July is the best time for UFO sightings. So let's look at Arizona's history

Driving the news: The website ​​Im-a-puzzle.com analyzed all UFO sightings reported to NUFORC since 1998 and found that more people spotted them in July than any other month.

• And it is not lost on us that Jordan Peele's "Nope" — about an alien invasion — just hit theaters.

Zoom in: Arizonans have reported 4,686 sightings to NUFORC since 1998.

• Only California, Florida, Washington, Texas and New York have more.

Yes, but: There could be more UFO — or UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena), as the Navy insists on calling them — sightings in Arizona not included in the report. The military has its own reporting system.

• After a 2021 report by the U.S. intelligence community helped de-stigmatize UFO reporting by considering UFOs a national security threat, the number of sightings reported by the military more than doubled.
• Arizona has several bases, including Luke Air Force Base in Glendale and Fort Huachuca in Cochise County.

Flashback: The Valley's most famous UFO sighting — the Phoenix Lights — occurred on March 13, 1997.

• Thousands of people reported seeing strange V-shaped lights above Arizona, Nevada and parts of Mexico that night.

1 funny thing: Gov. Fife Symington initially made a joke out of the whole thing by dressing up his chief of staff as an alien for a press conference.

• A decade later, he did an about face, saying he'd witnessed the lights and believed them to be of extraterrestrial origin.