The Unexplainable

[roger]

Any of you pilots seen unexplained lights or objects whilst flying. (sober that is!!)
I took a U.F.O. report once and was a little sceptical.
Anyway, just curious.
roger

[Lou Scannon]

There was a BA crew, maybe five or so years ago, into Manchester who reported some strange sights.

At the time it seemed a very responsible report , even though no one could work out what it was that they had seen.

[Pirate]

Back in the early eighties I was an instructor at the Oxford Air Training School. One day, whilst flying with a student in the local area over Otmoor I looked to the left and saw what appeared to be a dullish red sphere about the size of a football keeping station about half a wingspan off the wingtip. I pointed it out to the student and asked him to turn towards it. Whatever we did with the aircraft, that sphere maintained exactly the same relative position. After a short time, our atention was distracted by something and when we looked again, it was no longer there. I didn't mention it to anyone else at the time but I've often wondered in the intervening years what it was that we actually saw.

[VFE]

The sun reflecting off the window by the sounds of it! If the sphere moved in exact formation with the aircraft then this must be the most plausible explantaion surely? The fact it dissapeared when you turned a new heading would say to me that the sun was no longer in a position to cause the image.

VFE.

[flysr4ever]

SR B747-300 JFK-ZRH a few years back, reported a UFO. A few minutes later, a UA B747 saw that it was only a weather balloon.

[blaireau]

Late 80's whilst flying from Nanjing to Hong Kong, both the FO and I observed numerous silver balls, at unknown distance or size, maintaining constant azimuth and elevation. Airborne report was useless due to the linguistic difficulties in those days.
Never did work out what they were.

[redadair]

Also saw something weird once. was a kind of, well, a blob, different colours. followed me even after changing headings. if i squinted my eyes enough it would go away but unfortunately always returned. anyway, i ended up marrying her. she's not a bad old girl. (love her really)

does this help?

[Warlock2000]

In 1998 just after entering the Cape Town FIR from Johannesburg, heard a B727 freighter asking CT radar on th RT if they had an aircraft above them at 1 o'clock. CT replied that they were tracking unidentified traffic in the vacinity but without altitude information.
Shortly after this the B727 reported the "traffic" had disappeared.
CT replied that they were tracking it on radar at Mach 17.... :confused:

[peeteechase]

I did see a "UFO" over Siberia years back, turned out to be a Soviet satellite launch. When it's manouevring thrusters were firing it appeared to change in size from a point of light to a large globe (reflections in higher cloud).

ATB, PTC

PS: we didn't mention it to ATC, funny old thing
PPS: I am always sober at work, as I hope you controllers are?

[Konkordski]

Pirate:

Saw a red glowing thing off my port wingtip once. Then my instructor pointed out that there was a green glowing thing off the starboard one as well. :D

[Smokie]

I saw a rather large "Black Diamond" being chased by two F4 Phantoms, just to the north of Upper Heyford, many moons ago.

Problem was that as far as I was aware, there were currently no F4 squadrons based in Europe except for Turkey at the time.
All the RAF squadrons were Tornado's and the USAF aircraft had redeployed from the UK and Germany back to the States.

All very mysterious, could have been the B2 or F117 but unlikely, as it was the wrong shape and I did get a very good view as it passed in front of me. :cool:

[garp]

Smokie,

The German Air Force has quite a few F4 Phantom in sevice and this since 1975. They will be replaced between now and 2012. I suppose that trainingflights in the UK are common for the GAF.
Rgds,

Garp

[I. M. Esperto]

I was a ready pilot in a Banshee Squadron at NAS Moffett back in 1956, and was dispatched to investigate a UFO overhead.

It was a circular silver disk, moving slowly East.

I chased it to 40,000' and it was still above me, but I could make out the gores. It was a huge balloon.