My fiance and i just saw what appeared to be a commercial airliner hanging motionless at low altitude over the city. We pulled over into a parking lot to ensure it wasn't some sort of optical illusion. It appeared to be hovering and as we watched jerked and started to move slowly to the north. It was low enough for us to be able to see the windows and engines clearly. We saw exhaust coming from the far engines obviously moving away from the craft while it did not move.

The craft almost seemed to be scaled down. Not quite sure how to describe that. It appeared stationary for at least 3 minutes (2 of which we were driving in the opposite direction) another minute while we were stationary. When it began to move it was almost with a jerk, almost like something was holding it back and flew slowly in a northeasterly direction. I should mention this is near no airports. The craft was white with a red tail and possibly a red stripe down the side. We live in the middle of the United States and not near a military facility and there is rarely any UFO activity seen here. Is there anyone out there who has experienced this?

Could be a harrier
those things stop, start, go forward backwards where freaking weird lol

I have seen similar optical illusions where the plane appears to just hover. There could have been a strong headwind, that actually could have caused the plane to temporarily not move forward. I mostly think it was probably an optical illusion though.

If the head wind is fast enough, a plane can appear to be standing still.

Just my .02 dollar's worth.

Yep - I've seen this a number of time - it's seriously cool!

It is an optical illusion.

1) you said the aircraft seemed 'smaller' - very probably it was further away than you thought - that helps, and the air could of been particularly clear, that goes with

2) the aircraft is in a strong head wind - smaller light aircraft can almost have zero ground speed but enough air speed to fly - a jet liner moves a lot faster, but a head wind will affect it.

3) Ground referance (or other referance) if you have nothing close to the aircraft to compare it with it can seem stationary - same deal with people who insist the moon is 30% bigger when it's on the horizon - it's cos you can compare it to buildings and trees etc.

4) The best one is your own movement - you said you were in a car - that really helps - I saw 2 A-10s 'hang' when on a moterway - sweet!

So a perfect combo of those factors usually does it...

Of course others on this site will tell you it was a disguised UFO

Yeah I live not far from the local airport and I see this quite often. Size doesnt matter (on this occasion anyways ). It's when a plane is coming into land it looks as though its at a standstill. But trust me its not!

I'm going with the powerful headwind thing. Also if the wind subsided somewhat abruptly that would explain why the plane suddenly appeared to jerk when it started moving. Because it had all that power behind it keeping it from being moved by the headwind.

Edit: Come to think of it, I have been on about 3 commercial flights where I remember looking out the window and it seemed like the plane was traveling far far too slow to be staying up in the air, and each time these were flights where the pilot explained about strong air currents and turbulence and asked up to keep our belts on. I remember actually being very freaked out. I'm a nervous flyer lol
It's usually close to right after take-off, and about 10 minutes later or so we've reached an altitude relatively free of the turbulence and then are free to take belts off.
Maybe this is similar to what happened, I dunno.

[edit on 15-4-2009 by phoebeflakes]

We had some harriers visit us on base one time. Freaking cool, hit up the airshows in your area, They may have a demo of them.

Yes planes stand still after they land. Also why are ya talking about planes in aliens and ufos forum?

The plane described in the OP sounds kinda like a Janet flight out of Area 51........White plane with red stripe and tail......

Having never flown, myself, and only weeing passenger aircraft either in the air or in movies, no, it didn't appear scaled down in ny way. Just like a Boeing 707 or the type sitting in mid air. As for the people "on" it? If there was some strange time displacement thing going on, (Why else would it be sitting still in mid air), then I can't imagine how they would have noticed anything wrong. More interesting to me is the fact that the airport for a city of 500k people didn't or wouldn't answer any of the 3 numbers for it for 4 hours...before I gave up. And this was on a weekday between 4pm-9 pm.

I mean what markings did it have?

As for why the airport would not respond I can only speculate.

I've seen this a few times myself. I was amazed the first time but assumed it was just an optical illusion.

As for markings, being as how I was seeing a multi-ton aircraft sit, (Not hover) but SIT in mid air kind of distracted a bit from the markings, but as I remember, they were blue and red. That's the best I can give you.


Incidentally, I don't want to turn this thread into one about my sighting, I was just flat stunned to see the title of this thread in the FIRST place.

[edit on 15-4-2009 by Zenagain]