Statistics on UFO Sightings in the Yukon as of October 2000

Yukon UFO Sighting Inventory and Statistics

- compiled October 2000 -

UFO sighting investigators have been busy collecting sighting information in the Yukon for the past 3 years. The stories are forthcoming at a steady rate and there is no indication that we are exhausting the supply. An inventory and some basic statistics were performed just prior to the Yukon UFO Conference that was held on October 14, 2000. These results (six graphs below) were presented at the conference so that the participants could obtain an appreciation for the prevalence of the UFO activity in the Yukon. There have been 293 UFO sightings accounts collected in the Yukon from the following sources: Newspaper articles, John Magor, UFO Researcher (late 1960s), Lorraine Bretlyn, Yukon UFO Researcher (1997-Present), and Martin Jasek, Yukon UFO Researcher (1997-Present).

Above: Only 45% (133) Yukon UFO sightings are publicly available on this web site or in Lorraine Bretlyn's Book, "UFO Stories from the Yukon". We are working steadily to post the remainder of the sightings, as we are able to compile them. Some are still under investigation. Some we are still looking for the principal witnesses. Some need graphic work, etc. Please be patient if you have been interviewed and do not find your sighting posted on this site. All sightings are important to us and we will get to them eventually. It has been our experience, that the "not yet available" portion of the pie chart above is growing faster than the "available to public" portion. If you have strong interview or interpersonal skills, writing skills, artistic abilities, we could sure use your help. Please contact us here or at 633-2472.

The pie chart above shows the breakdown of the 293 Yukon UFO Sightings in a different way. It shows the proportion of sightings where the investigation is more or less completed or has reached a certain degree of closure. We say more or less because there is often room for follow-up, other witnesses coming forward, etc. It is not necessary for the documentation to be completed before it is made available to the public; the data could be combined from the two pie charts above, and there would be sightings in all four combining categories:

1. Documented and available to public
2. Further follow-up needed and available to the public
3. Documented and not available to the public
4. Further follow-up needed and not available to the public

Out of the 293 cases we have a firm year of occurrence for only 148 of them. These are presented in the graph above. One may assume that there has been a dramatic increase in UFO sightings in the late 1990s. Although this may or may not be true it is important to realize that the amount of UFO sightings in any given year is dependent on how active UFO investigators in a given area are in soliciting sighting information. Both Lorraine Bretlyn and Martin Jasek started investigating sightings starting in 1997. John Magor came up one summer from Vancover in the late 1960s and was responsible for obtaining the sighting information shown in red. The Whitehorse Star newspaper was responsible for documenting a large majority of sightings in mid 1970s (light blue). However, the higher activity in the late 1960s, the mid 1970s, and the latter 1990s was mirrored around the world. It may be possible that the earlier historical peaks were as high or higher than the late 1990s.

The graph above shows the same data as the previous one but in a slightly different manner. Instead of showing the source, it shows the degree of strangeness of the sighting. An example of a low strangeness sighting would be a point light source that the witness was unable to identify, or a possible meteor, etc. An example of a low-medium strangeness sighting would be a light that did a slow 90-degree turn. A medium-high strangeness sighting would be a light that performed fast erratic maneuvers across the sky. An example of a high strangeness case would involve a sighting of an unconventional structured craft in close proximity to the witnesses, or the sighting of apparent alien beings, etc.

The graph above shows the same type of information as the previous graph except that the breakdown is by decade rather than by year. Out of the 293 sightings we are confident on which decade they occurred for 177 of them versus only 148 for the year of occurrence. Note that the earliest Yukon sighting we have on record is from the 1930s.

The graph above shows the typical number of witnesses that are present during a UFO sighting. Only medium-high to high strangeness cases were considered. Out of the 124 Yukon medium-high to high strangeness cases we are confident in the number of witnesses for 103 of them. It is a common assumption by skeptics that most UFO sightings have only one witness leaving open the speculation of hallucinations, mental illness, etc. However, the graph above shows that 70% of sightings in the Yukon have had more than one witness. This is typical for sightings around the world.

We hope that you have found this page useful and interesting. We welcome your comments and suggestions here.

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