UFOs are big these days. Congress has been talking about them. The New York Times has been talking about them. And, as should be expected, lunatics online have been talking about them. The reason everybody is talking about them is that they seem to be everywhere. From sea to shining sea, Americans are seeing weird lights in the sky. But which state has the most sightings?
To help answer this vital question, Newsweek has pulled together a U.S. map showing all of our nation’s UFO-related hot spots. The map is based on data provided by the National UFO Reporting Center, a longstanding non-profit based in Washington state that has been collecting and analyzing data on UFO sightings for decades. The Center says its “primary function over the past five decades has been to receive, record, and to the greatest degree possible, corroborate and document reports from individuals who have been witness to unusual, possibly UFO-related events.” According to its data, there have been as many as 133,717 reported UFO sightings in the U.S. since 1995.
So which state gets the most action? The winner is (*drum roll*): California!
According to the National UFO Reporting Center, the Golden State has had as many as 16,444 sightings since the non-profit first started collecting data. The runners-up would seem to be Florida (with 8408 sightings), Washington state (which has 7,297), and Texas (6288 sightings). Then there are some states that are veritable losers when it comes to the UFO tally—places like North Dakota (which has only had 278 sightings) and Washington D.C. (a mere 156 sightings).
In many ways, California’s status as the reigning UFO champ makes a lot of sense. After all, it is America’s most populous state by a pretty considerable margin, which means that there are more people and, thus, more opportunities for said people to think they’ve seen something weird in the sky and report it. Another thing that might be worth pointing out is that California is one of the states with the most U.S. Air Force bases in it. Given the theory that a lot of UFOs are actually government aircraft, this could also have something to do with the high number of sightings.
If you’ve seen a UFO, and you’d like to report it, the Center operates a 24-hour hotline (206-722-3000) where you can call in and share your story. The organization also kindly asks potential report filers to consider whether what they’ve seen may have been a satellite, a rocket launch, or a planet.
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