Imagine you’re cruising at 30,000 feet. Everything is routine. The hum of the engines is hypnotic. Then, out of nowhere, something that shouldn't be there—something that defies every law of physics you learned in flight school—streaks past your cockpit window. We aren't talking about a bird or a stray weather balloon. We’re talking about a ufo almost hit plane scenario that happens way more often than the FAA used to like admitting.
It’s terrifying.
For decades, pilots stayed quiet. If you reported a "UFO," you were basically asking for a psych evaluation and a grounded flight status. But the culture is shifting. Real data is leaking out. High-definition sensor footage from military jets and frantic cockpit recordings from commercial liners are finally painting a picture of a crowded sky. This isn't just about little green men; it's about aviation safety and mid-air collisions that were avoided by pure, dumb luck.
When Metal Meets the Impossible
One of the most chilling cases of a ufo almost hit plane involves a 2014 encounter off the coast of Virginia. Navy pilots flying F/A-18 Super Hornets began seeing objects on their radar that didn't have any visible engine exhaust or infrared signature. One pilot, Lieutenant Ryan Graves, has been vocal about this. He described an object that looked like a "sphere encasing a cube."
Think about that for a second.
A cube inside a sphere.
It wasn't just drifting. It was holding its position against hurricane-force winds. One of Graves' squadron mates actually had a near-miss with one of these things. The object zipped between two jets—flying in tandem—nearly clipping them. The pilots were so shaken they filed a safety report, but because it didn't fit the mold of a "drone" or a "known aircraft," it languished in bureaucratic purgatory for years.
This isn't an isolated incident. In 2021, the American Aviation 1492 flight over New Mexico reported a long, cylindrical object that "almost looked like a cruise missile" moving at incredibly high speeds right over the top of the Airbus A320. The pilot's voice on the radio was calm, but you could hear the confusion. The FAA eventually issued a statement, but they basically shrugged.
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The Science of a Near Miss
Why is this so hard to track? Well, your standard primary radar works by bouncing radio waves off an object. If the object is shaped specifically to deflect those waves, or if it's made of materials we don't use in traditional manufacturing, it stays invisible until it's right in your face.
Most commercial pilots rely on TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System).
"TCAS is great, but it requires the other aircraft to have a transponder. If the 'guest' in our airspace isn't broadcasting a signal, the plane's computer has no idea it's there. The pilot has to rely on their eyes. At 500 knots, that's a losing game." — Anonymous Commercial Captain.
The Problem With Drones
A lot of skeptics—and honestly, a lot of the government—try to bucket every ufo almost hit plane report into the "unauthorized drone" category. Sometimes, they're right. We’ve seen a massive spike in hobbyist drones flying where they shouldn't. But drones have batteries. They have propellers. They have a limited range.
When a pilot reports an object at 40,000 feet moving at Mach 2 without a sonic boom, it’s not a DJI Phantom from the local electronics store.
The Pentagon’s AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office) has been digging into these. They’ve looked at hundreds of cases. While many are identified as balloons or sensor glitches, a persistent "core" of cases remains unexplained. These are the ones that keep safety investigators awake. If one of these objects actually hits a wing or gets sucked into an engine, we aren't just looking at a mystery; we're looking at a catastrophe.
Chasing the "Tic Tac"
You've probably heard of the Nimitz encounter. It’s the gold standard for these discussions. Commander David Fravor and Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich saw an object that looked like a giant white Tic Tac. It was 40 feet long, no wings, no rotors.
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It mimicked their movements.
Then it vanished and reappeared miles away at their CAP point (where they were supposed to meet later). If that thing had decided to occupy the same physical space as Fravor’s jet, there would have been nothing left but debris. The sheer acceleration these objects show is what makes a ufo almost hit plane event so dangerous. They move in ways that suggest they don't care about inertia.
The Stigma is Dying (Slowly)
We’re seeing a change in how the FAA handles this. They’ve actually updated their manuals. They’ve started telling pilots: "Hey, if you see something weird, tell us." They stopped the "you're crazy" narrative because the sheer volume of reports from credible, sober professionals became impossible to ignore.
But there’s still a gap.
Military pilots have fancy Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) pods. They can "see" the heat and the shape. Commercial pilots? They have their eyes and maybe a weather radar that isn't designed to pick up solid, non-reflective objects.
A Pattern of Behavior?
If you look at the clusters of where these near-misses happen, they often occur near "sensitive" areas.
- Military training ranges (W-72 off the East Coast).
- Nuclear carrier strike groups.
- Nuclear missile silos in the Midwest.
It’s almost like someone is testing our response times. Or maybe they’re just curious about our tech. Either way, when a ufo almost hit plane event occurs in these areas, the military usually scrambles, but by the time they get there, the sky is empty.
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The Physical Reality of the Danger
Let's get technical for a minute. If a plane hits a bird, it’s bad. If a plane hits a 40-foot solid object moving in the opposite direction, the kinetic energy is astronomical. We use the formula $E_k = \frac{1}{2}mv^2$. Since the velocity ($v$) is squared, even a relatively small mass at high speed becomes a literal bomb.
Pilots describe these objects as having "trans-medium" capabilities. That’s fancy talk for "they can fly in the air and dive into the water without slowing down."
How do you avoid something that doesn't follow the rules of aerodynamics? You can't. You just hope it misses you.
What Should Pilots Do?
If you're a pilot and you find yourself in a ufo almost hit plane situation, the protocol has changed. It's no longer about keeping your mouth shut.
- Document everything immediately. Use your phone if you have to, but get the exact time, altitude, and heading.
- Check your instruments. Did your GPS flicker? Did the radio go static? These "electromagnetic interference" signatures are huge for researchers.
- File a UAP report. Don't just tell your buddies at the hangar. Use the official channels like the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS).
- Talk to organizations like NARCAP. The National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena has been collecting this data for years and they actually treat pilots with respect.
The reality is that our skies are becoming more crowded, not just with our own tech, but with things we don't yet understand. Whether these are secret black-budget projects from a foreign adversary or something much more "out there," the risk to human life is the same. We need better sensors on commercial aircraft. We need a transparent way to share this data between the military and the FAA.
Mostly, we need to stop pretending it isn't happening. Every time a pilot says a ufo almost hit plane, we should be listening. Because the next time, they might not miss.
Actionable Steps for the Curious and the Concerned:
- Review Official Records: Check the AARO website for declassified reports on UAP sightings and flight safety incidents.
- Monitor ADS-B Exchange: If you’re a hobbyist, use flight tracking software to see if there are "unlabeled" craft moving in weird patterns near major airports.
- Support Transparency Legislation: Follow the progress of the UAP Disclosure Act and similar bills that aim to force the government to release more sensor data regarding these near-misses.
- Stay Objective: Distinguish between "lights in the sky" and "physical objects in the flight path." The latter is a safety-of-flight issue that requires immediate engineering and policy solutions.