There are a total of 96429 UFO sightings in the data set spread across 14417 locations. Of these sightings, the top 5 countries with the most sightings are listed below.
ufo_sightings |>
group_by(country_code) |>
summarize(count = n()) |>
rename(Country = country_code, Sightings = count) |>
slice_max(Sightings , n = 5) |>
arrange(desc(Sightings )) |>
gt()| Country | Sightings |
|---|---|
| US | 88213 |
| CA | 3514 |
| GB | 1818 |
| AU | 602 |
| IN | 240 |
The United States has the most UFO sightings out of any country by an extremely large margin. Next is Canada, followed by Great Britain, Australia, and then India. Now, we will break down these UFO sightings by state.
ufo_sightings |>
filter(country_code == "US") |>
group_by(state) |>
summarize(Sightings = n()) |>
slice_max(Sightings, n = 5) |>
arrange(desc(Sightings)) |>
rename(State = state) |>
gt()| State | Sightings |
|---|---|
| CA | 11472 |
| FL | 5833 |
| WA | 5055 |
| TX | 4170 |
| NY | 3854 |
California has the most sightings of states in the US, followed by Florida, Washington, Texas, and then New York. The amount of sightings in each of these states is likely due to the large populations that these states have. Let us explore the data further to figure this out.
state_populations <- places |>
group_by(state) |>
summarize(Population = sum(population, na.rm = TRUE))
top_5_states_ufo <- ufo_sightings |>
filter(country_code %in% c("US", "us")) |>
group_by(state) |>
summarize(Sightings = n()) |>
slice_max(Sightings, n = 5) |>
arrange(desc(Sightings))
combined_data <- inner_join(top_5_states_ufo, state_populations, by = "state")
ggplot(combined_data, aes(x = Population, y = Sightings, label = state)) +
geom_point(color = "blue", size = 3) +
geom_text(vjust = -0.5) +
geom_line(color = "red") +
labs(title = "Population vs. UFO Sightings",
subtitle = "Top 5 US States With Most UFO Sightings",
x = "Population",
y = "Number of UFO Sightings") +
scale_x_continuous(labels = scales::comma) +
theme_minimal()
For the graph Figure 1, I joined the data sets “ufo_sightings” and “places” together. All the populations of the various locations of UFO sightings throughout the top 5 US states were summarized showing a comparison between UFO sightings and the populations of each state. This shows a decent correlation between the large populations and the amount of sightings. Let’s explore further to investigate locations with repeated sightings in these states.
top_5_states <- ufo_sightings |>
filter(country_code %in% c("US", "us")) |>
group_by(state) |>
summarize(Sightings = n()) |>
slice_max(Sightings, n = 5) |>
arrange(desc(Sightings))
top_5_sightings <- ufo_sightings |>
filter(state %in% top_5_states$state)
places_count <- top_5_sightings |>
group_by(city) |>
summarize(Count = n()) |>
arrange(desc(Count))
ggplot(places_count[1:10,], aes(x = reorder(city, Count), y = Count)) +
geom_bar(stat = "identity", fill = "skyblue") +
labs(title = "Repeated UFO Sightings",
subtitle = "Cities In the Top 5 US States for UFO Sightings That Have Repeated Sightings",
x = "City",
y = "Number of Sightings") +
theme_minimal() +
theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1))
These cities shown in Figure 2, were large population centers within the top 5 US states for UFO sightings, and they contained repeated sightings. This is likely due to them being large population centers which presents much more opportunities for a larger amount of people to see UFOs. Now, let us backtrack and look at at the average duration of these sightings in the five US states with the most UFO sightings.
top_5_states <- c("CA", "FL", "WA", "TX", "NY")
ufo_sightings |>
filter(country_code == "US" & state %in% top_5_states) |>
group_by(state) |>
summarize(avg_duration_seconds = mean(duration_seconds, na.rm = TRUE)) |>
arrange(desc(avg_duration_seconds)) |>
ggplot(aes(x = state, y = avg_duration_seconds)) +
geom_bar(stat = "identity", fill = "purple") +
labs(title = "Average Duration of UFO Sightings in Top 5 US States For Sightings",
subtitle = "Based on Duration in Seconds",
x = "State",
y = "Average Duration (Seconds)") +
theme_minimal() +
theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1))
As you can see in Figure 3, Texas and Florida have on average, the longest lasting UFO sightings out of these states. As shown by the high average duration times in these states, there is a lot of people that are not just getting small glimpses of UFOs but a good amount of time actually viewing them. This indicates a lot more potential UFO activity going on in these states due to both the large average duration of sightings, and the large amount of sightings in these states.
Thank you for reading my data exploration and analysis on potential UFO activity (aliens!!!). Have a good day!