| --- |
| datasets: |
| - kaggle |
| language: |
| - en |
| task_categories: |
| - text-classification |
| - text-retrieval |
| - time-series-forecasting |
| pretty_name: "UFO Sightings Unified Semantic Dataset" |
| size_categories: |
| - 100K<n<1M |
| license: mit |
| tags: |
| - ufo |
| - ufology |
| - anomalous-phenomena |
| - embeddings |
| - hdbscan |
| - semantic-search |
| - cluster-analysis |
| - dataset |
| - geospatial |
| - moon-illumination |
| - aviation |
| --- |
| # **UFO Sightings – Cleaned & Unified Dataset (~327k rows)** |
|
|
| This dataset merges several publicly available UFO sighting datasets from Kaggle into one **cleaned**, **standardized**, and **enriched** file. |
| The goal is simply to provide a consolidated dataset instead of many fragmented sources with inconsistent formatting. |
|
|
| This release contains **a single JSONL file** with approximately **327,000 records**. |
|
|
| No private or identifying information was present in the original data. |
|
|
| --- |
|
|
| ## **📦 Source** |
|
|
| All entries originate from publicly available UFO sighting datasets on **Kaggle**. |
| Each row corresponds to a single reported sighting. |
| Source Files located in source folder |
| --- |
|
|
| ## **🧹 Cleaning / Normalization Performed** |
|
|
| All rows in this unified file were standardized using the same basic rules: |
|
|
| * timestamps parsed and converted into a consistent `t_utc` (ISO-8601, UTC) |
| * city/state/country fields harmonized where possible |
| * latitude/longitude coerced to floats |
| * basic HTML/unicode cleanup in free-text descriptions (`text`) |
| * invalid or fully unparseable rows removed |
| * source field preserved as `src` |
|
|
| No interpretation or filtering based on content was performed. |
|
|
| --- |
|
|
| ## **✨ Added Contextual Fields** |
|
|
| A small number of lightweight “sidecar” fields were added based on timestamp + coordinates: |
|
|
| * **`moon_illum`** — moon illumination fraction |
| * **`moon_alt_deg`** — moon altitude in degrees |
| * **`nearest_airport_code`** — closest airport (ICAO) |
| * **`nearest_airport_km`** — distance to that airport in km |
| * **`wx_bucket`** — rough weather bucket (coarse category) |
|
|
| These values are approximate and should be treated as exploratory metadata only. |
|
|
| --- |
|
|
| ## **🧩 Clustering Fields (Included in the File)** |
|
|
| The dataset includes two fields that come from text-similarity grouping: |
|
|
| * **`cluster_id`** — numeric label |
| * **`prob`** — membership confidence |
| |
| These reflect **text similarity**, not verified categories or event types. |
| They are included because they were already part of the cleaned file. |
| |
| --- |
| |
| ## **📝 Field Reference** |
| |
| Each row has the following structure (example): |
| |
| ``` |
| { |
| "uid": "scrubbed/row327047", |
| "t_utc": "2013-09-09T09:51:00.000Z", |
| "lat": 32.7152778, |
| "lon": -117.1563889, |
| "text": "2 white lights zig-zag over Qualcomm Stadium...", |
| "src": "scrubbed", |
| "city": "san diego", |
| "state": "ca", |
| "country": "US", |
| |
| "cluster_id": 725, |
| "prob": 1.0, |
| |
| "moon_illum": 0.163603127, |
| "moon_alt_deg": -67.0003509521, |
| "nearest_airport_km": 3.7174715996, |
| "nearest_airport_code": "KSAN", |
| "reports_z": null, |
| "wx_bucket": "unknown" |
| } |
| ``` |
| |
| ### **Field descriptions** |
|
|
| | Field | Type | Notes | |
| | -------------------------- | ---------- | ------------------------------------------------ | |
| | `uid` | string | Stable row identifier | |
| | `t_utc` | string | Event timestamp, ISO-8601 UTC | |
| | `lat`, `lon` | float | Approximate coordinates | |
| | `city`, `state`, `country` | string | Cleaned location fields (best-effort) | |
| | `text` | string | Free-text sighting description | |
| | `src` | string | Original Kaggle dataset source | |
| | `cluster_id` | int | Text-similarity cluster (for research use only) | |
| | `prob` | float | Cluster membership probability | |
| | `moon_illum` | float | Moon illumination (0–1) | |
| | `moon_alt_deg` | float | Moon altitude in degrees | |
| | `nearest_airport_km` | float | Distance to nearest airport | |
| | `nearest_airport_code` | string | ICAO code | |
| | `wx_bucket` | string | Approximate weather category | |
| | `reports_z` | float/null | Unused placeholder field (kept for completeness) | |
|
|
| --- |
|
|
| ## **⚠️ Notes & Limitations** |
|
|
| * Accuracy of timestamps and locations depends entirely on original reporting. |
| * Weather buckets are coarse (not NOAA-grade). |
| * Airport distances are approximate nearest-neighbor lookups. |
| * Cluster labels are based solely on text similarity and do **not** reflect event reality. |
| * No claims are made about the nature or validity of any sighting. |
|
|
| --- |
|
|
| ## **📄 License** |
|
|
| Source data was public on Kaggle. |
| This cleaned, merged, and lightly enriched version is released for **research and educational use**. |
| Users should follow the original dataset licensing terms. |
|
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|
