Utah study reveals the ‘best’ place for UFO sightings

Researchers at the University of Utah used NUFORC Nationwide Sighting Reports to find the country’s hotspots. As any buff would know, they are mostly out West. It’s logical, said the university’s press release, since this is ” where proximity to public lands, dark skies, and military installations afford more opportunities to see strange objects in the air,” the university said in a press release.” https://thehill.com/homenews/space/4497253-utah-study-reveals-the-best-place-for-ufo-sightings/

The data-rich study amounted to 98,000 total sighting reports between the years 2001 and 2020. That is *over eight times as many sightings as BlueBook collected* (12,618 to Project Blue Book, of which 701 remained unidentified)–and they come straight from the public, with no governmental vetting. So the U of U team’s challenge was to sort out the data and see if an interesting pattern might fall out.

One pattern was the high “sky view potential” of the hotspots—determined by how much light pollution is in the area, how much cloud cover and tree canopy cover, etc. Also within the western United States, the physical geography of the area features darker skies and “wide-open spaces.” So if UAP come zooming along, people have a good chance to see them.

In addition, they estimated proximity to airports and military installations. The hotspots for sightings had “credible relationships with air traffic and military activity,” which the university said could mean people are seeing real objects without fully recognizing what they are. Thus a number, perhaps the majority, are cases of mistaken identity. Richard Medina, associate professor of geography at the University of Utah and lead author of the study, said “it is more likely for individuals to see unexplained items in the sky if there is more chance that known items are in the sky (such as from airports or the military),” according to the referenced report from TheHill.com.

Apparently the team failed to recognize the possibility that UFOs buzz these areas precisely because they are filled with military installations–and this is a chief observation by every seasoned UFO investigator. Still, the database dwarfs BlueBook, the Condon Report and AARO put together so rates an “A” for inclusion. Given the University of Utah’s lead, other universities might realize there is a lot of data to mine in the haunted hills of the American West.