The day dream believers

I distinctly recall being a water around six years ago when I catered a room filled with pilots--the common joke in the room as I recall it was "I just flew in from [name that city]," as they truly did just fly in and land at a local airport before picking up a bus to the restaurant..  For the most part, it would have just been another catered event if it wasn't for my cunning charm and wit, and my ability to start a unique conversation with a small subset of them that turned into a full blown session.. 

At the bar, I brought up a weird question, asking a pilot if he ever saw a UFO, or anything that may have been unidentified in nature. He quickly looked up from his James Bond Martini (I was great at making them in my waitering heyday) and said he did, in fact, see a number of strange occurrences in the skies..A few other pilots quickly chimed in with their agreement to that, testifying the same sightings. Before I knew it, the entire room of 60 or so pilots were busy chomping at the bit with each other trying to tell their UFOs stories before the night was done. 

I was stunned..
But it opened my eyes a bit to that fact that respectable and reputable people of all walks of life are just like me: Perplexed by the mysterious, intrigued by the paranormal, and constantly in search of answers when it comes to the unexplained.

I read an article posted by the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS written  by Andrew Danziger. It's really a remarkable piece when considering the attention he is now getting and the bravery it took to come out with the story he did in the paper.

First some quick background is in order. Danziger is a 28-year veteran of the airline industry. He was an international 767/757 captain for 14 years. And one more claim to fame he had that few--very few--others did: He was one of Barack Obama's 2008 campaign plane pilots.  A good gig for a few decades--and enough air time to see some of the same weird things that those pilots did in the restaurant I worked in.

And see them he did.

Danziger's DAILY NEWS piece is intriguing. He not only asserts that many pilots believe in UFOs, but he also shared his very own story. I would recommend that instead of just taking the link for granted, take my word for it: read this article. It may change your perspective a bit about the possibilities of little green men. 

Danizger's UFO story is detailed. I picked what I feel is the most important snippet from the story:

I yelled to Bruce, "Holy s--t." He immediately looked over from what he was doing. Above the clouds, where the white disc had been, was a now giant red ball. It was big and bright and just sat there above the clouds. It wasn't intense enough to illuminate us with a red glow but it was still plenty bright. We sat there in stunned silence. We obviously didn't want to hit it but quickly saw that it was flying parallel to our course. We weren't on a collision course and we also weren't gaining on it. Time became a blur as we continued our descent, this giant, red ball holding its course.
We slowly lost altitude and at around 13,000 feet, the brightly glowing ball began a gradual descent, too. As it did, it slowly started disappearing behind those wispy clouds. In about 30 seconds, like a setting sun but not nearly as bright, it vanished behind the clouds. The instant it fully disappeared, hundreds of lights began flashing from within the clouds.
As I looked on in disbelief, the flashing lights were brighter than ever and I could see that the section of the cloud that the glowing red ball had descended behind was starting to stretch apart like a piece of "Silly Putty," two halves being pulled slowly apart with the middle getting thinner and thinner. This continued until the halves grew so thin that it tore apart and, pop! Everything was gone. The dimly lit disc, the flashing lights, the thin wispy clouds that we had with us for the last 40 minutes; all of it, gone. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Only the full moon remained off to our left.

He said he and his colleague  were mesmerized by what they had just witnessed. They were also told to report their incident to Peter Davenport's famed UFO REPORTING CENTER--controllers on the radio gave them the phone number! A clear indication that many pilots most likely have the reporting center on speed dial for those must-need situations of dire UFO activity.. 

Do you want to believe??
Do you already?

If you're a pilot, you may have no choice after seeing the sights you have seen..