pilot sighting

The Chiles-Whitted Encounter: Two Airline Pilots and the Rocket That Wasn’t There

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A Douglas DC-3 (Icelandair TF-NPK) on the tarmac at Reykjavik Airport in 2017 — the same aircraft type Captain Clarence Chiles and First Officer John Whitted were flying in 1948

About 4 min readAt 2:45 a.m. on 24 July 1948, two veteran airline pilots watched a glowing, wingless craft the size of a bomber flash past their DC-3 over Alabama. The Air Force first called it unidentified — then spent eleven years calling it a meteor.

JAL Flight 1628: The Night a 747 Crew Watched Lights Pace Them Across Alaska

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A Japan Airlines Boeing 747 on the tarmac

About 5 min readOn 17 November 1986, the crew of a Japan Airlines cargo 747 watched unidentified lights pace their aircraft across Alaska for nearly fifty minutes, with radar operators on the ground reporting returns near the plane. The FAA investigated for three months and announced it could not confirm what the crew had seen.