When pilot Kenneth Arnold took off from Chehalis, Washington, in his single-engine airplane one afternoon in June 1947, he was looking for a lost military aircraft that had crashed. But what he found was something completely different—something that would set off a cultural obsession in the U.S. that persists today.
While flying around Mount Rainier, Arnold reportedly encountered nine curious, wingless objects speeding through the sky at 1,200 mph, faster than any plane at the time could. Arnold spent years afterward trying to describe what he had seen, reportedly using a term that has been ingrained in the American lexicon ever since: "flying saucer."
Since then, Americans have been uniquely fixated on the idea that aliens are somewhere in the sky above us—and the number who believe that to be true is growing. In 2019, a Gallup survey found that 33% of Americans believed some UFOs were alien spacecrafts, while 60% felt they could all be explained by human activity or some natural phenomenon. Just two years later, in 2021, 41% of respondents said they believed at least some UFOs were alien-related compared to 50% who were confident any sightings could be explained by human behavior or scientific events.
There are two main reasons that belief in aliens has become so prevalent in the United States: government hearings and pop culture.
America's film industry has always been one of the most influential in the world, and a wave of science fiction films in the 1950s, like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," perpetuated the idea that there are other life-forms out there. This continues today with alien-centric sci-fi staples like the "Avatar" franchise and the "Quiet Place" movies dominating the box office.
Rather than leave flying saucers to the domain of Hollywood, the U.S. government has addressed the question of UFOs, only adding further speculation. In April 2020, the Department of Defense released multiple videos filmed by military pilots that were thought to possibly capture UFOs. In July 2023, an Air Force veteran came forward to the House of Representatives claiming that the U.S. military has been keeping important information on "nonhuman" sightings secret since the 1930s.
Just like it did in the 1950s amid Cold War paranoia, the lore of UFOs is also currently experiencing a resurgence as many Americans grow concerned about national security. The infamous Chinese spy balloon panic in 2023 and fears over being infiltrated by the Russian government have led to many reporting seeing UFOs in the sky. People are also mistaking the spike in Starlink satellites for extraterrestrial activity. In November 2024, the Pentagon announced that most reported sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs, as they're now known) can be attributed to balloons, drones, and other regular objects, while still noting that many objects lack a sufficient explanation.
UAP and UFO sightings in the U.S. are particularly concentrated in the West, partially because of the abundance of dark sky locations, where it's easier to spot objects with less light pollution. Those who believe they've seen something otherworldly can report it to the National UFO Reporting Center, which relies on volunteers to separate fact from fiction.
While New Mexico and Nevada are perhaps best known for UFO sightings, the National UFO Reporting Center data shows that the state with the most sightings is California, with more than 16,500 reports as of Nov. 21, 2024. But what do the numbers look like in your metro area?
Stacker compiled a ranking of cities with the most UFO sightings in Tennessee using data from the National UFO Reporting Center. Data encompasses all reports of UFO sightings dating back to 1995. Sightings with locations listed across multiple cities were not included in this analysis.
For now, the U.S. government's official stance is that extraterrestrial life does not exist. But if the last century is any indicator, that will do little to curb America's alien obsession.
Note: The images in this article are stock photos and do not necessarily depict the specific cities or events described listed.
