ELMIRA, N.Y. (WETM) – For years there has been speculation to if UFO sightings were legit. Cheryl Costa and her partner Linda have been working for years to study statistics on UFO sightings.

This past year Cheryl, a military veteran, retired aerospace security engineer, and a published writer, has given over twelve major talks about their findings.

“The majority of people who report UFOs are dog walkers, smokers, and people out having a smoke and walking the dog,” says Costa. “Linda Miller-Costa and I discovered that population is a driver, but not the knee jerk everybody thinks it is.”

Cheryl and Linda found that there are four main factors that seem to be related to the number of sightings in a certain area.

“Oh, it’s got a big population, no. It’s population, temperate weather, leisure time and hours of darkness,” says Costa.

There also appears to be a correlation between the number of sightings and bodies of water.

“I noticed that the states touching the Great Lakes had many thousands of sightings. These are the states that are in the top ten. Move two states away and the sightings for that fifteen-year period falls to the low hundreds,” Costa said.

If you are someone who believes in UFOs, well you are not alone. There have been numerous high ranking officials who have said these sightings are happening.

“Chris Mellon, who was the former Deputy Intelligence Director for the Pentagon, a very prestigious guy came out within the past year and said these things are very real,” Costa said.

Although, there is now scientific proof that these sightings are in fact real, there are still questions as to who are driving these machines and where they are from.