A Preliminary Analysis of Historical UFO

Report Data
Mark Carlotto (mark@carlotto.us)

ABSTRACT

Analysis of over 90,000 reports from the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) database
offers preliminary answers to several key questions regarding unidentified flying objects/aerial
phenomena (UFO/UAP). Report statistics over the past eighty years indicate the UFO
phenomenon is growing at an exponential rate in the United States. Breaking down the statistics
by state reveals a strong correlation between the number of sightings in a state and its population
density, suggesting UFOs appear more frequently in populated areas. Statistics also show that
the frequency of different shape observables has changed over time (e.g., from disks to triangles),
indicating the phenomenon has and may continue to evolve.

Introduction
Since his ground-breaking research in the 1960s, Jacques Vallée has argued for the systematic
study of the UFO phenomenon (Vallée 1965). Contrary to the findings of the Condon Report
(1968) that “nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to
scientific knowledge” and “that further study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the
expectation that sciences will be advanced thereby,” Vallée argues there are a number of areas
that can be researched including the question of patterns in the data, the physical evidence,
locations where sightings occur, social and cultural factors, human impacts, and methodologies
(Vallée 2014). He also believes that this can be done “with current tools available to the sciences,
without any preconceived ideology, and without using the ETH [extraterrestrial hypothesis] as
the dominant hypothesis to be tested.”

In this paper, we analyze event data recorded and maintained by the National UFO Reporting
Center (NUFORC) to provide preliminary answers to some of these research questions. Since its
founding in 1974, NUFORC has cataloged more than 90,000 reported UFO events, mostly in the
United States.1 The data are indexed in four ways: by the date of the event, state, the shape of
UFO, and date posted. Each event is accompanied by a sighting report.

A Long-Term Trend
In considering global patterns (at least within the US), are there any overall patterns that emerge
from the available data? Popular articles citing UFO report statistics tend to focus on short-term

1
http://www.nuforc.org

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3857231

trends such as the decrease in the number of sightings in 2015 followed by the rapid increase in
2018.2 Stepping back and examining the data over a longer period reveals a much more
interesting trend. Figure 1 plots the number of reports in the NUFORC database per year over
the past eighty years, along with the increase in the US population. Over this period, UFO
sightings have increased exponentially, doubling in number, on average, every 6.3 years. In this
same period, the US population increased at a much lower rate from 132 million to 330 million
people. The lack of correlation between the growth in the number of UFO reports and US
population suggests the rate at which UFOs are being reported does not depend on the number
of people unless one is willing to concede that the average observer is a thousand times more
likely to see a UFO now than in 1940.

Interest in Human Populations

Analyzing reports by state reveals a high degree of correlation with state population, i.e., the
number of reports per state is related to the number of people in that state. One possible
explanation is that states with more people have more sightings because there are more people
available to witness a UFO, but this conflicts with the historical trend discussed above. Another
explanation is that UFOs occur more frequently in places where there are more people.

We can test this hypothesis by comparing the number of UFO reports per capita per state to the
state’s population density (Figure 2). If we compare maps of population density (persons per sq.
km) with the density of sightings (number of sightings per sq. km), notice the two maps appear
to be highly correlated. This suggests that, on average, UFOs favor areas with more people.

That said, some places have had fewer sightings than expected, while others have had more. For
example, Arizona has more than three times more reports per capita than, say, Ohio (Figure 3).
One explanation is that besides human populations, UFOs may be interested in other places such
as nuclear weapons facilities.

Correlations with Natural Cycles

In considering alternative explanations, one must ask the question to what extent are UFO
sightings correlated with seasonal or astronomical cycles? Plotting the number of reports per
month indicates a peak during the warmer months (Figure 4), consistent with more people being
outdoors. That said, why are there as many reports in December as there are in May? Skeptics
often attribute UFO sightings with meteor sightings. Also shown in the figure are the zenithal
hourly rates of meteor showers averaged by month. The August and December peaks are the
Perseids and Geminids. Over the past eighty years, there is no apparent correlation between the
number of UFO reports and meteor activity as a function of time of year.

2
https://www.statista.com/chart/8452/ufo-sightings-are-at-record-heights/

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3857231

An Evolving Phenomenon
It has been suggested that the UFO phenomenon has evolved over time, perhaps as a result of
our response to it. The NUFORC database classifies UFO reports into twenty shapes. Figure 5 plots
the relative frequency of four of the UFO shapes: disks, triangles, cigars, and changing shapes
observed between 1940 and 2020. Prior to 1985, the classic disk shape of a flying saucer was
sighted more frequently than the triangular shape, which today is seen more frequently.

Discussion
The growth in the number of sightings over the past three years could be due to the proliferation
of cell phones and other technologies that make it easier to capture UFO images and videos but
does not explain the continued increase in reports starting around 1940. What happened around
1940 to trigger a phenomenon that has been growing at an increasing rate?

That UFOs started to be seen in greater and greater numbers at the birth of the Atomic Age and
more sightings per capita occur in places that host nuclear weapons and related sites suggest a
possible correlation. Why it is growing at an exponential rate could be the result of how
interested observers might react to nuclear and other potential threats to earth and humanity.

A variety of phenomena follow exponential models, including the growth of bacteria, the spread
of rumors, the number of logic gates on a computer chip, and many more. As noted earlier, it is
difficult to explain the increase in UFO sightings in terms of just the human response. Could the
growth of the phenomenon be the result of outside observers becoming increasingly more
interested in us? Perhaps their reaction to us is not unlike our own to a YouTube video that goes
“viral” as it is watched by more and more people.

Future Work
The results presented in this paper barely scratch the surface in terms of what can potentially be
gleaned from existing databases of UFO reports. One area of future work is the development of
automated algorithms to search for additional correlations/patterns in the data. Another is the
application of data science and artificial intelligence techniques to extract descriptive
characteristics (feature vectors) from the text of sighting reports. This information could then be
used by natural language understanding algorithms3,4,5 to automatically process thousands of
reports to deduce, by statistical means, answers to key questions such as purpose and intent,
which would otherwise not be possible.

3
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343151165_Text-Based_Intent_Analysis_using_Deep_Learning
4
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.03705.pdf
5
https://towardsdatascience.com/cnn-sentiment-analysis-1d16b7c5a0e7

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3857231

References
Jacques Vallée. 1965. UFOs in Space: Anatomy of a Phenomenon, Ballantine Books, New York.

Edward U. Condon. 1968. “Report of Meetings of Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying
Objects” (Robertson Panel) 14-18 January 1953, in Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects,
Bantam Books, New York.

Jacques Vallée. 2014. “A strategy for research,” CAIPAN Workshop, CNES, Paris. See
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZTymqDlbYo&t=517s

Acknowledgment
All data used in this study courtesy Peter Davenport/National UFO Reporting Center.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3857231

 Number of Sightings Per Year
9000

8000

7000

6000

5000

4000

3000

2000

1000

0
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Number of Sightings Per Year

10000

y = 1E-70e0.0838x
R² = 0.9001
1000

100

10

1
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

US Population Growth
350

300

250

200 y = 2.5483x - 4815.9

R² = 0.9983
150

100

50

0
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Figure 1 Number of sightings per year plotted on a linear scale (top) and a logarithmic scale (middle). Trendline (middle) is a fit to
an exponential growth model. Growth of US population (bottom) follows a linear model.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3857231

 Population Density Sightings Density

Powered by Bing Powered by Bing

© GeoNames, Microsoft, TomTom © GeoNames, Microsoft, TomTom

Sightings Per Person

Powered by Bing
© GeoNames, Microsoft, TomTom

Figure 2 Analysis of UFO statistics by state: number of people per sq. km (top-left), number of sightings per sq. km (top-right),
and number of sightings per person (bottom).

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3857231

 Sightings vs. Population
12000

CA
10000

R² = 0.8

8000

6000
FL

WA
4000
NY TX
PA
AZ
OH
NC IL
MI
OR CO
2000
MO SC IN MA VANJ GA
WI
CT MNTN
NMNV KY MD
UTOK
ID AL
NH
ME
MO IA
KS LA AR
WV MI
RIHINE
VT
AK
DE
WY
SD
ND
0
0 5,000,000 10,000,000 15,000,000 20,000,000 25,000,000 30,000,000 35,000,000 40,000,000

Figure 3 Number of sightings vs. population by state.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3857231

 Sightings by Month
14000

12000

10000

8000

6000

4000

2000

0
JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC

Meteor Activity
200
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC

Figure 4 Monthly statistics. Number of reports by month time (top) compared to average meteor activity (bottom).

1
Changing
0.9 Cigar

0.8 Disk
Triangle
0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015

Figure 5 Relative frequency of UFO shapes vs. time.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3857231