Post by Joanna on Feb 20, 2018 0:52:22 GMT -5
Air Force Jets Chase Strange White Aircraft in Oregon
On Oct. 25, 2017, a mysterious aircraft was spotted in broad daylight near a busy flight route over the state of Oregon. U.S. Air Force jet fighters were investigated, nut found nothing.
Originally reported on The War Zone blog from auto news site The Drive, the unidentified aircraft was initially picked up on radar around 4.30 p.m. The object was traveling at high speeds through Northern California at 37,000 feet, according to the site. There was no flight path recorded for the aircraft and it did not respond to radio calls. Neither did it appear on any nearby aircraft Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems. The object then turned north and merged with nearby commercial air traffic before disappearing from radar. Shortly thereafter, several pilots radioed into air traffic control to report sightings of a white aircraft flying at 37,000 feet, but at a distance too far to make an identification. This occurred for a period of approximately 30 minutes over hundreds of miles
Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. has kept fighter jets on alert around the nation to respond to aircraft behaving strangely. Air Force F-15 interceptor fighters scrambled from the Portland Air National Guard Base, but despite their speed and radar capability, the fighters failed to locate the mystery aircraft. The FAA and Air Force both confirmed to War Zone that the event occurred.
Recently, War Zone obtained, via a Freedom of Information Act Request, audio recordings of radio transmissions and phone calls made by FAA staff during and after the event. The recordings paint a better picture of what happened as authorities struggled to determine what was happening. In a recording after the initial spotting by air traffic control, a controller reported an object traveling “very fast at 37,000,” before remarking: “That’s crazy.”
When the F-15 fighters entered the scene, they can be heard calling air traffic control asking for an update. The controller responds that the aircraft “must be in stealth mode or something.”
Phone interviews with the pilots who saw the UFO conducted after the event provide further details about the craft. The pilot of Southwest 4712 noted he had not seen anything like this in his nearly 30-year flying career. “If it was like a Lear [private jet] type airframe, I probably would not have seen it this clear. This was a white airplane and it was big,” he continued. And it was moving at a clip, too, because we were keeping pace with it. It was probably moving faster than we were … It was a larger aircraft, yeah.”
Reddit users have speculated that the object may have been a drug smuggling aircraft or a secret military stealth plane. But if it was a new stealth craft, flying through a commercial carrier route during daylight hours seems odd. An Australian writer believes Russia and China, which also have developed aircraft stealth technology, could also be capable of a flyover such as this.
Whatever theories we may have about the strange white aircraft, the recordings show that even the officials didn’t have a clue.
Source: Cathy Zhantg, The Epoch Times, February 19, 2018.
