React: Investigating a Year of UFO Sightings Posted on Social Media

Do you believe in aliens?

You might not, but lots of people seem to think they’ve seen the evidence.

We took a look at a year’s worth of UFO-related posts on social media and this is what we found.

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Where are the aliens?

We broke down mentions by state to see which areas of the country were generating the most UFO conversation.

While California often gets the most mentions because of its large population, it’s not just down to that this time.

A huge chunk of Californian UFO sightings occurred on 7th November when a mysterious light was seen by hundreds of people. It was later confirmed as a Naval missile test but not everyone was convinced.

https://twitter.com/Fdchurch42/status/663735656389042177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

They'd want us not to believe that we saw alien spacecraft 🤔😑

— sir nai (@sirnai_) November 8, 2015

The sightings definitely helped November become the month with the most UFO posts on social media.

In fact, this one night dwarfed any other significant peak in mentions for the whole year.

Who you gonna call?

Looking at mentions coming just from Twitter, we’re able to see the accounts mentioned most alongside UFO sightings.

Predictably, @nasa was at the top of the list.

https://twitter.com/andrewbryann/status/680245656036990976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

I saw a ufo the other night now there's one over LA @POTUS explain

— lucky thot🌈 (@autumnboelen) November 8, 2015

@POTUS I SAW A UFO

— yee yee 🤠 (@flosprinceps) October 20, 2015

There are also Twitter authors dedicated to tweeting about UFO sightings.

@UFO_Research, @ufo_stalker and @daufoguy are good examples of prolific UFO reporting Twitter accounts.

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Extraterrestrial social networks

We found the majority of our UFO mentions on Twitter – 3,459 to be precise, while Facebook made up 906 mentions.

In some cases, people described what they saw and others posted blurry images and videos like this one:

 

Craziest thing I have seen on the water this morning. #badabingfishingteam #ufo #comet #spacecrsft #fishingpic #instagramfishing #nasa #aliens #wearenotalone #palmbeach

A video posted by Sammy Papia (@badabingfishingteam) on Sep 2, 2015 at 3:43am PDT

We found that the gender ratio of UFO-related posts was fairly evenly split.

While they registered just a few posts each, percentage-wise it was Delaware and Connecticut that had the most UFO mentions from males while Hawaii and South Carolina had the most from females.

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Shrouded in secrecy

We found a surprisingly low number of mentions that included the term “Area 51”. Perhaps that’s something we should be concerned about.

The government is MAKING EVERYONE that lives 100 miles within Area 51 sell there property! & we all just saw UFOS last week ???!!

— Charmaine (@charmaine625) September 12, 2015

@NASA aliens exist I know because I saw a ufo so why do you not tell everyone else

— David in the woods (@e39ad37e8d314b3) April 12, 2016

https://twitter.com/caro_manny/status/677380160937705472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Whatever you think of UFOs and aliens, tracking social data surrounding them is a good way to crowdsource personal experiences of eerie occurrences in real time.

Source www.brandwatch.com