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could follow, an obsession with the theme of what you witnessed - aliens and government conspiracies! - might lead you only toward ill mental health.

If you find yourself cowering at your basement computer, obsessively chatting with other enthusiasts, or worse, developing an agoraphobic fear of being abducted, tell someone. A good friend will take you for a walk in the park and offer you a distraction from this mystery which, while probably being solvable, you don't stand a chance of solving all by yourself.

If, on the other hand, the sighting has simply piqued your interest in the direction of developing a new hobby, by all means, go for it! Learning about the scientific approach to investigating UFOs can't hurt: it could only help you by giving you the power to make your own educated and respectable judgments about what you saw.

7) Report your findings to multiple sources: believers, skeptics, agnostics, and the media.

Ufologists are known to be pseudoscientific sometimes, easily fooled by pranksters. Michael Shermer, a popular skeptic, writer and speaker, had children build mini-UFOs out of items like foil pie plates and plastic tubes. He mounted them on string, and then had the kids take black-and-white photos while the objects dangled over a precipice. The pictures fooled several ufologists, as well as most of the random people who were shown the pictures on the street.

Not all Ufologists can be discredited, but neither can all skeptics. Send your information to any UFO investigator you can find, as well as the more intensely skeptical, scientifically-rigorous folk. Don't fear disappointment: it's best to know what you really saw, even if it was a weather balloon after all.

The media eats up UFO sightings as well, so throw a copy of that tape in a manila envelope and ship it off to your local news station. Blogs and social bookmarking websites are another way to get your videos, pictures, and notes seen. You might be contacted by interested enthusiasts or investigators if you get enough views, but don't fear the men in black: that division faded out of service ten years ago, after Will Smith broke their cover.

Learn more about this author, Currie Jean.
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