UFO Pilot Under-Reporting Bias.

Thought there was some revealing data found here regarding a 'reality check' on just how many people actually report their UFO sightings (I know I didn't) and when it comes to military/civilian pilots there's always been serious concerns about under reporting bias due to fear of ridicule, perceived competence, job security etc.

"Airlines don't like to employ people who see strange things"

Dr. Richard Haines, Ames NASA Research Center - Chief of the Space Human Factors Office.

After the Robertson panel led to the implementation of the JANAP 146 directive which basically made the reporting of UFOs to the American public an 'act of espionage' then I suppose fines of up to ten thousand dollars (and/or one to ten years in prison) also deterred quite a few pilots from discussing their experience.

Over the years there's been some truly revealing UFO surveys and polls conducted on professionals in the aviation industry (including this one involving 1000 radar operators) but did think there was a really relevant report below concerning 'under reporting bias' from NARCAP's Ted Roe.

Aviation Safety in America: Under-Reporting Bias of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and Recommended Solutions.

"We didn't say anything. We figured nobody would believe us."
Charter Pilot



"Upon return to my domicile, JFK, I reported our sighting to the proper authorities. I was shortly visited by two federal investigators who evidently thought I was hallucinating for one of them stated he had seen spaceships while fishing in Great South Bay and was quite obviously trying to prove that I was a loony."
Captain, Pan Am (ret.)



"It must have been Huge! We were all due back at JFK about the same time two days later so I waited in the crew ready room to talk to them. None of them wanted to talk! They were afraid management would take them off of flying status and have them tested for booze and drugs. The story never came out!"
Flight Engineer, TWA (ret.)



"a group of lights in the air appeared at our 12o'clock position. I called departure control and asked them if they had any traffic in that area. When they came back and said NO, what do you see, I said no, just checking. For at that time when a pilot reported seeing a UFO he was in a lot of trouble."
Captain, Ozark Airlines (ret.)



"I, and Flight crew saw something (in broad daylight) that did things that no known aircraft could do without killing any living thing inside. I will only give sketchy details to protect the privacy of the rest of the crew. If you are interested, and all information (is) kept anonymous, contact me. I will not present myself for public ridicule."
Captain, NW (ret.)

Technical Report - PDF File

• Sticking with NARCAP also thought this was a pretty awesome interview with Dr. Richard F. Haines.

"You must remember that I was privy to the project files. These contained hundreds of official reports of UFO encounters made by military personnel from all branches of the service. They were all classified with a high degree of security classification. Almost all of these made pretty scary reading from the verbatim descriptions of the pilots concerned"

Albert M. Chop, Air Force UFO Public Information Officer at the Pentagon

List

The Pentagon's Al Chop also pops up in the vid below but there's a good section on pilot UFO under-reporting featuring NICAP's Richard Hall and NARCAP's Richard Haines found around 10:30.

UFOs Reported By Airline Pilots - The Real Reason Why Pilots Don't Talk

Thought another good example of the mindset discussed above can be found in this interview with pilot Graham Bethune - apparently the crew of a U.S. Navy C-54 aircraft witnessed a disc shaped UFO over the Atlantic Ocean and a Naval Commander on board refused to look at it because he 'didn't believe in such things'.

'Whatever you do don't tell anybody thay we saw a flying saucer because they'll probably lock us up when we land.'

Bethune/Gander UFO Incident, Feb.10,1951 Newfoundland, Canada ( 300 ft. Diameter UFO Spotted ! )

Guess we'll never know the true numbers on just how often pilots encounter UFOs but looks like witness intimidation could also be a factor and below are a few cases involving claims of 'do not to discuss'.

• Three disc shaped objects confirmed on radar and witnessed close range by pilot flying Piper PA-24 aircraft.

This is a case where the witness reports that he has been repeatedly intimidated by unidentified people probably from a foreign country.

Thread

• Three disc shaped objects confirmed on radar and witnessed close range by two RAF pilots in Meteor jet aircraft.

Upon landing both pilots separated, isolated and ordered not to discuss - debriefed next morning by plains clothes officer (records of official investigation now missing).

From 4:30

Cont

• Close range pilot UFO encounter where a yellow, oval shaped object flew just off the left wing of a Piper Arrow aircraft.

Pilot detained and interrogated for over three hours by five men in suits who tried to make him sign a document stating that he would never disclose details of his UFO sighting to the public.

See 59:10

Thread

Links:


Some great forwarding links in this first file:

• Pilot Sightings - (PDF File)
• Free Download: "On Pilots and UFOs” by Dr Willy Smith
• The UFO Evidence - Section V - PILOTS & AVIATION EXPERTS
• NARACAP Aircraft Survey Project (PDF File)
• The 'True' Report on Flying Saucers.

a reply to: karl 12

Something strange i have always found about this.

If Unidentifed Objects are being picked up by ground radar which are flying close to aircraft, then surely the ground crew are going to be asking the aircraft pilots what they can see.

Or am i missing something ?

The JAL incident was one of my favorites. But seeing how it was treated and how the pilot was treated, makes me want to bitch slap the first idiot that comes clean and admits there really is something to it all.

apnews.com...
The above article is a sample of the stupid that has engulfed the UFO scene since about an hour after it began.

they can go wallow in their swamp gas and weather balloons.

When I was in flight school, UFO’s were often joked about, but there was a somewhat unwritten rule that we were risking our ticket if we reported a UFO.

a reply to: alldaylong

I only know what my uncle told us many years ago. In the army, he did something? where he watched radar.
He said that when he saw something on it, that defied logic, he was told he "did not see anything, forget it"

Wish he lived closer, would love to ask more questions, now that I'm older.

Great thread! This is the kind of thread I missing seeing on ATS.

Non-believers can be so dismissive of the topic they don't realize how extreme their reaction can be. There is a difference between 'seeing things' and recognizing a moving object which cannot be identified.

originally posted by: chiefsmom I only know what my uncle told us many years ago. In the army, he did something? where he watched radar.
He said that when he saw something on it, that defied logic, he was told he "did not see anything, forget it"

Worked at the same place as some America geezer twenty five years ago. When he told me he'd been in the USA military and been a radar operator it was an instant "so what do you know about UFOs?" To which he replied, "I can't tell you hardly anything, it's more than it's worth, all I can say is they aren't from up there they are from down here" pointing to the ground. Then he walked off with a very serious 'that's all' look.

Never quite figured out if he meant the UFOs being down here meant they are ours, or whether they are from beneath our feet. But he certainly gave the impression that he knew about their existence.

a reply to: ufoorbhunter

No doubt the Aliens have undersea bases but that doesn't mean that's where they come from. It doesn't seem plausible that they come from this Earth because there is no archeological record of their progression toward an advanced civilization.

a reply to: alldaylong

Am sure they do and plenty of close range pilot descriptions in the literature mate, some of which involve radar/visual - also quite a number of government documents where pilots are describing some very strange objects indeed.

Don't know if this was radar confirmed but there's yet another case below involving three silver, saucer-shaped objects approaching an aircraft.

Apparently they 'had a bun on top and a bun on the bottom' and as the pilot mentions in the telephone interview, he was bound by the Official Secrets Act from discussing his experience with the public.

See 24:30

During the period 1952 to 1957 there were a series of UFO sightings involving the military, which forced the MOD to rethink and then reverse its policy. These included sightings during Operation Mainbrace in September 1952 (including those at RAF Topcliffe), the West Malling incident on 3 November 1953, Flight Lieutenant Salandin’s near-collision with a UFO on 14 October 1954, the Lakenheath/Bentwaters radar/visual sightings on 13 and 14 August 1956 and the RAF West Freugh incident on 4 April 1957.

link 1 / 2

I just recently re-classed into a flight medic position in the National Guard. A few months ago, we were flying back to our base at night, under NVGs. I forget how it came up, but all five of us in the helicopter admitted that we had separately witnessed our own UAP. Most of them had seen them from the helicopter, at night. I get the feeling that if you fly enough at night, you're bound to see something inexplicable. I agree with your assertion that these sightings are greatly underreported.

originally posted by: network dude

they can go wallow in their swamp gas and weather balloons.

Yes dude lots of highly dubious debunkery out there (some of it official) and if you want a good laugh then check out the explanations for the Minot B-52 and Edwards AFB incidents.

If you've not heard it before then that interview with Dr Richard Haines linked in the first post is well worth a listen - he also describes a very bizarre pilot triangle encounter in the first vid below.


• Pilot Encounters Huge Triangle UFO over Atlantic Ocean NE of Jacksonville, FL 1967

• Official FAA cockpit recordings of pilot UFO sightings

• Black Box UFO Secrets

originally posted by: Alien Abduct
a reply to: ufoorbhunter

No doubt the Aliens have undersea bases but that doesn't mean that's where they come from. It doesn't seem plausible that they come from this Earth because there is no archeological record of their progression toward an advanced civilization.

That we, as general public, are aware of.

originally posted by: Nickn3
When I was in flight school, UFO’s were often joked about, but there was a somewhat unwritten rule that we were risking our ticket if we reported a UFO.

Appreciate the post mate and did think this was an interesting USAF Academy document - the largest study ever conducted for the USAF also contains info that doesn't really fit with the official story sold to the public.

Don't know if you've read this book which deals solely with internal government documentation but there are some pretty crazy pilot encounters being described and there's a good presentation below by one of it's co-authors.

The sighting was officially explained by on November 13, by Lt. Col. Hector Quintanilla who wrote, "The following conclusions have been reached after a thorough study of the data submitted to Foreign Technology Division. The ground visual sightings appear to be of the star Sirius and the B-52, which was flying in the area.

a reply to: karl 12


Unbelievable HAHAHAHA!

The B52 crew was some of the people that actually reported the UFO....sheesh. The thing is they can pretty much say anything, it doesn't matter because the masses will eat it up and they know it.

originally posted by: Alien Abduct
a reply to: ufoorbhunter

No doubt the Aliens have undersea bases but that doesn't mean that's where they come from. It doesn't seem plausible that they come from this Earth because there is no archeological record of their progression toward an advanced civilization.

Completely agree. So if the radar operator was talking from the heart then there are three other possibilities, maybe more

1 The UFO builders are very deep down maybe hundreds of miles below us and only come out to the surface when necessary, maybe increasing in frequency due to us destroying the ecosystems above.

2 Dimensional beings who we can only see occasionally

3 UFOs are from the future or the past that every now and then have time slips where we get to see them due to hiccups in the program, similar to us seeing ghosts. Not sure I go with this as they can interact with us, then again so can so called ghosts so who knows

a reply to: ufoorbhunter

Or another planet in our universe.

originally posted by: chiefsmom

I only know what my uncle told us many years ago. In the army, he did something? where he watched radar.

He said that when he saw something on it, that defied logic, he was told he "did not see anything, forget it"

Sounds very intriguing Chiefsmom and wouldn't be the first time operators have been told that - please feel free to share if he goes into further detail.

Always remember USAF Radar controller Michael Smith testifying that he was ordered to lie to police officers about UFOs over Michigan and apparently the USAF standard operating procedure when you see a UFO on radar screen is to notify NORAD, not to write anything down and to keep it to yourself on a strictly need to know basis.





Think this case has the distinction of being the first ever radar/visual but there are plenty of others where unknown objects have been corroborated by visual confirmation.

Here's the first Chief of Project Bluebook had to say about it.

"Of these UFO reports,the radar/visual reports are the most convincing. When a ground radar picks up a UFO target and a ground observer sees a light where the radar target is located,then a jet interceptor is scrambled to intercept the UFO and the pilot also sees the lights and gets a radar lock only to have the UFO almost impudently outdistance him,there is no simple answer."

Edward J Ruppelt USAF Capt 1956

E-book

Apparently he was quite impressed by this incident - the radar operators even ran outside to see the objects.

Radar/visual in September, 1952, Yaak, Montana.

A newsman from Oleans, New York, a Mr. Bob Barry, interviewed a S/Sgt. William Kelly who was stationed at the Yaak radar installation in 1953. According to Sgt. Kelly, on one occasion UFOs appeared on the site's radar screens exhibiting changes of direction as many as five times a minute. Some course changes were 90 degrees and speeds were measured as high as 1,500 mph. Six blips at one time appeared on the radar scopes and the strange targets came within 10 miles of the GCI site. So close was the indicated range the radar personel left their windowless operations room to check the sky with the naked eye. Sure enough, six objects could be seen in the sky an estimated 10 miles away. When first spotted, the six UFOs were in an in-trail formation, and shortly thereafter the six UFOs changed to an in-line abreast grouping. Finally, the UFOs switched to a vertical stack. Sgt. Kelly said he remembers tracking the UFOs on the radar executing vertical climbs that exceeded the limit of the site's height finding equipment (This was probably 100,000 feet).

(UFOs: A History, 1953: Aug-Dec., Pg.5; 19. Hall, UFO Evidence, Pg. 85)

link

originally posted by: Alien Abduct
a reply to: ufoorbhunter

Or another planet in our universe.

For sure and that's the best bet

a reply to: LoneCloudHopper2


Thanks for the comments mate and yes I really do believe there's something very strange going on - I just don't know what it is.

There's an incident described below which I'd love to have read the report on - it involves an unknown object seemingly harassing an aircraft with running commentary from the pilot.

In the Mayday call the pilot describes the object as 'weird' and 'strange' and states that it made them change course about three different times - both plane and pilot were never seen or heard of again.

The Disappearance of flight N3808H

Pilot transmission: - last words of pilot Jose Pagan Santos:

Location. Mona Channel, Caribbean Ocean near Puerto Rico

Date: June 28 1980

"Mayday, Mayday, Ercoupe ocho cero, eight zero, zero, Hotel. We can see a strange object in our course, we are lost, Mayday, Mayday.”

“Ah we are going from Santo Domingo to ah San Juan International but we found ah a weird object in our course that made us change course about three different times we got it right in front of us now at one o’clock, our heading is zero seven zero degrees…our altitude one thousand six hundred a zero seven zero degrees…our VORs got lost off frequency…”

“Right now we are supposed to be a about thirty five miles from the coast of Puerto Rico but we have something weird in front of us that make us lose course all the time I changed our course a second (unintelligible) our present heading right now is three hundred we are right again in the same stuff sir.”

They were not heard from again.

A "Valentich" Type Of Case Off Puerto Rico - PDF File

Cheers.