In spite of the fact that a spokeswoman for the Australian UFO Research Queensland said that they had received no reports about the incident, something that recently struck a mountain in the Land Down Under is welling up into a media storm, with the use of the word “UFO” flying around like an anti-graviton spacecraft from left-of-Alpha Centauri.

‘UFO’ hits Queensland Mountain

Of course, just because an area UFO research group hasn’t received a call about the incident doesn’t rule out the other-worldly, though the UFO has been described as “a flaming object”, possibly a plane crash “but now believed to be a meteor or space junk falling to Earth.” In all likelihood, we aren’t experiencing a new Roswell in the Outback here, but some folks may nonetheless be confused by the apparently sensational use of the word “UFO” when the object in question is already believed to be something a bit more mundane. Instead, though I often criticize the media for drive-by sensationalism and the like, in this instance I feel that “UFO” is actually the most appropriate term, if not the only term which accurately describes what this thing is. “Why make such a bold assumption”, you ask? Once reminded, I have a feeling you’ll see where I’m going with this. Read on, dear denizens of the inexplicable…

In the modern world, the term “UFO” often carries with it the instant presumption that its use references an extraterrestrial spacecraft. Some of you English majors who notice I call “UFO” a term may be reading this and saying, “dummy, UFO is an acronym!” Still, by definition, a term implies merely a word or expression that has a precise meaning in some uses or is peculiar to a science, art, profession, or subject. UFO, with its common, frequent use at present, is certainly this. However, I must also give kudos to the English majors who point out what so many of us commonly overlook about UFO as an acronym: it stands for Unidentified Flying Object. 

I will be so bold as to say that, arguably, 99% of all the thousands of readers of this blog probably already know this… so why harp on it now? Here’s why: if a UFO is an unidentifiable, airborne object of presumably unknown origin, how come it is so often used to describe what are specifically being referenced at “alien spaceships”? An alien spaceship, at least in general terms, could be assumed to have arrived here from outer space (unless we take into consideration hollow Earth theories, but we’ll save that for another discussion). We see this more and more these days, and sure, as language changes, the meaning and uses of words change also, thus “UFO” has literally come to mean any kind of presumed flying craft of extraterrestrial origin. However, we must remember that, at least by definition, until proven to be something other than various known phenomenon our Australian anomaly is best defined as a UFO, given it’s actual meaning as the acronym it is. If it does indeed turn out to be a meteorite, then I guess we can still call it extraterrestrial, also!

Just a bit of semantics for you there… everyone have a great weekend!