The Sighting
At approximately 4:30 p.m on Tuesday Nov 7th, 2006, federal authorities at Chicago O'Hare International Airport received a report that a group of twelve airport employees were witnessing a metallic, saucer-shaped craft hovering over gate C-17.
According to eyewitness reports, the strange object was first spotted by a ramp employee who was "pushing back" United Airlines flight 446 which was departing Chicago for Charlotte, North Carolina. The ramp worker then apprised the flight crew of UA446 of the existence of the spinning, metallic object above their aircraft, and it is believed that both the pilot and copilot of this aircraft then also witnessed the object. According to John Hilkevitch of the Chicago Tribune in an interview on CNN's 'Glenn Beck' Program: "The disk was visible for approximately two minutes and was seen by close to a dozen United Airlines employees, ranging from pilots to supervisors, who heard chatter on the radio and raced out to view it."CNN Transcript of the Interview (scroll to bottom)The UFO was then seen to suddenly accelerate straight up through the overcast skies. Witnesses reported that the object left behind an open hole of clear air in the cloud layer and that the mysterious hole disappeared within a few minutes.
Official Reaction
Both United Airlines and The FAA first officially denied that they had any information on the O'Hare UFO sighting until the Chicago Tribune, who were investigating the report, filed a freedom of Information Act request. The FAA then ordered an internal review of air-traffic communications tapes to comply with the Tribune FOIA request which subsequently uncovered a call by the United supervisor to an FAA manager in the airport tower concerning the UFO sighting.
The official FAA stance concludes that the sighting was caused by "weather phenomenon" and that the agency is not investigating the incident. Some witnesses interviewed by the Tribune were apparently "upset" that federal officials declined to further investigate the matter. Chicago Tribune Article
Media Coverage of the Incident
The UFO incident was picked up by mainstream media such as CNN, CBS, Fox News, etc and was widely and seriously reported which is somewhat unusual for todays large media companies. However some media outlets chose to run an Associated Press piece [1] which concludes with a humorous quote making light of the sighting. Using humor when reporting about UFOs is often seen in mainstream media reports. Some UFO researchers and UFO conspiracy theorists consider this to be a way of deflecting any serious attention from the UFO phenomenon or specific incidents. MSNBC also ran an important piece by By Jessica Bennett of Newsweek in which she interviews Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center. MSNBC article