747 Cargo Pilot Shares Anomalous Sightings
CHRISTIAAN VAN HEIJST was born in 1983 in the Netherlands and from an early age was drawn to the sky. At 12 years old he decided he wanted to be a pilot.
Initially starting out flying gliders at age 14, Christiaan obtained his Private Pilot’s License (PPL) even before he had a driver’s license. As an eager beginner aerobatics pilot, he competed in the Dutch National Aerobatics Championship and in 2003, at the age of 20, won first place.
At the age of 20 he was hired as a First Officer on the Fokker 50 turboprop airliner, flying all over Europe, for multiple African airlines and as a military contractor in Afghanistan.
Photo © Christiaan van HeijstIn 2006 he started flying the Boeing 737 as a First Officer. In that time he was also working as a freelance ferry & test pilot for a contractor company.
After four to five years on the Boeing 737 his dream came true. Christiaan was hired as a First Officer on the Boeing 747-400. At the age of 27 he was one of the youngest pilots in the world to fly the first 747-800 series aircraft that entered service that year. He has now been flying the Boeing 747 for over twelve years and has seen a large variety of destinations and landscapes, leading to his position of Captain today. Presently with close to 9,500 hours in his logbook, including over 6,000 hours on the Boeing 747, Christiaan considers himself extremely privileged to fly for a living and be able to document the world from above.
One of the most frequently asked questions Christiaan receives is: “Have you ever seen anything weird or unexplainable in the air”. The answer is: “Yes.”
In the last twenty years of flying he has seen some amazing things up there. Although 99% of them proved to be purely mundane and eventually identified, a couple of sightings still beg for an explanation.
With so many military pilots coming forward about their sightings recently, Christiaan has decided it's time to talk.
Here is a list of Christiaan’s unexplained sightings/reports in chronological order:
Falling light 1
July 2005 – Southern Germany, probably Nuremberg, date unknown (not noted in logbook unfortunately)
Ball of white light falling through layers of clouds, vertically down, at night. Speed was very fast. Fokker 50, flying around 20,000 ft. Noticed bright light falling vertically down, illuminating the lower layer of clouds before/while falling through it. No Air Traffic Control (ATC) call, no other aircraft calls over the radio. Captain was as surprised as I was. Rest of flight uneventful.
Erratic and fast moving light
28/29/30 Sept 2005 – Greece, probably the island of Mykonos or similar, late evening/night (not noted in logbook at the time).
After landing (Fokker 50) at night, we made a 180° turn on the runway and during the turn we saw a bright light appearing in the sky at extremely high altitude. It moved instantly (distance about one fingertip width with extended arm), disappeared, appeared again, moved roughly the same distance, disappeared again, etc., about 3 times. It then appeared roughly 2 times that distance and instantly shot off at ludicrous speed, without acceleration: just instant speed and it was gone from sight. Estimated altitude was unknown, but our estimation was 'extremely high': higher than any regular commercial traffic. Looked almost like a star. Speed is impossible to judge because of unknown altitude, but IF altitude was 30,000-40,000 ft (regular commercial traffic), it would have been Mach 10 or 20+ at least. No visible trail was left.
The US Carrier Strike Group 2 with the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) was passing by in the Mediterranean on its merry way to the Persian Gulf that night for the Second Gulf War. This was mentioned in Notice to Airmen airspace closure (NOTAMS) as well. Unknown if these events are connected.
Falling light 2
28th of February 2009, Adriatic sea around the Greek/Albanian border, roughly 20 km from the coastline.
Boeing 737 flying northbound along the Greek/Albanian coastline during daylight. Both of us suddenly saw a bright white ball of light falling/moving vertically down into the Adriatic Sea, perhaps 10-30 km from the coastline, plummeting into Albanian airspace/coastal waters.
Greek Air Traffic Control confirmed to us in an annoyed and bored tone that there was no military activity whatsoever taking place and just transferred us to the Albanian controller and nothing was said or done since. Neither of us had any clue what it was and left it for what it was.
No splash, light just disappeared into the sea. All of it happened within 2 seconds. There were no clouds at all for as far as the eye could see: perfectly clear weather. NO thunderstorms in the vicinity whatsoever, ruling out any 'ball lightning' or strange lightning strikes.
Spain Object
23 January 2010 – Spain, lasted over an hour. Between 1700-1800 UTC
A third strange sighting was during a flight with a 737 from Amsterdam to Malaga on the late afternoon of Jan 23, 2010. We noticed a certain object far ahead of us showing a rounded rectangular shape as if we were looking in the rear side of a contrail. But we were flying at 41,000 feet and there is hardly any traffic above us at these altitudes. We were on a 'direct route' from Pamplona (PPN) in the Madrid Flight Information Region (FIR) to Malaga (thus not on a formal airway) and saw the object far, far ahead of us all the time, not changing direction. We were unable to estimate its distance, so judging its altitude was near impossible, but in case it was another commercial airliner, we guessed it might have been 100 (nautical) miles ahead of us, perhaps a bit more. With a 100 miles distance in mind, it was flying MUCH higher than any commercial traffic so our curiosity was spiked.
Unknown object - Spain, 23 January 2010.
Photo © Christiaan van HeijstWhile still flying in the north of Spain, we asked Madrid ATC if there was any known traffic ahead and above us. They told us there was no traffic at all and wondered why we asked. So we told them we saw an object far ahead of us and rather large. We were just casually wondering what it was. He immediately asked us to contact the military air traffic control frequency and tell them what we saw. These military guys were prompt, interested and took serious note of all we saw. He confirmed there was no other traffic at all, all the way down to Morocco; no military activity, no commercial traffic, no weather balloons; nothing. We saw the stationary object all the time for an hour at least, until we descended into the clouds over Malaga at [reporting point] position CRISA, far to the south of the Iberian peninsula.
Then again,
we saw it with our own eyes and my camera captured it,
It was something physical in our atmosphere (outside of our atmosphere and it would not have been a shadow but reflecting light and thus light, like a planet or the ISS is visible because of reflecting light back to Earth),
It was far away from us and must have therefore been at an extreme altitude.
It was stationary laterally; it might have been moving to/from us but since it remained stable and the same size for us, that seems unlikely.
Air Traffic Control was very interested and quickly sent us to the military controller who took our sighting seriously and wanted to know all the details. He also confirmed there was NO known traffic ahead of us at any altitude all over Spain. Not sure if this means we saw something extraordinary, but it is still interesting and I've never seen something like this since. They will soon be analysed by Mr Tonio Cousyn from the French organisation IPACO. Tonio Cousyn also works for GEIPAN and has indicated that they are very interested in this particular case.
As well as the above sightings, Christiaan witnessed and photographed many other strange sightings, which turned out to have prosaic explanations. Christiaan will be speaking with Vinnie on the Disclosure Team YouTube channel this evening to discuss sightings both prosaic and unexplained, click the play button below and tune in at 9pm GMT / 4pm EST / 1pm PST.
For more information visit Christiaan’s website or follow him on Instagram.
NOTE: If you’re a pilot (private, commercial or military) or a member of the armed forces and you want to report or talk about an anomalous incident, then please do not hesitate to contact Vinnie or UAP Media UK at one of the following email addresses:
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