It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a UFO? Whah? No really, UFO spotted over O'Hare International:

[originalpckelly]

"It sounds like a tired joke--but a group of airline employees insist they are in earnest, and they are upset that neither their bosses nor the government will take them seriously.

A flying saucerlike object hovered low over O'Hare International Airport for several minutes before bolting through thick clouds with such intense energy that it left an eerie hole in overcast skies, said some United Airlines employees who observed the phenomenon.

Was it an alien spaceship? A weather balloon lost in the airspace over the world's second-busiest airport? A top-secret military craft? Or simply a reflection from lights that played a trick on the eyes?

Officials at United professed no knowledge of the Nov. 7 event--which was reported to the airline by as many as a dozen of its own workers--when the Tribune started asking questions recently. But the Federal Aviation Administration said its air traffic control tower at O'Hare did receive a call from a United supervisor asking if controllers had spotted a mysterious elliptical-shaped craft sitting motionless over Concourse C of the United terminal."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/columnists/chi-0701010141jan01,0,5874175.column?coll=chi-newsnationworldiraq-hed&vote27156872=1

Or if you're lazy like I am, there's a video right under the title of the story. (The video is not an actual recording of the UFO, but a TV news story. It's content isn't really different from the articles, it's just a shortcut.) Props to VegasWolf for finding this. Who knows, may this is a secret aircraft?

This could be a very dangerous matter if the military has an aircraft with these flying characteristics. How many people could have been killed if an airliner hit one of these things?

[Lerkfish]

1. can't view if you have a macintosh: they go to a lame "too bad you have

a macintosh" page. tells you to download latest WMV player, which I DO already have installed. Bad website design, it just recognizes that I have a mac and throws me back out.

possibly a short synopsis of the video would be nice.

[originalpckelly]

2. Well, it's just the news story...

only a television version of it. You're not missing anything if you can still see the text story.

[Lerkfish]

13. ok thanks...I thought maybe it was captured video or something.

[Bjornsdotter]

6. The reporter

....states that he had to file a Freedom on Information Act form in order for the FAA to release the information.

Other than that it was all of the stuff in the article.

cheers

[frylock]

9. it's a 40 sec hi-res video of the mothership..

it's incredible!

[Lerkfish]

14. LOL! great post!

[Selah]

42. I have been to area 51

It is a bar in Gulf Breeze, Fl. LOL

[Bitwit1234]

3. My Norton fraud detect

tells me the video site is a fraudulant website and won't let me access it.

[originalpckelly]

4. Yeah, I forgot to mention the video is a TV news story...

it doesn't have actual footage of the UFO. There are recordings probably from the control tower. There may even be security camera recordings of the UFO.

[MnFats]

5. lots of weird stuff happens over Lake Michigan..

...not so often near Chicago, but on other parts of the Lake....the Navy has a training facililty on the lake....experimental aircraft?

[originalpckelly]

7. That's what I'm thinking, no alien would want to come to Earth...

I think it's probably some very irresponsible government test. At Area 51, there are no aliens, but there was toxic waste. In fact Johnathan Turley, who we've all probably seen in recent times on Countdown, worked on a case to get the government to comply with it's own environment regulations. I have a feeling they're risking people in the same way, just to keep things secret.

[originalpckelly]

8. Here's more info on the Area 51 toxic waste dumping case:

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/6583/bases022.html

[Dr Batsen D Belfry]

20. No Navy Air activity anymore

Glenview Naval Air Station has been gone for years. Great Lakes Naval, if it is still there, is their cold water basic training facility.

DBDB

[knitter4democracy]

25. Yup. The air bases in Michigan are all Nat'l Guard.

There used to be one in the UP, and I haven't heard if that's still open or not.

[rebel with a cause]

30. Live in the southern part of Illinois and we have had experience like this also.

some people down here use to think they were seeing UFOs and there have been some strange stories told by very ordinary (not strange) people. I often smiled inwardly at their stories, but would not make fun of them,and then it happened to me. One night (at about 2 a.m.) I had to go outside for some reason and there over me was this big black boomerang shaped airship. I just stood there with my mouth open watching it, it was pretty low. The next day I told family and friends about seeing it, and I always contended it was a secret plane flying out of Scott Air Force Base. Well, to make a long story short, it wasn't long until a lot of people was seeing the same thing and was reporting it. A government agency got involved in investigating it, and the AF had to admit it was one of theirs. And so the Stealt bomber was introduced to the world. Of course this was years ago. Not been out looking for any lately.

[originalpckelly]

43. You know, I forgot about Scott AFB.

That may be where this originated from.

[novalib]

10. NOVEMBER 7 Was ELECTION DAY!!!!!!!

The incident over O'Hare Airport happened on November 7!!!!!

NOVEMBER 7!!!!!!!

Election Day!!!!

There were, according to the story, clouds over O'Hare that day!!!

IF the thugs in the White House had wanted to use CONTRAILS to influence the results of the election, they would not -- NOT -- have been able to do so!!!!!

Do the MATH!!!!

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

27. Can You Explain What It Is You're Talking About? Your Post Didn't Make Any Sense To Me And I'm

curious as to what you were trying to say.

Were you serious? Was it a joke I didn't get? Just wondering what you meant by election day and contrails influencing an election. No idea what you were talking about.

[AZBlue]

38. Some on DU believe that contrails are used to spray us with mind-altering drugs

getting us to do what the government wants us to do. Not sure what this poster was trying to say about Nov. 7 and afraid I can't give more info on the contrails as I'm not much of a believer myself - wandered into a few threads one day in another forum, didn't find much fact there for me personally. But, check it out - it's, um, interesting.

[Name removed]

41. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Blue-Jay]

37. OK. I'm not buying your shtick anymore.

Or should I say, I'm NOT buying your SHTICK ANYmore!!!

[blues90]

11. I tend to believe this stuff

I'll tel you why . In the early 60's when I was in my early teens we lived in Schaumberg Illinois . At the time it was nothing more than a spread out un-incorporated area of homes build on sold out farm land .

One day very early in the morning I was woken up being the sound sleeper I was by a heavy rumble that vibrated the house and with bright lights . Nothing at the time could produce such bright light and heavy vibrations and vanish as fast as it appeared so close to the ground .

When we were at breakfast the only one who heard it other than me was my mother , I thought I was nuts until she described the same thing .

[SpiralHawk]

12. "I was just stopping by to warn you all about George AWOL Bush and...

..his corrupt republicon chickenhawk cronies."

- E.T.

[Lautremont]

16. I'll tell you two facts about ET that you probably didn't know:

1. The initials "ET" don't actually stand for "Extra Terrestrial," as is popularly believed, but "Earl Twyker," which is the beloved alien's real name.

2. On a set visit to the film ET, pop sensation Michael Jackson was told by mischevious special effects personnel that the creature was not a fabrication, but rather alien designer Carlo Rambaldi's deformed brother, who had come from Italy and spoke no english. Jackson accepted this as fact, and the movie crew were too abashed to ever set him straight. To this day, Jackson's belief that ET was a real person persists.

[novalib]

17. You MEAN.....????!!!!

Do you mean to tell me that Earl Twyker is NOT real??

I have been sending contributions (via a bank in Nigeria) to help Carlo Rambaldi's deformed brother!!!

The letters I received said that Carlo's brother was injured in a auto accident in Nigeria, and that I needed only to send my name and address to some nice folks in Nigeria.

And NOW you tell me that Carlo has NO brother???!!!!

[Lautremont]

18. I always hate being the bearer of bad news.

Don't feel foolish. Many thousands have fallen for the same scam.

If it's any consolation, Earl Twyker is quite real! He's just not (to my knowledge) a blood relation of Mr. Rambaldi.

[InvisibleTouch]

15. Little Green Men looking for landing clearance?

Pity no one got a picture of it, if it was seen by so many people.

Hmm, November 7th was Election Day, as has been pointed out. Okay, how's this for a scenario: the Galactic Confederation, which has been keeping a surreptitious optic on barbarous little old Sol-3, realizes that the Rethugs and their ilk pose a future threat to the rest of the Universe if they're not stopped here and now. So they send a "scrambler craft" down into the planet's atmosphere, to neutralize all Republican tampering of the voting machines, and allow the people's will to be heard. This allows Democrats to re-take Congress, and sets the stage for a Democratic President in '08 and the dwindling of the Rebublican Party to irrelevance. A new era of peace, love, and environmental awareness begins - resulting in a planet that may one day be seen fit to join the Galactic Confederation as a full-fledged member.

(In case anyone was wondering, yes, this is a joke - just some fun speculation. :) )

[originalpckelly]

19. Well, this story just became public today. There may be security camera footage...

from inside the airport terminal. There may be security cameras outside the airport which would have captured this.

Then there are the communications the pilots had with the control tower. Those are probably on record somewhere.

There may have been witnesses in the terminal, those who were not workers, and they may have had camera phones, they may have moving or still pictures.

[lovuian]

33. We will never see it National security

americans need to wake up

[Peace Patriot]

24. IT'S ABOUT TIME! And the Asgard are smart to be stealthy, with an unknown

number of Gu'uls occupying the Executive Branch! Ever notice how Rumsfeld hid his eyes behind spectacles? And where is he? Hm-m?

[in_cog_ni_to]

21. Did anyone take a cell phone pic? Technology will now change the way these "happenings" are viewed

by the public. When we have pictures taken on cell phones by numerous people...it's sorta difficult for the Government to deny. :) An entire GROUP with proof/pics can't be crazy. The day will come.

[ntesla]

22. UFO Technology Links

For those interested in the technology behind these crafts,

Tether Incident UFO
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6824781342026209092&q=sts+ufo&hl=en

Lifter Project
http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm

Townsend Brown and his Anti-Gravity Discs by Gaston Burridge
http://mutsnuts.htmlplanet.com/antigravity1.htm

Super Capacitor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor

Fusion Power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power

[judaspriestess]

23. its the mother lizard ship n/t

[mnhtnbb]

26. There was a UFO program on National Geographic channel

the other night. It was very informative.

There are a lot of pilots--military and commercial--who have reported seeing UFO's. One guy said he'd logged 30,000 hours and had never seen anything like what he described--which did not match any airplane
or weather balloon or blimp he'd ever seen.

There are incidents where 4 or 5 police officers in different counties observed the same UFO one night.

There are scientists who started out as skeptics who have investigated
some of these reports and become believers.

Can you really look at the vastness of the universe and believe we are alone?

[mnhtnbb]

28. National Geographic Channel will re-air the program Jan 7 see link

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/ET/popup/200612302100.html

[Lisa0825]

34. My dad knew several pilots, and

all of them, after having been flying for many years said at some point everyone sees something they can't explain... and if a pilot flies for 25 years and tries to say he never saw anything unusual, he/she's lying.

That's not me saying it.. it's the pilots.

I am pretty sure there is life somewhere else in this universe. The only doubt I have about them visiting us is the vast amount of energy needed for such travel, and according to other scientists I have read, it would be more feasible for them to use other contact methods than actually traveling. And maybe they have, but the public has not been made aware of it.

[nicknameless]

52. You're assuming that human beings know everything there is to know about space travel.

If there were an easier, more efficient way to travel in space, we'd know about it?
I'd have to disagree. Humans don't know everything there is to know -- on any subject, most likely.

[Lisa0825]

53. You're assuming I'm assuming.

I merely said it was my only doubt, not that I know anything to be true or false. I agree there is a lot we don't know. I would just expect to have communication before contact, that's all.

[nicknameless]

54. This is the part I was responding to:

"The only doubt I have about them visiting us is the vast amount of energy needed for such travel..."

[Lisa0825]

56. and i did not say it was impossible.

i didn't say anything definitive; just that that was the one thing i had doubts about.

[SidDithers]

29. Oh, I gotta be the 5th rec on this one...

:rofl:

Sid

[daleo]

31. A UFO in Chicago - the INS should send Kolchak to investigate

We just got the DVD for Christmas - what a great show that was.

[Poll_Blind]

32. My pet theory is that a disc-shaped object like this is a compressed...

...bubble of something, maybe plasma(?), which is compressed as it rises after being created. I'd love to think it was a UFO but I don't think they'd play games. Instead, almost equally-fascinating is the possibility that this is some here-to-fore unidentified weather phenomena. There are a number of amazingly beautiful rare weather phenomena which have lately been identified and classified, some thanks to the Space Shuttle!

  Ten, twenty years ago, something like ball-lightning (which I believe is also a plasma- another state of matter outside of solid, liquid, gas and Bose-Einstein condensates) was still fodder for shows like Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe or Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of..." Now they have gone, as they say, from science fiction to science fact. Other things, even more exotic and unimaginably enormous phenomena like Sprites, Elves, Jets (and others!) have literally gone from being classified as pure flights of fancy are now well-known with many (spectacular!) sightings.

  If alien races are anything like humans, I think it's fair to say they would be likely to enslave us or otherwise exploit our planet in a sort of galactic manifest-destiny once they "discovered" us. And there's also the likelihood that if they were peaceful/benevolent that humans would be equally-likely to start shit or nuke 'em (there's a lot of fools in the Nuclear Club, currently) out of suspicion or some religion-based nervous breakdown. I also think it's just plain old more likely that it's weather phenomeon: Interstellar distances, with our current level of technology, are mind-bogglingly vast expanses which the human mind can conceive of no more easily than all the grains of sand at Pismo Beach.

PB

[Occulus]

50. Here's mine, FWIW:

These craft are shaped the way they are because they have to be. They very obviously use some form of field propulsion; no exhaust, little or no emissions, etc. This may- MAY- also explain why they don't ever appear on radar- again, because they are using some form of field propulsion which blinds radar systems to detecting them at all.

As to the 'why' of their shape, I would think if they are using field propulsion- as seems apparent- the craft would have to be of a similar shape to the generated field. If they use a generator inside the craft that happens to produce a toroid-shaped field, then it stands to reason the craft itself would be shaped such to take maximum advantage of the field itself- as much of the field filled by the craft as possible, with the craft completely enclosed by the field.

I think the explanations of weather are all washed up. Ball lightning, for example, is well-known to be lightning. Jets and sprites are also known phenomena. No offense, but weather does not do the things these sightings do, period. My take is, the people saying 'it's all weather' aren't aware of what weather peenomena can and cannot do. No, the simplest explanation by far is that these things are our own craft, that we've figured out how to manipulate gravity to the point that we can pilot craft far faster and maneuver more abruptly than pilots would otherwise be physically able to handle.

I think the technology behind these craft very well may make petrochemicals largely irrelevant, and that for reasons of "national security" (read: $$$$$$$$$, billions of dollars' worth) this tech won't be seeing the light of day anytime soon. Labeling them as UFOs and summarily dismissing sightings is thus nothing more than a very clever ruse; The experienced pilots and tower control personnel can say they saw 'something' until they're blue in the face, but because the technology is so very far advanced beyond anything we currently posess, nobody believes them, even with decades' worth of experience behind them. It's really very clever, and the proof that it works is that people keep thinking they must come from outer space, since 'nothing' we have can do 'that'.

Remember: people were seeing a flying wedge for years before the stealth bomber was publicly unveiled. Nobody knew what that was, either. Same for the stealth fighters, and the oft-referred to but oficially denied Aurora plane, reputed to leave a 'punched-donut' contrail. No aliens are required. There's a lot of very odd research going on out there, and the strangest of it is all things we will never hear about (black budget projects) until They decide otherwise.

[nicknameless]

35. They showed up on election day, obviously to thank the Dems.

:thumbsup:

[Jokinomx]

36. Thanks for posting...

Yet another credible sighting... yet humans can't grasp what they can't explain...so what do humans do when they don't have an answer...they make one up. Religions have been doing it for centuries.

ANYBODY that has seriously researched this subject with an open mind can only come to one conclusion...we are not alone.

We are only now waking up to the realization of that fact. But when you have been told since you a small child that this can't be... it is near impossible to break from the misconception that we may not be the top of the intelligence ladder on planet earth. There have been hundreds if not thousands of witnesses and videos of unidentified objects from all over our planet. I suspect this is another one.

I am not saying what this thing was...but people saw it. Believe them.

just my humble opinion....

[Celebration]

39. DU eyewitness

Reported it at the time.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=245x30262#33573

[originalpckelly]

40. HOLY SHIT THAT IS SO COOL!!!!!

:woohoo:

[Cooley Hurd]

44. Ovefr a dozen people see it and no camera phone footage?

:shrug:

Could it have been a hologram?

[devilgrrl]

45. It's Klaatu and Gort...

coming to tell us the score.

[siligut]

46. The Day The Earth Stood Still!

Even if it is a JC analogy, I love the movie and the idea.

[OneBlueSky]

47. Klaatu barada nikto . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaatu_barada_nikto

[magellan]

48. One of the corporate news stations reported this yesterday

I caught the last part of the report, the weather guy insisting "it was just weather phenomenon, folks", and they all laughed about it. May have been CNN or Headline News.

[donheld]

49. Condoleeeezzzaaa finally got spotted flying around on her broom

:shrug:

[Scriptor Ignotus]

51. I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. -eom

[kitty1]

55. Oprah's in Chicago. To bad she couldn't snag them for an interview

Do you think they would have jumped up and down on her couch in honour of Tom.