Study says Maricopa County home to second-most UFO sightings
People in Maricopa County reported the second-most sightings of all U.S. counties between 2001 and 2015, a study said.
These strange lights were spotted on an October night in 2016 in the Phoenix sky. Some people believe them to be a UFO. (Twitter Photo/@tater_todd55)
(Twitter Photo/@tater_todd55)
Phoenix has been a famous spot for UFO sightings, especially since the Phoenix Lights event on March 13, 1997.
That trend has continued, as people in Maricopa County reported the second-most sightings of all U.S. counties between 2001 and 2015.
(Costa and Costa Photo)
A recent UFO statistics study done by researchers Cheryl Costa and Linda Miller Costa showed Maricopa County was home to 2,523 reported sightings — the most of any county in Arizona — and more sightings than 36 states.
Phoenix topped the list for the municipalities with the most UFOs spotted in the sky, followed by Mesa, Scottsdale and Chandler.
Maricopa County was second to Los Angeles County, which had 3,212 sightings. That number was more than 40 states.
Arizona came in seventh in a state ranking with 4,276 reported sightings.
The Costas used information compiled from the databases of the National UFO Reporting Center and the Mutual UFO Network for the study.
About the author: Cheryl Costa is a weekly columnist who writes “New York Skies” for the Syracuse New Times.
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Comments
4 Comments
This should not surprise anyone -- most sightings are near military and government installations. You're near the Mexican border in a HIDTA (high intensity drug trafficking area) and therefore there are a lot of "Due Regard" counter-narcotics surveillance flights. These are not normally scheduled under normal FAA rules and fly with transponders off. They are in covert comms with someone who can deconflict airspace for them, but they do not directly communicate with ATC.
Interstellar snowbirds?
First came to AZ to hunt UFO's for a national publication. Lots of sighting in the Child's power station area. The belief was the massive amounts of static electricity in the air revealed their cloaked ships. The seven families who lived there had some wild stories they told of not only seeing the ships, but the aliens themselves taking "geological" samples.
Aliens dig the desert.