HOW NEWS COVERAGE GETS UFOS WRONG

Reporters often get the facts totally wrong in UFO cases:

Examples:

After a UFO has been reported in the media, reporters tend to combine into the UFO story any reports of unrelated events (e.g. power failures, radio or TV interference, cars not running, etc).
After a power failure occurs, reporters tend to combine into this story any UFO reports that come in to the newsroom.
Reporters also tend to include anything any crackpot says about UFOs.

Examples:

Many newsmen (other than weathermen) do not understand wind direction. They think the wind direction is the direction the air is moving. Misled by this, many reporters have concluded that UFOs could not be balloons because they would be headed into the wind.
The correct definition of wind direction is the direction the wind is coming from. This is the direction that is important to sailors and farmers.
Most newsmen do not know or understand astronomy. They do not understand the basic behaviors of the sun, the moon, stars, planets, comets, and meteors.
Most newsmen do not know or understand atmospheric phenomena. They do not understand the basic behaviors of auroras, solar and lunar halo phenomena, mirages, lenticular clouds, and other things seen in the air.
Many reporters do not know about all of the kinds of objects that can be found in the air.

Examples:

When Dr. J. Allen Hynek released his theory for what the students saw at Hillsdale College in Michigan in March 1966, the reporters thought that burning swamp gas was his explanation for all of the UFO sightings in the area at the time, not just the fuzzy lights seen on or near the ground in the swamp next to the campus.
Reporters kept making the same mistakes when told certain facts during the search for the Malaysian MH370 airliner in 2014. One such fact they kept not knowing is that radio does not work underwater. They expected radio systems to work underwater in locator beacons, GPS, cell phones, underwater search vehicle data transfer, and diver communications.

Examples:

They call one airport and then report that the UFO could not have been a plane. But they fail to understand that:
1. Military air bases don't have any information on commercial and private flights.
2. Commercial airports don't have any information on military and private flights.
3. Private airports know about only those flights that actually use that airport.
4. Many private flights are not known to any airports in the area.
5. Before 9/11/2001, many flights were known to only the pilots who were flying them.
After a rash of UFO sightings in 1965, a reporter called one aerial advertising company. When they said their planes were not in the air at the time, the reporter concluded that aerial advertising did not cause the sightings. But he didn't check to see if other companies were also doing aerial advertising in the area. He didn't even check to see if any other such companies existed.
They often don't double check the report. Some UFO reports were made by criminals trying to start a UFO wave. Then, while they had the police chasing UFOs, they committed burglaries.

Examples of "facts" that the witness can't possibly know:

The witness cannot know the true size, distance, speed, or altitude of an unknown object seen against the sky more than 30 feet away through visual observation alone. Without other clues to at least one of these values, the human visual system is unable to accurately provide these values. The values obtained are erroneous, distorted by guesses about the identity of the object.
The witness offers effects he experienced that he attributes to the UFO. Such effects include effects commonly experienced whenever a human comes across anything strange: heightened awareness, slowing of time, tingling, enhanced hearing, and other effects on the body.
Witnesses offer sounds and smells as though the object produced them. But strange sounds and smells could have many other sources.
They report the reactions of animals to the presence of the UFO. But many witnesses report that animals reacted to the presence of a UFO, even when the UFO is later identified as Venus. If the UFO didn't cause the reaction of the animal, what did? Possibilities include the animal reacting to the agitation of the witness, or to unrelated scents or sounds.
A UFO witness who had a Geiger counter reported that it showed a dangerous level of radiation when a UFO hovered half a mile away. But if the report was real, then people in the houses closer to the UFO should have had radiation sickness. Why were there no such cases of sickness?

Whenever some unusual event happens, some reporters think UFOs might be responsible:

During the 1965 Northeast Blackout, some reporters and telecasters speculated that UFOs might have had something to do with it - even before any UFO reports were received. The same thing happened in the 1977 and 2003 northeast blackouts.
UFOs and beings were mentioned in the news in connection with the 1967 fall of the Silver Bridge carrying US-35 over the Ohio River between Point Pleasant WV and Gallipolis OH.
When Jimmy Hoffa could not be found in 1975, someone suggested he was abducted by a UFO. Two years later, the witness of alleged beings coming out of a UFO said he heard a voice come out of the UFO. It yelled, "I am Jimmy Hoffa!" three times.
In the 1994 Winter Olympics, when Tonya Harding was late in appearing for her free skate because of a broken skate lace, the TV announcer said "She might have been abducted by aliens."
The 6/1/2009 Air France Flight 447 disappearance was suggested to be UFO related before it was found in the ocean.
In 2014, newsmen suggested that a UFO abducted the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared on 3/8/2014.