When UFO Ain’t UFO


Search engine. Keyword: UFO – as in Unidentified Flying Object.

Now here’s a story on the Web saying that 60% of Brits saw an UFO last year. OK, take a look and find out that UFO in this case means unforeseen financial occurrence. It’s a business news item, talking about people who become strapped for cash when something bad happens like a boiler breaking down. Not an article related to strange objects in the sky.

Try again. Here’s a hit about former NBC-TV News Anchor Tom Brokaw talking about an UFO. Strange title: “The UFO Hovering Over 2008.” Access the hit, peruse a piece about the next presidential race, people speculating on who will run and win. But Brokaw says it’s too early to say how the race is shaping up because one key event can change the whole political landscape. UFO, explains Brokaw, is short for the unforeseen will occur.

Politics is an alien subject to me. Try again. What’s this? A woman has a pile of UFOs in her house? Yup – except this woman isn’t an ufologist, she’s a stitchologist. Stitching projects that have been tossed aside are called UFOs – unfinished objects.

So let me coin my own phrase for UFO: unrelated, false hit – Oh, shit!