Anyone in Germany who thinks they’ve seen an unidentified flying object can report it to CENAP, the Central Research Network for Anomalous Phenomena. One of CENAP’s hotlines, run by Hansjürgen Köhler and a five-person volunteer team in the Odenwald, fields reports around the clock. Köhler, a talkative man in his late 60s who became a salesman after his father discouraged an astronomy career, has pursued UFO investigations as a serious hobby for more than 50 years. (In 2023 NASA appointed its first director of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, reflecting growing official interest in the subject.)
Since 1976 CENAP has processed 13,621 reports and explained nearly all of them; just 89 remain unresolved. Sightings have risen in recent years, with 1,348 reported in 2025 alone. Roughly 40% of reports trace back to space technology: rockets, satellites and bright planets or stars—Sirius is a classic culprit. Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites have caused confusion by producing extreme flares, and fireballs or meteorites often prompt excited calls from amateur observers.
Other mundane explanations are common: airplanes, helicopters, drones (whose erratic flight draws attention), reflective foil balloons, distant laser shows and simple misperception. Pareidolia—the tendency to see patterns or faces in vague shapes—also plays a role, and people’s susceptibility can depend on personality, stress or expectation. Köhler and other investigators say general astronomy literacy in the public could be better; the International Astronomical Union has even launched a “Big Ideas in Astronomy” initiative to articulate basic astronomical knowledge.
CENAP’s hotline never sleeps. People can report sightings by WhatsApp, email or a contact form; Köhler aims to reply within 24 hours and asks callers for date, time, location, compass direction, duration, number of witnesses and any photos or videos. His busiest office hours tend to be between 10 p.m. and midnight—when many people step onto balconies to look at the sky, often because they are out for a smoke. During active nights, such as meteor showers, he can get 60 to 80 calls; he particularly values reports between 3 and 4 a.m., when prompt calls can reveal spectacular meteor activity and allow him to check observational data quickly. Many cases are resolved on the spot.
Köhler styles himself more like a space criminologist than a believer in flying saucers and distances himself from “UFO freaks.” He uses astronomy software, space agency data and flight-tracking information and will occasionally involve the German military. An early-1990s case illustrates the blend of investigation and human insight he often applies: a young woman reported chasing an object across western Germany into Belgium, claiming it changed shape and size. Köhler discovered she was half blind, had lost contact lenses and was wearing defective glasses—what she had perceived was the waxing and waning of the moon. Loneliness and expectation, he thinks, can color such experiences.
Callers arrive distressed or excited, and many speak to Köhler as if to an old friend. He remembers a woman who barricaded herself and was convinced war had begun after seeing a meteor; once explained, callers often feel relieved and thankful. CENAP is one of several German organizations investigating sightings—the German Society for UFO Research (DEGUFO), the German-language Mutual UFO Network chapter (MUFON-CES) and the Society for the Study of UFO Phenomena (GEP) are among them.
International agencies consult CENAP as well. The European Space Agency has referred cases: a research team watching northern lights in Norway saw something unusual that Köhler traced to a rocket launch whose fuel crystallized in the cold, producing a spectacular display. A Portuguese report of aliens appearing and disappearing on a beach turned out to be activity at a diving school and was logged as a “night dive.”
Does Köhler expect extraterrestrials to land? He says none have turned up so far but thinks it’s unlikely humanity is the only life in the galaxy. He won’t rule out future contact, but jokes that if aliens did arrive and saw what’s happening on Earth, they might be gone in a hurry.