Last Friday, off the southwest coast of Ireland in Shannon, County Kerry, a few commercial pilots reported seeing UFOs and now the incident is under investigation by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA).
The first call to Shannon air traffic control (ATC) came in from a British Airways pilot who was flying a Boeing 787 from Montreal to Heathrow, CNBC reported. Prior to the exchange, Shannon ATC was contacting pilots in the area about reports of sudden turbulence.
At about 5:10 in the video below, the pilot inquired if any military aircraft were in the area.
The air traffic controller said no military aircraft were visible in the area.
The pilot said, “It came up on our left-hand side and then rapidly veered to the north. It was a very bright light that disappeared at very high speed.”
Shannon ATC replied, “There is nothing showing on either primary or secondary [radar].”
A Virgin plane pilot flying from Orlando to Manchester proposed the possibility of an object re-entering the earth’s atmosphere or perhaps a meteor, according to BBC News.
He reported that he also saw “two bright lights” over to the right and “multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory” and that they were very bright.
The planes were flying in high-level airspace from 28,500 ft to 42,000 ft.
UFO sightings by pilots are being investigated by Ireland’s Aviation Authority. 🛸 https://t.co/eY6shiJaQl
— CNBC (@CNBC) November 13, 2018
Armagh Observatory and Planetarium astronomer, Apostolos Christou explained, “It was most likely what are commonly called shooting stars. It appears the matter was extremely bright, so it must have been quite a large piece of material. I cannot say from the pilots’ description, but it could have been the size of a walnut or an apple. It also appears there were bits coming off the object and flying past the airplane, that is also what you would expect if it was a particularly large rock from space hitting the atmosphere, it would tend to fragment.”
Christou added that there is normally a lot of activity of this sort in November.
The Irish Aviation Authority stated, “Following reports from a small number of aircrafts on Friday 9 November of unusual air activity the IAA has filed a report. This report will be investigated under the normal confidential occurrence investigation process.”
A Shannon spokesperson refused to comment further while the investigation is being conducted.
Experts across the globe have suggested in the past that governments should work more diligently to investigate UFO sightings, according to the Independent.
A former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, who worked under the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations said the government intentionally overlooks UFO sightings.
Another official said “beyond reasonable doubt” advanced UFOs do exist, and countries must be more cognizant of the possible risk.
