UFOs AND WEIRD GLOW DAZZLE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST
Shortly before 9 p.m., on Thursday, October 3, 1996, a
mysterious yellowish-green flash lit up the skies from New Mexico
to southern California, startling hundreds of onlookers.
NORAD in Colorado Springs, Colorado said the object "was
most likely a meteor or other natural phenomenon."
Ignacio Tantajos, an employee of Griffith Park in Los Angeles,
said, "We thought it was a skyrocket. It lit up and came down,
and that was it."
Patricia Dobbins, another eyewitness in Griffith Park, said the
mystery object "just blossomed out...something like a flare. It
seemed to have little sparkles coming from it."
In Belen, New Mexico (population 5,617), a town on Interstate
Highway 25 about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Albuquerque,
a woman named Christine Church saw a UFO. Interviewed by
CNN, Ms. Church "described the object as having a row of five or
six lights laid up horizontally. At first she thought it was an
airplane about to crash, but when she went outside she found
nothing. 'There was no noise, no crash, and the lights were gone,'
Church said."
Another witness was Col. Steve Wilson (USAF Ret.), of the
group Skywatch International. A trained aerial observer, Col.
Wilson reported, "When the sky lit up, I turned and saw a blue-
green object streaking across the sky from the southeast to
slightly northwest."
The lack of any sound associated with the phenomenon was
noticed by observers in California, as well. Rick Sedona of the
group UFO Experiencers received a phone call Thursday night
from a woman in Westminster, California, a suburb of Los Angeles
27 miles (43 kilometers) southeast of L.A. City Hall and 8 miles
(13 kilometers) east of Long Beach.
The woman, her parents and a small group of friends watched
the object pass over Westminster just before 9 o'clock. She told
Rick Sedona that the UFO "was close enough to judge with her
eyesight to be 'retro fire' from a very large, mothership-looking
vessel. The retro-fire was so intense and so bright that the group
claimed to have felt the actual heat." The UFO then "shot at a
horizontal or straight-line direction south towards San Diego and
Mexico at a rate of speed that made it disappear within seconds."
UFO BUZZES MANHATTAN'S TRIBOROUGH BRIDGE
A woman living in the Astoria section of Queens, N.Y. phoned
radio station WBAI (99.5 FM) Thursday to report seeing a UFO
hovering near the Triborough Bridge. The bridge spans the East
River and connects Manhattan Island and the borough of Queens
on Long Island with the Bronx on the mainland.
She first noticed the UFO on Tuesday night, October 1, as
she looked out a window on the west side of her Astoria home.
"The object was merely hovering" over Roosevelt Island in the
East River, she reported. On Wednesday night, October 2, the
UFO returned, moving "low in the sky," she said, "It moved towards
the Triborough Bridge. It seemed like it was about to land on the
bridge. Then it moved away." She described the UFO as "a sphere
with a ring around it, sort of like Saturn." It zoomed away to the
northwest, heading for Willis Avenue and Yankee Stadium.
COUPLE PHOTOGRAPHS UFOs FROM LAS VEGAS HOTEL
On Saturday, September 7, 1996, Mr. and Mrs. Robert K.
checked into their vacation suite at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas,
Nevada. Their high-rise suite offered a view of McCarran Airport.
At 5:45 p.m., while her husband was downstairs, Mrs. K stepped
onto the balcony and shot two color photographs.
Later, "when I came back to the room," Bob said, "she was
getting dressed in the other room, and I was watching the air
traffic from the window. I noticed a plane cross over controlled
airspace on an outbound heading. Then I noticed above it at at
least double the altitude aircraft coming from the east on a due
westerly heading. The closer they got, I realized that they were
flying echelon formation just a little too precise. When the lead
craft decelerated, the others kept an exact distance between
them. They eventually came to a complete stop and, to my
amazement, hovered."
Calling for his wife to come and see this, Bob estimated
that the UFOs "hovered at an altitude of 8,000 to 10,000 feet.
She handed me the camera, and I set the lens on zoom. You
could clearly see the ridges on the craft. The craft was ascending
slowly and getting smaller through the viewfinder. I did take a
picture, and I could see the whole right side of the UFO with the
sun glaring off of it."
Bob had the pictures developed and proudly showed the UFO
photo to his brother. Then his brother pointed out that the silvery
objects also appeared in the two photos Mrs. K. had taken.
Bob wants to have all three of the photos evaluated by Jim
Delittoso of Tempe, Arizona. (Email Interview)
FAO DISPUTES STORY OF GIANT SAUCER SHOOTDOWN
Two weeks ago, UFO ROUNDUP ran a story on the alleged
shootdown of a giant saucer at Cerro del Crestone in the city of
Metan, Salta province, Argentina, in August 1995. Now a
prominent Argentine UFO research group has challenged the
original story by Guillermo Aldunati.
The Fundacion Argentina Ovniologia (Argentine Foundation of
Ufology), mentioned with Operation Right To Know as one of
the groups investigating the Metan case, declared unequivocally
that it has no knowledge of any such happening.
FAO spokesman Carlos Lurchuk stated, "In the bulletin was
mentioned the case of a UFO in the city of Metan in August of
1995 and the subsequent capture of its occupants. The
Foundation declares that it has no information of any such case
having occurred. And none of its members made the comments
attributed to them in the original bulletin."
FAO disavowal has cast into doubt the story of a saucer 100
meters in diameter crashing at Cerro del Crestone and the
retrieval of its occupants by the armed forces of Argentina.
BACKPACKER ABDUCTED IN PORTUGAL
On Sunday, September 15, 1996, a young man we'll call
Ricardo Machado Oliveira was hiking on Cabeca da Penha
mountain in the Serra da Guardunha, in the remote Beira Alta
region of eastern Portugal. The mountain is about 12 kilometers
(7 miles) south of Fundao, a town 210 kilometers (126 miles)
northeast of Lisbon and 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the
border with Spain.
Ricardo decided to explore a mountain cave with an
interesting history. In the 14th Century, a little girl from Fundao
vanished for three days. When she was finally found, she told
the search party that she had been cared for by "a white lady"
who had "offered her water to drink from a bell." Some have
attributed this to a visitation by the Blessed Virgin Mary.
While in the cave, Ricardo blacked out. When he came to,
he found himself in a vast underground hangar surrounded by
"three distinct species of aliens." Nearby were several ovoid
silvery UFOs.
The aliens told Ricardo that they were part of an alliance of
interstellar worlds engaged in observing Earth. Their base under
the Serra da Guardunha was one of four such UFO bases. The
others were in Warminster, England, near Salisbury Plain and
Stonehenge; the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA; and an
undisclosed location in Peru. Immediately after hearing this,
Ricardo blacked out again. When he opened his eyes again,
he was lying on the ground right outside the cave, and it was
about 8 o'clock at night. (Thanks, and a tip of the saucer, to
Margaret Barnes for this report.)
(Editor's Note: Extremely sketchy details, I know! Ricardo's
story sounds like a word-for-word repeat of the William
Herrman abduction case in Charleston, South Carolina back
in 1978. On the other hand, Warminster is a notorious UFO
hot spot. Beginning with Gordon Faulkner's photograph of a
daylight disc there in 1965, the area around Cley Hill in
Warminster had a UFO flap that lasted until 1981.)
UFONAUT CONFRONTS BACKPACKER IN BOLIVIA
This seems to be our week for UFOs and solitary hikers!
This report comes from the Buenos Aires newspaper, Cronica,
of September 28, 1996.
While hiking in the rugged Cordillera de Tajsara in southern
Bolivia, Roberto Suarez Molina, 28, became lost. When he
didn't report in on Thursday, September 26, the air rescue
units for Region Militar 3, the Grupo Aereo de Busqueda y
Rescate 52 (Search and Rescue Group 52) took to the air in
their Cessna A-152 planes.
GABR-52 planes reported strange glows around the snow-
covered peak of Nevado Chorolque (5,630 meters or 18,579
feet high), at the western end of the Tajsara range. This
mountainous country north of the Rio Pilaya is on the borders
of Bolivia's departments (states) of Tarija and Chuquisaca,
about 530 kilometers (331 miles) southeast of La Paz.
At 7 p.m. on Friday, September 27, Roberto "saw a
light with a weird appearance. Not a plane light, not a falling
star. The light crossed the sky, stopped for a moment in mid-
air, and then became a red light before disappearing."
An hour later, a bright light lit up Roberto's campsite.
Looking up, he saw "a tube of light. The light was so strong it
allowed me to see the time (8 p.m.) on my wristwatch."
The "tube of light" turned from the horizontal to the vertical,
then slowly descended, landing on the mountain trail near his
campfire. Stunned, Roberto found himself face-to-face with
"a luminous form who told me things."
The entity predicted that Roberto would be rescued by the
Bolivian air force around noontime on Saturday. He was right.
At 11:45 a.m., a GABR-52 Cessna spotted Roberto from the
air, marked the site with a smoke flare and radioed for a
helicopter to pick him up. (Thanks, and a tip of the saucer,
to Luis Pacheco o
(Editor's Note: Bolivia's Tajsara range is approximately 710
kilometers (445 miles) north of Santiago del Estero, Argentina,
site of last week's UFO flap.)
MORE UFO ACTION IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL
According to the Sao Paulo newspaper, Folha da Tarde, for
Monday, September 30, 1996 (see page A-10 "Farmer Sees
Mysterious Light in Bauru"), a UFO appeared near the city of
Bauru (population 260,380) at 8 p.m. and remained hovering in
the sky for just over four hours.
On Sunday evening, September 29, a farmer named Mario
Sergio Martins saw "a strange light" above his pasture, first
growing and then dimming in intensity. Martins called the Policia
Militar and then Globo-TV in Bauru. Arriving at the scene, Globo
cameraman Reinaldo Silva shot two hours of videotape of the
mysterious light. From 10 p.m. until midnight, the UFO from
time to time split into two parts and then came back together.
At 12:20 a.m., the light abruptly winked out.
Following the encounter, Silva made copies of his videotape
and gave one to local astronomer Syndey Pinto for evaluation.
(Editor's Note: Located 345 kilometers (207 miles) west of
Sao Paulo, the city of Bauru is the site of one of Brazil's
earliest UFO encounters. On July 23, 1947, a grayish-white
saucer 46 meters (150 feet) wide landed near a group of
workmen. All but Jose Higgins fled. Higgins watched in horror
as a group of aliens 213 centimeters (7 feet) tall emerged from
the saucer. They invited him to enter the craft, but Higgins
made a break for it. Concealing himself behind tropical
foliage, he watched as the tall aliens gathered flowers, plants,
stones and soil samples. He described the saucer as
"the shape of Saturn," i.e. with a ring around the middle.)
LARGE SILVERY UFO APPEARS AT "HOLE 18"
At 6 p.m. on Wednesday, September 18, 1996, a large UFO
appeared over the Blackwell Golf Course, near Barnt Green,
Worcestershire, England, U.K. The Birmingham Post of
September 19th described the UFO as "a blue, silvery object,
about the length of two double-decker (London) buses. It hovered
over the course for several minutes before speeding away."
Clive Timson, aged 23, of Barnt Green said he saw the UFO
"drifting" in the sky over the course while walking his dog. A
spokesman for the Blackwell Golf Course said none of their
members had reported anything unusual. (Many thanks to
United Kingdom UFO Network #63 for the article.)
TWO MORE UFO SIGHTINGS IN ITALY
At 9:30 p.m. on Monday, September 9, 1996, a council clerk
driving his daughter and her friends to an event near Tromello,
Pavia province, spotted "a giant myriad of lights, like a flying
merry-go-round, hovering 150 meters (500 feet) above the ground."
The UFO was moving silently toward the Italian Air Force radar
station at Remondo. (Provincia Pavese newspaper, Sept. 10)
A week earlier, at 5:15 a.m. on Monday, September 2, 1996,
a motorist driving from Azzida to Purgessimo in Undine province
spotted five gray spheres in the sky. The UFOs "sped away in
just a few seconds." (Messaggero Veneto newspaper, Sept. 4)
In other UFO-related business, the Centro Italiano de Studi
Ufologici (CISU) exposed two recent Italian UFO sightings as
bogus.
CISU learned that the red UFO seen and videotaped at Baia
Domizia in Caserta province August 19 was a military balloon
that had crashed in the sea.
CISU also debunked the August 22 sighting at Marina di
Massa. The "ball of fire" that frightened campers was merely a
small box balloon set afire and launched by group of foreign
tourists. The beach resort owner at Marina di Massa told CISU
investigators that he had seen the balloon launched.
(Thanks to CISU Flash #4 for these stories.)
NEW UFO WEBSITE! Spanish ufologist Javier Garcia Blanco now
has his own website. Javier promises all the latest UFO news from
Spain, Portugal, Morocco and the Canary Islands. Check it out at
http://www.ctv.es/USERS/lacip.
COMING SOON! Erik Beckjord's UFO, Bigfoot and Loch Ness
Monster Museum will be opening on Halloween, October 31, in
the North Beach district of San Francisco, California. The museum
is at 709 Union Street, right off Washington Square. For info on
the opening-day party, phone (415) 974-4339.
And if you have UFO news to report, email us at this address...
Masinaigan@aol.com. Stay tuned next week for more UFO news
from "the paper that goes home--UFO ROUNDUP!" Take care!
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