Multiple Pilots Report UFO: 'We Saw A Bright Light And It Just Disappeared'

Ed Mazza

Several commercials airline pilots reported a series of fast-moving unidentified objects in the skies off the west coast of Ireland last week in an incident now under investigation.

One pilot said the object or objects were traveling at “astronomical” speeds of at least Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound, The Irish Times reported.

The incident began when a British Airways pilot flying from Montreal to London’s Heathrow Airport contacted Shannon Air Traffic Control in Ireland to ask if there were any military aircraft in the vicinity. When told there was no such aircraft, the pilot said something had moved “so fast” past the aircraft.

“Errr... alongside you?” the air traffic controller asked.

The pilot replied that two objects had approached on the left and then “rapidly” veered toward the north.

“We saw a bright light and it just disappeared at a very high speed,” she said.

A Virgin Airlines flight from Orlando to Manchester, UK, then reported “two bright lights” that “seemed to bank over to the right and then climb away at speed.” The pilot described “a meteor or another object making some kind of reentry, appears to be multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory, very bright from where we were.”

Then, a third pilot chimed in.

“Glad it wasn’t just me,” the Norwegian Air pilot flying from Stewart Airport in New York to Shannon, Ireland said.

“No, uh, yeah very interesting that one,” the Virgin Airlines pilot replied.

The British Airways flight was a Boeing 787, the Virgin aircraft was a Boeing 747 and the Norwegian Air flight was a Boeing 737, The Irish Examiner reported.

According to the BBC, the Irish Aviation Authority is now investigating the reports of “unusual air activity.” A spokesperson for Shannon Airport told the broadcaster that there would be no comment until that investigation was complete.

At least one expert said he knows what the object was ― and it wasn’t a UFO.

David Moore, head of Astronomy Ireland, told the Irish Times that he was “1,000 percent sure” it was a meteorite and had received at least four reports of a fireball from people on the country’s west coast. His organization also noted the sighting at the time on Facebook.

“We had some reports of a massive fireball this morning!” Astronomy Ireland wrote on Friday. That report said it was moving “quite slow” and noted that it “broke up into several pieces.”

In response to a question about the UFO sighting, the organization wrote that a fireball breaking up “really does look like a fleet of aircraft/UFO’s (sic) flying by.”

Also on HuffPost

Airline Captain Júlio Miguel Guerra

In the chapter he wrote for “UFOs,” Airline Captain Júlio Miguel Guerra relives his lengthy encounter with a highly active UFO while serving as a flight instructor for the Portuguese Air Force in 1982. He writes: “At various times the object had been very close to me and I was able to verify that it was round with two halves shaped like two tight-fitting skullcaps. I carefully looked at the lower one, which seemed to be somewhere between red and brown with a hole or dark spot in the center. The center band looked like it had some kind of a grid, and possibly a few lights, but it was hard to tell since the sun was so bright and was reflected.” The object circled his small airplane for 15 minutes while he was alone in the sky, in his DHC-1 Chipmunk. He made this drawing the day after the encounter and submitted it with his report to the Portuguese Air Force. (Júlio Guerra, CNIFO Case Report)

Airline Captain Júlio Miguel Guerra

Guerra states that the object “flew at a fantastic speed in a large elliptical orbit to the left, between 5,000 feet to the South and approximately 10,000 feet to the North, always from left to right, repeating this route over and over. I tried to keep it in sight.” Two fellow Air Force officers, Carlos Garcês and António Gomes, flew to the location, and they too watched the object repeat its elliptical course, passing between the two planes on each return, for about 10 minutes. They were able to estimate the size, given its proximity to the two aircraft: about eight to 10 feet. (Artist’s drawing.)

Airline Captain Júlio Miguel Guerra

After landing, all three pilots filed detailed, independent written reports with the Air Force. General José Lemos Ferreira, the Portuguese Air Force Chief of Staff at the time, authorized the release of all the records to a team of scientists and experts, which conducted a lengthy scientific investigation. The group estimated that the unidentified object was flying at over 300 MPH vertically and its velocity when it circled Guerra’s aircraft was about 1550 MPH. (See chapter for more details.) Since leaving the Air Force in 1990 after 18 years of service, Júlio Guerra has been a Captain with Portugália Airlines (TAP), Portugal’s largest commercial airline. He has 17,000 hours of flight experience, and in 2009 he received an aeronautic science degree from the Lusofona University of Oporto. (Courtesy Júlio Guerra)

Captain Phil Schultz

In 1981, TWA Captain Phil Schultz was flying a passenger jet over Lake Michigan on a bright, clear summer day. Suddenly he saw a “large, round, silver metal object” with six jet black “portholes” equally spaced around the circumference, which quickly “descended into the atmosphere from above.” Captain Schultz and his co-pilot were so close to the object that it appeared to Schultz to be the size of a grapefruit held at arm’s length. Expecting a mid-air collision, they braced themselves for impact. The object then made a sharp, high speed turn, avoiding the aircraft, and departed. This drawing of the event was made by Dr. Richard Haines, former senior scientist with NASA, while he sat with Captain Schultz in his cockpit. The Captain completed a detailed report for Haines, who interviewed him extensively. (Courtesy Richard F. Haines)

Captain Phil Schultz

In this photograph, Captain Schultz demonstrates the size and location of the object relative to his cockpit window. With extensive experience as a US Navy fighter pilot in the Korean War and afterward, Captain Shultz never accepted the reality of UFOs prior to this incident. This encounter changed that. He wrote as much in his handwritten report, saying he had no choice but to characterize the object as “spaceship.” (photo (C) courtesy Richard F. Haines)

Air Force Captain Jean-Pierre Fartek

In his chapter for “UFOs,” French Major General Denis Letty reports on the case of Air Force Captain Jean-Pierre Fartek, then a Mirage III pilot, who had seen a UFO in 1979. (Collection J. Fartek)
In his chapter for “UFOs,” French Major General Denis Letty reports on the case of Air Force Captain Jean-Pierre Fartek, then a Mirage III pilot, who had seen a UFO in 1979. (Collection J. Fartek)

Air Force Captain Jean-Pierre Fartek

Captain Fartek’s case was most unusual, because the sighting did not occur while he was flying, but had taken place at his home in a village near Dijon, during the day. He and his wife witnessed an oscillating object hovering low to the ground, in front of a row of apple trees. General Letty met with them at the location, and wrote this in his notes during the interview: “The object looked like two reversed saucers pressed against each other, with a precise contour, a gray metal color on the top and dark blue below, with no lights or port-holes.” The clarity and precision of the shape of the object left no doubt that it was something solid and physical, and Captain Fartek made this drawing. He provided many more details, as Letty describes. The similarities between the object described by the three Captains -- Guerra, Schultz, and Fartek –- in different countries and in different years, are both suggestive and fascinating. (Collection J. Fartek)

Air Force Captain Jean-Pierre Fartek

Captain Fartek submitted a report to the Air Guard Station at the base, and he was instructed not to talk about what he saw. Letty writes that Fartek, shown above in a more recent photograph, was very upset by this experience. “He told me when we met that the sighting called into question his perception of what were then called ‘flying saucers,’ because he had never believed in them,” Letty says in his chapter. “Now, he acknowledged to me that after seeing this craft he could no longer doubt their existence. Hearing his testimony, I too did not have any more doubt about the reality of the phenomenon. In fact, taken together, I found the Farteks’ testimony so disturbing that I have been preoccupied by the UFO problem ever since. In 1996, after he became a Major, Commander Fartek was interviewed for the COMETA study which I initiated, and even then, after seventeen years, he was still visibly shaken by what he saw.” (photo (C) courtesy Bernard Thouanel)

Sergeant James Penniston

In 1980, when he was 25 years old, James Penniston was assigned to the largest Tactical Fighter Wing in the Air Force, the RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge complex in England. He was the senior security officer in charge of Woodbridge base security. At the time, he held a top-secret US and NATO security clearance and was responsible for the protection of war-making resources for that base. In this photo, Sergeant Penniston, now retired, described what happened at a 2007 press conference in Washington, DC. One night he was called into nearby Rendlesham Forest, just outside the base, bringing Airman First Class Edward Cabansag and Airman First Class John F. Burroughs with him, to investigate a possible downed aircraft. “There was a bright light emanating from an object on the forest floor,” he writes. “As we approached it on foot, a silhouetted triangular craft about 9 feet long by 6.5 feet high, came into view. The craft was fully intact sitting in a small clearing inside the woods.” (photo (C) Lisa Kimmell)

Sergeant James Penniston

“As the three of us got closer to the craft we started experiencing problems with our radios. I then asked Cabansag to relay radio transmissions back to Central Security Control (CSC), and he stayed back while Burroughs and I proceeded towards the craft. At first I was confused, not understanding what I was seeing. This was truly unbelievable. Then fear struck me, but I told myself that I had to stay focused. Was this a threat to the base and to us? I had to determine that first and foremost. When we came up on the triangular shaped craft there were blue and yellow lights swirling around the exterior as though part of the surface and the air around us was electrically charged. We could feel it on our clothes, skin and hair. It felt like static electricity, which made your hair stand-up and dance on your skin. But there was no sound at all coming from the craft. Nothing in my training prepared me for what we were witnessing. This was no type of aircraft that I’d ever seen before.” Penniston made this drawing of the landed craft for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. (Collection of James Penniston)

Sergeant James Penniston

Penniston walked around the craft, taking photographs and making notebook entries, while relaying messages through airman Cabansag, following required procedures. He discovered symbols on one side of the craft that measured about 3 inches high and two and a half feet across. He describes the experience. “They were etched into the surface of the craft. I put my hand on the craft, and it was warm to the touch. The surface was smooth, like glass, but it had the quality of metal, and I felt a constant low voltage running through my hand and moving to my mid forearm.” This is the original sketch he made in his logbook of those symbols. (Collection of James Penniston)

Sergeant James Penniston

Sergeant Penniston made an improved drawing of the symbols later, based on his logbook entry and his recollection of their placement. After roughly 45 minutes, the light from the craft began to intensify, and he and Burroughs watched the craft lift off the ground without any noise or air disturbance. It maneuvered through the trees and shot off at an unbelievable rate of speed. Abundant physical evidence was documented at the landing site, including broken branches forced down to the ground when the craft landed, scorch marks on the trees facing the site, and, most importantly, three indentations in the ground, left by the UFO landing gear in the three corners of a triangle. Penniston was told by the base lab that his two rolls of 35 mm film, depicting the craft and landing site, were over exposed or fogged. Two days later, another series of extraordinary events occurred, as described by witness Colonel Charles Halt, US Air Force (Ret.) in “UFOs.” These multiple witness events at Rendlesham Forest are among the most thoroughly documented in UFO history. (Collection of James Penniston)

UFO Wave Over Belgium

In 1989-90, a UFO wave occurred over Belgium, as described in slides 3 – 5 in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/23/ufo-on-the-record_n_689518.html" target="_hplink">the previous Huffington Post slide show</a>. There, Kean presented an outstanding photograph of a triangular object with powerful white lights on each corner and a reddish one in the center. In addition, numerous independent witnesses provided drawings to a scientific team investigating the sightings. Above is an artist’s rendition of what the most commonly described object looked like, including the one depicted in the photo. (Drawing © A. Meessen)

Major General Wilfried De Brouwer

Major General Wilfried De Brouwer writes in “UFOs”: “On 1 December, air weather forecaster Francesco Valenzano and his young daughter, walking at the square Nicolai in Ans, near Liège saw a large, slow moving craft approaching at low altitude. The craft made a tour of the square without making any noise and when it passed directly over their heads, Valenzano noticed a delta shape with three lights in a triangular position and a red rotating light in the middle which was positioned lower than the belly of the craft. His drawing included red and blue lights on the leading edge and four lights underneath.” (SOBEPS Archives)

Colonel André Amond

Colonel André Amond, a retired civil engineer, was the Director of the Military Infrastructure for the Belgian Army and also formerly in charge of Army environmental impact issues at the Joint Staff level, cooperating closely with American officials. He and his wife had an extensive look at one of these low-flying machines while driving down a country road. At first, they observed a row of “light panels” before the object moved closer. After stopping on the side of the road, De Brouwer writes, “They saw a giant spotlight, about twice the size of the full moon, which approached them to an estimated distance of 100 meters. The Colonel’s wife was frightened and asked to leave. As he opened the car door, the craft made a very tight turn to the left at a speed of approximately 10 MPH and three other lights appeared at the underside of the craft, in a triangular form with a central pulsing light. There was no sound…” Another witness had observed the object from a nearby location a few minutes earlier. Amond had absolutely no doubt about the exceptional nature of what he saw, and with total conviction, went all the way to the top, filing a written report and provided this drawing, one among a series, for the Belgian Defense Minister. (Courtesy A. Amond)

UFO Wave Over Belgium

During the first night of the Belgian wave, on November 29, 1989, a witness in Eupen provided this drawing of the craft from two perspectives -– the same views as described by the Amonds some weeks later. The first view shows the underside of the craft, and the second depicts the side view with the light panels and spotlight beaming to the ground. The many drawings of the Belgian objects show a variety of placements for the lights; they’re not always described exactly the same way. This kind of variety points to the authenticity of the drawings. Many more drawings are presented by Major General De Brouwer in “UFOs.” (SOBEPS Archives)

UFO Wave In Hudson Valley

A few years before the Belgian wave, back in the USA, a similar UFO wave occurred in the Hudson Valley in upstate New York and Connecticut, and witness drawings were collected there as well. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/23/ufo-on-the-record_n_689518.html" target="_hplink">In the previous slide show</a>, slide 14 is a photo of an array of lights taken by a police officer during the Hudson Valley wave, in 1987. The objects observed mainly during a three year period were primarily boomerang shaped. Above is an artist’s copy of drawings made by independent witnesses in different locations in 1983 and 1984, reduced and sized to fit the same scale. Once again, there is an overall similarity between the drawings, with individual differences. (collection of Phil Imbrogno)

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.