Increasing your chances of spotting a UFO

Hello everyone! I've been fascinated with UFOs and aliens for a long time now and I've looked at a lot of pictures and videos on the web and heard of numerous people with encounters as well. But just recently, I've been wondering what it would be like to actually see one of this things in person. Anyone's got any ideas on how to increase your chances of spotting one? I've been keeping an eye on the sky and carrying my camera everywhere I go for the past week and will continue to do so just in case I come across something interesting. Are there any specific places I should check out? I live in California and I'm not sure if there's a lot of activity here. Any thoughts, comments, or ideas will be greatly appreciated.

There isn't really anything you can do to increase your chance in spotting a UFO. If we did have tricks to make UFO's more frequent, I think most of us would use them, unfortunatly, we don't. In the meantime, keep your eyse open and your camera close by, whatever looks suspicious, take a picture, you never know what might show up. Heck, many people that have taken UFO photographs have said that they didn't see the UFO until the picture was developped! Anyways, here's my thread I started a while back, there's some pretty good info on it.

Spotting UFO's

-Jimmy-

That is a good question! I am a UFO "believer" although I have never seen a UFO. My "belief" is based on my research of the topic and the thought that every single UFO report cannot be false. I know that there are tons of hoaxes and tons of mis-identified objects but the evidence is too vast to be all a "mistake" IMHO. Every time I am out for a walk I look up, but so far no luck. Hopefully we will get some good tips.

Well, by far, your best chances of spotting a UAP/UFO is between 9:00 pm and 2:00 am. Of course there are many things in the night sky that can be easily confused for UAP/UFOs as well so that should be kept in mind.

That said UAP/UFOs can be seen at just about any time of day or night.

I'd say that chances are typically greater in Rural areas as opposed to Urban areas, or areas near Airports or other strategic locations tend to have higher incidences of UAP/UFO activity. Again, areas near Airports especially can lead to false alarms.

Then there are a few places that seem to have almost regular activity, these have atractted scientific interest, one of these places is located in Southern Arizona.

So I'd say your best bet to see and film a UAP would be to start going camping in Rural areas or even better Southern Arizona if possible, making sure to be extra vigilant between 9:00 pm and 2:00 am.

Ya never know. I always carry a camera and a compass in my vehicle, just in case. I did see a green ball of light once with my family. It was about half a second is all, just enough to register on the retina. My family saw it, too. Bunch of people did, but they contradicted which way it was traveling when it came out in the media. That's why the compass. I'm pretty sure it was a meteor or space junk burning up in the atmosphere, but it was still dramatic. That's too quick a sighting to get the camera out, of course. I've been thinking of switching to a digicam because it's more versatile. I asked some questions on this thread and got some good answers on what kind to get.

Originally posted by peter51
Anyone's got any ideas on how to increase your chances of spotting one?

Hey, dude. I don't mean to sound like a smart arse, but one of the simplest ways would be to keep looking up!

I would be lucky to spend five minutes looking at the sky each night. That's 5/1440 or approximately 0.35% of my time looking for UFOs.

While driving my car, I do keep an eye out on the sky ahead of me - I've trained myself to do that. So, I could probably add another twenty minutes to the count. However, those minutes are only spent focussing on very specific directions and don't allow me to survey the entire sky.

It would stand to reason that the more time you spend looking up, the more chances you have of seeing something. Remember, even looking up for a whole hour is only about 4.2% of the day covered.

Personally, I would prefer a daylight sighting if I could - more opportunity for better pictures and better ability to judge size and distance. Good luck to those people who work outside, most of the day!

Hey, dude. I don't mean to sound like a smart arse, but one of the simplest ways would be to keep looking up!

That's exactly the same thought that came to mind when thinking of way of increasing my chances of actually seeing one. And you're right, we really don't look up at the sky very often, I think if we did, we would have a lot more sightings. I'm also interested in knowing of any specific areas around the US (and maybe California since I live there) that are known for being "hot spots" when it comes to UFOs. Any ideas?

yep keep looking up

I always look skyward any opportunity and at the very least have a 4 megapixel camera with me.

Also getting as high up a hill / mountain as possible on a good clear night furthers your chances of seeing someting ( living in scotland im always never far from a mountain! ), plus its just a quality way to relax from the stresses of the day to sit in the dark and chill out for an hour or so skywatching.

For the record ive seen two ufo's and ive had a comet fly overhead in a huge fireball ( it sounded like a fighterjet doing a flyby). All can be read about by searching my username threads.

Be in the right place at the right time.

It mostly depends on where you live. Any rural area is good... especially if there's cows. I hear the great lakes have quite a bit of ufo activity.

I lived in Northern Arkansas for 8 years and had many sightings. I lived in a rural area and took a walk every night around midnight. Keep your eye on the sky and you're bound to see something eventually.

Originally posted by peter51
Hello everyone! I've been fascinated with UFOs and aliens for a long time now and I've looked at a lot of pictures and videos on the web and heard of numerous people with encounters as well. But just recently, I've been wondering what it would be like to actually see one of this things in person. Anyone's got any ideas on how to increase your chances of spotting one? I've been keeping an eye on the sky and carrying my camera everywhere I go for the past week and will continue to do so just in case I come across something interesting. Are there any specific places I should check out? I live in California and I'm not sure if there's a lot of activity here. Any thoughts, comments, or ideas will be greatly appreciated.

i can only tell you that ufos look like stars or satelites and they glow and have some kind of shape, thats all i know about them. they have various colours and sizes. seek out a far out place where there is no light coming from your surrounding area, so you will have a better and more clear sight on the stars.
but dont get abducted, lol! take a gun, a camera and some food with you, then you´re fine. take a telescope also with you, if you have one. watch every object moving at the night sky.

[edit on 9/6/07 by cometa]

I have to tell you that I am a bit tired of lights in the sky at night. To me your garden variety unidentified light in the night sky is not much of a UFO (though it may be technically.) I have a hot tub. I am in it looking up nearly every night for half an hour or so. I live pretty far north, so it's pushing daylight out there as we head toward the summer solstice, but nine out of 12 months it's pure darkness. And there is not a single moment any time that I can NOT see a light moving in the sky. Usually it's an airplane, and obvious that it is. But I've seen meteors, baloons, dirigibles (a strange yellow one), satellites (I saw the Sputnik booster rocket), lots of military stuff (I'm surrounded!) and who knows what 'up there.' I even saw Hale-Bopp (sans saucer.) Interesting? Sure, but exciting? No.

Gimme a black triangle in daylight. Gimme a saucer with portholes. Gimme a drone at 100 feet up hovering over the power lines. I don't care, gimme a darned Beam Ship, for God's sake! Surround then all with Black Helicopters. But lights in the sky? Gimme a break. To me, they are not impressive. [/rant] Sorry.

Although I have seen over 30 sightings in my life , it's funny you should ask, whenever I have a sighting, I am NOT looking, just going about my own buisness. On the other hand I spend every other waking moment 'Looking'. Funny how that works huh?

Originally posted by antar
Although I have seen over 30 sightings in my life , it's funny you should ask, whenever I have a sighting, I am NOT looking, just going about my own buisness. On the other hand I spend every other waking moment 'Looking'. Funny how that works huh?

You know, antar, I think that is a key thought somehow, particularly when applied to the High Strangeness factors that seem to be associated with the phenomena. I remember reading an account of faeries that said you could only see them out of the corner of your eye, but if you looked directly at them, they would disappear. Only peripheral vision worked. I have noticed in my own life that if I went directly after something, it didn't work, but if it was a more or less kind-of sideways thought, it did. I have lots of examples, but one of my favorites is that years ago I was a young man in search of a job in my profession. I lived on an island in the middle of Puget Sound (Vashon). My job search was focused on Seattle, the major metropolitan area in Washington State. I'd go to Seattle every day in search of work. The ferry boat also went in the opposite direction, to the Kitsap Peninsula, and I thought, fleetingly, you know, there might be work in Bremerton, but I let that go and focused on Seattle-Seattle-Seattle. I finally did get a job, in Bremerton, where I stayed for thirty years.

This may be a bit woo-woo for some here, but it happened to me. And the same thing has happened more than once. It's part of 'letting it flow.' Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

In The Mothman Prophecies, John Keel writes that statistically, your best time to see UFO's (at least when he did his study in the 1970's) is on a Wednesday night just after 10:00 p.m. local time.

Keel writes that originally, he thought it was an artifact of his statistics, but that he investigated, and found it was true even among skywatchers who were out every single night of the week.

It was the first bit of data that nudged him in the direction that UFO's are not interstellar spacecraft piloted by extraterrestrials. If they honestly "knew nothing of earth life," then how did they know when to appear?

[edit on 9-6-2007 by dr_strangecraft]

Originally posted by peter51
Anyone's got any ideas on how to increase your chances of spotting one?

Drugs. And lots of them.

If you don't have access to drugs try chugging 4 litres of Mountain Dew. You'll be seeinga all kinds of crazy crap. Hopefully, the UFOs will be inside your bathroom because you will have to pee. A lot.

I live in a rural area, and my grampa use to live right near like a couple kilometers. He used to always see ufos always coming down at the same angle in the same location. He thinks that its a area in the atmoshpere that is easier to enter at. And no there isnt a air port or a base near by.
Now ive lived here for 20 years and ive never seen anything.. thou i did manage to see somthing come down recently but it flew... 'regular', so its hard to say wether i seen anything.

Look up... more. That is all the info you need to know.


In all my sky watching experience, I have never seen anything I could not explain.

Originally posted by peter51
Hello everyone! I've been fascinated with UFOs and aliens for a long time now and I've looked at a lot of pictures and videos on the web and heard of numerous people with encounters as well. But just recently, I've been wondering what it would be like to actually see one of this things in person. Anyone's got any ideas on how to increase your chances of spotting one? I've been keeping an eye on the sky and carrying my camera everywhere I go for the past week and will continue to do so just in case I come across something interesting. Are there any specific places I should check out? I live in California and I'm not sure if there's a lot of activity here. Any thoughts, comments, or ideas will be greatly appreciated.

If someone tells you where to look then they are an actual alien because no human has that information. And if they did I would very much like to see them and hear what they have to say.

I guess you could look up.

Originally posted by schuyler
I have to tell you that I am a bit tired of lights in the sky at night. To me your garden variety unidentified light in the night sky is not much of a UFO (though it may be technically.)

Remember that "Lights in the Sky" are what people commonly report and that 90% or so are easily explained as normal occurence.

Only about 10% or less represent actual sightings of UAP.

Originally posted by schuyler
I have a hot tub. I am in it looking up nearly every night for half an hour or so. I live pretty far north, so it's pushing daylight out there as we head toward the summer solstice, but nine out of 12 months it's pure darkness. And there is not a single moment any time that I can NOT see a light moving in the sky. Usually it's an airplane, and obvious that it is. But I've seen meteors, baloons, dirigibles (a strange yellow one), satellites (I saw the Sputnik booster rocket), lots of military stuff (I'm surrounded!) and who knows what 'up there.' I even saw Hale-Bopp (sans saucer.) Interesting? Sure, but exciting? No.

The thing is that UAP don't always follow normal rationalizations. For instance I've had a close encounter with a UAP that was only feet above ground level. I've been a natural born Skywatcher my entire life, but never have I seen anything strange in the sky that I couldn't explain! The one time I did see something it was a close encounter and the UAP was only feet above the ground not up in the Sky!

Originally posted by schuyler
Gimme a black triangle in daylight. Gimme a saucer with portholes. Gimme a drone at 100 feet up hovering over the power lines. I don't care, gimme a darned Beam Ship, for God's sake! Surround then all with Black Helicopters. But lights in the sky? Gimme a break. To me, they are not impressive. [/rant] Sorry.

Let there be no doubt, IMO no matter what UAP are, they care definately the most impresive and interesting things that occure in Earth's Atmosphere.