UFO Sightings: the Killer Chart

A fascinating and brilliant bit of data analysis by The Economist is one of the better illustrations xray-delta has seen of the power of incisive, well-executed display of quantitative information. A U.S.-based organization, the National UFO Reporting Center (http://www.nuforc.org/) has cataloged in a publicly available data base on their site, 90,000 reported UFO sightings since 1974, primarily in the U.S. It is a wonderful example of the kind of analysis and visual The Economist does so very well. It’s what many like to call the “killer chart” (the one chart in the presentation or report that says it all and say it well).