Telling the moment: Seeing a UFO

In this paper we examine how the features of an on-going experience are identified as having subsequently reportable properties. Using transcripts of the audio track of a video posted on YouTube purporting to capture the movements of a UFO (or at least, ostensibly anomalous lights in the sky), the analysis examines how the participants exhibit and negotiate their understanding of the object/lights, how they evaluate the evidence provided by the video in comparison to what they can see, and the way that another’s failure to see the same phenomenon is managed to ensure that the absence of corroboration does not undermine implicit claims about its objectivity and potentially anomalous features.