From: Hector Cantero

U.S. newspapers carried scant notice of an event that made big news in other parts of the world. The Los Angeles Times ran one paragraph on August 17, more than two weeks after the event:


"A flight crew for Aerolineas Argentinas, and aviation officials on the ground, observed a luminous object that approached the aircraft as it was about to land at Bariloche airport, about 870 miles from Buenos Aires. Control tower personnel reported all of their instruments started behaving strangely at about the same time. Ground observers said the UFO appeared to have shining lights on its belly."

ISCNI*Flash has learned from a European source these further details. The commercial jet, type not known, was on approach to the airport at Bariloche at approximately midnight on August 1. An estimated 103 people were aboard. A brightly lit object approached the jet, flashing and changing colors as it came. The jet pilot, fearing a collision, took evasive maneuvers. The bright object then flew in formation with the jet, approximately 100 meters away. Most of the passengers and the flight crew of the jet saw the object. Later, many described it as a "space ship" and as big as the jetliner, with multi-colored flashing lights. Observers in the airport control tower and military officials on the ground also observed the object. As the plane and UFO approached the airport, all electrical power at the airport and in much of the nearby town failed, causing a blackout. With the runway lights out, the pilot of the jet aborted his landing approach and brought the plane around for a second attempt. He succeeded in landing the plane on the second try, though ISCNI*Flash has not learned if the electrical power had been restored by that time. Meanwhile, witnesses observed the UFO to climb straight up and out of sight at high speed.

Based on testimony of dozens of good witnesses in the air and on the ground, plus the classic electrical effects so often associated with UFO encounters, there seems little doubt that a highly unusual and potentially dangerous UFO encounter did occur over Bariloche, Argentina on this occasion. Newspapers in London, Paris and elsewhere treated this as an important story. ISCNI*Flash laments the fact that the U.S. news media did not.