UFOs hovered near Springsteen concert? Video posted by TV station

This article originally appeared on the Joint Recon Study Group site.)

Were there UFOs hovering near the recent Bruce Springsteen concert in Philadelphia?

On a sunny and pleasant 75-degree afternoon Saturday, Oct. 4, thousands gathered for the concert in support of Barack Obama. It was held in the heart of the city near the Ben Franklin Parkway.

One of the people at the concert took video of what appear to be four objects hovering in the sky some distance away and at a fairly low altitude.

Philadelphia television station WPVI-TV, Channel 6 (ABC affiliate), reported on its Web site the following Wednesday, Oct. 8, that Jessia Sechrist, a Philadelphia resident, shot the video and also sent it in to the TV station.

Channel 6 posted the video along with two still photos.

The video seems to show four objects in close proximity to one another, hovering in basically stationary positions, though there is gradual movement by them.

Photographic analysis by experts could be helpful in attempting to identify the objects.

OTHER RECENT SIGHTINGS

Whatever such analysis concludes, it can probably safely be said that the objects could be balloons of some kind or could remain "unidentified."

Photographic analysis experts should be able to determine some characteristics of the objects.

Last April, dozens of residents in Phoenix, Arizona, saw video on their local TV stations about several unusual red-colored lights hovering above the north side of the city one evening.

A few days later, it was confirmed that a local resident launched road flares attached to large balloons from his backyard.

Of course, Phoenix residents might have been somewhat more attuned to unusual things in the sky. On March 13, 1997, hundreds or possibly thousands of local people claimed they witnessed a huge V-shaped, boomerang-shaped or triangular solid craft cruise slowly and quietly, and at quite a low altitude, directly across the metropolitan Phoenix area, known as the "Valley of the Sun."

Arizona's former governor, Fife Symington, a pilot and former Air Force officer, later stated he also saw a huge solid craft. Symington stated that he did not believe the craft was man-made.

And on Nov. 7, 2006, a gray, metallic, disc-shaped object was seen by dozens of witnesses hovering over Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Many of the witnesses were airport or airline employees very familiar with watching the skies and identifying aircraft.

Eyewitnesses claimed the metallic-looking disc was "well defined" in the sky, according to news reports. Witnesses claimed the object was silent and hovered in a stationary position just below the cloud deck which was estimated to be 1,900 feet that day. No lights were reported and the size of the object was estimated to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter.

In late 2007 and early 2008, many residents of the Stephenville, Texas, region reported very unusual lights in the sky and in some cases solid craft at very low altitudes.

Witnesses include reliable local citizens and several regional peace officers.

Some officers were reportedly able to videotape some of the objects from their "dash cam" video cameras mounted in their patrol cars. One officer reportedly tracked a low-flying object with his radar gun. The object was clocked at 27 miles per hour.

Subsequent analysis of FAA radar data in the region for Jan. 8, 2008, 4 pm to 8 pm, by investigators with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) concluded that a very large object, without an activated identifying transponder was in the area and flew within 10 miles of the Bush ranch in Crawford.

MUFON researchers also concluded that there was more U.S. military aircraft traffic than usual in the region that evening.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

When the late newsman Tim Russert co-moderated a Democratic primary debate Oct. 30, 2007, he asked then-presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich about a reported UFO sighting.

To chuckles, Kucinich admitted he saw something that was unidentified and appeared to be flying.

After the debate during follow-up discussions with some of the candidates, the other moderator, Chris Matthews, asked New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson about UFOs, since New Mexico is associated with "the Roswell incident."

Some people thought Russert may have been attempting to make fun of Kucinich. Some people thought it was a silly question. While others may have believed that Russert was demeaning a legitimate topic.

However, Russert brought this topic forward in the context of a presidential debate and this action by him might have been quite valuable.

Subsequently, a reliable source who reportedly sometimes spoke with Russert about this subject told me that he believed Russert had a genuine interest in the subject of UFOs and extraterrestrial and/or extra-dimensional visitation to Earth.

Russert, a devout Catholic and widely believed to be well-connected for information sources, undoubtedly also was aware of the Vatican's longstanding interest in space and the Vatican Observatory's involvement with the Mount Graham Observatory in southeastern Arizona.

In May 2008, Father Gabriel Funes, the pope's chief astronomer, wrote an article in the Vatican newspaper about intelligent extraterrestrial beings. The article was titled "Aliens Are My Brother."

Funes' article was not the first public indication that the Vatican was quite informed about and interested in subjects of this kind.

In addition to Russert, other mainstream media platforms have addressed the UFO and ET topic.

CNN's Larry King has frequently had guests on his show about this subject.

Last month, ABC aired a special called "UFOs: Seeing is Believing." The program was a follow-up to the 2005 program "Peter Jennings Reporting – UFOs: Seeing Is Believing."

Mainstream media platforms have appeared to increasingly report on this topic in a more serious, professional and responsible way.

In the case of the objects seen at the Springsteen concert in Philadelphia, currently there does not appear to be much more to report at this time. If photo analysis is conducted on the video and results indicate something unusual, undoubtedly this will be reported by some media outlets.

But, whether the objects spotted over the concert were balloons, extraterrestrial craft or something else, we might consider that being objective, level-headed and open-minded about these things can have advantages as we move forward.

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