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UFO Seen Over O’Hare Airport
The object sighted was small and round or disc-shaped. It was seen directly
over Terminal C just before dusk. The first report came from an employee
engaged in pushing back United Flight 446 from the gate for departure. After hovering in place for a few minutes below low cloud cover, the object rose vertically and rapidly into the cloud deck, which was at about 1900 feet. The UFO appeared to leave a “hole” in the clouds where it entered, as has been reported in a few other UFO sightings. Other witnesses have come forward in the two months since the sighting, including both more United personnel and people flying that day. The Chicago Tribune assigned a reporter to the story, and he wrote a comprehensive account of the case that was published on January 1. On January 2 the Chicago Sun Times carried a short story about the incident, quoting FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory that “Our regulations cover safety of flight—if we didn’t see anything, what would we investigate?” That comment is rather incredible, on several levels. The FAA usually doesn’t “see” any safety problem directly, but instead through reports from aircraft manufacturers, airline personnel, or FAA inspectors, often doing investigation. Evidence may only turn up after an investigation, but you certainly are guaranteed not to find anything if you don’t investigate. Taken literally, any reports of near misses between planes would also be unworthy of FAA investigation, since the agency didn’t “see anything.”
Further
bureaucratic bumbling, or worse, by government agencies was
reported in the Tribune story. The FAA initially denied that
that they had any information on the incident when first
contacted by reporter Jon Hilkevitch. United did the same.
Both changed their story after it was clear that Hilkevitch
was determined to learn about the incident, and he filed a
FOIA request to the FAA for their data.Listen to an interview
on National Public Radio with Hilkevitch. Finally, note the lack of interest by the FAA, or seemingly other government agencies, to a strange object hovering during daylight directly over O’Hare airport, seen and reported by official personnel. This despite the alleged higher level of security that now exists at U.S. airports. How is this possible, given the higher state of security after 9/11? What does this really say about the ability of the U.S. government to respond to threats in real time? We believe these questions are just as crucial as the central one of the identify of the object seen over O’Hare that day.
CUFOS
has been in contact with Dr. Haines during his investigation,
and we will report on any new developments here. If you were a
witness to this event or have other information to share, you
can contact CUFOS at infocenter@cufos.org. Mark Rodeghier, Ph.D. Scientific Director
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