Is it a UFO?

As a former military pilot, I am frequently asked two questions.
"Have you ever had a crash?" and "Have you ever seen a UFO?"
The answers, in the order of questions are - yes and perhaps.
A crash, in layman's terms is an unintentional contact with geography resulting in damage to an aircraft. In my long and substantially unremarkable career in the defiance of gravity, I have survived several incidents with only minor injuries despite a training incident in a helicopter resulting in the total loss of the machine and the burying of the nose section of a Twin Otter in a giant anthill in Malawi after an aborted takeoff.

In the Royal Air Force, where we frequently reached heights in fighter aircraft where the speed of sound reached almost walking speed (if one could walk at around 660 mph) there were several crew room stories featuring unexplained sightings.  Such reports were seldom reported officially because any pilot claiming to have seen 'flying saucers' would immediately be referred to the military shrinks and probably grounded.

Yes, I have been instructed to divert from an exercise to investigate a strange radar return but never even got close to the target despite the excellent speed and height capabilities of the aircraft.  My Weapons Officer (also known as Navigator) and I could see the object at an apparently impossible height above us and moving at a speed far in excess of anything that we had seen before, vanishing almost instantly.  Was this a UFO?  Probably not.  Optical illusion?  Perhaps but in that case, why the radar return?

Needless to say, my report did not mention a visual contact with anything.  I had my reputation to think of!


Comments

  1. Peter Bainbridge16 June 2020 at 13:38

    Hmm I think there could be the makings of a good story there somewhere...

    ReplyDelete

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