by Kelly Bryant and Helen Kim

Visualizing UFO sighting data

The Data Source

• The NUFORC (National UFO Reporting Center) website collects and posts UFO sightings in the United States and around the world:

• http://www.nuforc.org

Their Data

The UFO sighting data are shown in tables on the website indexed by:

• EVENT DATE • STATE • SHAPE OF UFO • DATE POSTED• Hard to see any patterns in this data,

especially changes over time and how these relate to the other dimensions

Their Data

Narrowing ScopeNumber of sightings per state:

http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/ndxloc.html

Data Problems

If this database were really to provide accurate visualizations, the following columns needed to be cleaned up:

• Shapes

• City, State

• Time/Date, Duration

• Summary Descriptions

Shapes:

• We grouped several UFO shapes together because of similarity:– Circle, sphere, round, oval, egg– Cylinder, cigar– Triangle, delta, pyramid, cone– Flare, flash, fireball

City, State:

• Mix-ups between CA state and Canadian reports

• Additional location data found in City field:– Examples:

• “Mendocino (approximately 15 miles south of Mendocino)”

• “near I-5”• “Between Gaviota and Lompoc”

Time/Date, Duration:• Time/Date, Duration data may be unreliable• Hard to show data up to the minute,

especially since duration time varies greatly as well

• Examples of “Duration”:– “One Minute”– “25-30 sec”– “Rock Climbing”– “Sunset”

of 2000

2001

2000

of 2000

2001

of january

februarydecember

january 2000

of 2000

of january

of the 21st

20th 22nd

21st

of 2000

2001

of january

februarydecember

january 2000

of january

februarydecember

january 2000

of 2000

of january

februarydecember

january 2000

of 2000

Design issue:

18 distinct colors

Design issue: time

of 2000

2001

2000

toggle timeline

Design issue: time

stacked timeline

Design issue: time

stacked timeline

January 14 2002 3:00pm

Design issue: time

pop-up timeline

Design issue: time

fisheye timelinejanuary 19, 2002 at 1:00pm

Design issue: time

of 2000

2001

2000

toggle

stacked

pop-up

fisheye

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