NARRATOR: May 25, 1995.
America West Flight
564 is a Boeing 757
on route from Dallas,
Texas to Las Vegas,
Nevada with a full
cabin of passengers.
 2530 knots.
 Captain Eugene
Tollefson is at cruising
altitude when a flight attendant
sees something strange.
 Are you seeing those
lights at our 3:00?
 Yeah, we've been
following them for a while.
NARRATOR: Against a
scattering of clouds,
the crew reports strange
lights in the distance.
Concerned co-pilot John
Waller contacts the ATC
in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
NARRATOR: Air traffic control
asks the pilot for any details
about what he sees.
CONTROL (OVER RADIO):
It's up in the air?
 Affirmative.
 What's the altitude about?
 I don't know, probably
right around 30,000 or so.
There's a strobe and it's
going counter clockwise.
NARRATOR: Then a
flash of lightning,
and Waller says the
object he sees is massive.
 The length is unbelievable.
NARRATOR: He says
the object appears
to be as big as a
jumbo jet, but there
are none in the area according
to air traffic control.
If it is an aircraft
undetected by radar,
it is a dangerous situation.
When a flight crew reports a
possible UFO over the radio
in real time--
 The length is unbelievable.
NARRATOR: --their
colleagues on the ground
are often skeptical
but diligent.
So at 9:30 PM, Albuquerque
contacts the control tower
at nearby Cannon Air
Force Base to see
if they have any military
aircraft in the skies.
CONTROL (OVER
RADIO): Cannon, 21.
CANNON AFB CONTROL (OVER
RADIO): Cannon, go ahead.
CONTROL (OVER RADIO):
Guy at 39,000 says he's
seeing something at 30,000.
The length is unbelievable
and it has a strobe on it.
CANNON AFB CONTROL
(OVER RADIO): Uh huh.
What does that mean?
CONTROL (OVER
RADIO): I don't know.
It's a UFO or something.
CANNON AFB CONTROL
(OVER RADIO): No, we
haven't seen nothing like that.
CONTROL (OVER RADIO):
OK, keep your eyes open.
NARRATOR: The radar operator
at Cannon Air Force Base
sees only one signal,
America West 564.
 Heavy 564, we
checked with Cannon
and they don't have
any weather balloons
or anything up there tonight.
Nobody up front knows
any idea about that.
Do you still see it?
NARRATOR: They look
again and don't see it.
 Negative.
It was between the
weather and us.
And when it lightning you
could see a dark object.
 It's pretty eerie looking.
NARRATOR: The incident
remains a mystery.
 The kinds of things that
can fool even, I think,
trained pilots, are for
example, bright planets.
And for people
who are not paying
attention to the night sky very
much, it's a little startling.
NARRATOR: Celestial
bodies could have
also played a role in
America West Flight
564 over New Mexico in 1995.
 Uh, off our three
o'clock we've got
some strobes going out there.
Could you tell us what it is?
NARRATOR: From 30,000 feet,
a distant planet or star
can appear to strobe, giving
the illusion of a UFO.
 There's a strobe and it's
going counter clockwise.
NARRATOR: Can this
rare stellar anomaly
be what America West 564 saw?
 There are extensive
records of military pilots
and commercial pilots
seeing things in the sky
that are unidentified.
NARRATOR: Dr.
Michael De Robertis
is a professor of astronomy
at York University in Toronto.
 Some of the brightest
stars can give an illusion
that they're strobing,
that it's changing
brightness really rapidly.
NARRATOR: De Robertis
believes some pilots simply
get fooled by phenomena
most people rarely see
and have never studied.
 As much as we respect our
commercial and military pilots,
part of their training
does not include courses
in astronomy and astrophysics.
Well, the sky is filled with a
lot of apparitions and mystery.
But not all of them are UFOs.
