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An airline made comments saying they saw sighting of an UFO after flying over Arizona

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A Learjet pilot and an American Airlines pilot saw the object on February 24 and radioed the regional air traffic controller in Albuquerque.

"Was anybody, uh, above us that passed us like 30 seconds ago?" the Learjet pilot said in the brief exchange.

"Negative," the air traffic controller replied.

"Okay," the pilot said. "Something did."

"A UFO!" someone quickly responded.

"Yeah," the pilot replied again with a chuckle.

A second sighting

Minutes later, the FAA controller alerted an American Airlines that was flying in the area, according to the recording released by the FAA.

"American 1095, uh, let me know if, uh, you anything pass over you here in the next, uh, 15 miles," an air traffic controller said.

"Let you know if anything passes over?" the pilot responded.

"American 1095, affirmative," the controller said. "We had an aircraft in front of you that reported something pass over him and, uh, we didn't have any targets. So just, uh, let me know if you see anything pass over you."

"Alright," the pilot said.

Shortly, the pilot radioed traffic control also reporting the mysterious object.

"It's American 1095. Yeah, something just passed over us," the pilot said. "I don't know what it was, but at least two-three thousand feet above us. Yeah, it passed right over the top of us."

American Airlines referred all questions to the FAA.

It's unclear whether the object spotted by the pilots was a UFO. A FAA spokesperson suggested the object wasn't necessarily something out of this world.

"We have a close working relationship with a number of other agencies and safely handle military aircraft and civilian aircraft of all types in that area every day, including high-altitude weather balloons," the FAA spokesperson said.

The controller was unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area at the time, the FAA said.

Was it a weather balloon?

A pilot said he did not believe the object could be a weather balloon.

When the air controller asked more about the object, the American Airlines pilot said he wasn't sure "whether it was a balloon or whatnot."

He only described it as having "a big reflection," and "traveling several thousand feet above us, going the opposite direction."

The strange encounter happened not far from Roswell, New Mexico -- a town that became synonymous with extraterrestrial activity in 1947 after reports that a flying object crash-landed in a field.

Authorities said it was a weather balloon but that hasn't stopped plenty of Americans from coming up with their own out-of-this-world theories.

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arizona pilots report sighting of possible ufos - cnn

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Pilots say they spotted UFOs while flying over Arizona

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A Learjet pilot and an American Airlines pilot saw the object on February 24 and radioed the regional air traffic controller in Albuquerque. "Was anybody, uh, above us that passed us like 30 seconds ago?" the Learjet pilot said in the brief exchange. "Negative," the air traffic controller replied.

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Man who owes  $500K in child support vanishes in the ocen on a paddleboat

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Constantine George Theoharis, 52, disappeared on March 20.

Authorities in Florida are asking for help in finding a commercial real estate agent who owes more than $500,000 in child support and has mysteriously vanished while paddleboarding on the ocean, according to police and court records.

"It's like the worst dream you could imagine," a concerned family member told ABC News. "I want answers."

Constantine Theoharis, 52, was last seen on March 20 on a blue paddleboard, heading north in the Atlantic Ocean near his Fort Lauderdale home, the Fort Lauderdale Police Department said. He was caught on video on the paddleboard at about 6:30 a.m. that day, according to police.

Theoharis' cousin, Chris Damian, reported him missing three days later, telling police he hadn't heard from Theoharis since March 18 when they spoke on the phone.

According to the incident report, Damian told the authorities that Theoharis had "been depressed lately and they usually talk by phone daily. ... He was depressed over a recent divorce and child support payments but he was not suicidal."

Theoharis, who has been divorced since 2008, owes more than $549,000, according to court records. An affidavit from December said he has not paid any child support after Aug. 6, 2014.

Damian told police he "thinks that the child support issues could have forced him to leave the U.S. because of pending upcoming court action for nonpayment," the incident report said.

But police said Damian had "no proof that he took this type of action."

Damian said it's unusual for his cousin to not contact anyone in the family for that long, the incident report said.

Theoharis' brother, Rick Theoharis, feels like he's in "the worst dream you could imagine," he told ABC News today.

His brother left behind his phone, wallet, keys and passport at his house, Rick Theoharis said, which alerted him that "something was way off."

Constantine Theoharis was very adept in the water and a frequent paddleboarder, his brother said.

"I hope he didn't have a heart attack or something like that and hit the water and drown. ... He's been pretty stressed out lately," due to the child support issue and taking care of his parents who have dementia, Rick Theoharis said.

Constantine Theoharis' uncle, John Katsikas, is also concerned. He told police that his nephew's blue paddleboard, swim fins, dive mask and a weight belt were missing from his home, according to the report.

Katsikas "feared that his nephew may have committed suicide as he just recently missed court and had a large sum of money judgment against him," the report said.

Anyone with information on Constantine Theoharis' whereabouts is asked to call Det. Juan Cabrera at 954-828-5581.
ABC News' Scott Withers, Doug Lantz and Dom Proto contributed to this report.

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Man who owes $500K in child support vanishes into ocean on paddleboard; 'I want answers,' brother says

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Constantine George Theoharis, 52, disappeared on March 20. Authorities in Florida are asking for help in finding a commercial real estate agent who owes more than $500,000 in child support and has mysteriously vanished while paddleboarding on the ocean, according to police and court records.

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viddeo shows this dude getting hit

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dashcam video shows moment car hits trooper  - cnn video

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Dashcam video shows moment car hits trooper - CNN Video

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Dashcam video shows a car slamming into a Utah highway patrol trooper as he checks on a stranded vehicle from icy conditions.

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Parkland suspect Nikolas Cruz showered with fan mail including sexual proactive pictures and donations.

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The bloody Valentine's Day massacre at a Parkland, Fla., high school last month has led some observers to fall in love -- with the suspect.

Lovestruck groupies from around the country are showering gunman Nikolas Cruz with fan mail, including sexually provocative photos and donations, according to a report.

One 18-year-old from Texas purportedly professed her love to Cruz in a March 15 letter adorned with smiley faces and hand-drawn hearts, South Florida's Sun-Sentinel reported.

"When I saw your picture on the television, something attracted me to you," the letter said. "Your eyes are beautiful and the freckles on your face make you so handsome."

The missive flatly concludes: "I'm really skinny and have 34C sized breasts."

Another Texas woman reportedly sent a bizzare handwritten love note less than a week after Cruz gunned down 17 people Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

"I reserve the right to care about you, Nikolas!" read the unsolicited declaration.
PROSECUTORS: NIKOLAS CRUZ'S BROTHER BRAGGED ABOUT THEIR POPULARITY
A Chicago woman reportedly sent Cruz numerous suggestive photos, including one in which she slurps a Popsicle while wearing a bikini, and another in which she shows off her backside for the camera.

Cruz, who jail officials say has received nearly $800 in donations to his prison commissary account since the shooting, has also caught the eye of some members of his own sex.

A New Yorker with a bushy moustache sent Cruz a card featuring a cat and a photo of himself sitting in a white 1992 Nissan convertible, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

"I'm really skinny and have 34C sized breasts."
- Letter sent to Nikolas Cruz by admirer

At least for now, though, the mass murderer's suitors are pining at the wind. Jail officials, who screen all letters to inmates, said Cruz has not seen the letters, and remains on suicide watch.

As a matter of policy, authorities seize letters that contain obscene material, privileged communications, or threats to public safety.

"We read a few religious ones to him that extended wishes for his soul and to come to God," Broward County Public Defender Howard Finkelstein told the Sun-Sentinel, "but we have not and will not read him the fan letters or share the photos of scantily-clad teenage girls."

Finkelstein added that he's "never seen this many letters to a defendant" in his 40 years as a public defender.
FLASHBACK: ROLLING STONE COVER FEATURES 'BAD BOY' BOSTON BOMBER
But dozens of admirers have also flooded social media, where some have claimed that they've gotten through to Cruz.

"I want you all to know that Nikolas knows about us and he had the biggest smile on his face when he was told that we all support him," one Facebook user wrote on a pro-Cruz group.

When Zachary Cruz, Nikolas' younger brother, visited Nikolas in jail, the two discussed their popularity, according to prosecutors.

The unseemly interest in Cruz may stem from women with poor parental relationships, or a strong desire to save an apparently lonely and vulnerable figure, mental health experts told the paper.

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Parkland suspect Nikolas Cruz showered with fan mail, donations: report

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The bloody Valentine's Day massacre at a Parkland, Fla., high school last month has led some observers to fall in love -- with the suspect. Lovestruck groupies from around the country are showering gunman Nikolas Cruz with fan mail, including sexually provocative photos and donations, according to a report.

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A New Jersey store clerk was viciously beaten and stabbed in broad daylight during an armed robbery caught on tape.

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A New Jersey store clerk was viciously beaten and stabbed in broad daylight during an armed robbery caught on tape.

Burlington police officers released the surveillance video Wednesday showing a March 19 attempted robbery at a Super Speedy Mart on Route 130.

Officials said the knife-wielding suspect entered the store just after 2:30 p.m. and walked straight to the 58-year-old clerk, who was sitting behind the register.

The suspect demanded money before brutally attacking the clerk, stabbing him during the altercation.

The suspect, described by police as a black male, 5 feet 8 inches and wearing all dark clothing with a mask, fled the store with an undisclosed amount of money.

The clerk was taken to Cooper University Medical Center in Camden, where he was treated for life-threatening injuries. He has since been released, police said.
Lucia I. Suarez Sang is a Reporter for FoxNews.com. Follow her on Twitter @luciasuarezsang

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Store clerk stabbed, beaten during brutal daytime attack

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A New Jersey store clerk was viciously beaten and stabbed in broad daylight during an armed robbery caught on tape. Burlington police officers released the surveillance video Wednesday showing a March 19 attempted robbery at a Super Speedy Mart on Route 130. Officials said the knife-wielding suspect entered the store just after 2:30 p.m.

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A vehicle from Oregon carrying two women and three children plunged off a roadside cliff in California on Monday, killing all five occupants, authorities said.

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A vehicle from Oregon carrying two women and three children plunged off a roadside cliff in California on Monday, killing all five occupants, authorities said.

None of the victims was identified. Their vehicle, a 2003 GMC, landed upside down on a large rock, the California Highway Patrol told the Press-Democrat of Santa Rosa.

The group was from West Linn, Ore., the CHP said. The accident occurred on Highway 1 between Rockport and Westport, around 20 miles north of Fort Bragg.

The children -- two boys and a girl -- were not using safety restraints and "came out" of the vehcile while the women remained inside, the Oregonian reported.

Alcohol or drugs weren't considered factors in the accident, the CHP told the newspaper.

It wasn't clear how much time had passed between when the accident occurred and when a passerby spotted the tragic scene around 3:39 p.m., CHP Officer Olegario Marin told the paper.

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Vehicle plunge on California coast kills 2 adults, 3 children

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A vehicle from Oregon carrying two women and three children plunged off a roadside cliff in California on Monday, killing all five occupants, authorities said. None of the victims was identified. Their vehicle, a 2003 GMC, landed upside down on a large rock, the California Highway Patrol told the Press-Democrat of Santa Rosa.

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Apple's spring event is coming soon and they are releasing a new iPad. It will the same size as the original (9.7in) and work with the apple pen. This event is meant for schools and education. They are lowering the price of the apple pen and ipad for the schools.

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Apple is fighting to take back the classroom from Google.

The company revealed on Tuesday an updated, faster iPad that works with the Apple Pencil. CEO Tim Cook and his executive team took the stage at Lane Tech High School in Chicago to discuss the tablet, Apple's education plans, and "creative new ideas for teachers and students."

New iPad works with Apple Pencil

The new iPad is an updated version of the lowest end iPad in Apple's lineup. The 9.7-inch device -- the same size as the traditional iPad -- will cost $299 for schools and $329 for consumers. (Schools could get the previous iPad for the same $299 discounted price.) Pre-orders start on Tuesday

Storage for student models will include 200 GB of storage to help save bigger projects. Standard models come with 50 GB..

The biggest selling point is that the new iPad works with the Apple Pencil, which previously only worked with the higher-end iPad Pro tablets. Apple imagines it being used by kids for educational purposes like art projects. For school use, the $99 Apple Pencil is $10 cheaper.

The iPad, available in silver, space gray and a new, gold finish, features Apple's new A10 Fusion chip with a 40% faster processor for graphics performance. Like Apple's other iPad models, it comes with front- and rear-facing cameras, HD video recording and support for FaceTime calls.

Apple's adding tools for teachers

Apple also teased software features such as smart annotations to help teachers mark up papers, and augmented reality support which will "enable new ways to learn."

"Instead of dissecting frogs ... students can dissect frogs with Apple Pencil," Apple executive Greg "Joz" Joswiak told attendees.

Related: From service dogs to a prosthetic arm, Apple proposes 13 disability emojis

Apple also revealed a series of apps for the classroom, such as a progress tool called Classroom that allows users to what students are working on in the classroom. A new, free curriculum called Everyone Can Create focuses on the kinds of creative projects Apple imagines kids doing on the iPads. Meanwhile, its new ClassKit platform allows developers to create puzzles, tests, and lesson plans for students.

The new iPad is for everyone

While education was the theme of its launch, the new iPad is for anyone. Apple is rolling out an update for iWork, its work productivity suite, for adults who want to use Apple Pencil on the new device.

The company said all student and teacher data will remain private.

"Privacy is integral to everything we do at Apple, not just for students and teachers, but for everyone -- it's something we are very happy about," another executive added.

Apple's going up against Google

Apple's education business has had its ups and downs. iPads and Mac computers were once the primary devices used in American schools. But in recent years, Apple's dominance has slipped. Now, Google's budget-friendly Chromebook laptops occupy nearly 60% of all devices in the classroom, according to research firm Futuresource. Apple devices make up just 17% of the education marketshare.

Perhaps it has learned from its mistakes. In 2015, a Los Angeles school district planned to give every student in the city an iPad with preloaded curriculums. Wired reported that the program, which was expected to become a $1 billion deal, fell apart.

After a volatile few years, Apple said in 2017 that iPad sales for the classroom ticked up 32% after dropping the price for its entry level iPad to $329. Apple also made small tweaks to make it easier for students to share in the classroom, such as removing its Apple ID requirement.

To get ahead of Apple's news, Google announced on Monday its first tablet running Chrome 10: Acer's Tab 10. At $329 - the same price as the cheapest iPad - Google and Acer hope to bring the flexibility and versatility of the Chrome operating system to an even more portable device.

An unusual Apple event

This is Apple's first education-focused keynote in six years - and its second ever. The company hosted a digital textbook launch in New York City in 2012.

Related: I downloaded 14 years of my Facebook data and here's what happened

Chicago is a fitting backdrop for its latest event. The city is home to one of the largest school systems in the United States, and Apple expanded its "Everyone Can Code program" late last year to teach more students its Swift programming language.

Apple did not reveal details about its next generation iPhone on Tuesday. But with its annual World Wide Developer Conference only three months away, we may hear some subtle software teases of what will land on iOS and OS soon.

CNNMoney (Chicago) First published March 27, 2018: 1:06 AM ET

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Apple spring event 2018: A new iPad and 4 other takeaways

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The company revealed on Tuesday an updated, faster iPad that works with the Apple Pencil. CEO Tim Cook and his executive team took the stage at Lane Tech High School in Chicago to discuss the tablet, Apple's education plans, and "creative new ideas for teachers and students."

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A Year After Internet Infamy, Ronaldo Sculptor Gets Another Shot

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On Feb. 9 this year, Electrico FC's futsal team landed at Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport for its match the following day against CS Maritimo. Upon exiting the terminal, they look around until they spot what has become the airport's defining feature: an infamous bronze bust of the building's namesake just outside the arrivals door.

The team, wearing the club's green tracksuits, buzzes around the bronze likeness, giggling. They begin taking selfies.

"What do you think of Ronaldo's bust?" the players are asked.

Goalkeeper Joao Silva jumped right in. "I think it is ridiculous, truly hideous!" he says in Portuguese, and his teammates laugh, nodding in agreement. "The eyes, the mouth, everything! Oh man, I don't like it, I don't like it!"

"Why are so many players taking photos with it if you [guys] don't like it?"

"Because it's a symbol of Madeira," he cackles. "And because it's ridiculous!"

MADEIRA IS A VOLCANIC island 300 miles off the northwest coast of Africa. It's an autonomous territory of Portugal, known for its lush, rugged landscape, jagged cliffs, subtropical climate and for being the birthplace of the sporting world's global icon, Cristiano Ronaldo.

But a year ago, Madeira also became known for something else: playing host to perhaps the world's most laughed-at sports sculpture. For a day or two anyway, the Ronaldo bust-unveiled at the airport in Madeira-became almost as widely known as the Real Madrid forward himself.

Fahad Shahud @fahadism
To the makers of the sculpture - #YouHadOneJob #RonaldoBust https://t.co/oooRxDuI4t

B/R Football @brfootball
Some of the all-time great Cristiano Ronaldo moments https://t.co/57Tx9VhbUm

The man behind the bust that nearly busted the internet is 41-year-old Emanuel Jorge da Silva Santos. A lifelong Madeiran, he's followed Ronaldo's career since the early days.

"Ronaldo ... is a force of nature whom every kid that has a dream should follow as an example," Santos says firmly, in his native Portuguese. "He has a gift. ... His whole path shows ... he has always had that ambition to be the best.

"Not intending to be arrogant [or] anything like that, but this talent that I have was born with me. ... If there is a possible comparison for Ronaldo's gift, his being in the sports area and mine in the artistic one, I have always wanted to show the world that I had this talent."

Armanda Gouveia, Santos' wife, sees a simpler connection.

"[Ronaldo is] from Madeira Island, from our island, and for [Emanuel], that meant a lot because they have fairly similar life stories," she says. "Cristiano Ronaldo came from the bottom, as Emanuel did, and he was able to turn his life around. The objective [of making the Ronaldo bust] was to pay homage to Cristiano Ronaldo. [Emanuel] also thought this was going to be his launch pad in a supposed career as a sculptor."

"In a way," Santos says, "I'm trying to show who really is Emanuel Santos."

SANTOS IS DRIVING TO his mother's house, where his six-year-old son, Tiago, plays with his cousin, Margarida. The house has been expanded since Santos grew up there with his six brothers and two sisters, all living in two rooms.

"We [also] had a small bathroom and a tiny kitchen," he says.

Santos' mother, Maria, stayed at home to look after the children, while his fisherman father, Manuel, worked seasonally from March through September, catching mainly skipjack tuna.

"When the [fishing] season passed, some fishermen stayed on the land and dedicated themselves to agriculture," Santos says. "Others [like my father] would go to other places to fish, to catch green fish, trout, when they couldn't find work in carpentry or on construction projects."

Santos and his brothers would take turns accompanying their father to the ocean to catch that night's family supper.

"To fish, we had to turn over some rocks near the sea to catch the bait to put on the fish hook," Santos says. "Either my mother or father would take some of the fish we caught [and] they would cross all these mountains, walking to the north of the island, where you can see a lot of agriculture. They would go there and exchange the fish for the potatoes and vegetables we used to eat. They'd leave very early in the morning and come back by the end of the day, or at night. It was very complicated."

There was no extra cash to buy their children toys, so Santos and his friends figured out a way to make do.

"I skipped classes to go and take out clay and mess around with it and make my own toys at the time," Santos says. "When I was five or six years old, there was a big rock beach about 200 to 300 meters from my school. There was a special spot surrounded by bamboo. The dirt was moister and and we could get clay from there."

"He had a certain aptness to ... work with clay," says Carlos Silva, Santos' friend of 35 years. "If it was something to play [with] at that moment, it lasted only for that day or the day after."

"I made horses with cowboys at that time, and boats and cars," Santos says. "The bamboo was also used to make carts and other toys, like small wheels."

Silva still marvels at what Santos made. "Things that I and our other friends didn't know how to make, he made it." Silva says as he begins to laugh. "He was our savior."

Santos dreamed of attending university one day to develop his talent, but he couldn't afford to go. Throughout the years, between spells of unemployment, he worked as a waiter, a carpenter, on construction sites and painted buildings and houses, all the while teaching himself the craft of sculpting.

He had help from friends, one of whom donated a studio space under the airport runway. A former restaurant that was destroyed by a storm, the room is a bit raw. Half of the space is piled high with debris-large metal signs and scraps of wood. The corrugated metal doors don't reach the ceiling, so heavy winds blow rain through the gap at the top, creating puddles on the floor.

But this is where Santos feels most at home.

"When I feel any frustration, any emptiness in my life or not being able to achieve something, I take refuge in sculpting and escape from my worries," Santos says. "My figures have a mixture of emotions [and] needs. By working the clay, I look for a way to get where I want."

In 2016, the parish of Machico asked him to do a sculpture to pay homage to the local fishermen. He eagerly accepted the invitation, as his first public work would pay tribute to his father. The large white sculpture sits near the waterfront in Canical, Santos' hometown. The locals loved it, which boosts Santos' confidence.

IN EARLY 2017, SANTOS was working for an airport cleaning company, sweeping up cigarette butts and gathering luggage carts, when he heard the news: The Madeira airport was being renamed for Ronaldo. A thought soon materialized.

"The airport was going to have his name, why shouldn't there be a bust of him in the arrivals to reinforce his image?" he says. "Getting to Madeira and being welcomed by Ronaldo smiling-because he is a very joyful and extroverted person-it made sense."

Santos tracked down the associate director of airports of Madeira, Francisco Fernandes, and pitched his idea.

"He told me to work on it and when I had something palpable, I should show it to him," Santos says. "I got excited with his reaction. I got home, did my research of Ronaldo [finding photos] from different angles, and when I finally found the right one, I immediately started sculpting."

Although he'd never done a bust before-let alone had any of his work bronzed-Santos was not going to let this opportunity slip away. A friend who had helped him source materials for the fisherman sculpture shipped him a 50-kilogram bag of clay from Porto.

"I set myself a big responsibility, to take that icon, put him in my world and sculpt him," Santos says. "I was in my own world, away from real life. It was like flying through the clouds and being there doing something that I enjoy. Through touching the clay, I was transmitting the profile of someone that might have a story similar to mine, given his persistence."

After working on it for two weeks, Santos took a photo of the 15-kilogram bust, brought it to the airport and tracked down Fernandes.

"He was very impressed as he didn't know who I was and didn't expect much," Santos says. "He showed my work to [the other] authorities and Cristiano's family, and they decided to support the project."

That family was Ronaldo's brother, Hugo Aveiro, who still lives on the island. Aveiro oversees the CR7 Museum in Funchal and helps run some of Ronaldo's personal affairs. Santos says the company contracted to run the dedication ceremony gave him €1,000 ($1,231) for his work, but it entrusted the final two stages needed to complete the bust (the plaster and bronzing) to people who'd done it before.

Around that time, Santos says he was summoned by Aveiro to his office at the museum. Aveiro had forwarded Ronaldo the picture of the bust that Santos had taken earlier-and Ronaldo had texted his approval. Santos says Aveiro displayed the text on his cell phone.

"I don't remember the whole message, but I read it and it said that it looked good, and to just change it here" Santos says, brushing his index finger lightly beneath his left eye.

There was a problem, though: A professional had already plastered the bust, and "it was not possible to alter it, otherwise it would damage it," Santos says.

Before the bust was shipped to the foundry in Porto to undergo the third-and final-bronzing phase, Santos called the group finishing the bust and passed along Ronaldo's concerns.

"[Ronaldo's] smile is ripped to the left side," Santos explains. "I made the wrinkles exactly as they are, but Ronaldo said that they looked a bit too protruding and asked if they could be thinned out."

Santos rolls his eyes and rubs his cheeks and quips, "As we know, Ronaldo is vain . He likes to be all groomed up!"

"When they tried it they-instead of thinning them out slightly-added a few strokes so [as] to conceal the wrinkles. It wasn't a detail of great relevance and it didn't change much of the wrinkles it had."

The bust was polished, then shipped back to Madeira. Santos couldn't wait for the ceremony to see the finished product, so he opened the crate himself upon its arrival.

SANTOS WAS AGLOW WHEN he saw Ronaldo's smiling, polished bronze face staring back at him.

"I laughed out of happiness and satisfaction," Santos remembers. Important people-heck, even Cristiano Ronaldo!-valued Santos' work enough to greenlight his idea and push his project to completion. A company hired by the airport to handle the dedication ceremony paid to have Santos' clay bust flown to the mainland so it could be professionally bronzed. Santos himself had only been off the island three times in his life.

But most significantly, this would mark the launch of his long-awaited career. Ronaldo-a fellow Madeiranwas giving him his start. People all over the world would finally see Santos' work, his worth.

"I felt that feeling of fulfillment, that I had done my part," Santos says. "In that moment, I saw [it] more as a step I had taken in my own path to achieve my goal."

Nothing could diminish the excitement Santos felt on the morning of March 29, 2017, the day Madeira Airport would become Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport. Santos' wife, Armanda, his son, Tiago, his extended family-his entire communitywould be on hand to share in his magical moment.

RONALDO ARRIVED AT THE airport with his mother, Dolores, his partner, Georgina Rodriguez, and six-year-old son, Cristiano Jr.

"Thank you for being here in my honor," Ronaldo told the assembled media, and the hundreds of locals who gathered for the event. "... I will try to dignify Portugal and especially Madeira with a spirit of sacrifice, dignity and passion."

When the bust was unveiled, Ronaldo smiled widely and the crowd applauded.

"It was a very intense moment," Santos says. " I felt like someone had taken the weight I had been carrying on my back."

In the VIP area after the event, Santos' son, Tiago, got a ball signed by Ronaldo, but he was whisked away before Santos could properly introduce himself or get Ronaldo's opinion on the finished bust. Nonetheless, the family went home happy and fulfilled.

"Tiago was amazed, super proud, saying, 'My dad is a sculptor! I'm very proud of my dad!'" Gouveia remembers. "Everyone that came by our house, he went to get the football saying, 'I have Cristiano Ronaldo's ball!' It was being a spectacular day.

"And then...it started being, like, a bit...sad."

She tries to keep her composure but can't. Tears pour down her face and Santos-sitting on a couch to her right-drops his head, seemingly absorbing her pain and renewing his own. Tiago plays with a toy car nearby, blissfully unaware.

"I'm remembering how tough those days were at the time," she says, wiping her eyes. "[It started] around [3 p.m.]. My sister called me to say, 'Hey, have you seen what's on the internet? There are so many people saying bad things about it. People were making comments like 'You should kill yourself.'"

Pedro Vasconcelos, a consultant working in information technology for the company that the airport contracted to run the event, says he was stunned at the social media metrics piling up. There were close to a million comments-many of them nasty-in the first 24 hours.

The internet wasn't the only one piling on. Late night TV and Saturday Night Live were just two talk shows who were happy to roast some fresh meat.

"Look at it, it's terrible!" comedian James Corden roared. "It looks like his face was bended like Beckham!"

"The first question any great sculptor must ask about his subject is, 'What would he look like if he had a stroke?'" SNL actress Kate McKinnon said in character. "... This is the spitting image of my Ronaldo. That's why so many people have spit on it."

"I was telling [Santos], 'Listen, the fact that you have so many bad reactions is not bad-it's good," Vasconcelos says. "You are one of the most well-known sculptors right now in the sport world, you should be happy. And he wasn't."

No, he wasn't.

"In the silence of night, all of that information was going through my mind, and managing all of that was very hard," Santos says. "I isolated myself. I didn't feel like speaking to anyone."

But one thing he couldn't avoid was how to protect his family from the scrutiny, ridicule and shame that was suddenly thrust upon them. His humiliation became theirs, and there was nothing he could do about it. People would point and stare. Even on tiny Madeira Island, there was no place to hide, as social media's reach knows no bounds. Having his work and ambitions globally trashed was one thing, but he hadn't even considered the fact that the quest to make his artistic talents known could have exposed his family to so much distress.

"It was too sudden," Santos says, massaging his forehead and trying to conceal his tears. "It's a lot of responsibility."

While family and friends tried to counsel Santos and Gouveia to pay little mind to the attacks, Gouveia still didn't understand the intensity of the ridicule.

"Emanuel, above all, [is] a human being," she says. "Everybody makes mistakes. ... There was no need for so much criticism. Whether the work looked good or bad, one had to value it, because even though he had no formal education in the area, he at least had the initiative and tried to make something. ... No one was brave enough to do what he did, ... to have his idea and to present it."

Santos' biggest worry-that Tiago would get bullied at school-never materialized. His young age (five) helped shield him from awareness, and the teachers at school only sang his father's praises. "Oh, your dad made Cristiano's bust!" they said.

"He remained very proud of his father," Gouveia says. "He has no awareness, even to this day."

Despite the torrent of criticism, Santos remains steadfast in his defense of the first bust.

"When Ronaldo is happy he has that spontaneous smile, and [those] who know him know that he doesn't have an uniform smile," Santos says sternly. "So there it is, if it didn't end up 100 percent like him, people have to understand that art is a way to express oneself that contains emotions. It's not a precise science.

"I liked the result and was really proud of it. And if I had to do it again, I would make everything exactly the same."

Eventually, the fervor died down. Last October, Santos became Canical civil parish's president, which pays €270 ($332) per month. He was happy to be living under the radar again before Bleacher Report came with an offer last month: How about a "do-over?" A second shot at Ronaldo? Take what you learned last time, and show the world what you've got.

"My first reaction was 'No!'" Gouveia says, laughing. "But then I started thinking that it might be good, that it was a second chance to do Cristiano Ronaldo and to show that you can really do it."

"I'm making the bust again to show people that I'm not what the media made me look like," Santos says. "Of course, there is fear of people's reaction when seeing this piece."

"If there are negative comments, we'll be prepared," Gouveia interjects. "After going through what we went through one year ago, nothing can take us down."

THERE IS GOING TO be one big change this time around: "This smile will be different," Santos says. "The other one was more open, so the cheek was slightly more upwards. This one [will be] more closed, so it's natural that the cheek will be more downwards.

"I've talked with sculptors and they say that a bust made in a natural state-with a mouth not so open and a bit more serious-falls better in the eyes of the public."

He elaborates: "Teeth are complicated. When they luster the bronze, the parts of the face that are more protruding look shinier than the more hidden ones, so [last year], when they did the parts of the teeth, [those] that weren't so [protruding] remained darker. It gives out the feeling that the mouth was a bit asymmetrical, but it's not like that. It's actually the material that gives that illusion."

Putting himself-and especially his family-back out there is a constant worry, he says.

"Every morning when I wake up, and especially at night when I'm sleeping, I think about it."

As Santos works on the bust, he realizes he has a more important motivation to get this one right in the eyes of the public.

"I'm thinking that I want to leave a positive mark, so that in the future, Tiago can be proud of his father," he says.

What will happen if people mock this new bust, he's asked. How will you manage that situation, especially with your family and your son?

Santos ponders the question, then replies, "I don't know. I truly hope that that won't happen."

He lights a cigarette. Wait, what's that? Santos, a nonsmoker, has bought a pack of Camels.

"This is just stress-management," he says.

IT'S MARCH 17, A glorious sunny morning, and Santos drives back to the place that has shaped the last year of his life: Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport. He's headed toward the cargo area to pick up the new Ronaldo bust, which arrived on a flight from Porto earlier that morning.

"I'm so nervous" he confesses, and it manifests itself in random, animated chatter. "I can't sleep at all thinking about this. At the end of all this, I think I deserve a holiday. Did you see the bust?"

"I WANT TO SEE THE BUST!" he later announces playfully to no one in particular, waving the paperwork he'll have to give to the clerk in order to receive the shipment.

A security guard leads a drug-detection dog through the warehouse and passes the area where Santos waits.

He sips a cup of coffee he purchased from a vending machine and reflects on this past year's unsettling journey.

"One day," he says, "I want my son to understand that if he enjoys doing something very much, [he] doesn't let himself be defeated with negative criticism. Sooner or later, if we believe in ourselves and are persistent, we can succeed in life. Even though his father never had a degree, isn't a teacher or a doctor [and comes] from a poor family, he was able to make something of himself in this world."

Santos watches as the 36-kilogram crate is lowered onto the sidewalk, then he waits for the lift to drive away. He takes a knee as he pries the crate open with the back end of a hammer. Then, a gigantic grin-bigger than the one on the first Ronaldo bust-spreads across his face as he removes the foam padding and sack covering the bust's face.

"I like it." Santos says softly. "It's very good. Oh man, it's very good! Looks like him."

A pause. "In my opinion."

Santos gives the bust a thumbs-up, as if it can see him doing so. Kneeling by the crate, he gingerly brushes off the styrofoam bits that have nestled alongside the ridge of its nose. He strokes the face, smiling, as if he's caressing a loved one. It's tender and sweet-not creepy. Emanuel Santos is flat-out mesmerized.

"Do you like it?" he asks. "Tell me what you really think."

Now he hoists Ronaldo's bust out of the crate and groans. He's on a waiting list to get back surgery for a pinched nerve that has hospitalized him for months at a time, but this moment is worth the pain. This is a good pain.

But soon his back-and the clock-tell him it's time to head home. On Saturday, the residents of Madeira traditionally clean their homes, and Santos promised his wife he'd pitch in.

He places the bust back in the crate and offers to help reseal it for shipping. As he reaches for the hammer again, he seems wistful. Suddenly, he has a thought: Before B/R publishes its story and social media gets ahold of this bust, he wants to preserve this happy moment, if only for posterity.

"Do you mind?" he asks, pulling the cell phone out of his pocket. "Can you take a picture of me with it?"

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A Year After Internet Infamy, Ronaldo Sculptor Gets Another Shot

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On Feb. 9 this year, Electrico FC's futsal team landed at Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport for its match the following day against CS Maritimo. Upon exiting the terminal, they look around until they spot what has become the airport's defining feature: an infamous bronze bust of the building's namesake just outside the arrivals door.

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Missouri woman tried to smuggle marijuana and meth in an hidden bible into jail

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A Missouri woman was arrested after allegedly trying to sneak a Bible filled with drugs into a county jail Monday.

The Vernon County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post that Ashley A. Despain went to the jail in Nevada, Mo. asking to give the Bible to an inmate.

When a jail official went to inspect the Bible, marijuana and methamphetamine were found hidden inside the book's binding.

"Usually (a Bible) is something you bring to help somebody through situations," Sheriff Jason Mosher told the Kansas City Star. "That's probably the wrong kind of help, putting drugs in it."
SUSPECTED MEXICAN CARTEL LEADER SMUGGLED 44 POUNDS OF FENTANYL INTO NYC, OFFICIALS SAY
Officials said while they have caught people trying to smuggle in contraband and drugs before, they've never seen a Bible used to hide illicit materials.

Despain is now being held in the Vernon County Jail on a $5,000 bond, the sheriff's office said.

Travis Fedschun is a reporter for FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @travfed

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Missouri woman tried to sneak drugs hidden in Bible into jail, police say

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A Missouri woman was arrested after allegedly trying to sneak a Bible filled with drugs into a county jail Monday. The Vernon County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post that Ashley A. Despain went to the jail in Nevada, Mo. asking to give the Bible to an inmate.

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Fast-moving fire kills 68 at Venezuela police station jail.

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Distraught families are clamoring for information about detained relatives following a fire that Venezuela's chief prosecutor says killed 68 people when it swept through the cells of the state police station.

Angry relatives fought with police outside the facility Wednesday after being unable to get any information on casualties from Wednesday's fire, which townspeople said erupted after a disturbance involving detainees. Officers used tear gas to disperse the crowd, and local officials would confirm only that there were fatalities.

Late Wednesday, Attorney General Tarek William Saab said on his official Twitter account that 68 people were dead and nearly all of them were prisoners. He said the dead included two women who were staying overnight at the station, but he didn't provide any further details.

Saab said four prosecutors had been named to determine what happened at the state police headquarters in Valencia, a town in Carabobo state about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Caracas.

It was one of the worst jail disasters in Venezuela, where human rights groups complain about poor conditions in prisons and jails. A fire at a prison in the western state of Zulia killed more than 100 inmates in 1994.

With tears streaking cheeks, people waiting outside the station Wednesday said dozens of detainees had been kept in squalid conditions and they feared the worst for their loved ones.

Some people buried their hands in their faces. Others had to be supported by friends and family as they collapsed in despair. Some wept quietly and clutched their hands in prayer.

"I don't know if my son is dead or alive!" cried Aida Parra, who said she last saw her son the previous day, when she took food to him. "They haven't told me anything."

Nearby, National Guard troops wearing flak jackets and carrying rifles slung across their backs walked in and out of the station. Fire trucks and ambulances stood outside. Unused stretchers leaned against a wall.

A Window to Freedom, a nonprofit group that monitors conditions at Venezuela's jails and prisons, said preliminary but unconfirmed information indicated the riot began when an armed detainee shot an officer in the leg. Shortly after that a fire broke out, with flames growing quickly as the blaze spread to mattresses in the cells, it said. Rescuers apparently had to break a hole through a wall to free some of the prisoners inside.

Photos shared by the group showed prisoners being taken out on stretchers, their limbs frozen in awkward positions as skin peeled off.

Carlos Nieto Palma, director of A Window to Freedom, said officials should be held accountable for failing to address the poor conditions in police station jails. The group said overcrowding has become common throughout Venezuela, with detainees being kept long past customary brief holding periods before being let go or sent to larger jails to await trial.

"It's grave and alarming," Nieto Palma said. "What happened today in Carabobo is a sign of that."

Opposition lawmaker Juan Miguel Matheus demanded that the pro-government leader of Carabobo state inform relatives about what happened.

"The desperation of relatives should not be played with," he said.

Clashes between prisoners and guards are not uncommon in Venezuela. Inmates are frequently able to obtain weapons and drugs with the help of corrupt guards and heavily armed groups control cellblock fiefdoms.

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Angry families demand facts on deadly Venezuela jail riot

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Distraught families are clamoring for information about detained relatives following a fire that Venezuela's chief prosecutor says killed 68 people when it swept through the cells of the state police station. Angry relatives fought with police outside the facility Wednesday after being...

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California man tried to arrange to have sex with 4-year-old girl

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A California man who wanted to arrange a sexual encounter with a 4-year-old girl was arrested Wednesday, police said.

Nicolas Castillo, 29, told undercover detectives he was looking to have sex with a 4-year-old girl and was willing to pay up to $700 for "two sessions" with the girl or $500 to have the child spend the night, Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.

Castillo claimed he had done it in the past and wanted to speak to the mother of the child he was trying to have sex with, Bertanga said.

Castillo's communication with undercover officers triggered a month-long investigation that led to his arrest in Anaheim, Bertanga said.

Detectives served search warrants at Castillo's home in Anaheim and his parents' home in nearby Yorba Linda and determined they had enough to arrest him, Bertanga said.

Police believe there could be more victims, according to Fox Los Angeles. Castillo lived next door to a day care and his parents lived across the street from an elementary school, Bertanga said.

Castillo also worked as a security guard at Allied Universal in Dana Point, which may be near a school, according to KTLA-TV.

The company said in a statement it was "shocked and concerned" to hear about Castillo's alleged crime. The company said he was no longer employed.

Ryan Gaydos is an editor for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @RyanGaydos.

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California man tried to arrange to have sex with 4-year-old girl, police say

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A California man who wanted to arrange a sexual encounter with a 4-year-old girl was arrested Wednesday, police said. Nicolas Castillo, 29, told undercover detectives he was looking to have sex with a 4-year-old girl and was willing to pay up to $700 for "two sessions" with the girl or $500 to have the child spend the night, Santa Ana police Cpl.

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13 killers charged for murder in Virginia & smiled for mugshot.

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Two men affiliated with the notorious Salvadoran gang MS-13 were arrested in Raleigh, N.C., for a Virginia murder last week, officials said.

Denis Ludwin Espinal-Alvares, 19, of Oxon Hill, Md., and Erick Alexander Contreras-Gonzalez, 23, of Hernshaw, W.Va., were both charged Monday in North Carolina with being fugitives from justice.

They are accused of abducting an unidentified man from his Virginia home on March 13, shooting him five times, putting him in the trunk of his own car and returning two days later to set that car on fire to dispose of the victim's body, police said.

Espinal-Alvares, who is known as "Destino," and Contreras-Gonzalez, who is known as "Callado," smiled while getting their mugshots taken while being processed into the Wake County, North Carolina jail, according to The News & Observer.

They are being held without bail, according to arrest warrants.

According to The News & Observer, the two men are described by the National Crime Information Center as members of the MS-13 gang, considered one of the most violent street gangs in the world.

MS-13 was started by Central American immigrants, mainly from El Salvador, in Los Angeles in the 1980s, but since has expanded to include several other Central and South American countries. The gang is believed to be responsible for 25 killings in New York City's Long Island suburbs in the past two years.

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Suspected MS-13 killers charged in Virginia murder smile for mugshots

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Two men affiliated with the notorious Salvadoran gang MS-13 were arrested in Raleigh, N.C., for a Virginia murder last week, officials said. Denis Ludwin Espinal-Alvares, 19, of Oxon Hill, Md., and Erick Alexander Contreras-Gonzalez, 23, of Hernshaw, W.Va., were both charged Monday in North Carolina with being fugitives from justice.

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Ronaldo got a new sculpture of his face. lol.

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On Feb. 9 this year, Electrico FC's futsal team landed at Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport for its match the following day against CS Maritimo. Upon exiting the terminal, they look around until they spot what has become the airport's defining feature: an infamous bronze bust of the building's namesake just outside the arrivals door.

The team, wearing the club's green tracksuits, buzzes around the bronze likeness, giggling. They begin taking selfies.

"What do you think of Ronaldo's bust?" the players are asked.

Goalkeeper Joao Silva jumped right in. "I think it is ridiculous, truly hideous!" he says in Portuguese, and his teammates laugh, nodding in agreement. "The eyes, the mouth, everything! Oh man, I don't like it, I don't like it!"

"Why are so many players taking photos with it if you [guys] don't like it?"

"Because it's a symbol of Madeira," he cackles. "And because it's ridiculous!"

MADEIRA IS A VOLCANIC island 300 miles off the northwest coast of Africa. It's an autonomous territory of Portugal, known for its lush, rugged landscape, jagged cliffs, subtropical climate and for being the birthplace of the sporting world's global icon, Cristiano Ronaldo.

But a year ago, Madeira also became known for something else: playing host to perhaps the world's most laughed-at sports sculpture. For a day or two anyway, the Ronaldo bust-unveiled at the airport in Madeira-became almost as widely known as the Real Madrid forward himself.

Fahad Shahud @fahadism
To the makers of the sculpture - #YouHadOneJob #RonaldoBust https://t.co/oooRxDuI4t

B/R Football @brfootball
Some of the all-time great Cristiano Ronaldo moments https://t.co/57Tx9VhbUm

The man behind the bust that nearly busted the internet is 41-year-old Emanuel Jorge da Silva Santos. A lifelong Madeiran, he's followed Ronaldo's career since the early days.

"Ronaldo ... is a force of nature whom every kid that has a dream should follow as an example," Santos says firmly, in his native Portuguese. "He has a gift. ... His whole path shows ... he has always had that ambition to be the best.

"Not intending to be arrogant [or] anything like that, but this talent that I have was born with me. ... If there is a possible comparison for Ronaldo's gift, his being in the sports area and mine in the artistic one, I have always wanted to show the world that I had this talent."

Armanda Gouveia, Santos' wife, sees a simpler connection.

"[Ronaldo is] from Madeira Island, from our island, and for [Emanuel], that meant a lot because they have fairly similar life stories," she says. "Cristiano Ronaldo came from the bottom, as Emanuel did, and he was able to turn his life around. The objective [of making the Ronaldo bust] was to pay homage to Cristiano Ronaldo. [Emanuel] also thought this was going to be his launch pad in a supposed career as a sculptor."

"In a way," Santos says, "I'm trying to show who really is Emanuel Santos."

SANTOS IS DRIVING TO his mother's house, where his six-year-old son, Tiago, plays with his cousin, Margarida. The house has been expanded since Santos grew up there with his six brothers and two sisters, all living in two rooms.

"We [also] had a small bathroom and a tiny kitchen," he says.

Santos' mother, Maria, stayed at home to look after the children, while his fisherman father, Manuel, worked seasonally from March through September, catching mainly skipjack tuna.

"When the [fishing] season passed, some fishermen stayed on the land and dedicated themselves to agriculture," Santos says. "Others [like my father] would go to other places to fish, to catch green fish, trout, when they couldn't find work in carpentry or on construction projects."

Santos and his brothers would take turns accompanying their father to the ocean to catch that night's family supper.

"To fish, we had to turn over some rocks near the sea to catch the bait to put on the fish hook," Santos says. "Either my mother or father would take some of the fish we caught [and] they would cross all these mountains, walking to the north of the island, where you can see a lot of agriculture. They would go there and exchange the fish for the potatoes and vegetables we used to eat. They'd leave very early in the morning and come back by the end of the day, or at night. It was very complicated."

There was no extra cash to buy their children toys, so Santos and his friends figured out a way to make do.

"I skipped classes to go and take out clay and mess around with it and make my own toys at the time," Santos says. "When I was five or six years old, there was a big rock beach about 200 to 300 meters from my school. There was a special spot surrounded by bamboo. The dirt was moister and and we could get clay from there."

"He had a certain aptness to ... work with clay," says Carlos Silva, Santos' friend of 35 years. "If it was something to play [with] at that moment, it lasted only for that day or the day after."

"I made horses with cowboys at that time, and boats and cars," Santos says. "The bamboo was also used to make carts and other toys, like small wheels."

Silva still marvels at what Santos made. "Things that I and our other friends didn't know how to make, he made it." Silva says as he begins to laugh. "He was our savior."

Santos dreamed of attending university one day to develop his talent, but he couldn't afford to go. Throughout the years, between spells of unemployment, he worked as a waiter, a carpenter, on construction sites and painted buildings and houses, all the while teaching himself the craft of sculpting.

He had help from friends, one of whom donated a studio space under the airport runway. A former restaurant that was destroyed by a storm, the room is a bit raw. Half of the space is piled high with debris-large metal signs and scraps of wood. The corrugated metal doors don't reach the ceiling, so heavy winds blow rain through the gap at the top, creating puddles on the floor.

But this is where Santos feels most at home.

"When I feel any frustration, any emptiness in my life or not being able to achieve something, I take refuge in sculpting and escape from my worries," Santos says. "My figures have a mixture of emotions [and] needs. By working the clay, I look for a way to get where I want."

In 2016, the parish of Machico asked him to do a sculpture to pay homage to the local fishermen. He eagerly accepted the invitation, as his first public work would pay tribute to his father. The large white sculpture sits near the waterfront in Canical, Santos' hometown. The locals loved it, which boosts Santos' confidence.

IN EARLY 2017, SANTOS was working for an airport cleaning company, sweeping up cigarette butts and gathering luggage carts, when he heard the news: The Madeira airport was being renamed for Ronaldo. A thought soon materialized.

"The airport was going to have his name, why shouldn't there be a bust of him in the arrivals to reinforce his image?" he says. "Getting to Madeira and being welcomed by Ronaldo smiling-because he is a very joyful and extroverted person-it made sense."

Santos tracked down the associate director of airports of Madeira, Francisco Fernandes, and pitched his idea.

"He told me to work on it and when I had something palpable, I should show it to him," Santos says. "I got excited with his reaction. I got home, did my research of Ronaldo [finding photos] from different angles, and when I finally found the right one, I immediately started sculpting."

Although he'd never done a bust before-let alone had any of his work bronzed-Santos was not going to let this opportunity slip away. A friend who had helped him source materials for the fisherman sculpture shipped him a 50-kilogram bag of clay from Porto.

"I set myself a big responsibility, to take that icon, put him in my world and sculpt him," Santos says. "I was in my own world, away from real life. It was like flying through the clouds and being there doing something that I enjoy. Through touching the clay, I was transmitting the profile of someone that might have a story similar to mine, given his persistence."

After working on it for two weeks, Santos took a photo of the 15-kilogram bust, brought it to the airport and tracked down Fernandes.

"He was very impressed as he didn't know who I was and didn't expect much," Santos says. "He showed my work to [the other] authorities and Cristiano's family, and they decided to support the project."

That family was Ronaldo's brother, Hugo Aveiro, who still lives on the island. Aveiro oversees the CR7 Museum in Funchal and helps run some of Ronaldo's personal affairs. Santos says the company contracted to run the dedication ceremony gave him €1,000 ($1,231) for his work, but it entrusted the final two stages needed to complete the bust (the plaster and bronzing) to people who'd done it before.

Around that time, Santos says he was summoned by Aveiro to his office at the museum. Aveiro had forwarded Ronaldo the picture of the bust that Santos had taken earlier-and Ronaldo had texted his approval. Santos says Aveiro displayed the text on his cell phone.

"I don't remember the whole message, but I read it and it said that it looked good, and to just change it here" Santos says, brushing his index finger lightly beneath his left eye.

There was a problem, though: A professional had already plastered the bust, and "it was not possible to alter it, otherwise it would damage it," Santos says.

Before the bust was shipped to the foundry in Porto to undergo the third-and final-bronzing phase, Santos called the group finishing the bust and passed along Ronaldo's concerns.

"[Ronaldo's] smile is ripped to the left side," Santos explains. "I made the wrinkles exactly as they are, but Ronaldo said that they looked a bit too protruding and asked if they could be thinned out."

Santos rolls his eyes and rubs his cheeks and quips, "As we know, Ronaldo is vain . He likes to be all groomed up!"

"When they tried it they-instead of thinning them out slightly-added a few strokes so [as] to conceal the wrinkles. It wasn't a detail of great relevance and it didn't change much of the wrinkles it had."

The bust was polished, then shipped back to Madeira. Santos couldn't wait for the ceremony to see the finished product, so he opened the crate himself upon its arrival.

SANTOS WAS AGLOW WHEN he saw Ronaldo's smiling, polished bronze face staring back at him.

"I laughed out of happiness and satisfaction," Santos remembers. Important people-heck, even Cristiano Ronaldo!-valued Santos' work enough to greenlight his idea and push his project to completion. A company hired by the airport to handle the dedication ceremony paid to have Santos' clay bust flown to the mainland so it could be professionally bronzed. Santos himself had only been off the island three times in his life.

But most significantly, this would mark the launch of his long-awaited career. Ronaldo-a fellow Madeiranwas giving him his start. People all over the world would finally see Santos' work, his worth.

"I felt that feeling of fulfillment, that I had done my part," Santos says. "In that moment, I saw [it] more as a step I had taken in my own path to achieve my goal."

Nothing could diminish the excitement Santos felt on the morning of March 29, 2017, the day Madeira Airport would become Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport. Santos' wife, Armanda, his son, Tiago, his extended family-his entire communitywould be on hand to share in his magical moment.

RONALDO ARRIVED AT THE airport with his mother, Dolores, his partner, Georgina Rodriguez, and six-year-old son, Cristiano Jr.

"Thank you for being here in my honor," Ronaldo told the assembled media, and the hundreds of locals who gathered for the event. "... I will try to dignify Portugal and especially Madeira with a spirit of sacrifice, dignity and passion."

When the bust was unveiled, Ronaldo smiled widely and the crowd applauded.

"It was a very intense moment," Santos says. " I felt like someone had taken the weight I had been carrying on my back."

In the VIP area after the event, Santos' son, Tiago, got a ball signed by Ronaldo, but he was whisked away before Santos could properly introduce himself or get Ronaldo's opinion on the finished bust. Nonetheless, the family went home happy and fulfilled.

"Tiago was amazed, super proud, saying, 'My dad is a sculptor! I'm very proud of my dad!'" Gouveia remembers. "Everyone that came by our house, he went to get the football saying, 'I have Cristiano Ronaldo's ball!' It was being a spectacular day.

"And then...it started being, like, a bit...sad."

She tries to keep her composure but can't. Tears pour down her face and Santos-sitting on a couch to her right-drops his head, seemingly absorbing her pain and renewing his own. Tiago plays with a toy car nearby, blissfully unaware.

"I'm remembering how tough those days were at the time," she says, wiping her eyes. "[It started] around [3 p.m.]. My sister called me to say, 'Hey, have you seen what's on the internet? There are so many people saying bad things about it. People were making comments like 'You should kill yourself.'"

Pedro Vasconcelos, a consultant working in information technology for the company that the airport contracted to run the event, says he was stunned at the social media metrics piling up. There were close to a million comments-many of them nasty-in the first 24 hours.

The internet wasn't the only one piling on. Late night TV and Saturday Night Live were just two talk shows who were happy to roast some fresh meat.

"Look at it, it's terrible!" comedian James Corden roared. "It looks like his face was bended like Beckham!"

"The first question any great sculptor must ask about his subject is, 'What would he look like if he had a stroke?'" SNL actress Kate McKinnon said in character. "... This is the spitting image of my Ronaldo. That's why so many people have spit on it."

"I was telling [Santos], 'Listen, the fact that you have so many bad reactions is not bad-it's good," Vasconcelos says. "You are one of the most well-known sculptors right now in the sport world, you should be happy. And he wasn't."

No, he wasn't.

"In the silence of night, all of that information was going through my mind, and managing all of that was very hard," Santos says. "I isolated myself. I didn't feel like speaking to anyone."

But one thing he couldn't avoid was how to protect his family from the scrutiny, ridicule and shame that was suddenly thrust upon them. His humiliation became theirs, and there was nothing he could do about it. People would point and stare. Even on tiny Madeira Island, there was no place to hide, as social media's reach knows no bounds. Having his work and ambitions globally trashed was one thing, but he hadn't even considered the fact that the quest to make his artistic talents known could have exposed his family to so much distress.

"It was too sudden," Santos says, massaging his forehead and trying to conceal his tears. "It's a lot of responsibility."

While family and friends tried to counsel Santos and Gouveia to pay little mind to the attacks, Gouveia still didn't understand the intensity of the ridicule.

"Emanuel, above all, [is] a human being," she says. "Everybody makes mistakes. ... There was no need for so much criticism. Whether the work looked good or bad, one had to value it, because even though he had no formal education in the area, he at least had the initiative and tried to make something. ... No one was brave enough to do what he did, ... to have his idea and to present it."

Santos' biggest worry-that Tiago would get bullied at school-never materialized. His young age (five) helped shield him from awareness, and the teachers at school only sang his father's praises. "Oh, your dad made Cristiano's bust!" they said.

"He remained very proud of his father," Gouveia says. "He has no awareness, even to this day."

Despite the torrent of criticism, Santos remains steadfast in his defense of the first bust.

"When Ronaldo is happy he has that spontaneous smile, and [those] who know him know that he doesn't have an uniform smile," Santos says sternly. "So there it is, if it didn't end up 100 percent like him, people have to understand that art is a way to express oneself that contains emotions. It's not a precise science.

"I liked the result and was really proud of it. And if I had to do it again, I would make everything exactly the same."

Eventually, the fervor died down. Last October, Santos became Canical civil parish's president, which pays €270 ($332) per month. He was happy to be living under the radar again before Bleacher Report came with an offer last month: How about a "do-over?" A second shot at Ronaldo? Take what you learned last time, and show the world what you've got.

"My first reaction was 'No!'" Gouveia says, laughing. "But then I started thinking that it might be good, that it was a second chance to do Cristiano Ronaldo and to show that you can really do it."

"I'm making the bust again to show people that I'm not what the media made me look like," Santos says. "Of course, there is fear of people's reaction when seeing this piece."

"If there are negative comments, we'll be prepared," Gouveia interjects. "After going through what we went through one year ago, nothing can take us down."

THERE IS GOING TO be one big change this time around: "This smile will be different," Santos says. "The other one was more open, so the cheek was slightly more upwards. This one [will be] more closed, so it's natural that the cheek will be more downwards.

"I've talked with sculptors and they say that a bust made in a natural state-with a mouth not so open and a bit more serious-falls better in the eyes of the public."

He elaborates: "Teeth are complicated. When they luster the bronze, the parts of the face that are more protruding look shinier than the more hidden ones, so [last year], when they did the parts of the teeth, [those] that weren't so [protruding] remained darker. It gives out the feeling that the mouth was a bit asymmetrical, but it's not like that. It's actually the material that gives that illusion."

Putting himself-and especially his family-back out there is a constant worry, he says.

"Every morning when I wake up, and especially at night when I'm sleeping, I think about it."

As Santos works on the bust, he realizes he has a more important motivation to get this one right in the eyes of the public.

"I'm thinking that I want to leave a positive mark, so that in the future, Tiago can be proud of his father," he says.

What will happen if people mock this new bust, he's asked. How will you manage that situation, especially with your family and your son?

Santos ponders the question, then replies, "I don't know. I truly hope that that won't happen."

He lights a cigarette. Wait, what's that? Santos, a nonsmoker, has bought a pack of Camels.

"This is just stress-management," he says.

IT'S MARCH 17, A glorious sunny morning, and Santos drives back to the place that has shaped the last year of his life: Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport. He's headed toward the cargo area to pick up the new Ronaldo bust, which arrived on a flight from Porto earlier that morning.

"I'm so nervous" he confesses, and it manifests itself in random, animated chatter. "I can't sleep at all thinking about this. At the end of all this, I think I deserve a holiday. Did you see the bust?"

"I WANT TO SEE THE BUST!" he later announces playfully to no one in particular, waving the paperwork he'll have to give to the clerk in order to receive the shipment.

A security guard leads a drug-detection dog through the warehouse and passes the area where Santos waits.

He sips a cup of coffee he purchased from a vending machine and reflects on this past year's unsettling journey.

"One day," he says, "I want my son to understand that if he enjoys doing something very much, [he] doesn't let himself be defeated with negative criticism. Sooner or later, if we believe in ourselves and are persistent, we can succeed in life. Even though his father never had a degree, isn't a teacher or a doctor [and comes] from a poor family, he was able to make something of himself in this world."

Santos watches as the 36-kilogram crate is lowered onto the sidewalk, then he waits for the lift to drive away. He takes a knee as he pries the crate open with the back end of a hammer. Then, a gigantic grin-bigger than the one on the first Ronaldo bust-spreads across his face as he removes the foam padding and sack covering the bust's face.

"I like it." Santos says softly. "It's very good. Oh man, it's very good! Looks like him."

A pause. "In my opinion."

Santos gives the bust a thumbs-up, as if it can see him doing so. Kneeling by the crate, he gingerly brushes off the styrofoam bits that have nestled alongside the ridge of its nose. He strokes the face, smiling, as if he's caressing a loved one. It's tender and sweet-not creepy. Emanuel Santos is flat-out mesmerized.

"Do you like it?" he asks. "Tell me what you really think."

Now he hoists Ronaldo's bust out of the crate and groans. He's on a waiting list to get back surgery for a pinched nerve that has hospitalized him for months at a time, but this moment is worth the pain. This is a good pain.

But soon his back-and the clock-tell him it's time to head home. On Saturday, the residents of Madeira traditionally clean their homes, and Santos promised his wife he'd pitch in.

He places the bust back in the crate and offers to help reseal it for shipping. As he reaches for the hammer again, he seems wistful. Suddenly, he has a thought: Before B/R publishes its story and social media gets ahold of this bust, he wants to preserve this happy moment, if only for posterity.

"Do you mind?" he asks, pulling the cell phone out of his pocket. "Can you take a picture of me with it?"

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A Year After Internet Infamy, Ronaldo Sculptor Gets Another Shot

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On Feb. 9 this year, Electrico FC's futsal team landed at Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport for its match the following day against CS Maritimo. Upon exiting the terminal, they look around until they spot what has become the airport's defining feature: an infamous bronze bust of the building's namesake just outside the arrivals door.

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Alleged MS-13 members charged after yearlong Vegas killing spree, police say

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MS-13 has brought "third-world violence" to Las Vegas, a local pastor said, as authorities announced the breakup of a yearlong killing spree allegedly committed by the gang.

Four illegal immigrant MS-13 members who police say are responsible nearly a dozen slayings during the past year were charged Tuesday in federal court, police in Las Vegas said.

The news comes on the heels of recent declarations by President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions that they are committed to cracking down on MS-13.

Elieson said the four gang members - all from El Salvador and ranging in age from 19 to 24 - face a possible life sentence on kidnapping, weapon and assault with intent to commit murder charges in the death of a 21-year-old rival gang member.

That victim's mutilated body was found Feb. 2 on federal land in desert mountains east of Las Vegas.

"We're literally seeing the type of third-world violence right here in what we are calling a civilized society."
- Pastor Troy Martinez

The announcement of the charges came two days after Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said the arrests of four adults and a 17-year-old who was being held as a juvenile broke up a murderous ring responsible for 10 slayings since March 2017 in and around Las Vegas.

The slew of gang-related fatalities has taken a toll on the community, local leaders said.

"We're literally seeing the type of third-world violence right here in what we are calling a civilized society," pastor Troy Martinez told Fox's KVVU-TV.

"We cannot wait until there are 10 bodies in the desert, hotel rooms, wherever else they're dumped," he added.
WHAT IS MS-13, THE VIOLENT GANG TRUMP HAS VOWED TO TARGET?
A criminal complaint alleges that Arquimides Sandoval-Martinez, a former El Salvador resident, was abducted early Jan. 21 outside a downtown Las Vegas club, bound with shoelaces and driven to the desert where he was hacked with a machete and shot.

"Many gangs have their own trademarks, their own style," Martinez told KVVU-TV. "MS-13 is known for torture, known for making people suffer -- brutal and violent murders to send fear into other gangs and into the community. And parents should be very concerned their child is not safe in a community where gang members are able to kill people, kidnap them and dump their bodies all over our valley."

The complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, says Josue Diaz-Orellana, 22, Luis Reyes-Castillo, 24, David Perez-Manchame, 19, and Miguel Torres-Escobar, 20 were arrested March 2 in Diaz-Orellana's car.

A large butcher knife, a bloodstained baseball hat and three 9mm handguns were also found in the car, the document alleges.
TRUMP READIES FOR FIGHT OVER CALIFORNIA SANCTUARY CITY LAWS
Reyes-Castillo, Perez-Manchame and Torres-Escobar appeared in court Wednesday beside newly appointed lawyers as a U.S. magistrate judge ordered them to remain in federal custody and set an April 11 date to hear evidence in the case. Each defendant wore wrist, waist and ankle shackles and thin white paper jumpsuits with no pockets for the court appearance.

The defendants -- all under the age of 25 -- highlight the threat that gangs pose to the youth, according to Martinez.

"If we're not working with the young people, be sure that the gang members are," Martinez said. "There's two places that your child will end up: that's either dead or in prison."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Alleged MS-13 members charged after yearlong Vegas killing spree, police say

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MS-13 has brought "third-world violence" to Las Vegas, a local pastor said, as authorities announced the breakup of a yearlong killing spree allegedly committed by the gang. Four illegal immigrant MS-13 members who police say are responsible nearly a dozen slayings during the past year were charged Tuesday in federal court, police in Las Vegas said.

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family SUV plunges off cliff about 8 died.

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The Air Force grounded some of it's fleet of F-15s at Kingsley, the only training base for this type of aircraft due to maintenance concerns.

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A portion of the Air National Guard's F-15 Eagle fleet at Kingsley Field, Oregon, has been grounded over significant maintenance issues affecting the aircraft's structure, Military.com has learned.

Col. Jeff Smith, commander of the 173rd Fighter Wing, last week grounded the fleet of 30 aircraft over pilot safety concerns.

"Due to a possible maintenance issue, out of an abundance of caution and concern for air crew safety, we have decided to stand down our flying while we take a closer look and determine the path forward," said Maj. Nikki Jackson, spokeswoman for the 173rd.

Jackson said the concerns were over "structural issues that we want to take a closer look at before we clear our aircraft to fly."
Related content:
"The safety of our air crew is our number one priority," she said in an email Wednesday.

The 173rd anticipates F-15 flight operations to resume tomorrow, Jackson said.

It remains unclear if the issue pertains only to F-15s at Kingsley thus far, or if it will lead to a service-wide inspection of all of the 1980s-era aircraft.

The temporary grounding is not expected to affect training or deployment schedules for the 173rd, Jackson said.

"A team from the F-15 Aircraft Structural Integrity Program is on site and looking into the issue, to determine the path forward," she said.

Kingsley Field in Klamath Falls is home to the only F-15C training schoolhouse in the Air Force, a robust training program for both active-duty and Guard pilots. The 173rd also houses a few D aircraft models.

The single-seat F-15C and two-seat F-15D models entered the Air Force inventory in 1979 and have been in almost every theater across the globe.

In 2007, the Air Force grounded its entire F-15 fleet after a fighter from the Missouri Air National Guard broke apart mid-air and crashed. The pilot ejected.

The service conducted a nearly three-month inspection of the fleet, in which investigators found the cause of the crash to be a faulty beam in the frame of the aircraft, known as the longeron.

Engineers concluded that the longeron -- part of the multi-fastened support beams that work as building blocks within the aircraft's fuselage -- had cracks in it, and that there had been no proper maintenance procedures to detect the deficiency.

"No inspection requirements existed for detecting a crack in the longeron," according to the 2008 Accident Investigation Board report, as reported by CBS News. Similar issues were detected in more than 150 F-15s, the report said.

The Air Force in recent months has dedicated funding just to keep up with maintenance for its longerons.

According to the service's fiscal 2018 budget request, it asked for roughly $7 million just for service life extension, or SLEP, on the support beams.

The funding was recently approved through the $1.3 trillion omnibus bill signed last week by President Donald Trump, with fixes beginning later this year.

"Air superiority is a demanding mission set, and the newest F-15C was built in 1986," the budget documents said. "Consequently, the F-15C/D fleet will need a Service Life Extension Program on its fuselage longerons to reach its planned service life within acceptable risk margins.

"The longeron SLEP entails replacing 14 primary tension members in the structure of the forward fuselage and is critical to the safety of flight of these aircraft. There are other structural issues with the F-15Cs besides the longerons, and full-scale fatigue testing is ongoing to assess these matters," the budget request said.

The service plans to forgo other upgrades to the legacy F-15 in order to focus on SLEP.

The F-15C is unlikely to receive its Eagle Passive/Active Warning Survivability System upgrade, known as EPAWSS, that would heighten its threat assessment and survivability with advanced electronic warfare technology, according to a recent report from Aviation Week.

The latest F-15 woes come at a time when the service has mulled retiring the C/D models, which mainly reside in the Air National Guard.

Last March, officials told lawmakers they were looking at possible plans to retire the two models as early as the mid-2020s.

Air National Guard Director Lt. Gen. L. Scott Rice at the time said the Air Force as a total force was in "deep discussions" regarding the retirement, with plans to further assess the F-15 inventory in 2018.

Rice and other Air Force officials said the F-16 Fighting Falcon would take over in the multi-mission role.

The service has 212 F-15C and 24 F-15D models, according to the Air Force Association's 2017 aircraft inventory almanac.
-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.
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Air Force Grounds All F-15C Fighters at Oregon Training Base

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A portion of the Air National Guard's F-15 Eagle fleet at Kingsley Field, Oregon, has been grounded over significant maintenance issues affecting the aircraft's structure, Military.com has learned. Col. Jeff Smith, commander of the 173rd Fighter Wing, last week grounded the fleet of 30 aircraft over pilot safety concerns.

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cheetah hops into car on a safari. no harm was done.

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watch cheetah hop in car during safari  - cnn video

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Watch cheetah hop in car during safari - CNN Video

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A cheetah interrupts a safari excursion by jumping into a tour group's car.

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The sightings occurred within minutes of each other on the afternoon of Feb. 24, some 40,000 feet above southern Arizona near the New Mexico border. ABC News obtained the audio

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Two pilots on different aircraft reported having close encounters with a mysterious object flying high above Arizona last month, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The sightings occurred within minutes of each other on the afternoon of Feb. 24, some 40,000 feet above southern Arizona near the New Mexico border. ABC News obtained the audio recording of the conversation between the pilots and the Albuquerque Air Route Traffic Control Center, released by the FAA.

The news comes amid a series of reports of military pilots coming into contact with what they believed to be UFOs and the disclosure of a secret, but now-defunct Pentagon program to track such incidents.

The pilot of a Learjet 36 belonging to Phoenix Air, with the tail number N71PG, reported the initial sighting. He asks the controller: "Was anybody above us that passed us like 30 seconds ago?

"Negative," the controller responds.

"OK. Something did," the Learjet pilot says.

"It's a UFO," another pilot chimes in.

"Yeah," the Learjet pilot laughs.

Google

A few minutes later, the controller radios to American Airlines Flight 1095, an Airbus A321. He asks the pilot, "Let me know if you see anything pass over you here in the next 15 miles."

The pilot seems puzzled and responds, "If anything passes over us?"

"Affirmative. We had an aircraft in front of you at 37 [thousand feet] that reported something pass over him and we didn't have any [radar] targets, so just let me know if you see anything pass over you," the controller says.

"All right," the pilot says.

The Learjet pilot joins the conversation, saying, "I don't know what it was, it wasn't an airplane but it was -- the path was going in the opposite direction."

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

About a minute later, the American Airlines Flight 1095 pilot radios back to the controller to report a bizarre sighting in Arizona's airspace.

"Yeah, something just passed over us, like a -- I don't know what it was. But it was at least two, three thousand feet above us. Yeah, it passed right over the top of us," the pilot says.

"OK, American 1095, thank you," the controller responds.

The controller later asks, "American 1095, can you tell if it was in motion or just hovering?"

"Couldn't make it out whether it was a balloon or whatnot. But it was just really beaming light or could have had a big reflection and was several thousand feet above us going opposite direction," the pilot says.

"Roger," the controller responds.

STOCK/Getty Images

The American Airlines pilot later radios to the controller again, asking if the unidentified object was a "Google balloon."

"Doubtful," the Learjet pilot chimes in.

The voice of another pilot adds, "UFO."

The controller was unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area at the time of the reported sightings, according to a spokesperson for the FAA.

"We have a close working relationship with a number of other agencies and safely handle military aircraft and civilian aircraft of all types in that area every day, including high-altitude weather balloons," the spokesperson told ABC News in an email Wednesday.

American Airlines referred ABC News' request for comment to the FAA.

Spokespersons for Phoenix Air, Google and the North American Aerospace Defense Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

ABC News' Anthony McMahon, Rex Sakamoto and Daniel Steinberger contributed to this report.

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Pilots report close encounters with UFO over Arizona: 'Something just passed over us'

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Two pilots on different aircraft reported having close encounters with a mysterious object flying high above Arizona last month, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The sightings occurred within minutes of each other on the afternoon of Feb. 24, some 40,000 feet above southern Arizona near the New Mexico border.

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Trump hates Amazon and said they pay very little taxes.

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President Trump has launched an attack on Amazon saying it pays little or no local or state taxes.

He also accuses it of "putting many thousands of retailers out of business".

Mr Trump added in a tweet that "they [sic] ...use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.)".

It follows a report on the news website Axios on Wednesday that claimed Mr Trump wanted to "go after" Amazon.

Amazon shares fell more than 4% on Wednesday.

However, tech stocks such as Twitter, Google and Facebook have also fallen in recent weeks in a wider sell-off.

The Axios report claimed: "Trump's wealthy friends tell him Amazon is destroying their businesses. His real estate buddies tell him - and he agrees - that Amazon is killing shopping malls and brick-and-mortar retailers."

It is not the first time the President has criticised Amazon on social media.

Last year in August, the President tweeted: "Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!"

In the past the President has also taken aim at the Washington Post which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Last year the he tweeted: "The #AmazonWashingtonPost, sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should) is FAKE NEWS!"

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President Trump has launched an attack on Amazon saying it pays little or no local or state taxes. He also accuses it of "putting many thousands of retailers out of business". Mr Trump added in a tweet that "they [sic] ...use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.)".

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Michael jordan may just be the best buisness man out there making 1.65 billion .

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pilots say they spotted UFOs while flying over Arizona

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A Learjet pilot and an American Airlines pilot saw the object on February 24 and radioed the regional air traffic controller in Albuquerque.

"Was anybody, uh, above us that passed us like 30 seconds ago?" the Learjet pilot said in the brief exchange.

"Negative," the air traffic controller replied.

"Okay," the pilot said. "Something did."

"A UFO!" someone quickly responded.

"Yeah," the pilot replied again with a chuckle.

A second sighting

Minutes later, the FAA controller alerted an American Airlines that was flying in the area, according to the recording released by the FAA.

"American 1095, uh, let me know if, uh, you anything pass over you here in the next, uh, 15 miles," an air traffic controller said.

"Let you know if anything passes over?" the pilot responded.

"American 1095, affirmative," the controller said. "We had an aircraft in front of you that reported something pass over him and, uh, we didn't have any targets. So just, uh, let me know if you see anything pass over you."

"Alright," the pilot said.

Shortly, the pilot radioed traffic control also reporting the mysterious object.

"It's American 1095. Yeah, something just passed over us," the pilot said. "I don't know what it was, but at least two-three thousand feet above us. Yeah, it passed right over the top of us."

American Airlines referred all questions to the FAA.

It's unclear whether the object spotted by the pilots was a UFO. A FAA spokesperson suggested the object wasn't necessarily something out of this world.

"We have a close working relationship with a number of other agencies and safely handle military aircraft and civilian aircraft of all types in that area every day, including high-altitude weather balloons," the FAA spokesperson said.

The controller was unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area at the time, the FAA said.

Was it a weather balloon?

A pilot said he did not believe the object could be a weather balloon.

When the air controller asked more about the object, the American Airlines pilot said he wasn't sure "whether it was a balloon or whatnot."

He only described it as having "a big reflection," and "traveling several thousand feet above us, going the opposite direction."

The strange encounter happened not far from Roswell, New Mexico -- a town that became synonymous with extraterrestrial activity in 1947 after reports that a flying object crash-landed in a field.

Authorities said it was a weather balloon but that hasn't stopped plenty of Americans from coming up with their own out-of-this-world theories.

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arizona pilots report sighting of possible ufos - cnn

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Pilots say they spotted UFOs while flying over Arizona

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A Learjet pilot and an American Airlines pilot saw the object on February 24 and radioed the regional air traffic controller in Albuquerque. "Was anybody, uh, above us that passed us like 30 seconds ago?" the Learjet pilot said in the brief exchange. "Negative," the air traffic controller replied.