UFO spotting: What did this American Airlines pilot see?
Even if you don’t believe in UFOs, it looks like they believe in us. American Airlines has verified a radio transmission from flight 2292 Cincinnati to Phoenix at around 1:00pm CST Sunday, on which a pilot claimed an unidentified object was flying right on top of them.
American Airlines confirmed a radio transmission had been sent from flight 2292 – and did not outright deny the possibility of UFO sighting. The strange encounter, which happened above a remote northeast corner of New Mexico, west of Des Moines, involved AA Flight 2292.
We’re listening
Steve Douglass, an experienced radio interceptor & blogger named Deep Black Horizon, claims to have heard the strange transmission while recording from his arsenal of scanners. “Do you have any targets up here? We just had something go right over the top of us,” the pilot asked in the radio transmission, according to Fox News.
“I hate to say this but it looked like a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing moving really fast. It went right over the top of us.”
Visions verified
Speaking to Fox News in a statement, American Airlines verified the transmission is from flight 2292 – but said the channel should “contact the FBI” for additional information. The U.S. Sun has also contacted the FBI for further comment on Sunday’s possible UFO sighting.
“Following a debrief with our Flight Crew and additional information received, we can confirm this radio transmission was from American Airlines Flight 2292 on Feb. 21,” an American Airlines spokesperson told Fox News in a statement.
Open air
The mysterious incident occurred at 36,000 feet yesterday during a flight between Cincinnati & Phoenix. The plane was apparently traveling at 406 miles per hour at the time. New Mexico is home to White Sands Missile Range, which is located in the southern part of the state and is described as the Department of Defense’s “largest, fully-instrumented, open air range”.
Scott Stearns of White Sands Missile Range, said no tests took place on Sunday – and pointed out there is a distance of around 400 miles between the missile range and northeastern New Mexico. He told Fox News, “We have no idea what it could have been or if anything similar has been sighted in that area before.”
The sighting comes after a string of strange incidents involving UFO-like objects flying close to passenger jets. In 2018, bizarre footage showed a saucer-shaped object speeding after and overtaking a passenger jet in Lincoln, New Hampshire. And in 2019, a mysterious white “flying saucer” was filmed hovering over Area 51, near a new aircraft hangar.
More every day
It appears UFO sightings are becoming more frequent in recent years. There was a rise in the number of North Americans who looked up into the sky in 2019 and found something that didn’t look like a bird or a plane.
The National UFO Reporting Center, which tracks calls & messages from people around the U.S. & Canada about strange sightings in the sky, reported that it received 5,971 sightings in 2019 — a jump from 3,395 in 2018.
Peter Davenport, who runs the independent organization that’s based in Davenport, Washington, said he couldn’t explain why more people called about seeing flashing white lights, fireballs, disc-shaped objects or other oddities in 2019.
It’s a mystery
“One of the mysteries of ufology is there is a fluctuation in the number of reports over the years,” Davenport told ABC News. “Some years it’s been low, but it’s gotten higher recently.”
California led the country in 2019 with the most number of UFO observations to the site: 485 in total, an increase of 182 sightings from 2018. Florida came in second with 385 sightings in 2019, which was 156 more reports than in 2018, according to UFO Reporting Center data.
The U.S. Navy drafted new guidelines in 2019 for the reporting of encounters with “unidentified aircraft”. The new guidelines for pilots and other personnel are in response to a series of sightings of “unknown, highly advanced aircraft” that have intruded on sensitive military formations & facilities.
