The majority of UFO sightings appear to occur out west, so if you’re hoping to catch a glimpse of one yourself, that’s where you should be headed. A study found that the western states of the U.S. have been hot spots for sightings over the last two decades.
This is likely due to the expansive and relatively cloudless views of the night sky commonly found in the western U.S. And while many of these supposed alien sightings are usually just human-made objects like satellites or rockets, it’s still important to gather the data for a number of reasons. For example, the National UFO Reporting Center, a non-governmental nonprofit, can use reports of UFOs — or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), as they call them — to help track enemy tech in our airspace.
“By examining the spatial distribution of reports and how they relate to the local environment, we hope to provide some geographical context that may help resolve or understand reports by both the public and in military settings,” said Simon Brewer, associate professor of geography at the University of Utah and co-author of the study.
