Note: Everything below the line was generated using AI to minimize human bias and work with a larger dataset, but all the public data is available for anyone to review. It includes potential inclusions for the automod which could significantly reduce rule breaking with minimal mod effort (a few minutes a day), without removing a single comment (it would merely flag it for human review, using the automod to effectively report comments in addition to users already being asked to do so).

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The Question

Is r/UFOs as toxic as it feels? And if so, is it something better moderation could fix?

To find out, we scraped a month of comments from the subreddit's most active threads and ran them through a rule-violation detection pipeline, then compared results across two sorting methods — Reddit's "top" (which surfaces upvoted comments) and "controversial" (which surfaces contested and downvoted ones).

Period: June 2 – July 2, 2026 (30 days) Dataset: 778 posts, 13,609 comments (top-sorted) + 16,145 comments (controversial-sorted) from the 100 most-discussed posts

Dataset here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tbCxJXYtHu_x7wYZ54dPmaaNLZt66TLa/edit?usp=sharing

Key Findings

1. The Rule Violation Rate Is Real but Moderate

Between 5.4% and 5.6% of comments contain blatant, regex-detectable rule violations. This number was remarkably consistent across both top-sorted and controversial-sorted datasets, which suggests the violation rate is a stable feature of the community rather than an artifact of sampling.

The breakdown:

Category	Count (controversial)	% of Comments
R3: Low-effort (< 15 chars)	470	2.9%
R1: Insults/profanity	240	1.5%
R1: Mental health dismissals	225	1.4%
R1: Toxic toward public figures	140	0.9%
R1: Dismissive/derailing	76	0.5%
R1: Bot/fed/shill accusations	26	0.2%
Total (unique)	1,069	6.6%

This is a floor estimate. Keyword detection cannot catch sarcasm, passive aggression, or the "summarily dismissive" tone that Rule 1 explicitly prohibits. The true rate is likely 8–12%.

2. The Sub Feels Worse Than It Is — Because of Downvoting, Not Rule-Breaking

The most striking finding: 98.1% of negatively-scored comments are not rule-breaking. They're unpopular opinions.

The controversial sort surfaced 1,390 negatively-scored comments (8.6% of the dataset). Only 26 of those (1.9%) contained detectable rule violations. The rest were things like witnesses defending their sightings, people questioning consensus narratives, or metaphysical/consciousness-oriented perspectives that the nuts-and-bolts majority simply disagreed with.

This means the sub's toxicity problem is partly real (the 5-6% violation rate) and partly a perception created by the voting system punishing dissent. Moderation can address the former but not the latter.

3. The Mod Team's Current Enforcement Has Gaps

Rule 1 explicitly prohibits:

• "No toxic content regarding public figures"
• "No summarily dismissive, sarcastic, or derisive comments that derail or shutdown conversation"
• "No mental health epithets e.g. crazy, schizo, take your meds"
• "No accusations that other users are bots, feds, CIA agents"

Our data shows these clauses are under-enforced. Toxic public figure comments ("grifter," "con man," "charlatan") appeared in 140 comments in the controversial dataset — a near-doubling from the 77 found in the top-sorted data, suggesting these comments get downvoted but not removed. Mental health dismissals beyond the explicitly named terms (using "crazy," "insane," "psycho," "lunatic") appeared in 225 comments. These are functionally identical to the prohibited "schizo" and "take your meds" but use adjacent language the rules don't specifically name.

4. AutoMod Could Catch Most of This With Minimal Effort

We designed a three-tier automod configuration and estimated the mod workload:

Tier	Description	Daily Flags	False Positive Rate
Tier 1	Near-certain violations (hard profanity, slurs, "schizo")	~1/day	Very low
Tier 2	Likely violations (moderate insults, directed attacks)	~6/day	Low-moderate
Tier 3	Context-dependent (public figure toxicity, broader mental health, low-effort)	~29/day	~71% for insults
Total		~36/day

At approximately 10 seconds per review, the full flag set represents 6 minutes of daily mod work, or about 3 hours per month. For a subreddit that reports having a large mod team, this is a trivial workload. The automod rules are provided as a ready-to-paste YAML file.

YAML File: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qNT6dkCSw4iDtNvYQHyQ8sJ3KlOUvD5N/view?usp=sharing

5. The Deeper Problem Is Cultural, Not Procedural

Even if every rule violation were caught, the sub would still have a problem with interpretive monoculture. The nuts-and-bolts frame (recovered craft, government programs, physical evidence) dominates, and the voting system systematically buries alternative perspectives — consciousness-based interpretations, interdimensional hypotheses, Vallée-style thinking — without any rules being broken.

This is ironic given that many of the field's most respected figures (Vallée, Hynek, Puthoff, and elements of the DIA's AAWSAP program) explicitly investigated consciousness-related phenomena. The sub's de facto orthodoxy is actually the minority position in the field's intellectual history.

Recommendations

Immediate (moderation tools)

1. Deploy the automod flag-for-review rules. Start with Tier 1 (auto-remove) and Tier 2 (flag), then evaluate Tier 3 after a trial period. The YAML config is ready to paste.
2. Enforce Rule 1's "summarily dismissive" clause. This is the most impactful under-enforced rule. It already prohibits exactly the behavior that makes the sub feel toxic — but enforcement appears inconsistent.
3. Add a minimum comment length rule. A 15-character floor would catch 470 low-effort comments per month with near-zero false positives. Many subs enforce this successfully.

Structural (community design)

1. Create protected discussion spaces. A recurring weekly thread for non-nuts-and-bolts discussion, with stricter Rule 1 enforcement within it. The "[in-depth]" tag already provides a model — extend it to interpretive framework threads.
2. Add interpretive framework flairs. "Consciousness/Metaphysical" and "Interdimensional Hypothesis" as first-class flair categories, not afterthoughts. This signals legitimacy and lets users filter by interest.
3. Address the downvote-as-disagreement culture. This is the hardest problem. Options include contest mode for certain post types, community education (sidebar callouts about reddiquette), or periodic mod posts explicitly affirming interpretive diversity. None of these are silver bullets, but they shift norms incrementally.

Measurement

1. Track enforcement metrics. Run this analysis monthly to measure whether rule violations decrease after automod deployment. The scripts and methodology are reproducible.

Methodology Notes

Data collection: All 779 posts from the 30-day window were catalogued. Comments were fetched from the top 100 posts by comment count (those with 10+ comments), pulling up to 200 comments per post in two passes: sorted by "top" (13,609 comments) and sorted by "controversial" (16,145 comments).

Rule violation detection: Regex pattern matching against comment text, categorized by the specific r/UFOs rule clause violated. Categories include hard profanity, moderate insults, mental health epithets, toxicity toward public figures, dismissive/derailing language, bot/fed accusations, and low-effort comments.

False positive assessment: Context-dependent words like "stupid," "clown," and "delusional" were checked for whether they were directed at a person (29%) or about a situation/idea (71%). "Glowing/glowie" had ~70% false positives from UFO light descriptions. Both "hate speech" matches were typos of "like." All rates reported in this document are adjusted for known false positives.

Limitations: Regex cannot detect sarcasm, passive aggression, or tone-based dismissiveness. Comments already removed by mods before data collection are not in the dataset. The "load more" pagination limit means deeply nested replies are under-sampled.

Analysis conducted July 2, 2026. Raw datasets (JSON) and automod rules (YAML) available alongside this report.

I had an incident relatively recently which I want to share because it involves a variety of common and confusing anomalous phenomenon along with some object evidence that something is happening.

First of all, a bit about me: I had an up close visit with a mantis being when I was six, followed by many years of sporadic anomalous experiences such as objects turning on by themselves (one without even having batteries in it), ghost sightings, etc. In 2020 things kicked into high gear and I entered a long period of ontological shock as a result. I am fully committed to advocating for Experiencers and currently have a role at the John Mack Institute. What a long, strange journey it has been.

In my quest for answers I have made contacts and work with all manner of scientists, researchers, and academics who study these things. One of them is Dr. Jim Segala, who started the MUPAS project.

The MUPAS came out of Jim’s research at Skinwalker Ranch as well as his part in investigating Havana Syndrome for the government. The MUPAS is a small sensor platform with over a dozen sensors reading various environmental signals, designed to look for environmental correlations with anomalous experiences. Jim has been interviewed many times, so pick your favorite podcaster for more information.

I assist Jim as a volunteer doing technical support for the MUPAS, so I know the ins and outs of the platform and how it works. I want to make it clear I do not in any way profit or benefit from sales of MUPAS devices, but I just want to make it clear that there is a connection.

OK, on to the event.

I have a long history with sleep paralysis, preceding my interest or knowledge of the UAP subject. I have had it potentially over a hundred times (I never counted). There was a period where I was having it multiple times a night almost every night for months, which was caused by a medication I was on. I am going to write a follow up post on sleep paralysis specifically because I think it’s important people understand how and why I believe it can involve anomalous phenomena in some way. Rest assured, I’m very familiar with what it feels like.

Sometimes I have bouts of insomnia. They usually last for a couple weeks and then go away. During these periods I have great difficulty falling asleep. Over the past few years I have started to wonder if maybe these bouts of insomnia might be related to some sort of experiences which might be happening at night, potentially making me subconsciously scared to fall asleep.

On the night of June 11, I was lying in bed with the lights off trying to fall sleep. Suddenly I heard a very weird noise which I can only describe as a “warbling.” My cat jumped off my legs and immediately went over to investigate the door to my bedroom, which was closing by itself and actually pushing an empty five gallon water jug out of the way in the process. I admit I’m used to weird things happening at this point and also wasn’t sure if it was just a breeze somehow doing it, so I simply opened the door again and went right back to bed.

Around an hour later I apparently fell asleep and then was suddenly awake and in sleep paralysis. I saw a bright flash of blue light out the window on my right, and across the hall on the left I could see a light on in the room from an unidentified source (there are multiple possible causes, including my computer waking from sleep). I realized right away I was paralyzed, and felt like I couldn’t breathe.

How’s where things get weird and a bit unpleasant. If this night be triggering for you, stop reading.

I had a pronounced feeling of terror. I found myself trying to yell, and had the sense I was choking out the words “I revoke permission!” over and over. I then came out of the paralysis only to find everything was dark and my cat was asleep on my legs. At that point I heard a voice in my head saying “[something] with us soon,” presumed to be “you’ll be with us soon.”

In terms of what that’s about, I don’t really know. I am very aware of the discussion of people having pre-incarnate agreements to allow us to be studied by NHI, but I’ve never had much thought about it one way or the other. I’m not opposed to it, but understand why people could be. I’ve never said anything or thought anything like this as far as I’m aware, so it’s a bit confusing. The feeling of terror often happens during sleep paralysis and could be related to the fact that for me it’s strongly associated with sleep apnea and difficulty breathing, which could absolutely cause panicky feelings. Then again some creepy shit often happens during these incidents, so it could be that too.

Since there was no indication I moved or made a sound, it could all have been a dream. I didn’t think it was at the time, but I did think it could have been some sort of partial hallucination while experiencing SP. However what I’m going to make a case for in a subsequent post is that SP might involve things happening in what is sometimes called the lower astral realm, among other terms. I have some evidence for that, too.

I have a habit of taking a screenshot on my phone whenever something unusual happens at night, as I have security cameras all over my house and it can help me determine if anything unusual was captured (I got a lot of stuff back when I had a camera in my bedroom, but it was generally ambiguous—the curse of the phenomenon). My screenshot in that night was at 12:22 AM. My outside security cameras recorded nothing unusual around this time; no flashes of light were apparent.

A few days later I took a look at my MUPAS portal and found something odd: something was recorded on my device right around the same time, almost to the minute. Note that the time recorded is off by an hour due to daylight savings time. It also shows as being a few minutes after the event. I haven’t determined yet if this is due to a time variance with the internal clock, or if it truly registered after I woke up.

Let me explain what you’re seeing in the attached image. The graphs are showing various sensor readings over time. The top graph is looking at the Z axis on the accelerometer, the middle graph is the atmospheric pressure, and the bottom is the Y axis on the gyroscope. There were also deviations in the magnetometer, which aren’t shown. Nothing unusual showed up on RF, infrasound, Geiger counter, or other sensors. The gyroscope only shifted significantly on one axis, which would be unusual if the device was being jostled by something like a cat walking on it (not that this is a spot where they really could, but just listing it as a possibility).

I also flagged similar variances which were detected two nights later around the same time, although I have no memory of anything unusual happening during this time.

I contacted Jim and he looked at the screenshot and he agreed it was unusual. The fact it was registered across multiple sensors, including not just the inertial measurement unit (IMU), but also the pressure sensor, are evidence it wasn’t a hardware glitch as those are relying on separate sensors. Something physical happened during that time, and the MUPAS recorded it.

Now the frustrating bit: all I know is that it recorded something strange. It doesn’t give me much information about what that was. The fact it affected the IMU could be an indicator that something was happening with local space-time. The pressure sensor could be in relation to something energetic or physical changing in the local space. No high energy levels were recorded here, although that has happened to me in the past.

Jim has said that the system identifies multiple statistically significant correlations per week, meaning that recorded signals correlate with incident reports in which people describe something anomalous happening. The platform is gathering data that can ultimately help support Experiencers in proving to others that at least some of what they’re experiencing is real, not imagined.

I caution people that the MUPAS should not be thought of as an anomalous incident detector. There are cases like mine where correlated signals are recorded, but sometimes things are recorded when nothing apparent is happening and sometimes people will have profound experiences and nothing is recorded. People shouldn’t sign up for the study in hopes of proving their experiences, but if anyone wants to help contribute to research that can reduce stigma of the phenomenon and ultimately contribute to our understanding then I encourage people to look into it: https://experiencer-studies.com

I’m an open book, so I’m happy to answer any questions.

These weren’t A or S class sites, so I didn’t bother with coords, but if you find a good class feel free to share below.

If people would rather I not post things like this here, hit the downvote button and I won’t do it again.

Note: These are all in Eissentam! You can get to that galaxy through the Anomaly by teleporting to one of the Favorite bases. Check their descriptions.

This post is really just for new players, longtime players probably won’t learn anything new. I’ve been careful to avoid storyline spoilers.

Interceptors are the ships used by the Sentinels in the game. They have some of the best overall specs of any ship barring Exotics, and the best part is they’re free (and valuable). But it takes a bit of legwork to acquire them.

Crashed Interceptors can only be found on planets marked as “Dissonant.” Not every Dissonant planet has a downed Interceptor, but most do.

Interceptors almost always spawn in hilly regions of the map, in a bowl shaped area. Instead of manually searching, there are a couple methods for finding them. One is by using the pillar located in a Harmonic Camp to find a Dissonance Spike. This will take you straight to a downed Interceptor.

The easiest way to find a harmonic camp early in the game is via a Dissonance Resonator. If you’re in a Dissonant planet, these are marked on your HUD by activating the scanner. If you get close to a resonator and scan it with your visor it’ll tell you whether it’s carrying an inverted mirror, an echo locator, or both. The echo locator is what you use to find the Harmonic Camp (although the mirrors are needed to repair the ships, so grab those too). activate it in your inventory and it’ll mark the location of the harmonic camp. These camps also have Sentinel multitools and a bunch of good stuff hidden in piles of “harmonic scrap” so it’s worth finding them.

Alternatively, you can use a Carrier AI Fragment. These can be acquired by destroying a sentinel carrier. Shoot at a space station and Interceptors will show up to defend it. Keep destroying the Interceptors until the carrier warps in, then destroy it. You’ll be rewarded with the fragment, and if you activate it in your inventory you’ll get a marker for the nearest Dissonance Spike, which is the location of a downed Interceptor. The downside to the carrier fragment method is that it makes it harder to find an S class if that’s your goal, because it’s a one and done locator that doesn’t locate a harmonic camp.

Repairing a crashed Sentinel ship requires a few steps, the easiest thing to do is google it and follow along.

Each system only has one style of Interceptor, so if you don’t like the style you find go to a different system and try again. Of course you can use r/NMSCoordinateExchange to find one you like, but that’s much less rewarding and you don’t end up with a unique ship. More on that later.

If you find a style you like but it isn’t the class you want, keep searching the same planet. If you used a pillar to locate the ship you can go back and use it again to find another site on the same planet with potentially better specs. If you’re willing to put in some time you should be able to get an A or S class for any located style. Otherwise you can upgrade the class at a space station, although a ship upgraded to an S won’t have as good specs as a natural S.

You can scan a ship with your visor to determine the class without having to interact with the ship, a valuable time saver.

Thousands of Interceptor variants have been cataloged, randomly generated from 53 different parts in 11 different colors. If you found a ship on your own without using someone else’s portal glyphs then you can be confident that it’s a one-of-a-kind.

I recommend switching to third person ship view from the quick menu to see how it looks and behaves on takeoff and landing, as they can have some pretty badass animations.

Some colors of Interceptor are more rare than others. The colors are listed below in terms of rarity as primary color (first being most common):
• ⁠Orange
• ⁠Black
• ⁠Blue
• ⁠Yellow
• ⁠Red
• ⁠Green
• ⁠Pink
• ⁠White
• ⁠Gray
• ⁠Light orange (peach)
• ⁠Light blue

Note that each ship had a primary, secondary, and accent color.

Interceptors can be scrapped at the space station for tens of millions of units based on class, so even if you don’t like the style of what you found it’s still worth repairing and adding it to your collection. You can have up to 12 ships in your inventory, and even more in the ship archive which you can access a bit later in the game.

Have fun!

I found my first Exotic just under a week ago, then yesterday found another, and then today found yet another! Today I also won a large Venator I’ve been searching for (although only C class), and found an unusual S-class Sentinel ship. I swear I didn’t use a portal code or any tricks to find any of them, it was just dumb luck.