On Tuesday, November 07, 2006, at approximately 16:30 p.m. local time (Central), Federal authorities at O'Hare Airport received a report that approximately a dozen witnesses were observing a small, round disc-shaped object, metallic in appearance, which hovered over Gate C17 at that airport:
The National UFO Reporting Center has received the following information from a single source, who, for the time being, wishes to remain anonymous, and who prefers not to reveal for what entity he works. We have received documentation about the alleged sighting, which satisfies us as to the veracity of the report and the credentials of the party reporting the incident.
We have delayed the release of this case, principally because an investigation was begun almost immediately after our receipt of the initial report, and because we were hoping to obtain additional documentation about the sighting before it could be concealed, or destroyed.
At approximately 16:30 p.m. (Central) on Tuesday, November 07, 2006, Federal authorities at O'Hare Airport received a report that approximately a dozen witnesses were observing a small, round disc-shaped object, metallic in appearance, which hovered over Gate C17 at that airport.
The object was first spotted by an employee, working on the ramp, who was engaged in "pushing back" Flight 446, departing Chicago for Charlotte, NC. The employee reported to his supervisors that the object appeared to be almost directly above his location at Gate C17, it appeared to be perfectly round, and its size was approximately equal to a U. S. quarter, held at arm's length. The object had a metallic appearance, according to the first witness, and it appeared to him to be spinning.
The first witness apprised the flight crew of Flight 446 of the existence of the object above their aircraft, and we believe both the pilot and copilot were witnesses to the bizarre object, as well. The witness also contacted his supervisors, who also witnessed the object, which was visible for approximately 2 minutes.
At the end of that time, the object was seen to suddenly accelerate straight up at a very rapid pace, and it "shot" through the solid overcast, which was at 1,900 feet at the time. The witness added that the object appeared to leave a "hole" in the clouds, where it had streaked upwards through the overcast.
Both the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration were apprised of the event at the time it was occurring, and personnel in one, or more, of the towers at O'Hare may have witnessed the object, possibly with binoculars. The FAA apparently reported that the object was not visible on radar, although that fact has not been confirmed at the time of this writing.
We hope to be able to release more information about the incident at some time shortly. In the meantime, we would like to invite anyone who may have been a personal witness to the event to submit a report of their sighting, using our Online Report Form. We would be most grateful if you would indicate in your report where you were located, at the time of the sighting, and what the object looked like, from your vantage point. - NUFORC
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CNN interview with O'Hare UFO witness 'Joe' (airplane mechanic) (transcript)
Source: CNN, Jan 5, 2007
Summary: CNN's Gary Tuchman talked to one of the airport workers about what he says he saw.
CNN's Gary Tuchman talked to one of the airport workers about what he says he saw.
Gary Tuchman, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Flights come to Chicago's O'Hare Airport from all over the world. But do they come from other worlds?
(on camera) You don't believe this was possibly your imagination?
'Joe', Airplane Mechanic: It was definitely not my imagination.
Tuchman (voice-over): Joe is a mechanic for United Airlines.
While taxing a jumbo jet to the hangar, he and another mechanic...
'Joe': Looked out the window in the general direction and noticed an object up in the sky, dark gray object, sitting above the terminal complex.
Tuchman: Joe, which is not his real name, is one of several airport workers, some of whom have talked to the "Chicago Tribune", who said they saw a saucer-shaped UFO hovering just beneath the clouds at the airport.
He's the first to go on camera to talk about it since this happened several weeks ago. He wants to remain anonymous.
(on camera) But you're sure it was some kind of object that normally would not be above O'Hare Airport?
'Joe': I've been at O'Hare for quite some time. And let's just say that I've never seen an object in my time that looked like this. And I'll tell you definitely it was not an airplane as we know it.
Tuchman: But it could be an airplane as another world knows it?
'Joe': Possibly.
Tuchman (voice-over): We brought in one of Chicago's top sketch artists...
'Joe': Followed the contours of the object.
Tuchman: ... to listen to Joe and draw a picture of what he says he saw.
'Joe': More like an oval, dark gray oval.
Tuchman: Because no photos have surfaced, and Joe doesn't know of any.
(on camera): It didn't say "Goodyear" on it, did it?
'Joe': No "Goodyear," no.
That's a really good drawing.
Tuchman: That's what it looks like?
'Joe': Very much so, yes.
Tuchman (voice-over): Other witnesses told an organization called the National UFO Reporting Center that the object eventually shot straight up in the sky at a great rate of speed.
'Joe': It looked like literally someone had poked a hole in the clouds, just a round hole.
Tuchman: Joe thinks the disk is either a stealthy military project or a spacecraft from another planet. But...
'Joe': I find it very strange or very peculiar that somebody who possesses the technology to travel between star systems would sit over an airport in Chicago.
Tuchman: Hard to argue that.
A spokesperson for United Airlines says, "We are aware of what the employees said they saw, but this is not something United would investigate." Talk to the FAA, says the airline.
The TSA and the Chicago Department of Aviation also told us to talk to the FAA. So we did. And an FAA spokesperson told us, "We, too, don't have the power to investigate." The FAA adds that radar did not pick up anything out of the ordinary and the sighting might have been caused by a weather phenomenon.
(on camera) You don't believe it was a weather phenomenon?
'Joe': Not at all. Not for a minute.
Tuchman (voice-over): O'Hare has apparently been UFO free since that November afternoon, although Joe now tends to pay special attention to that same patch of airport sky.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, Chicago
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Report about this incident from a senior aircraft mechanic
Summary: NUFORC has received a second report about this incident from a senior aircraft mechanic, who was taxiing a Boeing 777 at the time of the sighting, and who witnessed the object.
Occurred: 11/7/2006 16:30
Reported: 11/21/2006
Location: Chicago O'Hare Airport, IL
Shape: Circle
Duration:20 min
((NUFORC Note: This individual was interviewed, at length, by one of the investigators involved in the follow-up investigation. The investigators were highly impressed with the witness's credentials and with the accurate description of the event. We deem this witness to be highly credible.)
Chicago OHare UFO Report
Ok I have been hesitant about talking about this, but after hearing the report on Coast to Coast AM with Mr. Noory I can not be silent. I work for a major airline at OHare, I am a taxi mechanic. I have the job responsibilty of moving aircraft under there own power from gate to gate or the hangar complex for maintenance. We also accomplish the engine run-up testing needed. So I hope that does something for establishing a little of credibility for my report. I am still in absolute wonder and amazement at what I saw that afternoon.
Around 1630 a pilot made a comment on the radio about a circle or disc shapped object hovering over gate C-17 at the C concourse in Chicago. At frist we laughed to each other and then the same pilot said again on the radio that is was about 700feet agl (above ground level). The day was overcast with the ceiling being reported at 1600 feet if I remember correctly. I was taxing a Boeing 777 from the Intl Terminal to the Company Hanger on the North side of the Airport. As we passed the C Terminal on the Alpha taxiway we observed a dark gray hazy round object hovering over OHare Intl Airport. Is was definately over the C Terminal. It was holding very steady and appeared to be trying to stay close to the cloud cover. The radio irrupted with chatter about the object and the ATC controler that was handling ground traffic made a few smart comments about the alleged UFO siting above the C terminal.
We had to contiune moving the aircraft to the hangar. After parking I noticed the craft of no longer there but there was an almost perfect circle in the cloud layer were the craft had been. The hole disappeared a few minutes later.
For the rest of the night there were jokes made on the radio about the siting.
(NUFORC Note: This individual was interviewed, at length, by one of the investigators involved in the follow-up investigation. The investigators were highly impressed with the witness's credentials and with his description of what he saw. We deem this witness to be highly credible. PD) - NUFORC
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In the sky! A bird? A plane? A ... UFO?
by Jon Hilkevitch
It sounds like a tired joke--but a group of airline employees insist they are in earnest, and they are upset that neither their bosses nor the government will take them seriously.
A flying saucerlike object hovered low over O'Hare International Airport for several minutes before bolting through thick clouds with such intense energy that it left an eerie hole in overcast skies, said some United Airlines employees who observed the phenomenon.
Was it an alien spaceship? A weather balloon lost in the airspace over the world's second-busiest airport? A top-secret military craft? Or simply a reflection from lights that played a trick on the eyes?
Officials at United professed no knowledge of the Nov. 7 event--which was reported to the airline by as many as a dozen of its own workers--when the Tribune started asking questions recently. But the Federal Aviation Administration said its air traffic control tower at O'Hare did receive a call from a United supervisor asking if controllers had spotted a mysterious elliptical-shaped craft sitting motionless over Concourse C of the United terminal.
No controllers saw the object, and a preliminary check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.
The FAA is not conducting a further investigation, Cory said. The theory is the sighting was caused by a "weather phenomenon," she said.
The UFO report has sparked some chuckles among controllers in O'Hare tower.
"To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," said O'Hare controller and union official Craig Burzych.
Some of the witnesses, interviewed by the Tribune, said they are upset that neither the government nor the airline is probing the incident.
Whatever the object was, it could have interfered with O'Hare's radar and other equipment, and even created a collision risk, they said.
The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (the term that extraterrestrial-watchers nowadays prefer over Unidentified Flying Object) was first seen by a United ramp worker who was directing back a United plane at Gate C17, according to an account the worker provided to the National UFO Reporting Center.
The sighting occurred during daylight, about 4:30 p.m., just before sunset.
All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter, did not display any lights.
Some said it looked like a rotating Frisbee, while others said it did not appear to be spinning. All agreed the object made no noise and it was at a fixed position in the sky, just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck, until shooting off into the clouds.
Witnesses shaken by sighting
"I tend to be scientific by nature, and I don't understand why aliens would hover over a busy airport," said a United mechanic who was in the cockpit of a Boeing 777 that he was taxiing to a maintenance hangar when he observed the metallic-looking object above Gate C17.
"But I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft," the mechanic said.
One United employee appeared emotionally shaken by the sighting and "experienced some religious issues" over it, one co-worker said.
A United manager said he ran outside his office in Concourse B after hearing the report about the sighting on an internal airline radio frequency.
"I stood outside in the gate area not knowing what to think, just trying to figure out what it was," he said. "I knew no one would make a false call like that. But if somebody was bouncing a weather balloon or something else over O'Hare, we had to stop it because it was in very close proximity to our flight operations."
Some joke, others research
The databases of various UFO-watching groups are full of accounts filed by pilots about sightings of unknown aircraft and anomalies that affected navigational equipment onboard planes.
Whether any of the UFO incidents are real or merely the result of individual perceptions, some experts say the events pose a potential safety risk to pilots and their passengers.
"There have been documented cases where safety appears to have been implicated, and more and more we are coming to the point of view that we are dealing with an intelligent phenomenon," said Richard Haines, science director at the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, a private agency.
"We must be proactive before an aircraft goes down," said Haines, a former chief of the Space Human Factors Office at NASA's Ames Research Center.
Haines is investigating the O'Hare incident. He said he has determined that no weather balloons were launched in the vicinity of O'Hare on Nov. 7.
"It's absurd that the military would be conducting aerial test flights" near the airport, Haines said.
All the witnesses to the O'Hare event, who included at least several pilots, said they are certain based on the disc's appearance and flight characteristics that it was not an airplane, helicopter, weather balloon or any other craft known to man.
United denies UFO report
They're not sure what was hanging out for several minutes in the restricted airspace, but they are upset that no one in power has taken the matter seriously.
A United spokeswoman said there is no record of the UFO report. She said United officials do not recall discussion of any such incident.
"There's nothing in the duty manager log, which is used to report unusual incidents," said United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy. "I checked around. There's no record of anything."
The pilots of the United plane being directed back from Gate C17 also were notified by United personnel of the sighting, and one of the pilots reportedly opened a windscreen in the cockpit to get a better view of the object estimated to be hovering 1,500 feet above the ground.
The object was seen to suddenly accelerate straight up through the solid overcast skies, which the FAA reported had 1,900-foot cloud ceilings at the time.
"It was like somebody punched a hole in the sky," said one United employee.
Witnesses said they had a hard time visually tracking the object as it streaked through the dense clouds.
It left behind an open hole of clear air in the cloud layer, the witnesses said, adding that the hole disappeared within a few minutes.
The United employees interviewed by the Tribune spoke on condition of anonymity.
Some said they were interviewed by United officials and instructed to write reports and draw pictures of what they observed, and that they were advised by United officials to refrain from speaking about what they saw.
Federal agency backtracks
Like United, the FAA originally told the Tribune that it had no information on the alleged UFO sighting. But the federal agency quickly reversed its position after the newspaper filed a Freedom of Information Act request.
An internal FAA review of air-traffic communications tapes, a step toward complying with the Tribune request, turned up the call by the United supervisor to an FAA manager in the airport tower, Cory said.
Cory said the weather might have factored into what the witnesses thought they saw.
"Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon," she said. "That night was a perfect atmospheric condition in terms of low [cloud] ceiling and a lot of airport lights. When the lights shine up into the clouds, sometimes you can see funny things. That's our take on it." - Chicago Tribune, January 1, 2007 (reporter: Jon Hilkevitch)
Source:
NUFORC
UFOEvidence.org
CNN
Chicago Tribune
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