Ireland's Aviation Authority Is Investigating UFO Sightings by Pilots

The Ireland Aviation Authority has launched an investigation into mysterious, unidentified flying objects commercial pilots spotted while flying over southwest Ireland over the weekend.

A British Airways pilot saw a strange object outside of her window while flying over the Irish town of Kerry on Nov. 9 at about 6:47am.

When the BA captain saw the bright and fast-moving object from the cockpit of the Boeing 787, she radioed air traffic control in Shannon to ask if there were military exercises occurring in the area. ATC said there were not.

"There is nothing showing on either primary or secondary [radar]," ATC told the pilot, according to the Irish Examiner.

"OK. It was moving so fast," the BA pilot responded, noting that the object emitted "a very bright light" and flew alongside the plane's left side and then suddenly veered north and "disappeared at very high speed."

The exchange between ATC and the pilot, who was operating a flight from Montreal (YUL) to London Heathrow (LHR), can be heard at the 17-minute mark in this audio of the exchange.

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Other pilots in the general vicinity started chiming in to ATC with their own view of the strange object. A Virgin Atlantic pilot of a Boeing 747 flying from Orlando (MCO) to Manchester (MAN) told ATC he saw "two bright lights over to the right" of the plane, describing the sightings as "multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory." He guessed it was a meteor or other object entering Earth's atmosphere, noting that they were very bright "where we were," the Examiner reports.

Shannon ATC told the Virgin Atlantic pilot that other aircraft had reported seeing the objects, and they would look into it.

Still another pilot said he saw the bright mysterious objects flying at "astronomical" speed. "It was like Mach 2," that pilot estimated. That is twice the speed of sound.

Ireland's Aviation Authority said it would be investigating the incident. "Following reports from a small number of aircraft on Friday, Nov. 9, of unusual air activity, the IAA has filed a report," the regulatory body told the Examiner in a statement. "This report will be investigated under the normal confidential occurrence investigation process."

Commercial pilots do occasionally report encountering UFOs while operating passenger flights. Earlier this year, an American Airlines pilot flying over New Mexico reported to ATC an unidentified object flying 2,000 to 3,000 feet over his aircraft. And back in 2004, two US Navy F-18 had documented encounters with unidentified aircraft.