Liz:
My most successful bit of invented language is an acronym: the LIZ, which stands for low information zone. It’s a word I specifically invented to help convey a concept to the UFO community.
Let me first give you a dictionary definition:
LIZ or “low information zone” refers to the distance or set of circumstances at which UFOs are recorded when the resulting eyewitness account, image, or video contains insufficient information to identify them, even as non-human craft.
… I’d recognized the truth behind the old joke about UFOs and cameras, which goes something like “Look, a UFO, let me get my worst quality camera.”
The joke illustrates a sad reality in UFOlogy: UFO photos, like Bigfoot photos, are invariably blurry. This blurriness has remained remarkably invariant over the decades, despite the vast increase in the quality of casual cameras and the even larger increase in the number of cameras that people carry around with them regularly. [“Inventing Skeptical Language,” Mick West, Skeptical Inquirer (July/August 2023, paywall)]
Think of this as a PSA.
When all you have is crap evidence, all you got is a crap phenomenon. Not dispositively so, but generally the way to bet.
