fatal accident to note that a DC-10 passed about 1,000 feet above the Cessna after approaching him from about his eleven-o’clock position at 7:45—seconds before the crash—and would have produced wing-tip vortex turbulence.[32] Afterward, the pilot uttered his final words before his death: “Night Ship 282, I needed to deviate, I needed to deviate, I needed to deviate, I needed—” (end of transmission at 7:45:57 p.m.).
If Preziose collided with a physical object, it was never located. Yet a strange red residue (referred to as “transfer marks”) was found coating at least fourteen different areas of the downed airplane that were widely separated in location both inside and outside the aircraft. The engine block had been split, suggesting a very great force of impact. Unfortunately, radar data recording hardware was inoperative at the time of the accident, yet the NTSB did not request radar data from the Pensacola Naval Air Station, less than an hour away. The DC-10 that passed over the Cessna just before the crash was inspected upon landing, and no damage of any kind was found.
The final NTSB report indicated that the accident was caused by pilot disorientation. However, an independent investigation found numerous discrepancies with regard to both the FAA documentation and the investigation conducted by the NTSB.[33]
Several samples of the red residue on the Cargomaster were analyzed using a Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy device. One red sample was found to be most similar to reference material consisting of tere- and isophthalate polymer with the “possible presence of inorganic silicate compounds.” [34] Another sample of bare metal from the wing was found to be most similar to reference material consisting of “epoxy materials with some inorganic silicate fillers.” While certain segments of metal from a U.S. Air Force unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) were also subjected to the same analysis for comparison, little has been said of these findings except that their composition was “significantly different” from the red residue marks. The nearest Air Force base flying UAVs is Tyndall at Panama City, Florida, some 150 miles to the ESE.
If something struck this airplane, it certainly qualifies as a UAP until it is positively identified.
Considering the many kinds of UAP flight maneuvers that have been reported, it is clear that whatever the phenomenon is, it appears to be able to outperform high-performance aircraft in virtually every respect. This same conclusion was made in a recently unclassified report from the United Kingdom. [35] In most of these pilot reports the aircraft appears to be the focus of “attention” of the phenomenon; this conjecture has been supported by many hundreds of high-quality foreign pilot reports as well.[36] Hundreds of reports in my files suggest that the variety of phenomena are associated with a very high degree of intelligence and deliberate flight control.[37]
The majority of pilot reports indicate that UAP tend to approach aircraft during darkness. At night, it is possible to see the readily discernable colors either within relatively small, localized regions (similar to individual light sources) and/or more diffusely over their entire surface. The appearance of the UAP’s lighting patterns takes many different forms; they might be interpreted as some type of aircraft anticollision or navigation lights, even though intense blue lights, generally not permitted in America, are reported in some cases.
Most pilots understand that they will experience a wide range of visual phenomena in the atmosphere over the course of their flying career, but they do not expect that some will remain unexplained after considering all known natural phenomena and man-made objects. When this happens, each witness is left with a lingering uncertainty, a doubt about the core identity of what was seen, and must wrestle with a decision about whether or not to report the event.
Most likely, he or she will not do so. Pilots know how people are treated when discussing or reporting strange sightings, and they are not inclined to risk ridicule or job security. I call this the “law of diminishing reports”—a negative feedback effect that inhibits more and more people from saying anything about what they’ve seen. The long-term effect of this is that less and less reliable data becomes available for serious study, and the whole subject of UAP slides farther into the realm of myth and societal humor. Since this has been going on for many decades, airline administrators and government bureaucrats can validly claim that there is nothing to investigate or take seriously because pilots are not reporting anything. And scientists who rightly claim that they cannot study a phenomenon without having reliable data are justified for not becoming interested! Already rare “anomalous” phenomena seem to become even rarer, reinforcing the mistaken belief that these events don’t occur in the first place.
Air traffic controllers are often aware of these unreported encounters with UAP, since they are normally the first to receive radio calls from the cockpit crew about the UAP, or pick up the targets on radar. But they, also, do not report many incidents. A controller at Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center wrote, “In my six years at the Center, I have personally been part of three bizarre encounters, non-military and non-civilian. I’m just one of 15,000 controllers, too, so there have to be many more that go unreported… In a fourth incident I was present for (in the area but not at the actual sector), the controller told the supe about the encounter, and after both determined there was nothing on radar, they just kind of shook their heads and rubbed their chins, and that was that. This I believe is what typically happens. Nobody knows what to do, really.” [38]
Based on surveys and pilot interviews conducted by myself and associates at NARCAP, we estimate that only about 5 to 10 percent of pilot sightings of UAP are reported. Unless we implement policy changes, aircrew will continue to remain silent.
History is filled with accounts of previously ridiculed subjects that have turned out to be important to mankind, as a study of the history of science confirms. We must not simply overlook UAP because we are uncomfortable with the mere thought of them. Neither society’s current prejudice toward UAP nor its abiding ignorance about them is likely to prevent their continued appearance, nor do such responses prove that they don’t exist. These phenomena simply won’t go away.
CHAPTER 6
Incursion at O’Hare Airport, 2006
On November 7, 2006, something unimaginable happened at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport during the[39] routine afternoon rush hour. For about five minutes, a disc-shaped object hovered quietly over the United Airlines terminal and then cut a sharp hole in the cloud bank above while zooming off. Hardly anyone heard about it until the story broke on the front page of the
It was an ordinary, overcast day, with visibility of about 4 miles and winds at 4 knots. Between 4:00 and 4:30 p.m. on that afternoon, pilots, managers, and mechanics from United Airlines looked up from their ground positions at the terminal and saw the strange object hovering just under a cloud bank, which began at 1,900 feet above the ground. According to these witnesses, the metallic-looking disc was about the size of a quarter or half dollar held at arm’s length. Based on the collection of eyewitness testimony, the UFO is estimated to have ranged in size from about 22 to 88 feet in diameter, and was suspended at approximately 1,500 feet over Gate C17 at the United terminal.
A pilot announced the sighting over in-bound ground radio for all grounded planes; a United taxi mechanic moving a Boeing 777 heard radio chatter about the flying disc and looked up; pilots waiting to take off opened the front windows to lean out and see the object for themselves. There was a buzz at United Airlines. One management employee received a radio call about the hovering object, and ran outside to view it for himself. He then called the United operations center, made sure the FAA was contacted, and drove out on the concourse to speak directly with witnesses there.
Reports show the event lasted from about five to fifteen minutes. Then, with many eyes now fixated on it, the suspended disc suddenly shot up at an incredible speed and was gone in less than a second, leaving a crisp, cookie-cutter-like hole in the dense clouds. The opening was approximately the same size as the object, and those
