Chicago O'Hare Airport UFO - 2006

2006, November 7, Chicago, Illinois; O’Hara Airport, pilots. crew and passengers of United Airlines witnessed a large metallic craft at 4:15 p.m. near gate C-17.  

Although reported by pilots and crew, photographed by one person at least (based on recording between FAA and United) and at about 1000 ft. over C17 gate when reported to the FAA the response was jokes and ribbing about getting the holiday party started early. 

[See the alleged photo at Chicago O’Hare Airport UFO Sighting 2006 | UfoSightingsToday]

Despite the laughter, the report was repeated, as more witnesses stepped forward. The object reportedly disappeared by going straight up.  

Very quickly the authorities explained away the sighting as a weather phenomenon; a rare hole punched cloud or fallstreak  cloud. 

This explanation would have produced numerous witnesses. This is due to the observed fact, found in several articles on the phenomena, that hole punch clouds (and similar sub-varieties) generally persist for as long as four hours. 

Investigators gained access to the actual recording of the phone calls between United and the FAA office and it reveals some interesting things.  It emphasizes the ready ridicule reporting anything out of the ordinary garners. 

The taped conversation between FAA and United seems, however, also appear to contradict that hole punch theory on several points. In that conversation, the report of the object by the United desk had others (FAA and others) looking for it above Gate 17 but they reported they could not see anything.

An article in Popular Mechanics (How Airplanes Punch Holes in Clouds - How Airplanes Increase Snowfall Around Airports (popularmechanics.com)) from 2011 indicates they dissipate after about 4 hours. If that is correct, then right after the report others should have still be able to see the hole punch cloud and verify what it was. Instead, witnesses reported the object seen left by rising straight up and disappearing from view. 

See a photo of hole punch cloud at NOAA - NOAA Photo Library > Collections > National Weather Service > Other or on Flicker (Hole punch cloud | _ Nemo _ | Flickr)

Oddly, although these rare clouds come in many shapes and sizes, few of the photos can really be mistaken for anything but a cloud or weather formation object. 

At the time witnesses were upset and worried that there was not more interest in the matter. It was only a few years post 9-11 after all and the idea of strange craft might have hovered over a major aviation center undetected was worrisome. 

All early interviews with witnesses by the Chicago papers indicated the object had been seen for only a short time before it disappeared upwards. The local astronomer who suggested conditions were right for a hole punch to appear near the airport only suggested it but authorities ran with the idea desporte evidence to the contrary. 

Chicago newspaper, January 2007 - In the sky! A bird? A plane? A ... UFO? -- chicagotribune.com (archive.org)

Revisiting 1957

As mentioned in the previous post, 1957 - October and November - were very busy. A good overview of the entire year can be found on the NICAP Chronology page at 1957 Chronology (nicap.org).

A couple of online sources indicate the photo of the "glowing object" shown in newspapers and books (and dated October 16, 1957) add an uncredited tag line that the USAF sent aloft two (2) aluminum bullets on that date. Verifying that is ongoing. The general story is the photo was taken by Nurse Ella Louise Fortune, working at the Mescalero Indian Reservation near Three Rivers, NM while driving along HWY 54. Some label it as hovering but the "trail" infers movement.  The incident is often cited as related to events at Holloman AFB as well. 

"The photo in the PBB files is stamped by the Lorenzen's of A.P.R.O. fame. Evidently the original witness submitted the photo to several news sources and the Lorensen's acquired a copy as well. Interestingly, the printed photo appears to be a reversed image of the Lorenzon photo. The newspaper image as cropped an apparent cloud in the top half of the image - which appears strangely and uniformly white despite the darked contrast employed in the image." The Paranormal Borderline: UFO photographs - Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, October 16, 1957

The image from Project Blue Book (4 photos and one is an image of a comet).

The image of the Norton County Meteor of Feb 1948 , below, that fell in northern Kansas and southern Nebraska. Taken at night and supported by witness testimony of its glowing (self luminescent) and bright appearance. 

The general story is the photo was taken during the day but most images are such sharp contrast it is difficult to say what time of day it was taken. The shadows on the hills appear inconclusive.  The vantage point of the photographs also appear slightly different in the PBB image and the one in the newspaper at the bottom. The newspaper seems to infer the photographer was facing the west (note the shade of the hill and how full light of day should not have produced a shadowy peak). Contrast to the PBB/Lorenzen photo at top and the way the object seems to be moving eastward - because the bright source of light appears to the left hand corner and the hills on the right side are shaded on the right side. Of course, it is possible the photo in the newspapers was also tampered with.

Exploring UFO's Along Route 66 in Oklahoma: Submit Your Story

 This photograph was taken on October 16, 1957 near Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. It showed  up in many newspapers of the time and in countless books since. In fact, on a wall with newspaper clippings from along the length of Route 66 at the museum in Clinton, Oklahoma there is a newspaper clipping showing this same image.  I ran across this a few years ago doing research on the Mother Road - it will come in handy - since I am planning to co-write a book on UFOS on Route 66.

I have seen on online reference of a person claiming to have taken this same phot in the 1990's in western Oklahoma. But as the images below show, it was in the newspapers decades before. Was it a secret US project? Not likely, since that profile did not match anything then and it still does not.  Just what was happening in 1957?  

Russia sent up the first satellite that month. And reports were coming into Project Blue Book from San Diego, Iowa, Alabama, Florida and New Mexico. Infact there is a file labeled "File 5031" and contains 4 photographs for October 16, 1957 near Alamogordo, New Mexico.  There is little information. For the color and shape it would seem to have been very hot and self-illuminated. Missiles did, despite claims to the contrary, did go awry but there is something odd in the Project Blue Book photos setting them aside from the one caught and sent to the newspapers. 

Clearly the lower image, and the hills behind, match the newspaper image. Just what the odd white trail like thing above the object is unclear. It is clear, from other reports, and the comet photo in the file, that an attempt was made to claim the object was a sighting of the Comet Encke, then visible in some skies. See this page for more details on the sighting and the photo (1957: Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico Sighting - Think AboutIts (thinkaboutitdocs.com)

October had many sightings but the standout events occur in November when the first truly widespread and major interferences with cars, electronics, and radios/radars were reported from all over. The presence of electromagnetic fields stopping cars in their tracks, people seeing egg shaped objects hovering, speeding and landing are truly fascinating. 

The images in PBB look like the one show here: the upper "object" is strange. If a cloud it is very bright given the level of contrast used in this image. Just what is the whole image showing? 

Have a story of things seen in the skies over Route 66 in Oklahoma? Send to me for the new book using the contact form here. 

Menzel Through Contemporary Eyes

As we go into a week where once more Congress will hear about UFO's, this time termed UAP's, It might be good to review one of the foremost debunkers of the subject. While much has been written about the scientist Dr. Donald H. Menzel - there has always been a bit of mystery about what role he actually played, who he worked for, and what the end game was to debunk. Later claims of spy planes and covert operations explain some but there is a time line that reveals involvement long before and after those days. So who was he? Through the pages of two major early UFO publications a different view of the noted astronomer, Dr. Donald Menzel, Harvard, emerges.

In 1954, the same year Menzel will publish his first UFO book, The newsletter of the Civilian Research, Interplanetary Flying Objects (CRIFO), written by Leonard H. Stringfield, will have this to say about the esteemed scientist:

Under the heading "Ellipsoids...Their Evidence and the Experts"  (C.R.I.F.O. :Newsletter. April 7, 1954, Vol. No. 1 pg.3):  "Another expert , Dr. Menzel, famous for his "temperature inversion" theory, called the object an illusion." 

This is also the year that several covert agencies are restructured and an emphasis to place a satellite into orbit emerge. 

In 1963, about the same year Menzel's second book, as an esteemed Harvard astronomer, with Mrs. Lyle G. Boyd (parttime science and science-fiction writer), appeared, a review appeared in the UFO Investigator, the NICAP newsletter (June-September 1963, pg. 6) had something to say. The work purported to be a scientific exploration of the topic and provide explanations. "...we regret that Dr. Menzel's hatred of NICAP and its director have led him into this attack on ALL UFO witnesses and those who believe the evidence. It should be noted that Doubleday had to delay publication while Dr. Menzel deleted numerous erroneous quotations attributed to NICAP's Director . (Galley showing the misstatements available for inspection at NICAP office). In attempting to show that ALL UFO witnesses are incompetent, misled, or are frauds, and all who believe the evidence  are mentally deranged, cultists, or childishly gullible, Dr. Menzel has staked his professional reputation. It is an incredible gamble and his ego is bound to suffer severe damage when the truth comes out." 

The article concluded with a quote attributed to Gen. L.M. Chassin, then General Air Defense Coordinator, NATO. A skeptic, said the General, was:

"Obsessed with the notion of his own omniscience, it enrages him go be confronted by phenomena that do not agree with his conviction. Finding in his limited armory of no explanation that satisfies him, he chooses to doubt anyone rather than himself, and rejects the most obvious facts in order to avoid putting his faith to the test. The mistaken pride and anthropocentrism that supposedly went out with Copernicus and Galileo make him a peril to science, as history abundantly proves." 

This statement, to the editors of the newsletter cited, "seems to describe accurately Dr. Menzel's unfortunate thinking." 

Add to this a striking, intelligent and well written review of his book by Coral Lorenzen in the APRO Newsletter and the comments, letters, and notes found in the pages of Project Blue Book files, and critical reading of his works indicate that there was an agenda at work in Menzel's corpus. Revelations of his involved with  the intelligence community also make clear that what he did he did with clear purpose and perhaps under higher orders. 

The goal was to discredit - by any means possible - the subject, leaders, and evidence of the UFO community.

Galesburg, Illinois 1967

A young witness drew a picture of what he saw and described the actions of the object seen in March 1967 in Illinois.  The round object, with lights around the bottom edge, was a common one seen in many reports of the time and in many locations.  The witness who drew this image was Jimmie Scott, 12 years old and son of Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Scott. He had awakened and gone to the kitchen to get a drink of water when he observed the object.   In the accompanying article, other witnesses reported seeing a diamond shaped object.  Of course, authorities suggest a sighting of the planet Venus, "because it can appear to move in the night sky." 

 

DR. CARL SAGAN AND UFO'S

In the files of the A.P.R.O Bulletin,  a newsletter of one of the first UFO organizations, the name of Dr. Carl Sagan pops up. In the 1962-63 issues he is mentioned in relation to some interesting statements. When considered against his timeline, his career, and his involvement with the U.S.A.F. Project Blue Book, it becomes intriguing.

Editor, researcher, Coral E. Lorenzen brought to the newsletter of A.P.R.O. a strong scientific bent, a well-read and educated woman, she and her husband set a standard for investigative research in to the phenomenon. They pushed for strong scientific looks in what they called U.A.O.'s

In the May 1962 edition there was a piece about Sagan , of the University of California at Berkley, who stated "that Mars is the most likely abode of life in our solar system." His comments were part of a "Voice of America" science lecture broadcast (APRO Bulletin, May 1962, pg.1).

He was identified as one of the few astronomers willing to "extend himself into a discussion of the likelihood of space visitors..."   On November 16, 1962, he made comments as an astronomer at Harvard, that Earth might have been visited many times in the past and that artifacts might exist of those visits, He presented the idea "provisionally" but with an open attitude of discussion and serious dialogue. (APRO Bulletin, March 1963). 

In 1966, he is a member of a U.S.A.F. Project Blue Book "ad hoc" scientific committee. This was known more formally as "SPECIAL REPORT OF THE USAF SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD AD HOC COMMITTEE TO REVIEW, PROJECT "BLUE BOOK" or the "O'BRIAN COMMITTEE." 

If we look at Sagan's professional career we can discover that in 1960-1962 he was a Miller Fellow at Berkley, University of California.

In 1961 he maneuvered a Colloquium at Harvard with the aid of Menzel and Whipple that he parlayed into a teaching post 1963-1968.  He was, however, denied tenure with some rumors he was too "out there" and others murmuring about him being self-aggrandizing or too modern in his thinking. 

It is intriguing that he is at Harvard during that tenure on the ad hoc committee. The institution from which Donald Menzel had operated for decades working behind the scenes in military and government positions of high secrecy and classifications.  Menzel's first book in 1952 on UFO's is believed to have been part of a government debunking program and his second one on the same subject shows up as galley proofs in Project Blue Book files. 

Was the eager young astronomer being groomed to replace Menzel on the Project? Sagan, while maintaining strict scientific standards, still managed to raise the bar as far as making it possible to think realistically about possibilities. A young, strong scientist, with a more modern, less hide-bound adherence to the past imaginative and open minded enough to consider that there might be more to be learned, would not work well with the paradigm under which Project Blue Book had operated since its birth.

Sagan's ability to put into everyday language the reality of possibilities of life "out there" impacted the lives of countless young scientists.

In retrospect there are still two types of scientists and government leaders. One is a Sagan open to possibilities, unafraid of where answers might lead, and able to flex with new concepts. The other is a Menzel, tied to an old, inflexible, and mired field of study that has closed itself off from all new ideas and is afraid of what the answers might reveal. 

Which one are we today?