Another anecdote from someone in the know.

[boulders and sticks]

Thought this was of interest. My son's bestfriends grandfather worked in the Airline industry from the mid 50's to the early 90's. Starting as a mechanic and working his way up to representing the Airline mechanists and aerospace workers. He met many people in Washington over the years including Jimmy Carter. He and i had a conversation the other day while watching the Kids practicing soccer. We talked about aircraft design and testing and many other aspects of his work in the industry. I was very impressed to hear of the tests they do on the wings especially. I don't know about you, but when i'm up there and see thoses things bending under the turbulance it tends to freak me out a little. They apparently fix the fusulage down and put hydraulic rams on the tips of the wings and bend them up and down about 12 feet or more for days on end with out any problems.
Anyway he also told me he was friendly with many pilots ranging from the very young one's to the seasoned veterans some from ww2. Well i had to ask him if he had ever heard of them seeing anything up there over the years of flying.
His reaction without ANY hesitation was, I quote "Hell Yeah!" While looking me straight in the eye. He told me as you all have heard before, "They just didn't talk about it to much and kept it between themselves."
I know this dosen't set the world on fire but i thought it was interesting coming from a guy with his background, basically a no nonsense union guy with a position of high authority in that industry.
Cheers John.

 

[Jonah]

Thanks for sharing that B&S (no pun intended)....here's one of my own.

A few years back (2006), we visited my wife's best friend in southern Cal. Her next door neighbor, who my wife's friend was friendly with, worked in the aerospace/miltech industry, working on drones or some such thing. He couldn't talk about it. One day, we were sitting around his pool shootin the breeze and he mentioned he had worked on the Atlantis space shuttle team as a chief designer of systems or some such thing. I mentally filed it in the back of my head. A few days later, we took a stretch limo ride up the coast and into Hollywood, my wife's friends treat. Anyways, she had invited the neighbor friend and he accepted. We started out mid morning and by noon, the guy had down a half a fifth of whiskey....the guy liked his alcohol.

I saw my opportunity and motioned for him to join me in the back of the limo. He came back and we started talking, again, with me engaging him in small talk. Yada, yada, yada. I then asked him about his work on the shuttle, if he had worked with astronauts and the like. Oh yeah, he said, he had worked with many. I then asked him if they had ever discussed with him seeing anything unusual up in space, UFO's and stuff. He immediately replied, "hell yeah", but it was pretty much the same thing. They (the astronauts) talked about it quietly amongst themselves but it was very much on the down low. Never reported "officially", but discussed. Then he got wise, even though he was really wasted and clammed up after just a couple of sentences. It was very apparent to me that as inebriated as he was, his "security clearance" mode had kicked in. He then moved away from me and continued to practice what was apparently his favorite habit. The guy had no idea of my interest in the subject.

Didn't matter. It was too late. I had got exactly what I wanted out of him. It simply reaffirmed and validated for me, from a back door kind of perspective, the reason why certain men of the "right stuff", Cooper, Mitchell, Aldrin, Musgrave and others, have a peculiar interest in the concept of 'life elsewhere'.

FWIW..believe it or not.

 

[boulders and sticks]

I don't think the guy i spoke too had any problems sharing his experiences with me. He is a very down to earth guy. Its hard to beleive looking at him now that back when he was head of the union he called a strike that grounded several of the major US carriers.
I have also made friends with an ex US fighter pilot. I have not talked to him about anything, but i may in the future. He was based for some years at Bentwaters, England. So maybe there are some things that would be interesting to chat about.
Cheers John.

 

[Poi]

My sister lived next to a Delta airline pilot for years so she once asked him if he ever saw strange things in the sky. He smiled at her and said something like, "Sure. I report them, as I'm supposed to, but I never hear another word about my reports nor has there ever been confirmation."

So I've always believed that industry is supposed to report sightings, regardless of the popular view or what people may say to the contrary. This guy was supposed to report them to Delta anyway. Hard to believe Delta was the only company gathering reports.

My sister never questioned him about what he saw. He was an extremely conservative guy and my sister's mouth was hanging open. Don't think she ever expected to get the answer she got. Don't think the pilot would have expanded on what he told her anyway. He's since retired, lost his savings guaranteed by Delta and has become a paramedic. They no longer live near each other so I suppose it's the end of the story.