Unidentified aerial phenomena, commonly referred to as UFOs, has been the focus of research by sociologists, scholars of religion, anthropologists, philosophers, and astronomers. The information age now offers new and innovative ways to study the phenomena, and author Diana Walsh Pasulka sat down with astronomer and computer scientist Jacques Vallee to discuss how “big data” and information processing will influence the field of study.

Diana: In a recent presentation you delivered in California in 2016, you described methods that you used to identify historical cases of sightings of anomalous aerial phenomena. Your methods were similar to those used by scholars…