Don't know if this is a subject that people want to talk about, it looks like there was only 1 day of discussion. Perhaps my input might spark some response..

Firstly I don't believe in UFOs. Meaning of course, I do not believe that what is commonly believed to be UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft. With that said, I studied ufology for some time, went through the FBI Blue Files, saw and recorded every UFO Report and investigation I could get from TV, was an avid X-files fan, saw all the Star Trek series including the original, next gen, deep space, and voyager, and have seen most sci-fi movies ever made.

Back in '65 I once went out on an 'adventure' with some guys, and they started talking about little green men (I was 11 yrs old). I never saw anything, but we had some fun. The only problem is that by the time I got home I was 2 hours past curfew, and I had to make up something that sounded legit to excuse myself. So I told the story about the little green men, with some extra embellishment. It looked like I almost had my mother convinced; at least she didn't punish me.

The point is that if a story is told well enough, it can be believed. After all, why are there so many cults, religions, and even denominations in our own Christian faith? The fact is that stories are indeed being told well enough to be believed. And some people are even saying that the Bible is a story so well-told that it is believed (of course, meaning that it's a made-up story). As an aside, I believe the Bible not because it is a believable story, but because it has given me the peace of heart I was desperately looking for, which comes from my personal experience with a Personal God.

I gather that people are desperate for a story that fits their longing for completeness and purpose in life. Such stories can be addictive and appear to satisfy the gap that is experienced from a dissatisfied existence. So then people are desperate to believe that story that fits their idea of the universe, the "I WANT to believe" at***ude that takes them down a path of obsession. Such is the world of UFOs.

Now concerning the patterns I see from the evidences presented:

1. Not one picture or video of a UFO is clear. They are all fuzzy, shakey, grainy, out of focus, etc. In other words, you cannot possibly tell what it is from the pictures alone. And this concerns the pictures that are not obvious fakes. About 90% of all UFO pictures are faked. If you study them, you will see: strings, reflections, ill-fit sizes, photo-shopped scenes, even common things thrown into the air and photo-snapped as if they were flying saucers. 90% of the "evidence" presented is completely fraudulent. Meaning that the originators of the evidence were lying about what they saw or about how the evidence was obtained. The believability is in how the story is told and the receptivity of the hearers.

2. Night scenes are always very shakey. People don't realize just how deceptive night vision can be in regard to lights that are far off. The shakeyness of night videos are usually regarded as being stable scenes, with lights that are "rapidly moving this way and that." People describe distant lights they see as flying objects that are defying known physics, not realizing that naked eye twitching can make distant lights in the darkness appear to be in motion. But people believe what they are looking for, not what actually is. One MIT researcher noted that a group of UFO watchers only saw UFOs at the same exact time that traffic was moving a certain direction on a certain stretch of distant highway. It is interesting how real science can dispel science-fiction, even when people still want to believe the fiction.

3. Orbs: usually in ghost stories, they also appear in UFO accounts. If a person who takes many photos is willing to investigate thoroughly, they can find out that most orbs are out-of-focus reflections. Sometimes the reflection is from dust particles, and those particles can appear to be further away from the camera than they actually are. Some relections are from windows, drinking gl***es, eye gl***es, or other reflective objects. A sure sign that an orb is a reflection is that the orb is moving across the screen at some % proportional rate to the rate of the camera moving across the scene. Another sign is that the orb appears within view, and disappears within view. The reflective angle is constantly changing. I have taken many pictures in dark environments (such as caves) and seen orbs, and most caves are not said to be haunted.

4. Crop Circles: Aside from the fact that people have actually come forward with admittance to creating a hoax, crop circles appear to legitimize the idea of alien intelligence. It is one thing to photoshoot a fuzzy object. It is quite another to report a clear picture of something readily observed by eyewitnesses, among whom are skeptics. The fact is that not one person has reported observing a paranormal creation of crop circles, even though there has been reports and pictures of literally thousands of them. All reports are after-the-fact. Not one observation of a crop circle in progress. Call me a skeptic, but I am not a believer in any paranormal source of crop circles at this point. Again, how well the story is told is what makes the difference.

This is not by any means exhaustive. One could spend years of leisure time studying evidences. People usually believe either what they want to believe, or what they have to believe. In actuality, there are some UFO pictures and videos that are not easily explainable. The fact that you are observing a scene of something that was recorded at a different time and place than you are when you observe the recording, should tell you that almost any interpretation you come up with is going to be outside of context. And we should know very well how deceptive something taken out of context can be.