VILNIUS, LITHUANIA June 26 1996 (Itar-Tass) - An unidentified flying object (UFO) was sighted on Tuesday night near Vilnius by two members of the traffic control police on duty, Jaunus Pozera and Laimis Kraualis.
Vehicles with soldiers from Aras rapid reaction force, sniffer dogs and police immediately arrived on the spot at the traffic controllers' call.
The policemen who had sighted the UFO said that a spherical luminous object had been hovering at the altitude of 20-30 metres from the ground over Vilnius-Medininkai route near Nemezis village some ten kilometres from Vilnius at 30 minutes past midnight. The object seemed to be pulsing, the eyewitnesses said, and emitted a sound similar to electrical or electronic crackling.
Wishing to take a better view of the UFO, the policemen went in its direction. When they covered about 50 metres over tall grass, the glowing sphere soared upwards and rapidly moved away in the direction of Vilnius.
The policemen watched the UFO for about half an hour. Staffers of the Civil Defence Department, servicemen from a task force and commissioners of the Vilnius police who arrived on the spot surveyed the locality, measured the radiation background and tape-recorded a strange sound that was heard in the area even after the disappearance of the UFO. Shiffer dogs did not discover anything suspicious and were calm. It was registered, however, that tall grass on the site over which the sphere hovered drooped in a radius of ten metres.
Lithuanian scientists have not yet expressed their opinion about the emergence of the UFO in the night skies near Vilnius. Police commissioner Valentinas Juhnevicius said in a radio interview today that both policemen who watched the UFO were "mentally sound, normal, stable people."
Copyright 1996 ITAR-TASS (via Comtex). All rights reserved
ARIZONA SIGHTING(from "UFO Roundup")
On Wednesday June 12 1996, between 2 and 3 a.m., Stuart Conway and Joyce Murphy were on Arizona Highway 74, in the desert just outside of Morristown, 11 miles southeast of Wickenburg. This rural section of Maricopa County is mostly flat country studded with sagebrush, cactus, greasewood and ocotillo.
While facing southeast, Conway, formerly a photographer with the Herald of Glasgow, Scotland, saw a "green fireball" traversing the clear night sky. He saw no craft or object but said the fireball "was about the size of a quarter (held) at arm's length" and noticed that "it left a strange colored trail" in the sky.
Conway estimated that the fireball was "at least two miles away." He said it was approximately 35 degrees above the horizon when he first saw it. The fireball made no sound or noise. He and his companion had it in view "for five to seven seconds."
"It headed straight for the ground and didn't blink out until it appeared to make contact with the ground," Conway said. "I saw it all the way along the Agua Fria River."
Conway said he believed the UFO was eight miles from Luke Air Force Base, but he's "not sure" if the fireball landed on the base.
STRANGE NEWS FROM BRAZIL (from "UFO Roundup")
The reported capture of aliens at Varginha, in the state of Minas Gerais, on Saturday, January 20, 1996 continues to make headlines in Brazil.
The July 1996 issue of UFO Magazine, published in the capital city of Brasilia, contains more detailed information on the saucer crash and subsequent capture of its alien occupants.
According to ufologist Pedro Cunha, witnesses in Varginha now claim that up to seven occupants were captured. The group included one dead alien, two badly injured and five more flushed out of hiding in the neighborhood of the Jardim Andere, a park on the north side of the city. The dead alien was first taken to the Regional Hospital in Varginha on January 20 before being shipped on to the Hospital Humanitas in Campinas in Sao Paulo state for an autopsy.
The magazine article published more detailed descriptions of the UFO occupants by the three girls who encountered an injured one in the Jardim Andere at 3:30 p.m. on January 20. The girls were Liliane Fatima Silva, 16, her younger sister, Valquiria Fatima Silva, 14, and their friend, Katia Andrade Xavier, 22, all of Varginha. The girls were walking home from their jobs as housemaids when Liliane spotted an alien crouched about 25 feet away.
In this week's article, the girls described the alien as "being dark brown, with a small body of 4 to 5 feet in height, no hair at all, big brown head, small neck. It also seemed to have some greasy dark oil on its skin. The head of the creature had two big red eyes, no pupils, very small mouth and nose and three protuberances on the head. The girls described such protuberances as horns."
On Sunday, June 16, the show "Programma de Domingo" aired a Varginha story on Brazilian TV. According to this story, many witnesses saw Brazilian Army trucks heading for the Jardim Andere at around 10:30 a.m. on January 20. The show also revealed that the Varginha Fire Department received its first call just after 9:30 a.m. Someone complained of "a wild animal" loose in the park. Figuring that they were after a jaguar or a peccary, the firefighters arrived with nets and cages. When they encountered their first injured alien, the crew chief immediately put a call through to the nearest Army base, the Escola Sargentos de Armas in Tres Coracoes. He reportedly spoke to the school's commandant, Gen. Sergio Coelho Lima, who ordered troops into Varginha to seal off the park.
"Programma de Domingo" also identified the men involved in the three-truck convoy that transferred the aliens to Campinas on January 22. According to the broadcast, Lt. Col. Olimpio Wanderly Santos commanded the convoy, accompanied by two officers, Captain Ramirez and Lieutenant Tide, plus a Sergeant Pedrosa from S-2, Brazilian military intelligence. Corporal Cirilo and Sergeant Pedrosa drove the middle truck with the aliens inside. The other trucks were driven by Private Vassalo and Private de Mello.
Gen. Coelho Lima is reportedly cracking down on leaks in his command. Soldiers have been warned not to talk to ufologists like A.J. Gevaerd, Pedro Cunha and Vitorio Pacaccini. Personnel returning to Tres Coracoes from leave have been confined to barracks and, at last report, at least one talkative sergeant is in the guardhouse. (Note: Tres Coracoes is also the birthplace and childhood home of Brazilian soccer star Pele.)
Rumors of American involvement in the Varginha saucer retrieval and alien roundup of January 20 - 22 continue to surface. According to Brazil's UFO Magazine, an American civilian was present when the wrecked cigar-shaped UFO was loaded aboard a flatbed truck the morning of January 20.
The crash site is said to be "north of Varginha." Wherever it is, it had to be within easy walking distance for the two injured aliens, as they reached the jungle-covered Jardim Andere before daybreak, i.e. before 5 a.m. The most likely sites are the coffee-growing country northwest of Varginha, between the village of Tres Pontes and the reservoir, and the forested serra, or ridges east of Tres Pontes. Both areas are within 10 kilometers (6 miles) of Varginha.
The UFO was first seen at 1 a.m. by Eurico and Oralina Rodrigues at their farm midway between Varginha and Tres Coracoes. The cigar-shaped UFO was flying slowly and enveloped in white smoke. The crash must have happened between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.
Brazil's UFO Magazine claims that the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) tracked the UFO late Friday night, January 19, and alerted Brazil's CINDACTA that it was coming down somewhere in southern Minas Gerais.
Luiza Helena Fatima de Silva, mother of two of the girls who saw the alien in the Jardim Andere on January 20, says she "noticed a peculiar smell" when she went to the park at 4 p.m. Senhora de Silva also claims that she was visited by four men last February. The unidentified men, who were not Brazilian, wore white and cream Armani suits and offered Senhora de Silva "a large sum of cash" if she would come forward and tell the media that her daughters had made up the story about the alien.
Senhora de Silva said the men showed up at her house while her husband, Jose Lopes de Silva, a bus driver, was at work. "They said they would pay cash," she said. "They also said they would come back but we cannot hide the truth."
(Persistent rumors that cannot be substantiated - Senhora de Silva's callers drove a navy-blue 1994 Lincoln Continental with Distrito Federal (Brasilia) license plates. The presence of a USAF transport plane, either a C-5 or a C-17, at Sao Paulo International Airport on January 20 and at Campinas airport on January 22. The presence of several unidentified American men at the restaurant Churrascaria Gaucha, Avenida Dr. Campos Sales 515 in Campinas late in the evening of January 21.)
AUSTRALIAN UFO SURGE(also from "UFO Roundup")
Australia just finished the third week of a UFO flap that shows no signs of dying down. On Wednesday, June 19, 1996,the Australian national television network, TEN TV, aired video footage of the bright orange UFO that cavorted over the city of Adelaide four days earlier.
The flap hit high gear last weekend when orange UFOs appeared suddenly over Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. (See "UFOs Trouble Hotline" in the Melbourne Sunday Sun-Herald for June 16, 1996).
According to Ross Dowe of Australia's National UFO Hotline, his staff received "about a dozen calls" on Friday night, June 14, with excited callers describing "strange bright orange lights" over their neighborhoods.
On Saturday night, June 15, the lights were seen again in downtown Adelaide, in the Sydney suburbs of Sutherland and Parramatta, and at Kew near Melbourne. In Kew, residents saw "five orange illuminations going straight up into the sky."
On Sunday, June 16, 1996, more lights were seen in Melbourne, and a single glowing UFO was videotaped in Adelaide.
Outlying regions of Australia were not spared, either. Orange UFOs were reported at Mudgeeraba in Queensland, at Campbelltown in South Australia and over the nation's capital, Canberra.
"We normally receive calls just in one area," Ross Dowe told the Sun-Herald. "But if this is a hoax, it's a hoax that's been done on the national scale over the past six weeks."
On Monday, June 17, radio listeners in Melbourne heard the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) announce the formation of a commission to study "mysterious lights in the sky." However, other correspondents in Australia dispute this report.
On Tuesday, June 18, Melbourne saw yet another overflight of orange lights. This was described as a group of 10 orange UFOs arrayed in triangular formation, flying northeast of the city. Several people watched the aerial procession fly over Preston on its way to Eltham.
