2 ms·

That data is slighty suspect. Not just the reliability of reporting between 1-1900, but also the data on the site - apparently there was a siting in Chicago Il

That data is slighty suspect. Not just the reliability of reporting between 1-1900, but also the data on the site - apparently there was a siting in Chicago Illinois in the year 600? There's a lot of reports for American locations even earlier than that. I think most importantly we started watching the sky when humanity started to fly. Suddenly the heavens were a viable place for mankind to be, especially after we ourselves got to space. The post-WW2 era also had a whole culture that was used to watching the sky because there had been very plausible threats of death from that direction. We suddenly cared when we saw something weird in the night beyond just a passing curiosity.

SkyMarshal 3y ago
All good points. I doubt the folks running that site have vetted every one of their hundreds of thousands of data points, so it's not an authoritative source, just a descriptive one at most. And, when did science fiction literature start getting big and developing plots involving aliens, and might that have stimulated people's imaginations about UFOs and aliens (which then conversely stimulated more scifi about them)? Was this happening prior to the atomic age or space age, or did that kind of scifi really get started with the space race? If the latter, that might also explain the huge increase in imaginings... er, sightings. I also can't help but wonder at the timing, with geopolitical tensions rising and China challenging US military and technological supremacy. It's quite a coincidence. Maybe it's the mother of all CIA mindfuck psyops, to introduce a new source of uncertainty and deterrence into the CCP and Russia's strategic calculations. There's "whistleblowers" on TV claiming the US is in possession of "exotic materials", aka alien tech, since the 1940s. Just how much has been reverse engineered in that time, and deployed in super secret weapons systems that not even Congress knows about? Would the CCP really want to risk WWIII against the US when there's even a small possibility of that? There's a great scene in "The Expanse" relevant to this situation, where UN Deputy Undersecretary Avasarala has a meeting considering the possibility of first contact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYRLV-qm3Qs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYRLV-qm3Qs "I have a file with nine hundred pages of analysis and contingency plans for war with Mars, including fourteen different scenarios for what to do if they develop an unexpected new technology. My file for what to do if an advanced alien species comes calling, is three pages long, and begins with 'Find God'".

SkyMarshal 3y ago

All good points. I doubt the folks running that site have vetted every one of their hundreds of thousands of data points, so it's not an authoritative source, just a descriptive one at most. And, when did science fiction literature start getting big and developing plots involving aliens, and might that have stimulated people's imaginations about UFOs and aliens (which then conversely stimulated more scifi about them)? Was this happening prior to the atomic age or space age, or did that kind of scifi really get started with the space race? If the latter, that might also explain the huge increase in imaginings... er, sightings. I also can't help but wonder at the timing, with geopolitical tensions rising and China challenging US military and technological supremacy. It's quite a coincidence. Maybe it's the mother of all CIA mindfuck psyops, to introduce a new source of uncertainty and deterrence into the CCP and Russia's strategic calculations. There's "whistleblowers" on TV claiming the US is in possession of "exotic materials", aka alien tech, since the 1940s. Just how much has been reverse engineered in that time, and deployed in super secret weapons systems that not even Congress knows about? Would the CCP really want to risk WWIII against the US when there's even a small possibility of that? There's a great scene in "The Expanse" relevant to this situation, where UN Deputy Undersecretary Avasarala has a meeting considering the possibility of first contact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYRLV-qm3Qs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYRLV-qm3Qs "I have a file with nine hundred pages of analysis and contingency plans for war with Mars, including fourteen different scenarios for what to do if they develop an unexpected new technology. My file for what to do if an advanced alien species comes calling, is three pages long, and begins with 'Find God'".