This world is full of mysteries and wonders and as I’ve pointed out before, our ignorance is profound, not just of the expanses of space, but of things much closer at hand. But let me give you a bit of reassurance: there’s one mystery we’ve solved and we’ve done it with smart phones. Not intentionally, but smart phones have taken this question off our plates.

It’s true. Your lowly smart phone has proved that UFOs don’t exist. At least, not in the way we think of them. Because we have no photographs of UFOs (now sometimes called Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, or UAPs) taken by smart phones. And this is a profound and fairly exciting discovery.

From as early as 1871, we have photographs that are purported to show some type of aerial craft. Obviously, there were no planes or other crafts at that time, and would not be for another 30 years. Some of those illustrations are fairly easily debunked. Some of them are pretty crudely done hoaxes, an ordinary photo with things such as lids or other items strung up in the background.

And some are far less easy to explain. These continue to puzzle researchers. What are they? We don’t know.

Peak UFO interest in recent history in the 1980s and 1990s. Interest in such phenomena tends to come and go. But cell phones with cameras have been part of our culture for almost 15 years now. And we should have pictures. Lots of pictures. Lots more pictures than we ever had in the past.

But we don’t. And that fact must be dealt with by those – like myself – who believe there is something to the UFO phenomenon.

Are there fraudulent reportings and pictures? Of course, and there will always be those who seek to get publicity from such a report.

But there are others who are reluctant reporters. People who have no desire for publicity, and have to be encouraged to report an occurrence or observation. They have no desire for scrutiny, no interest in being well known, and no reason to lie.

Groups such as MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network) and others maintain ongoing lists of reported UFO sightings. This is a real and important part of our history.

Are genuine sightings real? No question. But what the lack of cell phone photographs tells us is that what is seen is not real in the way we normally think of reality. Are they something from another dimension? An alternate reality? Something else we haven’t imagined? I don’t know.

We have a lot to learn and our history reminds us of that. Until about 150 years ago, Europeans thought that gorillas were an imaginary creature. We learned otherwise. What remains to be done about the UFO phenomenon is careful work, sincere discovery, and honest investigation. We have now learned in the last 15 years that this phenomenon is not a reality in the way we normally think of that word. A next step is to find out what it is.