UFO Spotted by two aircraft over New Mexico

A LearJet and American Airlines both reported spotting a UFO last February. The Lear first reported the UFO to ATC, and an AA Airbus reported it not long after. ATC had zero traffic around the aircraft. The UFO was flying above FL35. If you follow the link the War Zone has the entire ATC transcripts and voice recordings. This comes on the heels of the incident last October on the California/Oregon border (Thread is active int eh Aviaiton forum)

www.thedrive.com...

I'm guessing that the B-21 which is due at Edwards for testing soon, has already been flying and perhaps that was the aircraft reported here. One of the pilots on the tape speculates its Project Loon balloon but those have ADS-B transponders on them.

a reply to: FredT

I'm guessing that the B-21 which is due at Edwards for testing soon, has already been flying and perhaps that was the aircraft reported here.

Hint hint, wink, wink, did you hear that rooskies?

a reply to: FredT

It wouldn't be the B-21. If they're flying around that area it wouldn't be in the middle of the afternoon.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
It wouldn't be the B-21. If they're flying around that area it wouldn't be in the middle of the afternoon.

Shiny and bright also doesn't seem like the kind of LO paint job it would probably have, either.

Suddenly I am seeing this sighting all over the ufo websites. I find pilot and astronaut sightings fascinating because both are very highly trained. Another in a series of interesting sightings in an area of the country full of interesting sightings.

originally posted by: data5091
I find pilot and astronaut sightings fascinating because both are very highly trained.

I think that's a myth. Yeah, pilots are basically trained to fly to avoid other airplanes, and they usually have good eyesight, but they are in no way specifically trained to identify airplanes better than anyone else, and they are certainly not trained to observe and identify anything significantly out of the ordinary. They're going to be just like you and me, wondering what the hell they're looking at.

a reply to: Blue Shift

will respectfully disagree. No, they aren't like you and me, they are highly trained. And there are times, as in this case I think, they did not know what the hell they were looking at, but in some cases the Japan Airlines encounter over Alaska back in 1980 for example, the pilots who came in contact with a massive ufo, they paid a price for going public with what they saw. To me, that's really sad.

a reply to: data5091

Highly trained in flying the aircraft. That doesn't mean they know what they're looking at.

a reply to: Zaphod58

no I agree with that statement, but as I mentioned the JAL incident was described as being a massive ufo. These are what intrigue me.

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: data5091
I find pilot and astronaut sightings fascinating because both are very highly trained.

I think that's a myth. Yeah, pilots are basically trained to fly to avoid other airplanes, and they usually have good eyesight, but they are in no way specifically trained to identify airplanes better than anyone else, and they are certainly not trained to observe and identify anything significantly out of the ordinary. They're going to be just like you and me, wondering what the hell they're looking at.

This is absolutely true. I've been through flight training. Pilots are "highly trained" to take off, navigate, and land. There is NO special observation-based training at all. Military pilots receive more IFF training (Identification Friend or Foe) to recognize silhouettes of enemy fighters, for example, but there is no specialized training on observational technique that would make a pilot better able to identify a UFO. That idea is just "common sense silliness" without any real justification to back it up.

a reply to: schuyler
While this is true, don't you think there might be a "familiarity" factor at play?

What I mean is, I'm a computer programmer. I can take a look at a given set of code and have a whole lot better chance of identifying the language than someone who only ever uses their machine for facebook and Twitter. Why? Because I work with it - I'm not trained in specifically identifying different coding languages, but I do have familiarity with the field.

Professional pilots - military or civilian - watch the sky a whole lot more than those of us always on the ground. They are trained on and begin and end their journeys from airports, which have varying collections of different types of aircraft. By simple experience and familiarity, I propose they are more qualified than non-pilots to discern whether something in the sky is unfamiliar. Not saying they are infallible, of course.

(I mostly lurk in these threads but I wanted to respond to this.)

originally posted by: data5091
Suddenly I am seeing this sighting all over the ufo websites. I find pilot and astronaut sightings fascinating because both are very highly trained. Another in a series of interesting sightings in an area of the country full of interesting sightings.

Are they 'trained observers' or 'trained survivors'?

As Hynek and others have repeatedly discovered, pilots are not dispassionate nature-viewers, they are survival-focussed specialists in avoiding lethal hazards in the air, and as such they properly interpret visual stimuli in the most hazardous [and closest] manifestation, AS THEY SHOULD. As early as the 1930s scientists realized that pilots were POOR observers of mid-air objects such as meteors and they continue to be poor observers of missile and space events, and we WANT them to be, in order to enhance the chances of them and their passengers staying alive -- better too many 'false-positive' avoidance reactions, than a single false-negative in a genuine collision-course event.

1936 REPORT ON WHY PILOTS ARE POOR OBSERVERS OF METEORS
adsabs.harvard.edu...

CONTEMPORARY PILOT MISPERCEPTIONS OF MISSILE/SPACE EVENTS
www.zipworld.com.au...

More on Leslie Kean's naïve awe of pilot perceptions here --

www.nbcnews.com...


Which astronaut reports do you consider significant? Are you sure these are really reports by astronauts and not just claims by UFO writers about rumors they've herd?

a reply to: PrairieShepherd

I've known people in the military that work on the flightline that can tell the difference at a glance between the Block 30 and Block 40 F-16, because they needed to. Those same people couldn't tell a C-32 (757 airframe) from a C-37 (Gulfstream business jet).

a reply to: Zaphod58

That's fair. If you showed me samples of Lisp, Python, and Perl I probably couldn't tell you which is which because I've never worked with them. It's a matter of experience.

My point was that the average pilot has more experience in the field than the average non-pilot observer and therefore has a higher likelihood of having relevant experience. It's not a guarantee, of course.

In this instance, however, there is a corroborating report, yes? I've just learned of this sighting so I haven't read up on it yet - at work.

a reply to: PrairieShepherd

They do, to an extent. As JimOberg pointed out though, most pilots make lousy witnesses.

The pilot of a Learjet 36 belonging to Phoenix Air, with the tail number N71PG, reported the initial sighting. He asks the controller: "Was anybody above us that passed us like 30 seconds ago?

"Negative," the controller responds.

"OK. Something did," the Learjet pilot says.

"It's a UFO," another pilot chimes in.

"Yeah," the Learjet pilot laughs.

A few minutes later, the controller radios to American Airlines Flight 1095, an Airbus A321. He asks the pilot, "Let me know if you see anything pass over you here in the next 15 miles."

The pilot seems puzzled and responds, "If anything passes over us?"

"Affirmative. We had an aircraft in front of you at 37 [thousand feet] that reported something pass over him and we didn't have any [radar] targets, so just let me know if you see anything pass over you," the controller says.

"All right," the pilot says.

The Learjet pilot joins the conversation, saying, "I don't know what it was, it wasn't an airplane but it was -- the path was going in the opposite direction."

About a minute later, the American Airlines Flight 1095 pilot radios back to the controller to report a bizarre sighting in Arizona's airspace.

"Yeah, something just passed over us, like a -- I don't know what it was. But it was at least two, three thousand feet above us. Yeah, it passed right over the top of us," the pilot says.

"OK, American 1095, thank you," the controller responds.

The controller later asks, "American 1095, can you tell if it was in motion or just hovering?"

"Couldn't make it out whether it was a balloon or whatnot. But it was just really beaming light or could have had a big reflection and was several thousand feet above us going opposite direction," the pilot says.

"Roger," the controller responds.

ABC7NY.com - Pilots report close encounters with UFO over Arizona: 'Something just passed over us'.

That was posted an hour or two ago on a MSM site!

Whatever it is, sounds interesting. No radar signature, no transponder, and sounds like no idea what cruising by a few thousand feet above them!

Add it to the pile of seriously toned MSM articles and interviews put out since TTSA has gone public. Not much to this sighting in particular but certainly seems the MSM has found its new click bait topic . It would be interesting to see traffic numbers on these articles.

a reply to: FredT

I spotted something metallic in the sky on Monday this week but unfortunately didn't have my phone with me. it looked circular in appearance. I also saw 2 planes flying by at the same time so could tell it was no plane. It could have been a balloon, not saying it wasn't but it did look pretty large and metallic. This was in East London, UK.

I find it strange the second set of pilots didn't break out a phone to record what could be coming their way when they were given a heads up by atc.

Also, shouldn't there be a cockpit video recorder?

That should've caught something.

a reply to: reject

There is not a cockpit video recorder and there probably won't be for years to come.