Vegas Helicopter Pilot Reports UFO Visible Only With Night Vision
At about 9 pm on Saturday, March 16, a bizarre exchange between an air ambulance helicopter and ground control in Las Vegas revealed a pilot’s sighting of a UFO, which he claims was only visible with the aid of night vision. When the pilot reports the situation to an air traffic controller, he excitedly responds with “oh, that’s awesome…”
According to a recording of the interaction, the pilot flying an Agusta 119 Koala helicopter radioed in to ask if ground control had anything on their radar flying at about 7,000 feet, nine miles west of Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport. The pilot refers to this vicinity as the “Southern Hills area,” a corner of the Vegas metro area.
The air traffic controller quickly responds saying he does not have anything in that area, to which the pilot responds telling him he can only see it with his night vision goggles on.
The short interaction was recently uploaded to SoundCloud and can be heard below. But the real investigative digging thus far, has come from Tyler Rogoway at The Drive, who has consistently kept his finger on the pulse of all things strange and unexplained going on in the aviation world.
While the pilot guesses that the object could have been a balloon, it seems it would have to have been a rather large balloon to be at that altitude and be observable from nine miles away – the distance the pilot claims he was flying at when he witnessed it.
What makes Rogoway’s investigation into the matter even more mysterious is that when he attempted to contact Air Methods, the helicopter’s company headquarters and the operations base, to speak to the pilot, he was met with resistance.
Rogoway says he was told the company couldn’t comment and that the pilot was prohibited from speaking to anyone about the event. Instead they redirected him to someone else within the company who hasn’t given any response in “well over 24 hours.”
So, what could it have been that the pilot witnessed?
Several commenters on Rogoway’s article who appear to have various degrees of experience in aviation bring up the possibility that the pilot may have witnessed a hot air balloon. Though it seems highly unlikely a hot air balloon would be floating at 7,000 feet in highly trafficked airspace in the middle of the night. Also, the average altitude that hot air balloons typically reach is somewhere between 1,000 to 3,000 feet.
Others point to the relatively obvious fact that Vegas is not far from the notorious Groom lake Air Force base, a.k.a. Area 51. Was this some type of secret aircraft with cloaking technology being tested by the military?
Or could it be the possibility that everyone secretly wants it to be? The response from Air Methods certainly doesn’t seem to support any of the mundane explanations.
About the Author
Hillary Clinton Met With Laurance S. Rockefeller to Discuss UFOs
In 1995, then-first lady Hillary Clinton took a trip to the Rockefeller Ranch in Jackson, WY, where she met with billionaire philanthropist Laurance S. Rockefeller. Of the many things the two discussed that weekend, one topic became the focal point of media coverage and subsequent rumblings within the world of ufology—a project that became known as The Rockefeller Initiative.
Rockefeller was a known proponent of the UFO disclosure movement, having funded a number of projects to prove the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. His pursuit in bringing this issue to Clinton’s attention quickly became obvious, marked by the now-famous image of the two walking in the woods, Clinton holding a copy of “Are We Alone: Philosophical Implications of the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life” by Paul Davies.
And while the Rockefeller Initiative was taken over by other ufologists after his death in 2004, Dr. Steven Greer says he had been involved in discussions with the late Rockefeller years before he famously met with the first lady.
Beginning in the early ‘90s, Dr. Greer began putting together materials from research he was conducting into the ET phenomenon. This consisted of countless reports from hundreds of government insiders, FAA personnel, and former military brass who wanted to come forward and testify in front of Congress about the uncanny, first-hand experiences they’d had with UFOs and ETs. Dr. Greer’s meticulous efforts would culminate in a public forum nearly a decade later at his highly publicized 2001 National Press Club event.
