Office of the Secretary of Defense: 25_Sky_View_Final_Draft

025
sightings would exhibit little to no spatial pattern, and are unlikely to follow a pattern that can be
explained by first-order visibility indicators as our results show. Another question is, are there
any temporal and/or geographic errors? These errors are possible, because some entries into this
dataset are historical and presented from memory, not always in the first person. We attempt to
limit this by using data from 2001-present, rather than using data that was retroactively added to
the database, but that does not completely remove the issue. Also, by upscaling the data to the
county level, the locational estimates are placed more firmly into a spatial aggregate that has a
greater likelihood of being accurate. A final issue we consider is that these reported cases require
knowledge of NUFORC and access to communications. The authors found the website and
organization while searching for data. Some may find the website while searching for an
organization to report to. Still, there is likely bias in who has knowledge of this resource, and
since it is not widely advertised many people may not be aware of it. In all, we believe this
dataset to be valuable, at least in the sense that either, this is where people are seeing things they
can’t explain (or that they don’t want to explain with more logical explanations), or this is where
people are thinking more about UAPs. Both of these are important and have physical/social
implications.
For questions 2 and 3, There are credibly identifiable patterns to these sightings, and
these patterns relate to environmental and landscape characteristics. We use physical factors of
light pollution, tree canopy, and average annual cloud cover, as well as airborne clutter factors of
air traffic and military installations. These variables should work, generally, to represent both 1)
the opportunity to see something and 2) the potential for something human constructed to be in
the field of view. We have not considered satellites or drones, which are likely important factors,
nor the fact that airplanes (and helicopters, etc.) do not only fly around their takeoff and landing
locations. However, around these locations we use, aircraft are likely to be closer to the ground,
more visible, and more frequently present. Using the military installation data, we hope to
capture, not only aircraft, but also nighttime training activities that might use, for example, tracer
rounds, drones, and other forms of illumination in relatively desolate areas.
If we assume that the large majority of sightings in this dataset are actually representative
of true sightings that people determined to be unidentified, then our results have interesting
implications. Our model shows that the majority of sightings are in the western parts of the U.S.
and in the very northeast. There are also some isolated counties throughout the rest of the
country that warrant further investigation to identify which properties may generate relatively
more UAP attention. These results consider all independent variables; however, cloud cover is
not credible. Why clouds don’t seem to affect UAP sightings is a good question and may have
something to do with the spatial distribution of sightings where high likelihood areas exist in
coastal regions of the Pacific Northwest (relatively clouded), as well as desert regions of the
Mountain West (relatively clear). All the other variable relationships are as expected and align
with our initial hypotheses, that people report more sightings where they have a better view of
the sky. The question now is why? This research begins to answer this question by considering
how much human made airborne activity is occurring. The strong credible relationships with airPage determined to be Unclassified
Reviewed by Chief of Staff, AARO
IAW FY24 NDAA, Section 1841 (a)(1)(C)
Date: 02/06/2025