Sure, Venus has been mistaken for a craft from outer space, and there are those who insist all weird flying objects are operated by ET from another planet.
I was reminded of this silly way of thinking about "seeing what we want to see" today. Years ago, I was walking down a hilly street. At the end of the block, I could have sworn I saw a cow standing there. Right in the middle of town, a brown and white cow. Just standing there. But that though lasted for about six seconds. I couldn't figure out what it was, but I knew it very probably wasn't a cow. Then I realized it was a car. A brown car that was parked at an odd angle, dappled by the sunlight. True, I didn't "want" to see a cow -- though that would have been pretty neat to see a cow in the road -- but I realized the chances of it being a cow were slim. Even while I didn't know what it was, I didn't convince myself it was a cow.
Today, driving on Lorane highway (about a mile from my orange orb sighting decades ago) we saw what at first were "tiny fawns." We knew of course they couldn't have been fawns, since they are never that small. And the chances of seeing many of them together were low as well. We both had the same thought: "teeny fawns" but quickly realized they weren't, because they couldn't have been. Even though we wanted to see fawn, or deer, as we often do see on that road, we knew these things we were seeing weren't. They were turkeys. We slowed down and watched as the flock crossed the road. There were at least fifteen of them.
The point is, we often expect to see something but realize quickly we're not seeing what we think we're seeing. Sometimes we don't know what we're seeing, but know what it isn't. So when we do see strange craft, or ghosts, or a Bigfoot, for example, the witness is more often correct in describing something out of the ordinary, and not mistaking something mundane for something anomalous.
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