The truth is out there -- and with the right roadmap, perhaps you can find it.
UFOs have been reported in every corner of the country. Of course, some spots are better than others, if you want to see strange objects in the sky. But if you're hunting for a close encounter, this map may only be a starting point to lead you in the right direction.
"We downloaded UFO sightings from the National UFO Reporting Center and took all of the locations and tried to standardize them," said Lane Allison, product manager of FindTheBest, a California-based technology company that collects and interprets data.
The FindTheBest map, seen above, is an attempt to show one version of how UFO sightings -- those that are reported -- might look on a map. The researchers culled information from over 61,000 reports, narrowing it down to nearly 39,000 reports from which they created their map visualization.
If you move your mouse across either version of the above interactive map -- UFO Sightings or UFO Sightings Per Capita -- everywhere the mouse lands will give you very detailed information about that particular place in America.
But is that regional data enough to offer a map that shows accurate numbers and, therefore, reliable clues as to how hot a UFO "hot spot" is?
"After we got latitude and longitude pairs, we could determine the number of UFO sightings that have been reported in counties. Then, we cross-referenced that with the American Community Survey population estimates of those counties, resulting in UFO reports per capita number," Allison told The Huffington Post.
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