UFO Cut communications during combat situation then was fired upon.
UFO Combat Contact Date: October 15th 2009 @ 0300 in the morning.
Location: Al-Iskandariyah, Iraq Brief background of me at time of incident: I was a 11B (Infantry) RTO (Radio Transmitter Operator) Description of event: The night started out as a basic patrol from FOB (Forward Operating Base) Chosen. The base was located at the Al-Iskandariyah power station. Everything went as normal when our convoy came under attack from insurgent forces. As the RTO of the convoy, I was directing communication from the convoy to the base. The attack happened at the government housing that we called The projects. The housing was setup as multi-level apartment complexes surrounded on all sides by farmland with the road going up the eastern side of the complex. Power was scarce in the area so there was no electricity at night.
The encounter happened about 15 minutes into the firefight. I was standing by the driver door of the HMMWV (Military Vehicle, similar to a civilian Hummer H1) coordinating the attack and directing support with the Lieutenant. Facing west, the UFO just appeared out of nowhere. I was looking directly at the craft when it appeared. The craft was dead silent, had a dark hull, non-reflective, appeared cigar shaped from my angle, and had a series of blue lights on the bottom and top. The craft was about 100 meters away from us and about 150 meters off the ground. The craft was dead still and had no sway or movement at all.
About 30 seconds after it appeared, the (Singars) Radios in the HMMWV immediately started to emit a steady tone. Our vehicle was equipped with 3 radios (One for platoon, one for battalion, and one for aviation.) Two of the radios where on VHF Frequencies and one was on a UHF Frequency. All three radios started to emit a stead tone on all three radios at the same time. Our handheld radios (MBTTR Radio) also emitted the same tone. As I switched to the different channels, every single Freq was jammed with the same tone.
The fire fight immediately stopped and a single shot was not fired by either us or the insurgents. At the same time our communications were jammed, the electronics on the ITAS TOW Missile system went off line rendering the missile launcher and optics useless. The craft stayed there motionless for about what I guess was 2 minutes when we heard 3 loud booms coming from our base. After the booms, the craft immediately disappeared and all communications were restored.
At FOB Chosen, the TOC (Tactical Operation Center) was monitoring our contact when they too witnessed the craft appear (as the base was only about 700 meters away from the craft). Later when we returned to base, they told us to that they heard the same tone, not only from the VHF and UHF radio, but also the tactical satellite radios. At the same times, all the computers in the TOC went off line and became unresponsive.
At the same time, our base had three 105mm howitzer artillery cannons loaded and on standby for our contact in case we needed them. When the craft appeared, they lost all communications with everyone and their targeting computers went off-line. The Staff sergeant in charge of the firing line, unable to get orders from the TOC, immediately identified the craft as the cause of the blackout and considered it hostile. Without the targeting computers and no time to do calculation manually for the trajectory, he ordered the cannons to direct lay (Essentially pointing the cannons straight at the target, instead of lobbing the rounds) toward the craft and ordered a 3 round volley to be fired. After the cannons fired, the craft disappeared.
When we returned to base for the AAR (After Action Review), no one could explain what we all saw. After the artillery fired and neither us in the field or the artillery line saw any explosions on the craft, we assumed that the rounds missed the target all together. There was an immediate concern about the rounds because after figuring out the trajectory of the artillery rounds, we saw the point of impact was in the middle of the city of Al-Iskandariyah and the concern for civilian loss of life and collateral damage immediately became priority. We had an AH-1 Cobra on station and gave the pilot the grid coordinates of where the rounds should have landed so he could identify the point of impact and give us an accurate grid and battle damage assessment. The pilot flew in a straight line from the cannons in the direction that the rounds were fired. The pilot came across the radio and reported that there were no impact craters within a 1000 meter radius of the calculated poi! nt of impact and no appearance of any disturbance.
The next morning we were dispatched to the area we thought the rounds landed to ask around if anyone heard where the rounds landed and no one reported hearing anything at all and the local clinics reported no one being admitted with any shrapnel wounds or no new deaths. We have no idea what that craft was and even more, we never figured out what happened to the 3 artillery rounds that were fired. A direct lay shot to a static target 700 meters away should have been an easy direct hit, but there were no traces.