British citizens detailed some 259 alien encounters over the course of 2021, according to The Sun citing the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA).
The association claims that at least five percent of reported alien encounters were "real".
Despite the organisation describing 2021 as an "interesting year", the number of reported UFO sightings has significantly dropped compared previous years.
“One of the main reasons for the huge number of sightings during 2019 was the launches of the Starlink Satellites, which, unsurprisingly produced huge numbers of reports to BUFORA, as huge numbers of these satellites moved across the sky," a spokesperson for the association told the outlet.
However, after the public became more aware of the satellites in 2019, the number of alien reports started to decrease. Alleged sightings in 2021 almost halved those of 2019.
Across the pond, alien interest seems to have reverberated in government circles, with Democratic Lawmaker Andre Carson set to hold the first congressional hearing on UFOs in nearly 60 years. Earlier, the Pentagon revealed that US service personnel have spotted as many as 140 confirmed UAPs, or "unidentified aerial phenomena".