O'Hare Airport UFO Sighting -- UPDATE: Photos & Analysis

oops



[edit on 13-8-2007 by daystrom]

Sorry for the oops post. I had just posted a picture and then saw that it was copyrighted, and was then called away before I could explain.

After reading pages of text in the narcap report (and here) about the weather that day, and the "hole in the clouds", it occurred to me that Chicago is a big city and that there must be many pictures of it, and at least some on that day. Turns out I was right. I'm rather surprised that no one here (or at narcap) has found this yet.

There is a web site called flickr.com where people can post pictures (not porn). The advanced search function will let you narrow your search to the day in question, and by adding the word Chicago and clicking the "Tags Only" button you can narrow your search to just pictures of Chicago on November 7, 2006

957 results come back.

Many of the pictures are of the inside of buildings or of people, but there are many outside shots too.

A lot of the pictures list what kind of camera was used to take the shot, and sometimes the people who took the picture add comments which help zero in the time of day or location.

I haven't found another picture of the ufo or one of the hole in the clouds, but I have seen many pictures of a very foggy hazy Chicago, which makes me wonder what a hole in the fog would look like or if it could even be seen by anybody who wasn't standing directly under it.

It might be a good idea if some other ATS people looked this site over. Also, there must be other sites like this one out there, full of pictures.

Oh, not all the pictures are copyrighted. This one says it's public:




This is supposed to be a view from the Sears Tower and this is the URL it came from:

www.flickr.com...

It's widely accepted that one would have to be very close to directly under the hole to get a shot of it, it's simple trig actually. You know the ceiling was at 1500 or so feet, you know the hole was reported to be about 25 -40 in diameter, the rest is pretty easy to figure out.

Taking this into consideration, it has been estimated anyone beyond 1000 feet of directly beneath it would only see the first few yards of the interior of the hole and would not necessarily recognize it as a hole because they would not be able to see the blue sky on the other end.

When you look at where the Object is reported to have been when it "shot through the clouds", that GREATLY limits the number of people likely to have seen the actual hole to pretty much only airport ground crews.

In other words not very many people. BUT, those who were there report seeing it.

A very interesting case that may one day be resolved. We can only hope that more images come forward as time passes and certain wrong headed executives RETIRE.

Springer...

Wow, the site owner himself replying to me, I am honored sir.

Yes, that was my point exactly, the hole itself would only be visible from directly below, but what I'm curious about is maybe a side view shot during or just after the event. What pops into my mind is a bubble chamber:

en.wikipedia.org...

which generates images like this one:




I'm not super smart, but I would think that something creating a hole in the fog/clouds would also create swirls and eddies and ripples too and maybe somebody caught these on "film" and didn't really notice them.

I just found this picture where the person taking it added comments:



"i was walkin along the lakefront in downtown chicago...it was foggy like this the WHOLE day (this was taken at 3:00 in the afternoon)...weird huh? and i got some pretty sweet pics as I walked..."

This is the URL for that picture:

www.flickr.com...

The same person also took this picture:



"This was also taken on that one foggy day...even though the light was on it was actually late afternoon (maybe around 4 or so)...i kinda wish the other lights were lit up as well, but what can ya do... "

And this is the URL for that picture:

www.flickr.com...

"around 4 or so..." is very close to ufo time. If only this person had been talking their walk near the airport!

There are many pictures on this flickr.com site, and there simply must be more picture web sites like this one.

Just ONE picture of a "bubble chamber" type effect at the right time and place... well, just imagine!

Originally posted by daystrom
Wow, the site owner himself replying to me...

Methinks this thread is very tightly watched. I watch it because I am of the persuasion it was one of ours and I wait for clues to back my claim.

I guess Mark thinks its his baby or sumpin', but you can bet a sweet nickel he watches it like a hawk.

Truth be told, in all the history of UFO research there has rarely, if ever, all the elements of this magnitude be present for a sighting.

Originally posted by promomag
Did everyone all of a sudden get bored of this one, is this case closed?

Where's the discussion? What's going on?

All of a sudden? I think the thread has done pretty well at 104 pages, but in the absence of new information. . .

Sure wish a new photo or two would surface. A video is too much to hope for I suppose. How long would someone be inclined to hold onto photographic evidence of something like this before releasing it?

It's interesting to contrast a legitimate case like this one to the drone hoax. The reality of the O'Hare sighting has kept it alive with scant evidence, but the drone hoax required multiple sets of photos, alien script, fake witnesses and a preposterous backstory in order to retain interest. Despite the quantity of material to work with however, even the surviving two drone threads are slowly but surely, agonizingly, dying.

But a hoax truly does die in that it ultimately will only be remembered as a hoax. A solid case like the O'Hare sighting lives on because truth is always relevant as a historical reference and an addition to the aggregation of knowledge.

Originally posted by Matyas

Originally posted by daystrom
Wow, the site owner himself replying to me...

Methinks this thread is very tightly watched. I watch it because I am of the persuasion it was one of ours and I wait for clues to back my claim.

I guess Mark thinks its his baby or sumpin', but you can bet a sweet nickel he watches it like a hawk.

it's watched because it is still an unexplained event that has importance on several levels.

First, the whole ufo thing. Whatever it was, it has not been identified.
Second, the concept that, post 9/11, something other than an airline plane can hover over an airport terminal is frightening. Where was our security? how did an object other than an airline craft get into that airspace without triggering some kind of terror alert or lockdown? When someone accidentally gets thru security checkpoints, the whole airport is locked down and everyone inside is forced to go back out and thru security again.
Third, our esteemed Amigo, Springer, was so deeply entrenched in this story as it was unfolding, that he was interviewed for a discovery channel documentary on the subject.

I think he said it was airing either the 30th or 31st of August.

Has anyone other than me started looking through the flickr.com pictures? I'm not very good at picture processing so for all I know I may have already glanced at "supporting evidence" and not even known it. There are a lot of pictures there.

As I understand the story, the ufo was seen over the airport, then shot up through the clouds (moved away)

Now, maybe it just appeared out of nowhere and then moved away, but I'm betting it moved into position then moved away, in which case it might have been somewhere else over the city before it arrived at the airport, and maybe somebody caught it on "film" and didn't even know it.

Also, I feel (I don't know, just feel) that anything moving through the type of clouds/fog that I'm seeing in these pictures, even an invisible something, would leave a visible trail of some type. Maybe someone who knows how to enhance pictures could look at some of these foggy day pictures of Chicago and find a "bubble chamber" type trail.

Waiting for more pictures or evidence to drop into our laps is not very proactive.

I hope this hasn't been mentioned before but Narcap has released its report of the O'Hare event.

Its a very long read but, the parts that I've read so far, an interesting analysis. I was wondering what others thought of the report.

A UFO was witnessed on that same day about 30 minutes after the
Ohare incident in Aurora, Illinois. Aurora is 25 miles WSW of Ohare
and is one of the Chicago air traffic control centers that steer planes
into formation for landing at Chicago's airports.

You can see this report along with the Ohare report by scrolling down
this page www.nuforc.org... to 11/7/06.

-cwm

Cool. I was born and raised in Aurora. I hadn't heard about this though.

Originally posted by carewemust
A UFO was witnessed on that same day about 30 minutes after the
Ohare incident in Aurora, Illinois. Aurora is 25 miles WSW of Ohare
and is one of the Chicago air traffic control centers that steer planes
into formation for landing at Chicago's airports.

You can see this report along with the Ohare report by scrolling down
this page www.nuforc.org... to 11/7/06.

Interesting. The sun should have been quite low in the sky then, and the object was "slightly West," i.e. roughly in the same direction as the sun. Usually when you see an aircraft glinting late in the day, it's in the East.

Unfortunately, his wife apparently did not see the object.

NUFORC spoke to the witness, but did not publish what they learned, other than "We suspect that he is a very good witness." I think it would merit some more follow up, but only NUFORC knows how to contact him.

Originally posted by daystrom
Waiting for more pictures or evidence to drop into our laps is not very proactive.

I agree. But that isn't what's happened. This case has been studied every which way to Sunday. After that, what do you do? Wait for additional evidence.

I applaud anyone who wishes to continue studying the case, and I'm still interested in what goes on in this thread. I have nothing to bring to the table myself, but anything more that is discovered is valuable. But...

Here's my point: What do you hope to find by studying UFOs? If you're like me, you want to know who they are, where they come from, what they're doing, etc. How do we find those things out? Government disclosure. And it's not just what the government knows, but also what they're preventing from being disclosed from other sources, such as high-quality images taken by a major network's TV cameras, for instance. The most convincing evidence of all might have already been taken, almost certainly by the military and NASA.

What will cause disclosure? The only way to force their hand is a phenomenal event, greater even than Roswell or the Phoenix Lights, seen by multiple unimpeachable witnesses and ... what's missing here? Clear, indisputable images from reputable, named sources. After 40 years of interest in UFOs, it's clear to me that nothing else suffices.

Consider the Phoenix Lights case. UFOs were seen all across the state of Arizona on one day, March 13, 1997 by hundreds of witnesses. The then Governor of Arizona Fife Symington has admitted that he, also, saw them. Not flares, UFOs. Even so, most people, if they know about the incident at all, think they were flares.

You can study UFOs to the point of being convinced they're real, but you can't transfer that knowledge to the general public. And it is the general public who needs convincing so that the government (including NASA) can no longer stonewall. That's why we clamor over UFO photographs--we're waiting for the kind of evidence that can't be explained away, that causes 95% of the public to be convinced that UFOs are real, that forces the media to demand believable explanations for the overwhelming evidence presented.

Is this case worth studying? Yes. I'm still interested in the Heflin case, and recently went to the location the photos were taken.

Is it unreasonable to wish for new photographic evidence? No. Without it, it's just another marginal case that got lots of press coverage and subsequently was forgotten by most of the public.

Is it not proactive to eventually wear out the available evidence and stick a pin in it? No. It's a matter of putting the particular case in perspective and realizing that barring new photos for public consumption, this case can't add more to the public perception of the reality of UFOs.

Continued study of cases like this has real value, but it only accomplishes so much. Criticizing a general lack of interest in this case, as it stands, smacks of elitism. You want to research it more than it already has been? Follow leads? Interview witnesses? Great! Very few people have that kind of zeal, however, and understandably have decided to just wait for more evidence. Nothing wrong with that either.

Originally posted by daystrom
\
Waiting for more pictures or evidence to drop into our laps is not very proactive.

Hi daystrom...

I got on a plane and flew to Ohare, got John Hilkevitch, Sam Maranto on camera to discuss the witnesses and photo corroboration, talked to everyone who would talk to me at the airport, went on Coast to Coast am with George Noory and did a Discovery Channel documentary about it, all the time, ASKING ANYONE OUT THERE for more pictures.

That's proactive mate, you search fliker, and if you find anything I guarantee you I'll see to it that it gets out to the WORLD.

Springer...

hi, sorry, I didn't mean to smack anybody with anything, most especially elitism. My apologies.

Springer, yes, I'm aware that you did all of those things, and made a documentary, too, which is GREAT, and are very busy with other things, so please understand that I respect what you have done very much when I say that asking for more and looking for more are very different things. You have looked a lot, so have many others, now people seem to be waiting.

I think I'm starting to sound elite again, forgive me.

Look, this is my point, I, personally, don't know very much about photoshop. I can resize a picture and that is about it. Reading this and other threads I see that many ATS people are good with photoshop and deciphering images (like the Copernicus crater picture).

Now, I don't know for sure, but I believe that this thing came from somewhere, spent some time at the airport, and then went somewhere. Carewemust says that something was seen in Auroa 30 minutes later on the same day. There seems to be a wealth of "amateur photographs" on the internet, and a wealth of "image specialists" and "search specialist" here on ATS.

We have a time and a place, and many many photographs from that general time and place...

I KNOW it's boring hard loveless work, I've already looked at five hundred pictures already (most of boring people or boring plates of food or other boring things, but some are pretty skylines or parks so it's been ok so far) but for all I know I could have been staring right at "the picture" that helps prove everything and not even known it because I don't know how to do that "thing" with photoshop which will turn dull grey fog into sharp clear "bubble chamber" trails or cause that grey disk to just POP out of grey clouds like some of you people do.

I know that some of the people working on the Copernicus pictures could see things that I never would have seen, to me it just looked like rocks until they saw it, enhanced it, enlarged it, and then of course I could see something that looked strange and out of place.

Am I making any sense? I feel that more evidence for this case is already out there, on the internet, but I lack the skills to find it, and that is frustrating me. I feel those skills are here within the ATS community but they have lost interest and aren't really looking anymore.

Yuefo, I'm like you, I just want to know what these things are, but I don't think that government disclosure is the solution. They have lied to me for so long that, well, they could turn around and show me "conclusive proof" and I'm not sure I could believe them, I would suspect something was up, that they were trying to misdirect me or something. I have much more faith in the people here at ATS than I do in the people at the government or military... but that is just me. I also really don't care what the "general public" believes. The general public believes some strange things (at least, I think they are strange) and it is their right to believe in those strange things. I have no desire to change the beliefs of the general public. I just want to know for me... I guess that makes me selfish.

Greedy and selfish. I want you people to do the work for me. That IS greedy and selfish, isn't it?

I guess the thing I need to do is to learn how to use photoshop more effectively and start examining these pictures myself...

I'll try to find as many pictures as I can of the Chicago area (and Aurora) on that day and get a photoshop for dummies book, that will be my proactive attempt to figure this thing out.

Next time I come back I'll have something for you Springer, thanks for being so positive!

Originally posted by daystrom
Yuefo, I'm like you, I just want to know what these things are, but I don't think that government disclosure is the solution. They have lied to me for so long that, well, they could turn around and show me "conclusive proof" and I'm not sure I could believe them

That's a catch-22 all right, but I'd at least like to have the opportunity to decide. As it is, they hide and you don't know what they hide.

I also really don't care what the "general public" believes... I have no desire to change the beliefs of the general public. I just want to know for me... I guess that makes me selfish.

If you want to find the answers to your questions about UFOs, you should care what the general public thinks. The reason cases like this are buried is public apathy. If the government admitted the existence of UFOs, every case like this would get the attention of the public, and in turn the media would cover it without tongue in cheek. So public demand for answers is the key to obtaining serious coverage from the media and appropriate disclosure from the government.

Originally posted by yuefo
You can study UFOs to the point of being convinced they're real, but you can't transfer that knowledge to the general public. And it is the general public who needs convincing so that the government (including NASA) can no longer stonewall.

Well, lets see here...

I have been chasing the UFO since 3rd grade. Used to stalk the section in the school library.

I have personally had three sightings, all of the first kind, and all spectacular enough to leave no room for doubt.

I have seen hundreds of patents describing all sorts of flying machines.

I have read and listened to dozens of conspiracy theories.

And still the information is slow in forthcoming.

I do have some conclusions, but they are far off from popular belief. I don't think we are meant to know what they are, or how they do it. Our government has its hands tied, so there is nothing they can do either, except regulate the flow of information to the wishes of these other tenants.

They are scared to death of us, what we could do if we had access to the knowledge. We are scared to death of them because we cannot imagine an intelligence that thinks differently from us. Sometimes they will throw us a bone to see where we run with it, but overall their principle is to respect all life in all forms. Keeping the Man down is necessary to maintain the balance.

So don't be too quick to play the blame game, like governments, corporations, and other man made artifices. There is nothing more our kind would like to have than control over many worlds in many systems, and abundant resources to execute every whim of our wishes. Apparently this happened before, and the lesson was never forgotten, but I digress.

Even so, our indomitable spirit is reaching out to the planets with our archaic methods. What they don't fully realize is someday they will need us as much as we need them. And for that to happen we must be initiated into the greater world.

What's the update on Dan Aykroyd and his alleged photographic/video proof of the event?

Peace

Yuefo, thank you for the private message. Sadly I cannot reply in kind at this time. However, you were quite correct in your observations and statements which is why I have retracted and edited this post.

Perhaps we could continue that train of thought in another thread?

Thank you again for pointing out the error of my ways.



[edit on 17-8-2007 by daystrom]

I am by no means a photoshop expert. In fact, I don't even have photoshop. It seems I have something called Paintshop Pro X. Is this a bad program? Well, it is what I have and what I used to make the enhancements which follow.

First, I found this picture taken from Montrose Harbor:

Lonely Walk



I found the picture here:

Original

I chose this picture to work on because it had the caption

"pea soup today... normally you'd see lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline, in the distance, from this view."

so I knew there should be something behind all of that fog, and because the photographer included the exact location the picture from which the picture was taken (click the "map" link under "additional information" from the source page)

Still, I did not know what should be behind the fog so I also found this picture of Montrose Harbor taken on a less foggy day:



The original can be found here:

Original

This photographer did not include the exact location from which the photograph was taken, however it appears to be a picture of the peninsula where the first photographer was standing when he took his picture.

There is a word limit on my posts so I will continue this in my next post.