Airline Workers At O'Hare Report Spotting UFO
FAA Dismisses Reported Sighting As Weather Phenomenon

Call it a close encounter of the O'Hare kind.

Some airline workers reported seeing a mysterious, elliptical-shaped craft over O'Hare International Airport last fall but say their bosses and the government wouldn't take them seriously.

The Federal Aviation Administration has dismissed the reported Nov. 7 sighting by United Airlines employees as a likely weather phenomenon.

United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said there is no record of the UFO report and company officials don't recall discussing any such incident.

That doesn't sit well with the employees, who are upset that neither United nor the FAA investigated the incident.

A group of workers, including pilots, told the Chicago Tribune on condition of anonymity in remarks published Monday that they saw a dark gray, flying saucer-like object hover motionless in the sky above the United terminal around 4:30 p.m. that day.

After several minutes, the object -- described variously at 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter -- bolted noiselessly upward through thick clouds so powerfully that it left an eerie hole in the clouds.

The FAA acknowledged that a United supervisor called its air-traffic control tower at O'Hare, asking if controllers had spotted a spinning disc-shaped object. FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said no controllers saw it and a preliminary check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary.

"Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon," she said. "That night was a perfect atmospheric condition in terms of low (cloud) ceiling and a lot of airport lights. When the lights shine up into the clouds, sometimes you can see funny things."

Funny is just how some controllers in the tower view the incident.

"To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," said O'Hare controller and union official Craig Burzych.

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Second Associated Press news article on the O'Hare UFO.

A UFO at O'Hare? Some pilots thought so

CHICAGO - Federal officials say it was probably just some weird weather phenomenon, but a group of United Airline employees swear they saw a mysterious, saucer-shaped craft hovering over O'Hare Airport last fall.

The workers, some of them pilots, said the object didn't have lights and hovered over an airport terminal before shooting up through the clouds, according to a report in Monday's Chicago Tribune.

The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged that a United supervisor had called the control tower at O'Hare, asking if anyone had spotted a spinning disc-shaped object. But the controllers didn't see anything, and a preliminary check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.

"Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon," Cory said. "That night was a perfect atmospheric condition in terms of low (cloud) ceiling and a lot of airport lights. When the lights shine up into the clouds, sometimes you can see funny things."

The FAA is not investigating, Cory said.

United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said company officials don't recall discussing any such incident from Nov. 7.

At least one O'Hare controller, union official Craig Burzych, was amused by it all.

"To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," he said.