Watch for the flying elliptical-shaped craft

Today is a Friday, but this isn’t meant to be an off-the-wall post.

On Wednesday evening, 911 operators in Greenville, S.C. received calls about a UFO. 15 minutes later, authorities in Charlotte, N.C. received dozens of calls about a “hovering light in the sky”.

And a few hours later, similar reports across the United Kingdom. The photos from Charlotte and the U.K. sightings look quite similar. The clarity of the Charlotte photo is particularly striking; it appears to be an elliptical-shaped craft. And it isn’t April Fool’s Day.

The offical explanations (U.S. weather experts and a spokeman from Spaceguard UK) range from a group of meteors flyng together, to a “fireball” (a large meteor buring up on entry) to parts of the satellite shot down by the Chinese military a few days ago.

This made me think. Didn’t I read about a sighting in Chicago recently? Quick check on Google, and there it is.

According to a January 1st story in the Chicago Tribune, a dozen United Airlines staff (experts in looking at the sky, I’d say) are convinced they saw an “elliptical-shaped craft sitting motionless over Concourse C of the United terminal” on November 7, 2006.

In the daytime.

Hovering.

The Tribune report is gripping, if only because these airline and airport professionals actually believe what they are saying (here are some snippits):

“‘I tend to be scientific by nature, and I don’t understand why aliens would hover over a busy airport,’ said a United mechanic who was in the cockpit of a Boeing 777 that he was taxiing to a maintenance hangar when he observed the metallic-looking object above Gate C17.

‘But I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft,’ the mechanic said.

One United employee appeared emotionally shaken by the sighting and ‘experienced some religious issues’ over it, one co-worker said.

All the witnesses to the O’Hare event, who included at least several pilots, said they are certain based on the disc’s appearance and flight characteristics that it was not an airplane, helicopter, weather balloon or any other craft known to man.

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.”

Look at the Wednesday evening photo from Charlotte. Looks pretty elliptical to me. Two and a half months later. Different part of the USA, different time of day. Neither showed up on radar. Both had mulitple eye witnesses.

MRM