Published: 12:30 PM 12/18/2009

By Irene Klotz

Before announcing your next UFO sighting to the world, you might want to compare notes.

An amateur astronomer has launched a website for sky-watchers to report "unexplained aerospace phenomena." It’s not little green men in warp-speed spaceships that astronomer Philippe Ailleris has in mind, though those, no doubt, would be of interest.

The Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (UAP) Observations Reporting Scheme is intended to provide amateur and professional astronomers a formal mechanism to report any unexplained phenomena they see while observing the night sky.

In addition to questionnaires to guide observers' reports, the website includes information on common misidentifications, such as sightings of satellites, weather balloons, rockets, meteors, planets and atmospheric phenomena including ball lightning, sprites and mirages.

"We hope that the website will be a useful tool for the astronomy community to redirect inquiries from the general public and to help engage with the public in discussions about the science behind what is seen in the sky," Ailleris wrote in a press release.