A comparative compilation by Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos at UAP Check brings a practical research problem into view: UFO databases do not all mean the same thing by an “identified” share. Before comparing percentages, readers need to know where each table puts reports that lack enough information to investigate.

The footnote changes the interpretation

The compilation explicitly says its IFO column generally includes both explainable reports and insufficient-information cases. It also labels some NICAP and NUFORC figures as AI-assisted estimates, and presents the exercise as preliminary rather than definitive. Those qualifications are essential to reading the table.

A large combined percentage cannot be interpreted as the fraction of sightings conclusively solved. Nor can a remaining unexplained percentage be treated as a measured prevalence of exotic objects. The table combines organizations, periods and investigative practices rather than a single standardized experiment.

GEIPAN provides a concrete cross-check

The French government’s GEIPAN statistics distinguish four categories: identified, probably identified, unidentified for lack of data, and unidentified after investigation. The page consulted for this article lists 950 A cases, 1,310 B cases, 1,015 C cases and 106 D cases, totaling 3,381 published classified cases.

Using those counts, A and B together comprise approximately 66.8 percent. Adding C raises the combined proportion to approximately 96.9 percent. The arithmetic is straightforward; the interpretation changes dramatically. The added cases are explicitly insufficient-data cases, not additional identifications. GEIPAN labels these dynamic statistics, so the snapshot and denominator should travel with any quoted percentage.

Historical figures need their own boundaries

The Air Force’s June 1995 Project Blue Book fact sheet records 12,618 reported sightings, with 701 remaining unidentified. That is a historical program total. It is not interchangeable with a present-day civilian reporting database or a subset of instrumented cases.

A better comparison

Editorial assessment: Future comparative tables should show confirmed identifications, probable identifications, inadequate information and investigated unknowns separately. They should also identify the observation period, whether the unit is a report or an event, and which estimates have been independently checked. Transparent categories make disagreement testable. Collapsing them into a single solved-versus-unsolved score hides the very uncertainty a useful UAP database should preserve.

Source record

Hero image: original AI-generated editorial illustration; not documentary evidence.