Are UFO sightings becoming more rare?

I used to buy a ufo magazine in the UK called "UFO Magazine". Then suddenly I couldnt find it anywhere. None of the shops had it in stock. So after searching the internet I found this article, heres an extract...

But the starkest evidence for this general dwindling of weirdness probably comes with UFOs. Earlier this year, the UK's favourite flying saucer fanzine, UFO Magazine, folded due to declining sales. At the same time, Bufora, the top UK forum for skywatchers, ruefully admitted that UFO sightings have been in "steady decline" since the late 1990s. Most striking of all, the British Flying Saucer Bureau has suspended its activities, because the number of sightings has crashed from a peak of around 30 a week to almost zero. Denis Plunkett, the retired civil servant from Bristol who founded the bureau in 1953, says: "I am just as enthusiastic about flying saucers as I always was, but the problem is that we are in the middle of a long, long trough. There just aren't enough new sightings. It is not like being a philatelist. There is always something new to say about stamps."

This isn't just a British phenomenon. In Indiana in the US an amateur association of scientific ufologists known as Madar (multiple autonomy detection and automatic recording) has seen a steady and accelerating fall-off in UFO activity since the peaks of the mid-70s. Likewise, New Jersey's skywatchers have openly wondered whether to call it a day. Even the cold skies of northern Norway are bereft: "It's unexplainable," says Leif-Norman Solhaug, leader of Scandinavian skywatching society UFO Nord-Norge. "Maybe people are just fed up with the UFO hysteria."

So where has all the weirdness gone?

Is this true. If so why? are we not interesting anymore? Or are we so far gone there is no hope for us. Or is this just another one of those article that got its facts wrong?

Maybe the internet made people a lot more aware of whole field, and the holes in the UFO arguements. It's much easier these days to investigate a sighting and explain it.

..maybe people a just getting better at I'ing F'ing O's.

And at time when more and more high-quality video cameras are in use, the lack of video clear footage or evidence to back up 50 years of "sightings", is being noticed by the skeptics.

Thats a very good point. What were the statistics I once hear? 99% of sightings can be explained. Its the 1% we are interested in

Originally posted by welshslider
Thats a very good point. What were the statistics I once hear? 99% of sightings can be explained. Its the 1% we are interested in

Close, it's 95% are explained but 5% are not. That can be a big number of UFO's or hardly any at all.

I believe that in the 70's/80's it was more in the lines of the 95%. Humans have created a lot of aircraft that "didn't make the cut". But there's always those 5 percent that nobody can explain and, that seem/if not ARE out of this world.

I don't believe it is declining. The crafts that fall into the 95% margin are obsolete or in use by military and made public. The remaining 5 percent can be scares to catch in the skies giving the illusion that nothing is being seen.

And cloaking is slowly be "manufactured" by us. Advanced races possibly may already have that technology. Think about it, every visual siting made witnesses always say that the craft didn't make a sound. So, what goes good with no sound? No visuals. A cloaked UFO that creates no sound....if you can't see it, then how do you know the number has declined? There could be hundreds in the sky at one time...I'm just exaggerating the number but you get where I'm going.

[edit on 29-10-2006 by T_Nexis]

Personally I think the govt had gotten even better at covering up the major UFO incidents. That's why you hear less about them.

I don't feel there are anyless UFOs just fewer people out looking for them.

People are now inside starring at a monitor, playing with their mouse wondering where all the UFOs went.

When I walk my dogs at nite, I invairably see a UFO. Granted it's probably a satellite or something that has a rational explanation but.......

In Mexico where few people have PCs, they frequently have flaps of sightings.

Hope you didnt mean mem there? I do click on my mouse and look at my monitor but also watch the skies and the world around me. I do agree though I wish more people would.

good point made earlier though... The goverments are getting better I suppose at covering up. Maybe the war on terror etc is a good distraction

I have often wondered if they are seen only when they want to be seen. Mabey there are plenty of them out there but they are just not making themselves known.

Originally posted by tommyb98201
I have often wondered if they are seen only when they want to be seen. Mabey there are plenty of them out there but they are just not making themselves known.

Originally posted by T_Nexis

And cloaking is slowly be "manufactured" by us. Advanced races possibly may already have that technology. Think about it, every visual siting made witnesses always say that the craft didn't make a sound. So, what goes good with no sound? No visuals. A cloaked UFO that creates no sound....if you can't see it, then how do you know the number has declined? There could be hundreds in the sky at one time...I'm just exaggerating the number but you get where I'm going.

[edit on 29-10-2006 by T_Nexis]