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A series of strange events occurred high up in the flightlevels above Southern Arizona on February 24th, 2017. Between roughly 3:30pm and 4:15pm local time, N71PG, a Learjet 36 belonging to Phoenix Air, and American Airlines Flight 1095, an Airbus A321, had

By Tyler Rogoway The War ZOne 3-8-18

independent close encounters with a strange craft flying at around 40,000 feet. The planes were flying east at about 37,000 feet between the Sonoran Desert National Monument and the New Mexico border when the incident took place.
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Remember that riveting opening sequence in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” when air traffic controllers stared at their boards as airline pilots barely avoided colliding with something nobody wanted to talk about afterwards? A drama that unfolded over America’s northwest corridor in the early evening of Oct. 24, 2017, wasn’t quite that Hollywood. But whatever it was, the thing was flying. It had no transponder but got caught on radar. Then it erased itself and vanished from ATC screens. Immediately after that, at least three airline pilots reported seeing it. Jet fighters scrambled; by time they

By Billy Cox De Void 2-16-18

got airborne, whatever it was vanished for good, and the whole sequence probably left a few people who had to deal with it wondering if it was worth the effort.

We know all this thanks to some masterful work from Tyler Rogoway, a military aviation reporter at a non-UFO website called The War Zone. Armed with voluminous details harvested from a Freedom of Information Act request, Rogoway broke the story last November. And the updated results are so cool, De Void anticipates a Congressional suspension of FOIA laws any day now.

On Thursday, Rogoway posted audiotaped real-time chatter from eyewitnesses and official sources. It begins with the detection of an unknown flying object by Oakland Center air traffic control. It popped onto its screens at 37,000 feet, and for more than an hour, the speeding bogey drew swivels from both the Federal Aviation Administration and North American Aerospace Defense Command. It streaked for several hundred miles over northern California and Oregon, northbound. It ended when F-15s from the 142nd Fighter Wing out of Portland were dispatched on a fool’s errand to identify what at least one civilian pilot described as a big white unmarked aircraft, with few additional details.

Three months later, Rogoway has augmented his early reporting with a fascinating narrative presented in four separate videos, some syncing radar maps with recorded participant dialogue. The confusion among FAA operators is unambiguous: “You know that target south of the boundary there, that 0027 code moving very fast at 37,000?” “Yeah, look at that thing.” “Yeah, that’s, uh, crazy.” “Hmm, um, and you don’t have anything on him, huh?” “I got nothing.” “Well, we’ll look.”

Oblivious to requests for identification, the UFO merges into existing air traffic lanes and no longer expresses itself in radar pingbacks. But northbound airline pilots report seeing a distant white somethingorother that paces and maybe passes them, even as it resembles thin air to radar beacons. Although this potentially dangerous behavior fails to trip the planes’ Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems, it does alert a picket fence of other acronyms – DEN (the Domestic Events Network) and WADS (the Western Air Defense Sector, also nicknamed Bigfoot). Somewhere along the way, a command goes out to put F-15s in the sky to get some military eyes on the intruder. When an Alaska 439 pilot requests new info on the bogey, an ATC operator says it may have gone into “stealth mode or something.”

The F-15s hunted for the UFO “with the most capable air-to-air radar set in the world (AN/APG-63VC) and Sniper advanced targeting pods for long-range visual identification,” Rogoway states in his November report. “Their pilots are some of the best in the world and are highly trained in the homeland air defense mission. The fact that they ‘didn’t find anything’ is surprising to say the least. Maybe this was due to the nature of the aircraft being searched for, or the possibility that they launched long after it was first sighted, or that we simply aren’t being told the whole story.”

Rogoway’s FOIAs also produced an after-action audio gem. In this segment, an unnamed Seattle Center ATC Manager In Charge of Operations reaches out to airline pilots and FAA officials to figure out what just happened. All spoken names, phone numbers and emails are literally beeped out; but then, curious stretches of silence punctuate some of those interviews.

We also get a peek into procedural tensions during an exchange between Seattle and the FAA Air Traffic Security Coordinator. Among other things, FAA wants to know who asked for jet-fighter support. Seattle says Oakland sounded the first alert and, as the UFO entered another coverage zone, Oakland told Seattle to call WADS. Seattle said he notified WADS, but he didn’t ask for air support. FAA reminds Seattle that a “request for military assistance has to come through FAA headquarters.” Again, Seattle tells FAA he never made such a request.

FAA: “I explicitly said over the line that headquarters was not in conference with requesting military assistance at that time because I was on the DEN … I had no radar, had no target, I had nothing –” Seattle: “Yeah, we had nothing, either.” FAA: “—from anybody. So I would not send the fighters to go up and, y’know, toodle around and –” Seattle: “Right, flying around. ‘Cause we don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

Afterwards, sounding slightly chastened, Seattle calls Oakland to compare notes. Oakland has Seattle’s back: “But there was definitely something out there.” Seattle: “There was definitely something there, there’s no question, because United 612, it was … off his 3 o’clock, and about 5 to 10 miles for about a hundred miles … so what we’re trying is to reach those pilots of all those aircraft to see if they can write us a little a report about what they saw …”

Oakland: “Our radar did pick up an intruder target coming in at a high speed right toward the southwest …” Seattle: “Southbound? Not northbound?” Oakland: “Southbound. And then it did an abrupt maneuver and just took off northbound. And we’re like, what? He was southbound, now he’s northbound. Weird …”

A new weapon system going out for a test spin? Hey, what if it was North Korean? They do sneaky secret stuff, right? Unfortunately, the FOIA material doesn’t get us anywhere close to an answer. The last audio clip finds Seattle talking with an official with the FAA’s Safety and Quality Assurance Group. She calls the incident “potentially significant,” says it’s “a weird enough thing that there is not a set procedure,” and “It’s not often we hear about an unknown guy up at that altitude.”

Maybe, as Skeptic James McGaha would reassure us, the mystery would solved by now if only the pilots and radar monitors had been astronomers. Anyhow, great reporting. Well done. Stay on it.
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Last November, The War Zone posted an exclusive story detailing a bizarre incident involving an unidentified aircraft that transited the skies of the Pacific Northwest in the early evening of October 25th, 2017. What started as a radar target moving at very high speed over

By Tyler Rogoway www.thedrive.com 2-20-18

Northern California turned into a series of eyewitness accounts made by nearby airline pilots traveling northward over Oregon. Even F-15 fighters were launched to intercept the mysterious intruder that quickly became invisible to radar.

Now, through the Freedom of Information Act, we present what could be one of the most insightful instances of official documentation surrounding such an encounter that had already been confirmed to have occurred by both the FAA and the USAF. These materials include fascinating audio recordings of radio transmissions and phone calls made as the incident was unfolding, as well as pilot interviews, and conversations between FAA officials made in the aftermath of the highly peculiar incident.
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Editor's Note: As far as I can tell this image was recently (a few hours ago) posted on the ATS (Above Top Secret) UFO Forum. The subscriber writes, “the person who sent this to me claims he shot this at the airport” [O’Hare]–FW

By Frank Warren The UFO Chronicles 1-24-07

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Mainstream media’s interest in the “O’Hare UFO Incident” hasn’t waned yet; the latest to jump in on the UFO bandwagon was/is Anderson Cooper of “Anderson Cooper 360°” aired by CNN. Interesting to note that on CNN’s web-site for Cooper’s show, it’s described as follows: “ . . . a fast-moving, surprising and provocative alternative to the typical network evening newscast. Backed by the global resources of CNN.”

By Frank Warren The UFO Chronicles 1-5-07

For this particular episode nothing could be further from the truth; this broadcast couldn’t be anymore typical in regards to the media’s handling of the UFO subject, certainly wasn’t provocative, and by no means was a surprise! Moreover, if skeptic Joe Nickell is considered to be one of CNN’s "global resources,” then one can imagine the caliber of this particular segment!

To be honest, up until now, I have looked at Anderson Cooper as a breath of fresh air in regards to television journalism; I must admit I was anticipating at the very least a serious look into the matter; however, Cooper followed the same path as those before him (historically speaking) in making light of the incident. This by the way is concerning an “unidentified, unauthorized aircraft” directly over the second busiest airport in our nation; witnessed by several airport personnel! All this in a post 911 world during a period when our nation is at war!
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A video surfaced in the spring of 2007 showing an unedited pre-interview discussion of the Chicago O'Hare Airport UFO sighting between Jon Hilkevitch (the Chicago Tribune transportation reporter who reported the Chicago UFO story) and Jim Wagner a news anchor with CLTV, a 24 Hour news channel in Oak Brook, Illinois.

By Avi M YouTube 4-26-13

Hilkevitch then goes on to say that he is hearing from: "serious researchers at major US universities who've attempted to do their own investigations and, when they go to the government to try to get information, they get stonewalled." Hilkevitch continues by saying "So there really is this universal feeling that the government knows more than it's willing to tell."
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Sighting of Disc-Shaped Object Over O’Hare Airport, Chicago, Illinois, at 16:30 Hrs. (Central) On Tuesday, November 07, 2006

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 as to the credentials of the party reporting the incident. We have delayed 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 addition documentation about the sighting, before it could be concealed, or destroyed.

By Peter Davenport NUFORC 11-14-06

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 C 17 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 C 17, it appeared to be perfectly round, and that 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 witness 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 in the near future. In the meantime, we would like to invite anyone who may have been 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.

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Props to Green Bay QB Aaron Rodgers for sharing a detailed and provocative account of a 2005 UFO sighting in New Jersey. The story blew up in the sports world, even though we all know that if Blaine Gabbert or Josh Freeman had gone public with similar tales, and perhaps with even more material evidence, nobody would’ve bothered to yawn. Still, Rodgers’ story will dissolve into more immediate noise and be forgotten soon enough. Meanwhile, researchers who keep trying to hold government accountable will continue their labors in obscurity.

By Billy Cox De Void 3-25-16

Which brings us to this week’s question: Did the Federal Aviation Administration redact key portions of an audio file concerning an airline crew sighting of a UFO over Utah on January 14? That’s the not-even-mildly shocking allegation being made by retired meteorologist and researcher William Puckett, who regularly combs Uncle Sam’s radar files for weird stuff. And he’s pretty jazzed about what he found out. In fact, says Puckett, “This may be the best radar-visual case I’ve ever worked.”

It was a chance discovery, made by a nightowl Utah ham operator who randomly listened in on cockpit chatter between pilots and Air Traffic Control two months ago. He contacted Utah’s state MUFON director, who in turn brought Puckett into the conversation. Puckett queried the FAA for whatever he could get. Beaucoup data came back, enough for a reconstruction of events. The plane turned out to be an Airbus 321, aka American Airlines Flight 434. It was on the way to Philadelphia from San Francisco. Things got interesting shortly after midnight MST. That’s when the ham operator, Pat Daniels, said he heard 434 ask ATC if they were scoping a brightly illuminated bogey, somewhere below their cruising altitude of 31,000 feet. Daniels heard two bursts of dialogue spaced about a minute apart. He said ATC told the crew it had no radar on it. But that’s not true.

Puckett, whose analysis is available at his UFOs Northwest website, not only recovered the bogey’s radar tracks through FOIA. He created an animated version of those peculiar pingbacks, which cropped up in 434’s vicinity from 12:08 to 12:15 a.m. With each 12-second sweep of the radar, an object or objects got painted above Interstate 15, a few miles south of a sleepy little blip called Nephi, population 5,500. In stark contrast to the linear northeasterly course of Flight 434, the unidentified target followed an incoherent path, popping up here and there like a meth-addled whack-a-mole.

Puckett received 41 seconds of radio chatter from the FAA, recorded between 12:12 and 12:13. He posted that on his site too, but it doesn’t entirely square with what Daniels insists he heard. Flight 434 asks ATC if it’s tracking a “bright orange square.” ATC hesitates, then replies, “Uhhm, no, that’s a good question, I’m not sure what – is it off to your right side?” 434 says “It’s apparently off our nose right now” and “we’ve been watching it for awhile” and “I don’t know what it is, it’s a perfect, uh, square, it’s bright orange.” 434 asks what town they’re skirting at “2 o’clock low.” ATC says Nephi. And that’s it. No mas.

Puckett says he could’ve obtained an even more detailed profile on the mystery — like target altitude, maybe — if military bureaucrats hadn’t tightened the rules on releasable radar material a few years ago. But that’s another story. Right now, Puckett wonders, if ATC wasn’t monitoring anything unusual, why did it ask 434 if the bogey was off its right side? Because that’s exactly where it was, according to the radar map. Puckett says radar indicates ATC was locked in the whole time, and he points to a gap in the voice-recording spectrogram which — he says — indicates a block of dialogue was scrubbed out.

Puckett’s report goes on to scratch balloons, drones, false echoes, military ops, etc., from the suspect list, and again, you can run through all that on his web page. It’s worth a pause. And it raises this question: Is resolving the apparent spectrogram discrepancy worth the effort? Maybe. But not for De Void. De Void has pretty much given up on bureauville. De Void can’t even get U.S. Customs and Border Protection to declassify a UFO video that’s been on the Internet for three years.

But let’s step back for an even broader demoralizing framework, courtesy of the Associated Press. They ran with this lead on March 15, during the annual “Sunshine Week” update on the shabby state of government transparency: “The Obama administration set a record for the number of times its federal employees told disappointed citizens, journalists, and others that despite searching they couldn’t find a single page requested under the Freedom of Information Act.”

In other words: The feds couldn’t produce squat for one of every six FOIA requests that rang their customer-service bells last year. Want more? No? Seventy-seven percent of their responses either laid goose eggs or contained partially censored information — that’s 12 percent higher than Obama’s first year in office. Worst (apparent) offender? The EPA office supervising New York and New Jersey. Those working stiffs couldn’t find what people asked for 58 percent of the time.

The Customs department looks like Boy Scouts next to that; Customs was worthless just 34 percent of the time. And one more thing: To its credit, Customs admitted to De Void that it actually did find the Aguadilla UFO footage during its records search. They just have no intention of releasing it, even though it’s been seen more than 56,000 times on YouTube. What’s a good 50-cent word for that sort of spitefulness – contumacious?

Anyhow, William Puckett, good luck working the FAA. You’re a better man than I am.
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This case was reported to me by Erica Lukes who is the director of MUFON for the state of Utah. She knows a radio show host (Pat Daniels) who was scanning communications between aircraft and the FAA shortly after midnight on January 14, 2016. He heard a conversation between an airline pilot and Air Route Traffic Control.

William Puckett www.ufosnw.com 2-6-16

The pilot reported seeing an extremely large bright object that he estimated a mile wide to his right. The air traffic controller told him that he was looking in the direction of Nephi, Utah. Apparently the air traffic controller told the pilot that the object was not detected on radar. The object appeared to keep pace with the aircraft.

A Freedom of Information (FOIA) request was written to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). About six weeks later we received a response to the FOIA. The response consisted of radar returns, voice tapes and tower logs. The FAA is to be commended for their full and timely response to our request. [...]
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