Pandemic puts more eyes on sky, increasing UFO reports

Experts say lockdowns allowed time for more people to stargaze, resulted in more sightings

In the years since she says extraterrestrial beings took her from her suburban yard outside Rochester, N.Y., Virginia Stringfellow, 75, has kept her story mostly within a close-knit community of people who say they have also encountered UFOs.

But over the past year, that pool has grown: Each of her monthly locals-only UFO meetups average about five new people who believe they have seen a mysterious object in the sky.

Sightings of unidentified objects in 2020 nearly doubled in New York from the previous year, to about 300, according to data compiled by the National UFO Reporting Center, or NUFORC. They also rose by about 1,000 nationwide, to more than 7,200 sightings.

But according to ufologists (pronounced “yoof-ologists”), as those who study the phenomena call themselves, the trend is not necessarily the result of an alien invasion. Rather, it was probably caused in part by another invader: the coronavirus.

Pushed to stay home by lockdown restrictions, many found themselves with more time to look up. In New York, droves of urbanites fleeing the virus took up residence in places such as the Catskills and the Adirondacks, where skies are largely free from light pollution.

Longtime UFO enthusiasts say the pandemic clearly has more people scanning the night skies. But there is another reason that the public might be newly receptive to the idea that the flicker on the horizon is worth reporting: The Pentagon revealed over the summer that it would soon convene a new task force to investigate so-called unidentified aerial phenomena observed from military aircraft. Last year, it declassified three videos of such sightings.

In addition, the $2.3 trillion appropriations package signed late last year by then-President Donald Trump includes a provision that the secretary of defense and director of national intelligence collaborate on a UFO report and release it to the public.

“It’s encouraging to many of us in the field of ufology that the government is willing to confirm that they are aware of these circumstances, that they are conceding that people are reporting these events,” said NUFORC director Peter Davenport.

Previously, he said, the government appeared to have believed “that people like me are just crazy — and we’re not.”