United's Flying Object

February 10, 2007 12:21 AM

"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." A United Airlines mechanic and other witnesses see a disc-shaped object over Concourse C at O'Hare Airport for nearly 20 minutes in afternoon daylight. At least one purported photo of the object has surfaced. NPR interviews the Chicago Tribune reporter who first wrote about the object. The FAA (which claimed to have no information on the incident before a FOIA request forced them to acknowlege it) theorizes the object was a "weather phenomenon" and is conducting no further investigation.
posted by Hat Maui (67 comments total)

lots more info from the national ufo reporting center, including a transcript of the NPR interview (scroll down a bit).
posted by Hat Maui at 12:24 AM on February 10, 2007

That is a cloud. Perhaps they're rare in Chicago, but I've seen many like it in the Pacific Northwest.
posted by Osmanthus at 12:47 AM on February 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Utter nonsense. Go back to your X-Files marathon.
posted by aladfar at 12:50 AM on February 10, 2007

"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.

A private agency, you say? That is a surprise. And this august establishment has a massive staff of just two, apparently. The Executive Director and the Science Director.

But it does *sound* awfully official to give yourself such grandiose titles. I wonder if they award themselves medals to wear on their tinfoil hats?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:59 AM on February 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

I saw a UFO in Lincoln, Nebraska -- along with hundreds of other people. I saw it from downtown, surrounded by dozens of people, all pointing and gawking. Made the evening news. People were tearing up the radio phone lines. It was right on the eve of the Gulf War, so I'm guessing it was something military rather than extraterrestrial. No seriously explanation was ever given. But what struck me is the collective amnesia of the city. Virtually no one I've ever asked remembers the incident. I'm guessing they played that "Men in Black" memory-strobe over the local T. ;)
posted by RavinDave at 1:03 AM on February 10, 2007

It was a drop of water on your eye, OK?
posted by chudder at 1:24 AM on February 10, 2007

You'd think with all the multi-megapixel, high-quality digital cameras available these days at least one of these intrepid alien spaceship hunters could come up with something better than the ubiquitous grainy photograph.
posted by moonbiter at 1:58 AM on February 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Exactly moonbiter
posted by jouke at 2:01 AM on February 10, 2007

You'd think with all the multi-megapixel, high-quality digital cameras available these days at least one of these intrepid alien spaceship hunters could come up with something better than the ubiquitous grainy photograph.

Have you never considered the possibility that the aliens might have technology that causes anything with a zoom lens to lock up, rendering them unusable and leaving cameraphones as the only method of documentation? I mean, GOD. Could you at least try to think like a UFO for once?
posted by chrominance at 2:45 AM on February 10, 2007

Cue theremin calliope.
posted by hal9k at 3:03 AM on February 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

I WANT TO BELIEVE.
posted by shmegegge at 3:14 AM on February 10, 2007

I want to believe, but logic, reason, and common sense intervene.
posted by Rhomboid at 3:17 AM on February 10, 2007 [5 favorites]

I want to believe, but logic, reason, and common sense intervene.

Pretend you are a Republican and the UFO has ties to Al Qaeda Iraq Iran.
posted by three blind mice at 3:52 AM on February 10, 2007 [4 favorites]

I for one welcome our new grainy photographed and possibly Photoshopped overlords.
posted by paddbear at 4:00 AM on February 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

Have you never considered the possibility that the aliens might have technology that causes anything with a zoom lens to lock up,

I've noticed aliens screwing with the speeds on my CD-R drive, defrosting my fridge, and also not putting the yoghurt back after eating just a small bit of it... aliens are such a pain!
posted by zaelic at 4:02 AM on February 10, 2007

Richard Haines, science director at the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, a private agency.

Surely "Center for Reporting Anomalous Phenomena" would be snappier and more apposite?
posted by Luddite at 4:05 AM on February 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

That's so photoshopped - if I had my old version of Kai's Powertools I could organise a large invasion.
posted by strawberryviagra at 4:15 AM on February 10, 2007

I think 99.9% of UFO sightings are absolutely worthless, but this one is more intriguing than most. The fact that both pilots and shift supervisors at the airport say they saw something lends a lot more credibility than some yokel who claims the saucers buzz his doublewide every night.

These are highly paid professionals with a lot of responsibility--they're not going to claim they saw something they didn't. They don't need their employer thinking they're stupid or crazy or both. And pilots are better than most people at estimating speed, altitude, and distance of a flying craft.

Now, does that mean they saw an alien spaceship? Nope. But it means that this particular claim deserves more investigation than your average UFO sighting, and more than it's gotten. It's also worth noting that the "experimental military aircraft" theory (while I tend to think it's the most likely explanation for a lot of the people who actually have seen something) doesn't make a whole lot of sense over O'Hare in broad daylight.

That said, that photo is obviously a cloud. I don't believe extraterrestrials have visited Earth, but I'd be willing to be convinced otherwise with solid evidence. This ain't it.
posted by EarBucket at 4:21 AM on February 10, 2007

Oh my god, oh my god ...
posted by strawberryviagra at 4:38 AM on February 10, 2007

"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."

Anyone else notice this was in the classified section? Definitely top secret stuff.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:39 AM on February 10, 2007

The fact that both pilots and shift supervisors at the airport say they saw something lends a lot more credibility than some yokel who claims the saucers buzz his doublewide every night.

That said, that photo is obviously a cloud.

So you think they saw something different than was depicted in the photograph? Or you think they saw a cloud?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:44 AM on February 10, 2007

I've seen a UFO. Whether it was some alien spacecraft or something I couldn't say. Could have been any number of things....hence the name "UFO."
But I reported it (in the military at the time) and they looked into it. I thought it was a satellite perhaps. I suppose I would have been pretty aggravated if they said "No you didn't."
'Cos I did in fact see something.
This particular thing here looks like a cloud. That day was all kindsa nasty, humid, weird wind patterns. Could be a cloud doing goofy things.
But part of the problem seems to be the instant 'tinfoil hat' label when you say "I saw an unidentified object in the sky."
Everyone thinks you're a nut reporting aliens or some conspiracy theory. Hell, years ago you describe a stealth bomber to someone they'd think you were nuts: "Naw, you couldn't have something like that flying around Clem, it's aerodynamically unstable on all three axes."
(Of course, people in the employ of our government have done some very odd things, so...)
But the simple fact is they were reporting a possible safety risk. Anything beyond that is speculation, of course.
posted by Smedleyman at 4:50 AM on February 10, 2007

1: When things are too far away for your left and right eye to have a significantly different view of them, you can no longer accurately judge their size or speed. If you know how big the object is then you can still make a good guess, but people don't know how big "alien spaceships" are. Any UFO report that puts a number to how far away and/or speedy an airborne object "seemed" to be is therefore suspect, right off the bat.

2: Even if several people all agree on what a UFO did, that doesn't mean that's what it did. Study after study, not to mention countless court cases, have shown that people who're allowed to talk to each other about what they saw will then misremember it even worse than they would if they saw it in isolation.

3: Airports have lots of weird air movements happening, and not just behind the planes. The reason why wake vortices are so dangerous is that they move, and not always in predictable ways. They're sideways tornadoes, not stationary whirlpools; saying that some weird thing you saw was not where the planes were flying does not mean it was not the result of plane-assisted air movements.
posted by dansdata at 4:53 AM on February 10, 2007

Pretend you are a Republican and the UFO has ties to Al Qaeda Iraq Iran.

Illegal aliens?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:55 AM on February 10, 2007

Why did the FAA deny it, then come clean under FOIA? This only fuels the mystery. If it was just a cloud, wouldn't they have said so?

All I know for sure, is it wasn't me. I was on Mars at the time, visiting cousins.
posted by Goofyy at 5:06 AM on February 10, 2007

So you think they saw something different than was depicted in the photograph? Or you think they saw a cloud?

I think the photograph is almost certainly not what they saw. On closer examination, it does look Photoshopped, lacking the same grain that covers the rest of the picture. That doesn't rule out the possibility that they saw a cloud, but from their descriptions, I don't think it sounds like it.
posted by EarBucket at 5:06 AM on February 10, 2007

Pancake!
posted by Eideteker at 5:13 AM on February 10, 2007

it does look Photoshopped, lacking the same grain that covers the rest of the picture.

That was part of the true weirdness of the event: the object was there but it just didn't look right. In real life it looked out of focus and grainy in a way that should be impossible to the human eye. But in a grainy cellcam photo, it's the only non-grainy object.

I submit that this was a pucker in the universal inventory of perception that we all exist in. No biggie.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 5:37 AM on February 10, 2007

Well, I'd love to see the photo but it has apparently been yanked offline because every link I've seen leads to a little red x.

Not that I was expecting to see much.
posted by smoothvirus at 5:59 AM on February 10, 2007

Nevermind. Freakin' internet explorer.
posted by smoothvirus at 6:01 AM on February 10, 2007

Rain. Drop.
posted by sfts2 at 6:17 AM on February 10, 2007

if aliens were here, they would be either exploiting our resources or trying to sell us stuff. why are these shy, mute superior beings so afraid to tell us who they are?
posted by bruce at 6:29 AM on February 10, 2007

I am so tired of being exposed to alien.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:44 AM on February 10, 2007

It is pretty obvious that 99% of all UFO sightings are bogus. But if only 1% of all sightings are really extraterrestrial beings, then this proves that we are being visited by aliens almost every day!

In any case, we should all keep an open mind about this possibility, although personally I think that it's probably the Russians who are to blame.
posted by sour cream at 6:49 AM on February 10, 2007

I'm not at all surprised to see a very skeptical thread concerning this issue. I'm skeptical, too, namely of the photo--I've read elsewhere compelling reasons that it's a photoshop.

But what annoys me are statements like this:

The fact that both pilots and shift supervisors at the airport say they saw something lends a lot more credibility than some yokel who claims the saucers buzz his doublewide every night. --Earbucket

I was at one time interested in UFOs and did a lot of research on the subject. I haven't read much recently, but I do retain at least a casual interest in it. The aspect that struck me the most is the fact that above generalizations like the above are simply not true. People who see UFOs represent a wide spectrum of society--they aren't drunken rednecks that many skeptics (though "reactionaries" would be a better term) always claim them to be. Witnesses do indeed include Bocephus and Cletus, but they also include professionals such as accountants, doctors, lawyers, cops.

Earbucket, you say this case calls for more investigation because airplane pilots made the claims. This is one out of thousands and thousands of sightings made by pilots, both commercial and military, government officials, astronauts, journalists (including Walter Cronkite), freakin' U.S. presidents...well, at least Jimmy Carter.

I'm not saying I believe in UFOs. I think many, if not most can be explained away, but I think many people's response to any report like this is outright reactionary, not skeptical. Personally, the overwhelming number of sightings by professional types tells me there is something to the phenomenon, whatever it is. In other words, get out of your head the idea that the methheads in the doublewide are perpetuating the thing. If you're so inclined, and you scratch the surface just a wee bit even, you'll find it's a much bigger phenomenon than you might've thought.
posted by zardoz at 6:55 AM on February 10, 2007 [4 favorites]

You would hope that aliens would be smart enough to O'Hare.
posted by srboisvert at 7:03 AM on February 10, 2007

Jeez, me and the other Astro Zombies decide to go out for an afternoon drive in our souped up Nash Rambler and people just get crazy.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:16 AM on February 10, 2007

1500 cats are not amused.
posted by jimmythefish at 7:20 AM on February 10, 2007

Cloud, bah. That's clearly a sylph scouting out the very factory floor of chemtrail production!
posted by Drastic at 8:11 AM on February 10, 2007

We are not alone, people.
posted by wfc123 at 8:19 AM on February 10, 2007

if aliens were here, they would be either exploiting our resources or trying to sell us stuff.

Why assume that? Maybe they'd be giving us universal health care or a guaranteed living wage.
posted by Flunkie at 8:20 AM on February 10, 2007

Even though I'm hesitant to throw my voice into this thread...

I'm one of the two main image processing analysts looking at this photograph, along with my research partner Jeff Ritzmann.

I know that the photo linked above looks fairly trivial, and a number of other images have surfaced, all debunked by Jeff and me, but we continue to be intrigued by that particular image. The eyewitness linked above has certified that the object in that photo is indeed what she saw, and we have every reason to feel that she is being sincere in her testimony and description of the sighting (Jeff has been speaking with her at length, we have her name and other info, so she's not some random anonymous voice on the Internet).

The O'Hare incident is significant, in that it happened over the span of almost 20 minutes, which is highly unusual. From what we've found out, it appears that air traffic was diverted for almost 12 minutes while this thing was over the airport.

Anyway, I'll type more later (unless I got totally shot down by everyone here for posting these few words), but the point is that the FAA did indeed deny that anything happened, but under pressure, came up with the weather anomoly statement. Odd, but not unexpected.

I realize that attempting to treat the subject of UFOs in any serious way is exceedingly difficult, but as someone who has witnessed some fairly bizarre stuff along these lines, I'm really trying to change the tone of the discussion and help arrive at some deeper understanding of this strange phenomena. I would agree that the vast majority of UFO reports can be explained in a conventional fashion, but the 2% or so of truly unexplained events are what hold my interest and attention. The O'Hare incident appears to fall into this 2%, and merits further study.

I have a radio show devoted to the serious debate and discussion of the UFO situation (and other paranormal topics), and I realize that most of what's out there in the radio and media world treats these subjects as entertainment or bunk. I feel that there is a side to our reality that is beyond our understanding, and it requires clear, rational, logical approaches which seem to evade most of the people looking into these topics.

OK, snark away, you can't hit me with anything worse than the "believers" I have on my show, who tend to substitute passion and belief for reason and logic. Taking heat from all sides is something I never wanted to be good at, but the quest for understanding seems to be worth the hassle. I hope.
posted by dbiedny at 8:27 AM on February 10, 2007 [10 favorites]

That's not a UFO. It's an angel!
posted by breezeway at 8:28 AM on February 10, 2007

From NPR:

All Things Considered, January 1, 2007 · In November, a gray, metallic, saucer-like object was spotted hovering above Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. As many as 12 United Airlines employees spotted the object and filed reports with United.


Thanks Hat Maui. This one is a fascinating one. Its too bad this whole UFO thing is so full of crazy people that when something genuinely mysterious like this happens, all sorts of people rush in to say what an idiot, credulous person would even pay attention for a second.

From what I understand, these included ground and air employees who didnt have anything to do with each other all fascinated by what they saw. People who have seen all sorts of strange phenomenon.

...Yes, there's a lot of noise out there, people, but please don't shut down your sense of curiosity.
posted by vacapinta at 8:30 AM on February 10, 2007

It's also worth noting that the "experimental military aircraft" theory...doesn't make a whole lot of sense over O'Hare in broad daylight.

That's not necessarily true — and "classified" doesn't necessarily mean "experimental." I can think of a dozen reasons, deliberate and accidental, why a classified aircraft might have been spotted in that vicinity and at that altitude. If we grant that the government develops, tests, and then deploys aircraft for years before those aircraft are declassified, then it's naive to believe that they are only used above the desert, at night.

Witnesses do indeed include Bocephus and Cletus, but they also include professionals such as accountants, doctors, lawyers, cops.

You're right that lunatics do come from every stripe; but there's a difference between a UFO report coming from an ex-military pilot driving through the woods on his day off, versus a group of airline employees reporting a shared spotting above the airport during their shift. This story has more in common with Mexico City than with whatever Walter Cronkite may or may not claim to have seen during the 1950s.

By the way, I highly recommend poking around the Above Top Secret website linked above. You'll find a strange mix of lucidity and psychosis. One thread announces a "secret base" in Georgia, which the resulting conversation correctly identified as a decommissioned Air Force installation that was apparently used for radiation testing — and then there's the flip side, where people discuss the alien battle that supposedly took place in Dulce, New Mexico and they absolutely insist that the moon has an atmosphere and a sophisticated mining colony equipped with fusion reactors.
posted by cribcage at 8:44 AM on February 10, 2007

Favorite quote from the Trib article" 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.

What do they expect when they try to land at the busiest airport in the country?
posted by notmtwain at 9:16 AM on February 10, 2007

I saw something crazy in the sky once, a few years ago. It looked like a hole had been ripped open in the night sky. At first glance, I thought it was the moon with some weird clouds around it, but then I realized the moon was in another part of the sky. This was some other huge bright light just sitting there - with bizarre clouds around it and dozens of glittery things sparkling at the edges, which were probably a bunch of planes. Half the neighborhood was out there, pointing at the sky and asking, "What the hell IS that?" It was kind of scary. I'd never seen anything like it.

I took photos of it and joked to my then-roommate that my photos would probably mysteriously disappear. Sure enough, when I went to pick up said photos, the technician told me some of my pictures didn't come out and "had to be thrown away. Sorry." I looked at the pictures, and the only ones missing were the ones I took of that crazy activity going on in the sky that night.

Nothing was ever mentioned in the news about it. I never found out what it was.

I figure it was either some kind of military-related test or the best goatse prank ever.
posted by katillathehun at 9:31 AM on February 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

OK, I took a little peek around abovetopsecret.com, and I have to say, the unintentional irony of this thread made me laugh:

Are Masons in control of [the] Secret Societies Forum?

These conspiracy theorists/hobbyists...they are a very distrustful lot, no?
posted by mosk at 9:32 AM on February 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Wow, this is a great thread. I started out reading it with the same mocking attitude that many other people seem to have, but now I'm realizing that while the phenomena are probably not aliens, a lot of sightings are deserving of significant investigation. I'm looking forward to hearing more from dbiedny.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:35 AM on February 10, 2007

Now, does that mean they saw an alien spaceship? Nope. But it means that this particular claim deserves more investigation than your average UFO sighting, and more than it's gotten.

That's what confuses me. Exacly *how* are FAA or government officials supposed to investigate UFOs? I suppose that can collect eye witness reports and check flight traffic, etc., but really what else can they do?

I submit that this was a pucker in the universal inventory of perception that we all exist in. No biggie.

Ditto. There may be infinite universes that lie outside of our perception. "Investigating" them seems difficult. I'd rather have aviation experts working on a sustainable method of long-distance travel, i.e. flying saucers. Hopefully, that's what's going on (if anything) in secret.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:35 AM on February 10, 2007

I have a radio show devoted to the serious debate and discussion of the UFO situation (and other paranormal topics), and I realize that most of what's out there in the radio and media world treats these subjects as entertainment or bunk. I feel that there is a side to our reality that is beyond our understanding, and it requires clear, rational, logical approaches which seem to evade most of the people looking into these topics.

Blame it on too many cries of "wolf!" Think about the apparent progression of this particular case—a couple of months ago, a bunch of people report an unusual sighting, no one hears about it for a while, the FAA says it's just a weather anomaly, and then finally the photographic evidence appears... looking like every other grainy, badly focused UFO shot in existence. The whole thing sounds like one giant cliche.
posted by chrominance at 10:16 AM on February 10, 2007

dbiedny, are you the Paracast guy? If so, thanks. I love to listen to the podcast during the 8 hour drives back to Boston.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 10:18 AM on February 10, 2007

Considering that there are between 1 billion to 30 billion planets in the Milky Way galaxy and 100 billion other galaxies out there in the universe, I'm willing to believe that there is life out there on other planets. It's almost a statistical impossibility that Earth is the only planet with intelligent life out of billion billion planets.

That being said, I utterly refuse to believe that they buzzed the O'Hare tower ala Maverick and Goose.

Negative Ghostrider, the pattern is full.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 10:31 AM on February 10, 2007

i_am_a_jedi - well, guess it's about time to bring out The Drake Equation

It all depends on the factors and how you set them - but there could indeed be a very miniscule chance, statistically, that there are any other planets with 'intelligent life' - and I would argue almost certainly not any at all close enough to our planet to ever have contact with us.

What you wrote is something I have heard many thoughtful, intelligent people say, but the problem with that line of reasoning is that the exact combination of circumstances that produced earth and produced sentient life are rare. Exceptionally rare, I would say. But we don't distinguish between rare, really rare and exceptionally rare very well as humans. That's why some humans play the lottery. :-)

So "30 billion planets in the milky way galaxy: is just a small part of the equation we have to consider. Yeah, that's alot of planets...but not nearly enough if you want to find 2 planets that have both created the Edsel.
posted by django_z at 11:37 AM on February 10, 2007

What moonbiter said about UFO photos: ditto.
posted by cenoxo at 11:42 AM on February 10, 2007

dbiedny - thank you for the very thoughtful post. I'm not familiar with your show, but I greatly respect the spirit in which you are trying to conduct your inquiries and I'm glad you are inquiring.

If I had to bet, I would bet that we have not been contacted by "aliens" in the last 20,000 years...probably ever. But there is a chance and it is worth looking into.

One of my main "commen sense" lines of disbelief around all of this is that so many of the claims and reports of aliens or UFOs deal with things like:

spaceships

scientific experiments on humans

long fingers, green skin, large eyes, etc.


None of these sound 'alien' - they all sound very , very human. When something really alien and strange happens I'll be more intrigued, but buzzing an airport in a spacecraft sounds entirely un-alien to me.
posted by django_z at 11:44 AM on February 10, 2007

Wow, this is a great thread. I started out reading it with the same mocking attitude that many other people seem to have, but now I'm realizing that while the phenomena are probably not aliens, a lot of sightings are deserving of significant investigation. I'm looking forward to hearing more from dbiedny.

I have a amateur interest in the field of wierd stuff, and I think this is the best attitude to have about such things. People report a lot of strange things, and while a great many of them may have an otherwise mundane and explicable cause, (misidentification of known object or phenomena, hoax, neirological event, mental disorder, just-so stories,) there are enough reports of strange happenings, people, and creatures that deserve analysis. The field of the "unexplained" is so wide open, that shouldn't really take just one approach to any given type of phenomena (such as ariel objects or sightings, abduction or contactee expirences, apparitions, or disapering sheds or small, mobile tin cans) and saying things like, "Oh, aliens," or "Oh, angels," or even, "Oh, hicks and morons." However, that is just what most investigators do.

I agree with others that it's absurd that aliens would fly all the way to Earth to buzz the O'Hare, but it doesn't therefore follow that they saw only strange weather , it just means that the possibilty might be much more interesting than we can know. Or not.
posted by Snyder at 11:45 AM on February 10, 2007

That's what confuses me. Exacly *how* are FAA or government officials supposed to investigate UFOs? I suppose that can collect eye witness reports and check flight traffic, etc., but really what else can they do?

after those I'd gander:
-A more than preliminary check of the radar, i.e. instead of looking at legal recordings, examining the message reports for any hits plus if any flights recently before traveled through the field in question and if the pilots saw anything.
-meteorological reports from local dopler radar, and perhaps look for strange whether patterns in the aftermath as well
-query the nearby TraCons to see if they had anything on screen before
-query the military to see if they were conducting tests
-investigation and interview into any balloon activity or any other local activity that could be responsible
-search for any photographs available from beforehand that may have shown an object 'growing'.

Just off the top of my head, sure there's more they could do.

why are only united airlines employees cited as having seen this...United's hub is O'Hare, but there's a few other airlines that have flights there so I hear.
posted by kigpig at 12:41 PM on February 10, 2007

None of these sound 'alien' - they all sound very , very human. When something really alien and strange happens I'll be more intrigued, but buzzing an airport in a spacecraft sounds entirely un-alien to me.

I agree. The overwhelming ethnocentricity of all "alien" encounters is one of the larger red flags for me. I envision any potential alien encounter to be something more like this:

... the surviving G'Gugvuntt and Vl'hurg realised what had actually happened, and joined forces to attack our own galaxy in retaliation. They crossed vast reaches of space in a journey lasting thousands of years before reaching their target where they attacked the first planet they encountered, Earth. Due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was swallowed by a small dog.
posted by oneirodynia at 1:39 PM on February 10, 2007

Luckily we have the space junk to keep them out!
posted by j-urb at 1:47 PM on February 10, 2007

Haven't you people heard? UFOs are only visible on low-resolution, high-iso, noisy-as-fuck cheap digital cameras.
posted by tehloki at 2:04 PM on February 10, 2007

Similar sighting in New Delhi, India, over Palam Airport in 2000.

Interesting reading the brief sightings anecdotes.

I saw a UFO in the night sky in December 1977. A bright light that zig zagged away at great speed.

Philip J. Klass' bitter curse: "As you lie on your own death-bed you will be as mystified about UFOs as you are today. And you will remember this curse."
posted by nickyskye at 2:25 PM on February 10, 2007

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin talks about the UFO which the Apollo 11 crew saw on their way to the moon, YouTube.

Unedited Chicago Tribune News Video re the O'Hare sighting.
posted by nickyskye at 3:01 PM on February 10, 2007

I don't believe in et's, but I saw one one time and it was amazing. I wish someone could tell me what it was.

Several years ago I visited my parents in Va. to see my sister who was having an operation. Spent the day in the hospital. Got back to the house aroung 4pm. I walked out to the field beside their house to have a smoke. There was a ceiling of flat clouds (1200 ft., I asked my dad what the local mtn. elevation was, because they were just touching the peaks) that day, but it was clear looking out across the valley. I saw a black object floating across the sky, moving right for me. The object was right on top of me after 2 - 3 minutes. It was a perfect circle, black, and it had what looked like a small pipe protruding from the front. Now I was very interested, but then it did this wobble thing, and goddamn if it wasn't a silvery shining dome on the top. Clear as day. Bright silver. Just under the clouds. About the size of 2 helicopters. I litereally crapped myself. Well, not literally, but I went screaming for my dad, actually yelling "help!, help!" because I thought that would get him outside faster. Of course by the time he arrived, it was gone.

I felt a little like the cowardly lion after that, thinking "I do believe in ufo's, I do!" Anyway, I know it wasn't from Uranus, but I would dearly love to know wtf that thing was.
posted by vronsky at 3:22 PM on February 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Sounds to me like it was, like many UFO sightings, just another glitch in the graphics engine of the computer simulation we're all living in. At least, that sounds a lot more likely than very shy alien spacecraft.
posted by sfenders at 6:19 PM on February 10, 2007

Silly people. It's yet another Aqua Teen Hunger Force advertisement. This time it's Mooninites buzzing O'Hare.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:36 PM on February 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

Which of the original seven astronauts told the story about the filming of a saucer craft landing at a military base (by a USAF film crew) and having the film evidence disappear, never to be seen again?

Ah, it was Gordon Cooper.

Of course, considering items in the news lately, perhaps astronauts aren't such a reliable source as once thought.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 6:44 AM on February 11, 2007