DEVELOPING
Shiny Silver Object 'Size of Four Toasters' Buzzes BA Jet Over Surrey
A UK Airprox Board report says a Heathrow-to-New York 777 was passed by an unidentified object at 5,800 feet, and investigators could not say what it was.
GUILDFORD, ENGLAND — A British Airways passenger jet climbing out of Heathrow on a June afternoon was passed at close quarters by an unidentified metallic object over Surrey, according to a safety report summarised in a news article shared to the r/UFOs forum on Reddit. The investigating body, the UK Airprox Board, has reportedly concluded that it could not determine what the object was.
The aircraft, a Boeing 777-300ER bound for New York, carried 256 passengers and crew, the article states. It was ascending through 5,800 feet above Guildford, in broad daylight, on June 24 when the flight crew spotted the object approaching at high speed from the opposite direction.
According to the pilot's report, as relayed by the article, the object passed no more than 50 feet above the altitude of the aircraft, on its right-hand side. The article asserts that it came within feet of striking the right wing, though the 50-foot figure given is the only measurement attributed to the pilot. Official logs reportedly show the captain at once radioed the London Terminal Control Centre to report that a high-speed projectile had buzzed the jet.
The crew described the object as "shiny silver" and highly reflective, and put its size at about that of four toasters. The article says the crew first feared it might be a drone, but that investigators were left baffled by its appearance and by the altitude at which it was met.
The Airprox Board, the official body charged with investigating near-misses in British airspace, is reported to have classed the occurrence as a serious safety concern. The article says investigators ruled that they were unable to verify the object's identity, and that a collision was avoided purely by chance. The source offers no radar data, no photographs and no further explanation, and it does not say that anyone has proposed a non-human origin.
The piece, as reproduced on r/UFOs, uses the word 'horror' in its headline and the term 'UFO' in quotation marks. In the strict sense of the phrase, an unidentified flying object is exactly what the board's finding describes: something seen, reported and, for now, unexplained. Readers may draw their own conclusions about toasters.