People have been asking if my wife and co-author, Linda Miller Costa, and I had made any discoveries when we were researching our book, UFO Sightings Desk Reference: United States of America 2001-2015. We actually made a number of previously unknown discoveries about the observation of UFOs, including a significant one called the “month pattern.”
Since I started writing the New York Skies blog, I have found that New York experiences a high season for UFO sightings, June through September, peaking in July and August. My assumption, and the conjecture from many readers, suggested that this was a fair weather pattern. Nicer weather gave a better opportunity for more observers to be outside for a chance to see a UFO. We also took for granted that the every place would have a pattern like this.
When my wife was laying out the book, she began to notice that there were different monthly patterns in certain states. She also noted that they seemed to be latitude dependent. In Northern states, the observer pattern followed a strong rise during the summer months.
Linda also noted that in mid-Southern states, the monthly pattern with high numbers of summer season sightings began to level out with the year-round baseline of sightings. This is nicely illustrated in our monthly chart for Maryland. We observed this pattern of the mid-South, flattening on states across the country that are at the same general latitude.
Finally, as we moved into the deep Southern states, we discovered that UFO sighting reports leveled out and became a generally flat baseline, as we see in our Arizona monthly chart.
New hypothesis: If the seasonal weather is generally mild, more people are outside and can be observers. Also take into account the weekend phenomena, that most people have weekends off. Our data observation suggests the concept that moderate weather and regularly scheduled leisure time are conducive to outdoors activity and affects the observation of Unidentified Flying Objects.
There are some subtle variations in the pattern. For instance Florida, while it has the general flattened characteristics of other deep Southern states, we see significant sighting spikes in the winter months. We have attributed this to the migration of people to Florida in the winter months. Again, this is all supposing the postulation that temperate weather and leisure time are conducive for sky watching and possible UFO observation.
Let’s look at some recent UFO sightings in New York Skies:
April 12, 2017: At 9 p.m., a resident of Massapequa reported a large, bright white light moving slowly high above her house. She said it made no noise whatsoever and just hovered.
April 13, 2017: At 6:20 p.m., a motorist in Ronkonkoma observed a huge black object hovering in the sky as he was driving eastbound on the Long Island Expressway.
April 14, 2017: At 9 p.m., a resident of Woodbury noticed a bright blue diamond shaped object in the sky outside their window. He said it descended to a low altitude for several seconds, then silently vanished.
If you are interested in joining a monthly UFO discussion group in the Onondaga County area, drop Cheryl an email at [email protected]. If you have a UFO sighting to report, you can use either one of the two national database services: nuforc.org or mufon.com. Both services respect confidentiality. Follow me on Twitter @American_Skies.