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Pilots flying two separate aircrafts in southern Arizona reported close encounters with an unidentified flying object on the same day last month.

New audio emerged revealing the pilots independently calling air traffic control on February 24 to report seeing an object at around 40,000 feet.

One pilot, flying a passenger jet for American Airlines, said the object "had a big reflection".

News outlet The War Zone said it obtained the recording from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of calls into the Albuquerque Centre air traffic control.

It began when a Learjet pilot called Albuquerque Centre to ask if anything had passed above the aircraft while flying over the desert in southeastern Arizona.

“I don’t know what it was. It wasn’t an airplane but it was, the path was going in the opposite direction,” he said in the recording.

A few minutes later, air traffic control asked an American Airlines pilot to let them know if they saw anything "pass over you here in the next 15 miles".

Despite some initial scepticism, a few minutes later the pilot confirmed that he too had seen an object.

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

He said he could not work out what the object was but it "had a big reflection"and was going in the opposite direction.

Shortly after a pilot asked on the frequency: "Was it a Google balloon?"

"Doubtful," the pilot replied.

"A UFO," someone else said.

FAA spokeswoman Lynn Lunsford told KOB, the NBC station in Albuquerque: “We don’t have any comment beyond what you hear.

“Other than the brief conversation between two aircraft, the controller was unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area.

"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.

"In other words, it's up to you and your imagination to speculate about what the pilots may have seen."

The sightings occurred near the Davis–Monthan Air Force Base, and around 100 miles from Luke Air Force Base.