Obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, the publication was able to collect both audio recordings of radio transmissions and phone calls made by staff members of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) during and after the event. The FAA, the North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) and the US Air Force confirmed to the outlet that this incident took place.
The story relayed by the blog goes as follows: on this eventful October day, an unidentified aircraft was detected on an air traffic controller's radar at around 4:30 p.m. local time traveling at high speeds through northern California at 37,000 feet. It disappeared from radar after it "merged with nearby air traffic" later.
With the flying object not responding to radio communication, officials in California tapped fellow traffic controllers and pilots to get a clearer picture of the aircraft. Unfortunately, pilots did not offer much as they were unable to make out an identification of the plane — they only managed to note that the aircraft was white. Sightings of the object trickled in for roughly 30 minutes.
But the air traffic controllers were not alone in their efforts to figure out who or what was maneuvering the unidentified aircraft — the US military and NORAD were also monitoring the situation.
Though it's unclear who gave the go-ahead for the US Air Force to issue a scramble, after controllers were unable to pinpoint the object, an undisclosed number of F-15s were deployed to investigate the situation. However, despite the fighter's abilities, they were not able to locate the mystery object, either.
The fourth video released by the publication details conversations that took place after the UFO disappeared from radars. In the recordings, air controllers from the Oakland Center are first heard trying to figure out who ordered the F-15 scramble before the conversation turns to talking about what actually happened.
"The fighter scrambled, they went out looking around a little bit, but… we lost anybody having sight of the aircraft," an FAA employee stationed in Seattle is heard telling a colleague in one of the recordings. "It's really weird."
In phone interviews conducted after the incident, pilots shared what they saw when speaking to officials with the FAA.
"If it was like a Lear [private jet] type airframe I probably would not have seen it this clear," a Southwest Airlines pilot who saw the UFO told an FAA official. "This was a white airplane and it was big. And it was moving at a clip too, because we were keeping pace with it, it was probably moving faster than we were… It was a larger aircraft, yeah."
Though some netizens have suggested that the UFO could've been a secret military plane or part of a drug smuggling scheme, it is still unclear what actually appeared on radars.