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Time / Calendar Distribution Of UFO Sightings & Other Fortean Incidents?

Arizona Observer

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In his 1970 book Operation Trojan Horse, John Keel discusses how sightings (in this case of UFOs) were distributed on different days of the week. Allegedly drawing from over 10,000 “clippings and reports” Keel comes up with the following.

“Wednesday had the greatest number of sightings, and these were usually reported between the hours of 8 to 11 P.M.

DayPercentage of total reports
Wednesday20.5
Thursday17.5
Friday15.5
Saturday15.0
Monday13.5
Sunday11.0
Tuesday7.0

Of the sampling used, .5 percent were not dated.” - Pg. 16, 17

He then goes on to say that this Wednesday phenomenon goes back to the Mystery Airships era and even into ancient times as evidenced by how in Hebrew mythology Wednesday is considered a time when demonic powers were especially active.

Keel’s thoughts are that these days are somewhat counterintuitive since one would expect more sightings on Friday and Saturday evenings when more people are out and about.

Has anyone seen similar analyses? Did they correlate with John Keel’s data? More generally, what are people’s thoughts on certain days being more apt to have paranormal phenomena occur? Going further with the idea of temporal patterns, does anyone know of seasonal and/or longer timeframe patterns?
 
Keel's analysis from 50 years ago would seem to be obsolete, because more detailed analyses using a far larger data set of US UFO sightings from the first 15 years of this century led to different conclusions.

Day-of-the-Week enters into this issue. The late John Keel wrote about the trend as “The Wednesday Phenomenon.” After analyzing perhaps about 800 UFO sighting reports from 1966 to 1968, Keel made the determination that the “greatest number of UFO sightings are reported on Wednesday, and then they slowly taper off through the rest of the week.”

Fifty-five years ago the only people to apply statistical analysis to UFO sighting was the U.S. Air Force and John Keel. Unfortunately, Keel’s data was limited in size and perhaps regionally skewed.

Using 21st-century data with 146,801 UFO sighting reports, we’ve determined that Saturday is the peak sighting day for 39 states, or 76.4 percent of the country. But for 11 other states the peak UFO sighting day is not Saturday: two states are on Friday (3.9 percent), four states on Wednesday (7.8 percent), two states on Sunday (5.8 percent), one state on Thursday (1.9 percent) and two states on Tuesday (3.9 percent). And no states had Monday as its peak UFO sighting day.

It has been suggested that most of these states are from middle America or the Deep South, so the alternate UFO sighting day might be correlated with nights of Bible study. At first, we were amused at the notion, but there’s some science to suggest that this notion might hold water.

SOURCE:
Blog | Timing is everything for UFO observations
https://www.syracusenewtimes.com/blog-ufo-observations-timing-is-everything/

See Also:
https://www.syracusenewtimes.com/the-top-day-for-ufo-sightings/

Here's the Amazon product page for the cited data compendium (book):
https://www.amazon.com/UFO-Sightings-Desk-Reference-2001-2015/dp/1544219237
 
This 2018 analysis exercise using NUFORC sightings data generated graphs for all sorts of sighting "demographics". This analysis doesn't support Keel's claim of Wednesday primacy for day ot the week.

Data Analysis: Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know about UFO Sightings
https://greenet09.github.io/datasophy/2018/07/03/UFO.html
 
Do that aliens have a seven day week.
Perhaps some do and some don't?
If they exist, that is.
 
Wow, fantastic resources! Thank you again EnolaGaia. The research and analysis has clearly come a long way since I was last keeping up on these matters.
 
Have been re-reading Keel's 'Operation Trojan Horse' and was reminded of his statistical work on UFO reports in the 1960s that demonstrated UFOs were most often seen on Wednesdays and then reports tapered off with Sundays being the least likely day to encounter a UFO. Here is a more detailed explanation:

"Keel Concludes: "The Wednesday phenomenon works. I've been studying it for years and I still can't say why it works. Researchers in other parts of the world have now followed my example and found similar patterns in the sightings in their own countries." (Mothman:page167,Ch11)"

"Psychic and occult events seem to follow the same cycles as the UFO phenomenon" and The Wednesday Phenomenon "exists in all the frames of reference." (OperationTrojanHorse1970 - Pg331,Ch15)

https://themothman.fandom.com/wiki/The_Wednesday_Phenomenon

Obviously this doesn't coincide with when us humans are most often out and about and most likely to be out late and/or camping out or driving overnight i.e. the weekends, so what was going on and is it still the case today...?
 
Here's what Keel said about statistical analyses in his 1971 Our Haunted Planet ...

Keel-HauntedPlanet-WedStats.jpg

SOURCE: 2010 Edition (Galde Press), p. 82
https://books.google.com/books?id=EIWWpUOtdgUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
 
Here's what Keel said about statistical analyses in his 1971 Our Haunted Planet ...

Great find and thank you Moods for merging these threads.

It is such a curious statistic, but what is it telling us? There are so few patterns in Ufology and the craft themselves take on all manner of forms, colours and behaviours, but here we have a definite pattern

The other aspect of Keel's work that needs restating is just how much unidentified ariel activity was going on before Kenneth Arnold had his 'seminal' sighting in 1947. Quite frankly if we are ever to understands UFOs then we need to get over Arnold's sighting and refocus on what was going on in, for example, Sweden during the 'ghost fliers' flap of 1934. I'm not saying this merely to be pedantic but rather there are so many clues we overlook if we only focus on Arnold, Roswell and the post-1947 era
 
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Would it be possible to add a poll to this thread to see whether (if members have had a sighting) it follows the same pattern?
 
Would it be possible to add a poll to this thread to see whether (if members have had a sighting) it follows the same pattern?

It can be done, but I'm not sure it would gather much data.

For example, I've had a few (easily explained) and a couple of still-unexplained UAP sightings - all dating back decades. I couldn't specify the exact month, much less date / day of the week, for any of them.
 
Operating on a day when fewer humans are out and about is good for not being observed.
That is exactly what Keel concluded, and apparently encounters after 10pm was another fainding.

So are the bright lights exhibited by these craft a part of the propulsion system as Vallee hypothesised, with the craft moving in and out of our eyesight wavelengths (that is from ultraviolet and exiting to infrared iirc)?
 
Saunders was originally affiliated with the Condon Report team, but left (or was fired) once he'd concluded the project's conclusion had been decided from the start.

He co-authored a book with a Roger Harkins (UFOs? Yes! Where the Condon committee went wrong; 1968 or 1969) in which his statistical analyses were apparently first mentioned.

After that Saunders continued to compile UFO reports into a sightings database (the original UFOCAT database). I don't know whether he issued any later statistical summaries or analyses of the growing database.
 
Operating on a day when fewer humans are out and about is good for not being observed.

I haven't been able to track down a detailed transcription of Saunders' late Sixties results, but ... From what I've seen of third-party descriptions it seems he concluded the majority of UFO sightings occurred during daytime hours.

I'm not sure the apparently increased frequency of sightings on Wednesdays is all that significant. The range of weekday totals was only on the order of 20 - 25% of the peak / maximum figure. Furthermore, I'm not confident the peak level occurring on Wednesdays is all that surprising.

During the period he surveyed (decades up through the Sixties) Wednesday was commonly the weekday during which banks were closed, some stores had limited hours, and little personal business was transacted.

I can vouch from personal experience (American South; Fifties / Sixties) that Wednesday evening was the weekday evening when the most people were venturing out from home - to the fairly standard mid-week church services.
 
I haven't been able to track down a detailed transcription of Saunders' late Sixties results, but ... From what I've seen of third-party descriptions it seems he concluded the majority of UFO sightings occurred during daytime hours.

I'm not sure the apparently increased frequency of sightings on Wednesdays is all that significant. The range of weekday totals was only on the order of 20 - 25% of the peak / maximum figure. Furthermore, I'm not confident the peak level occurring on Wednesdays is all that surprising.

During the period he surveyed (decades up through the Sixties) Wednesday was commonly the weekday during which banks were closed, some stores had limited hours, and little personal business was transacted.

I can vouch from personal experience (American South; Fifties / Sixties) that Wednesday evening was the weekday evening when the most people were venturing out from home - to the fairly standard mid-week church services.
That is really interesting that Wednesday nights were church nights.

I know a Royal Navy helicopter pilot based down here in Cornwall and they have a set midweek night flying day, which in this case i seem to recall was Tuesdays. So it’s possible Wednesday night was a common night flying night for US air bases.

interesting that confirmation bias seems to have crept into Keel’s work in that Wednesdays stood out (slightly) and he seized on this and sought to justify it to his readers
 
It can be done, but I'm not sure it would gather much data.

For example, I've had a few (easily explained) and a couple of still-unexplained UAP sightings - all dating back decades. I couldn't specify the exact month, much less date / day of the week, for any of them.

That's a fair point. When I had mine I wrote everything down immediately (including time, date and location) but I can understand why most people wouldn't.
 
That is really interesting that Wednesday nights were church nights.

I know a Royal Navy helicopter pilot based down here in Cornwall and they have a set midweek night flying day, which in this case i seem to recall was Tuesdays. So it’s possible Wednesday night was a common night flying night for US air bases.

interesting that confirmation bias seems to have crept into Keel’s work in that Wednesdays stood out (slightly) and he seized on this and sought to justify it to his readers

RAF:

Night flying training usually takes place from Monday to Thursday. The night flying period will often be for one week, but can be extended if required for operational or weather reasons.

Current expected dates for night flying are:

16 May - 19 May 2022

4 July - 7 July 2022

8 August - 11 August 2022

26 September - 29 September 2022

24 October - 27 October 2022”

https://www.raf.mod.uk/our-organisation/stations/raf-coningsby/flying-info/

Casual Googling suggests that USAF bases in the UK don’t have set nights, but that they announce night flying in advance via local media, e.g.:

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/american-air-force-jets-to-carry-out-night-flying-from-2639728

maximus otter
 
RAF:

Night flying training usually takes place from Monday to Thursday. The night flying period will often be for one week, but can be extended if required for operational or weather reasons.

Current expected dates for night flying are:

16 May - 19 May 2022

4 July - 7 July 2022

8 August - 11 August 2022

26 September - 29 September 2022

24 October - 27 October 2022”

https://www.raf.mod.uk/our-organisation/stations/raf-coningsby/flying-info/

Casual Googling suggests that USAF bases in the UK don’t have set nights, but that they announce night flying in advance via local media, e.g.:

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/american-air-force-jets-to-carry-out-night-flying-from-2639728

maximus otter
Thanks :)

Im not sure Area 51 will want to share their night flying dates, but maybe back in the 60s it was Wednesday nights…?
 
The thing is, like the Fey, the UFO's don't really want to be spotted whatever they are up we are not to know as soon as a pattern is spotted they change, like Keel said people have gone insane investigating this phenomena, everything they do is cloaked is subterfuge
 
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