6 Minute English / Mystery flying objects

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I m Neil.

And I m Beth.

Now, you might know them as aliens, UFOs, little green men or even UAPs. UAP stands for 'unidentified anomalous phenomena' and it s the word scientists now use to describe mysterious things not from this world. So, Beth, how would you feel if you looked up and saw strange objects glowing and twisting through the sky?

Wow. Well, I might stare for a bit. I don't know if I'd believe what I was seeing, and I guess I'd be a bit scared!

Well, that situation is exactly what Navy pilots caught on their fighter jet cameras on a training flight in 2004. They recorded mysterious oval objects flying at 24,000 metres. The footage is known as the Tic Tac videos, and they have had millions of views on YouTube. Now, these videos are being reviewed by US Congress to try understand what these objects were.

Were they flying saucers, the disc-shaped craft flown by aliens, or is there a more rational explanation? In this programme, we ll be discussing whether we are alone in the universe, and, as usual, we ll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

But first I have a question for you, Beth. Thousands of UFO sightings are recorded every year, but, which country has had the highest number of reported sightings since records began, according to the National UFO Reporting Center? Is it:

a) The USA

b) Canada? or