UFO Incident at O'Hare Airport: Where's the Follow-Up?

There is a lot of information coming at us and it's often necessary to dismiss whole segments of what's going on in the interests of time. Every now and then, I take a major scandal off - I just don't let it into my reality. Life is short. I know a lot of really controversial political stuff happened in South America, for example, but I just can't go there. The same way with these two kids who were kidnapped or whatever. I don't want to know the details on that. Frankly, I don't even follow global warming as much as I should - it's just really painful. Do I want to sit around reading about polar bears drowning? Hell, no. I love polar bears.

When you look back at other eras, you immediately see subjects that the masses were collectively kidding themselves about. You can see an astounding level of group denial going on, and conversely, an insane interest in something ridiculous. That Holland deal where they suddenly went crazy about tulip bulbs is the perfect example. It's so obvious looking back. You ask yourself, "What were they thinking?"

One interesting thing to do is to try and figure out the subjects that we will look both ridiculously fixated on, and hopelessly ignorant about.

Okay, obviously, future generations are going to scoff at us for the insane amount of attention we gave to Paris Hilton. That's just a lock. How did this huge global mechanism develop to track Paris and her every utterance? What is that? Shouldn't we start by being fascinated with someone who actually does something? What does Paris do? Generate nightclub stories? That's going to be very difficult to explain in the future. What are we going to do to justify it? Play them her CD? Show them her porno tape?

Now, here's where I think we're in a weird denial - a sheep-like avoidance of something truly incredible that should be in virtually every newscast we see. It's the subject of UFOs. I can just feel you shutting off while I wrote that, but bear with me. Let's look at this O'Hare incident and ask yourself why - at the very least - the story didn't generate more of a buzz than Paris Hilton's social schedule?

See, this is an interest of mine. I don't need any prompting. I followed up on this story as much as I could, but I wonder if you did? I bet most people just processed this based on the first reports and moved on. It became their South America, or their polar bear swimming through the vast cold ocean eventually sinking below the waves of their consciousness.

For example, have you listened to the lengthy radio interview with the O'Hare employee who moves jets around the airport for a living? How about the off-air studio tape of the reporter talking with the TV host? I can't get enough of this stuff, and I can't figure out how so many people dismiss this topic out of hand. This is not Jethro looking at swamp gas. This was O'Hare Airport. Quite a few people who would not gain from making something like this up - who could actually face criminal charges for making something like this up - said they saw a circular craft 20 or 30 feet across that hovered below the cloud layer above Gate C17 at Chicago's main airport. Don't just read the Chicago Tribune story. Listen to the the interview. Something happened. Then when the craft left, it punched a hole through the cloud layer leaving one circular patch of blue sky. This event was discussed on the ground radio. There are tapes, and there are probably pictures. United Airlines denied it happened even after the FAA changed their initial story and admitted they did have radio tapes about it. Now, the entire incident has seemingly dropped from our consciousness. It's just another story in the UFO Files.

I can see the vast implications in the idea that we are being visited from elsewhere. It sure feels like a huge leap to believe we are. A huge leap? This would be the mind-blowing story of our lives. What I can't see is how we ignore this. Where's the follow-up? I don't get how momentum doesn't build and the public doesn't demand to know everything.

Iraq? Sure, but by now President Bush should have been forced to go on TV and explain this. We know about Iraq, but what does the government have here? And how ridiculous will we look to future generations for not checking this out more? We had an amazing story literally hovering over our heads, but society looked away, and hung on every word Paris Hilton ever said.


Chicago Tribune, Newscast-O'Hare UFO-UFO Casebook Files