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Post by Watchman on Feb 18, 2007 13:56:53 GMT -5
By DOM ARMENTANO guest columnist
On Jan. 2, the Chicago Tribune did something extraordinary for a major newspaper: It ran a UFO story on its front page. The newspaper reported that in the late afternoon of Nov. 7, 2006, a gray, egg-shaped object was observed hovering over Gate C17 at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.
The object was unusually low (below the 1,900-foot overcast ), remained visible for several minutes, and was observed by several mechanics and various United Airlines ground personnel. The object eventually disappeared straight up through the overcast by reportedly "punching a hole" through the clouds.
Observer descriptions of the object are remarkably consistent. It had no wings or lights. Its surface appeared metallic but with a soft luster that shone "like a pearl." Several witnesses reported a haze around the bottom of the object akin to heat waves off a hot road. One witness in an airport parking lot said that the object appeared to be spinning counter-clockwise. She also said that a small crowd of fellow observers were pointing up at the object and that several were taking pictures with digital cameras. The Federal Aviation Administration first told the Chicago Tribune that it had no knowledge of the alleged incident but then quickly reversed its position after the newspaper filed a Freedom of Information Act request.
The agency now claims incredulously that the November sighting was some (unspecified) weather-related phenomenon. Sure.
Even more troubling, United Airlines continues to deny the incident entirely despite the fact that several of its employees maintain that they filed written reports on the sighting with their company, including drawings. United Airlines employees further state that they were instructed by their employer explicitly not to talk about the incident.
In defiance of the company gag order, however, one United mechanic told the Tribune: "It definitely was not an (Earth) aircraft."
UFOs are a 60-year-old mystery made even more mysterious by decades of absurd government denials that anything truly mysterious is going on. UFO proponents say we are seeing space ships from other worlds, while debunkers say eyewitness testimony is remarkably inaccurate and that almost all reports are misidentified natural phenomenon or man-made objects.
Who is right? Draw your own conclusions from just two of the earliest secret, official UFO government documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
On Sept. 23, 1947 Gen. Nathan Twining, commanding general of the Air Material Command, sent a then-secret memorandum to Brig. Gen. George Schulgen at the Pentagon, stating that "The reported phenomenon (the flying disc) is something real and not visionary or fictitious. There are objects the shape of a disc ... with operating characteristics such as extreme rates of climb, maneuverability ... and action which must be considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft or radar.."
One month later, on Oct. 28, 1947, Lt Col. George Garrett prepared a so-called Intelligence Collection Memorandum for Air Force Intelligence which listed some commonly reported features of flying discs: "The ability to group together very quickly in a tight formation when more than one aircraft are together; evasive action ability indicates the possibility of being manually operated, or possibly by electronics or remote control; and under certain conditions the craft seems to have the ability to CUT A CLEAR PATH THROUGH CLOUDS ..."
It is apparent that technical analyists for military intelligence had concluded as early as fall 1947 that some "flying discs" were real, intelligently controlled, unexplainable objects that could be evasive and even cut a clear path through clouds, precisely like the reported disc-shaped object over O'Hare International Airport.
Will the Chicago UFO incident currently unfolding be the beginning of the end of the 60-year government cover-up?
Armentano, a Vero Beach resident who has published several books on antitrust policy and has written commentary and reviews for newspapers, magazines and journals on various public policy issues, has been following the UFO controversy for 40 years.
© 2007 Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers.
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Post by Watchman on Feb 27, 2007 13:09:42 GMT -5
Eyewitnesses Not Buying FAA's Hole-Punch Cloud Explanation For O'Hare UFO
For many at O'hare it was a UFO, for the FAA a 'hole-punch cloud' By Leslie Kean -
SPECIAL TO THE BEE
During one late afternoon at Chicago's bustling O'Hare Airport, pilots, managers and mechanics at the United Airlines terminal saw an odd, disc-shaped object hovering silently overhead, just below the dense cloud layer.
A pilot announced the sighting over the radio; a United taxi mechanic moving a Boeing 777 heard radio chatter about the craft and saw it; so did a pilot waiting to take off who opened the cockpit windscreen to get a better view. Minutes later, the wingless vehicle shot straight up at an incredible speed and disappeared, leaving a crisp hole through the clouds with blue sky visible at the top.
It was definitely not an airplane, witnesses said of the Nov. 7 incident, many of them shaken by what they saw.
"I immediately called our operations center to confirm the sighting, and the FAA was contacted while I drove to the other concourse to talk to the witnesses," a United management employee wrote to the National UFO Reporting Center.
On Jan. 1, the Chicago Tribune published the story, by transportation reporter Jon Hilkevitch, which received more than a million hits on the Tribune's Web site, more than any story in the site's history. "The witness credibility is beyond question, and safety was a big concern," says Hilkevitch, who has interviewed dozens of witnesses.
The O'Hare UFO incident even had its day on national television networks. CNN interviewed a nervous United employee, filmed in shadow so he wouldn't be recognized. So far, all witnesses have remained anonymous.
When Hilkevitch began his investigation, the FAA and United Airlines denied knowing anything about the incident, but taped calls and other evidence revealed their communications about the sighting at the time it occurred.
At first, the FAA attributed the incident to some kind of weather phenomenon, and United Airlines advised its employees not to talk about it, according to the Tribune.
"If this had been a plane, it would have been investigated," Hilkevitch says. "The FAA treats the smallest safety issue as very important."
NASA aviation expert Brian E. Smith, a former manager within NASA's Aviation Safety and Security Program, says, "The safely implications of any vehicle operating at low altitude over a major airport outside the authority of air traffic control are obvious. Managers should want to hear about such vehicle operations before they become accidents or disasters."
FAA spokesperson Tony Molinaro says the "absence of any kind of factual evidence" precludes an investigation. "There was nothing on radar."
To explain the witnesses' reports, he offered his best "guess." They may have seen a "hole-punch cloud," he said, which is in "a perfect circular shape like a round disc" and has "vapor going up into it."
These unusual natural cloud holes form only at below freezing temperatures, according to climatologists. It was 48 degrees at O'Hare that afternoon.
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.
Radar technology cannot always capture objects at extremely high speeds. A hovering object wouldn't necessarily show up either. "If it did, it would be a small dot, and air traffic controllers would not give it much concern," Callahan says.
The government response to the O'Hare incident is predictable, says Callahan, who conducted an investigation into a 1986 UFO sighting over Alaska. "The FAA will offer a host of other explanations, as if wearing a blindfold. It's always something else so it can't be what it is."
Official policy spells out FAA disinterest in reports of anomalies. The agency's 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," it says, "report the activity to the local law enforcement department."
Sometimes, pilots and crew report these incidents anyway. Richard Haines, a former NASA scientist who is head of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, has collected thousands of reports by aviators and aviation professionals of unidentified aerial phenomena inconsistent with known aircraft or nature. More than 100 of these involve safety hazards caused by an aircraft's proximity to unfamiliar flying objects or inexplicable brilliant lights.
Given the number of airline personnel reporting this unknown object hovering over a major airport, how could our government not be interested? What about national security? Or passenger safety? Or just plain scientific curiosity about an unexplained phenomenon?
Copyright © The Sacramento Bee
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