Interest in UFO’s is gaining in popularity. For instance a recent story about Phoenix light sighting drew a record number of hits to a network’s web site surpassisng all other news stories. This increasing public interest could also bring a new group of users to Flight Aware. People wonder about strange lights they see in the sky but 95% of “UFO” sightings are explainable as aircraft or weather phenomen.
If your web site could display the activity around any designated ariport at the times of questionable sightings by entering the airport, date and time, this would be a huge help in identifying what sightings are explainable and NOT UFO’s. Surely it would not give positive identification for a real sighting (if you believe in that), but would allow elimination of the huge majority of sightings that are explainable. There is enough public interest that adding this function would bring new web traffic to Flight Aware.
One (minor) problem: FA doesn’t track military flights, and since experimental military craft are often tested in many of the UFO “hotbeds” like the desert southwest, some “genuine” sightings may turn out not to be so, even though FlightAware doesn’t indicate the existence of these flights.
I DO like the idea of historical area mapping, though.
All that is said is true, but the point is to whittle down numerous sightings that can be explained as commercial aircraft. Unless observations are made near military bases/approaches, most bogus UFO sightings are commercial aircraft, especially in areas 40-60 miles from major airports where landing lights are turned off or on making “craft” seemingly “appear” or “disappear”. Historical data from Flight Aware would allow identification and deletion of a large portion of bogus sightings… though it would not confirm or identify military craft, experimental craft, or helicopters as correctly pointed out. Of course, knowledge that a sighting is likely not a commercial/ IFR aircraft does not identify what it IS. The but it would help reduce the remainder of unexplained sightings that would still need to be investigated by other means. Flight Aware could be a big help in gleaning the data to the more interesting cases. Anyone have any ideas where one might find additional radar data where other types of craft be identified???
