Chicago UFO: Weather Phenomenon?
By
Jesse Ferrell, AccuWeather meteorologist and senior weather editor
Published Jan 3, 2007 2:03 PM EDT
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Updated Jan 11, 2007 2:40 PM EDT
DISCLAIMER: This blog entry, like all others, is my opinion only and does not represent the opinion of AccuWeather Inc.
Slashdot points out that NPR has an interview with a Chicago Tribune reporter in regards to a UFO sighting at O'Hare airport in November.
FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory blamed it on a "weather phenomenon" (see below). As such, some blog readers have asked for my meteorological opinion on what it could have been.
In response, I have quoted the Tribune article and the reports at NUFORC (the National UFO Reporting Center) below (typos intact) and I've added my comments in red. If you'd like to discuss this further, please do so on the WeatherMatrix Forums, since I don't have comments enabled in this blog. I'd be very interested to hear opinions from aviation folks, who know more about aviation phenomena than I do.
This is important because it means that other people could have seen it (more commentary about that in the conclusion). Both NUFORC reports (see below) confirm the local time was 4:30.
While I could probably pull the NEXRAD weather radar data for that time, it wouldn't be easy and probably isn't necessary. Even near the center of the radar's sweep, the data is in chunks that are around 1 kilometer wide and would eclipse any small objects.
This weather report I can confirm. I downloaded the daily observations for O'Hare airport for November 7th from the National Climatic Data Center. Observations are taken hourly there are confirm 1900 foot overcast skies at 1551 and 1651 local time. This will have a bearing on the various reports of the heights of the object discussed below. At 1751, the clouds had moved up to 2100 feet. The last comment is kind of strange, depending on what type of clouds they were. I assume that was as the craft was on its way out. I wish that we could see a webcam or photo from that day to look at the cloud types. I archive some webcams on the WeatherMatrix site but (surprisingly) I don't have any Chicago ones. There are two major high-resolution webcams in Chicago, the Hazecam and the NOAA cam. I have asked both if they have archives; NOAA has responded with this webcam image from 3:55 PM that day. As you can see, the view of the city was shrouded in fog at that time. Fog is something that was not mentioned by the observers (UFO or weather) at the airport, but it could have been limited to the shore.
This is all fine and well except that the reports didn't indicate any lights or light-related phenomena, but was dark gray in color.
There are a couple of interesting things about the size and height of the UFO. These are really key to understanding what it might be meteorologically (or otherwise). First, if it really was 6 to 24 feet, that sized object couldn't be discerned beyond a couple hundred feet (I would think?). So we probably have size estimation problems due to not knowing what height the object was at. We have "just below 1900", "1500", and as you'll see below, more heights.
This is an interesting comment. Vapor trails from jets have been known to "seed" or make clouds disappear as they fall though them, in fact I've photographed the phenomenon. NASA admits that so-called "hole-punch clouds" could be caused by falling airplane exhaust. Obviously, nothing else in the reports indicates any sort of plane, but it seems we may have evidence of standard exhaust. Of course, these holes have been blamed on UFOs before too.
He did not remember the cloud height correctly, proven by the NCDC report quoted above. The cloud cover was not reported at 1600 feet any time on November 7th. Even forgiving that, here we hear another height. So we've now got heights reported of "700", "1500" and "close to 1900" (see above).
See comments above on "hole-punch clouds".
CONCLUSION:
What's being described by these people does not match any meteorological phenomena or equipment that I am aware of. The closest match would be lenticular ("UFO") clouds but they typically do not occur outside of mountainous regions and do not behave in the way this object is described.
As to the authenticity of the reports, my first thought was, if this happened at a busy airport, why aren't we hearing reports from the hundreds (thousands?) of citizens who were at, or outside the airport. This person who flamed the NUFORC reporting form kind of agrees with me, and points out that there are 3 million other residents in Chicago who could have seen it (since the airport is pretty much in the middle of the city, or at least the highest road density, according to Google Maps).
So if other citizens come forward who were not part of the original report, it would lend credence. But there's always the chance that other people did see it and didn't tell anyone.
I will point out that NUFORC has a report from 5 PM out of Aurora, Illinois saying that an object "about 1000 feet up and it was probably silver and round in shape." was observed. No other reports were received that day in that area, though I would also point out that NUFORC received nearly 350 reports in November, most of which probably are explainable as meteorological or aviation phenomena.
According to the Tribune article, others at the airport are making light of the situation:
In related stories, a UFO crashed during a thunderstorm in South Africa last week, and France is releasing all of its government reports of UFOs.
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