ET? Cruise missile? An American Airlines pilot was baffled by what he saw over New Mexico

An American Airlines pilot’s call to air traffic control on Sunday is rekindling the long-running debate over unidentified flying objects in New Mexico.

A New Mexico blogger picked up a brief snippet of radio chatter from an American Airlines pilot on Flight 2292 from Cincinnati to Phoenix asking air traffic controllers about a strange object sighted over the airplane.

“Do you have any targets up here?” asked the pilot, according to a recording on Deep Black Horizon, which describes itself as an aviation-space-military-intelligence news blog. “We just had something go right over the top of us.

“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 right over the top of us.”

American Airlines confirmed the recording.

“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,” said American Airlines spokesman Derek Walls. “For any additional questions on this, we encourage you to reach out to the FBI.”

Was it a military test? A drone? Maybe visitors from another world?

The FBI had not responded to a request for comment.

In the post, Deep Black Horizon blogger Steven Douglass said the incident took place over the northeastern corner of New Mexico near the border with the Texas Panhandle. That would have put the sighting about 225 miles from the center of UFO lore, Roswell, N.M.

Douglass’ blog said there were no military aircraft on flight logs for the region.

Airline pilots have reported unidentified objects before, including sightings of a “jetpack man” flying near Los Angeles International Airport on a few occasions last year. Some have speculated that that may have been a drone.

The 37,000-foot cruising altitude of the Airbus A320 jet was far too high for a hobbyist with a drone.

Over the last few decades, pilots including some at American Airlines, have reported seeing unrecognizable objects, including some over the southwestern United States.

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