I noticed a huge drop in UFO reports after 2014

I was looking through old government data on the FAA's website about pilot sightings. From 2000 to 2013, there were an average of about 150 reports a year from commercial and military pilots. After 2014, that number fell to under 30 a year and stayed low. The change lines up almost exactly with when the Navy updated its reporting guidelines to be more formal and less public. Makes you wonder if the drop was because things stopped happening, or because the reporting system got changed to keep things quieter. Has anyone else tracked a specific data shift like this that seems tied to a policy change?

2 comments

2 Comments

rowanp152d ago

Yeah, that line about the reporting system change is key. I read an article a while back that made the same point as robert_bennett29, how the new rules basically made it a closed loop inside the military. So pilots might still see things, but the reports just don't hit the public databases anymore. The drop in the public numbers feels less like a drop in activity and more like a drop in transparency.

robert_bennett292d ago

The FAA's own data shows that drop, and it lines up perfectly with the Navy's new reporting rules. In my experience, when you change how people report things, you always change the numbers you get back.

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