Unidentified Traffic at 8,000 feet

It was a chilly night in early March of 2001 just after 1:30 in the morning. I was flying a trusty Cessna 208 Cargomaster aircraft for FedEx as I had for the last four months.

The year before I had just gotten my commercial pilot’s license fulfilling a lifelong dream of taking to the skies. Now I was working for FedEx doing feeder flights between Portland, OR and Seattle, WA to build up my flight time in the hopes of getting an airline job.

It wasn’t the most exciting type of flying and certainly not the most well-paying, but I was very grateful for the experience! I would end up doing these milk runs several times a day flying back and forth. Loading — Flying — Unloading — Loading — Flying…you get the idea.

It was generally routine and uneventful except for some occasional weather challenges that the Pacific Northwest is famous for as well as frustrating traffic delays. However, tonight’s flight would turn out to be one to remember.

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I took off from Portland just after 1:00 am running about 10 minutes late (FedEx hates that!) and right around 1:30 am I was leveling off at 8,000 feet heading northbound toward my destination, King County International Airport or more commonly known as Boeing Field.

Since it’s such a short flight I was immediately preparing for my approach as I would begin my descent in a few minutes. The routine was suddenly shattered when I heard an audible warning followed by my TCAS system exclaiming — “Traffic, Traffic!”.

TCAS stands for Traffic Collision Avoidance System and allows aircraft to detect if another flight is too close. It will warn you and if needed give instructions to take evasive action. This was brand new on the Cessna 208 back then and the first aircraft I had flown with TCAS so I was not accustomed to it.

As soon as I heard the first warning, I started looking for traffic and contacted Seattle Center air traffic control to report the warning.

Before I could get anything back from ATC, I got a second TCAS warning and the audible message — “Climb, Climb!”

This means take immediate action to avoid an imminent collision. So I did just that and started climbing while continuing to look for the traffic. That is when I saw a brilliant white light come into view just ahead and below me. It whizzed past me at incredible speed just underneath my aircraft creating a sudden jolt that caused me to inadvertently disconnect the autopilot (another alarm).

Now ATC was contacting me and instructed me to descend to 4000 feet for my approach to which I could only respond “Center FedEx 1525 unable, unable TCAS climb! Traffic just passed underneath me!”.

I could hear other aircraft on the frequency talking about unknown traffic. A Delta 757 reported traffic ahead of them now and was instructed by ATC to make an immediate right turn to avoid it. I could hear the Delta pilots say, “What the hell was that, it was just off my left wing!”.

An Alaska 737 reported seeing the traffic as well and stated that it appeared to be darting around and behind the Delta jet. “Center Alaska 535, we can see the traffic, er uh, he is beside, no behind, uh the 757 at my 9 o’clock and wait yeah its going back and forth! What the &$#% is that?!”

ATC wasn’t saying much except giving instructions where possible to avoid it. I however reported that I was clear as my TCAS system had reset and ATC handed me off to Seattle approach.

“ATC: FedEx 1525 contact Seattle approach good night and stay safe.”

It wasn’t over yet however.

On contacting approach, I could hear more talk of a white spherical object that had obstructed or interfered with at least three aircraft including me and the Delta and Alaska jets.

I could now see the object which was very bright but could not make out any details though it seemed to be stationary just east of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SeaTac), a very busy airspace.

I reported it and ATC indicated they had a primary target on radar and were attempting to identify it.

A primary target means that they detect an object on radar but there is no data about its identity, altitude or speed because there is no transponder signal which aircraft use to broadcast this data to ATC and other aircraft.

“ATC: Unidentified aircraft you are in an active airspace, contact Seattle approach immediately!”

Which it never did.

As I began my approach into Boeing field, I saw the object off to my right at about 2 o’clock and it looked like it was moving very fast then stopping and pausing and then moving again. Finally, it darted to the north and was gone in an instant.

I landed at Boeing field about 10 minutes later. On the ground I was met by a company supervisor and an FAA employee who asked me a few questions and then asked if I wanted to file a report. My supervisor stepped in immediately and said there was really no point in that given that there was no damage. I agreed just wanting the stress of the incident behind me and the FAA employee who seemed indifferent said Ok and left.

To my knowledge no one involved, not any of the pilots, controllers, company management or airport employees filed any kind of report of this incident. My supervisor told me afterwards it would be best to not speak of it any further as it would just cause both of us more problems.

This is incredibly common and why most UAP encounters are never reported. Pilots and air traffic controllers don’t want to lose their jobs or have their careers threatened by unwanted attention and companies want nothing to do with being associated with these kinds of events.

So the result is this kind of thing is happening much more than anyone realizes as I’ve talked to many other pilots and aviation enthusiasts over the years with similar stories.

With what has come out recently from the government and other sources, it is clear that it is happening with military pilots who also are reluctant to report. Clearly these kinds of events need to be studied and we need to know what these things are because THEY ARE HERE! Not to mention they are an issue for aviation safety.

I don’t know what THEY are but this is happening all over the place with great regularity and being witnessed by highly trained individuals who have no desire whatsoever to make it up as it is very threatening to their livelihood, reputation and mental well being.

What is going on here? Do the authorities know what these things are?

We have a right to know!