“Almost everyone has a cell phone that is capable of taking pictures and or video and nobody caught the hovering image at O’hare?”
Actually there were reports at the time that a ground crew member had pics, but they never appeared in public, in any event. Based on projected altitude, only a small number of folks (ground crew/atc/some pilots) would have been able to look up high enough to see the object, the angle up was too high for terminal passengers to see it, at least without placing their face against the glass in the terminals it might have been possible from, something they had no reason to.
Given the number of apparent professional pilots and others who would be considered expert witnesses in terms of viewing objects in the sky on any other topic, the ORD event was certainly interesting. Even on FR, not many people tried the character-assassination approach on the witnesses.
Yeah. That was kind of interesting to see above average FR respect for those witnesses.