(#6) The 2006 O'Hare International Airport UFO Sighting

Pilots saw it. Mechanics witnessed it. A supervisor reported it. And the government refused to look into it.

Alleged photograph of the UFO. Notice the gray disc in the upper left corner. Via EarthFiles.

I love airports. Typically, I’m walking through one because I am about to travel and enjoy the experience of seeing a new state or country. Long lines, expensive shopping, security inspections, and layovers aside, I think we can all admit that airports hold a special place in our hearts.

I’ve never encountered anything unusual at an airport. Thanks to heightened security [well, when I have to empty my backpack because of an errant bottle of toothpaste or an item the guards think is questionable, then no thanks], airports are some of the safest places here in the USA. Each trip through one is more or less like the other, but the monotony of waiting around and standing in line is a fair price to pay for the joys of traveling somewhere new and exciting.

But those whose employment demands their daily presence at airports may have a different perspective, especially if they worked at Chicago O’Hare International Airport in November of 2006.

This is a day that is rarely talked about, but it is one of the most anomalous occurrences to have ever taken place at an American airport.

This is the story of the 2006 O’Hare International Airport UFO sighting, an event that had multiple eyewitnesses at and around the airport and even photographic evidence to back it up.

Yet, despite the obvious security concerns of an unidentified flying object hovering above a major US airport, the federal government has refused to thoroughly investigate the incident.

What really happened on November 7, 2006? What did the eyewitnesses really see? Does the government know more than it acknowledges? That’s what we’re going to explore in this newsletter.

“Hey, do you see a flying disc out by C-17?”

Did a UFO once hover above this airport? Photo Via Business Journals.

Those were the words of a United Airlines supervisor who reported an unusual sight to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials at Chicago O’Hare on November 7, 2006.

Here is a video containing the audio recordings of the various “UFO calls” placed to the FAA on that day.

At around 4:30 p.m., around a dozen United Airlines employees, including the pilot and co-pilot of Flight 446, observed a metallic disc hovering above Gate C-17, just below the clouds. According to witnesses, the object hovered motionless for about five minutes before shooting up through the clouds and puncturing a hole through them that remained open before the wind closed it up.

The first call placed to FAA supervisors in the control tower was made by a woman named Sue, a United Airlines supervisor working in a separate tower. She had received reports from the pilots and ramp employees on the ground that there was a disc flying above the gate. The first call was essentially laughed off by the first FAA supervisor, who seemed to think it was a prank. Sue played along with the banter, but she made another call to reemphasize what her subordinates saw.

In the second call, Sue mentions that a photo had been taken of the flying disc. Despite this, the FAA tower had a similar response, saying that it would keep an eye peeled while making it clear through their tone that they did not think anything of what was being reported.

However, the calls didn’t stop.

A little while later, an anonymous United Airlines employee called the tower, seemingly unaware that two separate calls had already been placed. In this call, the United employee sounds a lot more serious than Sue and mentions details that align with what she originally reported. The anonymous employee seems to express that the flying disc could be a safety concern. The FAA tower responds by saying that they had been looking but could not find a flying disc anywhere near Gate C-17.

Not even this was the end of the calls. After this one, another anonymous United employee, this time a mechanic, mentions to airport ground controllers that he and some other United employees saw the flying disc, but weren’t sure if it was a weather balloon or something else.

And that marks the end of the recorded audio messages that we have. Whether there are more that have yet to be released remains an open question. Regardless, we have the testimony of several employees whose stories sound very similar. Something that looked like a metallic disc was hovering silently over Gate C-17, then took off and disappeared. Evidently, the radar systems operated by the control towers didn’t pick up any signatures revealing unauthorized aircraft flying through their airspace.

Now, something like this would have surely triggered a thorough investigation from the federal government, especially given that 9/11 had taken place only five years prior.

Well, that’s not quite what happened. In fact, the FAA seemed to take the opposite approach, at least based on what they told the public.

“It Was a Weather Phenomenon”

This was the official stance taken by the FAA.

Initially, United Airlines and the FAA denied they had received any reports about a flying disc hovering over Chicago O’Hare. However, the FAA then acknowledged it had received calls about the matter but saw no need to investigate.

The reason? Well, since the control tower’s radar system had not detected the flying disc or any other aircraft or a weather balloon flying in the area, the only other culprit could have been a weather phenomenon.

And that’s all she wrote.

This did not satisfy the witnesses, however. According to the Chicago Tribune, reporting just two months after incident, the FAA’s refusal to seriously investigate the sighting made the United Airlines witnesses “upset,” as they genuinely believed that they saw something mysterious that could pose a threat to the safety of their operation.

In fact, the Chicago Tribune article goes so far as to say that the sighting left some witnesses “emotionally shaken.”

One United manager ran outside of his office to get a better look at what was being reported. He immediately saw that it was a safety risk and made sure that they proper authorities were aware.

In fact, some of the United Airlines employees interviewed by the Chicago Tribune said that they were asked to draw pictures of what they saw and were then advised by the airline to remain silent and not speak publicly about what they witnessed.

So, we have hard evidence of what eyewitnesses saw on the day that they saw…whatever it was they saw. We have a major airline and a government agency acting rather dodgy about it. We also have witnesses who seem shaken and baffled by whatever was hovering in the sky that day.

So, what really happened? Do we have any explanations? Let’s dive into it with our first and “simplest” one — the hoax explanation.

It Was Just a Prank, Bro

Oh, that common refrain from mid-2010s YouTube prank channels. How could I ever forget you? We laugh at the pitiful attempts of unhinged pranksters to cool down their angered victims, and yet, we are so quick to lob the same punchline at any phenomenon we can’t readily explain.

I cannot believe I am giving this the time of day, but I am going to slap this explanation silly because it is used so wantonly against those who report UFO sightings.

Always ask the following question when you think anything is just an elaborate hoax. What’s in it for the hoaxers? Typically, the answer is money, fame (or infamy), or both.

In this case, the United Airlines employees didn’t gain anything other than confusion, anxiety, and dismissive attitudes. Most of them have stayed completely out of the public eye, and they would only speak to newspapers on the condition of anonymity.

Nope, I don’t see any possibility that this was a hoax or prank or joke or whatever you want to call it. This explanation cannot carry even the lightest of burdens of proof.

Next.

Maybe the FAA Was Right. Was It Just a Weather Phenomenon?

This is an explanation that does hold some weight.

Eyewitnesses describe the unidentified object as punching a hole in the clouds as it took off out of sight. Some have pointed out that this could be the result of a fall streak, or “hole punch” cloud.

I discussed this phenomenon in my newsletter on the Nuremberg Celestial Event, so I won’t go into too much detail on it. Nonetheless, hole punch clouds form when water droplets around the ice crystals in clouds evaporate and leave a gaping “hole” in the sky.

As for the flying disc? Well, that could be the result of an optical illusion caused by the various lights shining around the airport. If you watched the video I embedded, you’ll see one of the newspaper clippings it features talks about this explanation. Beyond that, I don’t know of any other weather explanations that have been offered on the O’Hare UFO sighting.

While it is theoretically possible for an optical illusion to precede a sudden opening of a hole in the clouds, I don’t think this explanation is sufficient. Here’s why.

I don’t believe that experienced airport personnel would insist that an aircraft is hovering above them if it were the result of airport lights bouncing off the clouds. Chicago receives its fair share of cloud coverage, so lights reflecting off an overcast sky would be a rather routine sight for the United Airlines employees.

The weather hypothesis seems to have been the default explanation for the FAA given its lack of radar evidence for their being an unusual aircraft in the vicinity of Gate C-17 at Chicago O’Hare.

As for me, I would be more inclined to side with a dozen experienced eyewitnesses than FAA radar systems, especially given the fact that aircraft can be designed with stealth technology to avoid radar detection altogether.

So, if it wasn’t the weather or optical illusions, then what could explain this flying disc that the United employees witnessed? Could it have been the military testing new stealth technology?

The Public Experimentation Explanation

Has the government conducted secret experiments on the general public in the past? Look no further than the CIA’s illegal and brutal mind control experiments conducted under the auspices of Project MK-Ultra. No, I won’t be covering MK-Ultra on That Did(n’t) Happen, as it is not so much a mystery as it is plain historical fact that we should all read about and learn from.

I see the arguments for both sides on this explanation. On one hand, if you really wanted to find out how stealth your new radar-absorbing technology really is, you would fly an unauthorized mission over a civilian airport and see if anyone from the FAA notices. Perhaps it was a new drone in development that we have yet to see make its public debut in the US Air Force.

On the other hand, however, I can see where this explanation doesn’t make much sense. Flying top-secret experimental aircraft above a civilian airport is a foolish move, especially if the air traffic controllers have no knowledge of the flight. You could imagine the massive PR problem that would result from a military drone colliding with a civilian commercial jet. No thanks.

Besides, the Department of Defense has specific installations designed for these types of experiments that allow research and development to take place unimpeded. Deploying experimental aircraft to Chicago O’Hare makes little sense when the restricted airspace of Area 51 offers a much more secretive “aerial laboratory” far from public view and interference.

Again, this one could go either way. Depending on where you stand on this explanation, the next one will either seem outlandish or believable.

Aliens!

I need to stop covering mysteries that inevitably result in me proposing extraterrestrials as an explanation.

I’m going to keep this one short but sweet, as I have explored the alien hypothesis in previous newsletters and don’t want to be repetitive.

Part of what I do here is consider all possible explanations within what I call the Zone of Plausibility. Yes, it is plausible that aliens exist, and yes, it is plausible that they have visited us.

However, while I do not entirely dismiss the alien explanation in this case, I have some doubts about it. For starters, why would aliens expend enormous amounts of energy to come to planet Earth just to test their radar-dodging capabilities? Based on how the flying disc behaved, it seems like it didn’t want to be seen for very long. Whoever was piloting the aircraft obviously wasn’t bent on establishing contact with humanity.

So, why else come here? For research? If the aliens were so advanced as to travel lightyear after lightyear to reach Earth, escape the notice of our many space probes and high-powered telescopes, and enter US airspace while avoiding detection, then don’t you think they would already be confident in their stealth technology?

“But John,” you may be thinking. “Didn’t you just say it’s plausible that aliens have contacted us?”

Yes, I did. However, being open-minded about aliens doesn’t mean you have to abandon all critical thinking when researching a UFO sighting. Since I don’t have any hard proof that the mysterious aircraft above Chicago O’Hare is or is not a human or extraterrestrial aircraft, then I cannot take a hard stance on either side of the fence.

So, Did It Happen? Or Did It Not?

I believe the United Airlines employees witnessed an aircraft of some kind on November 7, 2006. I think the FAA should have been more proactive about investigating a possible breach of security at a major US airport, even if the culprit was another US government agency.

The O’Hare UFO sighting is most certainly a frustrating one. We have so much juicy evidence that something weird happened, but it is not enough to lead us to a firm answer.

Sometimes, we have to accept that some things will remain a mystery, no matter how hard we study them. This doesn’t mean that we should refrain from researching and speculating. Quite the contrary. Engaging in this type of intellectual exercise sharpens our critical thinking and broadens our understanding of the reality in which we find ourselves. This, in turn, trains our ability to be persistent in pursuing truth in the face of any future mysteries we may encounter.