Privacy

Last updated October 29, 2026

Short version: we keep what's needed to run the site and keep it free of spam. We don't sell data or show ads.

When you visit

Each page view is logged with your IP address, the page, the page you came from, and your browser and device type. We use this to count visitors, see which sightings are popular, keep the site secure and stop spam and abuse (including blocking abusive networks). Your IP address may be matched to an approximate location (your country, and sometimes your internet provider’s city) by an IP-location service. These logs are deleted after 90 days.

If you have an account

We store your username, email address, a scrambled (hashed) version of your password, and what you post and do: sightings, comments, statuses, board posts, articles, votes, favorites, follows and chat messages. If you sign in with Google, Discord or another service, we receive your name, email address and profile picture from it and store the ID it gives us so you can sign in again — nothing else. Your email is never shown publicly. If you ask to be a verified witness, the file and answers you send are seen only by our admins and the file is deleted once they decide.

Tonight’s Sky

On Tonight’s Sky the place you pick is saved only in your own browser, rounded to about a kilometre. It is sent to us with each request just to work out your sky (and to the weather and aircraft services, which receive the rounded coordinates), and is never stored, logged or shown to anyone. The AI sky guide only receives the sky facts — times, directions and cloud cover — never your place. “Forget this place” removes it from your browser.

Cookies and similar technology

We use a cookie to keep you signed in and to protect forms from forgery, and we remember small preferences on your device (like light or dark mode, or a hidden sidebar). The site doesn’t show ads right now, so there are no advertising cookies; if we add ads, the section below applies.

Advertising

We may show ads to help pay for the site, including ads served by Google AdSense. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your previous visits to this site and other websites. Google’s advertising cookies let it and its partners serve ads to you based on those visits. You can opt out of personalised advertising in Google’s Ad Settings, or opt out of some other vendors’ personalised ads at aboutads.info. Learn how Google uses information from sites that use its services. Visitors in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland are asked for consent before personalised ads are shown. We never sell your account information (like your email address) to advertisers.

How we use AI

We use outside AI services (such as Google AI Studio / Gemini, Groq, Mistral, OpenRouter and similar) to help run the site. AI may be used for:

Writing short summaries of long sighting reports, board topics and articles
Suggesting labels for sightings (shape, colours, movement, place, date and tags)
Looking at pictures and video stills to describe what they show, likely explanations, and signs of editing or AI-made fakes
Matching sightings by meaning, for search, “Similar sightings” and spotting duplicates
Answering questions in “Ask the archive” and helping members fill in the submit form
Writing overviews at the top of place, year and shape pages, and summaries of case files
Checking new comments, posts and submissions for spam, abuse and bad language
Explaining what’s in the night sky on Tonight’s Sky and answering questions about it (using sky data only, never your location)
Drafting “Skeptic’s corner” notes, comparing view counts with what’s reported online, and finding copies of videos

To do this, the text and pictures involved (for example a sighting’s description and photos, or a comment being checked for spam) are sent to the AI service. We don’t send your email address or password. Some free AI services may use what they receive to improve their products. AI output can be wrong — it is labelled as AI on the site. You can hide AI summaries on your Account page.

Emails

Members get email notifications (replies, approvals and similar) unless they turn them off under Account → Notifications; every email has a link to change or stop them. Optional emails, like the weekly newsletter, are only sent if you ask for them.

Who we share information with

We don’t sell personal information. It is only shared with services that help run the site (our web host, email sending, encrypted backups, the AI services above, and — if ads are shown — advertising partners), or when the law requires it.

Outside services and credits

YouTube. The site uses the YouTube API Services to show YouTube videos and their view counts. By watching YouTube videos here you also agree to the YouTube Terms of Service; see the Google Privacy Policy.
Embedded posts. Videos and posts embedded from YouTube, Reddit, X, TikTok, Instagram, SoundCloud and others load from those sites and follow their own privacy policies.
Sign-in. “Continue with Google / Discord / …” buttons use those services’ sign-in; their privacy policies apply to the sign-in step.
Weather: Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0). Rocket launches: The Space Devs. Satellite orbits: CelesTrak. Star map: star and constellation data from d3-celestial (BSD licence), loaded from jsDelivr. Aircraft: ADS-B data from adsb.lol (ODbL), airplanes.live, adsb.aero and OpenSky Network.
Visitor locations: ip-api.com.
Translations of text you choose to translate are made by Google Translate, MyMemory or LibreTranslate.

These services don’t receive your account information. When your browser loads something from them (a video, a map or a font), they can see your IP address, as with any website.

Adults only

The site is for people aged 18 and over. We don’t knowingly collect information from anyone under 18; if we learn that we have, we delete the account.

Your choices and rights

You can change or remove your email, choose which emails you get, make your profile private and hide your favorites in your account. You can delete your account yourself on your Account page (sighting reports and articles stay on the site under your username; your profile, messages and other personal data are removed). Depending on where you live you may have the right to ask for a copy of your information or to have it corrected or deleted — email no-reply@ufos.dev and we’ll help.

Changes

We may update this page. When we do, we’ll change the date at the top. See also our Terms of Use and Copyright & takedowns page.