With seatbelts securely fastened and tray tables in their full upright position, airline passengers expected a smooth landing at LaGuardia Airport, New York City – but a suspected UFO sighting made for a bit of extra turbulence.
Michelle Reyes was on a commercial airline flight that was beginning its descent 15 minutes from LaGuardia Airport last Thursday, 25 March, likely traveling at around 230 mph.
However, aside from capturing a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty from her window seat, her sighting of a UFO-like object baffled experts.
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Airline passenger Reyes took to Facebook, sharing a video of what she described as a ‘flying cylinder’.
“I saw a UFO coming home yesterday! Can anyone help me identify what this is?! Posting the video and a still shot of the object,” her post said.
“The first thing I did was email the FAA to let them know what I saw,” she told NewsNation.
“Maybe it was a safety hazard, but unfortunately I haven’t heard back from them, they didn’t acknowledge my email.”
And she wasn’t alone in her sighting, another passenger agreed that they had also seen the UFO.
“It’s a little nerve-wracking that someone else saw what I saw,” she admitted.
The incident sent some UFO hunters on a fact-finding mission the following day.
Thomas Wertman, state director of the Mutual UFO Network in Ohio, reviewed the footage for The New York Post.
He explained that the dark object was traveling at roughly 2,500 feet.
He believes it was ‘relatively close’ to the aircraft Reyes saw it from.
Wertman also ruled out the possibility that this could be a news helicopter, a drone, or a military aircraft.
Airline pilots’ UFO sightings have previously been explained as a case of mistaken identity.
His determination was down to the UFO’s altitude, shape, and location so near to a major commercial flight path.
“Drones aren’t supposed to fly at that altitude, at least legally,” he said.
“If it were something related to [military] defense or law enforcement, you normally wouldn’t see it so close to a major flight lane – that could be a potential hazard.”
He determined that the lack of wings and a tail made it even more ‘intriguing’ and less likely to be an aircraft – although without metadata, he admitted that ruling out high-flying wildlife and weather balloons would be impossible.
The metadata would help him determine the exact time the footage was taken and the exact direction the aircraft was flying in.
This comes after video footage was released of a reported UFO sighting over Texas during the solar eclipse earlier this month.
This also comes hot on the tails of a ‘UFO expert’ claiming to have captured ‘holy grail’ evidence during a space station livestream.
As the footage ‘doesn’t appear to be doctored’, Wertman’s conclusion was that the sighting ‘needs more research’.
A Federal Aviation Administration official told the New York Post on Thursday that there were ‘no reports’ from pilots about the mysterious object.
