Office of the Secretary of Defense: 25_Sky_View_Final_Draft

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Figure 2 NUFORC Reported Sighting Spatial Distribution for the Conterminous U.S. from
2001-2020
In the spatial sciences, data like these are typically referred to as Volunteered
Geographical Information (VGI). VGI are geographic information that are volunteered either
knowingly or unknowingly by individuals, typically with the assistance of location enabled
digital tools (Goodchild, 2007), and the issues connected to the use of these datasets has been
extensively discussed. Those vulnerabilities are present here, along with others given the nature
of this dataset. Like with other crowdsourced data, there is little hope for assurance of quality for
VGI (Goodchild and Li, 2012). This problem is furthered in this dataset where some may be
trying to actively disinform. It is clear that these data cannot be verified, and even if interviews
with each person were possible, there would be issues determining truth and accuracy, especially
given the historical attributes of the reports. However, NUFORC does include disclaimers on
their reporting page to help remove false reports. First, they provide information including
descriptions, images, and video of Starlink Satellites, which can look unidentified to those that
have not seen them before. Second, they provide a description of Venus, which was discussed
previously as a potential for unidentified sightings. Third, NUFORC discusses hoax and joke
reports, which are said to be ignored and discarded (NUFORC, 2023c). Given the size and
structure of the data, it is not clear that all hoaxes can be identified, but at least NUFORC is
paying attention to hoax cases. Nor can we differentiate those sightings that have obvious and/or
logical explanations, but we note that these still represent an ‘unidentified’ sighting. Still, this isPage determined to be Unclassified
Reviewed by Chief of Staff, AARO
IAW FY24 NDAA, Section 1841 (a)(1)(C)
Date: 02/06/2025