The decline in (U.S.) UFO sightings continues

[Ninshub]

The decline in UFO sightings continues

By Cheryl Costa
July 27, 2018

The June 5 New York Skies article “Close encounters with UFOs are getting harder to find” discussed the falloff in UFO sighting reports in the United States during the early months of 2018 but only featured National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) data as a quick snapshot. At this writing, I have more interesting, and indeed serious, data to report regarding that drop-off.

Since that time, the kind folks at the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) have supplied me with their data for the January through June 2018 timeframe.

The MUFON sighting numbers have been suffering as well. In 2016 their average monthly sightings were between 350 and 400 per month. In 2017 sighting numbers fell between 275 and 300 reports per month. In 2018 the sighting numbers started at about 375 and bounced between 250 and 300 per month, as shown on the chart.
[Image: UFO-sightings-falloff_MUFON2016-2018.png]

In this thread, however, Canadian sightings were up last year (2017):
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-c...017-survey

The decline in UFO sightings continues

By Cheryl Costa
July 27, 2018


In this thread, however, Canadian sightings were up last year (2017):
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-c...017-survey

Hard to know whether this reflects an actual change in UFO activity or whether this indicates a change in the average Joe's level of skepticism, knowledge, and attitude towards the unexplained.

[Ninshub]

This story has been picked up by Business Insider (!), with some interesting speculative comments by ufologists.

Fewer people are reporting UFO sightings – and experts suspect it's because reports are being 'intercepted by the government'

Lorraine Marlisa,
Business Insider Nederland
Aug. 1, 2018, 12:35 PM

"The significant decrease in the number of reports has baffled everyone investigating within the UFO field," founder and director of NUFORC Peter Davenport said to Business Insider. He's previously discussed the decline with members of the Mutual UFO Network. "They see the same trend and they're all confused by it."

According to him, there are many possible explanations. "It could just be that there are fewer and fewer incidents, but it's also possible that reports to UFO organisations are being intercepted electronically. Who would do something like that is a mystery, but if it's happening, my first suspicion would be government organisations. It's quite risky for a government to do that, but you can't rule it out, I think."

If the number of observations has decreased worldwide, there could be two main reasons for this according to Griffioen: "Drones are becoming cheaper and more popular, and are taking on stranger and stranger shapes every day. This applies to both military UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), professional drones for video as well as for recreational drones."

"We hear and read that they can do more and more, so people now respond to seeing strange moving lights with: 'it'll be a drone'."

This stuff always tends to happen in waves, with peaks and valleys.  It's always been that way.