American Airlines not denying possible UFO spotting, says: 'Talk to the FBI'
Pilot said it "looked like a cruise missile type of thing"
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}An American Airlines passenger jet traveling from Cincinnati to Phoenix encountered an apparent UFO over northeastern New Mexico Sunday afternoon.
The pilot on flight 2292 radioed around 1:00 p.m. CST and said that the unidentified object was flying right on top of them, according to a transmission recorded by Steve Douglass on his blog, Deep Black Horizon. American Airlines verified to Fox News that the transmission is from flight 2292.
"Do you have any targets up here? We just had something go right over the top of us," the pilot said in the radio transmission.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I hate to say this but it looked like a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing moving really fast. It went right over the top of us."
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American Airlines confirmed that the radio transmission is authentic, but did not give any further comment on the possible alien encounter.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Following a debrief with our Flight Crew and additional information received, we can confirm this radio transmission was from American Airlines Flight 2292 on Feb. 21," an American Airlines spokesperson told Fox News in a statement. "For any additional questions on this, we encourage you to reach out to the FBI."
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Flight 2292 was around 37,000 feet at the time of the sighting, and Albuquerque Center did not respond because local air traffic interfered, according to Douglass. The flight went on to land in Phoenix, Arizona.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}New Mexico is home to White Sands Missile Range, which is located in the southern part of the state and is described as the Department of Defense's "largest, fully-instrumented, open air range."
Scott Stearns, the chief of public affairs at White Sands Missile Range, said the range was not testing anything on Sunday and also noted the distance between the missile range and northeastern New Mexico, which is about 400 miles.
"We have no idea what it could have been or if anything similar has been sighted in that area before," Stearns said in a statement to Fox News.
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Thousands of UFO sightings are reported each year, but encounters by pilots have received increased attention recently.
In February 2018, two pilots separately encounter an object beaming light at roughly 50,000 feet in eastern Arizona, the Arizona Republic reported.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Between 2014 and 2015, Navy pilots encountered numerous UFOs traveling at hypersonic speeds up to 30,000 feet in the air, the New York Times reported.
Fox News' Peter Aitken contributed to this report.