UFO Sightings in the US
STA/ISS 313 - Spring 2024 - Project 1
Data-sets
ufo_sightings: country, state, city, date (year, month, day), and description of sighting
places: latitude and longitude
day_parts_map: did not use
outside data-sets:
military_bases: state, latitude, and longitude
cal_locations, cal_populations: location of top five cities based on population in CA
Question 1: Is there a correlation between UFO sightings and military bases across the US?
- There is speculation about military bases and alien activity
- We were interested to see if UFO sightings and military bases have a spacial correlation
Distribution of UFO Sightings and Military Bases in US
![Distribution of UFO sightings in the US by state for the year 2019 using a density map. Military base count by state is also overlaid in the map by the size of the circles. California has the most UFO sightings as well as military bases and there is a general trend that if a state has more military bases it also has more UFO sightings besides a few outlier states like Virginia, which has a lot of military bases, but few sightings. Also for most of the states that have very few UFO sightings also have very few military bases. For example, Wyoming has the least amount of military bases and has the fourth least amount of UFO sightings.]()
Distribution of UFO Sightings and Military Bases in California
![Distribution of UFO sightings and military base locations in California. Locations of UFO sightings and military bases are plotted as dots on a map of California. The location of UFO sightings are more densily populated around military bases, and there are a smaller number of UFO sightings in areas where there are less or no military bases. 4 military bases are inactive and 69 military bases are active. The 5 major cities based on population are plotted on the map: San Francisco, San Jose, Fresno, Los Angeles, and San Diego. There are two main clusters of UFO sightings, one in the middle to top left of California, around San Francisco and San Jose, and one in the bottom left of California, around Los Angeles. 32.477 percent of UFO sightings are within a 10 mile radius of a military base, 72.664 percent are within a 25 mile radius of a military base, and 92.290 percent are within a 50 mile radius of a military base.]()
Question 2: How have UFO sightings changed over time?
- The pandemic caused more people to have free time
- We are also interested to see if UFO sightings have seasonal patterns
UFO Sightings Across Decades
![This is a line plot showing the number of UFO sightings per decade from the 1950s to the 2020s. Months are on the x-axis while the number of sightings is on the y-axis. Decades prior to the 21st century have less sightings with monthly values less than 100 sightings. In the 2000s and the 2020s, sightings tend to hover around 200 a month. The decade with the most UFO sightings was the 2010s which at its peak in July reached approximately 550 sightings. For all decades except the 2020s, there is a slight peak in sightings in summer months like June and July. However, the peak in the 2020s was in the spring around March and April.]()
UFO Sightings During 2020
![This is the same plot as the previous slide but with a bolded line representing just the year 2020 which is when the COVID-19 pandemic started. As a refresher, this is a line plot showing the number of UFO sightings per decade from the 1950s to the 2020s. Months are on the x-axis while the number of sightings is on the y-axis. Decades prior to the 21st century have less sightings with monthly values less than 100 sightings. In the 2000s and the 2020s, sightings tend to hover around 200 a month. The decade with the most UFO sightings was the 2010s which at its peak in July reached approximately 550 sightings. For all decades except the 2020s, there is a slight peak in sightings in summer months like June and July. However, the peak in the 2020s was in the spring around March and April. There is also a bolded line representing just the year 2020 which is when the COVID-19 pandemic started. Plot annotations on two peaks in UFO sightings denote that on March 13 the US President declared COVID-19 a national emergency and by August 17 COVID-19 became the third leading cause of death in the US.]()
UFO Descriptions Across Each Month
![This is a ridgeline plot titled Descriptions of UFO Sightings and displays the word usage of circular, craft, fireball, orbs, sphere, and triangle for each day of the month and is faceted by month. For most months, different word usage appears to peak randomly and independently of each other. For January there is a noticeable peak for every word on the same day with the rest of the plot being flat otherwise. There is a similar peak in July for a single day.]()
UFO Descriptions in January and July
![This is a ridgeline plot titled Descriptions of UFO Sightings in January and July which displays the word usage of circular, craft, fireball, orbs, sphere, and triangle for each day of the month and is faceted between January and July. The January plot has a peak at the very beginning for all words indicating high reporting on January 1st. Other than this day, the ridgelines are relatively flat with no noticeable trends. The July plot has a peak near the beginning for all words indicating high reporting on July 5th. Similarly to the January plot, the ridgelines are very flat on all other days with the exception of fireball having a noticeable peak near the end of the plot.]()
Summary
States with more military bases tended to have higher UFO sightings
In California, there are more UFO sightings near military bases and major cities
UFO sightings seemed to follow COVID spikes in 2020
UFO sightings tend to peak during the summer and around US holidays like New Year’s and July 4th
Limitations
The data is collected from people voluntarily reporting on a website
Past data may have been lost to time
These are inherently subjective accounts of UFOs
