Stalking the UFOs

Is it possible to 'stalk' the UFOs?

Introduction

In the middle of last year I heard a casual remark by Dr Richard F Haines (Paracast interview) about the frequency of UFO timings. He stated that most sightings occur in the eleventh hour PM and this trend applies whichever hemisphere you happen to be in. This statement led me to believe that I'd had an original idea in Ufology...a very rare thing. Well, unsurprisingly...I was wrong. My great idea has already been investigated by some of the best scientific minds in the ufology field. I'll show you their conclusions later on and point out the sheer wealth of information and data that's been gathered.

Was Dr Haines simply offering an opinion or was he going off the evidence? Anyone who's enjoyed his interviews and research will already know that he's not much taken with opinion. With that in mind I began looking for evidence (tables, graphs etc) that indicates a higher frequency of UFO sightings around the 11th hour. Naturally, the data would need to come from reliable sources using large databases. Larry Hatch, NUFORC , UFOCAT, NIDS (defunct), MUFON, Canadian UFO Report and NICAP are some of the online bodies gathering evidence of UFO sightings and applying the numbers to statistical analyses. In 50 years, the commitment of some researchers is simply admirable. These are dedicated people and organisations. The Larry Hatch 'U' database is currently being saved by our own Isaac Koi and fellow members..

So let's look at a couple of images to see if there's any truth in Dr Haine's comments...

French Agency: SEPRA
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4e14cbf62ab0.jpg[/atsimg]

NARCAP
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/35123d7604b7.jpg[/atsimg]

It's there isn't it? There's an apparent increase in reported sightings near the eleventh hour.

So what's the big idea?

Law enforcement psychologists can now offer informed suggestions relating to the locations of dangerous criminals. I thought we could potentially stalk the UFOs in a similar way if their behaviour had a pattern...a predictability. Could we reach down into the pit of ufology, grab the damn thing by the tail and drag it screaming into the light? Big idea!

If UFOs can come and go at will, as evidence suggests they can, then why would they cluster around certain periods of time? Would that suggest a limitation or an influence that dictates that time of night? So I wondered about tidal influences and ruled that out after studying tidal times during several peak UFO periods. No correlation to the eleventh hour at all. Could the motion of the planets and neighbouring stars have an influence? See below. Solar activity and aurora borealis? No apparent relationship although it's the first time I had to calculate 'astronomical midnight' and could be mistaken. Phases of the Moon? No.

Time of year looks promising

There's a very good site based in Canada that has been gathering UFO data for years. One of the organisers is astronomer Chris Rutkowski. He's studied the field for a long time and used to release the Canadian UFO Survey Charts. There's an interview about the surveys here. . They have the data already committed to graphs and charts and it's been useful to study...

Canadian UFO reports combined
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/39b51ad16764.jpg[/atsimg]

Needing more data and being unable to find credible charts or graphs for outside of Canada, I took pen, paper and calculator to NUFORC's Monthly Report Index.. I used the figures from 2000-2009 and those from 1965-1969 to compare pre-Internet figures. Apologies for the presentation here, my laptop's at work and this PC doesn't have Word to draw a table.

2000-2009 Monthly Totals
Jan - 3270
Feb - 2760
Mar - 2984
Apr - 2908
May - 2880
Jun - 3539
Jul - 4491
Aug - 4425
Sep - 4167
Oct - 3955
Nov - 3589
Dec - 2885
----------------
Total
41853

Monthly average = 3488

1965-1969 Monthly Totals
Jan - 20
Feb - 21
Mar - 24
Apr - 47
May - 50
Jun - 231
Jul - 143
Aug - 131
Sep - 85
Oct - 77
Nov - 43
Dec - 39
-------------
Total

911
Monthly average = 82.6

By now we have some small sample of data that suggests a relationship between the time of day and the time of year. It appears that UFOs are seen significantly more frequently in the months between June and November. It also appears that they are seen more frequently after 9pm and have an inconclusive peak around the eleventh hour PM. Interesting stuff! Sadly, this is ufology we are dealing with and nothing is ever so simple. We have to question everything about the quality and collection of the data behind the reported sightings. I'm not going to go into that here, but I am aware of it.

Locations?

So how about location? Is there some way of identifying UFO hotspots? Perhaps we can look at places where their frequency is below average? The absence of UFOs might be as important as identifying regions of high activity. Thanks to the databases mentioned above, Hatch, NUFORC, CUFON and MUFON, there's a lot of useful information available. We can look at monthly UFO report maps going back several years. There's also one drawn from the data at the late J. Allen Hynek's CUFOS. I find it interesting because it's from a time when reports were often taken by pad and pencil in person or over the telephone. There's was less opportunity for hoaxes under those conditions. In contrast, we could conspire to hoax a UFO wave by filing multiple reports on the MUFON site in the next hour. It's easy.

Below is a GIF I made that combines several maps of UFO activity gathered from the Hatch 'U' Database (images from this great site). They run through a sequence of 1947, 50, 52, 57, 65, 73, 80-90 and 90-2000. The latter maps are Europe, S America, Australia, Asia and Africa featuring all dates (It's the first GIF I've made so batten down the hatches!)

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/90d3ca747e78.gif[/atsimg]

CUFOS map from pre-90s data. Check out the AFB activity
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/261311c30c5d.jpg[/atsimg]

July 2005 from MUFON data
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/df2f2e54da66.jpg[/atsimg]

These locations imply hotspots of UFO activity. It might be true, but we have to take into account where the 'hotspots' of human populations live too. The frequency of sightings is naturally dependent on people being there to observe in the first place. Below is a very clear map to show population distribution in North America...

Certainly some correlations here
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/22a52cae4999.jpg[/atsimg]

Time & Place! Case closed? No.

It all looks so obvious. On this kind of evidence, we can predict that UFOs are more likely to be sighted on the Eastern seaboard of the USA than the West. We can increase our chances of seeing them if we head East during the summer/autumn months and hang out after 11pm with cameras or high-powered rifles...depending on your mood. Personally, I think a rifle might be a good precaution...a crashed UFO or dead ET is worth more on the open market than pictures and YT footage.

So why haven't the Governments or various elements of military and ABC Agencies gone ahead and done all this? What about the scientists? Where's Shostak or Shermer? The fact is they already have. The authorities have the same public access to all the databases mentioned so far. Naturally, someone, somewhere will have a lot more data to add to that too. It's easy to imagine the amount of number crunching that military interests have applied to the UFO phenomena. They could be quite a few steps advanced from our own publicly available reports.

It's at this point that we run into the dense fogs of Ufology and the seemingly unlockable door that prevents us knowing actual answers. Earlier on I mentioned how my 'original idea' wasn't as original as I thought. Not only has it been covered, it's been explored to a level that would surprise many fans of ufology. The difference between armchair UFO fans and the trained scientist is vast! Some names in particular (Vallee, Sturrock, Poher and Teoradani) have written incredibly well-thought out investigations of the data I've presented and gone much, much further whilst remaining exactly where we stand now. Paradox is king in ufology!

reply to post by Kandinsky

Bring in the scientists...

Jacques Vallee has written a 2007 paper, Are UFO Events Related to Sidereal Time?. He addresses the possibilities of stalking UFOs by identifying patterns and possibly working out a location of origin. To put it basically, are we closer to another star or system when sightings increase? Is there a period of our own orbit that is in a particular area during these months? As usual, the answer is...well...yes and no. The figures in the databases aren't reliable enough to make definitive statements or draw conclusions...they only remain suggestive.

We report here on a study of the hypothesis that UFO events are correlated with local sidereal time, an observation advanced by Dr. Claude Poher, Dr. Donald Johnson and more recently by Dr. Peter Sturrock. Local sidereal time is used by astronomers to keep track of the stars that pass the observer’s meridian at a particular instant. A subset of a large catalog for which geographical and temporal data are available was taken as a basis for the study, involving 11,991 events. Local sidereal time was computed for these events. While a frequency distribution indicative of a correlation with star positions was indeed detected, control with a separate catalogue compiled in France discloses an important artefact: multiple entries for a single, particularly remarkable UFO event have resulted in massively duplicated records. This calls into question the significance of the claimed pattern.

The results of the figures used in Vallee's study are in conflict with the ones from Sturrock, Poher and Teodarani posted earlier. Rather than a high frequency of sightings around the eleventh hour, they indicate 2pm. Vallee has used the UFOCAT database.

Extract and image below are from the paper linked above
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ead8b4666843.jpg[/atsimg]

Vallee writes in his conclusion that...

The discovery and confirmation of a statistical link between the frequency of UFO events and some celestial parameter, such as local sidereal time, would be an important step in the understanding of the very complex UFO phenomenon. Until analysis of other catalogs is carried out, however, it appears wise to maintain a cautious skeptical position with respect to claims of statistical correlation between UFO events and the position of the stars.

A member of NARCAP, Professor Teodarani analyses even more of the evidence and basically burns it in the crucible of scientific reasoning and investigation. He applies statistical analyses to the databases and looks for any opportunities to learn more about the phenomenon. You really have to read his paper to recognise the intelligence and training some scientists use to explore the UFO mystery. In his conclusion, he finds no immediate ways to identify an origin or even behaviour and suggests specialised teams on stand-by...

The elusive and unpredictable nature of the UAP phenomena renders any effort to monitor it scientifically, extremely difficult, unless a very well trained team of scientists and engineers is able to enter promptly into action as soon as a new UAP flap occurs. Probably such strategy and tactics can reveal to be most cost-effective in the attempt of acquiring scientific data from this "fringe phenomenon", provided that the appropriate scientific instrumentation is available, well tested and professionally deployed and used.

M. Teodorani. A Comparative Analytical and Observational Study of North American Databases on unidentified Aerial Phenomena ...

Final thoughts

The UFO phenomenon has been tantalisingly out of reach for at least 60 years. In that time, it's hard to say if we've moved further forward. On the bright side, the amount of material and hard work of UFO researchers might not move us further on, but they are slowly removing dead-ends and vicious circles in the search for answers.

The great significance of the databases used in these studies can't be underestimated. At the same time, the study of the data within them can only be improved by resolving the accuracy and removing the repeated sightings. Vallee found one sighting was represented over 50 times in the Hatch sample.

If we think what could be achieved if scientists like Teodarani and Vallee had accurate technical data...it's chilling and wonderful at the same time. Whilst there's no reason to rule out the possibility that a minority of military/government scientists already know more...improved data might let the rest of us in on the mystery too?

reply to post by Kandinsky
Ted Phillips Peak Time Distribution etc www.cohenufo.org...

NARCAP www.narcap.org...

Jacques Vallee Sidereal Time www.ufoskeptic.org...

Canadian UFO Study www.canadianuforeport.com...

Sturrock Time series analysis of Hatch's database 1999 www.scientificexploration.org...

Canada - UFO cases by month 1989-2007 GIF www.canadianuforeport.com...

Canada - UFO cases 1990-2007 month graph GIF www.canadianuforeport.com...

Canada - CanadianUFOreport Charts www.canadianuforeport.com...

Canada - www.canadianuforeport.com...

Canada - Unknowns by time of day GIF www.canadianuforeport.com...

Canada - UFOS by time of day 2005 UFO www.canadianuforeport.com...

Canada - Canadian UFO Report HOMEPAGE www.canadianuforeport.com...

A Statistical Review of UFO Center Sightings, 1947-2004 - www.ufocasebook.com...

Australian UFO sightings - www.ufoevidence.org...

www.mufon.com...

The data from ( www.nuforc.org... ) the NUFORC database totals 60612.

Sidereal time image with the clock GIF - www.mogi-vice.com...

UFO Maps - www.ufomaps.com...

Sightings by Country - www.ufodna.com...

CUFON Top 300 UFO Hotspots - www.cufon.org...

Sightings Maps 1947-2000s - www.xenophilia.com...

CUFOS Map - strangemaps.wordpress.com...

UFO Hotspots and maps - www.ufodna.com...

NUFORC by month - www.nuforc.org...

Very Very nice. Well thought out and very well done. I am definitely going to keep track of this thread. Good job.

Great thread Kandinsky. Have you read any of the following books:

Alien Identities : Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena

Flying Saucers : A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies

The Holographic Universe

And could you give me your opinion of this article:

www.paradigmresearchgroup.org...

[edit on 24-7-2010 by Student X]

Originally posted by Kandinsky
2000-2009 Monthly Totals
Jan - 3270
Feb - 2760
Mar - 2984
Apr - 2908
May - 2880
Jun - 3539
Jul - 4491
Aug - 4425
Sep - 4167
Oct - 3955
Nov - 3589
Dec - 2885
----------------
Total
41853

Fascinating, I'm at a loss to explain why the sightings go up in June, July August and Sept though there's probably a reason. It would be interesting to know what it is.

Time & Place! Case closed? No.

It all looks so obvious. On this kind of evidence, we can predict that UFOs are more likely to be sighted on the Eastern seaboard of the USA than the West.

You did a nice job pointing out the correlation between the location of sightings versus population density, and you even mentioned military bases though I didn't see them on your graph, but I think there may be a correlation there, even UFO hunters mentioned that correlation in one of their episodes. However I think UFO hunters drew the conclusion that meant UFOs like to hang around military bases, which was different from my guess that perhaps some of those UFOs are FROM the military bases.

Statistics can be tricky to analyze. One of my favorites is that you are most likely to get into an automobile accident within 25 miles of your home.

www.aaafoundation.org...

Q:What percent of fatal car accidents occurs within 25 miles of home:

Answer: 75%

According to that statistic, you should drive anywhere else except within the 25 mile radius of your home to avoid accidents, but of course this is typical of how statistics are misinterpreted. You're really no less likely to get into an accident more than 25 miles away from your home per hour you spend driving, contrary to what the statistics suggest, it's just that we do most of our driving closer to home so that's where most of the accidents occur, so it's related to where we do our driving, and not where our home is. In the case of UFO sightings, determining what's cause and what's effect may not be as straightforward as the driving and accidents example.

But the correlation of increased sightings during summer months is fascinating.

[edit on 24-7-2010 by Arbitrageur]

reply to post by Kandinsky


very interesting collection of data you have there



I have a couple of ideas on the subject,


one reason for the time of year spike is that it is the summer in the northern hemisphere, the skies are clearer and the weather is warmer, so you have more people out at night, therefore more reported sightings.
And the average person is more likely to notice an out of place light in the night sky than an odd object in the daytime sky.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


hi Arbitrageur, maybe the answer to your question is that june, july, august and september are holiday seasons and generally warmer so maybe its because more people are out late watching the skies instead of being tucked up in bed for work in the morning. or just more people out and about in general compared to winter and non holiday periods.

thanks

rich

[edit on 24-7-2010 by RICH-ENGLAND]

[edit on 24-7-2010 by RICH-ENGLAND]

Excellent work Kandinsky.

Some thoughts come to mind when trying to crunch the numbers.

1. A vast majority of true unknown sightings go unreported for many reasons.
a. People have no idea where to report.
b. People have no idea they should report.
c. People are worried about what others will think.
d. People are afraid of what they saw.
e. People are afraid of follow up questions to their reports and who might do the questioning!

2. Many of the sightings are of identifiable objects and skew the databases as well. People don't educate themselves to try to identify what they saw before they declared it "unknown".
a. ISS
b. Planets (most notably Venus)
c. Iridium Flare and other satellites
d. Planes, helicopters, rockets, rc toys, kites, balloons

3. Let's face it, a goodly portion of reported sightings are hoaxes by:
a. bored individuals
b. believers who want to "prove" UFOs are real
c. derailers who want to prove UFOs are NOT real.
d. attention seekers.
e. those from category 2. === edit to put the right number.

It would be awesome if the true numbers of true unknowns were known
I wish that categories 2 and 3 would remain silent so that category 1 could be fully explored. As far as the months that the most sightings occur I agree with punkinworks10! Those are the most comfortable months in the northern hemisphere to spend large amounts of time outside.

[edit on 24/7/2010 by SeenMyShare]

the correlation of the sightings is also dependable with the population density offcourse

[edit on 24-7-2010 by DutchBigBoy]

I once read that people who had a UFO experience had bought something new that day. Not sure where I read it but Betty and Barney Hill seem to ring a bell with that. It was an old UFO book anyway. I met some abductees myself who had been shopping the morning before their experience. They'd both bought a turquoise stone on a black thong to wear that day. Probably nothing but like your charts above, food for thought.

reply to post by SeenMyShare

a. People have no idea where to report.

I'd rather wait and see what people have to say before getting into a discussion, but this point is *possibly* important. When we look at the distribution of reported sightings across the world, it definitely appears as if North America and Western Europe are major hotspots. This might be the case for a number of reasons, not least AFBs.

What struck me as I was trawling through the reports was the UFO culture that is prevalent in those 'hotspots.' In these areas there is a 60 year history of large and small UFO organisations with ties to each other. At the same time, there was also several decades of official reports too. People could report to a variety of official or non-official groups.

Despite the curtain of secrecy or denial, these countries have had a free press and greater access to information too. In developed nations like Russia and China, free press is non-existent or a recent occurrence (post Glasnost). They simply haven't had the channels of communication and dispersal of information we take for granted. They don't have the APROs and NUFORCs.

So when we look at these maps and see a very low frequency of sightings reports, does the data have any real meaning? They may well have more or less sightings than hi-frequency nations...until they have someone collecting the data and making it available, we don't really know.

I'll certainly reply to the above posters and appreciate the comments. Arbi and Punkin raise good points and I'm just hoping to see some discussion from others first. Thanks guys

Most awesome thread of the month. I recently went looking for UFO-Maps and found the ones you are posting here but what I did not find is more current ones, neither international ones. If anyone reading this is familiar with any and could help out...

reply to post by Kandinsky


a lot of sighting waves seem to follow testing of new military aircraft and pop culture, for example i dont think its just a coincidence that people started reporting "black triangles" in the times when the F117A and B2 started flying and that black triangles were also made very popular by The X Files. and there have been similar trends that could be accounted for by the U2 and SR71 .

it would be good to see some sighting maps and graphs that compare reports to pop culture, and military planes and testing and declassified military operations as in known flight paths of U2 and SR71.

thanks

rich

[edit on 24-7-2010 by RICH-ENGLAND]

reply to post by RICH-ENGLAND

That might be true of some but.. I'd never heard of triangles when I saw mine and it was in broad daylight. My first thought TBH was government stealth project.

reply to post by SeenMyShare


i think you slightly missed my point, im not saying that everyone made their sightings up, what im saying is that sighting waves seem to follow whats going on in the military or whats popular on tv, and yes although you might not have heard of the black triangle or been influenced when you saw yours, you yourself thought it was a military project and it could well have been, and thats sort of what im getting at.

im also not saying that everything is explainable by military or pop culture but im inclined to think a huge majority is, another example is the rise in popularity of the chinese lantern in a lot of countries, and the explosion of lights in sky videos to go with it!, ive seen them myself and had a complete WTF moment until they got close enough to see what they were!.

thanks

rich

[edit on 24-7-2010 by RICH-ENGLAND]

[edit on 24-7-2010 by RICH-ENGLAND]

reply to post by RICH-ENGLAND
Hiya Rich. The pop culture question is interesting. I wrote a thread about the history of hoaxes in Ufology and saw a strong relationship with the pop culture of each respective era. Airships, saucers and pulp fiction.

Having said that, people often explain how UFO sightings peak after big movies like Close Encounters, Star Wars or Independence Day etc. There isn't a lot of evidence to support the claims....surprisingly. It seems unavoidable that after films like that, people would be making reports?

As a Brit, you'll remember The Sun hyping UFOs a couple of years back. That was 'pop culture' and saturated the subject to the point people were seeing anything!

In terms of the black triangles being misidentified prototype or black tech. It's hard to call. The behaviour of many these alleged craft don't conform to the testing of secret tech. By this, I mean silently passing over major population centres and highways at low altitude with lights on. It's almost certain that at least some of these reports are secret technology being tested. Many more could be hoaxes. A core seem to remain unexplained.

Collected black triangle reports map
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f0209dd73ab3.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by Kandinsky


Fantastic thread mate, very well presented.

A thought on the time of day phenomenon:

Could it be that at 2300, correctly identifying the object seen is made more difficult by the low light levels at any time of year, therefore leading to the UFO conclusion?

Sendran.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Even though mine did not behave in a manner typically assumed of our technological age I still felt it was "manned" for lack of a better word. It just didn't "feel" alien although feelings aren't really worth much

reply to post by Sendran

Could it be that at 2300, correctly identifying the object seen is made more difficult by the low light levels at any time of year, therefore leading to the UFO conclusion?

Good point. It probably does have an influence on reports.

The NUFORC database has over 60 000 reports going back for years. Of those, some 9500 are 'single-point' lights. How many 'lights' can we see in a sunlit sky? At the same time, in summer months it's daylight almost until 11.

It'd be useful to find statistics relating to how many people in populated areas are outside in or around the eleventh hour. If there's a correlation between population and reports, we'd have to rethink it again.

It's complicated, huh?