MUFON's Tinley Park UFO Flap Calculations

If you are into reading NUFORC'S website, youd know about the Tinley Park, Illinois UFO flaps of August 21, 2004 and October 31, 2004. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people witnessed three strange red lights, possibly attached to a single craft, flying and hovering in the night sky. Many of the witnesses were highly qualified and very intelligent people.

Illinois MUFON chapter has been working very hard on this case, and they have come up with some interesting calculations.

www.illinoismufon.com...


Regarding the 10/31/2004 mass sighting: If this was a triangular-shaped object, based on witness testimony, pictures from various angles, and trigonometry, preliminary calculations are:
-It was approximately 5,000 feet long
-The longest dimensions cover 8 blocks north & south
-Depending on how it rotated, it was 1,500 feet off the ground to 6,500 feet off the ground.
-It hovered at about 4,000 feet above the ground
After careful evaluation and analysis of:
-Randomly selected eyewitness testimony,
-Photographs, both digital and film (there must be hundreds of pictures), and
-Video (there are dozens)
By individuals certified* in:
-Aviation,
-Meterology,
-Physics,
-Astronomy,
-Other applied scientific fields
*Professional insight was limited to their qualifications

Approx. 5,000 feet long? 8 blocks?

A weather balloon and secret government test craft I think are quite out of the question.

Do you know of any links to the 'hard' evidence. witness statements, etc? MUFON seems to me to have a habit of filtering reports then presenting their conclusions with little support.

It's not surprising that MUFON would conclude that a UFO which moves like a blimp, sounds like a blimp, and could be a new type of stealth/heavy-lift blimp could not possibly be a blimp for some reason or other:

mimufon.org...
"It could have been a blimp, he thought, but he knew that type of aircraft could never fly in the 45-mile-­an-hour winds that were blowing on that particular night."

Actually, LTA craft fly -- ok, float -- quite well in high winds; they don't have to fight the air to generate lift, so they can just drift along.

mimufon.org...
"Shape: Three pairs of lights, like the tail fins of a 1958 Ford; like a flying wing, or a dirigible or blimp sideways with three pairs of red lights along it.
(NOTE: There are other reports from this sighting where one witness says in no uncertain terms that the object looked just a blimp with red lights on it.)
Dimensions: Size of a dirigible or blimp.
Color: Red lights, like a traffic signal.
Altitude: 100-500 feet.
Speed: About 20 miles an hour.
Sound: None."

"Comments: ...With the existing data the case is listed as unidentified by the Air Force."

And no-one called them on it?

www.nuforc.org...

www.nuforc.org...

The original NUFORC online reports from the witnesses.

Simply because one says that an object resembles a blimp does not make it a blimp.

MUFON is not the only org looking into this. CUFOS, which is more stringent than MUFON, has been looking into the Tinley Park sightings, and they have already ruled out aircraft, blimps, ect.

www.cufos.org...

I live in Illinois, only seen one, maybe two UFOs here. I've talked to many people about sightings, and in an ex-guild I was in, someone mentioned, and linked a video to what I believe is this sighting. It was only 5-6 seconds and showed 3 pulsing red lights in the sky.

Doing my best to find the link.. don't have access to that board anymore.

Edit: www.nuforc.org...

[edit on 12-3-2006 by Kyonshi]

Thanks for the links, I'll look them over at lunch.

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
Simply because one says that an object resembles a blimp does not make it a blimp.

Simply because one says that an object resembles a ____ does not make it a ____.

Specious argument.

Simply because one says that an object resembles a '57 Chevy does not make it a '57 Chevy. It could be a '56 Chevy, or even an old DeSoto. It could even be a '57 Chevy anyway, whether one thinks so or not. But it's probably not an intergallactic spacecraft.

Of course, there's lots of things that resemble '57 Chevys, but, by my count, just 2 types of things that resemble blimps, and only one of those is actually known to exist. If my choices were limited to '57 Chevy and Fairy Godmother, I think I know which way I'd lean.

A better argument would be: If you don't know what it is, you don't know what it's not.

In this case, the facts don't seem to preclude a blimp-like object, but the digested 'conclusions' apparently do. I'm interested in just how the conclusions were reached, and how accurate the assesment is, especially if the only thing keeping this from blimphood is that 5000' figure.

Originally posted by rand
Thanks for the links, I'll look them over at lunch.




A better argument would be: If you don't know what it is, you don't know what it's not.

Not necessarily. Many things can be ruled out here.

For example, all aircraft have to file flight plans and intentions, including blimps. A check with local airfields and the FAA can rule out civilian aircraft. Its standard investigative proceedure in any UFO case. This part has already been done. No aircraft or blimps are reported in the area.

It doesnt have to be an intergalatic space craft. There are other very strange phenomenon that can explain it.

But a blimp seems quite unlikely.

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf...all aircraft have to file flight plans and intentions, including blimps. A check with local airfields and the FAA can rule out civilian aircraft. Its standard investigative proceedure in any UFO case. This part has already been done. No aircraft or blimps are reported in the area.

With a few exceptions, like crossing the coast and flying through controlled airspace, pilots can still fly VFR without a flight plan. That includes blimps. So a check of local airfields would only ferret out really contientious VFR pilots and IFR flights. Also, the local airfields wouldn't have any direct knowlege of a flight plan filed, say, 1000 miles away. And there's no guarantee that the details of a filed VFR flight plan will get any further than the departure airfield.

Military pilots flying from a military facility will file a DD Form 175 with Base Ops, not the local civilian airfield. After that, only the minimum information will be transmitted through the ATC system, and they (ATC) have tons of regulations on handling sensitive and classified info (see FAA Order 7610.4, for instance). Imagine the luck you'd have asking the FAA if there were any classified traffic in the area.

I don't know about classified flights, but flight plans and supporting documents for ordinary military 'training' missions (that is, everything short of actual combat) are filed and stored locally and destroyed after 90 days. Any disclosure not required by regulation (and even some of those are subject to waiver) would be at the facility commander's discretion.