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Reports of Rising UFO Sightings are Greatly Exaggerated

The pandemic has not sparked a shocking rise in UFO sightings, experts say. But the public is growing increasingly confused by ordinary objects they see in the sky.

A homemade picture of a UFO.Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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This year, humanity has been forced to spend agonizing amounts of time cooped up at home. We’re upset. We’re bored. And we’re getting stir crazy. But has that translated into more people seeing unidentified flying objects? A surge of news stories have suggested that UFO sightings are on the rise around the world, with world-weary skyglancers reporting a growing number of alien encounters from Belgium to New York City.

However, not even so-called UFOlogists are really buying it, as the evidence for such claims is surprisingly weak. One website, the National UFO Reporting Center, noted a spike in sightings back in spring as the Pentagon released its juicy UFO tapes. But another popular reporting database, Mutual UFO Network, saw no such trend.

In fact, sightings have generally dropped in recent years, even as UFO investigators say they’re seeing an increasing number of people reporting easily identifiable objects. From blurry bugs ...

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