So, this is kind of a juicy little aviation/extraterrestrial nugget.
Did an American Airlines pilot really see an unidentified flying object (UFO) over the skies of New Mexico - of all places - during a recent flight from Cincinnati to Phoenix, Arizona?
And as is usually the case with UFO sightings, there is enough intrigue and mystery and vagueness surrounding the incident to create a buzz.
It happened on Sunday, late in the flight, when the pilot of American Airlines Flight 2292 asked Federal Aviation Administration traffic controllers, "Do you have any targets up here? We just had something go right over the top of us. I hate to say this, but it looked like a long, cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing moving really fast right over the top of us."
The transmission was taped by Amarillo, Texas resident Steve Douglass and confirmed to be authentic by American Airlines, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
"Following a debrief with our Flight Crew and additional information received, we can confirm this radio transmission was from American Airlines Flight 2292 on Feb. 21," an American Airlines spokesman wrote in an email.
But the spokesman referred additional questions to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI told the Journal that is "is aware of the reported incident. While our policy is to neither confirm nor deny investigations, the FBI works continuously with our federal, state, local and tribal partners to share intelligence and protect the public."
Hmmm.
The FAA did not return messages for comment.
Douglass, who wrote a book titled "The Comprehensive Guide to Military Monitoring," says no significant military aircraft presence was noted on ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-broadcast) logs.
A spokeswoman at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque said "We have no knowledge of this. We're not aware of anything," Lally Laksbergs told the Journal.
New Mexico is considered to be home base by UFO enthusiasts, starting with incidents in Roswell, N.M., back in the 1940s.
Douglass said that he talked to an ex-military pilot about the incident and was told that for the pilot to see the object it must have been coming at them practically head on.
"So whatever it was came fast, right at them and right over them, which gave them a big enough scare that they had to report it," he said.
Douglass told the paper that when the military conducts flight tests it notifies the FAA, which makes sure there are no commercial airline flights in the area at the time of the test.
"If the military can't explain what it is, what's flying out there that we don't know about?" he asked.
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