Incident · 7 November 2006 · O'Hare International Airport, Chicago (United Airlines Concourse C)
Disc reported hovering over gate C17 at Chicago O'Hare (7 November 2006)
Also known as O'Hare UFO, O'Hare 2006, Chicago O'Hare UAP, O'Hare airport UFO, gate C17
Partly explained. The FAA did not investigate; its spokeswoman offered the theory that the sighting was a weather phenomenon, airport lights on a low cloud ceiling, which the witnesses and NARCAP's analysis reject. (source)
At about 4:30 p.m. on 7 November 2006, under an overcast at about 1,900 feet, United Airlines employees at Chicago O'Hare reported a dark gray, disc-like object hovering silently over gate C17 in Concourse C. A ramp worker directing a United plane back from the gate saw it first; according to NARCAP's list, mechanics taxiing a 777, supervisors, and the captain and first officer of a 737 near C17 were among the others who saw it. After several minutes it is said to have shot straight up through the clouds, leaving a clear hole that closed within minutes. A United supervisor phoned the FAA tower, whose controllers saw nothing.
The story came out eight weeks later, when the Chicago Tribune's Jon Hilkevitch interviewed the workers, who all spoke anonymously; one of the mechanics, as “Joe”, then described the object on CNN, where a sketch artist drew it from his account. United said it had no record of the report, and the FAA, which had first said it knew nothing, found the supervisor's call when the paper filed a FOIA request. The FAA ran no investigation: radar showed nothing unusual, and its spokeswoman suggested airport lights on low cloud. The case is filed here because of the number of airline staff who agreed on what they saw and the FAA's own confirmation of the call; the witnesses remain unnamed.
NARCAP, a private aviation-safety group whose chief scientist is the former NASA Ames researcher Richard Haines, obtained the tower recordings under FOIA. Its May 2007 report rejected a natural hole-punch cloud and treated the object as real and undetected by radar, a safety gap. It is an advocacy group's analysis, not an official finding.
Sources: Chicago Tribune, 1 January 2007 · NPR, January 2007 · NARCAP Technical Report 10 (Haines et al., May 2007)
Facts and claims
- documented The FAA told the Chicago Tribune that its O'Hare tower had received a call from a United supervisor asking whether controllers had seen an elliptical craft motionless over Concourse C; no controllers saw it, and a preliminary check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary. The agency was not investigating further. Source: chicagotribune.com (archived)
- documented FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory told the Tribune: “Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon”; “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.” Source: chicagotribune.com (archived)
- documented United's spokeswoman said the airline had no record of the report: “There's nothing in the duty manager log, which is used to report unusual incidents.” The Tribune reported the event had been reported to United by as many as a dozen of its own workers. Source: chicagotribune.com (archived)
- claimed The United employees the Tribune interviewed, anonymously, described a dark gray, well-defined object without lights, 6 to 24 feet across by different estimates, motionless and silent just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck over gate C17 at about 4:30 p.m., until it shot up through the overcast; “It was like somebody punched a hole in the sky,” one said, and witnesses said the hole of clear air closed within a few minutes. Source: chicagotribune.com (archived)
- claimed A United mechanic who saw it from the cockpit of a Boeing 777 he was taxiing told the Tribune: “I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft.” Source: chicagotribune.com (archived)
- claimed Richard Haines told the Tribune he had determined that no weather balloons were launched in the vicinity of O'Hare on 7 November. — Richard F. Haines Source: chicagotribune.com (archived)
- claimed NARCAP's report says the FAA's FOIA analyst told it the tower had “checked its voice tapes for the date and time in question and had found relevant portions only on three phone calls (all from United ramp control) and one inbound ground frequency”; the recordings were delivered on 5 March 2007. — Richard F. Haines Source: doc-narcap-ohare-2007.pdf
- claimed NARCAP's transcription of the first FAA tower recording (4:30 pm) has a United ramp-tower controller phoning the tower's area supervisor: “Hey, did you see a flying disc out by C17?”, adding “that's what a pilot in the ramp area at C17 told us”. The supervisor laughs it off (“Hey, you guys been celebrating the holidays or anything”), then says “No, I have not seen any flying disc at gate C17” and that he will “keep an eye out”. — Richard F. Haines Source: doc-narcap-ohare-2007.pdf
- claimed NARCAP lists nine United witnesses by job and position, among them a ramp mechanic beside a 737 at C17, two mechanics taxiing a 777, two supervisors, and the captain and first officer of a 737 near C17; their identities are withheld at their request. — Richard F. Haines Source: doc-narcap-ohare-2007.pdf
- claimed NARCAP rejected a natural hole-punch (fallstreak) cloud, since no supercooled droplets or falling ice were present that day, and concluded that “a small physical, and apparently solid object hovered over the United Airlines concourse area for at least ten minutes or more but was not detected either by radar or visually by air traffic controllers in the tower”, a potential threat to flight operations. — Richard F. Haines Source: doc-narcap-ohare-2007.pdf
- claimed A United mechanic interviewed anonymously by CNN as “Joe” (NARCAP's witness B) said that while taxiing a jet to the hangar he and another mechanic saw “a dark gray object sitting above the terminal complex”: “I've never seen an object in my time that looked like this”; “it was not an airplane as we know it.” Source: O'Hare UFO 2006: CNN's interview with United mechanic “Joe”, and Tribune reporter Jon Hilkevitch at 0:35
- claimed Joe confirmed a CNN sketch artist's drawing of a “dark gray oval” as what he saw; CNN reported that no photos had surfaced and that Joe knew of none. Source: O'Hare UFO 2006: CNN's interview with United mechanic “Joe”, and Tribune reporter Jon Hilkevitch at 1:27
- documented United told CNN the sighting was not something it would investigate; the FAA said it had no power to investigate either, that radar did not pick up anything out of the ordinary, and that a weather phenomenon might have caused it. Source: O'Hare UFO 2006: CNN's interview with United mechanic “Joe”, and Tribune reporter Jon Hilkevitch at 2:19
- claimed Hilkevitch said he was told one of the 737's pilots “had a digital camera and snapped some pictures”; no such photograph has been published. — Jon Hilkevitch Source: O'Hare UFO 2006: CNN's interview with United mechanic “Joe”, and Tribune reporter Jon Hilkevitch at 4:36
- claimed Hilkevitch said United, “after first denying that they got any reports from employees about this sighting”, later said its employees had approached it immediately because of safety concerns. — Jon Hilkevitch Source: O'Hare UFO 2006: CNN's interview with United mechanic “Joe”, and Tribune reporter Jon Hilkevitch at 10:24
- claimed Hilkevitch said the story ran several weeks after the event because he had to track down the witnesses, pilots, ramp workers and mechanics who “all, down to a person, reported the exact same sighting.” — Jon Hilkevitch Source: O'Hare UFO 2006: CNN's interview with United mechanic “Joe”, and Tribune reporter Jon Hilkevitch at 12:04
- claimed Hilkevitch said he had correspondence from United managers to their bosses about the employees' reports, and that some employees were interviewed and asked to draw sketches of what they saw. — Jon Hilkevitch Source: O'Hare UFO 2006: CNN's interview with United mechanic “Joe”, and Tribune reporter Jon Hilkevitch at 14:54
- claimed Hilkevitch named what weakens the case: “no air traffic controller saw it”, and nobody with a camera phone at O'Hare took a picture of it. — Jon Hilkevitch Source: O'Hare UFO 2006: CNN's interview with United mechanic “Joe”, and Tribune reporter Jon Hilkevitch at 15:47
- claimed At the National Press Club on 12 November 2007, the Alderney pilot Ray Bowyer said he was surprised that “there was no investigation At All” by the FAA, and that pressure may have been applied to crew members by their company not to discuss it. — Ray Bowyer Source: National Press Club - November 12th, 2007. UFO Close Encounters at 51:49
- claimed At the same conference former Arizona governor Fife Symington cited the case and said the FAA “apparently did not investigate” and dismissed the sightings as weather; he called on the government to reopen its official investigation. — Fife Symington Source: National Press Club - November 12th, 2007. UFO Close Encounters at 1:21:20
- claimed At the 2013 Citizen Hearing Richard Dolan cited the case, saying United “ordered its employees to silence” and that after denials United and the FAA had to acknowledge the employees' reports. — Richard Dolan Source: Citizen Hearing 2013: Opening statements (Mitchell, Hellyer) at 18:42
- claimed At the same hearing Antonio Huneeus cited it as an air-safety case that leaked through the Chicago Tribune, saying “the FAA never made any kind of official investigation”. — Antonio Huneeus Source: Citizen Hearing 2013: A Global Phenomenon, Part 2 at 14:23
Connected files
People
- Richard F. Haines (investigated by) — Haines is investigating the O'Hare incident, the Tribune reported; NARCAP's report followed in May 2007
- Ray Bowyer (statements by)
- Fife Symington (statements by)
- Richard Dolan (statements by)
- Antonio Huneeus (statements by)
- Jon Hilkevitch (reported by) — His Tribune story of 1 January 2007 broke the O'Hare sighting
Videos
- O'Hare UFO 2006: CNN's interview with United mechanic “Joe”, and Tribune reporter Jon Hilkevitch (subject of)
- Citizen Hearing 2013: Associated Phenomena (discussed in)
- Citizen Hearing 2013: A Global Phenomenon, Part 2 (discussed in)
- Citizen Hearing 2013: Opening statements (Mitchell, Hellyer) (discussed in)
- National Press Club - November 12th, 2007. UFO Close Encounters (discussed in)
Mentioned in this file
- NASA (Organization)
More incidents
- Alderney UFO sighting
- Phoenix Lights
- Belgian UFO wave
- Tehran UFO incident
- USS Theodore Roosevelt encounters (Gimbal / GoFast)
- Air France flight 3532 sighting
Links
- Chicago Tribune, 1 January 2007
- NPR, 1 January 2007 (interview with Hilkevitch)
- NARCAP Technical Report 10 (PDF)