A team of researchers analysed a dataset that contained 98,000 reports collected over 20 years and found that environmental roles play a factor in the number of UFO, or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings.
The new study published in the journal Science Reports examined a dataset collected over 20 years by the National UFO Research Center. The goal of the study was to see how environmental variables such as light pollution, cloud cover, airports, and military bases coincide with UFO reports. The findings indicate you are more likely to see a UFO if you live in the western US, a finding that was “completely unexpected,” according to the study’s lead author.
So, why do the Western states see more UFOs? According to the team behind the study there are a few reasons why, such as the wide-open spaces and year-round weather that leads people to be more outdoors than other states, resulting in more sightings as people are “looking skyward,” according to Medina.
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The researchers still don’t know what people are seeing in the sky, but what is interesting is that when the analysis was started, the team expected to see a steady increase in UFO reports. But that wasn’t what happened.
“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.“
According to the team UFO sightings peaked in 2014 with 8,000 sightings entered into the database, while sightings remained incredibly low in Central and Southern US, compared to the many reports in the West.
“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