2 Sept 2020, updated 26 Aug 2024

This short paper is for those who are not well-versed in the Universal Time Code and how to convert it to local time and reverse. Most operators of MADAR sites will be interested in the former because the email alerts show the event in UTC and the spreadsheet deals with UTC in its last column.

Each Op should know what his/her time zone is, and how and if it changes twice a year to and from Daylight Savings Time. So keep track of the dates those make the switch.

But here let's show you how to use the conversion chart.

If you are in Furlong, Pennsylvania and your MADAR shows an anomaly at 2022-04-24  10:09:37, you can see the date and the time in UTC is 10:10 (the 09 is rounded off to 10 because of the extra 37 seconds). In the chart below in the left column look for 10:10, then slide over to the column for Furlong's time zone, EDT. The time is 6:10. It is AM because the times given are in 24-hour or military time.

That's pretty easy. Let's try an interesting example that allows you "travel in time". Grand Junction, Colorado is on MDT and had a sighting at 9:04 pm on the April 28th. That's 21:04, and going to the far left column converted to UTC that's 03:04. Checking with the nearest node you would want to look for 03:04 UTC but the following day, April 29th, because the time falls above the yellow line. If it had fallen below the line or on the right side of the page the date would have been the same as the reported date, April 28th


Personally I have always favored the "wee hours" for interesting anomalies, but UAP probably do what they have to do when they need to do it. But a rapid response team would have an easier time observing a UAP in the dark because of the way the human eye works. At night the eye can detect a very small flashing light very easily, so one could walk out and spot an anomalistic target or even aircraft lights very quickly. Daytime abilities are very much less.

Print out this chart and have on hand.
UTC-Chart.


Fran Ridge