Swissair Missile Sightings 
by Michael Hull 

On August 9, 1997, Swissair Flight 127 reported a near miss with a possible 
 missile over Long Island.


 September 27, 1997 (Neue Zuricher Zeitung) 
 Swissair has revealed that an unidentified flying object almost collided with 
 one of its planes over the United States last month. The captain and his 
 co-pilot said an oblong and wingless object shot past at great speed - only 
 fifty metres away from their Boeing Seven-Four-Seven. The American air 
 traffic authorities said it was probably a weather balloon.

 September 26, 1997 11:42:10 PDT (Drudge Report) 
 An unidentified object narrowly missed a Swissair Boeing 747 while the 
 aircraft was at 23,000 feet, passing in air space between Philadelphia and 
 New York, on August 9, Swiss radio reported this morning. Major newswires are 
 taking the story and moving it. The pilot described the object ... as "white, 
 elongated and without wings," and strongly rejected U.S. explanations that 
 the object was a weather balloon, the radio report said. The object was 
 moving at very high speed, Swissair spokesman Erwin Schaerer tells the NTSB. 
 The plane was Zurich-bound, from Philadelphia. AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE is 
 reporting that there may be passenger witnesses to the incident...

 March 5, 1999    www.cbcnews.com    Ottawa (CP) 
 A Swissair pilot reported his 747 jet was nearly hit by an unidentified 
 flying object, possibly a missile, near the area off New York where a TWA 
 airplane crashed in 1996, The Canadian Press has learned. Swissair Flight 127 
 was cruising at 23,000 feet on Aug. 9, 1997, when the pilot interrupted an 
 address to passengers to report the near miss by a round white object, says a 
 report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. "Sir, I don't know 
 what it was, but it just flew like a couple of hundred feet above us," he 
 radioed Boston air traffic control. "I don't know if it was a rocket or 
 whatever, but incredibly fast, opposite direction." "In the opposite 
 direction?" asked the controller. "Yes sir, and the time was 2107 (Greenwich 
 mean time). It was too fast to be an airplane." The controller asked another 
 aircraft if its crew saw anything like a missile in the area. The reply was 
 negative. He then asked the Swissair pilot again how far above the plane it 
 was. "It was right over us, right above, opposite direction, and, and I don't 
 know, two, three, four hundred feet above. All that I can tell, 127, is that 
 (we) saw a light object, it was white, and very fast." Investigators 
 interviewed the captain and first officer on Aug. 10, 1997. The flight 
 engineer hadn't seen the object and was not interviewed. The report, filed 
 under NYC97SA193, said the flight was opposite John F. Kennedy Airport at 
 5:07 p.m. Eastern time - near the area where TWA Flight 800 went down July 
 17, 1996..... The transportation safety board report said the Swissair 
 captain saw the cylindrical object for less than a second. He did not see any 
 wings and was not sure it was an aircraft. "He had never been so close to 
 other traffic before," said the report. "It passed over the cockpit, slightly 
 right of centerline. If it had been any lower, it would have hit the 
 aircraft. "As the object passed by, there was no noise, no wake turbulence, 
 and no disruption or anomalies with any of the flight or engine instruments." 
 The plane was flying in clear weather to Boston from Philadelphia at the 
 time. The sun was at the pilot,s back. He apparently did not have time to 
 take evasive action. "There was no exhaust or smoke, no fire, and he could 
 not accurately discern its size. The captain reported his total time as 
 15,000-plus flight hours. He had never seen a missile in flight." The first 
 officer, whose flight time totalled 7,500 hours, said he was bent over to 
 adjust the volume on his headset when he looked up and saw the object pass 
 overhead "very quickly." "It was close enough that he ducked his head because 
 he thought it would hit them. . . . He thought it passed about 100 to 200 
 feet above the airplane and between the right side of the fuselage and the 
 No. 3 engine." The first officer said no markings were visible and the object 
 appeared to be the size of a thumbnail held at arm's length. He said he had 
 previously encountered a weather balloon over Italy, and the object did not 
 look like the balloon.  He had witnessed missile launches from the ground 
 previously, the report said. The report said the nearest weather balloons are 
 launched from Upton, N.Y., 43 nautical miles northeast of JFK twice daily, at 
 7 p.m. and 3 a.m. Eastern time and usually take 25 to 28 minutes to reach 
 23,000 feet. Balloons are light tan or brownish, or black and red, said the 
 report, adding the wind was blowing from the north, almost at right angles to 
 the aircraft. Investigators also checked radar data and plotted the plane's 
 flight path. "There was no evidence of an opposite direction target, either 
 beacon or non-beacon," said the report.

 Here is the transcript of the incident ....

 SWR 127: Center - Swissair 127
 Controller -1: Swissair 127 - go ahead.
 SWR 127: Yes sir. I don't know what it was but it just overflew like .. like 
 a couple of hundred feet above us .. I don't know if it was a rocket or 
 whatever but incredibly fast in the opposite direction. 
 Controller -1: In the opposite direction?
 SWR 127: Yes sir. And the time was 2107 (5:07 pm local time).  It was too 
 fast to be an airplane.
 Controller -1: OK.  Thank you. 
 Controller-1: US Air 986 - Did you see anything like a missile in your area - 
 perhaps off to your right?
 US Air: I'll take a good look but if it's goin' that fast I probably won't 
 get a chance. We just saw Swissair go by a minute ago.
 Controller-1:  OK. Thanks
 SWR 127: Swissair 127. We had no T-CAS (collision avoidance) warning.  It was 
 way too fast I guess.
 Controller -1: Swissair 127 - Thank you.
 Controller -1: Swissair 127 - How far above you was it?
 SWR 127: It was right over us - right above .. opposite direction ...  and 
  ... I don't know two, three, four hundred feet above us.
 Controller-1:  OK. Thank you
 SWR 127: All I can say, 127, is that the three of us saw a white object - it 
 was white and very fast.
 Controller -1: Swissair 127 - Thank you.
 Controller -1: Northwest 550.  Did you see anything similar to a missile or a 
 UFO in your vicinity - maybe about three minutes ago?
 NW 550: We heard that report but we haven't seen anything - Northwest 550.
 Controller -1:  USAir 1800 you didn't see anything either?
 USAir: We saw nothing ...
 Controller -1: Hey Chris. Swissair 127...  he had a UFO or a rocket or 
 something almost hit him in my airspace. 
 Controller -2: A UFO or a rocket almost hit the Swissair 127???
 Controller -1: Yea, it went right above him - two or three hundred feet he 
 says. Some kind of white object. They're checking into it here but if he says 
 anything to you .... just to let you know.
 Controller -2: OK. Thank you.

 The captain (Bobet) and the first officer (Grunder) were interviewed the 
 following day in Boston by the FAA, the FBI, and the NTSB.  The FAA report 
 quoted the captain as stating that the object "appeared to be moving" and 
 "the object did not appear to have an exhaust plume, or resemble any 
 characteristics of a rocket".  The captain denied that these were his 
 statements when contacted by the staff of the UFO Research Coalition which 
 conducted an investigation of the incident...


 The UFO Research Coalition  Report on Swissair 127   ISBN 1-928957-00-5  (1999)   Pages 7-8

 Captain Bobet: 'The object appeared to be moving...' is a wrong statement. I 
 insisted on the very high speed of the object at different occasions. So, the 
 object did not "appear" to be moving, it WAS moving. 

 "In addition, the object did not appear to have an exhaust plume, or resemble 
 any characteristics of a rocket ...."  I NEVER metntioned the word "rocket" 
 (or missile). I would have done so only if I was sure that we encountered 
 one. Even though it was (and still is) very tempting to use the word, I will 
 never use it as long as I am not 100% sure it was a rocket.  Thus, I 
 certainly did not say that "the object DID NOT resemble any characteristics 
 of a rocket."  This is pure speculation from the FAA.

 Asked about the FAA report that United Airlines Flight 176 had seen a weather 
 balloon and that was the FAA's opinion of what the Swissair pilots saw, 
 Captain Bobet commented....

 The UFO Research Coalition  Report on Swissair 127   ISBN 1-928957-00-5 
  (1999)   Page 11
 As already mentioned, that was one hour after we spotted the object ... 
 ridiculous statement from the FAA!

 In a taped interview with Robert Durant, Captain Bobet discussed the reason 
 for the discrepancy in his description of the object as cylindrical and the 
 co-pilot's description as round and stated....

 The UFO Research Coalition  Report on Swissair 127   ISBN 1-928957-00-5 (1999)   Page 13-14
 Bobet: Yeah, they insisted on that. I don't know whether they were looking 
 for an excuse or whatever, but they insisted on a different perception. I 
 don't know why. I told the, Mr. Hancock, the NTSB man, that we saw it from a 
 differnt angle, so obviously we couldn't see the same form. Two things that 
 make me not believe any weather balloon story is the speed and the size, And 
 the form. I saw it long, I'm absolutely sure, absolutely sure. I will never 
 ever say that it was a missile, unless I would be 100% sure. Because when you 
 start stlking about a missile then of course the story goes on and on and the 
 media people get on it. So I can't be sure, 100% it was this. Now if you aske 
 me what would be the closest, I would say yes it was, it would be a missile 
 but on purpose I mentioned the white shark, ok.  (Note from website author: 
 Bobet used the term "white shark" to describe the object to avoid using the 
 word missile)  I didn't want to mention the name missile.
 Durant: That's fair. But the size, you would estimate as the size of a great 
 white shark?
 Bobet: Yes

 Bobet also revealed there was another Swissair incident in mid-June 1998 .... 
 The UFO Research Coalition  Report on Swissair 127   ISBN 1-928957-00-5 
  (1999)   Page 26  In July 1998, Bobet advised us that Swissair had 
 experienced another UFO sighting in the vicinity of JFK International Airport 
 in mid-June. The airplane had been airborne only several minutes, and was en 
 route to Zurich.  All three cockpit crew members saw the object. No report 
 was made to Air Traffic Control authorities at the time, and apparently no 
 notification of U.S. authorities was made subsequently. Only Swissair 
 management was briefed by the crew.


 Also in mid-June of 1998 there was a similar sighting in Britain ...

 June 12, 1998     (BBC News September 15, 1999 Published at 18:29 GMT 19:29  UK) 
 A UFO that narrowly avoided colliding with a passenger jet flying from 
 London's Heathrow Airport has baffled aviation experts.  The metallic 
 grey-coloured object was spotted by the pilots of an Oslo-bound McDonnell 
 Douglas MD81 plane on 12 June 1998, and passed just 20-50 metres from them. 
 The captain said the object was the size of a small aircraft, while the 
 co-pilot described it as a "bright light, very close".  Reporting to an air 
 traffic controller, the captain said "a flare or something passed 20 feet 
 from our aircraft", but nothing had been recorded on the radar screen. The 
 pilot later filed a near-miss report, known as an airprox, in which he said 
 the object looked similar to a fighter. But a report by the Civil Aviation 
 Authority found no explanation for the incident, which has also confounded 
 local military experts and local police.  "Air traffic controllers were 
 certain that even a very small aircraft would have been detected, 
 particularly on Heathrow radar," said the report. Although the evidence of 
 the unnamed airline's crew is considered to be reliable, the report notes 
 that they only caught a brief glimpse of the object.


 The U.S. government seems to have received a claim about these attacks....

 August 10, 1998         International News Electronic Telegraph
 American officials said that the State Department received information on 
 June 12 that bin Laden was threatening "some type of terrorist action in the 
 next several weeks".

 Three months later Swissair Flight 111 from JFK crashed on the tenth 
 anniversary in the islamic calendar of the bombing of PA 103 after a high 
 intenstity fire erupted in the cockpit....

 September 2, 1998     11 Jumaada al-awal 1419 A.H. 
 Swissair jet from JFK crashes off Nova Scotia not far from the city of Halifax

 December 21, 1988    11 Jumaada al-awal 1409 A.H. 
 Pan Am 103 bombed over Lockerbie.
 The fire was tentatively blamed on an entertainment system wiring problem yet 
 the heat was so intense that aluminum was melted. Strangely on board the 
 aircraft was a Saudi prince whose family Osama bin Laden is attempting to 
 overthrow.

 September 5, 1998   The Hindu Online 
 A Saudi Arabian prince was among those killed in the Swissair plane crash off 
 Canada. The English-language Saudi Gazette quoted a Swissair source 
 confirming that Prince Bandar Bin Saud Bin Saad Abdul Rahman al-Saud was 
 among the 229 passengers and crew killed when the plane plunged into the 
 Atlantic near Nova Scotia on Wednesday. Prince Bandar, 45, a former Saudi Air 
 Force pilot, was on his way to visit his father who was receiving treatment 
 in Switzerland.