By Steve Hammons
(This article also appears on the Transcendent TV & Media
Two recent incidents being reported in the media involve unidentified objects flying through the air near U.S. football games.
These unidentified flying objects (UFOs) might turn out to be something quite normal and become identified flying objects. In fact, they may already be explained.
One case occurred Sunday, Oct. 23, in New Orleans during the game between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts. An unusual-looking object appeared to be zipping through the night sky and was caught by NBC cameras. (This may have been a camera-related situation that distorted the image.)
The following Friday evening, Oct. 28, in Scottsdale, Arizona, (northeast metro Phoenix region) Horizon High School was playing the Notre Dame Preparatory High School. During the game, unusual lights were seen by many people in the sky and videotaped. (It turns out that these lights may have been a parachute team using a type of “sparklers” for public demonstrations.)
Interestingly, on the evening of Thursday, Oct. 27, another witness on the other side of town in the northwest region of metro Phoenix spotted a blue light, larger than a star or plane light, moving at a high rate of speed through the northwestern sky and changing directions rapidly three times before it suddenly disappeared. It seemed to be generally over the Lake Pleasant area of the far northwestern part of the city of Peoria, Arizona.
The Lake Pleasant area was also the location of a daylight sighting of an unusual object in April 2010. A reliable witness reported the sighting of large U-shaped or V-shaped object with flashing red, yellow, blue and green lights. The object zipped around the sky briefly west of the I-17 freeway, according to the witness, then disappeared into the clouds.
Ohio University stadium, Athens, Ohio
HUMAN BEHAVIOR, PUBLIC EVENTS
Public sightings of what appear to be unusual objects in the sky have happened at football games before.
Back on Sept. 3, 2011, several unidentified objects were spotted in the sky above the Notre Dame University stadium during a storm-related delay of game when Notre Dame was playing the University of South Florida.
A 1973 case in eastern Kentucky also involved a UFO over a football game. Multiple witnesses, including a police constable, saw a large oval-shaped object move slowly through the sky. Details of this incident were reported in a local newspaper and included in the book “Appalachian Case Study: UFO Sightings, Alien Encounters and Unexplained Phenomena” (Volume Two) by Kyle Lovern.
If unconventional visitors were actually observing Earth close up, would they be interested in human social behavior, such as humans watching a sports event together in outdoor stadiums?
Maybe they would wonder if these public venues are reasonable places to make themselves seen, as part of a more open contact with humans.
The well-known example of the 1997 Phoenix lights case as well as other incidents may indicate that people will not necessarily panic when a very unusual craft appears in a public way. However, certain public health and safety concerns seem valid.
FIREFIGHTER MANUAL
The 1992 training manual for firefighters “Fire Officer’s Guide to Disaster Control” may have good tips in case more public sightings take place that could be “the real deal” – the public appearance of anomalous craft.
In their chapter titled “Disaster Control and UFOs” authors Charles “Chuck” Bahme and William Kramer say the two main hazards from UFOs are powerful energy fields and psychological impacts.
Electrical field phenomena could affect firefighters’ and public safety communication equipment and vehicles, they wrote.
Hypnotic, paralyzing, disorienting or confusing mental and emotional states could be faced by firefighters, peace officers and others, according to the authors. Public anxiety or concern could affect human behavior.
Their section on “Adverse Potential of UFOs” reviews several aspects of a public close encounter and ways public safety personnel can mitigate problems.
In their conclusion of the chapter on “Disaster Control and UFOs,” Bahme and Kramer say that planning, adequate resources and good leadership are important in handling many kinds of challenging situations.
They indicate that these resources can be applied to an unconventional public close encounter as well.
NOTE TO READERS: Hammons is author of the novels Mission Into Light and the sequel, Light’s Hand. Please visit his Joint Recon Study Group site at http://jointreconstudygroup.blogspot.com and Transcendent TV & Media site at http://tvtranscend.blogspot.com