Special Report: A Summary of MUFON UFO Reports For Oregon 2005 Through 2010 (long download). Prepared by Keith Rowell, OM Assistant State Director. 

Your Assistant State Director has taken the time to put together some summary statistics about UFOs in Oregon. All the statistics are derived from MUFON's reporting system, which anyone wanting to report a UFO sighting can access on the MUFON website.

2009 and 2010 Big Years for UFOs

MUFON investigators work hard to determine which category each UFO report should go into: Unknown, IFO, Hoax, Insufficient Data. The chart below shows the numbers we in Oregon came up with during the years of 2005 through 2010. Note the rise in Unknowns (which are what MUFON calls UFOs), especially in 2009. It was a big year in Oregon, and generally around the nation, for UFOs. The next year, 2010, was also a pretty big year compared to earlier years.

UFO Hoaxes In Oregon

You can see also that Hoaxes are a pretty big part of Oregon MUFON's reports over these years. These are not elaborate hoaxes such as the faking of a video or photo, which we've had a few of, but what MUFON has come to call "Keystroke Hoaxes." This means some kid, usually for us it seems from the Grants Pass or Medford areas, decided to have some fun and got on the MUFON site and typed in a wild, hair-brained story of a close encounter. These are easy to spot because of poor grammar and details reported that virtually never are part of a real encounter.

IFOs and UFOs Distinguished by Investigators

IFOs generally rose in the years studied. This and the UFO categories almost undoubtedly involve some learning on the part of new field investigators. But, actually, once you've gone through MUFON's basic training to become a certified investigator and have that all important field trainee period, it becomes relatively easy in most cases to spot a real UFO in just the data reported in the basic MUFON report sent to us automatically via email from the MUFON reporting system. So, we believe that the actual numbers you see in the chart are reflective to perhaps 80% of the "real" numbers. Distinguishing UFOs from IFOs is not easy, but it is not rocket science either!

Thanks to Our Great Field Investigators

Oregon's current State Director, Assistant State Director, and Chief Investigator would like to thank all the Oregon MUFON field investigators who were active in the years covered by these statistics and all the past State Directors, Assistant State Directors, Chief Investigators, State Section Directors, and Field Investigators who have worked for Oregon MUFON. You all stepped up and did the job of the government, military, and scientific establishment for them. And MUFON will continue to do this till our various establishment elites take on their proper roles and execute their proper responsibilities for the people and do this important work.

A Basic Chart of Activity

The chart below shows the distribution of the UFO, IFO, Hoax, Insufficient Data, and Incomplete categories (MUFON "dispositions") for the years 2005 through 2010. Be sure to download the full report for all the particulars.