The O’Hare Disc

1. Around 4:15 p.m. on November 7, 2006, a United Airlines worker at Chicago’s O’Hare spots a dark gray, metallic disc hovering silently over Gate C17.
2. The story comes out two months later in the Chicago Tribune. About a dozen United employees, including pilots and mechanics, say they watched the object hang below the clouds for about five minutes.
3. Witnesses say it then shot straight up and left a clean hole in the cloud layer, showing blue sky, which closed a few minutes later. Nothing appeared on radar.
4. The FAA calls it ‘a weather phenomenon’, with airport lights shining on low clouds, and declines to investigate. Skeptics note that no witness was publicly named and that their accounts differ on the object’s size and shape.

Key witnesses: About 12 United Airlines employees (pilots, mechanics, supervisors) and several people outside the airport, all anonymous
Status: DEBATED