1989-06-01 - Dallas, TX - Cigar

Large cigar shaped metalic flying object

I'm a retired xxx Airlines 777 Captain and former USAF Search & Rescue Pilot. I thought you might be interested sightings I've had during my carrier?

In the early 1980's, I was flying as Captain on an MD80 from DFW to DEN. Our departure time was approximately 8:00 pm, hazy, but with partial light still in the sky. Climbing out of DFW on an initial 185 degree heading, and just passing through approximately 1,000' AGL (above the ground), I spotted a very large object out of the copilots window. I immediately made the statement to my copilot, "What the @#*! is that?" It appeared to be elongated and "cigar" shaped, a grey metallic looking object, moving very slowing from right to left (west to east), and it appeared to have many small, dark, and slightly fuzzy looking, rectangular "windows" running longitudinally along the length of the object; a line or band of windows? I immediately called departure control on the radio and asked, "Departure, do you show anything ahead of us on radar". He replied, "No, why do you ask?" I told him I wasn't sure but that we thought that there was an object out ahead of us.

At first seeing the object, which was initially located in the right third of my copilots window from my viewpoint, I thought that it might be the undercarriage of a 747. The object appeared to be moving very slowly. However, as we accelerated on climb out, the object did not appear to be changing in size indicating that we were not going to have an immediate collision. I had seen mirages many times before in the past, and so I initially thought that this might be a mirage. Because of the hazy sky conditions, moisture in the air, and dusk, it didn’t appear to be a mirage, but still a possibility. As we climbed out of 4500’, the object was now leaving us toward the east but still visible in the left third of my windscreen when departure had us turn to the northwest on our way toward Denver.

I didn’t think much of the incident until years later when I happened to turn the television on during one of my layovers. The program, "In Search Of" was on and this particular segment was about a sighting over Montreal (Torronto?), Canada. In that program, several hundred witnesses described exactly what my copilot and I had seen on our departure out of DFW during the same time period. The announcer stated that through triangulation, the objects length was determined to be 6,000’ long. That’s a mile long and would explain why it appeared that we were not closing on the object we saw! I thought my sighting above might have some interest for your research? Other pilot friends have had different encounters. Back in 1979, I was flying with one 707 pilot and he told me that during a nighttime letdown approach into LAX, when still east of Palm Springs, California, he and his Captain had to take evasive action in order to avoid hitting another flying object. As they pulled back on the stick to avoid colliding with their “UFO”, they could clearly see inside the “cockpit” of this craft and clearly saw the “pilots”. Both of the American pilots were former USAF pilots and they both knew what oxygen masks looked like, the type worn by military pilots. What they saw on the “UFO pilots” face(s), helmet or oxygen masks, they said was nothing they had ever seen before. In their estimate, it was not of this planet.


((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate. We have encouraged the source to try to determine the exact date, using his flight logs. Also, we have requested that he have the other pilots submit reports, as well. PD))