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with high probabilities is located in the northwest, as well as isolated counties spread throughout
the eastern U.S.
Figure 4 Exceedance Probability for U.S. County UAP Reported Sightings, 2001-2020
Discussion and Conclusions
We recall here our initial research questions: 1) What is the viability of publicly offered
data on UAP sightings? 2) Are there credible spatial patterns to these sightings? and 3) If so, can
these patterns be explained by physical and/or built environment factors? For question 1, the
publicly available data from NUFORC online are useable data; however, they require processing
to make them usable in a GIS for spatial analysis. There are also some errors that we took the
liberty of correcting based on missing coordinates due to inaccurate city name spellings. All of
the necessary data are present to make this research successful, and more are provided to inform
our future research on this topic. It should also be noted that these data can be used for finer
resolution (city level) research, rather than county level used here.
The main question that hinders our faith in the research findings is, are these volunteered
data valid? The short answer is that, it is likely that some are and some aren’t. How much of this
dataset is valid is questionable. However, we suggest that if the data were entirely invalid, thePage determined to be Unclassified
Reviewed by Chief of Staff, AARO
IAW FY24 NDAA, Section 1841 (a)(1)(C)
Date: 02/06/2025