S9: UFO News: UFO's Sightings Are Reported More In the United States

Western US residents report the most UFO sightings — what are they actually seeing?

News

By Sharmila Kuthunur

 published April 4, 2024

"It's difficult to explain why we have this many more sightings in the West."

Those of us in the western U.S. who enjoy vast open spaces may also be more likely to report UFO sightings, a new study suggests.

An analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) reports (UAP is a new umbrella term that includes UFOs not just in the sky but also in space and underwater) suggests local environmental factors play a role in the number of UAP sightings reported.

The study, based on about 98,000 reports over 20 years as cataloged in an open-source, online dataset maintained by the National UFO Research Center modeled how reported UAP sightings coincide with environmental variables such as light pollution and cloud cover, as well as things like proximity to airports and military installations. The results reveal - Read More

https://www.space.com/ufo-sightings-western-united-states

Western US residents report the most UFO sightings — what are they actually seeing?

News

By Sharmila Kuthunur

 published April 4, 2024

"It's difficult to explain why we have this many more sightings in the West."

Those of us in the western U.S. who enjoy vast open spaces may also be more likely to report UFO sightings, a new study suggests.

An analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) reports (UAP is a new umbrella term that includes UFOs not just in the sky but also in space and underwater) suggests local environmental factors play a role in the number of UAP sightings reported.

The study, based on about 98,000 reports over 20 years as cataloged in an open-source, online dataset maintained by the National UFO Research Center modeled how reported UAP sightings coincide with environmental variables such as light pollution and cloud cover, as well as things like proximity to airports and military installations. The results reveal the majority of reported sightings originate in the western U.S., along with a smaller hotspot in the northeastern U.S.

"It was completely unexpected," Richard Medina, a geographer at the University of Utah who led the study, told Space.com. "It's difficult to explain why we have this many more sightings in the West."

Pinning down the environmental context of these sightings is important when considering explanations for presumed UAP occurrences;  it can also help scientists differentiate between non-results and truly anomalous sightings that may be a legitimate threat, said Medina. 

He and his colleagues posit that the large number of sightings in the western U.S. can partly be explained by its wide-open spaces and all-year temperate weather, which draw people outside for recreational activities. "People are out and looking skyward," Medina said in a statement 

The West's historical relationship with UAPs could also be contributing to the high number of reports from the region, the researchers say. 

Nevada's fabled Area 51, for instance, is infamous as a speculated testing ground for alien technology. The highly classified military facility, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Las Vegas, has tested odd-shaped surveillance aircrafts since at least the 1980s, thus sparking suspicions and conspiracy theories about the U.S. government testing alien technology. After the U.S. government acknowledged the facility for the first time in 2013 and released associated documents, many reports of UFO sightings matched with dates and times of flights of experimental aircraft classified at the time. 

In another example, the desert town of Roswell in New Mexico became well-known for the purported crash of a flying saucer back in 1947 after a couple residents came across wreckage of rubber strips and tinfoil. The U.S. Air Force, however, later disclosed the remains were from a classified, multi-balloon project to sniff out Soviet nuclear tests. Such incidents may have led to an increased number of UAP sightings, suggesting people are spotting terrestrial objects but not recognizing them to be such, Medina and his colleagues argue.

"We make no hypotheses about what people are seeing, only that they will see more when and where they have opportunity to," the researchers write in their paper. "The question remains, however, as to what these sighting reports are of."

'What are people actually seeing?' 

National UFO Reporting Center is a public, self-reporting system, although the data bank's website does state its staff removes obvious hoaxes as well as highlights a small subset of potentially interesting, credible cases reported by trained observers such as pilots or those with clear video or photo evidence. 

In this dataset, Medina and his co-authors analyzed two factors for sightings in each U.S. county. The first had to do with sky view potential, which includes the region's light pollution, cloud cover and tree canopy cover; the second dealt with the likelihood that objects in general are in the sky, which considers things like proximity to airports and military installations.

"There's more technology in the sky than ever before so the question is: What are people actually seeing?" Medina said in a statement. "It's a tough question to answer, and it is an important one because any uncertainty can be a potential threat to national security."

When the researchers started their analysis, they expected the number of UAP sightings to increase relatively slowly over time, thanks to advances in the internet that improved the ability to report. "But that's not what we see," said Medina. "We see these really unique patterns and we're not sure how to explain those."

For instance, UAP reports across two decades peaked in 2014, when 8,000 sightings were entered into the NUFORC database. Additionally, in a stark contrast to the high number of UAP sightings in the West, the Central and Southern U.S. remain woefully empty. "We really don't know at this point why there are fewer sightings in the south," said Medina. "The results we're getting are supported by the research, but we could still be wrong too," he added.

Early last month, a highly anticipated report by the Pentagon's UFO office found "no empirical evidence" that the U.S. government was covering up knowledge about alien technology and said there was no evidence that any of the reported UFO sightings represented extraterrestrial spacecraft. That report, a 63-page review of classified documents since the 1940s that was mandated by Congress, noted many UAP reports remain unsolved or unidentified due to lack of data. If better quality information were to become available, many of those unresolved sightings could be identified as ordinary objects of phenomena, the report said.

Christopher Mellon, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, previously told Space.com that "hundreds of credible military reports remain unexplained and are continuing to pour in."

 — Pentagon has 'no credible evidence' of aliens or UFOs that defy physics

 — NASA UFO report finds no evidence of 'extraterrestrial origin' for UAP sightings

— Alien mummies in Mexico? NASA's UFO study team says don't bet on it

Ongoing work by Medina and his team is exploring whether there are temporal patterns in the NUFORC data. Other variables such as drone activity, science balloons and other sociocultural aspects, will also be examined to see whether they correlate with the reported sightings, Medina told Space.com.

"We're just barely getting started." 

This research is described in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports. 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/the-governments-former-ufo-hunter-has-a-lot-to-say/

The Government’s Former UFO Hunter Found Something More Concerning Than Aliens

Sean Kirkpatrick looked into the skies and deep into government archives for extraterrestrials. What he found is, to him, more concerning than little green men.

For the past decade, reports of UFO sightings have filled headlines and news broadcasts, and some of these have come from a surprising place: the Pentagon. Former defense officials have made a number of claims about, and released videos of, strange sightings made by military pilots.

These days, the objects are officially called UAP (unidentified anomalous phenomena).

But regardless of the new branding, Congress has demanded answers on these objects, especially after one former official this summer claimed that he believed that the U.S. possessed “nonhuman” spacecraft and possibly their “dead pilots.”

We’re talking today to physicist and former intelligence official Sean Kirkpatrick, who, until last December, headed the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the Pentagon office that Congress told to find some answers to all this. He recently published an op-ed in Scientific American called “Here's What I Learned as the U.S. Government’s UFO Hunter.”

Kirkpatrick was interviewed by dan Vergano and heres an excerpt of some of their discussion

Vergano: Can you talk a little bit about your office’s search through past records? What’d you find in—what did Congress ask you to look for?

Kirkpatrick: Sure. The Congress really gave us two main missions. There was an operational mission, which is to investigate contemporary sightings with military pilots, operators [and] sensors to understand what’s happening in our domain. You can think of that as the current time going forward.

The second mission was a historical mission, which was to look at everything the United States government has done on this topic, going back to 1945, as well as look at whether or not there’s been any sort of hidden program by the government that’s been kept from Congress on investigating UAP/UFOs or reverse engineering of said things.

In that second mission, in that historical mission, anybody who had previously signed nondisclosure agreements that protect classified information, they were allowed to come in—if they thought what they had access to was supporting evidence for this investigation—to come in and tell us all about that. And then we would go and investigate what they had to say.

We then had the National Archives; we had all military service archives; we had some of the combatant command archives, the intelligence community archives, NASA.... We would investigate what they would have to say, going back as far back as those archives go, to identify, “Hey, if you came in and named a program, whose program was it? What was it? How did that relate to what the person was describing?” and document all that—which we did, and that was the last report that I signed out when I retired.

So in it, there is a bunch of programs that were named. Those are all classified. We found what all of those programs are and reported those back up to Congress. Congress’s concern is that there was a program that they did not have insight into, and that is not the case.

What we’ve found is that everything that’s been named or identified has a legitimate oversight committee. It’s been reported out. It may be state-of-the-art capabilities that if somebody were [to] see, [they] didn’t understand, but that’s the scope of the investigation.

Vergano: It’s fair to say that you had access to all the classified world that people have pointed to before as hiding some sort of program like this in the past, and you looked there, and you found no evidence of this story that the government has somehow been sitting on aliens for the last 60-plus years.

Kirkpatrick: That’s right. So everything that people have pointed to, we went and investigated and found no evidence to support that. Again, a lot of these things are real R&D or real state-of- the-art programs, not extraterrestrial, but it is completely understandable

Vergano: You know, there’s been a lot of concern that excessive classification is playing a role here, that people can’t even knock down these claims. Is that a fair complaint, or how would you describe that? Like, you can’t tell somebody that they didn’t see something they’re not to see because you’re not allowed to talk about it. Has that been a factor here?

Kirkpatrick: Uh, in some instances, yes, obviously, because if somebody inadvertently got access to something or had unauthorized access to something, you can’t go and explain to them everything about it. And so that’s where you get into another issue of who actually has access to that information on the Hill. Most people don’t understand [that] congressional members don’t all get access to everything.

Vergano: We should point out that none of these people who call themselves whistleblowers is or are describing this supposed conspiracy—came to you with evidence of hidden technology.

Kirkpatrick: Right. Most everyone that came—now, there are some that had firsthand, eyewitness accounts of something, but that’s something that turns out to be something else—but for the whistleblowers in the public eye, all of them did not come in.

So I really have two sets of people. I have a group of people who legitimately have something to say and share. We have others that would rather go to public or to the Hill and not come in and share that information, which to me is an immediate red flag on the viability of anything they have to say.

So I had to get a lot of the information that those other people were sharing through second and third parties, because it all comes down to the same group of individuals, you know, recirculating this story, and the story has been around for decades.

why someone who did not know that would draw that conclusion.

UFO HOT SPOT

National UFO Reporting Center 

Shape: Other
Color: White
Estimated Size: Like 7 helicopters
Viewed From: Land
Direction from Viewer: North from me
Angle of Elevation: 79
Closest Distance: Beneath the clouds, a bit higher than a helicopter
Estimated Speed: It moved 5 inches in 3-4 seconds, from my perspect
Characteristics: Lights on object

At night, it was made out of multiple "light orbs", moving in synchronicity. The light orbs were in a Pentagon shape formation

What I saw looked as if it was one object with multiple lights attached to it, the lights were in Pentagon shape. The orbs were far apart from one another, and it sort of looked like a huge object above the earth. The weather was cloudy, you could still see the moon through the clouds and one bright star, but you can't see any of the other stars or any satellites. The thing I saw was very vivid, and it was moving in between the earth and the clouds - it looked like it was pretty close to the earth, but not TOO close. I saw it from the window, so it disappeared from my area of vision quickly (based on my land perspective, in a few seconds, the thing made out of at least 5 light orbs moved by a few inches to the right, in the night sky). I quickly rushed outside in 10 seconds, but by the time I was outside, nothing was in the sky anymore. The lights were white. The lights orbs were white, in number of at least 5 or more, as I clearly remember the Pentagon shape, but the square part of the Pentagon was more of a rectangle than a square - a rectangle that was long on the vertical side of it (the sides of the rectangle were longer).

Side note:
Although I saw a formation of light orbs, it kind of looked like it was a bigger thing with lights on it - just like how the airplanes I see in the sky at night have multiple lights on them when they cross the night sky. But this thing couldn't have been a plane, as the lights were very spread apart and it didn't seem to be in an airplane shape.

https://nuforc.org/sighting/?id=180814

Occurred: 2024-03-12 11:00 Local
Reported: 2024-03-12 21:24 Pacific
Duration: 45 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Platteville, WI, USA

Shape: Changing
Color: Dull orange
Estimated Size: Relatively small
Viewed From: Land
Direction from Viewer: SW
Angle of Elevation: 45
Closest Distance: Hard to say
Estimated Speed: Airliner speed
Characteristics: Lights on object

5 Crafts in Formation

Whole standing on my roof I observed 5 dull orange lights moving from SW to NE in a V formation. After approximately 15 seconds they scrambled amongst themselves before settling back in a / formation going in the same direction. The sighting lasted 45-60 seconds and they were observed from horizon to horizon. They did not blink or change color at any time.

https://nuforc.org/sighting/?id=180798

Occurred: 2024-03-12 04:40 Local
Reported: 2024-03-12 04:10 Pacific
Duration: 10 - 15 seconds
No of observers: 2

Location: Fort Smith, AR, USA

Shape: Unknown
Viewed From: Land
Direction from Viewer: East North East
Angle of Elevation: 80
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

Immediately after watching Space X Dragon flew over us, an unknown curved shaped object flew the opposite way. No lights. No sounds.

Space X Dragon Capsule came from left to right from our view but immediately after it passed over us, a curved “ (“ shaped object with no lights, no sound & no smoke, started to appear from the right to left moving pretty fast. (notfaster than dragon though.) My Girlfriend was with me at the time but I was the one who caught it first. I tried to record immediately since I recorded the Space Dragon Re-Entry but the object went behind our street light & we both lost sight of it. Whatever it was, we truly believed it was not an airplane ( airplanes were out that night too & we seen them easily ) no way it was birds, it has no lights although it was strange for us to be able to see it kind of glow somewhat but not really bright, but enough to see it & automatically assumed “ UFO or UAP “ It also happened right after the Re-Entry so coincidence? Maybe Aliens wanted to watch the Space X Dragon Re-Entry Too but who knows. I’ve seen plenty of objects that are unexplainable but this one was the most recent & clear sighting. Happened just after 4:44am CST.

https://nuforc.org/sighting/?id=180792

Occurred: 2024-03-11 07:58 Local
Reported: 2024-03-11 17:18 Pacific
Duration: Less than two minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Lenoir, NC, USA

Shape: Oval
Color: white/metallic
Estimated Size: NA
Viewed From: Land
Direction from Viewer: NA
Angle of Elevation: 75
Closest Distance: NA
Estimated Speed: Steady speed
Explanation: Aircraft - Possible


Two white/metallic oval-sphere unidentifiable objects moving in unison through sky at a steady speed.

7:58 am in Lenoir, NC this morning observed two unidentifiable objects in the sky moving in unison appx. 240 degrees SW in the direction of Brown Mountain, North Carolina. Clear morning, blue sky with no obstructing clouds, two aerial objects observed moving at a steady rate of speed, one slightly above and behind the lead object. Did not observe to be identifiable as commercial planes, military aircraft, drones or weather balloons. Completely silent, the only sounds audible were birds and the humming of my vehicle. No trace of exhaust smoke. No lights flashing or visible. Observed for nearly two minutes, thirty seconds of which were caught via camera video. Attempts made to zoom in closer made the objects look fuzzy. Visual identification would indicate oval/sphere in form, white possibly metallic. Ruling out known aircraft, objects appear to be UFO in nature.

NUFORC Note:

A wing is just barely visible on one of the objects in the video.