With global interest in UFOs at an all-time high, particularly in the United States where mysterious drone sightings have been driving everyone crazy, two Israeli researchers have uncovered fascinating patterns in who reports these mysterious sightings — and when. 

Their study, published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, reveals that UFO reports might tell us less about what’s in the sky and more about what’s happening on the ground, particularly in our bank accounts.

Ohad Raveh from Hebrew University and Nathan Goldstein from Bar-Ilan University were trying to solve an interesting puzzle: How can we measure what the public is paying attention to in different places and at different times? This is important for understanding the economy, but it’s difficult to measure.

They looked at years of data cataloguing recorded sightings of UFOs — or as they refer to them, UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena). 

Their assumption was that when people report seeing something strange in the sky, they’re clearly paying attention to their surroundings. The researchers thought this could be a useful way to measure public attention.

“ We set out to understand what the association is between attention given to the sky and attention given to the economy,” explains Raveh.

Two contradictory findings?

The researchers analyzed thousands of reports from the National UFO Reporting Center in the United States and discovered that more wealthy areas consistently report more UFO sightings than less wealthy regions.

Raveh and Goldstein initially believed that this phenomenon could be explained by understanding attention as a hierarchical system: you give attention to the most pressing issues before you worry about other things.

“Once you give attention to the fundamental things, then you may give attention to things that are more luxurious,” Raveh elaborates. “Attention to the economy is a fundamental thing, because in the end that’s what brings food to your table. But once you attend to that, then you have more time on your hands to start looking at the sky.”

So, because people who are more financially secure can let their minds (and eyes) wander from their budgets, they’re more likely to see UAPs, right?

However, that theory runs into some turbulence when considering the second pattern they uncovered during their research: Across the board, both poor and wealthy areas saw an increase in UFO sightings during economic downturns – a pattern that caught the researchers by surprise.

“ We thought that the two types of attention would be substitutable. Because attention is a limited resource, and if you give attention to, say, the sky, that would be at the expense of other types of attention that you can give to other factors like the economy,” says Raveh. “But apparently it doesn’t work like that.”

To summarize: Wealthy areas generally report more UFOs than poor areas, but when any area hits hard economic times, UFO reports increase. 

It’s all about attention

This apparent contradiction makes sense when you realize UFO reports are really measuring how much attention people are paying to their surroundings.

Wealthy people generally have more free time and mental space to notice unusual things in the sky. But during economic downturns, people everywhere have more time on their hands (often due to job losses or reduced work hours) and thus spot more UFOs.

This interpretation is supported by what the researchers saw during Covid lockdowns: When people were forcibly given more free time (even if they weren’t necessarily experiencing economic hardship), UFO sightings increased.

Overall, the research findings serve as strong evidence that UFO/UAP sightings serve as a reliable indicator of public attention patterns, which opens new possibilities for understanding how public attention influences economic outcomes.

Only one question remains, though — have the researchers seen any UFOs themselves?

“ I wish!” jokes Raveh. “Actually, since we started to work, I’ve tried to give more attention to the skies. But I haven’t seen anything, unfortunately. I hope they visit Israel sometime.”