Punching a Hole in the Clouds: O’Hare Airport UFO 2006 Revisited

originally posted by: Agartha
a reply to: intrptr

According to the Narcap report the object was in the sky for aprox. 18 minutes, that is enough time for people at the airport to have seen it. And what about the thousands of people that lived by the airport? What about the dozens of planes that were in the area?

Another reason I doubt it is that the guy at the control tower couldn't see anything, he was very clear that he could see nothing.

People at the airport did see it, thats why we have this report? Major airports are sprawling complexes, people don't really live 'nearby'. The tower doesn't have sky lights to see over head, their attention is focused on the ground, radar and approach paths. Planes don't fly over head and radar does't look over head. Get that straight.

The people that didn't see it missed it, for whatever reason. A tower is a busy environment, people are focused on their jobs. They aren't "looking for" hovering UFOs, overhead. Pilots are even busier.

originally posted by: mirageman


The FAA decided that no further investigation was needed as the sighting was caused by an unusual weather phenomenon. O’Hare airport officials stated that all people had seen was lights reflecting off of the clouds.

So what kind of weather phenomenon, or lights reflecting off of clouds mirrors this description?:

According to eye witnesses it stayed around for somewhere between 5 to 15 minutes and then disappeared at a rapid rate piercing a distinct hole as if it had cut through the cloud cover.

a reply to: intrptr

They aren't "looking for" hovering UFOs, overhead. Pilots are even busier.

Unless someone on the ramp tells them that they see something. Then they look.

a reply to: intrptr

The object was meant to be in front of the control tower guy (according to the report), and yet he didn't see it. They may not have sky lights (~rolls eyes~) but they do have big windows. His colleague Sue specifically asked him if he could see it, and he said clearly that he could not.

I could agree that they wouldn't have seen the object unless they leaned forward over the control panels to look at the sky, but he was aware of a couple of people reporting a sighting and yet he said he could not see anything.

Also a radio report went out to alert staff on the ground and yet nobody else seen the object.

originally posted by: TrueMessiah

originally posted by: mirageman


The FAA decided that no further investigation was needed as the sighting was caused by an unusual weather phenomenon. O’Hare airport officials stated that all people had seen was lights reflecting off of the clouds.

So what kind of weather phenomenon, or lights reflecting off of clouds mirrors this description?:

According to eye witnesses it stayed around for somewhere between 5 to 15 minutes and then disappeared at a rapid rate piercing a distinct hole as if it had cut through the cloud cover.

I think the original FAA disinformation was light reflecting off clouds, which was then changed to a "hole punch" cloud. Hard though to explain away the metal disk that many saw.

Also seems hard to use the common alternate explanations (top secret, breakaway civilization) for those who for whatever reason are loathe to admit these could be EBE craft.

Top secret craft? Why would anyone fly one in such close proximity to one of the world's busiest airports? The craft seemed to be in control.

Secret breakaway civilization? Again, your breakaway civilization wouldn't remain secret long if you flaunted yourself and your tech in such a busy place.

Time travelers? Beings from other dimensions? Well, I think simple EBE's from elsewhere in the Universe is easier to explain using the physics known today than the former. And there is no reason why EBE's could not be the latter, the two are not mutually exclusive.

Here is a link to Leslie Kean's book available online as mentioned earlier in the thread, the O'Hare incident is covered in Chapter 6 which begins on page 47:

Leslie Kean's "UFO's: General, Pilots and Government officials go on the record........"

a reply to: intrptr

That's what's bizarre...Lightning, bullets, jets-they all generate a sonic boom because it's a byproduct of friction. But these UFO's don't, it's like they were never there...

originally posted by: Agartha
The object was meant to be in front of the control tower guy (according to the report), and yet he didn't see it. They may not have sky lights (~rolls eyes~) but they do have big windows. His colleague Sue specifically asked him if he could see it, and he said clearly that he could not.

Did you see the part where he said he wouldn't admit to seeing the UFO even if he had laid eyes on it? That may explain it.

I could agree that they wouldn't have seen the object unless they leaned forward over the control panels to look at the sky, but he was aware of a couple of people reporting a sighting and yet he said he could not see anything.

Again, he even said he wouldn't admit to seeing it... even if he HAD seen it. His own words offer an excellent explanation of his own behavior.

Also a radio report went out to alert staff on the ground and yet nobody else seen the object.

If 50 people had come forward to say they saw it, deniers would ask why there weren't 100. If 100 had come forward, they'd ask why there weren't 500. They'd ask, even when the answer to "why weren't there more?" is as plain as day: the subject is taboo. So taboo that, by their own admission, they'd sooner compromise safety than admit that they'd seen a UFO. The topic is so taboo that an airline tried to cover up the basic fact that something unidentified was spotted. It's a very sad situation....

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: intrptr
That's what's bizarre...Lightning, bullets, jets-they all generate a sonic boom because it's a byproduct of friction. But these UFO's don't, it's like they were never there...

We're a young species and already know how to suppress and manipulate shock waves... think gun silencer, or aircraft airfoil & fuselage design.

If a time traveller from Earth in the year 3000 showed up here and said that humans had invented a way to hide/capture/prevent shockwaves, I myself wouldn't be all that surprised.

a reply to: TeaAndStrumpets

Deniers? LOL The subject is not taboo to me, but I can't believe something unless I see evidence, and unfortunately I don't see it with this case... to me 6 eyewitnesses and nothing more is not enough, sorry.

And, if you had read my other posts on this thread, you'd have seen that I do want to believe UFOs are real, as I am fascinated by the topic, but I am yet to find an incident that's made me believe. I do not deny they exist, but I also cannot confirm they don't... I am not trying to convince anybody of anything, just stating how I feel, that's all.

a reply to: rockpaperhammock

There is a whole chapter dedicated to O'Hare by Leslie Keane in her book.

One small snippet of information regarding the hole in the cloud cover.

So, what exactly was going on here?

I decided to call FAA spokesperson Tony Molinaro and ask him for more details about the bizarre "weather" that he said United Airlines pilots mistook for a physical object—weather so freakish that it was able to cut a round, sharply defined hole though a thick cloud bank in a split second. Such a phenomenon would certainly be worthy of study by scientists in the age of climate change, and is actually even more of a novelty than hovering or speeding discs, which have made the news since the 1940s. "In the absence of any kind of factual evidence, there is nothing more we can do," Molinaro said in a phone interview, in response to my asking why the FAA chose not to investigate this. But was there factual evidence for his newly discovered weather phenomenon? Weather is the best guess, he said, and then pointed to a specific natural phenomenon that isn't really weather: a “hole-punch cloud,"
...............

And was his guess at all reasonable? I contacted weather experts and scientists specializing in cloud physics, something the FAA would have been wise to have done before issuing its explanation. No, this could not possibly be what witnesses saw, I learned.

Hole-punch clouds are formed when ice crystals from a higher cloud deck fall onto a lower one. ............

The key factor is that this process can only happen at below freezing temperatures. The temperature at 1,900 feet above O'Hare Airport the day of the sighting was 53 degrees F, according to the National Weather Service. The climatologists and other weather experts I spoke to all stated that temperatures must be below freezing for a hole-punch cloud to explain the sighting.


Source : UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record

Kean also interviewed Jon Hilkevitch the CHicago Tribune reporter who broke the story and who said

This was definitely not an airplane, the observers said, and many seemed shaken by what they had seen. Some were awed; others afraid. "The witness credibility is beyond question, and safety was a big concern,"

Source : as linked above

So it suggests that something else formed the hole in the clouds and that witnesses saw something they could not explain.

a reply to: intrptr

Thanks for the compelling study. The most interesting thing to me was the "altered" photos presented on television. They were flipped and omit the object. Who provided those for publication on the program? Why would they show the same photo and omit the object? Hmmm…

Think you got a bit confused there. The Screenshots taken from the Unexplained Files do show an object. The TV show presented them as actual photographs. However the photos were both fakes. I showed the photos below them in this post to show the original pictures used before an object was added.

The wording on the photos "Actual Photograph" was shown on the photos during the program. The screenshots are exactly as they were shown in frame on TV.

a reply to: mirageman

thank you for the follow up mate..rare these days in threads!

originally posted by: Agartha
a reply to: TeaAndStrumpets

Deniers? LOL The subject is not taboo to me, but I can't believe something unless I see evidence, and unfortunately I don't see it with this case... to me 6 eyewitnesses and nothing more is not enough, sorry.

And, if you had read my other posts on this thread, you'd have seen that I do want to believe UFOs are real, as I am fascinated by the topic, but I am yet to find an incident that's made me believe. I do not deny they exist, but I also cannot confirm they don't... I am not trying to convince anybody of anything, just stating how I feel, that's all.

Sorry, I probably wasn't clear. I wasn't labeling you, specifically, a denier. Your other post made it seem like you're open-minded, but just doubtful here. Fine with me. I was only speaking more generally towards the sad state of affairs regarding UFOs, their taboo, and the denial of truly mysterious cases.

I do wonder, though, what people who doubt this incident actually think happened here?

Mirage... hallucination... hysteria... simple misidentification...?

If it were just misidentification of a mundane object, wouldn't your points still stand, like why didn't more people admit to seeing it? It seems even more odd that way, since (for example) there's no taboo against reporting a helicopter.

a reply to: TeaAndStrumpets

a reply to: Agartha

I think both your posts sum up the problem with this case and many other UFO cases.

Many people don't want to be associated with UFOs so don't come forward even if they saw something strange. There is the the smirk factor used to great effect for 60 years. The association that drinking alcohol can create illusions of UFOs (does it really ???) and the fact that talking about UFOs in the military and civil authorities seems to violate an unwritten rule.

On the other side of the argument is that the evidence is never quite good enough nor convincing enough to prove beyond reasonable doubt that UFOs are anything more than anything "unidentified" at best.

a reply to: data5091

I agree there is something not right about this case. It's as if none of the story was ever meant to get out at all and it nearly worked. Why that would be I don't know.

I was just watching "Hangar 1 UFO Files" last week, and the subject of the program was high profile ufo sightings by pilots and at airports, and this was included. They did show some actual pics of the ufo which looked very typical saucerlike appearance, sleek, and metallic

Hangar is fairly easy to find by searching "Hangar 1 Unfriendly Skies"




Although I couldn't find a photograph. Maybe I missed it?

They did show this



But my impression this was simply an illustrative piece of CGI and nothing more. I don't think this is what you were referring to was it?

But if you do find it then please let us know.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Fantastic SO. I had not noticed those pics on here before.

a reply to: mirageman
thanks for posting that, but somewhere in that 42 minute story about this incident I recall seeing 2 actual photographs of the ufo that I had not seen before. I don't recall seeing that one pic that looks like cgi though.

I have a friend who was working that day he's now a retired building electrician and all he would say is" we don't talk about that" every time I ask. I asked if he seen it and he said " We don't talk about what we saw". So he saw something and he retired soon after

a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

Hello mate.

Sorry I don't really have a clue with this one to offer up a decent theory. I caught it on TV a few days ago and it made me remember the thread on here from years ago.

As intrptr said. This is a strange one. A bit like whey aren't there any really good pictures of any kind of aircraft flying into the Pentagon from 9/11.

a reply to: data5091

I didn't think that was what you were talking about. Like I said I could have missed it.

Or maybe it was in another show?

There are a number of them like 'Alien Mysteries' and 'UFOs Declassified' showing on various channels at the moment. It's easy to get one confused with the other. I think UFO Hunters also did an episode as well back in the day.

But it would be good to see another photograph.