Have you ever seen a UFO? If so, would you like to see a whole lot more? Like, do you want to live somewhere where you can’t get away from them?
If so, a) are you doing OK? And b) you’re in luck. For reasons beyond our comprehension, ISoldMyHouse.com recently took data from the National UFO Reporting Center, sorted the top 10 cities with a high incidence of UFO sightings by their median housing price, and published the resulting list.
Organized by low cost to high, it looks a bit like this:
1. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina – $167,958
2. Columbus, Ohio – $174,109
3. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – $187,772
4. Houston, Texas – $191,907
5. Tucson, Arizona – $215,965
6. Albuquerque, NM – $216,090
7. Dallas, Texas – $226,145
8. Orlando, Florida – $260,915
9. Phoenix, Arizona – $269,175
10. Mesa, Arizona – $278,497
It turns out that nowhere in Colorado (or Utah for that matter) makes the list, but you don’t necessarily have to leave the Southwest. Albuquerque, it turns out, is the cheapest place on the list to live west of the Pecos River.
But if you’re really looking for flying saucers, it would appear that the skies above Arizona are loaded with unknown sights. Sure, Phoenix and Mesa are basically the same spot, the former being just west of the latter, but at least Tuscon isn’t part of the same metro area.
In fact, we think that Phoenix, Mesa, and Tuscon made the list because of one group of sightings in particular: the Phoenix Lights. On March 13, 1997, two distinct sets of lights were observed over Arizona. The first, a V-shaped collection of lights was spotted crossing over the Nevada state line around 7 p.m., crossing in a 300-mile line through most of Arizona (but Phoenix in particular), and heading out over Tuscon before crossing into Mexican airspace over the state of Sonora at about 8:45 p.m. The second set of lights was less organized and was seen simply hovering over Phoenix for a bit around 10 p.m. that night.
[image:2]Everybody and their brother saw the lights. Frances Barwood, a Phoenix city Councilwoman at the time, ended up interviewing around 700 witnesses. Among the people who saw the UFOs was Fife Symington, the governor of Arizona. So people took the initial reports kind of seriously.
Among people who doubt that the lights were a craft or crafts from another world, the popular explanation for the first set is that it was a group of normal aircraft flying in formation from one side of the state to the other. The military suggested that the second set of lights were flares dropped above a military range in western Pima County. (The fact that the lights appear to wink out of existence as they drop behind the Sierra Estrella mountain range southwest of Phoenix appears to confirm this.)
Mysterious lights reappeared in Phoenix in February 2007 but turned out to be flares dropped by F-16s training at Luke Air Force Base. Lights spotted in April 2008 were confirmed to be flares tied to helium balloons and released by some random Phoenix resident.
Come to think of it, we don’t know about places like Myrtle Beach and Philly, but this list might just be the top 10 cities to see flares and identifiable military aircraft in. Still, if that’s your thing, consider moving to Phoenix.
Nick Gonzales
