  Understanding and quantifying the contribution of known classes of transient
and variable sources is an important lesson to be learned from the manifold of
pre-cursors programs of the near-future large synoptic sky survey programs like
SkyMapper, Pan-STARRS and LSST. With this goal in mind, we undertook
photometric and spectroscopic follow-up observations of three recently reported
unidentified transients. For two sources, WFI J132813.7-214237 and WFI
J161953.3+031909, we show that unfortunate coincidences lead to their previous
designation as transients. While the former is now interpreted as the spatial
coincidence of a solar system object with faint background star, the latter is
merely a cataclysmic variable unfortunately caught in and out of eclipse. The
third candidate, ROTSE3 J160213.1-021311.7 is identified as an SU UMa-type
dwarf novae with quiescent brightness of R~22.7 and an outburst amplitude of
about 5 mag. The fourth event, SDSS-SN15207, similarly shows evidence for a
dwarf nova origin. Our main conclusion is that cataclysmic variables in their
various avata rs will contribute moderately to the population of transient
objects.
