The most common regret we hear from observers is the same one: "I wish I'd written it down at the time." Memory degrades fast. Color shifts within hours. Object count drifts. Direction of travel inverts. Five minutes of structured recording at the moment of the event is worth more than any reconstruction the next day.
Here's the checklist we recommend keeping in your notes app, ready to fill out before the moment is gone.
Step 1 — Time, in three formats
Capture local time, UTC offset, and duration. "About 9 PM" is unusable. "21:14 to 21:17 local (UTC-7), 3 minutes 12 seconds" lets investigators correlate against aircraft data, satellite passes, weather reports, and other community sightings. The precision matters more than the prose.
Step 2 — Lock the location
Your standing location matters more than the object's. Drop a pin in your maps app right where your feet are — not your address, your exact spot. Then note the bearing you were facing (north, NNE, etc.) and the bearing of the object relative to you.
For elevation, hold your fist at arm's length. From thumb to pinky is roughly 10 degrees of arc. The horizon is zero. Straight up is 90. "About 30 degrees above the horizon, due east" is plotteable. "Way up high" is not.
Step 3 — Count and shape
How many lights or objects did you see? Were they connected (single craft) or independent (separate vehicles or sources)? Color in plain words — "amber," "blue-white," "red blinking 1 Hz." Brightness compared to known references: brighter than Venus? Brighter than the brightest star?
If you saw a body, describe its shape in standard terms: disc, triangle, sphere, elongated cigar, V-formation, boomerang, irregular. If you only saw lights and not a body — and most observers don't — say so explicitly. Don't infer geometry from light patterns alone.
Step 4 — Motion
Direction of travel relative to your bearing. Speed in terms of comparison: "faster than a commercial jet at cruise altitude," "stationary for ninety seconds, then accelerated south." Any non-aerodynamic movement — right-angle turns, instant stops, descent-then-ascent without a roll, splitting into multiple objects — needs explicit mention. These are the details that make an unusual report stand out from a mundane one.
Step 5 — Media, with EXIF intact
Photo and video are useful, but the EXIF data is what investigators actually need. Timestamp, GPS, camera bearing. Take one wide shot for context (horizon, landmarks, foreground for scale) and one zoomed shot for detail. Don't crop or filter before uploading — the raw file carries data that any edit destroys.
If you're filing later from a different device, transfer the original photo, not a copy shared through a messaging app. Most apps strip EXIF on share.
Step 6 — Rule out the obvious yourself
Before you file, take sixty seconds to check the easy explanations. Open Stellarium or any planetarium app and ask: was Venus, Mars, or Jupiter in that part of the sky? Open ADS-B Exchange and check for an aircraft on that heading at that time. Open the Starlink train tracker. Check the moonrise time.
Reports that include "checked Stellarium — Venus was at 12 degrees in the west, not where I'm describing" get weighted higher by investigators because they show the observer did the work. Reports that don't include a self-check get held for triage.
File first, polish later
A two-minute report with five accurate data points beats a thousand-word essay filed three days later. The corroboration cluster forms in the first hours after an event, not the next week. Get the time, place, and key details locked first. You can always edit and add narrative later.