” width=”333″ height=”316″>Top UFO Hot Spots in North America
- Ian Harper
- 01 Jul 2025
We’ve revealed 2025’s top alien-sighting spots for World UFO Day on July 2nd. Is your hometown on the ET hot-spot list?
Our data dive into thousands of official sighting reports pinpoints the U.S. states and Canadian provinces where you’re statistically most likely to see strange lights in the sky.
How We Compiled The UFO Rankings
To create these UFO rankings, we pulled the latest available figures from the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), which covers the total count of verified sightings. We then adjusted those raw totals for population, calculating sightings per 100,000 residents so that sparsely populated regions could be compared fairly with densely populated ones. All figures reflect data collected through June 30, 2025, ensuring the list is as up-to-date as possible.
United States Top 15 UFO Hotspots
These are the top US state hotspots. California logs the biggest raw count (16,853 reports), but once you divide by 39 million residents, it slips to 19th place; big populations dilute big stories.
| Rank | State / Territory |
|---|---|
| 1 | Vermont |
| 2 | Washington |
| 3 | Montana |
| 4 | Alaska |
| 5 | Maine |
| 6 | New Hampshire |
| 7 | Oregon |
| 8 | New Mexico |
| 9 | Wyoming |
| 10 | Idaho |
| 11 | Arizona |
| 12 | Colorado |
| 13 | Connecticut |
| 14 | Rhode Island |
| 15 | Nevada |
Every State’s UFO Sightings at a Glance
Darker shades mean more reports, scan the map to see how your state stacks up.
Canada’s UFO Sightings Rankings By Province
Northern Lights? Try northern flights, the Far North rules the list. Yukon and the Northwest Territories take gold and silver despite having under 50,000 residents each. Endless dark skies—and hardly any light pollution—make for prime alien real estate.
| Rank | Province / Territory | Reports / 100 k | Total Cases* | Local Lore |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yukon | 54.6 | 25 | In 1996 more than twenty motorists on the Klondike Highway near Fox Lake described a stadium-sized craft beaming bright “search-light” columns onto the road. |
| 2 | Northwest Territories | 53.4 | 24 | A 1960 RCMP file from Clan Lake, north of Yellowknife, details a triangular object that slid silently into the water, prompting weeks of police dives. |
| 3 | New Brunswick | 25.6 | 218 | Locals around Grand Lake and the Bay of Fundy still report slow-moving orange orbs that blink out over the massive tidal flats. |
| 4 | Nova Scotia | 22.1 | 237 | The famous 1967 Shag Harbour splash-down—investigated by RCMP and the Navy—remains Canada’s only officially documented UFO “crash.” |
| 5 | British Columbia | 22.0 | 1 245 | Kelowna sky-watchers often film strings of multi-coloured, horseshoe-shaped lights drifting above Okanagan Lake—nicknamed the “highway in the sky.” |
| 6 | Saskatchewan | 18.4 | 227 | Chevron-shaped craft have been logged over prairie towns such as Pilot Butte since the 1990s, including an RCMP-noted 1997 sighting. |
| 7 | Manitoba | 17.3 | 257 | Prospector Stefan Michalak suffered burns at Falcon Lake in 1967 after standing near a metallic, grid-patterned disk—Canada’s most documented close encounter. |
| 8 | Ontario | 16.4 | 2 617 | Campers in Algonquin Park and Muskoka frequently report bright white flashes and silent orbs skimming the treetops. |
| 9 | Prince Edward Island | 15.3 | 27 | A 22-minute 2014 video from Kensington captured green lights “skipping” across the Gulf of St Lawrence; MUFON deemed it a confirmed sighting. |
| 10 | Alberta | 15.0 | 728 | Drumheller’s eerie badlands inspire regular reports of multi-coloured spheres drifting above the hoodoos and desert valleys. |
How To Spot A UFO For First-Timers
| Pro Tip | Why It Works |
|---|---|
| Get away from street lights | 73 % of recent sightings happened 40 miles / 20 km or more from major cities. |
| Skip the full-moon nights | Moonlight washes out faint objects. |
| Bring a tripod | A 15-second exposure captures what the eye can miss. |
| Log every detail | Time, direction, colour—investigators can’t use “uh, kinda bright.” |
| Report responsibly | NUFORC relies on solid logs to separate satellites from saucers. |
