This topic came to mind and has had me very curious after reading the thread about Area 51 and I was curious if anyone in all there time spent in the air has ever seen anything strange and unusual, something that you just couldnt explain? If so was ATC contacted and how did the conversation go? What did you and the other pilot think of whatever it was?

One of the most frightening things I have ever witnessed in the air was the catering out of Miami. I have seen more visual goodness come from a dog food can. Fortunately we had a supply of heavy plastic bags and I was able to safely dispose of the biohazard before the entire crew was stricken.

Other odd threats in the air included a pilot who insisted on turning on the landing lights to warn off a rising Venus and a gent who carefully navigated around a mountain 15,000 feet below us while describing the intensity of the thunderstorm he thought he saw on radar.

I've seen a few missle launches at night and some fantastic meteorite displays, but never anything hinting at a domicile off the home planet.

One time I actually saw an asst chief pilot shoot an ILS that resulted in an intact landing with no major airframe damage or injuries at the destination airport!

Teriyaki pasta on our XJT branded flying. Not only strange, but also scary!

I once had a Chief Pilot in ANC who treated employees as assets instead of liabilities, thought he was there to support us instead of the other way around, and would defend pilots in public and ask questions in private.

Strangest thing I've ever seen in aviation. Not surprisingly, he disappeared without a trace.

Flying at 70,000 near Dallas (VFR on top) ands listened to an American Airlines Pilot argue with center over the UFO he could see "way above him" and demanded to know what the flight plan and altitude were if it was an aircraft. Our transponder was off and we were VFR. Center told him nothing was up there.

I had a copilot fly a visual approach with the autopilot, still not sure why he thought the heading bug would turn him onto downwind quicker than the yoke.

No aliens, but you can see a lot of little meteorites with NVG's at night.

Approaching NYC one night, we saw five lights in the shape of a star moving slowly across the northern part of the city. Somebody asked Approach Control about it and he responded: "Yeah, it's a group of general aviation pilots who rigged up bright lights on their airplanes and are flying around in formation to see how many phone calls they can generate. It's the second time they've done it."

how do 5 lights make up a star? pentagon maybe :P

mine is just outside of fallon, saw two streaks of fire probably 50 miles or more away, approximately level alt, could have been missle tests and all, only thing was they never arced or descended, they stayed level and then dissapated, asked ATC about it, they said "maybe military ops"....

my dad also told me stories of the wurtsmith AF base ufo sighting, you can google it if you are interested, he was stationed there at the time as a tower controller, I was like 10 months old

Thats great ATC prob thought the AA pilot was out of his mind.

Some great stories so far keep them coming they are very intersting to read about.