they are scientists or experts. Last CE3K category I saw suggested was CEXK...at that point I hit "delete".

And remember that percipients speaking to you does not make them the next book. They want anonymity then you give them anonymity.