UFO Sightings 2018: New Audio Claims 2 Pilots Saw Same Mysterious Object

Two different airline pilots claimed they spotted the same UFO — a mysterious, reflective object — hovering about 30,000 feet (9144 meters) while flying over southern Arizona last month. They reported it to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which released a radio broadcast of the incident, reports said Tuesday.

According to radio transmissions between the two pilots and air traffic controllers, which the FAA recently released to the Phoenix New Times, the sighting occurred around 3:30 p.m. local time (6:30 p.m. EDT) on Feb. 24, somewhere over the Sonoran Desert near Phoenix.

"Was anybody above us that passed us like 30 seconds ago?" the first pilot can be heard asking while flying a Learjet west towards California.

"Negative," an air traffic controller at the FAA's Albuquerque Air Traffic Center in New Mexico responded.

"OK," the pilot responded. "Something did."

The first pilot could not determine if the unidentified object was hovering or actually flying. Whatever the object was, it was at least a few thousand feet above the jet, the Phoenix New Times reported.

A few minutes later, the FAA asked another nearby flight, — an American Airlines Airbus traveling in the same direction — to be aware and keep an eye out for anything "passing over" it in the desert.

The confused American Airlines pilot agreed. Within a few minutes of the warning, the Airbus crew saw the same mystery object fly over their aircraft.

"Yeah, something just passed over us," the Airbus pilot reported. "I couldn't make it out, whether it was a balloon or what … but it had a big reflection on it and it was several thousand feet above us, going the opposite direction."

Several weeks later, authorities are still surprised as to where the object might have come from. Beyond these two pilot reports, the FAA said they could not verify that any other aircraft were around to have noticed the unidentified object. They stated it was unlikely that it was a "Google balloon," a weather balloon or a military craft.

"We have a close working relationship with a number of other agencies and safely handle military aircraft and civilian aircraft of all types in that area every day, including high-altitude weather balloons," an FAA representative said.

A database collected by the National UFO Reporting Center based in Washington state claimed that New York City has experienced 85 UFO sightings in the past two years.

Manhattan alone experienced the most number of sightings — 27 to be exact — in 2016.

Another newly declassified video and audio, released earlier this month showed U.S. Navy pilots apparently encountering a UFO while flying their Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet along the East Coast in 2015.

"What ... is that thing?" one pilot was heard saying in the video.

"Oh my gosh, dude! Look at that flying!" another exclaimed.

According to an ABCNews.com report earlier this month, the 35-second footage, captured by an infrared camera aboard an F/A-18 fighter jet, which was traveling at 25,000 feet, was released to the Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA), a private scientific research and media group.

This video came after the release of two other declassified videos of apparent UFO sightings by U.S. Navy pilots, published by the Times in December 2017.