Some Illinois towns are known as hotspots for unidentified flying objects
The idea that we're not alone and aliens from another galaxy are circling the planet in strange-looking spacecraft has long fascinated us. Thousands of reports of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, are filed every year. In Illinois, 133 reports have been filed in 2019.
The National UFO Reporting Center's website is filled with accounts like this one, from Gallipolis, Ohio:
"A husband (former law enforcement) and wife (scientist), while sitting outside their recreational vehicle at a public campsite, witness a very bright light approach their campsite from the south in an erratic manner, appearing to slow or stop on several occasions as it drew near. It got within 50 yards, they estimate, of their campsite, at which time, out of a sense of alarm, the husband reached for his .45 caliber sidearm, but he felt unable to use his arm, or lift the firearm. The object, estimated by the witnesses to have been approximately 20 feet in diameter, hovered nearby for approximately 8 seconds, and then suddenly accelerated toward the west, and disappeared very quickly to the west."
Intrigued? Don't be jealous of those folks in Ohio. Here's some of what's been reported in Illinois.
Nov. 7, Aurora: "6 strange lights that appeared to be operating as one but at the same time, independently."
Oct. 3, Lockport: "I first saw 2 faint yellow lights chasing each other east through the sky. 10 minutes later I saw 20 similar lights flying in a perfect V formation heading south. The objects were traveling very fast and disappeared in the sky for both sightings."
July 26, Crystal Lake: "Late night with my sunroof open facing south ... This was 2 singular bright lights shining downward/outward close together but apart traveling at a high speed (faster than our regular airforce jets) and they did not have any wing or tail red lights flashing or the usual military lighting that has been the norm over northern Illinois. These were 2 very bright white lights traveling from Southeast to Northwest with each light brighter than the stars or regular aircraft."
May 29, Chicago: "My husband were driving on 294 near O'Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois, on our way to St. Louis. Was taking random pics there was at the moment, 1 commuter aircraft that had just passed going out of my pic to the right. Upon looking at the pic I noticed what appears to be a 'disk like' or 'hat-like' metallic shape" with a lighter color 'underbelly' outlined by a dark ring there also appears to be 1 smaller object with it off to the left and up and I have same image in same spot in 3 pics."
Some Illinois cities are known as UFO hotspots, such as Tinley Park, famous for a phenomena known as the "Tinley Park Lights." The village alone had 168 reported sightings between 2001 and 2015.
In 2004, people living in the village and the surrounding communities of Orland Park, Frankfort, Oak Forest, Mokena and Evergreen Park reported several sightings of three lights in a triangular pattern. The History Channel even featured Tinley's lights on an episode of UFO Hunters in 2008. A 2015 map purported to show that the south suburbs was a hotbed for sightings.
UFO Expert On Tinley Park's 2004 Sightings: They Were Not A Hoax
UFO Sightings: Where Illinois Ranks
UFO hunting has been a popular pursuit in the United States since the mid-20th century, when Kenneth Arnold, a businessman piloting a small plane, filed the first well-known report in 1947 of a UFO over Mount Rainier in Washington. Arnold claimed he saw nine high-speed, crescent-shaped objects zooming along at several thousand miles per hour "like saucers skipping on water."
Although the objects Arnold claimed to see weren't saucer-shaped at all, his analogy led to the popularization of the term "flying saucers." And since then, Americans have been more or less obsessed with the idea that alien life is among us.
It may be easy to scoff at some of the eyewitness accounts on the National UFO Reporting Center, but the idea of intergalactic travel got a boost when information emerged from the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a $22 million, multi-year program that began in 2007 to investigate "unidentified aerial phenomena," according to reports by The New York Times and Politico.
Related: UFOs Are Real, Retired Navy Pilot Suggests Of Weird Aircraft
Former Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid slipped in an earmark for the program into the Pentagon budget. Nevada, of course, is the home of a U.S. Air Force facility known as Area 51, the source of multiple alien conspiracy theories, including claims that interstellar visitors are held there; that the 1947 Roswell crash wasn't a weather balloon at all but a Soviet aircraft piloted by mutated midgets; and that the 1969 moon landing was filmed by the U.S. government in one of the Area 51 hangars.
The Pentagon program was defunded in 2012. But in a report released in late 2017, the investigators detailed an account by retired Navy Cmdr. David Fravor, who was conducting a training mission off the coast of California in 2004 when he saw an oblong craft flying erratically through his airspace at incredible speed, maneuvering in a way that defies accepted principles of aerodynamics.
Fravor described the wingless object, about 40 feet long and shaped like a Tic Tac, as other-worldly.
"I can tell you, I think it was not from this world," Fravor told ABC News in 2017. "I'm not crazy, haven't been drinking. It was — after 18 years of flying, I've seen pretty much about everything that I can see in that realm, and this was nothing close."
Fravor's account is convincing. When he saw the object from the air, controllers on one of the Navy ships on the water below reported that objects were being dropped about 80,000 feet from the sky, then headed "straight back up."
He could see the disturbances on the water below and breaking waves on the surface, "like something's under the surface," he told ABC.
The radar jammed, and as Fravor flew closer, the craft rapidly accelerated and zoomed upward and disappeared. Once the object was gone, the ocean below was a still sheet of blue with no evidence of disturbance. Infrared scanning also showed no evidence of an exhaust trail, he said.
"I don't know what it is," he said. "I don't know what I saw. I just know it was really impressive, really fast, and I would like to fly it."
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