Sorry I've been so scarce recently. I have to finish writing my dissertation this month (ok, by next week basically) and I'm teaching a new class which just started on Wednesday.
So I've had no time to blog. I've been keeping up on stuff for the Spooky Paradigm. I'm hoping around the turn of the month to have a day and just go through all of it. Until then, I apologize if you've been checking for new material.
On November 7, 2006, up to a dozen employees from United Airlines reported a UFO, without lights, was hovering over O'Hare Airport in Chicago. A multiple witness sighting by airline workers of a daylight disc at a major airport. Not surprisingly, this is getting a lot more press attention than a typical local news report about lights in the sky. I can't remember the last time I saw a UFO report in the Washington Post. Jeff Rense posts on his role in bringing this to the attention of the Chicago Tribune.
Pilot sightings of UFOs are not new, and continue to this day (as a report in the UK has recently shown). These are often considered the best cases by nuts and bolts ufologists, as they are by "reliable" eyewitnesses who are familiar with aerial phenomenon and aircraft.
I gotta admit, this is reminding somewhat, from a media perspective, of the Michigan sightings in 1966 that spawned the "swamp gas" meme, the Condon Report, and the closure of Blue Book (as discussed in my post on Gerald Ford, who brought federal attention to that case). We'll see if anything follows this and gains traction.
EDIT: MSNBC has an interesting skeptical take on the sighting. Interesting not for the explanations they suggest (though they are of interest to understanding the case) but rather for how the case is being handled by the media.
EDIT: Leaked video from a Chicago TV news show suggests that a reporter from the Chicago Tribune, John Hilkevitch. is trying to get his hands on a photograph of the object, taken by a pilot.
