Tiffany Hahn - The Black Vault Case Files

UFO Witnessed While In Flight from Las Vegas to Indianapolis – June 12, 2018

John Greenewald — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 18:36:04 +0000

Case File Status: Likely Explainable

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:

https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/EditedSound-PatAllesVideo.mp3

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.

UFO over San Leandro, California – 2001

John Greenewald — Wed, 09 May 2018 09:00:03 +0000

Case File Status: Unidentified – Lacks Sufficient Evidence

Background

On December 18, 2017, the following case was submitted to The Black Vault / TBV Investigations. It was assigned to investigator Tiffany Hahn, then to investigator Richard Kidd for final analysis. The report below was written by Richard Kidd, and chronicles the investigation into the case.

Witness Testimony

“While my son and I were returning from his job in San Leandro (he was 15 at that time) he said to me “mom, what’s that?” in a very slow and perplexed manner. As I was driving on the freeway, with not much traffic at that time of night in the dark, I leaned forward and looked up, sighting a ‘fleet’ of triangular shaped craft. I saw at least three, very clearly outlined against the sky as there are city lights (light pollution) here. They were flying over a range of semi-low hills in an undeveloped area near the 106th or 98th ave exits going Westbound on 580. He says there were more probably five or more. They were silent and smoothly operating. There were three lights on the bottom of each craft which were white lights. Since we were basically directly under them, I could not see the tops of the craft. About 500 feet up as far as I can tell. They moved silently East over the uninhabited hills (toward the Central Valley). We were stunned, and I did report it to MUFON in 2006 when I found their reporting form on the internet. I have driven myself crazy trying to find anyone else, someone besides us must have seen them. I am pretty sure it was winter months, but a clear night with no wind or precipitation/cloud cover. They were out of sight in a few seconds (maybe 10-15) as the hills are right next to the freeway. I asked my son if we should ‘chase’ them and he said, and I quote: “hell no!” We had no cell phones at the time, and the film would not have come out without a night filter and a proper camera. Date above is approximate.”

On January 6, 2018, Lucy submitted additional details that she recalled:

“I remembered a few additional details after the report was submitted to you. The triangles were matte or dull metallic finish. There was good visibility, with patchy low clouds that night, and the triangles were clearly outlined and highly visible, basically right over our heads. There is an airport near there…Hayward airport (small craft), which often has planes in queue waiting to land, so this is a dangerous place for these craft to be flying. Also the actual place we saw them was in San Leandro between 150th and 106th on the Westbound 580 freeway.

Best, Lucy”

The Analysis

Investigator Tiffany Hahn combed the internet for any reports similar to what you described in San Leandro and the surrounding area. In those searches, she included years from 1995-2005, hoping to find someone who may have seen something similar in that area. She identified a man who lived in San Leandro and collected UFO reports from the area in the late 1990’s and into the 2000’s. She attempted to identify contact information for this gentleman to see if he has gathered information similar to this sighting from anyone else around 2001. However, despite those efforts, no contact was established.

Tiffany then sent over some follow up questions to witness Lucy:

You and your son witnessed 3-5 triangular craft overhead at around 9:30pm, correct?
Were the white lights you saw on the tips of each corner of the crafts? Did all 3-5 crafts have white lights on the underside?
Thinking about the size of the average small aircraft you have seen in the area, what was the size of the triangular craft you saw? Was it small, like the size of a small personal aircraft (maybe one that will hold 2-4 people)? Was it bigger, perhaps like a private jet? Or a larger commercial jet?
Let’s start with describing the craft in more detail. Any additional details you can give me might help me find other similar reports.

On January 17, 2018, the witness responded with the following:

Hi Tiffany,

I drove out yesterday to get a better feel for the exact location as best I could. I have searched for years as you are describing. In answer to your questions:My son and I were driving Westbound on 580 fwy at around 9:25 – 9:45 PM. on a weeknight. We saw 3 – 5 or possibly more (equilateral) triangular craft overhead at around 9:25 – 9:45 PM. Also, the area they were seen may be closer to Oakland than I initially thought. Around Exit 30 Eastbound 580 was as close as I could determine. It may have been more toward Golf Links Road, the hills were pretty close to the road and there were no houses that I can remember. There would have been lights on the ground if there were houses, it was not heavily populated on the East side of the freeway where they passed over us, although the West side of San Leandro/Oakland is densely populated. The craft were traveling from a SW – NE direction gradually crossing overhead. Then once they crossed, they fairly quickly were no longer visible behind the hills, low patchy fog as usual for the area that night, clear visibility. They flew UNDER the low patchy fog and were highly visible.

Yes, all the craft had the same 3 lights underneath, one at each corner. If there were some with no lights I did not see them. I didn’t notice any center light on any of them. Of course, I was driving the car in moderate traffic. I have struggled with this question because it is difficult to judge size. They were smaller than a jumbo jet, larger than a helicopter or small plane. They did not seem to be in a rush, but the way they moved was strange, definitely not conventional. I was initially thinking about 30-50 feet across, but hard to say. I could see the lights on the bottom of the craft very clearly so they can’t have been that high in elevation. In order to fly over those hills with proper clearance I would have to give the hills about 1200 feet to clear them. The lights were close – not like the regular air traffic here. Even the ever-present choppers over Oakland don’t seem to fly that low, and you can’t see their lights so clearly, These lights were much bigger than any aircraft light, and because of the way the craft are built you can see the entire bottom is basically flat, not like conventional craft. Again, they were silent. we opened the windows just to see if they were making noise because they were so hard to believe. Also, I couldn’t see the tops so I have no idea if a ‘man’ could even ride in one. They may have been super high-tech drones. They were very tightly calibrated to each other with regard to equidistance, and their navigation was extremely precise. These were flying at too low an altitude to be conventional Nighthawk type craft. And again, no noise, so not the same propulsion system. Or the same shape for that matter. They cannot have been any other type of known military craft either because of the way they moved. The reason I question the fact of “manned or unmanned” is because from where we saw them, they did not appear to be tall enough for a seated occupant, they were rather flat looking. It has occurred to me they could have been drones, but it does not seem appropriate for them to be flying in that manner in crowded airspace. I have never seen anything like it.

Investigator Richard Kidd spoke to Lucy again on April 24, 2018, and she provided him with some additional information regarding some research she has been doing on her own. She stated that she hasn’t been able to find any other sightings in the San Leandro area that pertain to her and her son’s original sighting that she reported to The Black Vault. She did however, find sightings around the area that were more recent.

Conclusion

Through my conversations with Lucy on the telephone, she is a highly educated and honest witness. I believe that she had indeed witnessed what she reported to The Black Vault. However, other than verifying that where her sighting occurred is an ongoing reporting area, her sighting could not be verified by additional witnesses or by other individual reports.

For this reason, Lucy case should be listed and “Unidentified – Lacks Sufficient Evidence”

The post UFO over San Leandro, California – 2001 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO over San Leandro, California – 2001 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.