var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

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.
Read more »

var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

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.
Read more »

var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

The Soviet Union has taken an about face on Flying Saucers [UFOs]. After dismissing them as "fairy tales" and an "American hoax," it has created a government commission to investigate the many sightings over Russian territory and to find out what they are.

BY The Statesman Journal 11-27-1967

Read more »

var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

Scientists of The People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Far East have begun a joint study of UFOs. The first meeting of Ufologists of the two countries has ended in the small maritime

CIA Communique May, 1990

townlet of Dalnegorsk. The Soviet and Chinese specialists on anomalous phenomena have mapped out a program for investigating incidents that are already known and have also arranged to directly exchange video and photographic materials on new similar phenomena.
Read more »

- click and or right click on image(s) to enlarge -

Those mysterious lights in the skies over Southern Illinois coal fields have begun chasing cars at Mt Vernon, residents claim. [...]

Lowell Sun 8-11-1963

Mt Vernon police said nine person reported seeing the lights. ... A team from Scott Air Force Base ... plans to investigate the incidents.
Read more »

var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

Credit: CEFAA / ufosontherecord's channel

This "UFO" observed on infrared video by the Chilean Navy leaving contrails is probably a plane leaving aerodynamic contrails; probably the LA330, which was in the right place, time heading and altitude (20,00ft).

metabunk.org 1-6-17

Based on analysis by @Trailblazer, @Trailspotter, myself, and others, The plane that seems to fit best is LA330, a two engined A320, which was reported to be climbing through 20,000 feet at that exact visual position at 14:01:39. It was actually 65 miles away, not 35-50. This explain why it was not seen on radar (the actual plane was on radar, just not where they thought it was).
Read more »

var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

(Credit: CEFAA / ufosontherecord's channel)

The day November 11, 2014, a helicopter of the Chilean Navy (Airbus Cougar AS-532) equipped with a high definition camera infrared FLIR, was patrolling in the area between the port of San Antonio and Quinteros coastal sector the 16.48 UTC, when the camera

By CEFAA 1-6-17

operator official detected an unknown object, flying at a constant speed apparently similar to the helicopter, and moved forward.

The sighting was confirmed visually by the two officers who made up the crew (pilot and camera operator) and lasted more than 10 minutes.

The officers interrogated the air traffic control radar which failed to detect the object.

Nor unknown response received when trying questioning in these cases often willing to transit.

The radar control system FAA failed to capture the object but confirmed in turn, the absence of authorized traffic in the vicinity of the helicopter.

On two occasions, the object seems to cast a trail of something has not been able to pinpoint.

Some analysts have suggested the hypothesis concerned an airliner and medium sized contrails element that follows, it can be reserve water inside the unit, thrown by the crew. However, meteorology states that neither the altitude at which the object or room temperature then moved, allow such type of vapor trail.

The object disappeared disappearing into the clouds.

The Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena, composed of leading scientists, analysts and aviation technicians after an extensive study of the case, agreed cataloged as UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon)

The CEFAA thank once again the cooperation of all branches of the armed forces and police for their continued cooperation through their respective representatives to the Committee.
Read more »

var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

The video depicts two connected white circular lights or hot spots, giving off much heat (Credit: CEFAA / ufosontherecord's channel)

An exceptional nine-minute Navy video of a UFO displaying highly unusual behavior, studied by Chilean authorities for the last two years, is now being released to the public. The CEFAA - the Chilean government agency which investigates UFOs, or UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena), has been in charge of the investigation. Located within the DGAC, the equivalent of our FAA but under the jurisdiction of the Chilean Air Force, CEFAA has committees of military experts, technicians and academics from many disciplines. None of them have been able to explain the strange flying object captured by two experienced Navy officers from a helicopter. [...]

By Leslie Kean The Huffington Post 1-5-17

The technician filmed the object for nine minutes and twelve seconds, mainly in IR. This sensor produces a black and white video in which the black, white and grey tones are directly related to temperature. IR detects heat, and the hotter the material being filmed, the darker it appears on the image. The officers stopped the camera when they had to return to the base and the object disappeared behind the clouds.
Read more »

var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

At approximately 21h30, on Monday night, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) in Port Elizabeth was requested by Air Traffic Control to investigate the sighting of an unidentified flying object - commonly called UFO.

"A Boeing 737 cargo aircraft Captain and Co-Pilot, flying from Cape Town International Airport to Port Elizabeth International Airport, reported seeing what appeared to be a green object increasing in altitude past the cockpit of their aeroplane reaching to about a thousand feet into clouds above them and then returning towards earth at high speed past the cockpit of the aeroplane," said NSRI spokesperson, Craig Lambinon. "The sighting was reported to Air Traffic Control at Port Elizabeth International Airport, who requested NSRI's assistance to investigate the possibility that an aircraft or craft may be in difficulty.

By www.rnews.co.za 12-13-16

Read more »

UFO sightings observed by many witnesses are typically the best, most noteworthy cases, as the multiple witnesses’ testimony provides corroborating evidence. Although most sightings are not mass sightings, there are several high-quality cases involving many credible

By Jason McClellan www.openminds.com 8-10-16

witnesses, and some of these mass sightings paint the best picture showing the mysterious reality of UFOs. One such sighting occurred in 1976 in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of Africa.

... According to newspaper headlines, thousands of residents of the Canary Islands observed an unidentified luminous phenomenon on the night of June 22, 1976. The event was reported by witnesses on at least three different islands. The Spanish Air Force thoroughly investigated the incident. Although the files associated with this investigation were declassified in 1994, they had already been leaked back in 1976. For whatever reason, the classified air force reports were given to journalist Juan José Benítez in October 1976 by an air force general. Benítez included these in his book, UFOs: Official Documents of the Spanish Government.

Records indicate that the commanding general of the Spanish Air Force’s Canary Islands Air Zone assigned an investigative adjutant to the case on June 25, 1976. Depositions were taken of at least fourteen witnesses. The air force divided these witnesses into four categories, ranking them from most credible to least credible. People found to be mentally challenged, illiterate, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol were put into the very unreliable category, while people like astronomers, pilots, and aeronautical engineers were placed in the most credible category. The sighting reports, like the witnesses, were grouped into four levels to evaluate the quality and quantity of evidence for each.

The witness depositions and a review of the evidence allowed the investigative adjutant to piece together what transpired on June 22, 1976. ...
Read more »

[...] The secret Soviet X-files investigation came to be known in government circles as The Network, and was the largest official investigation into the UFO phenomenon ever conducted. For 13 years, The Network was tasked not with the simple collection of UFO reports — this was left to amateurs — but with understanding them scientifically.

Matthew Bodner www.themoscowtimes.com 3-31-16

The man tapped to lead the project was a young astrophysicist named Yuly Platov. Now in his 80s, Platov told The Moscow Times that he found out about the project in conversation with the head of his institute. He realized it would be an opportunity to flex his scientific muscles, and so pressed his boss to be given the chance to take part. A few days later he was contacted, quite unexpectedly, and put in charge of the entire project.

Initially the work was top secret. "Maybe we would really find aliens or maybe our findings would have military applications," Platov says. "It wasn't clear at the start what we might find."

The Network was made up of 20 organizations staffed by specialists in physics, chemistry, optics and spectroscopy. "So many people from different professions had to be united," Platov says. "I was the one who had to unite them, and that was difficult, especially for someone like me." [...]
Read more »

In May, 1997, Senator John McCain asked the Air Force to investigate the Phoenix Lights' events

By Senator John McCain 10-09-1997

Read more »