Background

The following case was submitted to The Black Vault / TBV Investigations on June 16, 2018, just a few days after the sighting. It was assigned to TBV Investigations’ researcher Tiffany Hahn for investigation and analysis.

Witness Testimony

The witness submitted the following testimony. Only minor corrections were made for clarification:

“While flying back from [Las Vegas], heading due east toward Indianapolis I was taking a video of [lightning]below. When I watched the video, I noticed a rectangular object flying by, turning from a bright white to a mild green color and made a noise going by. This was somewhere over western Indiana. At 40,000 feet altitude, I have no idea what this might be. Note: The video shows the object going up, but in reality it is going from left to right.”

The Evidence

The following video was submitted by the witness. It is displayed here, unedited and in the original state it was received:

The Analysis

by Tiffany Hahn, TBV Investigations

Witness Pat Alles’ statement contained helpful pieces of data relevant to this investigation and included video of the reported event. 

The witness reported that they were traveling on Southwest flight from Las Vegas, NV to Indianapolis, IN. Based on the provided information, I believe this is the flight the witness was on, noted below. The flight departed McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 11, 2018 at 8:01pm local time. The flight landed at Indianapolis International Airport in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 12, 2018 at 2:21am local time. The witness’ approximation of June 12, 2018 at 1:00am appears feasible, and any time discrepancy may be accounted for due to time zone changes.

It seems likely that a potential event over “Western Indiana,” as the witness reported, would have occurred between 1:00am and 2:00am EDT on June 12, 2018 due to the flight path of the aircraft noted above. 

Weather is frequently a factor in witnessing an unexplained aerial event. The witness reported recording lightning in the clouds below the plane. This lightning is viewable in the provided video. As you will note from the weather history below, it does appear that there were clouds and rain over Indianapolis in the early morning hours of June 12, 2018. 

Despite the weather being unfavorable for viewing aerial phenomena from the ground, I conducted a search at the National UFO Reporting Center website for reports in the evening hours of June 11th and the early morning hours of June 12th near the State of Indiana. Reports for the month of June 2018 can be viewed here: http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/ndxe201806.html

There is only one report with information matching the date and location mentioned by the witness.

The event reported to the “National UFO Reporting Center” lists the date and time as “approximate.” As such, I do not know if these are related sightings. They seem to describe different events. 

Video Analysis

The video provided by the witness is 10 seconds in length. In the first few seconds, there is what appears to be flashes of light that were confirmed by the witness to be lightning in the clouds below. The object in question appears in the video around the 3-second mark. It appears to travel from the lower left to the upper right portion of the screen. I slowed down the anomaly and captured the 17 frames where the anomaly is visible. I created an animated .gif with these 17 frames, as seen below. I put a red line diagonally through the screen to accentuate the fact that the anomaly is not going in a straight line. Around Frame 03 and 04, the object appears to flutter or float closer to the red line, then again moves away from it. 

Although not conclusive, it seems unlikely that a potential UFO flying at high speed would flutter or float. This information may indicate that the light colored anomaly is a piece of debris in the air outside the airplane illuminated by cabin lights, or possibly a reflection of something inside the cabin onto the multi-paned window of the airplane. Further, I believe the light colored anomaly is out of focus because the witness was recording lightning far below and the debris flew close to the window or was a reflection fairly close to the window. If the camera were focused far below, something close to the lens would appear out of focus, and the lens would not have had time to focus before it was out of view.

Here is a clip of the same video, with brightness increased:

And a screen shot, possibly indicated an arm illuminated by a smart watch / Apple Watch? This is not conclusive, but one possibility. 

Increasing the brightness also reveals the witness did not have the camera lens flush with the window, which opens up the large possibility the light was a reflection from within the cabin. The light source in the following freeze frame is the lightning, and the cut off to the left and the arrows indicate the edge of the window, which allows a lot of ‘room’ for reflections to take place on the window pane and reflect back into the camera offering an illusion of an object outside the plane, like a UFO. 

The witness also indicated that the visual anomaly was accompanied by a strange sound, a sound that the witness attributed to the possible UFO. 

A visualization of the unedited audio from the video appears as follows.

After some editing, I was able to reduce some of the background noise created by the plane’s engine. The visualization of the EDITED audio is as follows.

My edited audio can be heard here:

The visualization of the edited audio above is consistent with human voice patterns. Additionally, both myself and the witness agreed that the edited audio sounds like a human female voice. The witness and myself also discussed how the recording device was inside the plane. If the sound had originated from outside the plane, it should have been audible to everyone inside the plane if it were loud enough to be recorded. The witness reported that they did not hear anything at the time of the recording nor did anyone inside the plane appear to investigate a strange sound or mention it verbally.

Conclusions

While recording lightning below their commercial flight over Indiana, witness Pat Alles recorded a light colored visual anomaly and accompanying audio. Upon investigating, the reported date, time, and location appear to be correct based on developed flight information. 

Upon analyzing the visual and audio portions of the provided video, several items were noted. I do not have any reason to believe that the video has been falsified or tampered with in any meaningful way. It may have been cropped from a longer video, but this does not affect this investigation. Based on the fluttering behavior of the light colored anomaly and it being out of focus, I believe it is a piece of debris outside the plane’s window. After editing the video to reduce some of the plane’s engine noise, the audio accompanying the video appears to be that of a human female voice. 

It seems likely that this is not a UFO and is explainable.

The post UFO Witnessed While In Flight from Las Vegas to Indianapolis – June 12, 2018 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO Witnessed While In Flight from Las Vegas to Indianapolis – June 12, 2018 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena

– NARCAP –

October 15, 2000

January, 1967
Night UP SW New Mexico 

Jimmie Moran, a passenger on a Lear Jet 23 en route to Las Vegas, NV from Houston, Hobby Airport, Texas was the first to sight the bright red light associated with a sharply defined object ahead of them at their 10 o’clock position in the dark sky. He was seated on the left-hand side of the passenger cabin. Flying at FL410 to the NW just beyond jetway J-86 which ended at El Paso, the pilot, Carl M., filed for a direct flight to Winslow (AZ) on a heading of 300 degrees. He was delivering the new aircraft to its owner. An unnamed FO was also on board and saw the UAP which kept pace with the jet off its left-hand side for 29 minutes. Their airspeed was 300 kts. (Mach 0.82). In the pilot’s own words, I told Jimmie and the other passengers in the back, that maybe it was a light on a weather balloon. A few minutes later my passengers called me again, saying the bright red light was moving, so I told them that the light was in a military flight training block, so it might be a military plane.The light had a red ray below the light towards the ground and about 2000 ft. below the first light, a second oval light appeared, then a third light, and then a fourth, said Capt. M. Each had a red ray of about 2000 ft. from one to the other. Then the lights retracted one at a time until there was one light shining bright red. Then it ran the lights down again, but at a 40 degree angle. And then retracted the lights the same way. Capt. M. then radioed Albuquerque Center to inquire if they showed any aircraft at their 9 to 10 o’clock position. They replied they did not have any transponder signal there.

At this moment the UAP’s light extinguished for 30 seconds and came back on again. Then Albuquerque Radar (AR) called me and said they had the object on their radar… 39 miles west of our aircraft and moving at the same heading. Next Albuquerque Radar contacted a National Airlines DC-8 then over Casa Grande, AZ heading for Houston and learned from its captain that . ..he had been watching the light and said it did everything the Captain on the Lear Jet said it was doing. AR asked the DC-8 captain if he would like to make a UFO report, and the captain said no. AR asked the captain for his name, and he told them it was none of their damn business. It was at this point that the frightfully close near miss occured. In the pilot’s own words, AR called me to tell me the object was closing in on me, and before they finished telling me, the vehicle was so close that the blips on the radar screen became one. [The captain’s sketch of his cockpit window outline shows the UAP filling at least 75 percent of the window’s forward area!] The red light was so bright that when I looked up from the instrument Panel and would look back at the panel my eyes were having trouble ajusting (sic) each time to the panel white lights. At this close formation the encounter lasted 29 minutes.. .. My passengers in the back were hollering at me to get them away from the object… After a few minutes the bright red light of the vehicle went out, but I could not get a good look at the vehicle, because my eyes couldn’t adjust to the darkness before the vehicle turned the bright light back on. Then the vehicle slowed down [meaning unclear]to the point that I pulled away from him.

The passengers were overjoyed when the light went behind the left engine… But that was short lived. The vehicle passed us up at a speed so that the red light was trailing the object like a comet for as much as 150 yards. It slowed down again, which allowed me to overtake the vehicle at Winslow. We both made a left turn over Winslow at 41,000 feet. The UAP remained with the jet to beyond Flagstaff (where the aircraft was now under Los Angeles Center control which, the captain learned, also had the UAP on their radar). The captain said, My passengers were still hollering and in a panic for me to get them away from the vehicle. The UAP finally accelerated to the west at a 30 degree climb angle when we were only fifteen minutes from landing at Las Vegas. No official inquiry was made of this high altitude encounter. (Pilot report form)

_____ October 27, 1967
0300L UP NE Jacksonville
(Atlantic Ocean)

This fascinating aerial encounter involved Charlie Little, pilot of a Piper-Twin Commanche PA-30 (N7942Y). He was multi-engine rated and a flight instructor. Two other commercially rated pilots, and a passenger were also on board. Having taken off from Opa-Locka, FL to Morristown, NJ, they were headed ENE at 8,000 feet altitude in uncontrolled airspace under an IFR flight plan but were in radio contact with Jacksonville ARTCC for safety reasons. Stars were visible in the dark sky.

Ground control helped them maintain a correct heading when their two VORs apparently displayed significantly large angular deviations toward the east. About half-way between Jacksonville and Charleston, SC over the ocean at least three of the occupants saw a light moving across the sky and interpreted it to be a commercial flight at high altitude bound for Miami. But the light began to descend and approach their airplane. The pilot radioed radar control to inquire if any other traffic was seen in their vicinity (now at their one o’clock position high and seemingly southbound). The answer was negative. Little turned his landing and taxi lights on. He said (later), As the light came closer and closer, it was very apparent that we were going to pass very close and that the aircraft was not making any move to avoid us. He then asked for permission to descend immediately… We may need all the way to the deck immediately. He received permission to do so even though permission was not legally required. Under the circumstances, he was probably trying to set an example of extra-safe procedures for the benefit of the other two pilots on board. Little then disengaged the autopilot, pulled the throttle back and pushed the wheel forward …trying to avoid a head-on collision. We descended to 6,500 feet but the lights came closer and closer. Then they saw not one but six, huge, round, bright, white lights in a (horizontal) row. A collision seemed imminent. Panicking, I yelled, ‘We can’t get away from him!’ The situation seemed hopeless; there was no way to avoid him. We were all going to die because the pilot in the other craft wasn’t paying attention. Little had to shield his eyes with his hands the lights were so intense. Suddenly, a soft green light was all over our cockpit. At the very instant of collision, …the craft made an unbanked 180 degree turn, remained ahead for a few seconds and then took off and disappeared like a flash bulb. At least two of the witnesses agreed that the huge object was a gray equilateral triangle, each side at least 200 feet long and twenty feet thick. Its outer edges were very smooth and sharply defined (with no rivets, doors, antennae, windows, etc.) while at its center there was a triangular-shaped opening or hole large enough to fly through. It flew with one side directly forward.

As a pilot, I did not believe in UFOs but we had just had a near mid-air collision with one! When Little told radar control what had just happened he was met with ridicule. Later he recalled, I became very angry and threw the microphone on the floor instead of hanging it on the clip… We all knew we had just seen a UFO but we didn’t know what to say. We were afraid that if we told anybody we would lose our pilot’s licenses. This was very important to us because we were all hoping to become commercial airline pilots. It could be the end of our careers. Investigator Smith also discovered that Little was told by radar control that a United B727 captain allegedly had just reported the same shaped object over Washington (about 535 miles away)! I could not locate any record of this other claimed sighting which isn’t surprising given the continuing attitude of derision shown toward air crew by authorities on the ground and the understandable reticence to report bizarre aerial sightings. `

One final word is appropriate. Is it possible that Jacksonville radar was actually tracking the UAP and not the aircraft when the several clock-wise deviating VOR events were taking place? It isn’t clear whether the aircraft had a transponder (they were relatively expensive at the time) so that ground radar might have had only a weak return from the aircraft’s skin paint. Indeed, broadband radar in the 1960s wasn’t particularly effective when it comes to a non-transponder equipped aircraft. The far larger radar skin paint return from the triangular object might have been significantly larger than that of the aircraft. If true, this would explain the progressive clockwise deviation of the ground radar’s track that also corresponded with the south-bound movement of the UAP before it apparently changed its heading to approach the aircraft. (Smith, W., A huge open triangular UFO, International UFO Reporter, Pp. 4-6, Sept./October 1984, Center for UFO Studies, Chicago, Illinois).

The post Two Dramatic Mid-Air UFO Near Misses In 1967 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

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By MARIO LEDWITH FOR THE DAILY MAIL

A passenger jet came within 300ft of colliding with an unidentified flying object, an official probe has heard.

Despite an investigation, the UK Airprox Board – which examines reports of near misses – could not explain the ‘blue and yellow’  object which passed under the  Airbus 320.

The incident happened on December 2 last year over Baillieston, 13 miles east of Glasgow Airport, at around 3500ft.

The shocked pilot reported the collision risk as ‘high’.

The A320 was descending into Glasgow in clear conditions with the sun behind, when both the plane’s pilots saw an object around 100 yards away.

The board’s report said: ‘The object passed directly beneath before either of the crew had time to take avoiding action or had “really registered it”, although they both agreed that it appeared blue and yellow (or silver) in colour and was “quite large” with a small frontal area.

‘The controller stated he was not talking to anyone else in that area and nothing was seen on radar.’

In its report, the board dismissed a variety of possible explanations.

It said: ‘In the absence of a primary radar return, it was unlikely that the untraced aircraft was a fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft or man-carrying balloon.

‘It was considered that a meteorological balloon would be radar-significant and unlikely to be released in the area.

‘A glider could not be discounted but it was felt unlikely that one would be operating in that area, due to the constrained airspace and the lack of thermal activity due to low temperature.

‘Similarly, the board considered that a hang-glider or para-motor would be radar significant and that conditions precluded them.

‘Members were unable to reach a conclusion as to a likely candidate for the conflicting aircraft.

The pilot was clearly shocked and reported that there had been a ‘high’ risk of collision following the incident on December 2 last year.

He told his control tower: ‘We just had something pass underneath us quite close. Have you got anything on in our area.’

They replied: ‘Negative. We’ve got nothing on radar and we’re not talking to any traffic either’

The unidentified flying object passed directly beneath the plane before either of the crew had a chance to take action to avoid it.

Both pilots described the object as ‘blue and yellow (or silver) in colour with a small frontal area but that it was “bigger than a balloon”.’

The airline involved has not been identified by the report authors.

Several companies fly in Airbus 320 planes from the airport and they can seat up to 220 people – although the number of seats varies.

The report authors said they had not been able to work out what the object was.

They wrote: ‘The controller stated that he was not talking to anyone else in that area and that nothing was seen on radar. Search action was taken with no result and the A320 pilot stated his intention to file an Airprox.

‘Additionally, a further detailed review of individual radar sources did not yield any conclusive radar data that matched the A320 pilot’s description of the encounter.

‘The Air Traffic Control unit’s own radar replay also showed no surveillance traces in the immediate vicinity of the A320 at the time.’

Once on the ground the A320 pilot gave a further description of the event to the Glasgow Aerodrome Controller.

The pilot said: ‘We seemed to only miss it by a couple of hundred feet it went directly beneath us – wherever we were when we called it in it was within about ten seconds; couldn’t tell what direction it was going but it went right underneath us.’

Asked if he thought it was a glider, the pilot replied: ‘well maybe a microlight – it just looked too big for a balloon.’

But the board ruled out any such aircraft and were baffled.

‘The board initially considered likely candidates for the untraced aircraft. The A320 crew had not been able to assimilate any information regarding the form of the untraced aircraft in the fleeting glimpse they had, reporting only a likely colour,’ it said.

‘Members were of the opinion that, in the absence of a primary radar return, it was unlikely that the untraced aircraft was a fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft or man-carrying balloon.

‘It was considered that a meteorological balloon would be radar significant and unlikely to be released in the area of the Airprox.

‘A glider could not be discounted but it was felt unlikely that one would be operating in that area, both due to the constrained airspace and the lack of thermal activity due to the low temperature.

‘Similarly, The board considered that a hang-glider or para-motor would be radar significant and that conditions precluded them, as they did para-gliders or parascenders.

‘Members were unable to reach a conclusion as to a likely candidate for the conflicting aircraft and it was therefore felt that the Board had insufficient information to determine a cause or risk.’

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The captain of the packed Airbus A320 spotted the silver object heading straight for the cockpit as his plane flew above Berkshire.

He was looking out of the left window a split second before the bizarre incident.

A safety report said: “As he turned to look ahead, he perceived an object travelling towards them at what appeared to be the same level, slightly above the flight deck windscreen.

“Having very little time to focus, he was under the apprehension that they were on a collision course with no time to react.

“His immediate reaction was to duck to the right and reach over to alert the first officer; there was no time to talk to alert him.”

The stunned captain blurted out: “Did you see that?”

But his bemused deputy had not seen the UFO and replied: “See what?”

The pilot’s behaviour made him fear there was a fault with their plane.

“The first officer turned and looked at him thinking some was wrong with the aircraft,” the report revealed.

The captain was so spooked by the incident in July that he reported the sighting to safety watchdogs at the UK Airprox Board , which investigates near-misses in British airspace.

He told experts he saw a flying object shaped like a cigar or rugby ball, which was “bright silver, metallic”.

The “near-miss” happened 20 miles west of Heathrow Airport, according to a report published last week.

An official probe said: “The pilot was subjected to a powerful impression of immediate danger caused by his perception of an object closing rapidly on his aircraft.”

But investigators, who did not reveal which airline was involved, failed to find any unidentified aircraft in the area at the time.

They added: “It wasn’t possible to trace the object or determine the likely cause of the sighting.”

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