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describing incidents during flight involving aerial phenomena that did not correspond to normal air traffic. These incidents posed a potential threat to air safety. One of our most important civil aviation cases occurred in 1988 and showed that unidentified flying objects can be a danger for air operations. A Boeing 737 pilot, on a final approach to the runway at the Tepual Airport in Puerto Montt City, south of Santiago, suddenly encountered a large white light surrounded by green and red. The light was moving toward the airplane, coming straight at it, and the pilot had to make a steep turn to the left in order to avoid a collision. The phenomenon was also observed by the control tower personnel. More recently, in 2000, the crew of a Chilean plane from the aviation branch of the Army, flying south of Santiago, observed a long cigar-shaped object, a brilliant gray. It flew parallel to the right side of the aircraft for two minutes, very close to it, and then disappeared at an extremely high speed along the mountain coast. This object was detected by the radar of the control center of Santiago, which notified the crew minutes before the incident and confirmed the ensuing pilot observations. It so happened that the pilot of this plane was the director of military aviation studies and was also my flight instructor during my training to be a military flier. Because of my connection to him, I had access to the full report on this incident, filed within my department by those involved, and I investigated the case further. I was able to interview the other pilots, the flight engineer, and the passengers on the flight who also observed the object. ~ In this unusual case, the military aviation crew members confirmed the reality of the UFO through careful observation and detailed reporting. Radar simultaneously confirmed the object's extraordinary movements; the case heightened official interest by Chilean military and aviation personnel in the UAP phenomenon. In fact, this significant event had a major effect on the attitudes and opinions of our military pilots. It was because of my involvement in this pivotal case that I was asked to study the involvement in involvement in this’ pivotal case that I was asked to study the unconventional topic of UAP in order to graduate from my pilot training that asked to case was program. After conducting this investigation, I concluded in my thesis that UFOs are physically real and their presence in our skies is concrete. However, difficulties arise when we try to study their behavior, because of the complexity of the phenomenon and because of our inability to predict UFO events. I realized that the wide variety of different shapes, structures, 1 1 ea wn colors, and movements of these UFOs meant that they must comprise a larger, more widespread phenomenon than we have understood. When I became a pilot, I heard stories about encounters with unidentified flying objects, and became aware of the risks they could create, the possible dangers. In Chile there is excellent training provided in aerospace for all types of emergencies, but there is nothing written or