Is radar used to monitor UFOs?
Although there are cases in which UFOs are tracked by radar (Radar-Visual sightings), radar is not considered a practical surveillance technique for ufology. Radar, including the sophisticated systems of the FAA and NORAD, has many shortcomings that limit its value to UFO research. A UFO may be too low for it to be detected or too fast to appear on the radar screen for more than a few sweeps of the antenna. UFOs that hover or move erratically may be filtered out by a radar’s sophisticated computer system as ground scatter or noise. Also, planes with transponders return stronger radar signals than targets not so equipped, and radars are often tuned only to transponder signals. It is also possible that UFOs might not return radar signals at all.