-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: February 28, 2007 10:13:14 AM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Windy City UFO
Anyone else notice there's been a "surge" this year in UFO
sightings, especially over Iran?
The O’Hare UFO
By LESLIE KEAN
The Providence Journal, February 27th, 2007 | 7:20 am
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/wp/2007/02/27/2208
On Nov. 7, during the late-afternoon rush at Chicago’s bustling
O’Hare International Airport, something truly astonishing happened.
Pilots, managers and mechanics looked up from their ground
positions at the United Airlines terminal and saw an odd, disc-
shaped object hovering silently overhead, just below the overcast.
Some minutes later, with many eyes now fixated on it, the wingless
vehicle shot straight up at an incredible speed and was gone,
leaving a crisp hole through the clouds with blue sky visible at
the top.
It was definitely not an airplane, or any known craft, witnesses
said, many of them shaken by what they saw.
“I immediately called our operations center to confirm the sighting
and the Federal Aviation Administration was contacted while I drove
to the other concourse to talk to the witnesses,” a United
management employee wrote for a National Unidentified Flying Object
Reporting Center (NUFORC) investigation.
With NUFORC’s input, Chicago Tribune transportation reporter Jon
Hilkevitch broke the story in January, which then leapt onto
national television news. “The witness credibility is beyond
question,” says Hilkevitch, who has spoken to dozens of witnesses.
The FAA and United Airlines initially denied knowing anything about
the incident, but taped calls and other evidence revealed their
communications about it when it occurred.
The FAA then attributed the incident to a “weather phenomenon” and
United Airlines advised employees not to talk about it, according
to the Tribune.
“The safety implications of any vehicle operating at low altitude
over a major airport outside the authority of air-traffic control
are obvious,” says NASA aviation expert Brian E. Smith, a former
manager in the agency’s Aviation Safety and Security Program.
“Managers should want to hear about such vehicle operations before
they become accidents or disasters.”
Instead, United witnesses have been disregarded and left to ponder
their unsettling observations.
FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said in January that the “absence of
any kind of factual evidence” precludes an investigation. “No FAA
controller saw anything. There was nothing on radar either.”
Nonetheless, he offered his best “guess”: Witnesses could have seen
a “hole-punch cloud” in “a perfect circular shape like a round
disc” with “vapor going up into it.”
In fact, these natural cloud holes — with ice crystals falling down
through them, not up — can only form at below-freezing
temperatures. It was 48 degrees Fahrenheit in the O’Hare cloudbank
that afternoon.
A hole could also form in a cloud from rapid evaporation by heat or
very dry air, scientists say. This explanation, unlike Molinaro’s,
fits witness descriptions of a high-energy, round object likely
emitting intense heat or other radiation while ascending.
Some experts say radar cannot pick up unrecognizable objects with
bizarre behaviors. John Callahan, division chief of accidents and
investigations for the FAA during the 1980s, says it’s not at all
surprising that the O’Hare UFO was undetected on radar — but that
doesn’t mean that there was nothing there.
Radar technology cannot always capture extremely high-speed UFOs. A
hovering object wouldn’t necessarily show up, either.
Callahan speaks from direct experience that makes him an authority
on the FAA’s handling of UFO incidents. In 1986 he reviewed
extensive data generated by a Japan Airlines cargo B747 encounter
with a gigantic, walnut-shaped UFO over Alaska.
Later, the FAA declared the radar faulty, ignored the three pilot
eyewitness accounts, and called the incident “unconfirmed.”
To this day, Callahan fervently disputes these findings based on
data still in his possession. “I observed a primary radar target in
the position reported by the Japanese pilot,” the former official
says, which, although intermittent, synchronized with the 30-minute
taped interchange between pilots and controllers.
Official policy actually spells out FAA lack of interest in reports
of anomalies, even if the unidentified craft is potentially life-
threatening. The FAA Aeronautical Information Manual, providing the
fundamentals required for flying in U.S. airspace, states that
“persons wanting to report UFO/Unexplained Phenomena activity”
should contact an organization such as NUFORC.
If “concern is expressed that life or property might be
endangered,” the manual says, “report the activity to the local law-
enforcement department.”
Smith takes issue with this approach. “We need to encourage
reporting of all incidents regardless of biases against particular
categories of occurrences,” he says.
Richard Haines, a former NASA official and now director of the
National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, has
collected over a hundred reports from pilots documenting a range of
safety hazards caused by proximity to unfamiliar flying objects or
inexplicable brilliant lights.
How could our government not be interested in an unknown, highly
technological object hovering over a major airport, as reported by
competent airline personnel? What about passenger safety? Or
national security? Or just plain scientific curiosity?
Unless the FAA and other federal agencies shift gears, this mind-
boggling incident at O’Hare will be left to haunt us — until the
next time, when something even more alarming could happen.
(Leslie Kean is a New York investigative journalist and co-founder
of the Washington-based Coalition for Freedom of Information. Reach
her at lkean(at)ix.Netcom.com)
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