Researchers in the US have been mapping the areas of reported UFO sightings in the hope of separating incidents that could threaten national security.

Geographers from the University of Utah, in collaboration with former Pentagon UFO chief Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick – analyzed in total approximately 98,000 UFO reports covering a 20-year period from 2001 to 2020.

The researchers cross-referenced the data based on local population density, light pollution levels, annual cloud cover, proximity to airports and military bases, and many other factors that influence those who report seeing UFOs.

What they found according to the statistics was that there is a “long-standing historical relationship” between UFOs and the American West.

The study’s county-by-county assessment in the West showed hotspots, or “red zones,” most often just east of the Rocky Mountains or toward the Pacific Ocean, but also some odd outliers, including Georgetown County, South Carolina, and Union, Kentucky .

“The West has a historical relationship with UFOs, Area 51 in Nevada, Roswell in New Mexico,” said the study’s lead author, Richard Medina.

“And here in Utah we have Skinwalker Ranch in the Uinta Basin and military activity at the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground,” noted Medina, associate professor of geography at the University of Utah.

And while those explanations held true for the hotspots spanning nearly all of Nevada and New Mexico, the study’s authors were more confused about the equally “deep red” counties across Oregon and Washington state.

These states are most famous for the rainy and cloudy weather of the Pacific Northwestas well as the fact that they are shrouded in fog rather than as areas whose inhabitants watch the sky.

“There are also some isolated counties across the rest of the country that warrant further investigation,” they wrote in the journal Scientific Reports, “to determine which properties may elicit relatively greater UFO attention.”

Counties in Maine, Vermont, Indiana, Arkansas and Nebraska were some of the most unexplained hot spots the team’s analysis found.

To break down the sighting study by county, Median and his co-authors focused on two key criteria to compare UFO sighting reports.

First they compared observational statistics, obtained from the National UFO Research Center with a metric they called “clear sky viewability,” a composite of data about how likely it would be to spot anything of interest in the sky.

To assess each county’s “sky viewing potential,” they collected data on each area’s light pollution, cloudiness and tree cover, and the chances of strange objects flying into the areas from nearby airports and military bases.

“There’s more technology in the sky than ever before, so the question is: What are people really seeing? It’s a difficult question to answer and it’s important because any uncertainty can pose a potential threat to national security,” Medina said.

Geographers attributed the highest rate of sightings to the West because of the open natural spaces of the desert Southwest and dark rural skies, without the many lights of big cities or industrial smog.

They found that the main hotspots of UFO reports showed a remarkable relationship with local air traffic and military installation activity, an indication that could indicate that witnesses are often seeing ground-based objects that they simply did not recognize.

The team hopes that this geographic analysis will help government agencies better separate genuine UFO reports from ordinary flights, and thus help uncover any security threats.