Do aliens love America? 92% of UFO sightings take place in the United States

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — If aliens are real, they must really like studying American culture. A recent poll finds the United States is the UFO hotspot of the entire world — and it’s not even close.

According to a survey, commissioned by BonusFinder.com, a staggering 92 percent of all reported UFO sightings take place in the U.S. — with 126,094 reported sightings across all states since record-keeping began. America’s neighbor to the north, Canada, comes in second with just 5,696 sightings during the same period. Interestingly, alien “spacecraft” like to stick around longer up north, with UFO incidents in Canada lasting for over five hours per sighting. The United Kingdom reported the third-most sightings with 3,146.

No matter where people are seeing strange objects in the sky, the story is often the same. The poll finds the most common UFO description is of strangely-shaped lights in the sky.

In the United States, California tops the list of UFO hotspots nationally. Since UFO record-keeping began, there have been 15,480 sightings reported across the state. Florida (7,835), Washington (6,889), Texas (5,814), New York (5,627) round out the top five UFO hotspots in the survey.

Pennsylvania finished sixth on this list, but UFOs here tend to stick around longer than anywhere else in the country, staying in sight for just under 40 minutes per “visit.”

“It’s difficult to tell whether we’re seeing a genuine spike in UFO sightings – and if so, what this means – or whether what’s happening is that a higher proportion of sightings is being reported, as a result of the current mainstream media coverage of this subject. Sometimes the fear of being disbelieved or ridiculed can dissuade people from coming forward, but the stigma has decreased sharply in recent years as a result of the U.S. Navy UFO videos, interest from the U.S. Congress, and numerous other revelations about military UFO sightings and government engagement on the subject. The subject has come out of the fringe and into the mainstream, which has led to lots more people speaking out about their own sightings and encounters,” says Nick Pope, who investigated UFOs for the British Government, in a statement.

Experts at BonusFinder.com analyzed data from the National UFO Reporting Center State Report Index, in regard to UFO sightings in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The records cover sighting up until Feb. 15, 2023.

Even college professors are seeing ‘little green men’

Another new survey reveals that almost one-fifth of academics report encounters with unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) — which most people still refer to as UFOs. Of the 1,460 university professors in the poll, 19 percent claimed they or someone they knew saw an unidentified flying object moving through the sky.

The survey, taken by academics across 144 U.S. universities and spanning 14 disciplines, exposes a keen interest among some of the brightest minds to unravel the mysteries in our skies. As many as 37 percent expressed a degree of interest in conducting research into UAPs.

Despite being distributed to nearly 40,000 academics, the response rate for the survey was only four percent. The demographic distribution of participants was predominantly male (62%) and White (80%). The survey queried their perceptions and experiences concerning UFOs and their sightings.

Of the academic disciplines represented, political science, physics, and psychology each accounted for 10 percent of the respondents, while engineering represented six percent. Interestingly, while 19 percent of the respondents believed they or someone they knew had witnessed a UAP, and another nine percent reported a possible encounter with a UFO.

These phenomena can leave even the most intellectually capable individuals baffled, with two in five respondents admitting they could not explain these sightings. Conversely, just over one in five attributed the phenomena to natural events, and 13 percent said they were the work of devices of unknown intelligence.

Despite 36 percent expressing some interest in conducting research in this area, only four percent had actually done so. Many cited the lack of existing research in the field as a hindrance. In fact, 43 percent of participants claimed they would be more likely to carry out research if a reputable scholar in their discipline did so first. Similarly, 55 percent said they would be more inclined to conduct research if they could secure their own funding.

“The findings suggest that many US academics across disciplines consider academia’s involvement in research into UAP to be important and may be cautiously willing to engage with research into UAP, particularly if others they consider to be reputable within their field do so,” the study authors write in a media release.

“Open discussions of UAP among academics could enable greater academic involvement in UAP-related research.”

Interestingly, over one in three ranked the importance of further research into UFO sightings as either very important or absolutely essential. Similarly, 64 percent considered academia’s involvement in UAP-related research as very important or absolutely essential.

This study is published in the journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.

South West News Service writer Alice Clifford contributed to this report.