The United States is the country where the vast majority of unidentified flying objects have been sighted. Out of the over 160,000 events recorded by the National UFO Reporting Center, the leading organization in reporting such phenomena, 141,000 occurred in the United States, accounting for 89% of the total.
Since the Roswell incident, considered as one of the most compelling evidence of extraterrestrial life having visited Earth, the United States has become the global center of the discipline.
Ufology has gradually spread to the Anglo-Saxon world, particularly in Canada, where more than 6,300 UFO sightings have been reported in the last half-century. Following Canada, the United Kingdom reported 4,000 sightings, followed by Australia with 1,100.
According to a November survey by YouGov, 47% of Americans believe that extraterrestrials have visited Earth at some point, an increase of 11 points compared to 2012.
The belief in extraterrestrial life is relatively bipartisan: 45% of Democratic voters and 39% of Republican voters think that extraterrestrials have visited Earth in recent years.
Ufology also gained some institutional credibility following the publication by the New York Times in 2017 of videos taken by US military pilots showing objects defying the laws of physics. The US Congress subsequently held several hearings on the subject, including in 2024, inviting former pilots and intelligence agents.
In February, Barack Obama stated in a podcast that aliens were “real,” while clarifying that he had not personally seen them.
The media echo of these statements led Trump to order the Pentagon to release all government documents related to unidentified aerial phenomena and UFOs. The first batch of these documents was made available to the public on Friday, May 8, by the Department of Defense, with more releases expected in the coming months.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump encouraged Americans to “have fun” and form their own opinions by consulting these documents, suggesting that no revelations about the existence of extraterrestrial life were to be expected. This publication, however, allows the administration to highlight its policy of “transparency” following the controversy sparked by the Epstein files.
