UFO Spotted: American Airlines pilot reports a flying 'cylindrical object' in shocking audio clip, FBI probes
An American Airlines passenger flight over New Mexico reportedly had an encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO) on Sunday, February 21. In an audio transmission recorded by Steven Douglas on his blog, the pilot was heard saying that the unidentified object was flying right on top of them.
According to the reports, the incident took place around 1 pm CST and the flight was almost around 37,000 feet at the time of the sighting. The flight started from Hebron, Kentucky, and went on to land in Phoenix, Arizona.
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A 15-second audio clip managed to capture the pilot’s voice as he tries to convey that he spotted a unique-looking object above the clouds during the flight. He said: “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 pilot added. Many believed that the military could have been testing their new missile and what the pilot saw was actually a cylindrical-shaped missile from the US Army. However, Douglass feels that the unidentified object can’t be a missile because the military always gives prior notice to the Federal Aviation Administration to keep the flights out of the area.
“When tests occur the military notifies the FAA, aircraft are kept out of the area and their schedules and strict flight lanes at aircraft need to stay in to not interfere with these tests. That's not what happened yesterday,” Douglass said in an interview with ABC 7.
American Airlines ropes in FBI for investigation
The recordings went viral on the internet and prompted American Airlines to come out with a statement. Initially, they said that there’s no confirmation that the particular radio transmission came from one of its flight crews. However, the company retracted their earlier statement and confirmed that the audio recording was indeed from American Airlines Flight 2292.
In a statement to Fox News, the company said: “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.” The matter is now being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “For any additional questions on this, we encourage you to reach out to the FBI,” the company added.
As of now, it is really difficult to say what the object was, but the news of the alleged encounter has made everyone curious and people have already started drawing conclusions that the pilot indeed saw a fast-moving UFO.
UFO sightings in recent years
There have been a plethora of UFO sightings all over the world. This is not the first time in recent years that pilots have opened up about seen incomprehensible things in the skies.
Last year, the Department of Defense went on to release three videos taken by US Navy pilots that captured mysterious unidentified objects at high speeds. After a thorough investigation, the Pentagon admitted that whatever the pilots saw in the skies is characterized as ‘unidentified’.
“The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified’,” the statement read. According to a report in ABC News, the UFO sightings in North America saw a rise in 2019. The National UFO Reporting Center reported that it received 5,971 sightings in 2019 as compared to 3,395 in 2018.