I was so happy when I saw UFO Day was this week – now more commonly referred to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) now.

Not because I believe in them. But because I’m personally convinced by the surfeit of evidence that non-human, high-intelligence systems that we don’t yet understand – and perhaps never can – coexist with humans on this planet right now.

It seems to me that many of these interact with us in inexplicable ways and some of these UFOs sightings are likely evidence of this. (That got trippy fast, didn’t it? Ha!)

Openly arguing that UAPs are more likely non-human intelligence is a minority position among the educated class, but I suppose that’s par for course for me. In my mind, interesting science is always in pushing the envelope and expanding our knowledge via hypotheses (and accepting the results of tests); unfortunately, the “funded” science is often found in the regurgitation of established knowledge.

The sightings are real – not hoaxes – and quite a few are inexplicable using contemporary physics. UAP research is definitely more interesting to me than writing another article on ethics in cartography, for example.

Does that mean I naively believe every citizen UFO report or government video is evidence? Absolutely not. In fact, studies have shown that only about 4% of sightings or remotely sensed objects are inexplicable.

But I do believe that as a scientist, I need to be open to evidence that goes against my original indoctrination and expectations. And I’ve read up on UAPs a lot in my spare time; the books by scientists and reputable journalists (some sources posted at the end of this blog) investigating the topic, primarily, as well as some good articles in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harpers Magazine, and similar.

I’ve also become a fellow of the Information Physics Institute (IPI), founded by physicist Melvin Vopson. The work of Vopson has really expanded my thinking about space-time and UAPs broadly. Coupled with the stellar works of Caleb Scharf (i.e., data is the agent, humans are part of its environment) and the research of Michael Levin (i.e., “life” is a social category; intelligent systems are everywhere), and Donald Hoffman’s evolutionary evidence that humans cannot possibly perceive or measure reality – oiur environment is a hallucinated construct – it seems far more likely that non-human intelligent systems run amok all around and even through us than not.

But the cool thing about science… it doesn’t matter what I think, you think, what anyone thinks. 🙂 We can build hypotheses and test them with evidence. And the tide is turning. More and more scientists are sincerely engaging with the topic and coming to the same conclusion – currently inexplicable sh*t is going down. That’s what excites me; no matter what we discover.

Which brings me to today’s map…

I was stoked to design a visualization that promotes some of the more famously documented experiences throughout history, as well as the 2026 www.war.gov/ufo releases that have videos. Note: You can view the videos from the maps and the support documents. You can filter by shape, credibility of the people who reported the sightings, year, etc.

The goal is to educate the public that largely still believes UAPs and UFOs are a giant hoax or only spotted by naive humans seeing things.

Perhaps this map won’t change minds at all, and that’s okay. Again, it doesn’t matter what we think. Something is there. That’s based on evidence.

I hope you have fun exploring the map. If you haven’t seen the videos released this year, they are available in the relevant info windows. Some are silly – balloons, likely. Others… I can see why President Obama refuses to say aliens aren’t real. 🙂

Further Reading (for those interested)

• Leslie Kean. UFOs: Generals,Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record.
• Loeb, Avi. Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. (Former Chair of the Astronomy Department at Harvard University. Personal, sincere, and hopeful.)
• Hastings, Robert Lambert. UFOs & Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites. (Systematic review of all the reported and observed UFOs around US nuclear missile and testing sites.)
• Coutlhart, Ross. In Plain Sight: An investigation into UFOs and impossible science. (Most readable but also least critical? Australian, 60 Minutes, investigative journalist.)
• Pilkington, Mark. Mirage Men: A Journey into Disinformation, Paranoia and UFOs. (An important counterpoint to the above. Argues it may be a psychological warfare campaign.)
• The New Yorker:
  • How the Pentagon Began Taking UFOs Seriously
  • The Unexplained Phenomena of the UFO Report
  • The Enticing Mysteries of UFO Photography
• Department of War, 2026 UFO/UAP Classified Materials Release Site: https://www.war.gov/UFO/

View Map Here

Web Mapper LLM Suite (www.webmapgpt.com/agents.html)

# Intention
Create a cool, non-sensational, but aesthetically spot on, map highlighting the most famous UAP sightings, alien encounters, and most mystifying US military photos and videos.