At Canada Sports Betting, we price odds for a living. We applied that same approach to three national UFO databases from 2020 to 2024 and ranked every US state, 13 Canadian cities, and 25 UK cities by individual abduction odds.
Select your country below.
Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day opened June 12 to $93 million worldwide. We had a simpler question: where are you most likely to be abducted right now?
We ranked 13 Canadian cities using the Canadian UFO Survey, which records reported sightings each year across the country.
The survey logged 4,311 sightings between 2020 and 2024. It does not flag individual reports for abduction, so total sightings per person is the closest available measure.
Every one of the 13 ranked cities would place inside the UK top three. The gap between Sherbrooke (297 per million) and Winnipeg (57 per million) is wider than the entire US ranking from first to last.
Quebec · 52 sightings · 297 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.48%
175,000 people in Quebec's Eastern Townships. The highest sighting rate of any city in this entire study. No US state and no UK city comes close.
British Columbia · 179 sightings · 256 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.41%
179 confirmed sightings, 700,000 residents. The most consistent result in the Canadian dataset, confirmed across two separate survey years.
Ontario · 89 sightings · 207 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.33%
89 sightings, 430,000 residents. Ahead of Toronto, Montreal, and Calgary. Open farmland and lower light pollution than the Greater Toronto Area likely explain it.
British Columbia · 63 sightings · 158 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.25%
63 sightings, 400,000 residents. Open water, minimal light interference at the southern tip of Vancouver Island.
Ontario · 79 sightings · 134 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.21%
79 sightings, 590,000 residents. Open Lake Ontario views and escarpment geography push Hamilton into the top five despite its size.
Nova Scotia · 52 sightings · 116 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.18%
52 sightings, 450,000 residents. Atlantic-facing city with open sea views and a long maritime sky-watching culture.
Alberta · 114 sightings · 104 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.17%
114 sightings, 1.1 million residents. Flat Prairie horizon and extended northern twilights, when UFO reports historically peak.
Quebec · 55 sightings · 96 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.15%
55 sightings, 570,000 residents on the St. Lawrence. Second in Quebec behind Sherbrooke. The only province with three cities in the top eight.
Ontario · 275 sightings · 89 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.14%
275 sightings, more than any other Canadian city, and still only ninth. Three million residents compress a commanding raw lead into a mid-table per-person rate.
Alberta · 115 sightings · 82 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.13%
115 sightings, 1.4 million residents. One more raw sighting than Edmonton but a larger population drops it one place. Rockies to the west, open Prairie to the east.
Data Analyst, Canada Sports Betting"Sherbrooke at 297 per million is the number that stops you. 52 reports across 175,000 people over five years. The Eastern Townships have produced a cluster that stands entirely alone in the Canadian dataset."
"Ontario's spread tells the real story of what population does to a ranking. London 3rd. Hamilton 5th. Toronto 9th. Ottawa 12th. Same province, same survey, same five years. The only variable is how many people share the sky."
What we measured: The likelihood that any one resident of a Canadian city would file a UFO sighting report over the 2020 to 2024 period, expressed as a rate per million residents, a 1-in-X five-year odds figure, and a lifetime chance percentage over 80 years.
Data source: Canadian UFO Survey annual PDFs 2020-2024 (canadianuforeport.ca), produced by Ufology Research. City sighting counts from confirmed metro tables in the 2022 and 2024 survey essays.
Population: Statistics Canada subprovincial estimates July 2025, city proper figures.
Important note: The Canadian UFO Survey does not flag reports for abduction or missing time. Total sightings per capita is used as the closest available proxy. Annual totals: 2020: 1,243 | 2021: 722 | 2022: 768 | 2023: 570 | 2024: 1,008.
We ranked all 50 US states using the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), a national database that logs civilian UFO reports.
NUFORC flags individual reports as "Possible Abduction" or "Missing Time". We call these abduction-flagged reports, filed by people who believed they experienced direct contact or unexplained missing time.
Of 18,561 US reports filed between 2020 and 2024, 609 were abduction-flagged. Spread across 49 states. South Dakota: zero. Louisiana: one.
New England · 7 abduction-flagged reports · 10.89 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.0174%
7 abduction-flagged reports out of 91 total sightings. 642,000 residents. The rate is nearly double Oregon in second.
Pacific Northwest · 28 abduction-flagged reports · 6.54 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.0105%
28 abduction-flagged reports out of 551 total sightings. 4.28 million residents. Oregon appears at the top of every time window in the NUFORC database.
New England · 7 abduction-flagged reports · 4.92 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.0079%
7 abduction-flagged reports out of 198 total sightings. 1.42 million residents. Home of the 1961 Betty and Barney Hill case, the most documented abduction in US history.
Pacific Northwest · 37 abduction-flagged reports · 4.58 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.0073%
37 abduction-flagged reports out of 976 total sightings. 8.07 million residents. Adjacent to the Hanford nuclear site and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, both historically associated with elevated UFO reports.
Appalachian South · 8 abduction-flagged reports · 4.53 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.0073%
8 abduction-flagged reports out of 123 total sightings. 1.76 million residents. One of the lowest population densities east of the Mississippi, and home to the 1966 Mothman sightings around Point Pleasant.
Pacific / Arctic · 3 abduction-flagged reports · 4.07 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.0065%
3 abduction-flagged reports out of 54 total sightings. 733,000 residents. Aurora activity, satellite passes, and sub-orbital test flights are all routinely misidentified here.
Midwest · 12 abduction-flagged reports · 3.70 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.0059%
12 abduction-flagged reports out of 162 total sightings. 3.25 million residents. Flat farmland, unobstructed horizons in every direction.
New England · 4 abduction-flagged reports · 3.58 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.0057%
4 abduction-flagged reports out of 65 total sightings. 1.12 million residents. The third New England state in the top eight, alongside Vermont and New Hampshire.
Mountain West · 21 abduction-flagged reports · 3.48 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.0056%
21 abduction-flagged reports out of 597 total sightings. 6.04 million residents. The San Luis Valley in southern Colorado is one of the most studied UFO cluster zones in the country.
Mountain West · 4 abduction-flagged reports · 3.47 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.0056%
4 abduction-flagged reports out of 112 total sightings. 1.15 million residents. Some of the lowest light pollution readings anywhere in the continental US east of the Cascades.
Data Analyst, Canada Sports Betting"Oregon and Vermont lead the US. Oregon has 28 abduction-flagged reports across 4.28 million residents, Vermont 7 across 642,000. Both point to the same pattern: open skies, low light pollution, high reporting rates."
"Three Pacific Northwest states in the top six is not random. Oregon, Washington, and Alaska all share a coastline, high desert, and a community that has been reporting to NUFORC for decades. The observational conditions are structurally different there."
What we measured: The likelihood that any one resident of a US state would file an abduction-flagged report over the 2020 to 2024 period, expressed as a rate per million residents, a 1-in-X five-year odds figure, and a lifetime chance percentage over 80 years.
Data source: National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) dataset accessed via Hugging Face (kcimc/NUFORC, nuforc_bool.csv). Reports flagged as "Possible Abduction" or "Missing Time" are counted as close encounter (CE) reports. 609 CE-flagged reports from 18,561 total US reports 2020-2024.
Population: US Census Bureau Vintage 2025 state estimates.
Important note: Rankings measure the per-person rate, not total volume. California (#32) has the most raw CE reports (61) but 39 million residents lower its individual rate significantly.
We ranked 25 UK cities using UFO Identified, which collects sighting reports through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to police forces across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, plus social media monitoring.
2020 to 2023 figures are confirmed. 2024 is estimated based on the previous four-year average.
Cambridge: 153 sightings per million. London: 11. The gap is the story.
East of England · 19 estimated sightings · 153 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.25%
19 estimated sightings, 124,000 residents. Flat Fenland geography gives unobstructed sky views across eastern England. The university research culture likely means unusual things get documented.
South East · 40 estimated sightings · 144 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.23%
40 estimated sightings, 277,000 residents. Faces the English Channel. One of the most active UFO reporting communities in Britain.
North East · 21 estimated sightings · 142 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.23%
21 estimated sightings, 148,000 residents. Mouth of the River Tees. Teesside Airport and active industrial airspace means people here notice what is overhead.
North West · 78 estimated sightings · 141 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.23%
78 estimated sightings, the most of any UK city, and still only fourth. Brighton, Middlesbrough, and Manchester are effectively in a three-way tie.
South East · 36 estimated sightings · 133 per million · Lifetime chance: 0.21%
36 estimated sightings, 270,000 residents. Sits beneath one of the busiest aviation corridors in Western Europe. Open sea to the south.
Data Analyst, Canada Sports Betting"Cambridge, Brighton, Middlesbrough, Manchester: 12 per million separates first from fourth. Any one of those cities could lead this table with a handful of additional reports."
"London at 25th of 25 is a mathematical certainty. Nearly 9 million residents absorb any volume of sightings. The same dynamic plays out in Toronto and California. The biggest city always finishes near the bottom of a per-person table."
What we measured: The likelihood that any one resident of a UK city would file a UFO sighting report over the 2020 to 2024 period, expressed as a rate per million residents, a 1-in-X five-year odds figure, and a lifetime chance percentage over 80 years.
Data source: UFO Identified annual reports 2020-2024 (ufoidentified.co.uk), collected via 50+ Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to UK police forces plus social media monitoring. City counts from the confirmed 2020-2023 cumulative interactive map published alongside the 2023 annual report.
Population: Office for National Statistics (ONS) mid-2023 estimates, published October 2024.
Important note: 2024 sighting totals are estimated at +25% based on the 2020-2023 annual average. City map clusters may include sightings from surrounding areas.