| # Nuclear/UAP Explanatory Factors Private Preview | |
| The better explanation surface is population/reporting geography plus ordinary aviation proximity, while the nuclear-specific proximity claim remains unsupported after controls. | |
| ## What changed | |
| - Missing geocodes are counted and routed; they are not silently filled. | |
| - Population and major-airport proximity are measured as confounders. | |
| - The previous nuclear matched-control test is carried forward as the nuclear-specific check. | |
| ## Strongest explanations we can support | |
| - Population explanation strength score: 78/100. | |
| - Airport confounder strength score: 90/100. | |
| - Nuclear non-support strength score: 95/100. | |
| - Place-level log(population) vs log(report count) correlation: 0.641288. | |
| - Events matched to Census population rows: 105086 of 105250. | |
| - Median event distance to a major scheduled airport: 13.277 miles. | |
| - Population-weighted median place distance to a major scheduled airport: 10.764 miles. | |
| ## Missing geocodes | |
| - Total U.S. rows scanned: 123013. | |
| - Rows without Census-place geocode: 17783 (0.144562). | |
| - These rows need county, landmark, route, relative-place, or fuzzy public-gazetteer recovery before entering spatial tests. | |
| ## What We Can Claim | |
| - The missing NUFORC-derived rows were not geocoded by assumption; they were excluded from spatial tests and logged for recovery. | |
| - The public geocoded report rows can be compared against Census place population and commercial-airport proximity as explanatory covariates. | |
| - At the place level, report counts can be assessed against population concentration without claiming reports are true or false. | |
| - Airport proximity can be treated as a public-source confounder, not as proof that airplanes caused specific reports. | |
| - The nuclear power-plant proximity claim remains unsupported in this evidence surface after matched non-nuclear power-plant controls. | |
| ## What We Cannot Claim | |
| - This dataset cannot prove what witnesses saw. | |
| - This dataset cannot claim aircraft explain every report. | |
| - This dataset cannot treat city/place centroids as exact sighting coordinates. | |
| - This dataset cannot rule out all nuclear-weapons, military, or classified-site hypotheses. | |
| - This dataset cannot assume the skipped missing-geocode rows would preserve or reverse the result without a separate recovery run. | |