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.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jet in Columbus
Glen, my father was in the airforce and he brought home photos that would freak you. One around the space shuttle on it launch pad in restricted airspace, one chasing the shuttle while it was piggyback on the 747 that carries it back to Kennedy a bunch around a coast guard station.
I'm with you buddy.
Jet
2 - Glen Boyd
Man I'd love to see those Jet. Theres also one Ive seen from one of the space shuttles where a UFO appears to be "shot at" (SDI maybe?) and actually does some evasive manuevers, making what ammounts to a sharp "V-turn" before getting the hell out of dodge so to speak.
So any chance I could get a look at those pics Jet? You can PM me through the BC group if need be.
Glad you liked the article. Like you've been doing lately, I stepped a little outside my usual box here.
Thanx buddy.
-Glen
3 - duane
Kinda makes you go, "Hmmm."
Without going into all of the details....
Please add some details. I've heard these kinds of stories from people I trust ever since I was a kid. Never saw anything myself, though.
4 - Glen Boyd
Details? Possibly fodder for a future article Duane. Lets just say it wasn't birds, airplanes, bad weather, or swamp gas okay?
Like I said, I may write more about it at some future point.
In the meantime, thanks for the interest and for commenting.
-Glen
5 - Anon
I once saw a thing on TLC or Discover or some channel like that about the Phoenix Lights. Turns out if you stand in the same spot as where any of the photography was taken and take the same shot in the daylight, the lights disappear right as they pass below a mountain ridge. Military records for that day show that on a test strip on the other side of the mountain, large floating flares were deployed to illuminate some test grounds. So that one was pretty much explained. The lights are the floating flares, and as they descend below the mountain ridge they disappear.
This Chicago one though seems pretty different in that no-one is owning up to anything weird going on.
I think often these things can be explained logically, but a few are real.
6 - Glen Boyd
Thats one explanation Anon. And also one shot from one angle. The lights were seen and photographed over the entire state that night. In some of the video (not the one i included in the article though), you also see the lights blink in one by one in a sequence. There also appears to be a solid mass between them (no stars or atmosphere visible) in many of the photos.
I never was satisfied with the official "flares" explanation myself. Kind of reminded me of the "test dummy" explanation they used for Roswell. Except for the fact that those dummys were first used ten years AFTER the Roswell crash.
Thanx for the comment.
-Glen
7 - duane
OK, Glen. I think I know how you feel about it. You don't want to start down that road without going all the way. I would be interested in reading your description if you decide to write it up.
I have a similar kind of deal, but not with UFOs. It's a ghost story. I always feel like people will think I was hallucinating or that there really is a natural explanation. But after I tell the whole story, which involved me and my then-wife (and she corroborates), and took place over a two-week time span, with all the details, people will believe that there was definitely something weird going on. Ghost? Who knows what that even means? But something not readily explainable in any case.
8 - Glen Boyd
Thats pretty cool Duane. I've actually got a ghost story too. In the 70's i went to a party at a reputed haunted house and actually got "shoved" down some stairs by unseen hands. It was one of the weirdest feelings I've ever had (on some levels, even weirder than seeing the UFO as a kid was).
Definitely something you don't forget.
-Glen
9 - Rufus Brown
The government has continuously hid the truth from us regarding UFO's.
Roswell, dismissing the face on mars as a trick of light and then later as just a coincidence, and also not disclosing the fact that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin saw UFO's on the moon when they landed. Google it, you will see numerous web pages of the two astronaut's comments to NASA and the government of what they saw, and how they were silenced.
The government likes to be in control of things. They don't tell us so they do not disturb the status quo. They have a lot of secrets hidden. For example how they spread AIDS among the African American community as well. They didn't tell us that, but if they admitted to testing 239 chemical weapons on americans from the period of 1949-1969, who would be suprised if they admit this?
10 - duane
Rufus: ...dismissing the face on mars as a trick of light and then later as just a coincidence....
Do you think "the government" is hiding something regarding a geological structure on Mars? Who exactly is "the government" in this case? Do you think that hundreds of civilian scientists have been bought off or otherwise silenced knowing that there is an actual sphinx-like monument on Mars?
11 - Glen Boyd
Heres where the conversation should start to get interesting. Talk amongst yourselves, please.
Thanx for commenting Rufus.
-Glen
12 - Glen Boyd
This has just been submitted to Digg.
Also, currently the number one Google search for "Chicago UFO"
So go vote y'all.
-Glen
13 - kwilliam
My favorite theory is that they are all pranks - just time travelers messing with our heads.
14 - Jet in Columbus
Glen, if you click on my URL you can view a few of the dozen of photos.
Jet
15 - Wilber
My old lady and me were living in the trailer park when a bright light shown down. Next thing I knew she was taken up into this space type craft and wisked away. A short time later she was back. Now the old lady has tits like water melons. Can anyone explain this to me. Sure love them tits.
16 - Glen Boyd
Those aint tits Wilber. Those are your goats ears.
-Glen
17 - Wilber
They are. Well Im dumbfounded. Who would have ever thought goat ears. Thanks Glen
18 - Jet in Columbus
Glen Please let me know if you've seen the above mentioned photos as I'll be pulling them back off the web soon.
Jet
19 - Glen Boyd
Jet, could you please them up tonight? I just got home from work and haven't been able to answer e-mail for the past hour. Going out to dinner right now, but plan on being home later today to work on a new article. I promise to check it out then.
Thanx buddy.
-Glen
20 - Jet in Columbus
No problem, just click my URL.
21 - STM
I wish those bloody UFOs would make themselves known around the rest of the world so that we can get a look in as well.
It doesn't seem fair that only Americans seem to see them ....
22 - Jet in Columbus
Actually STM there are more sightings in Mexico, South American and Europe.
23 - Clavos
Stan sez,
It doesn't seem fair that only Americans seem to see them ....
Next time I'm flying with them, I'll show them where Sydney is, promise...
24 - Clavos
Just leave the opera house lights on, Stan. I'll let you know when we're coming.
25 - Glen Boyd
STM and Clavos:
I don't know about Sydney specifically, but I do know that UFO sightings are reported around the world. There are actually some fairly celebrated cases from places as diverse as the Soviet Union (Voronezh) and England (Rendlesham Forest has been referred to as the "British Roswell").
In Belgium and other parts of Europe there have been reports of huge triangular craft (similiar to the "Phoenix Lights"). In Mexico City, there was a mass daylight sighting in the nineties, where hundreds of people had their video cameras rolling to photograph a solar eclipse.
As the saying goes--We Are Not Alone...and apparently neither are you.
-Glen
P.S. Jet, gonna check out those photos of yours now.