Pilots Report Mysterious Lights ‘Moving at Extreme Speeds’ Across Oregon

Pilots Report Mysterious Lights ‘Moving at Extreme Speeds’ Across Oregon

We have been reporting on drone sightings along the East Coast and our military installations in the United Kingdom as well as this country.

Adding to the mystery comes new reports from Oregon. Pilots report seeing strange lights and objects in the skies over Oregon, particularly near Eugene.

At least four commercial airline pilots have encountered mysterious, colorful, circular lights “moving at extreme speeds” through the skies above Oregon this past weekend, according to local reports.

Pilots and nearby air traffic control dispatchers discussed the alarming sightings in air traffic control audio archives from Dec. 7, which were obtained by OregonLive.

“Is there any military activity out straight ahead of us?” a United Airlines pilot flying from Denver to Eugene, Oregon, asks in the recording around 8:30 p.m. PT.

The air traffic controller responds that they have not seen anything — but adds that she received another report of something at 30,000 feet in the same area. “We’re not sure what it is,” she says.

In an audio recording, one air controller recommended that one pilot maneuver around the “UFO.”

When Newsweek asked the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to confirm the validity of the recording, the agency said that a pilot did report “seeing unidentified lights.”

The recording’s metadata and the information about the flights given by the speakers match flight records.

In the 44-minute recording, the pilots reported seeing unidentified red, circular lights and objects moving erratically toward the ocean and returning at various altitudes, with one saying the objects moved in corkscrew patterns and at extreme speeds.

The air traffic controllers advised one pilot to “maneuver as necessary left and right to avoid the UFO out there.”

One explanation that has been offered is that the pilots observed reflections off of Starlink satellites.

Scientist and researcher Douglas Buettner, who led a study on similar sightings in 2022, told KTVB that the lights were likely Starlink satellites. These satellites, launched by SpaceX to provide broadband internet, are known to cause bright flares when sunlight reflects off them.

‘Literally all it is – it’s the sun hits the satellite just right, and it is being reflected back into your eye,’ explained Buettner, deputy chief scientist of the Acquisition Innovation Research Center at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

While Buettner believes satellite flares are the most probable explanation for the Oregon sightings, he emphasized the need for clearer video and additional data to rule out other possibilities.

‘I’ve had two other people look at it, and they say it is consistent with Starlink,’ he added.

Such sightings aren’t unprecedented. In August 2022, Oregon residents witnessed a dramatic display of Starlink satellites traversing the night sky.

Hopefully, the sightings will turn out to be related to home-grown equipment. However, under Biden, a Chinese spy balloon was able to waft its way across the nation, including sensitive military areas.

But I would be remiss if I did not point out that authorities just arrested a Chinese man who flew drones over Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.

Authorities identified that man as 39-year-old Yinpiao Zhou, a Chinese citizen and a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. He was charged with failing to register the drone and flying it over restricted airspace to take photographs of the military base, the U.S. attorney’s office announced Wednesday.

On Nov. 30, personnel at the military base detected the drone and determined that it had taken off from nearby Ocean Park to the north. The drone traveled south near Surf Beach and then directly toward Space Launch Complex Three and Four, according to court records.

The drone flight came several hours after the base had hosted the launch of a SpaceX rocket carrying a spy satellite for the federal government.

When security personnel arrived at the park that day, Zhou told them he saw a drone, but did not see the pilot, according to court records. He said this while his hands were in his pockets; when he took them out of his jacket at the security personnel’s request, he exposed the drone, federal investigators said.

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