What I hate most about UFO sightings is that I don't know what I'm supposed to do with them. I mean, somebody shines a light in your face, and you either get probed or you don't – sort of like a doctor's exam after you turn 40. What, then, can we do about the sightings over Carteret, N.J., two weeks ago?

Dozens of people reported seeing yellowish orange lights float slowly across the sky in a V formation. Motorists pulled over along the Turnpike to watch, and video footage of it showed up on MSNBC – both on the air and online. And I guess my question is, so what?

The first people I asked were the publishers of Weird New Jersey, a twice-yearly magazine with first-hand accounts of UFOs, haunted houses and inexplicable stuff that turns up in people's front yards.

They get all kinds of calls and letters – including, according to co-editor Mark Moran, a six-page hand written note (not slated for publication) from a guy in prison saying Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford were something other than human and were taking over the media.

I gently pointed out that the Giffords are taking over the media. But I focused my questions on Carteret. Moran said dozens of witnesses indeed had contacted the magazine.

"The reports seem almost identical," he said. "No one can say what it was, but they can agree on what they saw ... little balls of fire moving across the sky, falling down and fading."

These reports will be in issue No. 17 of Weird New Jersey, due out in October. But they don't seem to explain much.

"I think this one is going to remain a mystery," Moran said. "I guess it's why they call it `unidentified.'"

Maybe so, I thought. But I couldn't help thinking about ... the Giffords.

So I sought research insights from New Jersey's "Dr. UFO," Pat Marcattilio, who has been studying UFOs for 45 years and holds monthly discussion groups at the library in Hamilton Township, N.J., on the first Wednesday of every month. Marcattilio said the main things you do with UFO reports, however, is establish what the objects were not.

"We've ruled out meteors," because the lights moved too slowly, he said. And they've ruled out balloons, because balloons don't float in formation.

They didn't look like airplane lights, either, or birds. And although Venus was very bright in the sky that night, it wasn't Venus because there were more than a dozen of them.

"That's all we can do, is rule out what the people saw," Marcattilio said.

That sounds reasonable. But instead of being reasonable, I would like to point out that Frank Gifford became a TV sportscaster in 1958, while still playing for the N.Y. Giants. Kathie Lee was born 5 years earlier on Aug. 16, Frank Gifford's birthday! Also born on Aug. 16 were Eydie Gorme, Fess Parker (TV's "Daniel Boone"), Julie Newmar, Lesley Ann Warren and Madonna.

Science cannot explain any of this.

But science can do a few more things before we give up.

Peter B. Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle, said witness accounts from Carteret can help establish the objects' location, ground track, size and similarity to other sightings.

"Cases that seemingly are indistinguishable from the Carteret event have been reported at our center since February 2000, principally from Rockford, Ill., and Prescott, Ariz.," Davenport said.

Ah! Now we're getting somewhere! Unfortunately, though, it's as far as we're going to get for now. And how satisfying is that?

When confronted with the inexplicable, most of us long to break away from Davenport's methodical approach for a really wild, screwball conclusion. And here's mine:

Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford have made an android version of Daniel Boone in the future. Strangely, Madonna is not part of the conspiracy. But Julie Newmar and Lesley Ann Warren are taking over Monday Night Football. And all of them are controlled by the true mastermind, Eydie Gorme. That can mean only one thing about the UFOs over Carteret:

They're weather balloons or something.