Photo: ANTONIO SCORZA/AFP/Getty Images
By: The opinion Posted Mar 18, 2023, 1:54 am EDT
During the COVID-19 pandemic many new situations arose and to which we were not accustomed, one of them was the increased reports of sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
However that increased reporting of UFO sightings during the confinement stipulated to avoid the advance of the Covid was related to the regular launches of Starlink satellitesfor de side of the company SpaceXowned by billionaire Elon Musk.
In a recent article published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, authors Chase Cockrell of the University of Vermont and Mark Rodeghier and Linda Murphy of the Center for UFO Studies, investigated whether the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with an increase in UFO sightings.
The authors hypothesized that the pandemic of COVID-19, which led to lockouts and social distancing measures, could have led to an increase in UFO sightings.
The explanation for this hypothesis is that as more people stay at home and spend more time outdoors, could have increased the free time available, which could lead to more UFO sightings. Furthermore, the authors tested the idea that increased feelings of anxiety and uncertainty could have led to increased attention to the environment.
To test the hypothesis, the researchers analyzed data from the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON)the two most comprehensive UFO reporting sites in the United States, from 2018 to 2020 and compared the number of UFO reports before and after the start of the pandemic.
Analysis of the two UFO reporting sites demonstrated that the UFO reports increased in 2020 compared to the previous year in about 600 reports in each database.
Despite the increase in the number of reports, researchers did not observe any relationship between the number of reports on UFO sightings and measures of mobility and pandemic healthso the increase in reports was not shown to be due to social factors.
the starlink effect
The investigators then searched for alternative causes and identified the onset of regular launches of Starlink satellites starting in late 2019 as a complicating factor.ion. These launches include up to 60 small satellites at a time, which are highly distinctive and often easily visible.
As a result, many people understandably reported them as UFOs. The analysis demonstrated a relationship between a release and subsequent reports. Critically, with the Starlink reporting removed, there was no statistical increase in reporting in 2020, and even a decrease in reporting to NUFORC.
The astronomical community is concerned about the impact of Starlink, and other similar projects, which launch large numbers of satellites into relatively low orbits and can degrade astronomical measurements.
Keep reading:
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• The Pentagon acknowledged that it could not explain half of the UFO sightings in 2022