China Airlines Pilot Near-Collision with Flat Round UAP — Taoyuan Approach

On March 10, 1996, a China Airlines (中華航空) commercial aircraft on final approach to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport narrowly avoided what the flight crew described as a flat, round unidentified flying object encountered over the Taiwan Strait during approach descent. The incident occurred during one of the most militarily tense periods in modern Taiwan's history: the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. Between March 8 and March 23, 1996, the People's Liberation Army Navy and PLA Air Force were conducting live-fire missile exercises in waters immediately north and south of Taiwan — bracketing the island's primary shipping channels and flight corridors. The United States had deployed two carrier strike groups (USS Independence and USS Nimitz) to the region in response. Both US and Chinese military aircraft were operating in the general area of the Taiwan Strait, and Taiwanese air traffic control was under heightened alert. 在臺灣海峽飛彈危機最緊張的時刻，一架中華航空班機在降落桃園國際機場的最後進場階段，機組人員發現海面上方有一個不明扁圓形物體，幾乎與其發生碰撞。機長事後向記者表示：「也許這是幽浮。」 (At the height of the Taiwan Strait Missile Crisis, a China Airlines aircraft on final approach to Taoyuan International Airport had its crew spot a flat, round unidentified object above the ocean surface, nearly colliding with it. The captain afterward told reporters: "Maybe it's a UFO.") After landing safely, the captain told reporters he could not identify the object and could not rule out a UAP. Taiwanese aviation authorities, when asked about the object, acknowledged the report and stated they could not definitively rule out a Chinese military aircraft operating in the area without a transponder — a plausible but unconfirmed explanation given the crisis context. The incident was documented by Taiwanese UAP researcher Ho Hsien-jung (何顯榮) in a chronological record of credible Taiwan UAP encounters, which identified seven distinct cases in 1996 alone — suggesting the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis period was accompanied by an unusual concentration of aerial anomalies over the strait. Whether these anomalies were related to the military exercises, to surveillance operations by either side, or to genuinely unidentified phenomena has never been officially investigated or resolved.