Newsgroups: alt.paranet.ufo,alt.ufo.reports
From: kymhorsell@gmail.com
Subject: ufo distribution across N Am

[uploaded 48 times; last 17/09/2024]

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
- The number of UFO sightings seen in different regions depend on the size
  of the local population and its distribution.  But across the USA
  the latitude plays an even more important part.
- Sightings density tends to increase toward the N, W, and E but not S.
- Other data from Canada suggests sightings hug the coasts up there
  indicating objects seen in the US may be coming along the coasts
  from the (far) north, in particular the Bering Sea.


A few months back when I started churning through the numbers for UFO
sightings I contacted quite a few of the UFO organisations around the
world. One of the nice replies came from CUFOS.ORG -- the group founded
by Allen Hynek et al back in the 1970s.

Mark Rodeghier at CUFOS described the analysis of the data up to this
point as "in its infancy" and sent me one of those papers that are
lauded for meticulous scholarship. IOW something I could not have the
patience to do in a mn years. :)

The paper looked at trying to reconcile why some researchers find that
UFO sightings numbers across different regions/countries are related
to population density and some do not. Some find a +ve correlation and
some a -ve correlation.

The paper went through dozens of research efforts and attempted to
reconcile what was happening.

I recalled all this when I saw a headline flash across my screen in
the last week proclaiming Idaho the UFO capital of the USA.  
At least for 2020.

At an early point in the "churning" my s/w had pointed out there was a
distinct latitude-dependency in UFO sightings across N America.
Dividing the data up by state across years 1930-2020 showed the number
of sightings per state increased northward, eastward and westward.
Although sightings were attracted to coastlines, esp the Pacific coast,
there was no trend toward the Gulf Coast.

<http://kym.massbus.org/UFO/map.gif>

It therefore turned out to be sighting density was not just dependent on
local population density, but on latitude. And -- fly in ointment --
population density is dependent on latitude. E.g. the world's
population has largely clustered around latitude ~45N as a compromise
between avg temperatures and availability of water and agricultural
land.  The density falls off going N or S from +45.

But I've now thrown a 2nd gen mix of data through the stats programs and
a reasonable model for at least the USA has popped out.  It again
confirms there is a trend in increased sightings going N and W across
the country. It seems that allowing for population and population
density the UFO's are tending to come from the NW.

A similar effort with the Canada data from a 2nd curated source suggests a
very similar pattern up there. Allowing for population and population density
UFO sightings in the frigid north tend to hug the coasts indicating
anything reaching the US might have come down from the Arctic, perhaps
in particular the Bering Sea where local ocean and weather conditions
between Russia and Alaska seem to significantly modulate the flow of
things seen across the US.


The sighting density model for the US is as follows:


 REWEIGHTED LEAST SQUARES BASED ON THE LMS
 *****************************************
     VARIABLE     COEFFICIENT    STAND. ERROR     T - VALUE     P - VALUE
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------
          lat         0.41529         0.12501       3.32203       0.00206
          lon        -0.07626         0.04169      -1.82901       0.07569
          pop         3.10950         0.14535      21.39392       0.00000
         area       -23.42544        10.85533      -2.15797       0.03768
     CONSTANT       -19.93543         7.68344      -2.59460       0.01361
 WEIGHTED SUM OF SQUARES =       311.11493
 DEGREES OF FREEDOM      =        36
 SCALE ESTIMATE          =         2.93974
 COEFFICIENT OF DETERMINATION (R SQUARED) =        0.93677
 THE F-VALUE =      133.337 (WITH   4 AND   36 DF)   P - VALUE = 0.00000
 THERE ARE    41 POINTS WITH NON-ZERO WEIGHT.
 AVERAGE WEIGHT          =         0.80392

(This s/w can not display text so you have to guess which line is which
state; they are either ordered alphabetically or by latitude).

           OBSERVED           ESTIMATED            RESIDUAL   NO  RES/SC WEIGHT
           count/yr            count/yr
            6.04290             6.08698            -0.04408    1   -0.01   1.0
           12.98570            14.14938            -1.16368    2   -0.40   1.0
            9.84290             9.60738             0.23552    3    0.08   1.0
           42.32860            20.52796            21.80064    4    7.42   0.0
          140.14290           119.76287            20.38003    5    6.93   0.0
           28.38570            18.27372            10.11198    6    3.44   0.0
           18.92860            13.95098             4.97762    7    1.69   1.0
            1.14290             4.10019            -2.95729    8   -1.01   1.0
            3.95710             4.99765            -1.04055    9   -0.35   1.0
           77.27139            57.39838            19.87301   10    6.76   0.0
           25.85710            29.86574            -4.00864   11   -1.36   1.0
            6.61430             5.05934             1.55496   12    0.53   1.0
           11.20000            12.91805            -1.71805   13   -0.58   1.0
           12.57140            10.24589             2.32551   14    0.79   1.0
           36.95710            42.35933            -5.40223   15   -1.84   1.0
           21.74290            22.79092            -1.04802   16   -0.36   1.0
           10.51430            10.52305            -0.00875   17    0.00   1.0
           15.65710            14.90558             0.75152   18    0.26   1.0
           10.35710            13.39024            -3.03314   19   -1.03   1.0
           25.04290            23.68872             1.35418   20    0.46   1.0
           17.54290            20.35501            -2.81211   21   -0.96   1.0
           11.10000             7.28952             3.81048   22    1.30   1.0
           33.27140            33.96189            -0.69049   23   -0.23   1.0
           19.91430            21.20827            -1.29397   24   -0.44   1.0
           24.92860            20.26028             4.66832   25    1.59   1.0
            7.17140             8.71325            -1.54185   26   -0.52   1.0
            9.38570             7.70395             1.68175   27    0.57   1.0
           35.74290            30.43821             5.30469   28    1.80   1.0
            2.37140             8.04880            -5.67740   29   -1.93   1.0
            6.28570             8.65065            -2.36495   30   -0.80   1.0
           10.78570             7.44630             3.33940   31    1.14   1.0
           26.04290            29.95661            -3.91371   32   -1.33   1.0
           15.22860             6.26941             8.95918   33    3.05   0.0
           14.68570            11.05554             3.63016   34    1.23   1.0
           50.71430            63.28479           -12.57049   35   -4.28   0.0
           39.84290            38.16580             1.67710   36    0.57   1.0
           13.28570            12.58060             0.70510   37    0.24   1.0
           30.80000            17.85785            12.94215   38    4.40   0.0
           46.44290            41.47988             4.96302   39    1.69   1.0
            6.07140             6.07132             0.00008   40    0.00   1.0
           23.74290            14.42216             9.32074   41    3.17   0.0
            3.70000             6.89180            -3.19180   42   -1.09   1.0
           20.88570            20.75756             0.12814   43    0.04   1.0
           51.62860            76.55006           -24.92146   44   -8.48   0.0
           14.18570            12.34830             1.83740   45    0.63   1.0
           25.15710            26.47365            -1.31655   46   -0.45   1.0
            6.14290             5.63145             0.51145   47    0.17   1.0
           56.92860            29.13731            27.79129   48    9.45   0.0
           22.81430            21.86764             0.94666   49    0.32   1.0
            8.25710             7.41730             0.83980   50    0.29   1.0
            3.51430             5.52991            -2.01561   51   -0.69   1.0


The model claims to "explain" (R SQ) more than 90% of the
state-to-state variation in sightings (this model is based on
1950-2020 av sightings per year for each state+DC with no adjustments).
This is a fairly good fit as can be seen from the "observed vs expected"
part of the listing.

The "SCALE" of ~3 means each state is estimated within +-3
sightings/yr in most cases. But the "WEIGHT" of 80% says ~10 states
are moderate to severe outliers. When the "RES/SC" column is much over
1 there's a problem with the fit for that state. E.g. one state gets
>8! The model predicts 76.6 sightings per year when in fact only
51.6/yr have been observed.  This might not seem like a big error to
us, but the S/W is totally upset. :)

The overall pattern in the coefficients shows sightings/yr increases
going N. For each 10 deg N sightings increase around 4/yr. Similarly,
for each 10 deg further W sightings increase ~.8/yr. For each 1mn
state population there are an average 4 sightings per yr.  And for
each 1 mn mi2 of area of the state about 23 sightings are apparently missed.

Models that explicitly include "population density", rather than
population and area separately, are nowhere near as accurate as this
model. The typical R2 (depending on how it's done) is around .5 rather
than .9. If you try to include population, area and also population
density (persons/mi2) this stats program shows the P-VAL of around .7.
Meaning it's "70% irrelevant" to include popden as well as pop & area.
So the model above is preferred.

In a later post we'll look at similar models across countries.  Again,
there are interesting patterns that suggest UFO's congregate around
the poles and fly south in the N Hem and N in the S Hem and seem to
prefer the mid-Pacific to the mid-Atlantic.  Another nexus shows up in
the N Indian which may explain some of those sightings in Azerbaijan
and Iran we've seen in those newly-released CIA files. :)

--
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