The first step toward identifying what unidentified flying objects (UFOs) actually are might just be mapping where these enigmas are most sighted, a new study says.
Geographers with the University of Utah — working with the Pentagon‘s recently retired UFO chief Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick — analyzed roughly 98,000 total UFO reports spanning a 20-year period across the 21st Century, from 2001 to 2020.
The researchers aggressively cross-referenced the data by local population density, light pollution levels, annual cloud cover, ‘tree canopy’ cover, proximity to airports and military bases and a host of other factors that effect the number UFO sightings.
What they found was statistical proof of the long assumed ‘historical relationship’ between UFOs and the American West.
Their study’s county-by-county assessment turned up hot spots or ‘red zones’ most often just east of the Rockies or off toward the Pacific Ocean — but also a few odd outliers, including Georgetown county, South Carolina and Union, Kentucky.
Hellbound and Down 