KEITH ON UFO CASE

There are thousands of UFO cases every year. The O'hare Airport case has drawn an unusual amount of media attention. There are lots of cases that have simple expanations. A significant number do not. That doesn't tell you what they are, but this persisting enigma....persists. The media often gets the giggles - as when they talk about sex or God. Make of that what you will. To his credit, Keith Olbermann cover the story as a newsman. Henry_Allen

MORE ON UFOS

(Thanks to Wm. M. Mott) MORE STUFF From WorldNet Daily

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PHOTONETDAILY
UFO frenzy ignited by Air Force officer
Others report strange phenomenon, digital expert views possible 'pilot'

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Posted: January 19, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Joe Kovacs
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Zoomed image of mysterious orange light seen Jan. 9 near Van Buren, Ark. (photo: Col. Brian Fields, USAF, ret.)

A retired Air Force colonel who photographed mysterious, colorful lights hovering over western Arkansas last week has ignited a frenzy of interest in unexplained airborne phenomena, as WND has received numerous reports of similar sightings across the U.S., while a digital expert has filtered the pictures to reveal startling images of what he says could be the "pilot" of the unidentified craft.

"I believe these lights were not of this world, and I feel a duty and responsibility to come forward," said Col. Brian Fields, who spent nearly 32 years in the military piloting F-16 fighter jets. "I have no idea what they were."

As WND exclusively reported, Fields, 61, was at his Van Buren, Ark., home Jan. 9 when just before 7 p.m., he observed two intensely bright lights as he looked to the southeast close to the horizon.

Zoomed image of mysterious yellow light seen Jan. 9 near Van Buren, Ark. (photo: Col. Brian Fields)

"At first I thought they were landing lights from an aircraft," he said. "As I continued to observe them they began to slowly disappear, then suddenly one reappeared, followed by two, then three. On at least one occasion four or five appeared. Each time they would slowly fade and eventually disappear. This occurred several times and when they would reappear they might do so in differing numbers and in different positions, sometimes in a triangular shape, sometimes stacked on top of each other, sometimes line abreast, etc. When the objects appeared they might stay illuminated 10 or more minutes."

Fields' wife thought the lights may have been ground-based, but Fields says he's certain they were airborne.

"I'm certain it wasn't an aircraft [from Earth]," said Fields, who also ruled out the possibility of flares, saying they didn't descend like flares typically do. "It's not anything I ever had any experience with . ... They were some kind of energy or something."

Fields snapped numerous images of the white, yellow and orange lights using a Canon digital camera with 6 megapixel resolution.

The story received heightened exposure after being posted on the Drudge Report yesterday, and became one of the most-viewed news reports in WND history. That prompted many others to contact WND, saying they witnessed the same or similar phenomenon.

"When I read this story, I literally got chill bumps all over my body, because it was exactly as I remember it also," said Will Childers of Camden, Ark., who says he saw the same lights Jan. 10 at approximately 7:15 p.m. in southern Arkansas.

A pilot from Lancaster, Pa., says he witnessed the mystery lights two years ago over northwestern Arkansas.

"I contacted Air Traffic Control and asked if they were handling or painting any aircraft off my left, and they informed me there no aircraft visible on radar in that direction for a couple of hundred miles," Rick Armellino told WND. "About 15 or 20 minutes after first noticing these two lights, both began changing position relative to one another, and then multiplied into about five or six smaller lights which began orbiting each another fairly briskly, and then simply just disappeared, leaving me very perplexed."

Richard Mobley, a software developer who commutes from Scottsdale, Ariz., to his home in Tucson, says he witnessed "the same exact thing" Fields described, noting his incident took place Nov. 15, 2006.

Mobley registered the following characteristics about the behavior of the objetcs:

• They appeared over the Gila Indian Reservation and moved southeast;
• I saw one, then two, then three, then four and five of these objects light up;
• Each lit up at a different time and went out at different times;
• Sometimes they would be in a row, and at other times they would appear stacked close to each other (bunched up or on top of each other);
• They were about 6,000 to 10,000 feet off the ground moving, high enough to fly over the mountain range;
• The light (when lit) was a round, super intense amber light which seemed to illuminate the ground below them;
• They would light up for about five to seven minutes and then dim down and go out;
• After about three minutes of being out, they would light back up, going from dim to intense amber light (not clear color like airplane landing lights);
• There was an aircraft in the area which had landing lights on as well as a beacon light (red and green on the wings and tail) so to distinguish between these object and a plane was easy;
• The amount of light given off at the height at which they were flying showed these objects were quite large.

In Belton, Texas, Jim Martin, a national sales manager for Clear Channel Radio says he, too, "observed a bright, white round light looking exactly like Col. Fields' pictures," but his sighting was Dec. 22, 2006.

Martin speculated it might have been a meteor headed directly toward him since "it did not vary in location in the sky" and that "it slowly dissipated without losing altitude."

And Jeff Pement of Pensacola, Fla., says he saw the same phenomenon as well.

"Except for the duration of time the lights stay visible, the description of the lights is exactly as I have seen it. Some of my friends think I am crazy. A few have witnessed them as I have taken them to the spot where I would typically see them. When I read Col. Fields' words describing what he saw, it was as if I was relating the event to someone."

A spokesman for the Air Force Space Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado told WND he had not heard anything like what was reported, but he would check into it.

In Fields' hometown of Van Buren, comet-watcher Mike Holloway was photographing Comet McNaught in the sky the same night of the colonel's sighting, and he said what Fields had witnessed was apparently something quite different from the comet.

Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) soaring over Van Buren, Ark., Jan. 9, 2007 (photo: Mike Holloway, used with permission)

"I do not think this has anything to do with the comet that was visible in the west sky just after sunset," Holloway told WND. "I imaged the comet on the 8th and 9th of January, and these lights look nothing like the comet."

Meanwhile, a digital-production expert in Columbia, S.C., analyzed the photographs taken by Fields, processing both the yellow-light image and the orange-light image through various filters using computer software.

"I was kind of surprised," said Mark Kirby, president and CEO of EIC Research, Inc.

When Kirby did a black-and-white analysis of the yellow light image, he noted "it looks like a clean silhouette of someone sitting behind a console or flight control."

Enhanced image of yellow-light photo taken by Col. Brian Fields shows an image in the center possibly resembling a pilot sitting behind a console (Enhanced image (c) 2007 EIC Research, Inc.)

When he examined the orange light, he said the result was "a bit scary," as he perceived what seemed like a face looking directly ahead.

"You could literally see two eyes and a mouth," Kirby said. "It looked like someone looking at you."

Enhanced image of orange-light photo taken by Col. Brian Fields, with mysterious figure highlighted inside circle (Enhanced image (c) 2007 EIC Research, Inc.)

Enhanced image of orange-light photo taken by Col. Brian Fields, transferred to black and white, with mysterious figure highlighted inside circle (Enhanced image (c) 2007 EIC Research, Inc.)

Kirby, who says he doesn't really believe in extraterrestrial life from elsewhere in the universe, wondered, "Could this be the first actual photo of visitors from another planet?"

He also proffered a more earthly explanation, saying, "It's not far-fetched to believe it's something our military has developed."

Nearly a decade ago, in March 1997, hundreds of Arizona residents witnessed strange illuminations in the sky, which have come to be known as "the Phoenix Lights," a mystery which has yet to be resolved.

Some readers have suggested the possibility of "earthquake lights," which are believed to be flashes or glows of light associated with strong seismic activity.

Still others maintain the "not of this world" lights were definitely nothing supernatural.

"I get a little annoyed by 'prior military people' talking about 'strange lights in the sky,'" said James Whitesell of Greenwood, Ind. "Tell the former Air Force officer to step back and take a deep breath ... . It was likely an illumination round of some type."

Stephen Richard Armour, an American missionary working as a video producer in Brazil since 1977, thinks the event could likely be a hoax similar to one he witnessed.

"Some clever kids had taken a clear [2 liter] Coke bottle, inverted it and cut little breathing holes in the top and one in the exact center of the inverted bottom," he said. "They had then put a lit candle in the cap, stuck a toothpick tied to a string in the center hole and had then hung the string down about 50 feet or so from [a] black kite, hanging from the dark string they used. When they flew the kite up high, it was big enough to pull the candlelit Coke bottle up, which then very convincingly, bobbed up and down (like a yo-yo) with the kite."

Armour suggests Fields, who is honestly reporting what he saw, was simply "suckered."

"No aliens, no demons," he said, "only kids or malicious adults with some multiple kite variation of this trick."

UFO CENTER DOCUMENTS THOUSANDS LIKE O'HARE CASE

Earlier Chicago UFO (2005) with similar description to 11/2006 sighting

From BLOGCRITICS http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/01/05/100827.php
About Those Chicago UFO Sightings
Written by Glen Boyd
Published January 05, 2007

When it comes to coverage by the national media, UFOs (or Unidentified Flying

Objects), generally speaking at least, are not a story topping the agenda of

your more credible news organizations. In fact, when it comes to such stories,

the unwritten rule has always seemed to be that such reporting is best left to

the supermarket tabloids.

This week however, was one where the mainstream media apparently never got that

memo. Unless I've missed something, three stories topped the mainstream news

this week:

Gerald Ford's funeral.

Saddam Hussein's execution.

And the UFO sighted by numerous eyewitnesses at Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

According to the reports, several eyewitnesses (including pilots and other

credible personnel) watched a classic disc-shaped UFO hover over the airport

before it shot straight up into the air at a very high rate of speed and

disappeared into the clouds. If you missed it, you can view an interview with

the Chicago Tribune reporter who broke the story here:

So here's a confession.

I've actually followed the subject of UFOs most of my life. I first got

interested when, as a pre-teen boy, I saw something strange myself. Without

going into all of the details, I saw what I would call a grey, football-shaped

object up in the sky while peering out the back window of my parents car during

an afternoon drive in the country.

In the years since, I've read most of the literature dealing with UFOs out

there. I even briefly wrote the "Webwatch" column for UFO Magazine, recommending

the best UFO websites to readers during the nineties, the UFO "boom years."

Like the roughly one half (or better) of all Americans who believe there

actually may be something to all this flying saucer stuff, I've come to a few

conclusions. Now before you reach over to cue the X-Files music, please note my

hesitance to state what that "something" may actually be.

I do believe "something" that is not birds or conventional aircraft is flying

around out there and has been for sometime. I also believe that most people

probably don't give it a second thought - at least if you believe the surveys

concluding that more than half of the population shares the view that UFOs are

real.

This is why I find many of the circumstances surrounding the Chicago UFO

sighting reported this week so inexplicable. According to the Chicago Tribune

report, both the airline and the FAA initially denied anybody saw anything. When

further digging by the reporter — armed with a Freedom Of Information Act

request no less — revealed otherwise, the FAA admitted they had been contacted

about the sighting, which they now dismiss as being due to odd weather

conditions at the time.

Perhaps those "conditions" include the perfect "hole in the sky" that some

witnesses described the object left after it tore through the cloud cover at

O'Hare, and off into space that day.

Speaking of that day, the sighting occurred on November 7th. So why did the

national news media wait until this week to report the story en masse?

Incidentally, that kind of lag time is not a first when it comes to the media's

timetable in reporting a mass UFO sighting over a major American city.

As I mentioned above, the nineties were kind of a "boom time" for UFOs. Between

things like the X-Files on TV, and movies like Independence Day and Men In

Black, UFOs and aliens became as much a part of American Pop Culture in the

nineties as Gangsta Rap and Monday Night Wrestling. The most popular national

late night radio show of the time, hosted by Art Bell, was itself devoted almost

entirely to the subject of UFOs. Just between you and me — from lunchboxes to TV

car ads — those little grey guys seemed to be just about everywhere.

On March 13, 1997, a spectacular mass UFO sighting took place in the American

Southwest. Though it has since come to be known as the "Phoenix Lights"

sighting, the strange V-shaped formation of unidentified lights — which

stretched across the entire night sky — was seen by hundreds of witnesses across

the entire state of Arizona. It was also videotaped by dozens of them.

The videos can still be easily found with a Google search. To save you the

trouble, you can check it out here:

The original "Phoenix Lights" event quickly became the buzz of UFOlogy through

the Internet and shows like Art Bell's. Still, as was the case with the Chicago

sighting reported this week, it would not be covered by the mainstream media

until several weeks later. The "Phoenix Lights" story eventually devolved into a

media circus with city politicians donning alien costumes for the cameras, even

as one (now former) councilwoman named Frances Barwood urged officials to

conduct a serious investigation into the mass sighting.

The question now, as then, is simply this:

If there really isn't anything to all of this crazy UFO stuff, just why is it

that so many folks in powerful positions act so crazy when it comes to the

subject? You'd almost swear they were actually hiding something. At the very

least, it would seem they'd prefer you and I didn't know about it.

Now you can go ahead and cue that X-Files music.

Mystery Lingers Over Chicago UFO Claims
The head of the National UFO Reporting Center gives his theories about the
strange sighting over Chicago’s main airport.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Jessica Bennett
Newsweek
Updated: 3:33 p.m. ET Jan 4, 2007

Jan. 4, 2007 - The Federal Aviation Administration says it must have been a

weird weather phenomenon, and United Airlines denies any knowledge of the case.

But though it has been two months since what appeared to be an unidentified

flying object (UFO) was spotted over Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, the

incident is still raising questions about what exactly was seen and whether the

authorities are trying to downplay it.

As many as a dozen United Airlines employees swear the mysterious object they

saw on Nov. 7 was real—hovering for several minutes above the United Airlines

terminal and then shooting up through the clouds so powerfully that it left an

eerie hole in overcast skies. "At first we laughed to each other" when the

report came over the radio, a witness told the National UFO Reporting Center, a

Seattle-based nonprofit that maintains a UFO hotline and is listed as a resource

in the FAA's official Aeronautical Information Manual. But then I saw the "dark

gray, hazy, round object" and seconds later "there was an almost perfect circle

in the cloud layer where the craft had been." His statement is published on the

Web site of the National UFO Reporting Center, which says its policy is to

protect the anonymity of its witnesses.

So was it a UFO? A secret military aircraft? And why did it take two months for

the details to come out? It may sound like the oldest hoax in the book, but the

United workers—including several pilots—who say they saw the object are

reportedly upset their claims have been ignored. The FAA has said it won't be

investigating the incident further, and it wasn't until this week that The

Chicago Tribune broke the story, speaking to several unnamed witnesses after a

tip-off from the head of the National UFO Reporting Center. Peter Davenport

heads that organization, and has a lot to say about the way the incident has

been handled. A self-described UFOologist, Davenport spoke with NEWSWEEK's

Jessica Bennett. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Your Web site has documented more than 3,000 UFO sightings just in the

last year. Is that normal?
Peter Davenport: We get reports that number certainly into the thousands, and

sometimes into the tens of thousands.

How many of these do you believe are real, and how do you determine whether they

are real?
The overwhelming majority of [reports we get] are not UFOs. Many people report

stars and planets and aircraft and humming birds and pelicans and Frisbees and

hubcaps—there are thousands of things people can look at and not be able to

identify. We rely on our experience to try to quickly identify those cases that

are probably not genuine UFOs.

How long have you known about this particular incident in Chicago?
I found out about this on the day of the event. We got multiple communications.

We released the information about the 12th or 13th of November, put it on our

homepage, and, frankly, I was flabbergasted that nobody was paying attention.

Do you think there has been an effort to downplay it?
My strong suspicion is that this case showed up on the 8th of November—the day

after it happened—in the intelligence briefing document that the president

apparently reads every morning. Are we to believe that a UFO can appear over a

major U.S. airport and the American intelligence community is not informed of

it? That proposition is absurd.

If that's the case, why would the federal government keep those findings from

the public?
You've got to go directly to the government or to United Airlines [for the

answer to that question]. I'm shocked by their response to this, except for the

fact that we've seen this kind of response—certainly on behalf of the

government—for the past 59 and a half years.

What happened 59 years ago?
That takes us back to the first formal sighting that caused a ripple in the

press, which was June 24, 1947, here in the state of Washington. That was Mr.

[Kenneth] Arnold, who saw a string of [disc]-shaped objects streaking down the

Cascade Mountains [near Mount Rainier]. That was the event that gave us the term

"flying saucer."

Still, there are a lot of UFO skeptics out there. What do you say to them?
I've been asked that question about half a dozen times before. Skeptics are free

to think whatever they wish. All I do is release the information—hopefully,

accurate information—and people may read it or consume it anyway they wish. But

many of these hard-boiled skeptics simply do not look at the data. They have a

preconceived notion of how the universe works—what is possible, what is not

possible—to the extent that they no longer have to look at data.

What is that data?

The data are the cases that come in, the information that we're receiving on a

steady basis—over the telephone, over the Internet, photographs and so on.

Probably the most reliable source of data that we receive is eyewitness accounts

from responsible witnesses who seem to be independent of one another. That's not

true of all the people who contact us, of course. We get calls of many, many

stripes. But we focus on the cases that are very well documented—as in the case

of the O'Hare sighting.

So you've spoken to the witnesses in this case.
Yes, that's how we got the information.

And you think they're credible?
The witnesses [in this case] are not only responsible but they're qualified by

virtue of the fact that they've worked in the aviation industry for decades—each

one of them. They're familiar with aircraft, they're familiar with weather

phenomena. United Airlines and the FAA have apparently taken the position that

it either didn't happen, or if it did happen it was a weather aberration. Well,

the written communications that I have in my possession clearly belie that

position.

So you obviously believe that UFOs do exist.
My objective is to give the American people the information that they need to

have, in my opinion, in order to make a rational decision with regard to the UFO

phenomenon. In a sense, I guess I'm an advocate for the notion that our planet

is visited on a frequent basis by these things we call UFOs. If my theory and

the theory of many other UFO investigators is correct, then the U.S. government

certainly knows about this [phenomenon], and has known about it for at least six

decades and is not sharing that with the American people. I believe that is

wrong.

How do you define a UFO, and what elements of that definition were visible in

what was seen at O'Hare?
From my standpoint, [UFOs] are those objects that exhibit characteristics that

strongly suggest that they, almost without a doubt, are not of man's

manufacture. That statement I think is supported by the fact that these UFO

sightings appear to go back hundreds or thousands of years. We have reports on

our Web site from the 1930s, from the 1890s, from 1860, and I have two written

reports on file—one from China in the 12th century A.D. and a report from

ancient Egypt from 1770 B.C. So could that be the U.S. Air Force experimenting

with aircraft? Clearly not. In the case of this object at O'Hare, [the object

sighted] seemed to accelerate so fast and disappear so fast that people's eyes

were unable to follow it, and they didn't know which way it had gone. Now, could

that be of man's manufacture? I doubt it.

Why is there so little debate on this subject?
People think that UFOs are strange. But in my opinion, the reaction of the

American press to the UFO phenomenon is stranger still. They're not interested

in what I consider to be the greatest scientific question of man's existence of

all times: are we alone in this galaxy or are we not? From my vantage point, the

clear answer to that is that we're not. And it appears that these objects visit

our planet on a regular basis.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16472286/site/newsweek/
© 2007 MSNBC.com

UFO FOLLOW-UP, FUNDAMENTALIST COPS

The story made CNN and (ug) Fox last night, but you read it here first.

Here is an *excellent* audio interview on the UFO incident in Chicago, called to my attention by old friend "Mr. UFO" a/k/a Commander X. http://www.ufocasebook.com/ohareupdate.html. There are rumors that film footage was obtained at the time of this incident. We are on this. Stay tuned.

This from http://www.alternet.org/story/46211/ via our old friend and fellow author Brad Steiger.

America's Holy Warriors

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted January 4, 2007.

The radical Christian Right is coming dangerously close to its goal of taking over the country’s military and law enforcement.
Tools


The drive by the Christian right to take control of military chaplaincies, which now sees radical Christians holding roughly 50 percent of chaplaincy appointments in the armed services and service academies, is part of a much larger effort to politicize the military and law enforcement. This effort signals the final and perhaps most deadly stage in the long campaign by the radical Christian right to dismantle America’s open society and build a theocratic state. A successful politicization of the military would signal the end of our democracy.

During the past two years I traveled across the country to research and write the book "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America." I repeatedly listened to radical preachers attack as corrupt and godless most American institutions, from federal agencies that provide housing and social welfare to public schools and the media. But there were two institutions that never came under attack -- the military and law enforcement. While these preachers had no interest in communicating with local leaders of other faiths, or those in the community who did not subscribe to their call for a radical Christian state, they assiduously courted and flattered the military and police. They held special services and appreciation days for all four branches of the armed services and for various law enforcement agencies. They encouraged their young men and women to enlist or to join the police or state troopers. They sought out sympathetic military and police officials to attend church events where these officials were lauded and feted for their Christian probity and patriotism. They painted the war in Iraq not as an occupation but as an apocalyptic battle by Christians against Islam, a religion they regularly branded as "satanic." All this befits a movement whose final aesthetic is violence. It also befits a movement that, in the end, would need the military and police forces to seize power in American society.

One of the arguments used to assuage our fears that the mass movement being built by the Christian right is fascist at its core is that it has not yet created a Praetorian Guard, referring to the paramilitary force that defied legal constraints, made violence part of the political discourse and eventually plunged ancient Rome into tyranny and despotism. A paramilitary force that operates outside the law, one that sows fear among potential opponents and is capable of physically silencing those branded by their leaders as traitors, is a vital instrument in the hands of despotic movements. Communist and fascist movements during the last century each built paramilitary forces that operated beyond the reach of the law.

And yet we may be further down this road than we care to admit. Erik Prince, the secretive, mega-millionaire, right-wing Christian founder of Blackwater, the private security firm that has built a formidable mercenary force in Iraq, champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. His employees, in an act as cynical as it is deceitful, take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. These mercenary units in Iraq, including Blackwater, contain some 20,000 fighters. They unleash indiscriminate and wanton violence against unarmed Iraqis, have no accountability and are beyond the reach of legitimate authority. The appearance of these paramilitary fighters, heavily armed and wearing their trademark black uniforms, patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, gave us a grim taste of the future. It was a stark reminder that the tyranny we impose on others we will one day impose on ourselves.

"Contracting out security to groups like Blackwater undermines our constitutional democracy," said Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "Their actions may not be subject to constitutional limitations that apply to both federal and state officials and employees -- including First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights to be free from illegal searches and seizures. Unlike police officers they are not trained in protecting constitutional rights and unlike police officers or the military they have no system of accountability whether within their organization or outside it. These kind of paramilitary groups bring to mind Nazi Party brownshirts, functioning as an extrajudicial enforcement mechanism that can and does operate outside the law. The use of these paramilitary groups is an extremely dangerous threat to our rights."

The politicization of the military, the fostering of the belief that violence must be used to further a peculiar ideology rather than defend a democracy, was on display recently when Air Force and Army generals and colonels, filmed in uniform at the Pentagon, appeared in a promotional video distributed by the Christian Embassy, a radical Washington-based organization dedicated to building a "Christian America."

The video [Watch it HERE], first written about by Jeff Sharlet in the December issue of Harper’s Magazine and filmed shortly after 9/11, has led the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to raise a legal protest against the Christian Embassy’s proselytizing within the Department of Defense. The video was hastily pulled from the Christian Embassy website and was removed from YouTube a few days ago under threats of copyright enforcement.

Dan Cooper, an undersecretary of veterans affairs, says in the video that his weekly prayer sessions are "more important than doing the job." Maj. Gen. Jack Catton says that his being an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a "wonderful opportunity" to evangelize men and women setting defense policy. "My first priority is my faith," he says. "I think it’s a huge impact. ... You have many men and women who are seeking God’s counsel and wisdom as they advise the chairman [of the Joint Chiefs] and the secretary of defense."

Col. Ralph Benson, a Pentagon chaplain, says in the video: "Christian Embassy is a blessing to the Washington area, a blessing to our capital; it’s a blessing to our country. They are interceding on behalf of people all over the United States, talking to ambassadors, talking to people in the Congress, in the Senate, talking to people in the Pentagon, and being able to share the message of Jesus Christ in a very, very important time in our world is winning a worldwide war on terrorism. What more do we need than Christian people leading us and guiding us, so, they’re needed in this hour."

The group has burrowed deep inside the Pentagon. It hosts weekly Bible sessions with senior officers, by its own count some 40 generals, and weekly prayer breakfasts each Wednesday from 7 to 7:50 a.m. in the executive dining room as well as numerous outreach events to, in the words of the organization, "share and sharpen one another in their quest to bridge the gap between faith and work."

If the United States falls into a period of instability caused by another catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown or a series of environmental disasters, these paramilitary forces, protected and assisted by fellow ideologues in the police and military, could swiftly abolish what is left of our eroding democracy. War, with the huge profits it hands to businesses and right-wing interests that often help bankroll the Christian right, could become a permanent condition. And the thugs with automatic weapons, black uniforms and wraparound sunglasses who appeared on street corners in Baghdad and New Orleans could appear on streets across the U.S. Such a presence could paralyze us with fear, leaving us unable to question or protest the closed system and secrecy of an emergent totalitarian state and unable to voice dissent.

"The Bush administration has already come close to painting our current wars as wars against Islam -- many in the Christian right apparently have this belief," Ratner said. "If these wars, bad enough as imperial wars, are fought as religious wars, we are facing a very dark age that could go on for a hundred years and that will be very bloody."

Digg!

Tagged as: christian right, militarization, law enforcement, church and state

Chris Hedges is the former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times and the author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning."

Approx. 10 mi. SW of McMinnville, Ore. on the farm of the witnesses:

123 19’ 50”

W, 45 06’ 15” N

UPDATING AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY

CURRENT CASE IN THE MEDIA

Paging Mulder and Scully: “Tribune’ Probes UFO Sighting

By E&P Staff and The Associated Press

Published: January 01, 2007 6:30 PM ET

CHICAGO Federal officials say it was probably just some weird weather

phenomenon, but a group of United Airline employees swear they saw a mysterious,

saucer-shaped craft hovering over O’Hare Airport last fall.

The workers, some of them pilots, said the object didn’t have lights and hovered

over an airport terminal before shooting up through the clouds, according to a

report in Monday’s Chicago Tribune.

The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged that a United supervisor had

called the control tower at O’Hare, asking if anyone had spotted a spinning

disc-shaped object. But the controllers didn’t see anything, and a preliminary

check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth

Isham Cory said.

“Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon,” Cory said. “That night

was a perfect atmospheric condition in terms of low (cloud) ceiling and a lot of

airport lights. When the lights shine up into the clouds, sometimes you can see

funny things.”

The FAA is not investigating, Cory said.

United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said company officials don’t recall discussing

any such incident from Nov. 7.

At least one O’Hare controller, union official Craig Burzych, was amused by it

all.

“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,” he said.

The Tribune account, however, struck a more serious nerve. An excerpt follows.

*

Some of the witnesses, interviewed by the Tribune, said they are upset that

neither the government nor the airline is probing the incident.

Whatever the object was, it could have interfered with O’Hare’s radar and other

equipment, and even created a collision risk, they said.

The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (the term that extraterrestrial-watchers

nowadays prefer over Unidentified Flying Object) was first seen by a United ramp

worker who was directing back a United plane at Gate C17, according to an

account the worker provided to the National UFO Reporting Center.

The sighting occurred during daylight, about 4:30 p.m., just before sunset.

All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast

skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24

feet in diameter, did not display any lights.

Some said it looked like a rotating Frisbee, while others said it did not appear

to be spinning. All agreed the object made no noise and it was at a fixed

position in the sky, just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck, until shooting off

into the clouds.

“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.

A United manager said he ran outside his office in Concourse B after hearing the

report about the sighting on an internal airline radio frequency.

“I stood outside in the gate area not knowing what to think, just trying to

figure out what it was,” he said. “I knew no one would make a false call like

that. But if somebody was bouncing a weather balloon or something else over

O’Hare, we had to stop it because it was in very close proximity to our flight

operations.”

E&P Staff and The Associated Press (more on this case later in this summary)

BACKGROUND - A CLASSIC HARD CASE

“This is the sound

of underground

around the world

where you are

lives the gothic cult.

Be a dark star!”

http://www.umbraetimago.de/

FROM THE FAMOUS CONDON REPORT

The U.S. Air Force contracted with a team at the University of Colorado headed

by the late Dr. Edward Condon to conduct an independent survey of UFO cases. The following

is one of the most evidential. Condon attended the 1967 National UFO Conference. Some

12,000 people attended the convention. NUFOC is now the longest-running annual UFO

conference

in the world ( http://www.nufoc.org/ ).

A good current article on his case can be found at

http://rc.nicap.org/mcmin2.htm

Note that the images in the body of this report - in the original - are not

posted here, but one of the two is shown above, so note the illustrations here of the image in

question and a very similar good

photograph was taken in 1954 at Rouen, France. For the original on line, see

http://ncas.sawco.com/condon/text/case46.htm

OREGON 1950

Abstract:

Witness I reportedly saw a metallic-looking, disk-shaped UPO. She called her

husband, they located their camera, and he took photographs of the object before it

disappeared in the distance.

Background:

Time: 7:45 p.m. PST (1,2); 7:30 p.m. (3).

Position: Approx. 10 mi. SW of McMinnville, Ore. on the farm of the witnesses:

123 19’ 50”

W, 45 06’ 15” N (7).

Terrain: Rolling farm country, elv. 210 ft.; houses several hundred meters apart

(7).

Weather Conditions: Dull with an overcast at about 5,000 ft. (2, confirmed by

the photos).

Sighting, General Information:

The sighting occurred in the back yard of a farm about 0.2 mi. S of the “Salmon

River

Highway” (U.S. 99W (7). Witness was feeding rabbits in the back yard, S of the

house and E

of the garage when the object was first sighted (1,2,3,6), apparently toward the

NE (6).

Witness II was apparently in the house at this moment, as three of the accounts

(2,3,6)

refer to Witness I calling to him and running into the house to fetch him from

the kitchen,

although one account (1) states that they had “been out in the back yard,” and

“both... saw it at the same time.”

As far as Witness I could remember 17 yr. later (6), the rabbits gave no

indication of disturbance.

Immediately after they both saw the object, apparently as it was still in a NE

direction, moving slowly toward the W (6), they thought of their camera (1,2,3,6). Witness

II ran to the car, thinking it was there, but Witness I remembered it was in the house and

brought it (1,6). Witness II took the camera, which was already loaded. The roll of film

had been purchased during the winter and already had two or three shots on it (4).

At this time “the object was coming in toward us and seemed to be tipped up a

little bit. It was very bright—almost silvery—and there was no noise or smoke” (1).

Witness II explained that he took the first picture, re-wound his film as fast

as possible and then as the object gathered speed and turned toward the northwest, he had to

move rapidly to his right to get the second picture. Both were snapped within thirty

seconds, he estimated (1). According to another early reference: “[Witness II] elaborated,

‘There wasn’t any flame and it was moving fairly slow. Then I snapped the first picture. It

moved a little to the left and I moved to the right to take another picture.’” (3). Plates 23

and 24 show the two photographs in the sequence taken. During this interval the object was

moving quite slowly, apparently almost hovering, and it apparently shifted both its position

and orientation in a complex way, changing direction and tipping just before it

moved away, as indicated in Plate 25 (2,6). However, Witness I described it as “not undulating

or rotating, just ‘sort of gliding’” (2). The UFO accelerated slowly during or just after the

second photograph and moved away rapidly toward the west (2) . Witness I ran into the

house to call her mother-in-law, got no answer, and returned outside just in time to see the

UFO ‘dimly vanishing toward the west’ (2).

Investigation:

The witnesses described the object as “very bright - almost silvery” (1);

“brightly metallic, silver or aluminum colored, with a touch of bronze...appeared to have

a sort of superstructure... ‘like a good-sized parachute canopy without the strings, only

silvery- bright mixed with bronze’” (2); silvery on top but with more bronze on the

bottom, the

bottom being different (but, this being seventeen years later, Witness I was

unsure whether it was darker)...shiny but not as bright as a hub cap...resembling a dull,

aluminum-painted tank (which Witness I pointed out to the writer in our interview)... “awful

pretty” (6). The rather bright, aluminum-like, but not spectacular, reflecting surface appears, to

be confirmed by analysis of the photos (see below). There was no noise, visible exhaust,

flames, or smoke (1,3,6).

When the object tipped up, exposing its under side to the witnesses, they felt a

gust of wind which they thought may have come from the UFO. “’...there was a breeze as

it went overhead... which died down later’” (2). In the interview with the writer,

Witness I stressed this, remarking the wind was “about to knock you over,” though Witness

II (interviewed separately) remarked that it made only a “very little” breeze as it

was getting ready to fly off (6). As to size, speed, and distance, the witnesses were

reluctant to hazard a guess (1,2), as Witness II had no way of knowing its size (2), although one

of the references quotes Witness II as estimating a diameter of “20 or 30 ft.” (3), and Witness

I compared its appearance (though not explicitly its size) to a parachute canopy (2,6).

As to the origin of the UFO, Witness II remarked both at the time and in 1967

that he thought it was a secret U.S. craft (1). “’...you hear so much about those

things...1 didn’t believe all that talk about flying saucers before, but now I have an idea the

Army knows what they are’” (3).Witness II recalls finishing his roll of film on Mother’s Day (4) and had it

Developed locally (1). Witness II mentioned his observation and showed the pictures to a

few friends.

He did not seek publicity about the pictures, admitting that he was “’kind of

scared of it’” (2,3), and “afraid they would get in trouble with the ‘government’ and be

bothered by the publicity” (2). However, McMinnville Telephone Register reporter

Bill Powell learned of the sighting from two McMinnville bankers, Ralph and Frank Wortman,

and followed up the story (1,2). He found the negatives “on the floor under a davenport where

the Witnesses’ children had been playing with them” (2). The Telephone Register

broke the story Thursday, 8 June 1950 with a front page article containing the two pictures and

Editor’s

Note:

“...in view of the variety of opinion and reports attendant to the saucers over

the past two years, every effort has been made to check Trent’s photos for authenticity.

Expert photographers declared there has been no tampering with the negatives. [The]

original photos were developed by a local firm. After careful consideration, there appears to be

no possibility of hoax or hallucination connected with the pictures. Therefore the

Telephone Register believes them authentic...” (1).

Various McMinnville residents, including the bankers Wortman, offered to sign

Affidavits vouching unreservedly for the reputation and veracity of the witnesses (1,2,4).

On Friday and Saturday, 9 and 10 June, the Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles

Newspapers carried the story (2,3). Life magazine carried the pictures the following week

(4). The witnesses accepted an invitation to appear on a television program “We the

People,” in New York (6). Witness I remarked that they were encouraged by the people responsible

for this show to make statements they (the Witnesses) regarded as inaccurate. The

witnesses, however, did not make such statements, but told only what they saw (6).

While in New York, the witnesses were to receive their negatives from Life

magazine, but were informed that the negatives were temporarily misplaced (6). Life promised

to return them by mail to Oregon, but apparently never recovered them (6). With the

cooperation of Life the Colorado project discovered that in 1950 the negatives had been in the

possession of International News Photo Service later merged with United Press

International. The Project located the original negatives and was permitted to examine them.

As mentioned above, various reputable individuals volunteered to attest to the

witnesses’ veracity. They appear to be sincere, though not highly educated or experienced

observers. During the writer’s interview with them, they were friendly and quite

unconcerned about the sighting. Witness II was at work plowing his field and did not even get off his

tractor. From interviews throughout this district one gained the impression that these

were very industrious farm people, not given to unusual pranks.

Two inferences appear to be justified: 1) It is difficult to see any prior

motivation for a fabrication of such a story, although after the fact, the witnesses did profit

to the extent of a trip to New York; 2) it is unexpected that in this distinctly rural

atmosphere, in 1950, one would encounter a fabrication involving sophisticated trick

photography (e.g. a carefully retouched print). The witnesses also appear unaffected now by the

incident, receiving only occasional inquiries (6).

The over-all appearance of the photographs, in particular the slightly

underexposed land foreground and properly exposed sky, is consistent with the reported time 7:30

PST (sunset being roughly a few minutes after 7:15, and twilight lasting until after 8:45).

There could be a possible discrepancy in view of the fact that the UFO, the telephone pole,

possibly the garage at the left, and especially the distant house gables (left of the distant

barn) are illuminated from the right, or east. The house, in particular, appears to have a

shadow under its roof that would suggest a day lit photo, and combined with the eastward

incidence, one could argue that the photos were taken on a dull, sunlit day at, say, 10

a.m. But accepting the UFO makes scarcely less sense than arguing that the witnesses

staged a hoax at 10 a.m. and then claimed the photographs were taken at 7:30.

Densitometry of the

original negatives shows that the sky itself is brighter toward the west, as

expected. It seems possible that, half an hour after sunset, the cloud distribution could

result in a dull illumination preferentially from the NE (certainly there will be skylight

from above).

Reality of physical object. As stated previously, it is unlikely that a

Sophisticated “optical fabrication” was performed. The negatives had not been tampered with.

Further, a geometric test was performed to determine whether the object shown in

Plate 24 in approximate cross section was the same object photographed in Plate 23 at a

different angle.

The apparent inclination, i, can be determined from the ratio of the axes of the

Apparent ellipse in Plate 23.

i = b/a (2)

Measures on several copies of photo 1 (the UPI print, an enlargement thereof,

and two magazine reproductions) gave sin i = 0.368, and

i = 21°.6 ± 0°.1 (est. P.E.). (3)

Plate 26 shows enlargements from UPI print with lines of sight superimposed on

the Plate 24

“cross section” at 21°.6. The way in which these lines cut the image is in

perfect agreement

with the appearance of the object in Plate 23. Judging from the apparent

position of the pole it is likely that the object has simply tipped, without rotation, between

the two photos. The lighting is also consistent with that in the rest of the photo. Both

photographs, therefore, show real objects and that the object in Plate 23 is a view of the

same object in Plate 24, seen in different perspective.

Asymmetry of UFO. It will be noted in Plate 26 that the UFO is distinctly

asymmetric. The “pole” is off center and inclined, and there appears to be a difference in the

profiles of the right and left sides (Plate 24), the left having a more pronounced notch

defining the flange. The shading of the object also indicates a more distinct flange on the

left in Plate 24. The asymmetries are judged physical, not optical effects.

Absence of rotation. The top of the “pole,” barely visible in photo 1, is off

center to the left by the same amount as in photo 2. This would be rather improbable if the

object were rotating, and supports Witness II’s statement that it was not rotating. This is

a rather strong argument against a fabrication using a necessarily (for stability)spinning

model similar to a “frisbee,” especially in view of the fact that only 2 exposures

were made in the middle of an intact roll of film. Angular size of object. From measurements

of recent photos (6) the photos were

scaled and the UFO diameters estimated to be:

Plate 23: 1°.4

Plate 24: 1°.3.

The P.E. is probably about 0°.1, but the object subtends a smaller angle in

photo 2,consistent with the allegation that photo 2 was made as the UFO was beginning to

depart. It follows immediately that the distance-diameter relation is determined, and a

man of the locale (based on ref. 7) is shown in Fig. 1 with the azimuths, angular sizes,

and example, that the object was less than a meter in diameter and over the driveway.

Psychological reaction. I judge it reasonable that as the object allegedly

drifted to the left, in danger of being lost to sight behind the garage, that the observer

should step unconsciously to his right, as the photos show he did, although one might expect

the observer even more reasonably to step forward, to get in front of the garage.

The reason for the first response may have been that the second would put the observer close to

the house, where the object might be lost to sight if it moved back to the east, while by

moving away from the garage, one moves toward the open Yard SE of the house. In summary, the

movement of the observer is consistent with the alleged observation.

Possibility of fabrication. The above tests all appear to be consistent with the

witnesses’ testimony. The possibility of optical fabrication seems remote. A model thrown

into the air by hand appears an unlikely possibility because of the evidence for absence of

rotation. Another possibility can be considered, however. The object appears beneath a

pair of wires, as is seen in Plates 23 and 24. We may question, therefore, whether it could

have been a model suspended from one of the wires. This possibility is strengthened by the

observation that the object appears beneath roughly the same point in the two photos, in

spite of their having been taken from two positions. This can be determined from

irregularities, or “kinks,” in the wires. The wires pass between the camera positions and the

garage (left). We know from the change in orientation of the object that it moved, or was re-

oriented by hand, between exposures. The possibility that it is a model hanging beneath a point on

the wire suggests a further test: Is the change in distance of the object in Plates 23

and 24 equal to the change in distance from the wires? Measures of the disk indicate that it

is about 8% further away in Plate 24. Measures of the irregularities in the wires indicate

that they are further away from the camera in Plate 24. The amount of the latter increase from

the wires (measured by the separation of rather ill-defined “kinks”) is less certain than

the distance increase from the disk, but it is measured to be about 10%. These tests do not

rule out the possibility that the object was a small model suspended from the nearby wire by

an unresolved thread.

Given the foregoing analysis, one must choose between an asymmetric model

suspended from the overhead wire, and an extraordinary flying object (See Table 1).

Photometric analysis. Although it is often stated that a single photograph of an

Object contains no information on the distance, this is not strictly true. Atmospheric

Extinction and scattering, combined, serve to reduce contrast as distance increases, an

effect perhaps best appreciated by artists. The shadowed bottom of the UFO in Plate 23 has a

particularly pale look, suggestive of scattering between observer and object, and if such

scattering is detectable, it may be possible to make some estimate of the distance involved.

Table 1

Summary of Possible Interpretations

Interpretations Rejected Comments

Optical fabrications

Double exposure X UFO darker than sky background

Retouch; drawn image X Negatives unretouched

Multiple copies, recopying (X) Overly sophisticated

Physical fabrications

“Frisbee”-type model in flight X No rotation

Model suspended from wire Under same part of wire in each photo

Extraordinary Flying Object Photometry suggests large distance

The luminance or apparent surface brightness at distance r of an object of

Intrinsic luminance Bo (r = 0) is B = Bsky (1 - e-Beta · r) + Bo e-Beta · r (4)

where Beta is the scattering coefficient. The first term represents scattered

light; the second, extinction. Since all measures must be based on the witnesses’ two

photographs, we will determine Beta for the given day from the photographs themselves.

Normalizing all brightnesses (measured from the film and assuming that the images measured fall

on the linear portion of the gamma curve) to that of the sky near the horizon, i.e. on

a line within a few thousand feet of the ground, where the UFO is constrained to be by

the reported cloud height and probably nearness to the camera, we have B = 1 + e-Beta · r (Bo

* 1)

(5) Notice that if an object is sufficiently far away, its brightness equals the

sky brightness (in physical terms, the optical depth T >> 1).

Given the brightness of an object at zero distance, Bo, and the observed

brightness B, one may solve for the distance r. The first necessary step is to determine the

scattering coefficient Beta. The original negatives were subjected to densitometric

analysis, and Table 2 lists observed values of B. “Hill 2” lies at a distance of about 2.2 km (7).

The photometry indicates that B = .685 for the distant hill, but the foreground

foliage gives Bo = .403. This gives = 0.289 km-1, or optical depth T = 1 at r = 3.5 km,

(6) which appears consistent with the appearance of the photos.

At this point the theory was checked against objects of known distance. For

example, the roof of the distant barn (“B” in Fig. 1 ) has B = .506. If one assumes that its

intrinsic brightness equals that of the foreground garage, then Bo = .495, so that r =

0.073 km.

Table 2

Values of B for Objects Photographed*

Based on densitometry of original negatives; aperture 75µ x 75µ

Object Plate 23 Plate 24

UFO “Pole” 1.07

Illuminated right side 1.29 1.23

Illuminated left side (1.35) 1.05

Shaded bottom .675

Garage roof .489 .501

Shadows under eaves .396 .426

Metallic tank:

Illuminated .86 .91

Shaded bottom (.48) (.40)

Foreground underbrush .417 .389

Barn (roof) .511 .501

Hill

1 .63 .59

2 .71 .66

House

Illuminated wall (.77) (.77)

Shadow (.44) (.52)

Sky

Upper right 1.29 1.26

Upper left 1.51 1.62

Horizon 1.00 1.00

Unexposed edge of film .32 .34

Measures in parentheses have lower weight

* B values are normalized to horizon sky brightness

The true r is about 0.32 km, and our error is a factor 4. One can resolve the

discrepancy by assuming the barn roof was slightly (7%) darker than the garage roof.

Again, one can check the theory on the distant “Hill 1.” B = .610 and Bo = .403

as measured in the foreground foliage. This gives r = 1.5 km. The true r is in the range 1.3

to 1.9 km, depending on the part of the hill observed, and the error is negligible.

A third check, more comparable to the UFO problem, is the distant house (“H” in

Fig. 1 ).

Unfortunately the densitometer did not clearly resolve the illuminated white

facade from the intervening branches; however, supplementary measures with enlargements indicate

that the

facade brightness should be only slightly more than 1.00, e.g. B = 1.02, and Bo

= 1.04, which means that the apparent brightness nearly equals sky brightness and hence

is very insensitive to distance and gives no good solution. There are shadows visible on

the house on the white surface under the eaves. Measures indicate B = .48. Bo for the

shadows on this white surface, illuminated by the ambient illumination, should be intrinsically

measurably brighter than the shadows under the dark wooden garage eaves and under the tank

beside the garage (Bo = .41), but not as much brighter as the white illuminated surface is

brighter than the darker wood. (If there were no ambient illumination, all shadows would

be intrinsically black; Bo = 0). An estimated value is Bo = .43. This gives a

distance of r = 0.32 km, only 14% less than the measured distance of 0.37 km. Naive use of Bo =

0.41, known to he too low, would have given r = 0.44 km, 19% too great.

It is concluded that by careful consideration of the parameters involved in the

case of recognizable objects in the photographs, distances can be measured within a

factor-four error. This justifies the assumption that we are on the linear part of the gamma

curve.

Figure 1: Sighting Locale

If such a good measure could be made for the UFO, we could distinguish between a

Distant extraordinary object and a hypothetical small, close model.

At this point we must be explicit about the geometry of the situation. We

represent the environment as in Fig. 2 . We assume that the UFO is within a homogeneous

scattering layer with T = 1 at 3.5 km. If the UFO were far away and at an altitude greater than

the characteristic dimension of the layer (C in Fig. 2), it would be large and

extraordinary in any case. If it is relatively close, r = 1 km, the assumptions are justified.

Our objective is to distinguish between cases A and B in Fig. 2 . The sky brightness, to which

all the brightness values are normalized, must be the sky brightness at the horizon,

since this is the value characteristic of long path length through the scattering layer.

For the solution of the UFO distance, we have two independent solutions from two independent

observations: the illuminated and shadowed surfaces of the UFO. As was remarked

above, it is the shadowed surface in particular that looks pale and hence suggests large

distance. Immediately from Table 2 we see that B = 1.21 describes the part of the UFO,

while the illuminated part of the nearby dull aluminum-painted tank Bo = .885. Since, as

the UFO recedes, B must approach 1.00. We thus know that 1.21 is the minimum intrinsic

brightness of the UFO surface, i.e. Bo>1.21. Thus the UFO in any interpretation is known to

have a brighter surface than the foreground tank. Thus, the photometry at once confirms

the witnesses’ report that the UFO was shiny, like a fresh, aluminum-painted

surface, but not a spectacular surface.

The question is, how bright is the surface intrinsically, and what surface

properties would be consistent with both the observed illuminated and shadowed side? Fig. 3 shows

two families of solutions, one for the illuminated top surface and one for the

shaded bottomside. Solutions for the latter have

Figure 2: Sighting Geometry

Click on thumbnail to see full-size image.

Figure 3: Brightness/Diameter/Distance Plot

an uncertainty introduced by the difficulty of measuring the true shadow

intensity or the tank. The distance is given as a function of the assumed increase in brightness

over the value for the illuminated or shaded side of the aluminum-painted tank,

respectively.

Fig. 3 graphically illustrates the problem. For example, if the object is a

model suspended from the wire only a few meters away, its surface is some 37% brighter than that

of the tank, and the shaded side is probably more than 40% brighter than the shadow on

the tank. But this is nearly impossible to maintain in the face of the photometry.

Although the distant house’s surface is roughly twice as bright as the tank’s surface, its

shadows can be only a few percent brighter, intrinsically, than those on the tank. This is

basically the problem that was suggested by initial inspection of the photos: the shadowed

side of the UFO appears to be so bright that it suggests significant scattering between it and

the observer. The upshot is that if the top and bottom surfaces of the UFO are made out of

essentially the same material, i.e. with the same albedo, the photometry indicates that the UFO

is distant, at roughly r = 1.3 ± 0.4 km (est. P. E.). The witnesses referred to a slightly

different hue of the bottom side of the UFO: they said it was more bronze than the silvery top

side. We have assumed this change in tint had negligible effect on the photometry,

although the implication is that the bottom has slightly lower albedo. If so the UFO would be

still more distant.

There is one last possibility for fabrication which has not been ruled out.

Suppose the object is a small model with a pale grey top and a bright white bottom (e.g. an

aluminum pie pan sealed on the bottom with white paper). Could this account for the apparent

lightness of the bottom, shaded side of the UFO? It is difficult to defend this idea in the

face of the photometry. Our analysis of the house

indicated that its shaded white surface had an intrinsic brightness of 0.43,

which is very close to the value measured for the shaded part of the aluminum-painted tank.

Yet hypothetical fabrication requires a surface on the shaded bottom of the model

that is of intrinsic shaded brightness 0.68, considerably brighter than the shaded part of

the white house. In other words, the photometry appears to indicate that a very white

surface on the bottom of a small model would be required to match the appearance of the

photographs. To the extent that the photometric analysis is reliable, (and the measurements

appear to be consistent), the photographs indicate an object with a bright shiny surface at

considerable distance and on the order of tens of meters in diameter. While it would be

exaggerating to say that we have positively ruled out a fabrication, it appears significant that

the simplest, most direct interpretation of the photographs confirms precisely what

the witnesses said they saw. Yet, the fact that the object appears beneath the same

part of the overhead wire in both photos can be used as an argument favoring a suspended

model.

Conclusion:

This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric,

psychological, and physical appear to be consistent with the assertion that an

extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and

evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses. It cannot be said that the

evidence positively rules out a fabrication, although there are some physical factors

such as the accuracy of certain photometric measures of the original negatives which argue

against a fabrication.

DETAILS FROM http://www.nuforc.org/:

MORE ON THE CURRENT CASE IN THE NEWS 2007

SIGHTING OF DISC-SHAPED OBJECT OVER O’HARE AIRPORT, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, AT 16:30

HRS. (CENTRAL) ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 07, 2006

DECEMBER 07, 2006 UPDATE: NUFORC has received a second report about this

incident from a senior aircraft mechanic, who was taxiing a Boeing 777 at the

time of the sighting, and who witnessed the object.

His report is here:”Occurred : 11/7/2006 16:30 (Entered as : 110706 16:30)

Reported: 11/21/2006 4:08:16 PM 16:08

Posted: 12/7/2006

Location: Chicago O’Hare Airport, IL

Shape: Circle

Duration:20 min

((NUFORC Note: This individual was interviewed, at length, by one of the

investigators involved in the follow-up investigation. The investigators were

highly impressed with the witness’s credentials, and with the accurate

description of the event. We deem this witness to be extremely highly credible.

We express our sincere gratitude to this witness for his having shared the

information about his sighting with NUFORC, and with his fellow American

Citizens. PD))

Chicago O’Hare UFO Report

Ok I have been hesitant about talking about this, but after hearing the report

on Coast to Coast AM with Mr. Norey I can not be silent. I work for a major

airline at O’Hare, I am a taxi mechanic. I have the job responsibility of moving

aircraft under there own power from gate to gate or the hangar complex for

maintenance. We also accomplish the engine run-up testing needed. So I hope that

does something for establishing a little of credibility for my report. I am

still in absolute wonder and amazement at what I saw that afternoon.

Around 1630 a pilot made a comment on the radio about a circle or disc shaped

object hovering over gate C-17 at the C concourse in Chicago. At first we

laughed to each other and then the same pilot said again on the radio that is

was about 700feet agl (above ground level). The day was overcast with the

ceiling being reported at 1600 feet if I remember correctly. I was taxing a

Boeing 777 from the Intl Terminal to the Company Hanger on the North side of the

Airport. As we passed the C Terminal on the Alpha taxiway we observed a dark

gray hazy round object hovering over O’Hare Intl Airport. Is was definitely over

the C Terminal. It was holding very steady and appeared to be trying to stay

close to the cloud cover. The radio irrupted with chatter about the object and

the ATC controller that was handling ground traffic made a few smart comments

about the alleged UFO sighting above the C terminal.

We had to continue moving the aircraft to the hangar. After parking I noticed

the craft of no longer there but there was an almost perfect circle in the cloud

layer were the craft had been. The hole disappeared a few minutes later.

For the rest of the night there were jokes made on the radio about the sighting.”

((NUFORC Note: This individual was interviewed, at length, by one of the

investigators involved in the follow-up investigation. The investigators were

highly impressed with the witness’s credentials, and with his description of

what he saw. We deem this witness to be highly credible. PD))

ORIGINAL REPORT: The National UFO Reporting Center has received the following

information from a single source (see below), who, for the time being, wishes to

remain anonymous, and who prefers not to reveal for what entity he works. We

have received documentation about the alleged sighting, which satisfies us as to

the veracity of the report, and as to the credentials of the party reporting the

incident.

We have delayed release of this case, principally because an investigation was

begun almost immediately after our receipt of the initial report, and because we

were hoping to obtain addition documentation about the sighting, before it could

be concealed, or destroyed.

At approximately 16:30 p.m. (Central) on Tuesday, November 07, 2006, Federal

authorities at O’Hare Airport received a report that approximately a dozen

witnesses were observing a small, round disc-shaped object, metallic in

appearance, which hovered over Gate C17 at that airport.

The object was first spotted by an employee, working on the ramp, who was

engaged in “pushing back” Flight 446, departing Chicago for Charlotte, NC.

The employee reported to his supervisors that the object appeared to be almost

directly above his location at Gate C17, it appeared to be perfectly round, and

that its size was approximately equal to a U. S. quarter, held at arm’s length.

The object had a metallic appearance, according to the first witness, and it

appeared to him to be spinning.

The first witness apprised the flight crew of Flight 446 of the existence of the

object above their aircraft, and we believe both the pilot and copilot were

witness to the bizarre object, as well. The witness also contacted his

supervisors, who also witnessed the object, which was visible for approximately

2 minutes.

At the end of that time, the object was seen to suddenly accelerate straight up

at a very rapid pace, and it “shot” through the solid overcast, which was at

1,900 feet at the time. The witness added that the object appeared to leave a

“hole” in the clouds, where it had streaked upwards through the overcast.

Both the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security

Administration were apprised of the event at the time it was occurring, and FAA

personnel in one of the towers at O’Hare may have witnessed the object, probably

with binoculars. The FAA apparently reported that the object was not visible on

radar, although that fact has not been confirmed at the time of this writing.

We hope to be able to release more information about the incident at some time

in the near future. In the meantime, we would like to invite anyone who may have

been personal witness to the event to submit a report of their sighting, using

our Online Report Form. We would be most grateful if you would indicate in your

report where you were located, at the time of the sighting, and what the object

looked like, from your vantage point.

Here is another, similar, report for a sighting at Gatwick Airport, near London,

on April 12, 2006:

Occurred : 4/12/2006 23:45 (Entered as : 04/12/2006 23:45)

Reported: 12/4/2006 4:04:03 PM 16:04

Posted: 12/7/2006

Location: East Preston (UK/England),

Shape: Light

Duration:2 MINUTES

“Erratic light seen over Gatwick Airpot 4/12/2006

“Object was over Gatwick airport direction. it changed direction suddenly a few

times and descended and climbed incredibly quickly.

“It most definitly was not an aeroplane. only a military plane could manouvre

anything like as fast as this but I can discount that because 1/ the time being

close to midnight 2/ coupled with a low altitude estimate;- below 2000 feet 3/

no sound.

“I am amateur astronomer and can without doubt discount all astronomical

illusions i.e. Moon, Venus, Mars, meteor etc.”