Two charter pilots cruising over Ohio said a metallic object appeared near their aircraft at 41,000 feet.
It was vertical, silver, highly reflective and shaped like a smooth pill. The crew first considered a weather balloon, but the object’s uniform shape and apparent movement left them with a far bigger question.
Then they called air traffic control.
The investigator who reviewed the case laid out the reported altitude, size and radar problem in a short video:
The encounter happened on August 16 near Tiffin, Ohio, according to the National UFO Reporting Center. The center’s public file includes the original crew account, a follow-up interview and images later supplied by the captain.
The two pilots were flying an empty private charter aircraft at Flight Level 410, or 41,000 feet. They had leveled off around 8:01 p.m. Eastern as they approached a major storm front with cloud tops reportedly reaching 53,000 to 55,000 feet.
They chose a gap between the clouds because it appeared to offer the safest path. Their aircraft later encountered engine icing and moderate turbulence inside the weather system.
Before entering the clouds, the captain, identified only as “J” in the public case file, saw the object slightly above their altitude and directly ahead. He told the investigator it appeared to emerge from the storm wall they were approaching.
His initial estimate placed it about five miles away. During a later interview, he said it may have been only two or three miles ahead when he first saw it.
The pilots believed it was holding around 43,000 feet and moving northwest as their aircraft traveled southeast. It passed on their left side in what the captain described as a parallel, opposite-direction track.
The shape is the detail that kept pulling him away from the balloon explanation.
He said it looked like a vertical capsule with the same width at the top and bottom. He reported no wings, lights, seams, creases or visible control surfaces.
The captain compared its height to roughly three-quarters of the aircraft’s length. The plane was just over 40 feet long, producing a later estimate that the object stood about 30 feet tall.
Its surface appeared polished and metallic. He believed the brightness came from sunlight reflecting off it rather than from any light produced by the object itself.
The crew’s onboard collision-avoidance system showed no nearby aircraft. The captain’s ForeFlight display, which receives aircraft position data, also showed nothing corresponding to what they were watching.
About a minute into the encounter, the captain contacted Cleveland Center and asked whether another aircraft or a weather balloon was in the area.
According to the case report, the controller said no identified aircraft or non-reporting object appeared on radar where the pilots saw it.
The object passed behind them and remained visible for roughly another minute. The captain took one photograph after it had moved farther away, when he estimated it was about seven miles behind the aircraft.
The photograph released with the story shows the small reflective object the pilots reported seeing:
The image does not settle the case. It was taken after the closest part of the encounter, and a distant object in a phone photograph offers limited detail.
The pilots’ account carries more information than the picture alone: two trained observers, an estimated two-minute visual encounter, no corresponding traffic on their cockpit systems and a real-time call to air traffic control.
The Daily Mail reports that the crew continued watching until the object disappeared behind them. The encounter lasted about two minutes while the charter aircraft was traveling at roughly 380 miles per hour.
The captain took the iPhone photograph after the object had already passed, when he estimated it was about seven miles away. He emphasized that his description of the shape and surface came from the earlier, closer portion of the encounter.
He said its passage reminded him of oncoming aircraft he had seen many times before, giving him the impression that it was moving under its own propulsion. That remains an observation rather than a proven explanation.
The report also notes that the crew checked both TCAS and ForeFlight before calling Cleveland Center. None of those systems supplied an identity for the object, and the pilots watched it recede until distance finally took it from view.
A balloon still has not been definitively ruled out.
However, the National UFO Reporting Center says its follow-up found no matching planned balloon launch. The organization also obtained FAA radar data and the air traffic control recording through a Freedom of Information Act request.
NUFORC says the data contained no radar return that explained the pilots’ sighting. Its October case update also says the FAA had received no notice of a balloon launch conflict in the area.
The weather adds another complication. After the encounter, the charter aircraft entered the clouds and experienced moderate turbulence and engine icing, conditions the captain believed would have severely tested an ordinary balloon.
The center says the object’s reported 30-foot height, vertical orientation and uniform width also made a conventional balloon harder to reconcile with the account. Investigators still left the balloon possibility open while describing the case as unexplained.
Some viewers also noticed that the case video carried an AI disclosure.
Hansen said the label applied to computer-generated recreation images used to illustrate the reported encounter. He said the radio communication and the other case images were raw materials obtained through FOIA:
The distinction matters. A recreation can help show geometry and distance, but it is not photographic evidence of the object.
The pilot’s photograph, the ATC audio and the radar records must be judged on their own.
There is also an aviation-safety issue here that has nothing to do with aliens.
A large unidentified object in controlled airspace can threaten an aircraft regardless of who built it or why it is there. A collision at hundreds of miles per hour could be catastrophic.
The case update says the controller joked about the color of the alien when directing the crew toward a NUFORC report. The organization argues that ridicule can discourage pilots from reporting objects that may present a real flight hazard.
That is a fair concern.
The pilots saw something, and their cockpit systems did not identify it.
Air traffic control reportedly had no matching radar contact, and the later review did not find a balloon launch that explained it.
Those facts do not prove an extraordinary origin.
They do leave an extraordinary encounter unresolved — 30 feet of reflective metal, reported at 43,000 feet, beside a charter aircraft threading its way through a wall of storms over Ohio.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
The post Pilots Spot Metallic ‘Pill’ at 41,000 Feet — Then Air Traffic Control Checks the Radar appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.
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[H/T 100PercentFedUp]
