Copasetic Flow

Today, we take a little break from UFO data analysis to insert a little levity. While Acrobat Reader's default reading voice may not be ideal for say Hemingway or Tolstoy, it's perfect for reading UK Ministry of Defence UFO reports! "An object fell from the sky. It had like a green halo around it." "They were totally still in the sky. They were very white."

While I've been reporting on the analysis of Ministry of Defence UFO sighting data for the last decade, UFO sightings continue to occur: read more | digg story Reporter Unemployed Amidst Stephenville UFO Controversy read more | digg story UFO spotted in skies above Grantham? read more | digg story New UFO Sighting in Sthephenville, TX Today, the year by year analysis of the data begins. In 2007 Shrewsbury reported 3 sightings while there were 8 other cities that reported two UFO sightings each. The map and data follow. View Larger Map City # Date Sigthed or Reported Details Shrewsbury 3 12-Nov-07 S A series of lights in a circle that had an inner circle. There were fifteen extra lights on the outside of the outer circle. They were moving clockwise, then anti-clockwise through the sky and then back again. 24-Sep-07 R Four orange lights were seen crossing the sky. There was a gap, and then...

The UK Ministry of Defence recently updated its released UFO sighting data sparking several related news stories. The raw source data released by the MoD can be found at: UFO Reports 1997 -2007 in the UK Here are links to each of the individual reports: 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 Digg The Sources: read more | digg story Huge Rise In British Sightings read more | digg story UFO Sightings in Britain up 39% read more | digg story Top Ten British UFO Cities in the Last Decade read more | digg story British UFO Sightings Increase... Sort Of

Part I Part II The British Ministry of Defence recently released updated data on UFO sightings in the United Kingdom. According to the ministry top ten UK cities for UFO sightings in the last decade are: City 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Grand Total West Kilbride 2 12 2 2 18 Hull 2 7 1 3 1 1 15 Wellingborough 1 6 4 2 13 Edinburgh 5 5 1 11 Liverpool 1 1 1 4 2 2 11 Leeds 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 10 Brighton 3 1 2 1 1 1 9 Cardiff 1 2 1 1 2 2 9 Glasgow 1 1 1 2 3 1 9 Swindon 3 2 1 1 1 8 View Larger Map

A recent article from Telegraph.co.uk reached Digg Popularity in record time by reporting that there was a huge rise in British UFO sightings. Well, sort of... I'm always ready to believe . But this time the data just didn't pan out. The well written, interesting, article used data released by the British Ministry of Defence. I decided to download the data to do my own analysis. I'll be reporting more on the data in the next week, but I'll just start with a graph of the UFO sightings in Great Britain year by year. As you can see, there's actually been a decrease in sitings since 2005 and a significant decrease compared to 1997. As additional interesting data comes out, I'll post it here. Here's the original source data if you want to do your own analysis: 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 Digg the Sources: read more | digg story Huge Rise In British Sightings read more | digg story UFO Sigh...

And on a Lighter Note... Now That's a Pareidolia!!! There's been a lot of talk in the last week about the 'female' figure observed on Mars. Most of the skeptics are weighing in that the figure is just a pareidolia, a fancy word for the tendency of the human mind to see objects in clouds and other places that they don't really exist. Well, I don't know about Mars, but on Mercury this week, the mother of all pareidolias was observed, literally, the mother! The picture on the left is of a geographic feature observed on Mercury , the one on the right is from a study on the fertilization of shrimp . Have a great weekend!