UFO Sightings in Arizona - - a brief study

Arizona ranks 16th out of 50 US states for UFO sightings (174) as listed in the *U* UFO Database. Urban / suburban clusters aside, Arizona sightings are mainly in the desert. Most shapes reported (126) are of disks, saucers or spheres, versus cigar / cylinder shapes (21) or triangles and deltoids (15).

The geographical center of sightings shown for AZ is at 111:42W - 33:19N, very close to Williams AFB southeast of Phoenix, built in 1941 and closed in 1993.

Sightings show in colors: Events from 1947 through 1959 are Blue, 1960 through 1974 are Violet, and 1975 to the present are in Green.

The first listing was just after noon on 29 April 1947 in Tucson, AZ. Nine white disks emerged from an odd lone cloud in an otherwise clear sky. Those moved around, then went away to the Northeast in a V-formation.

<= Daily Histogram of Arizona UFO Sightings.

Sightings for all years are combined here for daily counts to show seasonal effects.

There is no real peak here. Events are scattered thinly across the Calendar, with March (22) and July (23) being the busiest months. The other ten months average 13 listings each, sloping down to a minimum for only four sightings in December for all years in this entire database.

The busiest single day was 8 July 1947, registering only 3 sightings.

See similar studies for New Mexico California Ohio Texas Florida Penn. + NJ & DE New York Washington Mass.+CT+RI Illinois & Indiana Michigan Missouri Oregon Carolinas Utah & Nevada Colorado & Wyoming

<= 50-Year Graph of Arizona UFO Sightings.

The busiest UFO Sightings years in Arizona were:

1947 (19) 1950 (6) 1952 (16)
1953 (10) 1957 (6) 1967 (8)
1975 (12) 1995 (7) 1997 (8)
.

Years not shown have five or fewer events listed.

Note the violet curve at bottom of graph to the left, and the years counts above.

Much like New Mexico, activity was greatest in the 1940s and 1950s, trailing off after that as if UFO interest had died down or gone elsewhere.

Planetary proximities, grey and red curves for Venus and Mars, show no apparent correlation at all.

<= Arizona UFO Sightings Recurrancy.

Using only Arizona sightings as a base, a search was done for sightings within the same confined area (a five mile radius) with counts taken for how many months elapsed between the first and later events.

White dots indicate those monthly counts, while the dark blue curve is a running average to show peaks and valleys.

Caution is advised due to the notorious statistics of small numbers, like the coin the comes up heads twice but tails only once. Minor peaks appear at 2.5 years, then 5, 20, 25 and 30 years.

The highest dots (10 coincidences) occur at 5 years plus one month, and again at 20 years minus two months. No doubt this resonates with the well known sightings waves of 1947, 1952 and 1957, at least in part.

Decades USA Maps: Pre-1940 1940s 1950s 1970s 1980s 1990s Thematic UFO Maps
Yearly USA maps for : 1947 1950 1952 1957 1973 UFO Statistics Menu [ Site Map ]
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