The Craft That Vanished When He Lifted the Goggles: An Air Force Guard Takes His UFO Story to the FBI

In a new interview on the Safe Aerospace Podcast, former Air Force security forces airman Logan Labby describes a large, silent V-shaped object that he and two fellow guards say drifted over Schriever Air Force Base near Colorado Springs in the spring of 2008. The twist? They could only see it through night-vision goggles. The moment Labby lowered them, the sky looked empty again. He later took the account to Americans for Safe Aerospace and the FBI, though the sighting itself remains unverified, and Labby has not claimed to know what the object was.

Watch the full interview on YouTube via Safe Aerospace Podcast.

Twenty Years Since the Saucer Over Gate C-17: The O'Hare UFO That Punched a Hole in the Sky

Twenty years ago this past Saturday, one of the busiest airports on the planet had a visitor that never filed a flight plan. On a gray November afternoon in 2006, a dozen United Airlines employees at Chicago O'Hare looked up and saw something hovering over Gate C-17 that none of them could explain. Two decades later, it's still one of the most famous airport UFO sightings ever reported. Let's take a trip back to the tarmac.

A Routine Pushback

It was about 4:15 p.m. Central time on November 7, 2006. A ramp employee was pushing back United Airlines Flight 446, a Boeing 737 headed from Chicago to Charlotte, North Carolina. Nothing unusual about that. O'Hare handles that kind of thing all day long.

Then the ramp worker noticed something above the plane. Not a bird, not another jet, but what witnesses would later describe as a metallic, saucer-shaped craft hanging silently in the sky over the gate. The employee told Flight 446's crew about the object hovering above their aircraft.

The Radio Chatter Spreads

Here's where it gets good. Word spread over the radio, and people started running outside to look. According to the Chicago Tribune's Jon Hilkevitch, "The disc was visible for approximately five minutes and was seen by close to a dozen United Airlines employees, ranging from pilots to supervisors, who heard chatter on the radio and raced out to view it."

Pilots. Mechanics. Airline management. These aren't folks who get excited about a weather balloon. They look at the sky for a living.

Witnesses described the object as completely silent, dark gray, and somewhere between 6 and 24 feet across. A few independent witnesses outside the airport saw it too. One of them described a disc-shaped craft hovering over the airport and said it was "obviously not clouds."

The Hole in the Clouds

The detail that has kept this case alive for twenty years is what happened when the object left. According to that outside witness, it shot straight up at high speed and left a clear blue hole in the cloud layer, like someone had punched through a sheet of cotton. The hole reportedly closed itself up again a little while later.

A flying disc that leaves a hole in the sky on its way out? That's the kind of detail that sticks with you.

Nobody Saw It on Radar

Now for the twist. No air traffic controllers saw the object, and it didn't show up on radar. And at first, both United Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration said they didn't have any information about a sighting at all.

That changed when the Chicago Tribune, which was digging into the story, filed a Freedom of Information Act request. To comply, the FAA reviewed its air traffic communication tapes, and lo and behold, there was a call from a United supervisor to an FAA manager in the tower about the UFO.

The FAA's conclusion? A "weather phenomenon." Because of that, the agency said it would not be investigating. Some of the witnesses who spoke to the Tribune were reportedly upset that federal officials wouldn't look into it further.

The Skeptic's Explanation

To be fair to the FAA, there's a real weather explanation on the table. Astronomer Mark Hammergren pointed out that conditions that day were right for a "hole-punch cloud," an unusual but very real phenomenon where a round gap opens up in a cloud layer. If you've ever seen a photo of one, you know they look downright otherworldly.

It's also worth being honest about the messy parts. At least four of the eyewitness accounts on file don't agree on the shape, the height, the movement, the time, or even how many objects there were. That's not unusual for sightings, but it does make the story harder to pin down.

On the other side, UFO investigators argued that the FAA's refusal to dig in made no sense. Here was an object seen by numerous airport employees and officially reported by at least one of them, hanging in plain sight over one of the busiest airports in the world. Shouldn't that at least count as a possible safety or security issue?

From the Tarmac to Prime Time

The story exploded once the Tribune broke it on January 1, 2007. CNN, CBS, MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR all picked it up. The History Channel's UFO Hunters covered it in a 2009 episode called "Aliens at the Airport," and it has shown up in shows like Hangar 1: The UFO Files and Ancient Aliens. It even got a nod in an episode of Boston Legal.

So What Was It?

Time for my speculation hat, and I want to be clear this part is just me wondering out loud. If it was a hole-punch cloud, then a dozen trained aviation workers saw a weird patch of sky and their brains filled in a saucer. That happens. But if it wasn't, then something silent and solid decided to park over a United gate at rush hour, waited five minutes, and then left through the ceiling. Honestly, if I were an alien trying to keep a low profile, O'Hare at 4 p.m. is the last place I'd pick. Maybe that was the point.

Twenty years on, we've got no radar track, no official investigation, and a story that refuses to go away. What do you think hovered over Gate C-17? Let me know in the comments.

Sources: Wikipedia, "2006 O'Hare International Airport UFO sighting," and the Chicago Tribune's reporting by Jon Hilkevitch ("In the sky! A bird? A plane? A ... UFO?", January 1, 2007).

The Livingston Incident: The Only UFO Encounter Police Logged as an Assault

Forty-seven years ago this morning, a forestry worker walked his dog up a wooded hill in Scotland and came home with torn trousers, grazes on his chin and thighs, and one of the strangest stories in UFO history. It's the only alien encounter that police ended up logging as a criminal assault. Grab a cup of tea, because the Livingston Incident is a good one.

A Normal Friday in the Woods

On Friday, 9 November 1979, Robert "Bob" Taylor was doing his job. He'd worked in forestry for about 15 years, and at the time he was employed by the Livingston Development Corporation, the body building the new town of Livingston in West Lothian. That morning he parked his pickup truck by a road near the M8 motorway and headed up a forest path on the side of Dechmont Law with his red setter, Lara.

Around 10 a.m., he rounded a corner in the woods and stopped cold.

The Dome With Propellers

Hovering just above the forest floor in a clearing was something Taylor described as a "flying dome," roughly 7 yards (about 21 feet) across. It wasn't sleek or shiny like the saucers in the movies. According to his account, it was made of "a dark metallic material with a rough texture like sandpaper," and its outer rim was "set with small propellers."

Propellers! On a UFO! That detail alone makes this case stand out from almost every other sighting on record.

Then Things Got Weird

Two smaller spheres, which Taylor said looked "similar to sea mines," complete with spikes, dropped out and came rolling toward him. He said they latched onto his trousers and began dragging him toward the big dome. He noticed a foul smell "like burning brakes." And then he blacked out.

When he came to, Lara was barking furiously and the objects were gone. Taylor said he couldn't get his truck started, so he walked home to Livingston on foot.

The Police Get Involved

His wife, Mary, later said he arrived muddy and dishevelled, his clothes torn and his trousers ripped. She called the police and a doctor, who treated him for grazes to his chin and thighs.

Here's the part that makes this case legendary. Officers went back up Dechmont Law with Taylor and found "ladder-shaped marks" in the ground where he said the dome had hovered, plus other marks he said were made by the spiky little spheres. Because a man had been injured, the police recorded it as a criminal assault. That's why the Livingston Incident is so often called the only UFO sighting ever to become the subject of a criminal investigation.

The Skeptics Weigh In

Not everyone was ready to blame visitors from another world. UFO skeptic Steuart Campbell visited the site with police in 1979 and later noticed PVC pipes in a nearby field. The local water authority had been laying a cable duct within about 100 metres of the clearing, and he concluded that stacked pipes could have made the ground marks. He also suggested Taylor might have seen a mirage of the planet Venus.

Patricia Hannaford, a physician and founder of the Edinburgh University UFO Research Society, suggested Taylor may have had an isolated attack of temporal lobe epilepsy, with the objects being hallucinations. She pointed to his history of meningitis, the smell nobody else noticed, his headache, dry throat, the paralysis in his legs, and his blackout. Physicist Steve Donnelly of The Skeptic also leaned toward the epilepsy explanation. And in 2013, local businessman Phill Fenton speculated that Taylor may have had a mini-stroke, been exposed to harmful chemicals, and mistaken a nearby saucer-shaped water tower for a craft.

The Believers Hold Firm

On the other side, Scottish ufologist and author Malcolm Robinson has said he thinks "it could be one of the few genuine cases of a UFO encounter." And the town itself embraced the story. The Livingston Development Corporation agreed to put up a commemorative plaque, which was installed in January 1992, so the spot where it all happened is officially marked.

Bob Taylor died in March 2007 at age 88, and his story was big enough to earn obituaries in The Telegraph and The Economist.

So What Really Happened?

Here's where I'll put on my speculation hat, and I want to be clear this part is just me wondering out loud. If you were an alien civilization capable of crossing interstellar space, would you really show up in a dome with propellers and send out spiky balls to grab a forester by his trousers? It sounds less like a starship and more like a really bad day at a hardware store. But maybe that's exactly what makes it so compelling. Nobody making up a story would choose details that odd.

Whether it was a medical episode, a trick of the light, or something none of us can explain, the Livingston Incident still sits in a category of its own. A real man, real injuries, real police officers, and real marks in the dirt, all on a hillside in West Lothian, 47 years ago today.

What do you think Bob Taylor saw on Dechmont Law? Let me know in the comments.

Sources: Wikipedia, "Robert Taylor incident" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Taylor_incident) and History Scotland's "On this day: The Livingston UFO incident" (https://history.scot/the-livingston-ufo-incident/).

 

I Went to Vote and Came Back Three Hours Later. I Still Have My Sticker

I want to start by saying I did vote. That part matters to me, so I'm putting it first.

I got to the Lincoln Elementary gym around 6:40 PM, later than I'd planned because of work. The line wrapped past the vending machines. I had my ID out and the sample ballot I'd marked up on my lunch break. Everything was normal. A kid was selling lemonade, and a poll worker in a pumpkin sweater kept telling everyone "almost there, hon."

I cast my ballot, got my "I Voted" sticker, and walked out to the parking lot. That's the last normal thing I remember.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on something cold and smooth, like a countertop that had never been touched. The light came from everywhere and nowhere. I wasn't scared, which is the strangest part. I felt the way you feel in a dentist's chair when the nitrous kicks in, calm and a little silly.

There were three of them. They were tall and thin, and their skin had the soft gray shimmer of a soap bubble. They didn't talk out loud, but I could understand them, the way you understand a dog that wants a walk.

They wanted to know about the sticker.

I'm serious. They had no interest in my organs or my DNA. One of them kept pointing at the oval on my jacket, and the question landed in my head as clearly as words: *Why do you wear proof of choosing?*

So I explained it. I told them we all line up, sometimes for hours, to pick the people who make decisions for us. I told them we don't always agree and sometimes get angry about it, but we do it anyway, every couple of years, and then we put on a sticker so other people know we showed up.

They went quiet for a long time. Then one of them peeled the sticker off my jacket very gently, looked at it, and put it back. I swear it was being careful not to wrinkle it.

I woke up in my car with the engine off. The clock said 9:52 PM. My phone had eleven texts from my sister asking if I'd seen the early results. My sample ballot was still on the passenger seat, but now it was folded into a perfect little triangle. I don't know how to fold paper like that.

I know how this sounds. I'm not asking anyone to believe me. I've thought about it every day since, though, and here's where I've landed. Something out there, something that crossed who knows how much space, found the most interesting thing about us in a little paper sticker that says we showed up.

I'm keeping the sticker. It's on my fridge now, right next to the triangle.

The Night the Polls Closed (and the Sky Opened)

 **The Night the Polls Closed (and the Sky Opened)**

The precinct volunteers in Millbrook, Ohio, figured the long line at 6:58 PM was just procrastinators. Then they noticed the voters were nine feet tall, faintly glowing, and holding their ballots upside down.

By 7:30, an enormous silver disc was hovering over the county courthouse, humming the national anthem slightly off-key. A voice that sounded like a blender and a choir arguing announced that the Zorvathi Collective had "reviewed Earth's democratic process with great interest" and would be "participating."

To everyone's surprise, they followed the rules almost perfectly. Each alien showed valid ID, which turned out to be a hologram of its own face with a barcode. They waited patiently in line, and one helped an elderly man find his reading glasses. Their only violation was the bake sale table. Nobody was sure whether the aliens bought all 400 brownies or absorbed them.

Trouble started at the count. Every Zorvathi ballot was a write-in for the same candidate: "THE ONE WHO SAID HELLO." After hours of debate, officials traced it to Doreen Pruitt, 64, a poll worker who'd simply waved and said "Hi, hon" to the first alien through the door. It was apparently the first friendly greeting the Collective had received in 3,000 years of visiting planets.

Doreen won the county commissioner race by 11,000 votes. In her victory speech, she promised to fix the potholes on Route 9 and to "keep being nice to folks, wherever they're from."

The disc left at dawn, playing the anthem again, this time in tune. Experts still can't agree whether the election was stolen. Most of Millbrook agrees it was the best turnout they've ever had.