Who to believe: UFO sightings

In 1952, in an attempt to cope with the public outcry concerning hundreds of reports of UFOs, the U.S. Air Force organized “Project Blue Book” whose primary objective was to collect and analyze citizen reports of UFO sightings. The chief scientific consultant for that project was a well-respected Northwestern University astronomy professor, J. Allen Hynek.

When Hynek first began his UFO research, he was very doubtful that the purported UFO sightings were of any real significance. In fact, during a 1966 congressional hearing on UFOs, he indicated that “the whole subject seemed utterly ridiculous,” and he thought the sightings were a fad which would soon pass. However, after decades of analyzing hundreds of UFO reports from airline pilots, military personnel, police officers, public officials, psychologists, astronomers and other scientists, Hynek said his opinion started to shift. He believed something was going on and serious research was needed to understand what it was. In a 1985 interview with Dennis Stacy, when asked what caused his change of opinion, he responded: It … “was the completely negative and unyielding attitude of the Air Force. They wouldn’t give UFOs the chance of existing even if they were flying up and down the street in broad daylight.” In the late 1970s, Hynek also told a group of students and faculty at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale that his team fudged the data on “Project Blue Book.” He said they could explain only 80 percent of the sightings, and the 20 percent that could not be explained were often omitted from reports, and then used by the team for more in-depth research.

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(Full Article: http://www.columbiamissourian.com)

O’Hare UFO Report Released

The staff of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP) headed by respected scientist Dr. Richard Haines has released a report (152 page PDF file) on the Chicago O’Hare Airport UFO incident of November 7, 2006.

The text is long and detailed, and most of us will not be willing to read it all, but the study suggests (as the credo of NARCAP declares) that the sighting of any unknown object in the sky is a potential hazard to pilots and their crews and passengers, and that this should be taken seriously by the aviation community.

The report is one of the most exhaustive UFO incident studies in recent years. The authors examined witness testimony, (at least 8 ground personnel) radar reports (nothing conclusive was detected) and weather at the time of the sighting.

Haines and his co-authors conclude, in part:

This investigation has determined that, based upon the testimony of multiple eye witnesses in different locations at O’Hare International Airport, a small physical, and apparently solid object hovered over the United Airlines concourse area for at least ten minutes or more but was not detected either by radar or visually by air traffic controllers in the tower. For this reason the object is considered a definite potential threat to flight operations at O’Hare.

(Source: http://www.ufomystic.com/wake-up-down-there/ohare-ufo-report/)