Aliens On Earth.com Resources for those who are stranded here UFOs | Paranormal | Area 51 People | Places | Random Top 100 | What's New Catalog | New Books Search... for keyword(s)   in Page Titles in Book Title/Author in Contents of Pages ---other searches--- Metacrawler Yahoo FAST Search Google Altavista Dogpile Inference Find Northern Light IWon.com MSN Search Las Vegas Sun Our Bookstore is OPEN Mothership -> UFO -> Updates -> 1997 -> Nov -> Here

From: Jakes Louw <LOUWJE@telkom.co.za>
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 11:33:52 +0200
Fwd Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 05:34:01 -0500
Subject: Re: Phoenix lights, FTs, whatever

>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>From: Mark Cashman <mcashman@ix.netcom.com>
>Subject: re: UFO UpDate: Re: Phoenix lights, FTs, whatever
>Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 13:38:53 -0800

<Very selective snip, but with relevance to the rest of
Marks' reply:>

>I don't think anyone would allege that anyone is not contributing
>to any database of reports. FUFOR, MUFON, and CUFOS all publish
>both significant cases and studies. I'm not sure what you're
>getting at.

What I'm getting at, and I'm sure that most on the list will
agree, is that there is a requirement for a centralised,
coordinated database that must be used for abductions, sightings,
and other encounters and/or manifestations. Why? Well, there is a
plethora of data mining packages out there, that can be run
against MS Access on Windows or even Oracle on UNIX. By setting
up relationships and keyed links between database
records/rows/reports, one will be able to retrieve a list of
reports for, say, Arizona, or a list for any specific night, or a
combination of several parameters like geographic, timezone, or
key-word descriptive fields. This would be ideal in analysing
trends, hot-spots, flight-paths, and so on.

We're not talking about huge amounts of data here:
The main reports and studies can be held on
hard-copy or near-line storage like Zip drive
or CDR, but with cross-reference codes that are
kept as a field in the database, where and if
applicable.

Investigators and organizational volunteers that will
keep the database updated will have to work with, and
according to, a standardised categorisation system,
probably very like the current CE1-whatever (Hynek?)
specification that is pretty much generally in use in
any case.

A user-friendly GUI can be set up with, say, Visual Basic
for the keying in of reports, and inserts into the
database will be validated against the database for
possible duplicate entries (check for date, time,
town/city, reporter name), and then the relevant
indexes will also be rebuilt to allowed indexed
searches.

There are multi-dimensional database mining tools
also available that will extend the range of
database relationships almost endlessly.

Why hasn't this been done already?
In terms of dollars, we're not talking about a
lot here, but the returns to the study of
the UFO phenomenon will be significant.

Jakes E. Louw
+27 12 311-2668
082 923 6144
louwje@telkom.co.za