UFO may have been military plane

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AMHERST, Mass., Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Authorities said a military plane was flying over Massachusetts during reported UFO sightings, but a military spokesman said the descriptions don't match.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman James Peters said agency officials at Bradley International Airport reviewed radar data from Jan. 8 when residents in the Amherst and Pelhem area reported a mysterious aircraft traveling slowly and unusually low over the area from 5:45 to 6:15 p.m., the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported Wednesday.

"The only aircraft that was operating in the area was a military aircraft doing practice approaches to Westover [Air Reserve Base]," Peters wrote in an email to the Northampton newspaper.

Lt. Col. James Bishop, Westover's chief of public affairs, said the aircraft was a C5 cargo plane. However, he said the C5, one of the world's largest aircraft, does not match the description of the craft reported by residents. The residents said the object appeared to be triangular or diamond shaped and about the size of two or three cars. They said it appeared to travel silently at a low altitude.

"There's just no mistaking that," Bishop said. "It's quite a loud sound and quite a big aircraft," he said of the cargo plane.