EXECUTIVE SUMMARY   
   - At least my own observations of unusual lights in the sky suggests   
     the time they are likely to be seen has changed in the past 2-3   
     years. When I first became aware of unusual objects flying across   
     the sky in my area they happened mostly between 8pm and 10pm. In   
     more recent times the numbers are much less and mostly between 6pm   
     and 8pm.   
   - We note there seems to be a seasonal variation in sighting time of   
     lights revealed in the NUFORC database for sightings mostly in the US.   
   - But putting the month by month most-common-sighting-hour through a   
     matching process a program finds the dataset of the 100s of 1000s it   
     knows that "best" matches that behaviour is the position of Jupiter.   
     In particular, when Jupiter is near and passes its perihelion --   
     that happened late 2021/early 2022 -- it predicts a switch in   
     sighting time of lights from "late" to "early" in the evening.   
      
      
   Over the past little while I've become aware of almost nightly   
   activity our here in semi-rural Australia. I live on the extreme outer   
   fringe of Melbourne, maybe 50 km from an international airport.  And   
   that may be the key to seeing during the almost 2y covid lockdown an   
   increasing number of odd lights buzzing across the local skies at   
   night, sometimes doing even odder things than just travelling against   
   the direction of normal satellite orbits.   
      
   The lights had the night skies to themselves, pretty much, during much   
   of the lockdown. Despite being on the approach path for the airport   
   there was no traffic while the lockdown was in effect.  But at the   
   start of 2022 Australia federal and then state govt's moved to "ignore   
   covid" and drop almost all health measures. That has had unfortunate   
   effects on the daily covid death rate, but it's also see a change in   
   the nightly activity.   
      
   When I first became aware of it, various lights and other things   
   seemed to start up around 8pm local time and continue for maybe 2 hrs.   
   After about 10pm there was normally nothing going on in the sky AFAIK.   
      
   But when Australia rebooted in Jan the local airport opened again and   
   jets were seen arriving and stacked up late at night across the N and   
   E horizons.   
      
   A new set of unusual players were then noted. At first one, then 2,   
   then more aircraft seemed to be "on patrol" and apparently on the   
   lookout for unusual objects in the sky. Mostly civilian-looking but   
   probably military-operated noisy light aircraft passed by my location   
   every couple of hours and sometimes were seen orbiting for reasons at   
   first unknown.   
      
   Eventually I saw some unusual interactions between unidentified lights   
   and the aircraft leading me to suspect the aircraft were there for a   
   reason -- either to warn off or at least monitor what was going on in   
   the skies overnight.   
      
   Sometimes I would see military-looking choppers buzzing around clouds.   
   One time I saw a chopper scare out a "red orb" from a cloud.  As the   
   black-centered object seemed to roll up the side of a fluffy cloud and   
   over onto the top of it, the chopper seemed to cast about looking for   
   something. It was only ~1 km from me so I helpfully pointed to the   
   cloud thinking maybe someone would see me even in the pretty much   
   pitch dark. But they apparently didn't and headed off at reasonable   
   speed to the east, leaving the orb to do whatever.   
      
   Another time an aircraft "shook the tree" and 1, 2, 3 then 4 very dim   
   lights streamed out of a cloud and headed over my head and to the E.   
   The aircraft didn't give chase. Apparently it was mission accomplished.   
      
   Over a few months these almost nightly interactions seemed to have an   
   effect. The lights seemed to stop. For a while there was nothing much   
   going on in the skies at night except noisy little aircraft apparently   
   patrolling the region. It got to the point I saw one of them orbiting   
   down to the south one night. A yellow flash of what I took to be a   
   meteor was seen high overhead, and the little aircraft immediately   
   turned and headed for where the flash had happened. Either it was   
   getting desperate for some action or the meteor wasn't a meteor.   
      
   In the past month or so some unusual activity has returned. But it's   
   at totally a different time of the evening. Initially nothing could be   
   seen until maybe 8pm. These days the best viewing times are at dusk --   
   around 6pm. Nothing much is then seen after maybe 8pm. The little   
   planes of course continue to patrol and I'm pretty sure I hear them   
   going over well into the early hours of the morning usually on the hour.   
      
   So the change in timing got me wondering. Has the harassment caused   
   the activity to move from 8pm to 6pm, or is there some other reason?   
      
   So we have to turn to the data. The NUFORC data shows the sighting   
   times for "lights" seems to change from season to season.  Looking at   
   the most common sighting hour for the data from the 1940s to now we find:   
      
   Month	Most common time (local hour of day)   
   	to report sighting "light" UFO   
   1    	19   
   2    	19   
   3    	20   
   4    	21   
   5    	21   
   6    	22   
   7    	22   
   8    	21   
   9    	20   
   10    	20   
   11    	18   
   12    	18   
      
      
   So this was heartening (for some reason :). There is a seasonality in   
   sighting time that varies from 6pm to 10pm over the year.  At least   
   for sightings in the US. And maybe Australia. :)   
      
   But the next question that crops up. What explains this month-to-month   
   variation in sighting time? Is it something to do with changes in the   
   behaviour of the observers -- holidays, work hours, daylight savings   
   -- or is it something to do with the objects?   
      
   Without any data on the subject we would have to presume it's a   
   combination of these and maybe other things.   
      
   To answer more exactly we have to put some data through a little   
   program.  The program tries to match up a "fingerprint" of a target   
   dataset against fingerprints from (these days) ~250,000 other datasets   
   it keeps on file. The object of the exercise is to find the dataset   
   that matches best beyond a reasonable statistical chance.   
      
   The target dataset in this case will be the modal (i.e. most common)   
   sighting hour for light UFO's month by month. Because of peculiarities   
   in the NUFORC dataset I normally use I've chosen the period 1990 to   
   2005 for the data on sighting time versus date.   
      
   While the full dataset is too long to include here, a summary annual   
   avg looks like:   
      
   Year	Annual avg of   
   	max sighting hour for each the 12 m   
   1990	21.1   
   1991	21   
   1992	21   
   1993	20.75   
   1994	21.7273   
   1995	20.6364   
   1996	20.2   
   1997	20.6667   
   1998	20.1818   
   1999	20.25   
   2000	20.7273   
   2001	21.25   
   2002	19.9091   
   2003	21.1818   
   2004	20.75   
   2005	20.5833   
      
      
   Using the target data the s/w removes any (Earth! -- it doesn't handle   
   other-planet seasonality yet) seasonality or trend from the data,   
   assuming any seasonality or change over time is entirely due to   
   changes in the observers -- e.g.  population growth, work behaviour,   
   holidays, etc.   
      
   It does the same thing (notionally) to each of the 1/4 mn datasets it   
   has in its database and finds which dataset statistically matches best   
   against the target.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)