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TIMESTAMPS

CASE
STUDIES IN PILOT MISPERCEPTIONS OF "UFOs"

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON
PARANET, MAY 15, 1994

How good are pilots'
"UFO reports"? There is some dispute over whether the features they describe
are imaginative interpretations of raw visual stimuli (based on their own aviation
experience) or are sound renditions of raw perceptions. Two recent "test cases"
are illustrative: the November 5, 1990

re-entry of the Gorizont/Proton rocket body across northern France and Germany,
and the January 28, 1994 launch of Progress TM-21. Both events were observed
by airline crews. Arguably, in both cases, the pilots over-interpreted their
perceptions and subconsciously introduced "deductions" and

"conclusions" to shape their remembered perceptions.

"Special Report to FSR
[Flying Saucer Review} (May 1991)", by Paul Whitehead,

Summer 1991 issue, page 10

It was a dark, early
evening (6:15 pm local time), on November 5th 1990, and a British Airways passenger
aircraft was en route to London, flying over the Alps at 31,000 ft. The crew
heard a nearby Lufthansa jet report and query "traffic ahead". The BA captain
peered intently ahead into the night sky. What he saw was hardly what he expected!

       
(At the time, the European press reported the incident, and the "official line"
was given: the UFOs were in fact "space debris from an old satellite re-entering
the atmosphere".)

       
Well, MAYBE! But more details have now emerged. An airline pilot, well known
to me and based  in the UK, has spoken personally to the BA captain who
logged the report, at the request of SIGAP (Surray Investigations Group on Aerial
Phenomena). SIGAP has agreed to the captain's request not to make public his
name, in order to protect him from publicity, and FSR respects that request.
The airline pilot who spoke to the BA captain also wishes to remain anonymous.

       
What did the BA captain see? Here is his comment.

       
"I looked ahead and saw, somewhat to my surprise, ahead and to the right and
higher than we were, a set of bright lights. One of the lights, the leading
one, was brighter than the others, and appeared bigger, almost disklike. It
was followed closely by another three that seemed to be in a V formation. As
I

watched, I heard another aircraft crew also reporting seeing lights.

      
"I watched the objects intently as they moved across my field of view, right
to left, ahead and high. It was then, on hearing the report from the other aircraft,
that I realized I was watching something much further away than I had first
thought. The other report came from France."

       
Was it a satellite re-entry? The pilot stated: "It certainly didn't look like
that to me. I have seen a re-entry before and this was different."

       
But it was the BA captain's further comments that are causing amazement and
intense interest. SIGAP has released the information to UFO researcher and writer
Tim Good, and we hope to have more comprehensive details this year.

       
That same night, a colleague of the captain, in another BA aircraft, reported
two "very bright, mystifying lights" while flying over the North Sea. Two days
later, an RAF Tornado pilot told the captain that on the same evening (5th November)
his Tornado -- while flying with another squadron aircraft, had been "approached
by bright lights". The lights, he reported, "formated on the Tornadoes". (This
expression "formate" is apparently used to indicate a deliberate intent)

       
The accompanying Tornado pilot was so convinced that they were on collision
course with the lights (apparently nine of them were seen) that he "broke away"
and took "violent evasive action". This same pilot later added that he thought
he was heading directly for a C5 Galaxy, a giant US transport plane.


The formation of UFOs carried "straight on course and shot off ahead at speed
-- they were nearly supersonic. Some C5", he said, indicating that they were
going faster than the speed a C5 can achieve.

       
The pilot known to Paul Whitehead commented, "This is all a good true story,
and could do with an explanation. All the pilots are adamant that what they
had seen was definitely not satellite debris -- and they should know," END

National Enquirer, March
12, 1991, page 50: "Airline pilot in chilling brush with giant UFO", by Fleur
Brenham. Has photo of "Veteran pilot, Capt. Mike D'Alton. He's convinced it
came from outer space."

       
A massive glowing UFO stunned a veteran British Airways pilot and his crew when
it shot in front of their Boeing 737 on a night flight from Rome to London --
then zoomed out of sight at fantastic speed,

       
"This thing was not of this world," declared Capt. Mike D'Alton. "In all my
23 years of flying I've never seen a craft anything like this."

       
Capt. D'Alton says he's convinced the mysterious craft came from outer space
because: It was traveling at tremendous speed, but caused no sonic boom. . .it
had a bizarre shape like nothing he'd ever set eyes on  . . . and it made
a sharp turn while flying at high speeds -- an impossible maneuver that would
rip any man-made aircraft to bits. Just as incredible, when Capt. D'Alton checked
with area air traffic controllers, they hadn't detected a thing!

       
"There was nothing on the radar screens of any of the control towers it was
flying over," he said.

       
The encounter began at 6:03 p.m. last November 5 as Capt. D'Alton's airliner
was flying over Genoa, Italy.

       
"The rest of the crew saw it, too," he said. "What we saw was one large, fairly
bright light. Ahead of it was a formation of three fainter lights in a triangle.
Another faint light was behind the large light and was slightly lower.

       
"The craft was flying level, going much too fast to be a man-made aircraft.
I've flown all over the world, and I know this thing wasn't a shooting star,
space debris or the northern lights."

       
Said Bob Parkhouse, the flight's chief steward: "The UFO was moving from left
to right across the horizon. It was a sight I'd never seen before!"

       
The crew watched the craft for two minutes, said Capt. D'Alton. "Then it took
a lightning-fast right-angle turn and zoomed out of sight."

       
Other pilots, including a Lufthansa German Airlines captain, reported a UFO
sighting around the same time. Capt D'Alton said.

       
"It had to be something from another planet -- because it was definitely not
man-made!"

 

>From Tim Good's "UFO
Report 1992", pp. 136-7.

5 November 1990: Genoa,
Italy/North Sea

       
British Airways Captain Mike D'Alton reported sighting a UFO during the night
flight in a Boeing 737 from Rome to Gatwick, describing it as a silver disc
with three faint points of light in arrow formation and a fourth light behind
it.

       
Captain D'Alton said the object was visible for about 2 minutes over Genoa.
'I've never seen anything like it before and can't explain what it was. My co-
pilot and I called in two cabin crew to see it and then it went out of sight.
Ground radar couldn't pick it up, so it must have been travelling at


phenomenal speed.' (Sunday Telegraph, London/Sunday Mail, Glasgow, 11 November
1990)

       
That same night, another BA captain reported two 'very bright mystifying lights'
while flying over the North Sea, and later spoke to an RAF Tornado pilot who,
together with another Tornado from the same squadron, had been 'approached by
bright lights' which 'formated' on the Tornadoes. The

accompanying Tornado pilot was so convinced that they were on collision course
with the lights -- apparently nine were seen -- that he 'broke away' and took
'violent evasive action'. The formation of UFOs continued 'straight on course
and shot off ahead at speed -- they were nearly supersonic.  .  .'

       
(These incidents were confirmed to Paul Whitehead of the Surray Investigation
Group on Aerial Phenomena via another airline pilot, who had spoken with the
BA pilot involved in the North Sea incident, and reported to me by Paul in April
1991. . . . In addition, the following report may provide

corroboration.) (more)

5 November 1990: Near
Rheindalen, Germany/North Sea

       
According to a highly placed RAF Germany source, two terrific explosions were
heard on two separate occasions at night in the Rheindalen area. After the second
explosion (at 22:00) the crew of a Phantom jet reported UFOs headed north in
a 'finger' formation.

       
Separately, two Tornado jets over the North Sea encountered two large round
objects, each with five blue lights and several other white lights around the
rim. As the Tornadoes closed to investigate, one of the UFOs headed for one
of the jets, which had to take violent evasive action to avoid collision. The
two unknowns then headed north until they were out of sight. Nothing showed
on the

radar screens of the Tornadoes.

5-6 November 1990: Belgium,
France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland

       
Mysterious aerial objects, variously described as orange balls, triangles and
points of light were reported during the night by hundreds of witnesses in Belgium,
France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. Some described a moving shape comprising
three, five or six brilliant points of light. Experts in

Munich and other countries suggested that a meteorite or satellite re-entry
was to blame.

       
But in Belgium, dozens reported a triangular object with three lights, flying
slowly and soundlessly to the south-west, and the air force said it was studying
the reports in liaison with neighboring air forces. Several crew members of
civilian and military planes also sighted UFOs, including a British pilot, who
reported four objects flying in formation over the Ardennes hills in south Belgium.

       
In France, Jean-Jacques Velasco, director of Service for the Investigation of
Re-entry Phenomena, said an investigation would be launched, and confirmed that
several airline pilots had reported sightings but that no radar contact was
recorded in French airspace. One Air France pilot told a radio interviewer:
'We were on a flight to Barcelona at about 33,000 feet at 19:03 hours when we
first saw the shape. It couldn't have been a satellite (re- entry) because it
was there for three or four minutes'.

       
In Italy, six airline pilots reported 'a mysterious and intense white light'
south-east of Turin. Pilots also reported five white smoke trails nearby. Police
in Bavaria were swamped with calls from people reporting streaks of light with
tails of fire at about 19:00 on 5 November (Glasgow Herald, 7 November 1990).

Oberg comments: these
pilots made many, many perceptual and interpretative errors, including:

1. In FSR, the anonymous
BA pilot (obviously D'Alton) recalls: "One of the lights . .. was brighter than
the others, and appeared bigger, almost disklike." It was just as light, a piece
of burning debris, and the "disk" interpretation was a mental pattern conjured
up from previous experience, not from this actual apparition. Note that later,
Good alters this comment to have the pilot unequivocally call it "a silver disc".

2. The main light "was
followed closely by another three that seemed to be in a V formation," according
to the pilot. Referring to a "formation" is an assumption of intelligent control.
The pieces of flaming debris were scattered randomly in a group and stayed approximately
in the same relative positions, but the pilots misinterpreted this to mean they
were flying in formation.

3. FSR reports the pilot
saying "I watched the objects intently as they moved across my field of view,
right to left," but the objects' actual motion was left to right, as reported
elsewhere correctly. Either the FSR writer, or the pilot, jumbled this key piece
of information.

4. The pilot did not
believe the apparition was a satellite re-entry because " I have seen a re-entry
before and this was different." These re-entries are particularly spectacular
because of the size of the object, and the pilot was speaking from an inadequate
experience base here.

5. The RAF military
pilots in the Tornadoes concluded that "the lights 'formated on the Tornadoes',
which is the kind of thing a fighter pilot is trained to detect and avoid, not
dispassionately contemplate. The lights, of course, never changed course, but
the pilots who were surprised by them feared the worst.

6. The accompanying
Tornado pilot was so convinced that they were on collision course with the lights
that he "broke away" and took "violent evasive action". This move would be prudent
in an unknown situation, but there's no need to believe that the perception
of dead-on approach was really accurate. Since the flaming debris was tens of
miles high, no real "collision course" ever existed, outside the mind of the
pilot.

7. D'Alton in the National
Enquirer is quoted as claiming " it made a sharp turn while flying at high speeds
-- an impossible maneuver that would rip any man-made aircraft to bits. " Again,
the actual object never made such a turn, and the pilot's over-interpretation
of what the object MUST be experiencing was based on mistaken judgments of actual
distance and motion.

8. After two minutes
of flying straight, said D'Alton, ". . .it took a lightning-fast right-angle
turn and zoomed out of sight." But we know that the actual observed object never
made such a maneuver, but D'Alton remembered it clearly when trying to explain
in his own mind how it disappeared so fast.

9. The newspaper account,
quoted in Good's book, has D'Alton claiming that "ground radar couldn't pick
it up, so it must have been travelling at phenomenal speed." Actually, the speed
would have had nothing to do with radar failing to pick it up, but the actual
distance -- which D'Alton misjudged, leading to subsequent erroneous interpretations
-- did.

10. The Tornado pilots
described the flaming debris as " two large round objects, each with five blue
lights and several other white lights around the rim." Since they were used
to seeing other structured vehicles with lights mounted on them, when they spotted
this unusual apparition, that's the way

they misperceived and remembered it.

11.  "In Belgium,
dozens reported a triangular object with three lights, flying slowly and soundlessly
to the south-west," but these were separate fireball fragments at a great distance,
which witnesses assumed were lights on some larger structure. Their slow angular
rate was misinterpreted to be a genuine slow speed because their true distance
was grossly underestimated.

12. "A British pilot
. . . reported four objects flying in formation over the Ardennes hills in south
Belgium." The pilot may have been over southern Belgium, but the objects he
saw didn't have to be, they were hundreds of miles away. And despite his instinctive
(and wrong) assumption the lights were

"flying in formation", they were randomly-space fireball fragments.

13. Note that Good writes
that "Jean-Jacques Velasco,. . . said an investigation would be launched," but
Good saw the results of that investigation before his book went to press, and
he neglected to tell his

readers that Velasco proved the lights were from the satellite re-entry. Such
selective omissions make many such stories appear far stronger than they really
are.

14.  One Air France
pilot told a radio interviewer: '. . . It couldn't have been a satellite (re-entry)
because it was there for three or four minutes', but such reasoning is groundless
since near-horizontal re-entriers can be seen for many minutes, especially from
airplanes at high altitude. The pilot didn't know this, and rejected that explanation
erroneously.

 

15. "In Italy, six airline pilots reported 'a mysterious and intense white light'
south-east of Turin. Pilots also reported five white smoke trails nearby." They
may have been near Turin when they saw the lights and assumed incorrectly they
were 'nearby', but the lights were far, far away.

_____________________

"Tajik Air" UFO, January
28, 1994, based on message from the American Embassy in Dushanbe, Tajikistan
(Mr. Escudero), Jan 31/0310Z. Selected passages follow:

1. Tajik air chief pilot,
amcit [american citizen] ed rhodes, and his two american pilot colleagues reported
jan 29 that, on january 27, they had encountered a ufo while flying at 41,000
feet in their boeing 747 at lat 45 north and long 55 east, over kazakhstan.
They first encountered the object as a bright light of enormous intensity, approaching
them from over the horizon to the east at a great rate of speed and at a much
higher altitude than their own. They watched the object for some forty minutes
as it maneuvered in

circles, corkscrews, and made 90-degree turns at rapid rates of speed and under
very high g's. Captain rhodes took several photos with a pocket olympus camera
and will send copies to the embassy and tajikistan desk (lowry taylor) in the
department, if they come out. After some time, the object adopted a

horizontal high-speed course and disappeared over the horizon.

2. As it was dark when
the object was observed, the crew were unable to discern its shape. They described
the light it emitted as having a "bow wave" and as resembling a high-speed photo
of a bullet in flight, in which a very small object gives off a much larger
trailing wave of heat/light. Some forty- five minutes after the initial sighting,
as the sun was rising, the aircraft flew under the contrails which the object
had left behind. The plane was making over 500 knots. Rhodes estimated the altitude
of the contrails at approximately 100,000 feet, noting that there is too little
air/moisture at that extreme altitude to enable the creation of contrails by
the propulsion mechanisms of ordinary aircraft which might be able to reach
that height. The paths of the contrails reflected the maneuvers of the object,
i.e., circles,

corkscrews, etc.

3. To our suggestion
that the object might have been a meteor entering and skipping off the earth's
atmosphere, rhodes and his crew were adament that they had seen thousands of
"falling stars" and other space junk entering the atmosphere in their years
of flying passenger aircraft for panam. This, they

insisted, was nothing like a meteor. On the basis of its speed and maneuverability,
rhodes expressed the opinion, which his crew seemed to support, that the object
was extraterrestrial and under intelligent control.

end of message

Oberg: Regarding this
"Tajik Air" case, here's some more relevant data and comments.  The Russian
Baikonur Cosmodrome (space launch center) is located at approx 46N 66E, east
of the Aral Sea in independent Kazakhstan.

The regularly scheduled
unmanned supply ship Progress M-21 was launched toward the Mir space station
at 0212 GMT on January 28 (a Friday) aboard a "Soyuz" (SL-4) booster. It blasted
off and then pitched over on a slightly north-of-east course, and nine minutes
later achieved orbit about 140 miles up, 1200

miles down range, at a speed of 17,600 mph. During ascent it followed a straight
course on a constant heading. However, at about 2.5 minutes into the flight
the four strap-on boosters separated and fell back to Earth still trailing smoke.

The "Tajik Air" report
does not provide direction of eyewitness view or direction of motion of the
airliner. However, if one assumes it was flying eastwards, the launch would
have been seen directly in front of them and they would have passed under the
booster exhaust trail (NOT a jet engine

"condensation", or CONtrail) much later.

These booster plumes
are known to last 40-60 minutes after a launch, which would explain the air
crew's feeling that they observed the UFO for that long. The plumes are twisted
into corkscrews and zig-zags by the varying directional winds in the upper atmosphere.

This air crew made many,
many perceptual mistakes, including:

1. A "bright light of
enormous intensity" must be calibrated with a pilot's dark-adapted yes in a
dimly lit cockpit. From hundreds of miles away a rocket is indeed a "bright
light" but it it is hardly dazzling, blinding, or "of enormous intensity".

2. They concluded the
UFO "approached them from over the horizon" when it merely rose and grew brighter
as it was at all times flying away from their reported position. They mistook
"brightening" for "nearing", an extremely common UFO witness error.

3. They claim to have
watched "the object" for forty minutes, although the rocket would have been
out of sight in four or five minutes. The smoke plumes. sunlit in the pre-dawn
upper atmosphere, would have been visible ahead of them in the sky for forty
minutes, but there was no "object" there.

4.  The pilots
reported seeing "circles, corkscrews, and 90-degree turns" but the actual rocket
did no such maneuvers. However, the smoke trail would within half an hour have
portrayed such a path, so the pilots could have simply assumed they were seeing
an accurate history of the object's original path,

instead of a smoke trail distorted by winds. They could NOT have actually seen
the UFO performing these maneuvers, but in hindsight they could easily believe
they did.

5.  The UFO maneuvered
"under very high g's", according to the pilots. But that rests on assumptions
of actual distances and actual speeds, as well as the erroneous belief that
it really changed course as reflected in the smoke trail.

6. The pilots recall
that "after some time, the object adopted a horizontal high-speed course", when
the rocket had been flying essentially straight and horizontally away from them
since early in its flight". Their report of a non- existent gross change in
course and speed must have been a rationalization to explain its eventual disappearance.

7. The pilots "were
adament that they had seen thousands of 'falling stars' and other space junk
entering the atmosphere in their years of flying. . . . This, they insisted,
was nothing like a meteor." While true, it mis-aims attention at one explanation
while omitting the other, a rocket launching.

8.  The pilots
concluded that "on the basis of its speed and maneuverability, . . .the object
was extraterrestrial and under intelligent control." One last erroneous interpretation
based on all previous misinterpretations and imaginations.

Conclusion:

Who still believes the
pilots' testimony is an accurate account of what they actually saw?

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