Everyone's heard the old UFO favourites. Roswell, Fatima 1917, Illinois 2001, etc etc. However, maybe it's just the news material I read most often, but I'd not heard of a decent new sighting in quite a while.. until now.
A bunch of workers at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport are describing a grey saucer which hovered over Gate C17, span (or maybe not) then shot up through the clouds leaving a hole behind in its wake.
The FAA are trying to pass off the 7th November sighting as a "weather phenomenon" but it's hard to imagine that a weather phenomenon would have pilots and ground officials stop what they're doing to figure out what they were seeing. One United Airlines official ran out from his office to see what all the fuss was about.
So although there was apparently no record in the duty log and United Airlines deny everything, there was most certainly something odd going on that night, be it the weather or something more mysterious.
The pilots of the United plane being directed back from Gate C17 also were notified by United personnel of the sighting, and one of the pilots reportedly opened a windscreen in the cockpit to get a better view of the object estimated to be hovering 1,500 feet above the ground.
The object was seen to suddenly accelerate straight up through the solid overcast skies, which the FAA reported had 1,900-foot cloud ceilings at the time.
"It was like somebody punched a hole in the sky," said one United employee.
Witnesses said they had a hard time visually tracking the object as it streaked through the dense clouds.
It left behind an open hole of clear air in the cloud layer, the witnesses said, adding that the hole disappeared within a few minutes.
However, the Air Traffic Control personnel up in the tower saw nothing on radar. O'Hare Controller and union official Craig Burzych had little recourse but to joke about the rumours.
"To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable."
