Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beijing UFO sighting

This page is an archive of the discussion surrounding the proposed deletion of a page entitled Beijing UFO sighting.

The result of the debate was to delete the page.

Orphan, poorly written ramble, phrase gets no google hits. -- Infrogmation 21:36, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * There wouldn't be any Google hits though, supposedly it happened yesterday. Although I could see deleting it as being unverifiable. - Hephaestos|&#167; 21:52, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep, provided the English is cleaned up and the facts can be verified. -Spencer195 22:01, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * I've been trying to verify the info, but couldn't find anything. It's a recent event, so I say wait a few days and see if the news shows up on news sites.  Someone might also want to message 195.242.135.119 and ask him where he got the info from. -Spencer195 22:45, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Verify.... UFO... heh. Delete if there's no verification of the report, at least :) - Fennec 01:32, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * I do not agree this report is a ramble - in fact, as a strange phenomena investigator I found a useful first-time reference here to the sneezing sound (unless it is a joke.) These objective sound, colour and shape changes are important descriptions of an unknown process at work. And they are all we have to go on. It may prove difficult to 'verify' them unless other handy witnesses make it newsworthy. Accordingly, I would like to keep this and other reports in a media posting for a while in agreement with the last part of point number 4 above. I will try to get in touch with the person too. See wikidiscussion page. [camilla]
 * Delete (for now). Unless this UFO sighting becomes any further publicity it will sink into unimportance quickly, like maybe 99% of all UFO sightings, especially those quickly explained by natural causes. Such a report might be worth keeping for a UFo sighting database, or even a UFO wiki, but here it would be too irrelevant to keep. andy 16:35, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Unverified, and probably unverifiable. A UFO was visible to observers for a full three minutes and no-one got a pic? And no-one had a better description than a white light with the sniffles? C'mon.Moriori 22:20, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete -- Cyrius | (talk)  03:32, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)

From the talk page: [Beijing UFO 26/03/04]

If this entry is deleted from the Wikipedia, will it be archived anywhere else on the Web?

I am horrified at the prospect of losing world-wide accounts, updated as they happen, because after all the years of investigation into UFOs the 10% or so of sightings inexplicable by normal phenomena still remain a mystery. One means of examining these mysterious phenomena might be via collating as many different accounts as possible and comparing all the varying qualities represented by each one. There is a mine of objective information about colour, sounds and shape shifting. This between-the-lines inspection might provide the only clues towards the forming processes behind these occurrences and their accounts.

It is also important to be able to view whatever changes there may be in types of sightings, as time passes, as well as look for similarities. Why? Because these ephemeral sky-visions may, in addition to the superficial account of the event, reflect aspects of the developing human psyche, the weltanshauung or zeitgeist. Here, the rich more subjective descriptions may include projective elements from both the personal psyche and symbols of the collective unconscious. If you read numerous accounts of these sightings you can find strange, rare and peculiar folklorean skits recurring frequently with a trickster motif. Even accepting the mechanism of projection, there is nevertheless the vexed question of how these come to appear enacted in some ‘material’ form however ethereal often to multiple witnesses. There is also the link with light, sometimes contained light as in a plasma with odd extensions and with unusual qualities such as alternating colours, a sort of pulsating glowing, strobing, fluorescence & hypnotic effects.

This field is truly an enigma worthy of continued study. Each occurrence is unique in some way but may have something to add to the collation. The example above brings the unusual sound of sneezing into the equation (unless it is a joke). We must beware hoaxes of course but it can be difficult to verify descriptions except through multiple reports which may then trigger media interest. In this light, monitoring as many reported events as possible is therefore very important. There is no agreed formula for recording these reports in each country, so a roll-call somewhere on the net may be appropriate. Camilla


 * Note that wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a database of news reports on a specific topic. Of course some of the UFO sightings have an historic relevance (and those like the Roswell incident already have articles here), but most (or all) of the unfamous ones are later explained by natural causes. Only time will tell if these sightings in Beihing belong to the first or the second group - but my guess is they will not become of any historic relevance. You might want to read What Wikipedia is not, this article may fall under point 16. But of course everyone is free to set up a UFO wiki to collect all those reports. Wikipedia isn't the place for that. andy 16:10, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)