The MUFON logo (credit: MUFON)

National UFO Reporting Center logo (credit: NUFORC.org)

There are several small groups that take UFO sighting reports from the public, but the National UFO Reporting Center and MUFON are the two main United States organizations that do this. MUFON is a much larger organization that investigates UFO sighting reports, and tracking data is something the organization does well. The National UFO Reporting Center, operated by Peter Davenport, is specifically a hotline for reporting UFO sightings.

LiveScience published an infographic today on their website showing the top ten states for UFO sightings. The National UFO Reporting Center’s data was used to create the infographic, and the data represents sightings from 1994-2011.

(credit: R. Toro / LiveScience)

Sketch of a flying saucer from the UFO files (credit: New Zealand Defence Force)

The newly released files join the more than 2,000 pages of UFO files that were released back in December.

The book sets the ground rules right off the bat; it is about speculation, it isn’t about debating the reality of UFOs, nor is it about presenting evidence. Normally, I wouldn’t be interested in a book based purely on speculation, if it not for the subject of the speculation in this case and the people doing the speculating. Speculation alone, of which this field has no shortage, can turn into chasing your tail, but in this case we have very educated and thorough speculation. At times the book reads more like a report prepared by a think tank.

The word “disclosure” is thrown around and taken in vain in the UFO research community, often, dare I say, in an irresponsible way. The longing for disclosure is like demanding that the police reveal the facts of a crime scene when we don’t know the details ourselves, and thus cannot fathom the repercussions, or the effects it may have on solving the crime. It is easy to demand, but it seems incumbent upon us as responsible researchers to examine in detail what we want, and prepare for what might happen when or if we get it.

A.D. After Disclosure is Dolan and Zabel’s first collaboration, and they make an interesting pairing. Dolan is a historian, who has been documenting the history of the UFO phenomenon from 1941 to 1991 in two volumes, and will bring us up to present day in his third installment, which he plans to have finished by 2012. I have always found refreshing his open-mindedness and devotion to unbiased, accurate observation. Given the task of researching the ins and outs of this phenomenon over the decades makes him ideal for the task of recognizing patterns from the past and making educated guesses about the future.

As for Dolan’s coauthor of A.D. After Disclosure, who is better at speculation than a Hollywood writer, producer, director, and actor? The entertainment culture is all about observation and speculation, and in true sci-fi fashion, Bryce Zabel has produced his speculation regarding this phenomenon in the form of Hollywood scripts. He created the NBC television series, Dark Skies, a science-fiction thriller based on UFO research. He also wrote the SyFy channel’s first original film, Official Denial, and worked with Steven Spielberg on his alien abduction miniseries, Taken.

In a creative mixture of historical examination and science fiction, the chapters of A.D. After Disclosure are punctuated by fictional vignettes. For example, one of my favorites was a letter petitioning for Thomas Mantell to get a medal of honor. Mantell was a pilot in 1948, who while in pursuit of a supposed UFO, crashed his jet and died. However, the speculation here is that perhaps in a world after UFO disclosure, we will be giving medals to those who died in UFO-related incidents, rather than suggesting, as the U.S. Air Force has done, that Mantell mistook Venus for a UFO, flew too high, blacked out due to a lack of oxygen, and then crashed—a conclusion that seems rather disrespectful.

The book is organized in a fashion that is friendly to any level of UFO education. Those who pick this book as their first venture into UFO research will probably need to follow up on some of the references cited. The first few chapters, however, do a good job of giving a quick and dirty synopsis of the history of this research as a base for the speculation that follows.

After the initial education section, the book moves on to presenting several scenarios of how each level of disclosure may play out or affect many different areas in society. For example, what does the president really know about the UFO topic,  how would he go about disclosing, and why would he choose to do so in the first place? How would he get educated on the issue, and who would give him this education? This is just one example of the in-depth treatment given to each topic. The book moves on to examine effects of disclosure on the economy, science, law, education, anthropology, biology, archeology, philosophy, religion, media, and much more.

Of course, there is the big “who are they?” question, a hotly debated topic in the UFO research community. Are UFOs friend, foe, neither, or all of the above? Whichever it is will have a large effect on what is disclosed, and how the public will respond. Dolan and Zabel try to examine this as thoroughly as possible, looking at the abduction phenomenon and popular theories by other researchers.

Finally, there is an examination of a new trend that may become even more important in a post-disclosure scenario—“exopolitics,” or the political relations with extraterrestrials. How might we interact with these beings? What does it mean if they choose not to communicate with society as a whole? Several very interesting possibilities are proposed in the book.

There are many factors to keep in mind about disclosure. I thought I had given thought to most situations in a post-disclosure world and how things might come about. However, reading this book sent my mind whizzing with new and different possibilities, and while this is a book about what might be, it helps one think about what the government and the public can do right now to either assist in shaping this bold future, or how to brace for it.

It is difficult to cover everything on such a broad subject. For instance, I thought that the examinations of the abduction scenarios lacked the incorporation of research performed by psychologists and therapists. As Dolan and Zabel identify in the book, this sort of discussion can never be complete, and with as much educated speculation that occurs about the future, so far no one has been able to predict it with one hundred percent accuracy. Endeavors such as the one these authors have taken on help to shine some light on an important path on which we will inevitably venture. It is the path to a world where it is no longer a secret that we are not alone in this universe, and we are indeed being observed and engaged by civilizations that are truly extraterrestrial.

All in all, I believe this book is an important benchmark, and I hope it brings the internal discussions of UFO researchers to a higher level; one in which we are not just asking the powers that be to make disclosure happen, but where we take an active role in helping to shape an atmosphere that is conducive for UFO disclosure. In a world plagued with heightened emotional knee-jerk reactions, stepping back and using some critical thinking always turns out to be more fruitful.

A.D. is available for purchase on October 25th, 2010. Click the image above to go to the website for the book.

You can listen to co-author of A.D., Bryce Zabel, talking about the book  on his recent Open Minds Radio appearance here.

You will also be able to see co-author Richard Dolan, and get your book signed, at the upcoming UFO Congress. More on that here.

MUFON goes online

MUFON is the largest UFO investigation organization in the country and has been in business since 1969. However, until 2000 they were working with paper files and reports. Back when I started as an investigator, we filled out forms and sent them into the home office, and they went into giant filing cabinets. UFO researchers had to travel to Denver to do their research in the official MUFON museum housed in a strip mall to research sighting reports. Fortunately, with the hard work of MUFON board member Jan Harzan at the helm, and with a lot of help from a number of talented volunteers, MUFON reporting went online.

The Case Management System (CMS) was implemented in late 2000. It allows the public to report their UFO sightings online and it makes information regarding those sightings available on the MUFON website. Anyone can look at the sightings instantly as they are posted. Now there is even a cool visual interface called the UFO Stalker that allows people to watch a google map and see UFOs and Aliens pop up on the screen in areas were they are reported.

MUFON's UFO Stalker, graphical UFO report interface.

I went into that system and pulled all the sightings listed since the project began. I put the information into an excel spreadsheet and painstakingly adjusted all of the formatting issues so I could use the data, quite a lot of tedious work. Finally, after finishing the data input, I was able to make pivot tables and charts to examine the sighting reports in detail.

UFO Sightings reported to MUFON since late September.

When we look at sighting reports overall, we can see a steady increase in sightings since 2005, and a drastic spike in reports starting in January of 2008. I was the Director of Public Education and handled the PR for MUFON in 2008, and it was obvious to all of us that this was due to the sightings in Stephenville, Texas. We believe sighting reports increased with the growing awareness of MUFON’s existence, and it also increased membership.

The Stephenville factor

On January 8^th, 2008, many citizens of Stephenville and nearby Dublin reported seeing lights in the night sky that were later followed by military jets. At first, the PR officer at the closest military base, Carswell Field Naval Air Base, reported that there were no military jets in the area. Later he recanted that statement, mysteriously after Freedom of Information Requests were submitted by researchers. Angelia Joiner, a local journalist working for the Stephenville Empire-Tribune newspaper picked up the story, and her story was then picked up by the Associated Press a few days later. Angelia wrote a story about her experience in the first issue of Open Minds magazine.

MUFON got involved when the AP writer called me, I got her in contact with our local investigators through Ken Cherry, the MUFON State Director in Texas and lead investigator for this case, Steve Hudgeons. They were planning an outing to interview witnesses. The AP story included the MUFON trek to conduct interviews, and the media went wild. Every major media outlet in the US covered the story and many others from around the world. This got MUFON a lot of publicity, which is reflected in the graph.

I should also mention that through the Freedom of Information Request, MUFON investigators, Robert Powell, MUFON national research director, and Glen Schulz, radar specialist, were able to obtain radar data from the FAA that did show an unknown in the same area reported by some witnesses, along with military jets. The full report can be downloaded here (removed by source).

UFO reports sent to MUFON from Texas since late 2000.

In the graph of Texas sightings, the Stephenville effect can clearly be seen. There is also a second spike in October of 2008, due to another sighting in Stephenville that got media attention. CNN reported on a video that was taken in Dublin by high school student, Andy Monrreal. There were 11 witnesses who saw the strange lights that he videotaped, and again they reported that military jets followed the craft. While this event was not as popular worldwide, it did get national attention and as can be seen on this graph, obviously had an effect in Texas.

The UFO hotpsots

I then took a look at where the UFO hotpots are according to the MUFON data. In the graph below I list the top 20 states according to sightings reported. For the most part they correspond with population. Where there are more people, there are more sightings. However, I noticed that Colorado and Arizona seemed particularly high on the list given their population. I then divided the number of sightings by the estimated population to get the percentage of sightings per population to find out where there are more sightings compared to the population. Sure enough, Colorado came up top on the list, then Nevada, Oregon and Arizona, as can be seen in the table. These are our true hotspot states. Colorado is the home of MUFON’s headquarters, and is featured in local media often; this could explain why they receive so many reports.

Top 20 states where UFOs have been reported.

List of the 25 most populated states:

1. California             36,961,664
2. Texas                    24,782,302
3. New York            19,541,453
4. Florida                  18,537,969
5. Illinois                   12,910,409
6. Pennsylvania     12,604,767
7. Ohio                      11,542,645
8. Michigan              9,969,727
9. Georgia                9,829,211
10. North Carolina   9,380,884
11. New Jersey        8,707,739
12. Virginia                 7,882,590
13. Washington        6,664,195
14. Arizona                 6,595,778
15. Massachusetts 6,593,587
16. Indiana                6,423,113
17. Tennessee          6,296,254
18. Missouri               5,987,580
19. Maryland             5,699,478
20. Wisconsin            5,654,774
21. Minnesota          5,266,214
22. Colorado              5,024,748
23. Alabama              4,708,708
24. South Carolina   4,561,242
25. Louisiana             4,492,076

I then took a look at the cities reporting UFOs. This category is what the witnesses list as the city where the sightings took place, not necessarily where they are from. Out of the top 20 listed on the table below, only one is not a US town, Londoners are reporting often enough to MUFON to have made the list. Again Arizona and Colorado towns made the top of the list, with Phoenix reporting the most UFOs. I also took the top 20 towns and matched them up to population to see which towns are receiving the most reports per person. Stephenville not surprisingly rose to the top of this list, but Wilmington, Delaware took the number two spot, which was quite a surprise. I haven’t figured that one out yet. Las Vegas (the closest large town near Area 51), Pittsburgh and Denver also made the top of the list.

Top 20 towns where UFOs have been reported.

While some of this isn’t surprising and has been suspected for some time, having the actual data from years of reporting from MUFON gives us some evidence as to where the real hotspots are. Who would have known that Wilmington was a hotspot? I also was surprised at the large number of unknowns reported by MUFON. As a MUFON investigator, I was always surprised at the high level of intelligence and credibility of many of the people reporting UFOs. I was in Denver, Colorado, and I found that people for the most part, knew very well the difference between airplanes, helicopters, and other things in the sky. These days our skies are full of planes and helicopters in urban areas.

I will keep my database up to date and continue to look for trends and correlations. Feel free to contact us with data you feel is important to look at. I also want to thank all of the hard working investigators and volunteers at MUFON. Without the years of dedication they all have shown, we would have very little data to help us make heads or tails of this enigmatic phenomena.

Access MUFON’s online reporting system at: www.MUFON.com

With such an increase in reports, why would the MOD shut down their investigation? According to the website that used to direct Britain citizens to the UFO hotline, it was shut down because “…in over fifty years, no UFO report has revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom.” It goes on to further state that spending resources in this area is inappropriate and “diverts MOD resources from tasks that are relevant to Defence.”

However, the reports released by the MOD today tell a different story. In May of 2009 a pilot reported a 20-30 foot “shiny black flying cylinder” that flew 200 feet above his airplane. In August a Royal Navy Air Traffic Controller reported seven silent lights that emitted an orange light. They traveled at 100 knots, and took a right hand turn. In November, an Ex-Royal Navy Commander reported seeing an orange orb moving at a “substantial” speed.

These three cases are some of the best examples of witnesses with “relevant” occupations. Other sighting reports contain more strange objects moving in ways which conventional aircraft would not.

The British government has been releasing documents for the past year. One of the reports that made the most worldwide headlines was regarding a US fighter pilot who was ordered to shoot down a UFO while he was stationed at the Manston Royal Air Force base in 1957. This report and others appear to provide evidence of a threat to British airspace. Intuitively it would seem that unidentified aircraft should be considered a potential threat until identification can be acquired. It would seem ridiculous for any agency seriously concerned with the safety of its airspace to ignore reports from its citizens.

Nick Pope (image credit: www.nickpope.net)

Nick Pope, who worked at the MOD’s UFO desk, had this to say about the close of the hotline, “Indeed, I am sure that as is almost certainly the case in the US, sightings from pilots and uncorrelated targets tracked on radar will continue to be looked at by someone, albeit outside of a formally constituted UFO project.”

For now you can judge for yourself. Below are some of the more interesting reports released today, and links to the full report and the MOD’s UFO reporting website.

Date: 15-Feb-09
Time: 00:15
Town/Village: Winwick
Area: Warrington
Occupation (Where Relevant): Police Officer
Description: Two orange lights in the sky that hovered over the old hospital site.
The lights were not together but were stationary. They made no noise. They then moved off in a southerly direction.

Date: 03-May-09
Time: 15:50
Town/Village: Otmoor
Area: Oxfordshire
Occupation (Where Relevant): Pilot
Description: A shiny black flying cylinder, 20-30ft long at about 4700ft which was 200ft above the pilots aircraft. Although the pilot sighted the object. Air Traffic Control forwarded details to the UFO Desk.

Date: 03-May-09
Time: 21:30
Town/Village: Ammanford
Area: Dyfed
Occupation (Where Relevant): Pilot
Description: Seven orange orbs that suddenly disappeared. They were on a North-South trajectory. Witness contacted Cardiff Air Traffic Control who had nothing on radar.

Date: 02-Jul-09
Time: 22:20
Town/Village: Blackwood
Area: Gwent
Occupation (Where Relevant): Ex-test engineer for Hawker Siddley (Aircraft Company)
Description: A bright orange light seen through the tree line. It turned and cleared the tree line. The other side of the object appeared to be a large rectangle shape of fire red/orange. It was silent. The object slowly climbed in the direction of Gloucester.

Date: 04-Jul-09
Time: Not Given
Town/Village: West Grinstead
Area: West Sussex
Occupation (Where Relevant): Part-Time Pilot
Description: 12-15 objects. Not like normal fixed wing aircraft, more like bright orange lights. Moving West at indeterminate height. Objects entered cloud then turned around.

Date: 01-Aug-09
Time: 03:42
Town/Village: Preston
Area: Lancashire
Occupation (Where Relevant): Police
Description: Bright object in sky, very large.

Date: 01-Aug-09
Time: 22:57
Town/Village: Michell
Area: Coldon
Occupation (Where Relevant): Police
Description: 17 UFO’s above village. Red and green lights, no sound.

Date: 07-Aug-09
Time: 22:45
Town/Village: Newport
Area: Shropshire
Occupation (Where Relevant): Retired RAF (Royal Air Force)
Description: Two yellow lights one above the other in the sky. On arriving home five minutes later watched the lights disappear behind a narrow cloud bank.

Date: 11-Aug-09
Time: 23:00
Town/Village: Thorpe-le-Soken
Area: Essex
Occupation (Where Relevant): Amateur astronomer
Description: Saw a meteor shower which contained something he could not explain.

Date: 13-Sep-09
Time: 20:25
Town/Village: Shepton Mallet
Area: Somerset
Occupation (Where Relevant): RN (Royal Navy) Air Traffic Control
Description: Seven silent objects emitting a bright orange light. One group of three and then singles. Travelled at about 100 knots then turned right.

Date: 17-Sep-09
Time: 21:40
Town/Village: Findon Valley
Area: West Sussex
Occupation (Where Relevant): Ex-pilot
Description: Saw an extremely bright star like light in sky. Continued flying then started to climb vertically no change in speed the dimmed and disappeared to a faint light.

Date: 19-Sep-09
Time: 21:01
Town/Village: West Wickham
Area: Kent
Occupation (Where Relevant): Pilot
Description: Series of 30 or more orange lights which then disappeared after moving at speed.

Date: 27-Sep-09
Time: 20:40
Town/Village: Northolt
Area: Middlesex
Occupation (Where Relevant): RAF (Royal Air Force)
Description: Saw two UFOs. Looked like balls of fire. As they approached RAF
Northolt the fireball went out. However, the craft was still visible and was in the shape of a jelly fish dome.

Date: 07-Nov-09
Time: 21:59
Town/Village: Peterborough
Area: Cambridgeshire
Occupation (Where Relevant): Ex-RN (Royal Navy) Cdr (Commander)
Description: Orange sphere 30 degrees above eastern horizon speed substantial, no noise no normal navigation lights just eerie orange glow.

Ministry of Defence UFO Hotline

Ministry of Defence UFO Reports

Nick Pope’s website