UFO Hunting Season (places and times)

[WhatTheHey]

  Hello all, I do some sky watching on occasion and have had conversations with friends about where to look for UFOs. While most people are aware of places that are called "hot spots" that are places that seem to have high numbers of sightings'. I hardly ever hear anyone talking about a good time, or month of the year to go looking.
  So I did a bit of research to see what I could find and found there to be quite a few places on the internet that show a pattern in the data accumulated over the years.
  The following link is to NUFORC where they have a easily read pattern correlating months of the year and number of sightings. If you look at the highest numbers there is a repeating pattern involving the months from 6 to 9. And of those months, 7 and 8 are the most active for sightings in most years.

http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/ndxevent.html

  I hope this info may help those of us who are sky watchers that can't travel to the "hot spots" as often as we would like.  At least we can time our watching so we have better odds.
  This could be a good place to log sighting locations also. Without a personal account of what was seen, just the places, date and times.

Whatthehey

[Pimander]

The peak times for UFO sightings correspond closely to when people are out of doors and there are clear skies.  There is no evidence that there are more objects to spot, only that there are more sightings when there are people to have sightings.

Basically the summer months....


I had my big encounter in November.

[zorgon]

I had my big encounter in November.

Still waiting for your report in triplicate

[WhatTheHey]

  Hi Pimander, I was thinking this very thing at first. But after looking at the evidence showing how people are influenced by media and how the information released causes UFO flaps or waves. It would seem that the overall number of sightings would be more spread out over the months of the year because the media report UFOs as they get them, not just in summer months. I have looked into the number of sightings in Australia  for their summer months (December. January and February) and did not see higher numbers. However the lists I was able to find were not set up for this data.
  Also summer is not the best time of year to go sky watching in all places. My friends and I have done much sky watching here in the desert. We tend to actually do most our trips during the fall and start of winter as do others because it is just to hot until then, even at night. However there are many people even groups that spend time all year watching the skies and they also seem to make more sightings in the months from June to September most in July and August. I tried to get a list of numbers and dates of sightings from MUFON but was not able to find one.
  Maybe it would be a fun idea to test. Summer does not occur in the same months around the planet of course. So if the number is only do to people being out and about, it should be the same type of relatively higher numbers of sightings in the summer months around the glob. As of yet I have not been able to find a list of sightings from other countries laid out to show numbers and months like at NUFORC. They do have lists of sightings from all over the world on the internet, but I have had to read though other listings at length just to find dates. (Posting dates are often not the same as the sighting dates.) From what I have seen, if it is do to just warmer weather it's isolated to the USA in that way. For instance the UFO flap that was going on in Japan started about the same time as the earth quake and tsunami in March 2011. There are many examples of these media related flaps but they don't seem to be correlating with any times associated with summer.
It would be interesting to see if higher numbers of sightings are reported during these same months around the planet. If so, then it would not be because of the weather. Do to summer not being in the same months in both hemispheres.
At any rate it is just a observation of a pattern and the reason for its being may or may not be as simple as weather. Wouldn't it be something to find out that a certain planet or galaxy's orbit allowed for interstellar vectoring to earth in those same summer months. It's a fun thing to look into!

Have fun always! Whatthehey

[sky otter]

The peak times for UFO sightings correspond closely to when people are out of doors

total agreement on that one...

back when i was taking care of horses late at night was when i saw things i don't see now
i'm not out as late  now
doesn't mean there is nothing to see now ..just the percentage of chance is reduced by time
outside at night

i wish i would have written the dates on a calendar  but we weren't thinking of it then
so any advice i would give is to have a nice little notebook for things like that and write
down the dates with your observence and thoughts and anything else you can think of
it really will make a difference later..

[A51Watcher]

I think you are on the right track by scanning current media and UFO sites for current activity and then going there (if possible).


Back when I was chasing sightings I did the same, and I primarily used 3 outlets -

NUFORC is a good place to check, which I see you already did.

UFO magazine also always had current flaps and sightings.


But the most comprehensive was always the UFO newsclipping service.

Each month a nice stack of copies of newclippings from around the world dealing with all sightings. Reading that each month it was pretty easy to see what countries and cities The Aliens were currently on tour.   



But then a copy of the Las Vegas newscast dropped into my lap and the rest is history. 



eta: gotta agree with Pim and sky on sighting numbers relating to chilly/inclement weather.

[zorgon]

CRITTER type of "UFO"

Best viewing op is near an approaching or receding thunderstorm

[WhatTheHey]

 Looks like a bird or a bag in the stormy wind Z. lol