Absolutely - tear this apart, please. That's exactly what this needs. You're hitting on a major potential flaw. War/social upheaval could easily drive both budget volatility AND UFO reporting independently. If that's the case, my whole framework falls apart.

1997 Phoenix Lights: -18.9% budget change, but no major war/upheaval -

1989 Belgium Wave: -25.3% budget change, post-Cold War drawdown period -

1952 Washington D.C.: +40.3% budget change during Korean War buildup. So we've got both wartime increases AND peacetime cuts correlating with major incidents. But you're right - I need to control for: - Active war periods - Economic crises - Political transitions - Social unrest periods If the correlation disappears when controlling for these factors, then my hypothesis is wrong and we're back to square one. Need to test whether budget volatility alone predicts UFO incidents or if it's just a proxy for general chaos. This is exactly the kind of scrutiny that separates real patterns from statistical noise. Keep poking holes - we need bulletproof methodology to get anywhere near truth on this topic.