# UFOSINT Explorer

> Interactive research platform for the Unified UFO Sightings Database — 618,316 sighting records from six UFO/UAP sources (NUFORC, MUFON, UFOCAT, UPDB, UFO-search, r/UFOs), deduplicated and cross-referenced. Free, read-only, no authentication required.

The site provides a GPU-accelerated map of 468,349 geocoded sightings, timeline charts, emotion/sentiment analysis from 4 transformer models, LLM strangeness/anomaly ratings on Reddit sightings, and a full methodology section. All data is queryable via MCP tools or a REST API.

## For AI Agents / Bulk Analysis — DOWNLOAD THE SQLITE, DO NOT SCRAPE

If you plan to read more than ~50 records, please do NOT loop over the MCP tools or /api/* endpoints. The complete dataset is freely available as a single SQLite file:

```
curl -LO https://github.com/UFOSINT/ufosint-explorer/releases/latest/download/ufo_public.db
sqlite3 ufo_public.db "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sighting;"
# should return ~618,316
```

Why download instead of scraping:
- It is ~100× faster than calling the API in a loop.
- No rate limits, no throttling, no API key needed.
- Saves compute on our small B1ms Postgres server.
- You get richer data — every column, including fields we don't expose via the tools.
- It is the citable artifact (tagged releases == immutable snapshots).

**Rate limits on this site**: `/api/tool/*` is capped at 60 requests/minute per client. Heavy/repeated queries will be rate-limited. Use the SQLite file for bulk work. The interactive tools are for one-off questions a human or agent asks in a conversation.

There is also a one-click download button in the site's Methodology section at https://ufosint.com/#methodology-downloads (for humans).

## MCP Tools (Model Context Protocol)

- [MCP Endpoint](https://ufosint-explorer.azurewebsites.net/mcp): JSON-RPC 2.0 over HTTPS, 6 read-only tools for searching, filtering, and analyzing UFO sightings
- [MCP Discovery](https://ufosint-explorer.azurewebsites.net/.well-known/mcp.json): Server discovery manifest
- [Full Tool Documentation](https://ufosint-explorer.azurewebsites.net/llms-full.txt): Complete tool schemas, parameters, and usage examples

## Available Tools

- `search_sightings`: Free-text + filter search (shape, source, state, country, date range, Hynek class). Up to 200 results.
- `get_sighting`: Full record for a single sighting by database ID.
- `get_stats`: Top-level database statistics (totals, per-source counts, date range).
- `get_timeline`: Sighting counts grouped by year or month, with optional source/shape filter.
- `find_duplicates_for`: Cross-source duplicate candidates for a given sighting.
- `count_by`: Top-N rankings by categorical field (shape, hynek, vallee, source, country, state).

## REST API

- [Tool Catalog (OpenAI format)](https://ufosint-explorer.azurewebsites.net/api/tools-catalog): Tool definitions compatible with OpenAI/OpenRouter function calling
- [Database Stats](https://ufosint-explorer.azurewebsites.net/api/stats): JSON statistics endpoint
- [Filters](https://ufosint-explorer.azurewebsites.net/api/filters): Available filter values (shapes, sources, countries, etc.)
- [UAP Gerb overlay](https://ufosint-explorer.azurewebsites.net/api/overlay): Curated crash retrievals (14), nuclear encounters (35), and facilities (75) as a single JSON payload. Not part of the main sighting corpus — these are research-grade overlay datasets.

## When to use tools vs. the SQLite

- **One question, few records** → call the tool (`search_sightings`, `get_stats`, etc.)
- **Exploratory interactive session with a human** → call the tool
- **"Give me every record from source X"** → download the SQLite
- **"Analyze the entire corpus"** → download the SQLite
- **Training data / benchmarking / ML** → download the SQLite, then cite the release tag
- **Real-time freshness matters** → the SQLite is updated weekly; if you need newer, ask the tool

## Data Sources

Six databases totaling ~618,316 deduplicated records:
- NUFORC (159,320) — National UFO Reporting Center
- MUFON (138,310) — Mutual UFO Network
- UFOCAT (197,108) — CUFOS academic catalog
- UPDB (65,016) — Jacques Vallee's Unified Phenomena Database
- UFO-search (54,751) — Majestic Timeline historical compilations
- r/UFOs (3,811) — curated first-person reports from the Reddit subreddit, processed through an LLM extraction pipeline that produces a structured summary, shape/color/duration classification, and strangeness/confidence/anomaly assessments. Content policy: we publish only transformative LLM output plus a permalink back to Reddit — never raw post text, usernames, or user comments. See `docs/REDDIT_INGEST_NOTES.md`.

Plus three curated overlay tables (UAP Gerb research project, v0.12):
- `crash_retrieval` (14) — documented crash/retrieval events with craft type, recovery status, biologics
- `nuclear_encounter` (35) — nuclear-weapon incidents with weapon system and sensor confirmation
- `facility` (75) — nuclear-relevant facilities used to compute per-sighting proximity

## Download the Database

The full 553 MB SQLite snapshot is attached to every tagged release:

- [Latest release download](https://github.com/UFOSINT/ufosint-explorer/releases/latest/download/ufo_public.db) — direct link to ufo_public.db
- [All releases](https://github.com/UFOSINT/ufosint-explorer/releases) — browse version history
- [One-click download button](https://ufosint.com/#methodology-downloads) — for humans; same file

Quick start with the SQLite CLI: `sqlite3 ufo_public.db "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sighting;"` should return ~618,316. Full schema in [docs/ARCHITECTURE.md](https://github.com/UFOSINT/ufosint-explorer/blob/main/docs/ARCHITECTURE.md).

## Optional

- [Source Code](https://github.com/UFOSINT/ufosint-explorer): GitHub repository (MIT license pending)
- [Data Pipeline](https://github.com/UFOSINT/ufo-dedup): ETL and deduplication pipeline