American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

Re:American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on... by danaliv on Tuesday February 23, 2021 @10:59PM (#26246425)

> ATC didn’t call it so presumably they didn’t see it on radar.

Not a reasonable presumption. VFR aircraft are lowest priority, and traffic calls for VFRs are very much not guaranteed. If a controller has too much to do, you won’t get traffic calls. And just because the frequency is quiet, doesn’t mean the controller is twiddling their thumbs. They could be on the landline or briefing the next controller.

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Re:American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on... by oceanplexian on Tuesday February 23, 2021 @11:06PM (#26246465)

While this is true something at that closing rate and speed would have stood out like a sore thumb, it’s also probable alarms would have gone off. Source: I’ve been inside of a center facility and had the privilege of playing with a scope and asking questions.

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Re:American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on... by aaronfitz on Wednesday February 24, 2021 @08:09PM (#26258536)

ATC operates on secondary radar (transponder data). If there is no transponder, it would not appear on their scope. Some facilities have an option to switch to primary radar, but it is not usually monitored.

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