NARRATOR: May 25, 1995.
America West Flight 564 is a Boeing 757
on route from Dallas, Texas to Las Vegas,
Nevada with a full cabin of passengers.
2530 knots.
Captain Eugene Tollefson is at cruising
altitude when a flight attendant sees something strange.
Are you seeing those lights at our 3:00?
Yeah, we've been following them for a while.
NARRATOR: Against a scattering of clouds,
the crew reports strange lights in the distance.
Concerned co-pilot John Waller contacts the ATC
in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
NARRATOR: Air traffic control asks the pilot for any details
about what he sees.
CONTROL (OVER RADIO): It's up in the air?
Affirmative.
What's the altitude about?
I don't know, probably right around 30,000 or so.
There's a strobe and it's going counter clockwise.
NARRATOR: Then a flash of lightning,
and Waller says the object he sees is massive.
The length is unbelievable.
NARRATOR: He says the object appears
to be as big as a jumbo jet, but there
are none in the area according to air traffic control.
If it is an aircraft undetected by radar,
it is a dangerous situation.
When a flight crew reports a possible UFO over the radio
in real time--
The length is unbelievable.
NARRATOR: --their colleagues on the ground
are often skeptical but diligent.
So at 9:30 PM, Albuquerque contacts the control tower
at nearby Cannon Air Force Base to see
if they have any military aircraft in the skies.
CONTROL (OVER RADIO): Cannon, 21.
CANNON AFB CONTROL (OVER RADIO): Cannon, go ahead.
CONTROL (OVER RADIO): Guy at 39,000 says he's
seeing something at 30,000.
The length is unbelievable and it has a strobe on it.
CANNON AFB CONTROL (OVER RADIO): Uh huh.
What does that mean?
CONTROL (OVER RADIO): I don't know.
It's a UFO or something.
CANNON AFB CONTROL (OVER RADIO): No, we
haven't seen nothing like that.
CONTROL (OVER RADIO): OK, keep your eyes open.
NARRATOR: The radar operator at Cannon Air Force Base
sees only one signal, America West 564.
Heavy 564, we checked with Cannon
and they don't have any weather balloons
or anything up there tonight.
Nobody up front knows any idea about that.
Do you still see it?
NARRATOR: They look again and don't see it.
Negative.
It was between the weather and us.
And when it lightning you could see a dark object.
It's pretty eerie looking.
NARRATOR: The incident remains a mystery.
The kinds of things that can fool even, I think,
trained pilots, are for example, bright planets.
And for people who are not paying
attention to the night sky very much, it's a little startling.
NARRATOR: Celestial bodies could have
also played a role in America West Flight
564 over New Mexico in 1995.
Uh, off our three o'clock we've got
some strobes going out there.
Could you tell us what it is?
NARRATOR: From 30,000 feet, a distant planet or star
can appear to strobe, giving the illusion of a UFO.
There's a strobe and it's going counter clockwise.
NARRATOR: Can this rare stellar anomaly
be what America West 564 saw?
There are extensive records of military pilots
and commercial pilots seeing things in the sky
that are unidentified.
NARRATOR: Dr. Michael De Robertis
is a professor of astronomy at York University in Toronto.
Some of the brightest stars can give an illusion
that they're strobing, that it's changing
brightness really rapidly.
NARRATOR: De Robertis believes some pilots simply
get fooled by phenomena most people rarely see
and have never studied.
As much as we respect our commercial and military pilots,
part of their training does not include courses
in astronomy and astrophysics.
Well, the sky is filled with a lot of apparitions and mystery.
But not all of them are UFOs.