Here's the thing, I've been a commercial pilot for twenty-two years. I've flown everything from regional turboprops to the heavy wide-bodies I captain now. You see a lot of things up there..weather balloons, drones, military traffic, weird atmospheric reflections. You learn to identify them instantly because your job depends on it. But what I saw on August 30th, 2020, on the final approach into Los Angeles... nothing in my training prepared me for that. We were flying a standard A320, coming in from Philadelphia. It was a clear Sunday evening, visibility was unlimited, just a beautiful day to be flying. We were established on the approach for Runway 25 Left at LAX. For those who don't fly, the approach into LA is busy. You're watching your speed, your altitude, listening to a constant stream of chatter from the tower. We were descending through about 3,000 feet, roughly ten miles out from the runway threshold over South Gate.
My First Officer was handling the radios, and I was flying the aircraft. I was scanning the horizon, doing my routine traffic check. That's when I picked up something off our left side. At first, my brain just registered it as 'traffic', another aircraft. But the profile was wrong. It wasn't moving like a plane, and it was way too small to be a helicopter. We were doing about 160 knots, and this object was basically stationary relative to the ground, maybe hovering or moving slowly. I squinted, trying to make sense of the silhouette against the blue sky. It was close. Maybe three hundred yards off our wing tip, same altitude. 3,000 feet in the air. As we closed the distance, the shape resolved, and my stomach just dropped. It wasn't a machine. It wasn't a drone. It was a man.
Here's the thing, I want to be very specific about what I saw. I saw a human form. Legs, torso, head. 'He' or 'ii' was upright. There was no fuselage around him, no wings, no rotor blades. It looked exactly like a guy strapped into some kind of propulsion pack. It looked like Iron Man. I could see the separation between the legs and the bulk on the back. My brain immediately started fighting the visual. Physics says this is impossible. Jetpacks exist, sure, but they have a fuel range of maybe ten minutes max. They don't go up to 3,000 feet, hover around the approach path of one of the busiest airports in the world, and just hang out. The temperature up there is chilly, the air is thinner. And yet, there he was. We zipped past him in seconds, but the image was crystal clear. has had multiple jetpack sightings over the years - Steve' He was just... floating there.
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