The trend of UFO sightings follows revolutions in photography. There’s been spikes in the amount of them when cameras became widespread and photos were easier to develop, when cameras became digital, when photo-manipulation software came about, and this next one will be because machine learning-based video generation is becoming increasingly sophisticated.

      • WanderWisley@lemmy.world
        5·
        6 小时前

        The study, published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications by researchers from Hebrew University and Bar Ilan University, found surprising links between reports of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) and macroeconomic trends:

        Counter-cyclical pattern: Within a given region over time, UAP sightings tend to increase during economic recessions and decrease during economic booms. Wealth correlation: Across different regions, sightings are more common in wealthier areas. Attention proxy: The researchers argue that these patterns align with traditional metrics of public attention and that during times of crisis or uncertainty, people may have more free time or be more inclined to notice and report unusual events, or perhaps focus on extraordinary phenomena to ease anxiety. Policy implications: The study suggests that this UAP metric could help policymakers understand how variations in public attention might influence regional responses to monetary policy decisions, such as interest rate changes.

        • EightBitBlood@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          2 小时前

          Thank you! These are fantastic details, and I appreciate it! The correlation between having extra free time, and therefore having more time to see and report UFO’s is really practical. Great study.

          Whats interesting is that result implies that there’s a fixed amount of UFO’s to be seen. If numbers go up or down according to the amount of time available in a population, it certainly implies there’s a fixed amount of UFO activity that we are or are not aware of depending on how often we’re looking. Granted, it’s likely this activity is explainable as false positives: drones in the sky, kites, etc have all been mistaken as UFO’s. So it could just be a fixed amount of human made things that are misidentified.

          But the same result would occur if it wasn’t false positives. And that’s facinating. I would have assumed the amount being reported would stay relatively fixed, or just vary greatly regardless of income.

          Thanks again!