Author: Cheryl Costa

In the spring of 2013, I walked into the office of Syracuse New Times editor-in-chief Larry Dietrich. We had a 20-minute conversation about UFOs, and at the end of the chat he invited me to show him five PowerPoint Pitch slides. Afterward, he agreed to try my New York Skies UFO blog-column for a month. At the end of the month, he told me I was doing great and to keep doing what I was doing. Since that time, I have authored more than 250 articles focused on UFO sightings, history, sighting statistics, and of course, the topic of disclosure.…

For more than 70 years, our government has been tight-lipped about the nature of UFOs and the extraterrestrial presence among us. In the late 1940s and 1950s, the great fear was that the revelation of the truth about off-world beings would instill fear upon the vast majority of our population. In those days top government officials only needed to point to Orson Welles’ 1938 The War of the Worlds radio broadcast that terrified a lot of people. There was also great fear in government circles that the truth about other realities and extraterrestrial beings would impact the world’s religious belief…

So this guy comes up to me and says, “Hey, Costa! You’ve got no PROOF of real alien craft coming here.” I told him I have 147,801 eyewitness accounts. “So what!” he replies. “Some percentage is bogus.” “OK, let’s take 25% right off the top,” I proposed. “Nope!” He says, “So much more is bogus.” Related: Blog | UFO Data: What it has and doesn’t have on what’s out there I thought about what he said and then offered, “Dr. Jacques Vallee says roughly 80% is noise. Cheryl and Linda Costa suggest 70% is noise. Is a 70% cut in…

Recently I was a speaker at the weeklong immersion event UFOMegacon in Laughlin, Nevada, where I spoke with lots of attendees and other speakers. One of the things I noted in these conversations and was the UFO Comfort Factor. For the past six years, I have shared UFO sighting stories in this blog. One element that we tracked was the receptivity to some of the subject matter. If we posted a UFO sighting story from the late 19th or early 20th centuries, the account received an enormous response considering the many page views and comments. The response was also huge…

As a UFO researcher and journalist, folks frequently ask me about when people observe UFOs. I usually smile and reply, “That’s not an easy answer.” After Linda Miller Costa and I built the UFO sightings database which we used to create our 2017 book, UFO Sighting Desk Reference, we began a process of analyzing the raw data on a relatively superficial level. In 2017 we could tell you that UFO sighting reports were generally driven by three principal factors: population, temperate weather and leisure time. Since 2018, we’ve had the opportunity to dig deeper into the data, which now totals…

My gut opinion has been that I didn’t think the theory of “the 37th Parallel” would hold up to statistical science. I wasn’t wrong.

When Linda Miller Costa and I published our UFO Sightings Desk Reference book in spring 2017, a curious thing happened. We began receiving email and social media commentary asking why we only measured the UFO sighting magnitudes from 2001 through 2015. Many communications asked “Why didn’t you go back 40 years? For the record, prior to the early 1990s, most UFO sighting reports were filed with newspapers, radio stations, law enforcement and private sighting collection groups. The U.S. government also collected such data from 1952 to 1969 through Project Blue Book, a program that was terminated in 1969. For years…

Readers who follow the yearly UFO sighting trends here at New York Skies are probably aware that reports have been falling off rather steeply. From a high of 13,985 in 2014 to a measly 6,933 in 2018, that translates to a clear 50 percent decline in incremental amounts over the past four years. Of course, we’ve been here before: 12 years ago in 2007, when UFO sighting reports were on the rise. Many of us were pleased by the leveling off but still climbing numbers; it was reassurance that UFO sighting activity was huge. Those of us who study these…

The Hudson Valley has a long history of strange paranormal occurrences. Most notable was the UFO wave of the 1980s, which began with sighting reports of boomerang-shaped UFOs in 1981. The wave of various UFO sightings peaked in 1983 and 1984 with many thousands of reports, followed by many books and documentaries about the subject. Legendary author Whitley Strieber had his alien abduction experiences during the mid-1980s near Middletown, New York, which he wrote about in his well-known book Communion. The wave also led to the establishment of the Pine Bush UFO Festival in Crawford Township, which straddles Ulster and…

Despite being offered tailored UFO sightings data, local news stations nationwide passed on the opportunity. Why isn’t there better media examination?

Why are extraterrestrials here? It’s the most common question I get asked during media interviews, at UFO conferences, and from just everyday people who know I write about the subject. The answer isn’t easy because Earth humans don’t have a clue regarding the extraterrestrials’ interests. In our own culture we all have different motivations, be it fame, fortune, family life and other influences. We’re certainly not all the same in terms of our needs, desires and pursuits. Cultural aspects play a big part in our interests and outlook. I’ve met people who have told me they’ve never seen Star Trek…

Police officer Lonnie Zamora was on patrol on Friday, April 24, 1964, at about 5:50 p.m. in the outskirts of his jurisdiction in Socorro County, New Mexico, when he witnessed the approach of an egg-shaped craft where he was driving. The craft was spewing great amounts of flames just before it landed in the desert. The UFO sighting and landing event was thoroughly investigated back in the day by the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, the FBI and various civilian groups. To this day, it’s a famous event in UFO history. In recent years the case was reopened and carefully…

Experts estimate only 1-in-10 people who experienced a UFO sighting reported it. But could it be much more than that?

During a writer’s workshop held last summer, I was part of a nonfiction mentoring track. I was having evaluations of selected pieces from a memoir I’m writing. The judging was on the mark, and I was very appreciative of the critiques. Also during the event, the attendees were asked to pass a talking stick around, with each author sharing the topics they had already published. Each person’s declaration was greeted with smiles and sometimes light applause from other authors of similar genres or those who were familiar with their work. When I received the talking stick, I explained that I…

What is witchcraft? It’s a form of spirituality and a religion with many sects, like any other faith.