Fourteen open files, zero closed ones, and a leathery wingspan visible on approach radar at 2,200 feet.

At 6:47 PM Eastern on Tuesday, a United regional flight on final approach to Newark Liberty International reported a collision avoidance alert for an object at 2,200 feet that was not, by any conventional definition, an aircraft. The FAA confirmed the sighting at 9:12 PM, opened a file, and then — and I want to be precise about this because precision is the thing I have left — noted that the file was the fourteenth such file opened this fiscal year, and that all thirteen preceding files remain open. None have been closed. Facilities has not been asked why. I am told this is deliberate.

Seventeen witnesses have been confirmed across three reporting categories: two flight crew, nine ground personnel at the tower and on the tarmac, and six civilians at long-term parking who, according to the FAA statement, were ‘looking up for unrelated reasons.’ The FAA’s language there is doing considerable work. I am not going to pull on that thread tonight, but I am noting it for the record, which is what this desk is for.

Community Notice

What Was Seen, and By Whom, and From How Far

Tower personnel describe the object as large, winged, and not behaving the way things at 2,200 feet are expected to behave, which is to say it was not maintaining a heading, not responding to radio challenge, and not showing up on secondary radar in any way that matched its apparent size. A source at the tower, who asked not to be identified by name but consented to being described as ‘done with this,’ told WTC the wingspan read visually as somewhere between thirty and fifty feet. The Jersey Devil, for those arriving to this story without background, has been reported in the region since 1735. The FAA has been around since 1958. These two timelines have apparently been running parallel for some time without producing a resolution.

I’ve been here nineteen years. I know what geese look like on approach. I know what a drone looks like. I know what a small plane looks like in bad light. This was not any of those things, and I am saying that in an official capacity, which I understand has consequences.

— Senior Tower Controller, Newark Liberty International, name withheld by request

The radio on my desk has been running at a higher pitch than usual since approximately 6:30 PM. I clocked it before the call came in from the field. I am not drawing a conclusion from that. I am recording it because I record things, and because the pitch has not dropped.

We are aware of the prior files. We are reviewing the prior files. The prior files are voluminous.

— FAA Spokesperson, statement read as written, no elaboration offered

Newark Liberty is operating on a modified pattern as of this broadcast. Departures are unaffected. Arrivals are being routed two degrees north of standard final. The FAA describes this as a ‘routine operational adjustment.’ The last time the FAA described something as a routine operational adjustment at this network’s request for comment, we spent the following three weeks in a holding pattern of our own. I have learned to note the language and move on. We will continue following this story. The files, presumably, will continue to accumulate.