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More than 150,000 UFO sightings have been reported worldwide over the past five decades, new figures reveal.
The staggering number of unexplained close encounters have been logged with the National UFO Reporting Center (sic) since it was founded in 1974.
They come on top of 143 unexplained sightings of mystery craft by military personnel currently under US Government investigation.
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In the US state of Washington 88 out of every 100,000 residents have reported seeing a UFO – the highest percentage of any regional population in the world.
The most common time of the year for sightings is July.
The centre catalogues close encounters from around the world and is recognised by the police, military, US space agency NASA, air traffic controllers, the Federal Aviation Administration and weather forecasters.
According to its website its primary function 'is to receive, record, and to the greatest degree possible, corroborate and document reports from individuals who have been witness to unusual possibly UFO-related events’.
Throughout its history the Center has processed over 150,000 reports and has distributed its information to thousands of individuals,’’ it said.
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It added: "The Center’s independence from all other UFO related organizations, combined with its long standing policy of guaranteed anonymity to callers, has served to make it perhaps the most popular and widely accepted national UFO reporting facility anywhere.
"One of the Center’s policies, which distinguishes its operations from most other UFO organizations, is that it makes available to the public all of its data in summary form.
"Detailed information is made available to experienced UFO investigators.’’
The UFO sightings tally was revealed after US defence chiefs announced they are extending their probe from alien craft that not only fly but travel underwater.
Investigators will also examine sightings of USOs – unidentified submerged objects – and UTOs, or unidentified transmedium objects which operate both in the air and beneath the waves.
The announcement came eight months after the US set up the Airborne Object Identification and Management Group to examine the origin of mysterious craft spotted by military personnel dating back to 2004.
The body’s name has now been changed to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office – or AARO – to reflect its widened brief to probe sightings of both unidentified flying and diving craft.
Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence and Security Ronald S Moultrie said the project was vital to our national security and the safety of our military personnel’.
"We must also keep pace with the development and employment of novel technology by our adversaries,’’ he said.
Earlier this year US Congress held its first hearing on UFOs in more than a half century.
One unexplained sighting was a video shot by military aircraft showing a UFO buzzing a US Navy ship off the Californian coast in July 2019.
The Tic Tac-shaped object flew above the Pacific for a few minutes before seemingly vanishing beneath the ocean surface.
Defence chiefs said the footage was real and showed a mystery craft with technology that appeared up to 1,000 years ahead of anything known to the military.
Last month Nasa announced it is forming a team of space boffins to probe such unidentified aerial phenomena.
The team will spend nine months examining evidence before producing a report that will be made public.
A spokesman for the space agency said while there was no evidence "the sightings were extraterrestrial in origin" it accepted "unidentified phenomena in the atmosphere are of interest for both national security and air safety".
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