Background
“As far as I [Jacques Vallee] know, the first classification system applied to UFO events grew out of my work in 1961 and 1962 with Aimé Michel and Dr. Pierre Guerin in Paris. I have proposed to divide the massive collections of French observations - especially the 1954 waves - into four main categories. In summary, they covered the following observations:
Type I, which was then divided into three subgroups, included all reports of "landings," which Dr. J. Allen Hyneck would later call "close encounters." It may be difficult for the modern reader to understand that until the late sixties, American ufology did not acknowledge the existence of such messages. Among the major civic organizations, only APRO, led by Jim and Coral Lorenzen, recognized their importance. Air Force Project - Blue Book automatically sent landing messages to the Psychological Dossier.
Type II reports included observations of "cloud cigars" widespread in Europe in 1954 and whose clear role in shaping large waves was pointed out by Aimé Michel (in Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery, NY: Criterion, 1958). Such messages became rare in the following years and there is no longer a need for this category.
Type III reports featured features that were characterized by non-uniform trajectory; they either hovered and hovered, or, before resuming their flight, approached the ground along the trajectory of a falling leaf, or performed some maneuver in a certain place in space and time. This was important to us at the time because we were compiling a catalog with longitudes and latitudes recorded as accurately as possible.
Type IV, in contrast to the previous one, stored all cases of observations of objects in continuous flight.
This classification has served its purpose for many years. It made it possible to reveal certain patterns of time and space for various types of behavior, in particular the “law of times” in messages about landings.
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Joseph Allen Heineck's classification
In 1972, based on our joint work in the mid-sixties, Hynek suggested (in his classic book The UfoExperience, Chicago: Regnery, 1972), based on my earlier classification, to divide all reports into two groups: short-range observations, which fit my "Type I» and he called close contact [ close Encounters - CE] (a term later immortalized by Steven Spielberg); and observation of objects "at some distance", which he divided into three categories:
J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee - 1978.
In 1972, based on our joint work in the mid-sixties, Hynek suggested (in his classic book The UfoExperience, Chicago: Regnery, 1972), based on my earlier classification, to divide all reports into two groups: short-range observations, which fit my "Type I» and he called close contact [ close Encounters - CE] (a term later immortalized by Steven Spielberg); and observation of objects "at some distance", which he divided into three categories:
NL [Nocturnal Lights] for observing Night Lights. DD [Daylight Disks] for observing Daylight Disks. RV [Radar-Visual] for Radar-Visual observations.
Hynek was well aware that this division was arbitrary and he noted for himself that the categories "may not be mutually exclusive."
The main contribution of Heineck's classification was the clarity with which touchdowns were now defined:
CE1 is the category of objects seen on or near the ground. CE2 is the category of reports where physical effects or traces were reported. CE3 - a category of messages where "inhabitants" or "beings" were present; the category from which he excluded re-contact claims.
These definitions have stood the test of time. In the following years a new category was coined. Called CE4, it includes abduction reports in which a witness not only claims to have seen the occupants, but that he interacted extensively with them in their vehicle or facility. Rather than taking abduction claims as a marker, we prefer to use the term reality transformation.
However, serious complications arise when one tries to use the categories of night lights, daytime disks and radar-visual observations, especially if the process is connected to a computerized database, which requires serious efforts to solve some problems. Not only do these categories overlap (for example, a "disk" can be seen during daylight hours and can also be tracked on radar), but many reports cannot be categorized into any of these categories: what to do if an object is seen at night but is not light? Or when an object is seen during the day, but is not disc-shaped? What to do with reports of objects seen at dusk or dawn? " / Jacques F. Vallee, ASystemofClassificationandReliabilityIndicatorsfortheAnalysisoftheBehaviorofUnidentifiedAerialPhenomena (2007), compilation.
The solution to these problems was the appearance in 1990 of another - more modern - classification of contacts with UFOs and aliens by Jacques Vallee.
See also - First contacts with aliens in modern ufology (1947)
