Dr. Ohad Raveh of Hebrew University and Dr. Nathan Goldstein of Bar-Ilan University have introduced innovative methods of measuring public interest by analyzing UAP reports, which they say has revealed “a surprising link between UAP sightings and macroeconomic conditions at the U.S.-county, state, and national levels.”
Their findings challenge conventional metrics for assessing economic behavior, revealing how UAP sightings align with financial trends, inform policymaking, and provide insights into public adaptation to economic shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and shifts in monetary policy.
In an email to The Debrief, Dr. Raveh explained what motivated he and Goldstein to explore the potential connection between UAP sightings and economic conditions.
“As a social scientist fascinated by the UAP phenomenon, I was disappointed by the grave scarcity of studies that examine the social aspects of it,” Dr. Raveh explained, “especially as official reports (by NASA and others) confirm that about 95-98 percent of UAP sightings have conventional explanations, thus suggesting that patterns of UAP sightings are rooted in human and social behavior.
“This inspired undertaking a deeper examination, pursuing an unconventional hypothesis which ties sky viewing to economic attention,” Raveh said.
Key Findings on UAP Sightings
The researchers analyzed data from The National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), which spans over 20 years and is tracked across the United States. Raveh and Goldstein discovered that UAP sightings tend to occur more frequently in wealthier areas, but also tend to increase during economic downturns and decrease during periods of economic stability in those same regions.
This, they say, suggests that interest in unusual events like UAPs fluctuates based on broader societal conditions, especially during times of uncertainty.
“The counter-cyclicality on its own may point at various behaviors, ranging from, say, mental breakdowns, to extended leisure time; i.e., when unemployment rises, for example, the extent of UAP sightings increase because people may have more time on their hands, or otherwise they may be affected by the mental stress involved with unemployment,” Raveh explains.
“The key point, however, is that the patterns of UAP sightings are not only counter-cyclical, but they also exhibit a positive correlation with wealth cross-sectionally; i.e., at any given point in time, the extent of UAP sightings tend to be higher in wealthier regions, going against a mentally-related hypothesis,” he added.
“This opposite correlation across the two dimensions (cross-sectional and temporal) is rather consistent with patterns observed using traditional measures of economic attention, and hence supports an attention-related interpretation,” Raveh said.
When asked why NUFORC data was used for this study rather than other UAP databases, Raveh said the NUFORC data “is one of the two major reporting centers of UFO sightings in the U.S., reporting the details of sightings across the U.S. for decades; in addition, as noted in the paper, it is also the source that the FAA recommends reporting to when observing an unexplained phenomenon in the sky, strengthening its validity.”
Raveh emphasized that this study does not claim UFO data is inherently more important than other data sources. “We do show that other possible attention measures, such as, for instance, Google searches, do not match the patterns observed via traditional measures of macroeconomic attention,” Raveh said.
“However, we encourage the application of our proposed approach to other potential measures that may be useful in the attempt of measuring public attention.”
UAP Sightings During COVID-19 Lockdowns
The study also highlights how the COVID-19 lockdowns affected UAP reporting. During periods of restricted movement, UFO reports increased, suggesting that people’s limited mobility led to greater attention on unusual phenomena.
“Previous studies have shown that COVID-19 lockdowns represent quasi-natural experiments for shifts in public attention. Observing corresponding changes in UAP sightings via these quasi-natural experiments strengthens the hypothesized nexus between these sightings and public attention,” Raveh explained.
The study found that in regions where UFO sightings are more common, people reacted less strongly to changes in economic policies. This suggests that shifts in public attention can influence economic outcomes. The researchers propose that tracking UFO reports can offer unique insights into how public attention fluctuates over time and across different regions.
Raveh believes policymakers could use insights from this research to better understand national and regional economic responses during periods of heightened stress or uncertainty.
“This research introduces a new potential measure for public attention, which has geographic and temporal coverage that goes beyond those of traditional measures. To the extent that policymakers seek to account for public attention in their analyses, especially at specific locations, or at relatively high frequency over time, our approach may help them do so,” Raveh said.
Criticism and Alternate Perspectives
While the study suggests a correlation between UAP sightings and economic trends—including the idea that wealthier areas might have more expendable time for skywatching—critics may argue that the connection is not necessarily causal, and that data limitations and the potential impact of false sightings could distort the findings.
Dr. Eric Haseltine, a former intelligence officer and neuroscientist, voiced skepticism about the study’s findings in an email to The Debrief.
“During times of upheaval, such as pandemics, wars, and recessions, conspiracy theories abound for two reasons,” Haseltine said. One, he argues, is because “Humans hate uncertainty, which causes major anxiety, and are thus drawn to anything that makes sense of what is happening.”
Secondly, Haseltine said that “Humans hate feeling out of control, as happens during upheavals, so they are attracted to anything that creates the illusion of understanding, predictability, and controllability.”
While Haseltine and others may find flaws in the reasoning behind the research, overall, Raveh maintains that similar to research detailed in past studies on public attention, “ours as well supports the notion that increased public attention helps mitigate negative economic shocks,” adding that “a better understanding of public attention, to which our study seeks to contribute, may help in coping with the impact of future economic shocks.”
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on The Debrief’s YouTube Channel on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton and at chrissynewton.com.