Data scientist Max Galka recently unveiled his new map of over 90,000 UFO sightings in the United States, this one with reports dating all the way back to 1905.
Compiled with data from both the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), each green dot you see on the map includes detailed witness reports along with, in many cases, images and videos.
However, what’s most interesting about this map is its focus on the number of witnesses. The larger green dots – especially in the Chicago area – represent sightings involving several witnesses. In the case of the October 31, 2004 incident at Tinley Park, Illinois – the event with the highest number of witnesses on this map — we’re talking about a staggering 77 reported sightings. Here’s report #20:
“There were three red lights in the sky to the east. They were bright red lights that moved into a perfect triangle formation just hovering. About 5 minutes later, they moved into a straight line and hovered. THen then moved back into a triangle. AFter about 15mins, the completly moved up in the clouds and dissapeared.”
There’s a lot of information here, and Galka breaks a few things down for us in his post.
For example, the number of reports around Chicago might make you wonder if UFO sightings have anything to do with nearby airports. But according to Galka, that’s not really a story the data tells. “Aside from Chicago,” he says, “it does not appear there is much correlation between mass UFO sightings and big airports.”
While there may not, surprisingly, be a huge link between airports and these “mass UFO sightings,” at least in this data, Galka did find a noticeable correlation with certain dates – namely, New Years and the Fourth of July.
Make of that what you will, but Galka also adds, “it could just be that more people are looking up at the sky on those nights.”
