Looks like during the pandemic, more people spent some time looking into the sky because 2020 was a record year for UFO sightings.

I live in Newaygo County in an area where there is no city nearby so when it gets dark, it gets dark. That means on a clear night I really get a show from the stars. My son and I often look up at the constellations and we always keep an eye out for something unusual, but nothing unusual ever happens.

Maybe because during the pandemic, many factories shutdown and less people were driving help make the skies clearer because of less pollution or a heck of lot more people were doing some stargazing, well, because they didn't have much else to do.

According to FOX 17, the National UFO Reporting Center say that UFO sightings increased by 1,000 across the United States with a total of 7,200 reports made. The state of New York saw double their normal numbers of sightings.

Here is where Michigan stands on sightings for 2020: according to Michigan's director of the Mutual UFO Network Bill Konkolesky, sightings went from 33 in 2019 to 233 in 2020. Konkolesky said, "even on a bad year we can identify about 85 percent of what comes into us, most years closer to 95 percent."

The only thing I have ever scene in Michigan was in the Upper Peninsula near a town called Paulding. It was something called the Paulding Lights. A friend told me about it so we pulled up to the location, and sure enough I saw lights flying in all different directions, making weird turns, moving fast then slow. I looked up an explanation for it and it said it was traffic off on a far road creating the lights. I thought traffic? It was 3 a.m. when we were there in the middle of winter, there is no traffic in the U.P.

I actually had a video camera with me and filled what I saw. I will say, it was one of the most bizarre things I have ever witnessed. I zoomed in with my camera to the best of my ability and it looked like a human cell if you looked at it through a microscope. Now camera's can play tricks especially when something is miles away, but with my own eyes, the darting and quick movements of the lights told me it wasn't a car in traffic off in the distance, no cars move like what I saw.

Some sightings are often satellites when they travel in a chain, they look like UFO's flying in formation but even then they are traveling rather slow to the eye.

Another reason for the uptick in UFO sightings may be the release of the Department of Defense pilot videos that showed UFO's and that may have sparked more interest in the subject, not to mention with many people out of work, there wasn't a lot to do for many people. Plus, during the pandemic, many people spent more time than usual outside.

If you think you have spotted a UFO and want to report it, contact MUFON here.

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