Why did they change the word “UFO” to ‘“UAP”?
Anybody have a guess?
A phenomena can be anything, like a weather event, energy, mass hallucination, vs an object. (Although a cloud or a plasma is still an object).
Still, unexplained "objects" which far outclass known manmade aircraft in performance have been around since at least WWII. I have no idea what these are, but I saw two in my life. One a silver disc during the day and one at night that appeared larger than a car, came up out of the valley, hovered above the trees, and then took off rapidly and winked out. Both were silent. This was before the advent of hobby drones.
UAP doesn’t have the kooky stigma of UFO?
Perhaps because the objects aren’t “Flying” so much as moving through the air and making non-aerodynamic moves that a “Flying” object couldn’t do (plus UFO has picked up negative connotations over the years).
Because people laugh at UFOs.
To make non-official research more difficult.
What that research might be for or about, I have no idea. But our government does NOT want the public to be knowledgeable about many, many things. It is much easier to control the ignorant.
UFO lore says that the military also uses IAC, meaning Identified Alien Contact.