Cheryl Costa is a native and resident of upstate New York who saw her first UFO at age 12. A military veteran, she’s a retired information security professional from the aerospace Industry. She’s been a speaker at the International UFO Congress and at the MUFON Symposium. Cheryl writes the UFO column “New York Skies” for SyracuseNewTimes.com. Besides being a journalist, she’s also a published playwright. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from the State University of New York at Empire State College in entertainment writing.

Cheryl recently published UFO Sightings Desk Reference: United States of America 2001-2015, which includes over 121,000 sightings. She lists the top UFO hot spots, according to the data, and sighting reports down to the county level. Anyone can use the book to find out how many sightings there have been in their area, and how it stacks up against other parts of the US. In this interview, we talk about this book and Cheryl's discoveries while compiling the data.

Cheryl's book can be found on Amazon. To read Cheryl's column, visit SyracuseNewTimes.com.