Methodology
Every event in this archive is scored on five dimensions, and every score is auditable back to the underlying evidence.
The five dimensions
- S — Strangeness (0-10). How anomalous the reported phenomenon is, given Hynek's rubric. Hovering, instantaneous acceleration, transmedium behavior, no visible propulsion all contribute. Forms officially marked "Unknown" by Project Blue Book get an S floor of 3 (the AF investigated and couldn't explain it).
- P — Credibility (0-10). Witness quality + sensor diversity + agency corroboration. Multi-witness, multi-sensor, named credentialed observers push P up. Anonymous single-witness reports cap P low.
- EVID — Evidence quality (0-10). What evidence actually exists, not what's claimed. Multi-sensor radar+visual+IR scores 7+; narrative-only scores 1-2. Physical-sample claims require chain-of-custody documentation to score 9.
- DC — Date confidence (0-10). 10 for full ISO date, 6 for month-only, 4 for year-only.
- LC — Location confidence (0-10). 10 for lat/lon, 6 for city-state, 4 for region only.
Witness credibility (two-dimensional)
Each researched witness has both a credibility score (0-10) AND a separate confidence-in-that-score (0-10). A high score with low confidence means "the available evidence says they're credible, but the available evidence is thin." This is deliberate — most archives conflate these and produce misleading rankings.
Don't pretend to know
Every assertion in this archive is anchored to a specific source. Where information is missing, contradictory, or unverifiable, it is explicitly flagged — not silently smoothed over. Witness profiles include both documented_contradictions and bias_flags arrays so the weakest claims are surfaced, not hidden.
Source corpus
Drawn from publicly-released US government documents: CIA UFO reading room, FBI Vault UFO files, NARA Project Blue Book (full 1947-1969 case file set), AARO historical records and case resolutions, DOD UAP releases, NSA FOIA releases, DIA AAWSAP/AATIP, NASA UAP Independent Study, ODNI annual UAP reports, Navy releases, and congressional hearing materials.
Foreign government archives (UK MoD X-Files, French GEIPAN, Italian COMETA, South American ministries) are identified and queued for future ingestion.
How to audit a score
Open any event page. The Score evidence section shows, dimension by dimension, every feature that contributed and its numeric contribution. The list is exhaustive — if a feature isn't listed, it didn't affect the score.