Thursday, October 30, 2014

The Ecuadoran "War of the Worlds" Transmission Remembered




The Ecuadoran "War of the Worlds" Transmission Remembered
By Scott Corrales

Every October 30th, UFO and science fiction enthusiasts alike remember Orson Welles' history-making broadcast of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds on the Mercury Theater of the Air and the resulting confusion caused by the alleged Martian invasion - a panic that has been called into question recently by skeptics, but whose legacy will forever loom large. Large enough, a decade after its transmission, to have caused true panic and death in South America.

"We are interrupting our transmission to make you aware of the latest news: our reporters and colleagues tell us the city of Latacunga - two and a half hours distant from Quito - is being invaded by strange lights in the sky and the city is being destroyed...people are running through the streets and fire can be seen everywhere, infantry brigades have been destroyed...the lights are headed for Quito, there are many dead and there is devastation everywhere. It looks like an atomic war."

Thus began the broadcast of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds in Spanish - "La Guerra de los Mundos" - broadcast on 12 February 1949 at 7 pm on Radio Quito, one of the Ecuadoran capital's most popular stations, interrupting a live transmission of a popular music show. Directed by Leonardo Páez, the transmission caused a true sensation in the South American country.

The musical show - a duet by singers Potolo Valencia and Gonzalo Benítez - was interrupted after only one song. An announcer stated that a "flying object" had been seen over the Galapagos Islands, interrupting the show yet again to advise listeners that a flying saucer had landed in the Cotocollao district on the outskirts of the nation's capital.

"We are again interrupting our programing to inform our listeners that we are at war. Strange lights are arriving and attacking northern Quito at Cotocollao. Spinning discs can be seen along with strange hostile beams who are destroying it all. There is fire everywhere, as well casualties. Ladies and gentlemen, we are at war!"

Páez's skilled team of voice actors managed to imitate the voices of government ministers and even the city's mayor. Sound effects added to the realism and the sense of impending doom that Welles had conveyed so well in 1938. Four years into the nuclear age, mankind was losing its first encounter with extraterrestrial invaders. As if this wasn't enough, alleged phone calls from radio stations in cities like Cuenca and Guayaquil were coming in, describing the perils faced by the country from "a cloud of toxic fumes" slowly spreading over the Andean foothills.

The La Guerra de los Mundos broadcast was so successful that it caused a mobilization of the city police and local military barracks. However, these same forces - upon learning of the "hoax" - retreated to quarters without hesitation, irritated at the notion of having succumbed to a radio stunt that was tantamount to a prank.



The sudden and hopeless news resulted in churches being filled. It wasn't long before the terrified citizenry learned that this false alarm was nothing more that radio show, and decided to take revenge on the broadcasting facility. According to sources from the time, busloads of enraged locals began arriving at Radio Quito building in the city's downtown area. A shower of bricks and debris rained against the building's facade, but mere vandalism would not assuage the hate welling in the hearts of the Quiteños. The building's lobby and first floor were set on fire, and being that the building was shared by El Comercio newspaper, tons of newsprint served to stoke the blaze. Flames devoured the structure, prompting Leopoldo Páez and his actors to make an improvised escape from their studio, jumping to the roof of a neighboring structure. Not all of them survived. Damage to the radio station, the building and the newspaper were estimated at 2 million old Sucres ($350,000 dollars at the current exchange) with a total of twenty dead, although figures vary from one report to another. The fact remains that El Comercio did not publish an issue on February 13, 1949 due to the total loss of its facilities. In August 2010, Radio Quito celebrated its 70th year on the air with a remembrance of all the highlights of its existence,including the sad events of 1949.

Four years earlier, a radio station in Santiago de Chile had broadcast its own adaptation of "La Guerra de los Mundos" with similar reports. Rumor has it that a regional governor had even tried to mobilize his forces to fight the "alien menace".

In the aftermath of the debacle, Leonardo Páez left his native country for Venezuela, where he died in the early 1990s. He penned a book on the fateful night in February 1949 with the title "Los que siembran el viento" (Those who sow the wind).

Honduras: Alleged UFOs Unleash Controversy Among Readers of Diario Tiempo



Source: Planeta UFO and Diario TIEMPO (Honduras)
Date: 28 October 2014

Honduras: Alleged UFOs Unleash Controversy Among Readers of Diario TIEMPO

SAN PEDRO SULA - A considerable number of readers of www.tiempo.hn who looked at photographs of seemingly mysterious objects flying over San Pedro Sula claim having been witnesses to Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) along various parts of the northern and western coasts of Honduras.

Their stories emerged yesterday on Facebook and DIARIO TIEMPO's website, following publication of two photographs taken by a journalist of this communication media, using a cell phone from the 12th floor of the Altia Smart City Building 1.

On July 30, prior to attending a conference in this building, the journalist photographed the cityscape, and on October 27, nearly three months later, finally looking at the images, he was startled to see disk-shaped objects against the slopes of El Merendón.

Along with the images in question, www.tiempo.hn published a brief newspaper item with the title "UFOs in San Pedro Sula?". Shortly after, readers left over 150 comments - some serious, others slightly humorous - on the Facebook page and the website.

One of the readers, identified as Enrique, remarked that he had seen "those very same artifacts" in the sky at 9:25 on the night of October 20, as they headed toward El Merendón.


"They headed toward El Merendón. I thought it was my imagination, but it wasn't, and I didn't record anything. But I'm certain that I looked at them (...) I don't believe in such things, but upon seeing them with my own eyes, I was bewildered."

Wilmer Rosales Murillo, another reader, believes "evidence suggests that we are truly being visited" by beings from other worlds.

"Those of us who watch the skies constantly know that these sightings occur periodically. The drawback is that governments won't mention the truth about these visits, but the fact is that we are indeed visited and I will go as far as saying that they live among us," said Murillo.

Other readers, less fearful of criticism, claimed not only seeing flying objects, but also humanoid entities flying in the skies.

"I have seen extraordinary things. I don't believe in extraterrestrials. What I saw was the shape of an angel heading for the sky, truly surprising. It was made of pure fire and wings - I shall never forget that experience," said Marvin Alexis Bobadilla Junior.

As is the case in the international scientific community, there are also discrepancies among Hondurans regarding the existence of extraterrestrial life and visits by "flying saucers" - as they are commonly known - to planet Earth.

A group of more skeptical readers, with no apparent interest in the subject, used the occasion to amuse themselves and make jokes, posting "memes" about alien beings, despite the fact that cameras installed on the International Space Station have captured strange objects in the universe.

The two photos published yesterday by www.tiempo.hn were taken by a journalist with a cell phone at 11:06:37 in the morning, and the second at 11:06:41 (4 seconds difference). They show grey-colored disks in alignment.

One reader believes that the figures appearing in the photos are reflections of the office lights from where the journalist captured the images.

"While taking the pictures through a window, the lights in the room they were taken from formed reflections on the window, which go [unnoticed] until they are seen in the final image and not while being taken. A good photographer should know these things," said a reader identified as Uno+

To Oscar Aguilar, a psychologist with the Prosecutor's Office in San Pedro Sula, the existence of aliens beings is a subject that can be neither confirmed nor rejected up to now.

"No certain verdict can be rendered. I cannot say that they exist or don't exist. If they exist, and we have not seen them, we can say they have not done humanity any harm," he said.

From this psychological perspective, according to Aguilar, a sizeable number of humans believe in aliens because "they feel the need to think that they are not alone, and this is a way of gaining security."

Moreover, he believes "the subject of the existence of extraterrestrials can be used to manipulate people."

[Translation (c) 2014 Scott Corrales IHU with thanks to Guillermo Giménez, Planeta UFO]

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Peru: Unreleased Recordings of Strange Lights over Arequipa



Source: Planeta UFO and Nuevo Mundo OVNI
Date: October 28, 2014


Peru: Unnreleased Recordings of Strange Lights over Arequipa



According to Peruvian ufologist Anthony Choy, Peru is among the world's top five countries when it comes to the most UFO sightings recorded in the past decade.

To Rafael Mercado, a ufologist from Arequipa, who visited the location and was able to access videos, take photos and hold conversations with the area's inhabitants, the sighting would have gone unnoticed had it not been for some locals who claimed seeing strange objects flying over great Mount Ubinas, leading to the subsequent follow-up and capture of imagery.



What are these lights? Several experts explain the subject in the following reports.

VIDEO (in Spanish) at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53bi9NAkWd4#t=451

[Translation (c) S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Guillermo Giménez, Planeta UFO and Karina Paola Armas, Nuevo Mundo OVNI]

Monday, October 27, 2014

Argentina: Alleged UFO Photographed at Rosario del Tala



Source: UNO - Entre Rios (Argentina) and Planeta UFO
Date: 10.27.2014


Argentina: Alleged UFO Photographed at Rosario del Tala

Amateur photographer captures a strange object in the skies over Plaza Libertad in this community of Entre Rios Province

A strange object can be seen in an image captured this afternoon (Monday, Oct. 21) at Plaza Libertad in Rosario del Tala. Some believe it may be a UFO.

Journalist Ivan Rodríguez, a native of Rosario del Tala and a fan of photography for some years, took some photos of the Libertad gardens in the locality, but he was truly surprised when he downloaded the images to his computer.

Rodríguez told Radio Mediterránea about his surprise when one of his daughters - who was watching the images on the computer - noticed a spot on one of them asked him about it.

"I thought it might be debris or a bug on the camera lens. I took it apart and there was nothing," he said.

The images were sent to the Museo Ovni in Victoria to be analyzed with better technology, and to find out if this could truly be an unidentified flying object.

[Translation (c) 2014 S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO]

Argentina: Bizarre "Crop Imprints" Befuddle Local Residents



Source: Diario Registrado (Argentina)
Date: 24 October 2014


Argentina: Bizarre "Crop Imprints" Befuddle Local Residents

There are no traces, dogs did not bark, there was no noise - but marks have appeared in a Cordoba field that have left local residents disconcerted. Are we witnessing a paranormal phenomenon?

There is no explanation. The fact is that in the middle of a field located in Villa María, a locality in Cordoba province, large marks appeared which left local growers astonished.


According to comments by local residents, no strange noises were heard, no dogs barked, no alarms were tripped, but the strange marks were suddenly found in the fields.

In fact, they stated: "We have meter-tall wheat, green, ready to be harvested in December. It was very healthy, but then this happened on Saturday morning."

According to this local (Susana Montero), "There are no traces that something got there by land," to which she added: "We can't find an explanation for it."

Persons living in the area called several agronomers, but remarked that no one was able to find an answer to this strange event.

(Translation (c) 2014 S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Guillermo Giménez, Planeta UFO)

Friday, October 17, 2014

Spain: UFO Over a Woodland Area (1978)




Spain: UFO Over a Woodland Area (1978)
Researched by Joaquin Mateos and Antonio Moya

The mountainous area located between the communities of Aznalcollar - El Alamo - El Castillo de las Guardas, amid the Sierra Morena, corresponds to a vast woodland area that extends some 6000 hectares (14000 acres) belonging to the Provincial Deputation of Seville. The site is some 40 kilometers distant from this city, between 6 degrees longitude west and 37'40 degrees latitude west, approximately. The landscape there is beautiful and wild, filled with pine and eucalyptus trees, streams, hills and fords. This marvel of nature is monitored by forest rangers who look after it with great care, as it is our common heritage.

It was precisely one of these forest rangers who witnessed the phenomenon described below and came across the probable ground imprints left behind by the UFO.

The researchers were warmly welcomed, despite certain hesitation on the part of the lead ranger, which quickly vanished in the light of the seriousness of our investigation and arguments. He made available to us a Land Rover to survey the site of the alleged landing, which was in the wilderness. We would like to extend our thanks to the forestal authorities for their assistance in our task and for their services to ufology.

The Witness: Luis Luque Nacarino, 40, married and with children. Profession: Forest ranger for the Provincial Deputation. Domicile: Aznalcollar, Province of Seville.

The witness is a serious person who seemed very well balanced to us and who knows the entire area like the palm of his hand. He told us that while working
nights, he was able to find the distance to the nearest road, or if there was a spring, an abandoned house or a pine of certain characteristics in pitch
darkness -- all of this in a 6000 hectare region. His seriousness was proven because when he made a sighting, he did not disclose to anyone - except his wife.

His co-workers and friends were startled when he spoke of the event in our presence. There is no question that the witness preferred to avoid the pranks he
would have been subjected to after making such a statement, and chose to keep silent until our arrival. Thus, he rejects notoriety, and it was necessary to assure him that his statements would not become a source of trouble to him and he would not be subject to reprisals. Quite the contrary, he was performing a great service for research.

The Sighting: The event took place between February 18-20, 1978.

Mr. Luque was attending to some bees he keeps in the middle of the woodland area are around 8 o'clock at night. As he explained, these insects do not leave their honeycombs during bad weather, and he makes sure to provide them with sustenance, consisting of little cups of honey.

The temperature was low. There were some clouds in the sky and the Moon was not yet out.

As it had become dark, the witness decided to abandon the task, unable to see how he could continue in the darkness. He went looking for his motorcycle to return home, and when he was about to start it, became aware of a very bright star moving from left to right in an arc toward the north. He thought it might be a meteorite and paid it no further attention. As he started his motorcycle, he looked at the "star" and saw that it was descending vertically, touching the top of a nearby hill, approximately 1 kilometer distant.

The "star" then began to rise - also vertically - until it placed itself some 200-300 meters over the hill. Mr. Luque corrected his initial impression and realized it couldn't be a meteorite. The "star" repeated its up-and-down motion once again, slowly. No sound could be heard and Mr. Luque supposes that if there had been one, it would have reached him, as silence reigns over that location.

According to the witness's description, the phenomenon was round and with the colors of the rainbow. At its center was a dark - but not black - mass, enveloped by three rings around it - dark orange, blue and dark green in color. When it "landed" on the hilltop, known to the Guards as "Alto del Cortafuegos" (Firebreak Heights), the rings faded slowly until they vanished. As this was the only source of light in the darkness, the witness lost sight of the phenomenon when it turned off, and did not see it again. The sighting had a total duration of 4 minutes and the object’s apparent diameter was smaller than that of the full moon.

Landing Traces: As we have noted above, Mr. Luque knows the land perfectly and thought that if something had landed, it could have only done so atop Alto del Cortafuegos, which was somewhat free of vegetation. Three days later, when his duties allowed it, he decided to visit the site in question to see if any traces could be found. It hadn't rained for three days and he was certain to find some traces that would confirm his sighting.

The area is located approximately east of Km 11 of the Aznalcollar-El Alamo road, accessible only on foot or in the all-terrain vehicle owned by the forest rangers.

Upon reaching Alto del Cortafuegos, the witness conducted a thorough search of the entire heights. Given his profession and knowledge of the field, trees and terrain, he was able to see something he found unnatural only scant meters from a pine tree: a crushed cork oak shoot. An animal could not have crushed it entirely and in such a way, thought Mr. Luque. It would have taken a greater weight and a size larger than an animal's paw. Impossible for it to have be a car,and the forest rangers had not been there since the previous summer.

Looking closely at the plant, he saw it was wilted, as though singed, which was illogical given the rains of recent weeks. The witness could only think that the tree shoot had been exposed to a high amount of heat, and told us as much.

He saw something else unusual in the terrain surrounding the cork oak shoot: rocks appeared to have been swept into a 2 meter diameter circle. Within this
circle, the ground appeared more leveled, flatter and thicker stones had been thrown to the edges of the circle. This was inconsistent, as stones were piled all in front and behind the circle, and the central and side-ridges left behind by the tires of the Land Rovers were still evident. However, there was nothing like it inside the circle. This, perhaps, was not proof positive of a landing, but it did not jibe with the rest of the surrounding terrain.

During our visit - 20 days after the event - we noticed some of the above, bearing in mind that the rains of recent days must have altered the physiognomy of the circle in question. We collected some samples of the cork oak shoot and the terrain, which we submitted for analysis. Should any noteworthy results emerge, we will make it immediately known.

Conclusion: At the end of a lengthy conversation with the witness, he told us that a few months earlier, around 12 midnight, he saw a reddish ball similar to the full moon traveling from south to northwest and vanishing in the distance. Given the nature of his job and the area he works in, often at night, we begged Mr. Luque to please make us aware of any strange sightings so we could look into them immediately. We took our leave from him, having recruited another collaborator for this thrilling and disconcerting endeavor that is ufology.

[Translation (c) 2014, S. Corrales IHU with thanks to Grupo Gerena and J. Manuel García Bautista]

Spain: Five Children and a UFO (1979)



Spain: Five Children and a UFO (1979)
Researched by Joaquín Mateos, Manuel Filpo, J. Ignacio Alonso and Antonio Moya

The Witnesses: The case involves five (5) children, four of them of school age, whose names and addresses are as follows:

Paquita Castillo Álvarez, 7, of Gerena
Antonio Castillo Parra, 7 1/2, of Gerena
José Jiménez Martínez, 7, of Gerena
Soledad Valderas Gutierrez, 7, of Gerena


And one final witness, a four-year-old girl, whose name we do not have, but who was also playing with the rest of the group. All of these children attend the local school.

Location: The sighting took place some 300 meters from the Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación district, which is in the western end of Gerena and was only recently built. Therefore, the residents have lived there only for a short while. Roads toward Aznalcollar - a mining town where a mineral treatment center is being built - begin at this location. There is a road southward toward Olivares.

The exact location is an olive grove, crossed by unused railroad tracks and by some 15 kV high-voltage lines running from northeast to southwest. Gerena is located 23 kilometers to the northwest of Seville between 37'30 degrees latitude north and 6 degrees latitude west, approximately. Aznalcollar is 11 kilometers from Gerena and Olivares is 14 km distant.

Date: The incident occurred on Thursday, March 15, 1979 around 14:00 hours.

The Event: The five young witnesses were playing among the olive trees near the neighborhood in which they live. They had left school an hour earlier and were engaged in their favorite pastime when they noticed the phenomenon.

According to the description given by the children, the object was oval and bright red, shaped like a "mesa camilla" (stretcher table) surrounded by yellow lights. According to the witnesses, the phenomenon moved by dragging itself along the ground (by this we suppose they meant that it was very close to the surface from where they could see it), advancing and receding. It made a strange sound similar to rain.

The children noticed a strange phenomenon: when the birds flying around the olive grove came close to the object or in front of it, they would become illuminated with the object's intense red glow, all this in broad daylight and at two o'clock in the afternoon.

The children looked at the "thing" for some 2 minutes and then took off running in fear until they reached their homes, telling the whole story to their parents. According to the parents, the youngsters initial version of the story is identical to the one given to us, the researchers.

We do not know how the object vanished, since the young witnesses did not stick around to see it.

[Translation (c) 2014, S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Grupo Gerena and J. Manuel García Bautista]

Thursday, October 16, 2014

The 1971 Aznalcollar Incident Revisited



The 1971 Aznalcollar Incident Revisited
By Scott Corrales © 2014

There are cases in the long, winding saga of ufology that demand suspension of disbelief on the part of the researcher and the subsequent reader. Events involving “pie-pan-faced aliens”, space pancakes and Lycra-sheathed cosmic beauties fall under this classification, but so do others that for some reason or another have not reached a wider readership, such as the Spain’s Aznalcollar Incident of the 1970s.

Aside from an article by Gordon Creighton in Flying Saucer Review, there is little information in English on the case, and it has been largely overlooked – a situation that isn’t likely to change under the revisionist model of UFO research prevalent today. Nevertheless, we have original documents in our possession courtesy of researcher and radio/TV personality José Manuel García Bautista nearly ten years ago, and perhaps now is the time to make readers of Inexplicata aware of this bemusing affair.

A Journey into High Strangeness

[Note: The following report was written by Ignacio Darnaude and was included in the files of the Gerena UFO Group]

The Scene of the Events: “Los Lunarejos” farm, a rustic property devoted to cereal crops, owned by lieutenant general Gabriel Tassara Buiza, located some two kilometers from the locality of Aznalcollar, some 40 kilometers from the city of Seville. It is a vast expanse of agricultural land of the highest quality, with many artesian wells and crossed by the Pilar Viejo stream. The subsoil lacks minerals despite the proximity of the rich veins of Aznalcollar (the world’s largest deposit of pyrite), according to Juan Manuel Turmo, an engineer with Andaluza de Piritas, S.A., a company that works the nearby Banco Central fields. At the time, this property was cultivated with melons in a sharehold with the Pérez Miranda brothers, known by their nickname “Los Chícharos” (the Peas), well known in Aznalcollar for their seriousness and moral character.

Date of the Event: It has not been precisely determined. It took place in September 1971, probably somewhere between the 11th, 12th and 13th, as the town appeared to be celebrating its holidays, which and these are the three days of the local Romería.

The Protagonist: Juan Rodríguez Domínguez, 82, better known in Aznalcollar as “Juan el de la Palmareña”, lives with his only married son on Martín Ruiz street, next to the Guardia Civil barracks. A former miner and quarryman, he has been living from many years “as best he can” as a farm worker. We know him well because he worked for us as a shepherd some fifteen years ago. He is a good worker, serious and diligent, not overly fond of trouble. He tends to croon Flamenco tunes, and is exceedingly devoted to hunting. His lover isn’t his guitar, as his admired Manolo Caracol used to sing, but his shotgun certainly is. He is an illiterate operator with few intellectual skills: his contemporaries tell others that he is “as dumb as a bag of rocks”. A standoffish and lonely man, with few social contacts and a bad temper, he “is liable to smack God in the chops” when he’s angry. We are willing to bet our right arm that he absolutely unable to make up as creative a story as the one he has told, being so far beyond the coordinates of his everyday experiences.
In September 1971 he was providing auxiliary services in the melon field planted by los Chícharos, and would remain as a night watchman in a shack at “Los Palmarejos”. Although he’s not overly fond of the town, he would sleep nights in Aznalcollar when he chose to.

I. The First Report: Around ten o’clock that evening, Juan Palmareña’s fellow sharecroppers and work companions – Antonio El Chícharo (who lives at No.3 Lepanto Street) and his brother Felipe were enjoying the night air outside the “El Letra” bar on the way into town, having arrived from “Los Lunarejos”. They were stunned to see Juan approaching them, looking “all torn up, sweating like a little duck, with a bandana around his neck and a truncheon in his hand” in a state of nervous excitement. The conversation between the men took place in roughly the following terms:

“What the hell’s a-matter, Juan? Did someone steal the melons?”
“No, I’ve come to get you. Something as big as a Pegaso (the bus serving the Seville-Aznalcollar route) has landed, and people are getting out of it. They’ve gestured at me with a flashlight and I’ve had to come running here, stumbling over the hills.”
“Oh, come on, what are you talking about? You’re just scared witless. You fell asleep, you woke up and you’ve seen the lights of Don Juan’s tractor (Don Juan Tassara, a neighboring owner) or burning mattocks on Cerro el Be (a hill that can be seen in the distance from “Los Lunarejos”).”
“Hell no! It was as big as the viajero (The Pegaso bus). It landed hard and they blinded my eyes with a light. I saw the men on the ground”

The two brothers reaction was utter disbelief. They thought the man had suffered a nightmare or hallucination, was going senile or had gone insane. They were not the least bit curious, or afraid that someone could be stealing their melon harvest, and we unwilling to go to the plantation to ascertain the “foolishness” that Juan was going on about. Subsequently, when the news spread all over the town, people “paid no mind” to Juan, and no one took the time to verify his strange story.



Juan had been singing to himself when he suddenly saw a large machine land near one of the artesian wells on the “Los Lunarejos” farm. An unspecified number of people – a large number of them – descended from it, possibly more than 50 individuals, by Juan’s reckoning. Their height and appearance was normal, with nothing special to distinguish them. The wore blue uniforms without helmets or hats, walking single file in formation and did not speak or exchange gestures among themselves. Perhaps on account of this uniform, and his own military service, the witness has always referred to them as the “soldiers”, dubbing them “the troops”. The “soldiers” headed for the artesian well, and Palmareña lost sight of them shortly after, suggesting they descended to a pool of water known as La Alberca, whose bottom could not be seen from Juan’s guard shack. Five or six “bosses” (literally) remained outside on an edge, looking toward Juan. The “bosses” took out something resembling a flashlight, whose light they shone at the watchman’s eyes. Juan hid behind the shack to avoid the bothersome beam, but whenever he looked out, the “bosses” pointed the “flashlight” at him.

It was nighttime, and Juan realized in fright that he had to get back to Aznalcollar in view of the situation. Tripping and falling in the darkness, he made his way back to the town. Two of the “bosses” followed him with the flashlight to the outskirts of town, where he arrived “in disarray”, talking about the “regiment”, and was dismissed as insane. Palmareña knows nothing about aliens, and has privately admitted to believing that this was some secret military operation: “they were plotting something, a raid or a political conspiracy against the Regime.”

The Following Days: During the following days, Juan el de La Palmareña walked around the landing area, coming back to say: “Anyone can go there and see the traces they left behind.” Incredible though it may seem, neither Los Chícharos nor anyone else bothered to walk the scant meters that separated the melon field from the artesian well to see the marks on the ground that their co-woker was referring to. They did not take him seriously, and quite the contrary, began joking and contradicting everything he said. They had to change their attitude, given Palmareña’s irritability, as he even pulled a knife on them after they contradicted him, laughing and saying he hadn’t seen anything at all. The man was frightened and would not let go of his shotgun, to the extent that Los Chícharos, fearing that “he might blow someone away”, chose to relieve him of his shotgun shells.

Juan retold his story informally and unofficially to the Guardia Civil on duty in the neighboring barracks. Once more, the security forces shrugged, thinking he was deranged, and refused to file an official report.

Investigating the Case: A few days later, during the olive harvest in September 1971, we would see Los Chícharos on a daily basis, but they never told us anything, nor did the word spread among the squad of workers – proof that no importance had been given to Palmareña’s “yarn”. The first news of what happened reached us two years later, in the spring of 1974, during a wake held in Aznalcollar. The first interview with the sole witness was carried out by Manuel Osuna and Felipe Laffite, and the latter still has the audiotape in his possession. On April 19, 1974, Manuel Osuna and this author visited the scene of the events with Juan el de La Palmareña and his grandson. A few days later, we toured “Los Lunarejos” with Antonio el Chícharo, taking down his statement. Subsequently, Pedro del Prado, Justice of the Peace of Aznalcollar, questioned Felipe el Chícharo, whose statements fully coincided with those of his brother Antonio, in Seville on July 23, 1974.

Aftermath at Aznalcollar

The case went on to become a perennial entry in books on UFOs, which stressed the fact that “fifty humanoids” had been seen emerging from a craft as long as a bus, or perhaps larger. Juan José Benítez, the journalist turned ufologist whose books dominated the Spanish market of the ‘70s and ‘80s, managed to interview Juan el de La Palmereña (Benítez refers to him as Juan el Palmareño) years later for a newspaper article that later appear in La Gaceta del Norte in July 20, 1975. During this subsequent interview, the aged peasant noted that he described the figures descending from the object he identified as a bus as “little men” due to their short stature. He contradicted Darnaude’s report above, saying that he never described them as “soldiers” – having seen many in his lifetime – and that they didn’t wear any caps, weapons or backpacks that would identify them as such. When asked by Benítez why he didn’t avail himself of the shotgun to open fire against the intruders, the witness replied: “Do you take me for a fool? If I’d fired at them, they would’ve surrounded me, and I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.” He stressed that the object’s shape had been elongated like that of a bus and with lights, and could not have been a helicopter as some had suggested.

Benítez wrote the following opinion as a result of his interview with the lone witness of the events at Aznalcollar: “In my opinion, this case involving the watchman at the Aznalcollar melon field has been one of the most important and meaningful ones involving landings by extraterrestrials. The description given by Juan el Palmareño, who never held a UFO book in his hands, was perfect and consonant with hundreds of other eyewitness accounts regarding the presence of humanoid entities standing between one meter and one meter twenty in height in various locations across the planet.”

Ecological Disaster

It is likely that Aznalcollar would have never been remembered had it not been for one of the most devastating ecological disasters in Europe. In April 1998, a containment wall at the Boliden-Apirsa company gave way, unleashing a tidal wave of hazardous waste that washed throughout the area, stopping at the Doñana State Park. The oozing mass of mercury, led and iron derived from iron pyrite washing operations also contained chemical and toxical residue from other industrial parks. According to Jose Manuel García Bautista, who wrote a lengthy article about the subject ("Avistamientos OVNI en Aznalcollar Tras la Reapertura de la Explotación Minera de la Empresa Boliden-Apirsa"), a witness driving along the N-433 highway had seen a UFO directly over this containment pond on the night of the disaster, with additional sightings of craft on April 30th.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Argentina: Are "They" Here?



Source: CEUFO (ceufo.blogspot.com)
Date: 10/14/2014


Argentina: Are "They" Here?
By Quique Mario, CEUFO

Unidentified craft continue making their presence felt throughout the region, according to accounts from dozens of eyewitnesses who claim having seen them in broad daylight and under various circumstances. Not merely one, but several of them flying over the city of Santa Rosa, La Pampa, and several localities of this region.

In many cases, this was confirmed by dozens of photographs submitted to the Centro de Estudios UFO (CEUFO). These reports were also received from such neighboring countries as Chile, from where we received images from people who trust our work.

On Saturday, February 12, 2014, specifically, when a storm neared the city of Santa Rosa around 20:00 hours, several eyewitnesses from a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the city phoned to report the presence of eight (8) strange "lights" which plunged into the clouds - in the middle of the storm - after maneuvering in a perfect straight line formation -- something that no conventional vehicle would do.

In another occasion, Lucas Lucero, a devoted collaborator of our center, managed to capture a vessel in broad daylight with his camera from the city of General Pico.. A few days ago, on Friday the 25th, a woman reported the transit of "several craft around 12 noon at high speed" which she later reported to some news outlets. The phenomenon is "there", and it is a fact for which we hitherto lack an explanation.

(Translation (c) 2014 S. Corrales, IHU)

Peru: Greenish, Shapeshifting Object Over Peru Seen Two Days Earlier in Canada?



Source: El Intransigente (Perú)
Date: 10/09/2014



Peru: Greenish, Shapeshifting Object Over Peru Seen Two Days Earlier in Canada?


PERU - A few days ago, on October 5th, a woman witnessed an incredible sighting: a mysterious object hovering voer the skies of the Peruvian capital, Lima.

The UFO was greenish and changed shape. Sometimes it resembled a saucer, and at other moments it had an aspect similar to a "boomerang". The witness thought she was seeing the maneuvers of a remotely guided airplane, but it had no intermittent lighting. Furthermore, a remotely-controlled airplane must have anti-collision lights, by law.

Two days earlier, during a live broadcast by TVA News, a Canadian network, a mysterious greenish object similar to this one appeared behind reporter Colette Provencher. Could it be the same object? The fact is that the mysterious object seen over Lima changed shape readily and was in a sky lit by a glowing moon.

VIDEO at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwrU-2QYzRY

[Translation (c) 2014, S. Corrales IHU with thanks to Guillermo Giménez, Planeta UFO (video credit: Melina Silva)]

Peru: Strange Object Startles Residents of San Isidro



Source: Peru.com
Date: 10/13/2014


Peru: Strange Object Startles Residents of San Isidro

***UFOs over San Isidro? Residents of the boardwalks on the border between San Isidro and Magdalena are alarmed by the presence of strange objects in the sky**

LIMA - On October 5th, while most citizens of Lima watched the election returns attentively, Melina Silva, a public relations instructor recorded the presence of an odd green light in the skies over Costa Verde.

Her images, broadcast on the Al Sexto Dia show, clearly display green oval object in the sky for a few minutes before changing shape and vanishing.

The phenomenon was compared with a similar event that occurred in Canada in recent days, during a live transmission from a street location in which a flying object could be seen behind the reporter.



But Silva isn't the only witness to this event: several residents of San Isidro and Magdalena, near the Costa Verde boardwalk, claim having seen the same event.

The program consulted expert Anthony Choy, who did not dismiss the likelihood of a UFO being involved, but also indicated that it could be another guided object.

"There were other cases similar to this one. One of them took place at Puente Habich, and turned out to be a kite equipped with LEDs," he said. Another researcher consulted by the program noted that it could also be a drone.
In any event, both experts indicated that the only way in which these questions could be answered was for local residents to keep recording the strange object.

(Translation (c) 2014, S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Guillermo Giménez)

Thursday, October 09, 2014

Chile: UFOs Over San Clemente



Source: La Tercera
Date: October 5, 2014


Chile: UFOs Over San Clemente
By Ignacio Bazán (for La Tercera.com)

A wooden table and an open bag of potato chips with a knife in the middle. Three muleteers are chatting at a store in Vilches, a community located in the pre-Cordilleran area of the Seventh Region - the San Clemente Commune, some 50 kilometers east of Talca. The men also share three beverages at the end of a day darkened by the shade of trees.

"Have you ever witnessed any UFOs hereabouts?"

"No, that's all a lie," replies Eladio Gajardo, a middle-aged muleteer with a three-day growth of beard and wearing a bandana around his neck. "The municipality authorities say it to draw in tourists."

Silence.

The trip to Vilches had a reason. An article in British Airways' High Life in-flight magazine had proclaimed in its September issue, with all certainty, that San Clemente is the best place in the world to bump into an alien. In the entire world. It was necessary to see this.

The muleteers went about their business. They spoke of horseback tours to the CONAF reserve, Altos de Lircay, and talk about an increase in the number of foreigners: Germans, Spaniards and French making their way into the cordillera on horse or on foot. Eladio Gajardo mentions - while chewing on a chip - that the weather is unsuitable for an excursion on the following day. There will be rain and fog. As the minutes go by, the men's sentences become longer, and their words become more fluid.

"You know something?" Eladio Gajardo says without a warning. " I saw something four years ago. I was at the reserve and in the cordillera, among the mountains. I saw a whirlwind going up and down with a powerful light. It wasn't something that an airplane or helicopter could do, and furthermore, it took a long time. I watched the light go up and down for some 20 minutes."

The two other men listened. When Gajardo was through, his brother Manuel declassified another story.

"Three months ago, I saw a little monkey walking in mid-air," he says. He later explained that it was a small figure levitating above the treetops, walking up the cordillera in the air, swinging its shoulders from one side to the other. "A humanoid," Ufologist Rodrigo Fuenzalida, director of Aion Chile, would say later about Gajardo's sighting. The muleteer also discusses another experience, this one six years ago, when he saw a large, bright light amid the mountains.

Finally, the youngest of the three - Sebastian Riquelme - decides to tell his own story. "I was in my pickup truck here in Vilches with my pregnant girlfriend," he says. "This was only a few months ago. Suddenly, we see this red light in the sky, only a few meters over the ground. I stopped the truck and flashed my lights at it. At that very same moment, the light became larger, began to expand. It was a long period of time - can't tell you how many minutes - but one is sort of paralyzed. No taking pictures with the cellphone or anything. All one can do is watch."

"And why didn't you say any of this before?"

Eladio Gajardo: "Because people will think we're nuts, or wonder what we're smoking." The other two men nod earnestly.

There was a time when the authorities of the Vilches region did not know what to do about all the sightings. People spoke about the subject, but there was no thought of using the subject as a tourist attraction. Among the first to mention the area as a UFO 'hot spot" was Swiss author Erich Von Daniken, who mentioned El Enladrillado in the Vilches Range in the mid '70s, comparing it with Peru's Nazca as a runway for spaceships to land.

In Vilches, they say that the Enladrillado is special. Located in the Altos de Lircay reserve, it takes a five hour walk to reach it. Its name is a clear reference to the area's construction: a plateau between the mountains, measuring 100 meters long by 80 meters wide, made up of brick-shaped rectangular stones measuring three meters by one meter and a half. This gives it its name: El Enladrillado (The Brickwork).

Then came a period in the mid-90s, recalls Rodrigo Fuenzalida, in which ufologists themselves began recording a large number of events. The story was crafted since then with the aid of residents of Vilches and Lake Colbún, as well as well as the Carabineros (state police) of the area's barracks and the forest rangers of the national parks. Foreign media began arriving in recent years, ranging from Japanese and Brazilian newspapers to specialized magazines. In late 2012, Fuenzalida accompanied the History Channel for a documentary on UFOs. The series, hosted by Shaun Ryder, vocalist for the Happy Mondays, was called "Shaun Ryder on UFOs" and showed its host visiting several countries for a twelve chapter series. According to Fuenzalida, something happened during a skywatch at Lake Colbún near Vilches and in the San Clemente commune itself. At the end of a 45-minute chapter (Ryder also visited the Atacama Desert and Santiago) a photographer can be seen capturing an irregular object in the skies of Maule. Ryder is impressed. He had already had his first UFO experience when he saw a large yellow ball in the air in England at age 15. This was his second. The chapter can be found on line.

All of this notoriety has caused San Clemente to get ready for a new industry. In 2007, the town hall of Juan Rojas decided to create a UFO tourist route in the commune, which includes El Enladrillado, Lake Colbún and Maule Lagoon. The mayor himself - now in his second non-consecutive term - decided to boost tourism in this way. One reason is that he too is a witness. His first sighting was in 1976 at age 15. "I was in Vilches on a school trip. One of my classmates was injured and it was necessary to carry him away on foot, in the middle of the night. We were then followed by an oval-shaped object, luminous and with many points. It followed us practically the entire night, until exhaustion forced us to stop for a rest, and we fell asleep."

The second episode occurred in 1990. Rojas was with his family in the El Colorado sector, near Lake Colbún. "We all saw a luminous object emerge from the water. It was impressive." According to experts, what the mayor saw was a USO - an unidentified submarine object.

But Mayor Rojas has no doubts about the area's attractiveness to tourists thanks to UFOs. He says that capital is being secured to build a quality hotel, build a road crossing the Vilches area and also erect an observatory.

"Have you ever seen any UFOs?

Maria Elena, who leases horses for outings to Altos de Lircay, is walking toward her home in Vilches, which more than a town, is a long road with houses and plots of land on either side of the road, home to some 800 people according to the Municipality of San Clemente's own calculations. Maria Elena smiles and says: "I've never seen a thing. I think they're doing it to bring in tourists."

A conversation of some 15 to 20 minutes on what life in Vilches is like - the subject of isolation in the Cordillera.

"Seriously, you've never seen UFOs?

"No, I've never had the opportunity."


While the skies are clear and unclouded in the pre-Cordilelra, residents of Vilches claim to know that the next day will be cloudy and rainy, without any need for weather forecasts. Alberto Moreno is working outdoors on the property of his log cabins, known as El Roble. Moreno says he's from Talca, but always spent summers in Vilches, until his family built the cabins he now manages. When asked about sightings, he is hesitant at first, but then conveys what he knows: "It was in the late 80s and I was 10 years old. It was at night and we went out for a stroll with my family. Some hippies were playing guitar on the road when we saw a large flattened cloud emitting multi-colored lights. It lasted a long time and we all agreed about what we had seen. We asked the hippies over to the house for some coffee and chatted. Years later I found out that what we had seen was a mothership."

Moreno never had another sighting in spite of having lived in Vilches for four years. He does remember the experiences of some Talca schoolteachers who were camped near Maule Lagoon. "It was during the February 27th earthquake, and while the ground shook, they told me they saw vehicles exiting the lagoon and vanishing into the sky. They were truly overwhelmed by it."

Theories accounting for the presence of UFOs in the area are many. Fuenzalida, the ufologist, says that aliens are drawn by the energy of the hydroelectric plants in the area, such as Colbún, as well as the large concentrations of freshwater in the lakes. There is also the theory that this area marks the end of the Inca Road, making a link with Nazca and its space legends. There are also stories about El Enladrillado having been built by a past civilization, while ufologists do not dismiss the likelihood of a natural phenomenon caused by activity in the nearby Descabezado Volcano.

Juan Claudio Cerro, current director of Public Relations for the Municipality of San Clemente, and director of tourism during the period in which Mayor Rojas worked on the UFO Route, says it is now necessary to consolidate the stories of the residents in these UFO hotspots. There is a consensus in the municipality that sightings cannot be guaranteed, but it must be made clear that these have actually occurred. "Fearing ridicule, people feeling uncomfortable about discussing their sightings poses a problem. It isn't good to have tourists engaging in a long trip only to be told by locals that there's nothing going on. It isn't a matter of everyone thinking alike, but we should proceed from the basis that many people have had sightings."

It is for this reason that the San Clemente Tourist Board is organizing a seminar in November for residents of Vilches which seeks to standardize the story, among other things.

Before this happens, Juan Rojas, mayor of the commune, has no doubt that what is happening in the skies overhead is momentous. "We are a commune that is very close to God," he says with conviction.

[Translation (c) 2014, Scott Corrales, IHU with thanks to Guillermo Giménez, Planeta UFO and Ignacio Bazán
]

Venezuela: Strange Object Photographed Over El Avila Park




Contributing Editor Guillermo Gimenez gives us the following heads-up on a situation in Venezuela that was made known on a Twitter feed = the following photos show an object over the Wararia Repano National Park (Parque El Avila). The images were taken by photographer Francisco Lemus at around 12:59 pm on Tuesday afternoon (10-7-14)


Friday, October 03, 2014

Mexico: UFO "Went Upward Until It Completely Vanished"

Source: www.sipse.com
Date: 2 October 2014



Mexico: UFO "Went Upward Until It Completely Vanished"
A report by Jorge Moreno, SIPSE

MERIDA, Yucatan - A new report concerning the presence of an unidentified flying object came in from the port of Progreso, were it is said several strange lights were seen last weekend.

According to the information provided by Manuel Loría Alejos, a fan of the UFO subject for over 20 years, he went to the port on Friday, 26 September [2014] to spend the weekend at his family's home, an activity they have been doing for several years.

"For nearly two decades I've read anything and everything concerning the subject of UFOs, but I had never had the chance to see one until Friday, when I saw a strange light of the horizon in the company of my father, my wife, brothers and children. But it wasn't just any light, as I have seen many documentaries and I can tell when reflections, aircraft or other logical phenomena are involved and could be labeled unidentified.

"It was a very bright blue light, traveling first in a straight line then zig-zagging. I was the first to notice it while we were on the beach near Yucalpetén. I immediately called my family to join me in watching it, because I had the feeling it wasn't a normal light. We were able to attest this moments later, as the light began moving faster. Two minutes later, it moved upward until it vanished completely at a still greater speed.

"We were a total of six witnesses, and to tell the truth, I was very excited. While I believe in life in other planets, this is the first time I was able to see this. Unlike my father, for whom it is the third such experience. This prompted me to send you this report as soon as possible and share it with your readers - that way, if someone saw it, they can also file a report and provide more data for further investigation," he said.

It should be noted that a considerable number of UFO sightings have been reported along the coast of Yucatan, with 80 percent being in the city and port of Progreso and its districts (Chuburná, Chelem and Chicxulub). Unfortunately, no solid evidence (photos or videos) have been secured, but a considerable number of witnesses claim seeing UFOs, including municipal and state police as well as the authorities, tour service providers and local residents. A few years ago, several reports were received from the district of Flamboyanes (located some kilometers before the entrance to Progreso). Local residents, trailer operators and people driving through the area would suddenly see strange, noiseless lights descending vertically and vanishing into the sky in the same direction and at supersonic speeds.

When interviewed, pilots claim that no airplane or helicopter can make such movements, and therefore dismiss such explanations for the sightings. Several craft with five lights each moving in formation have also been reported along Progreso's seawall. They suddenly reach high speed and vanish. The control tower at Merida International Airport reported no traffic at that time.

Another interesting case I obtained was from a well-known lawyer in Merida, who told me he had seen these vehicles entering or leaving the sea: "I'm not looking for any explanation to what I saw. I saw this from my summer home in Chelem - I even had binoculars and I was shocked by it. There is no question that the UFO phenomenon is indeed real," he remarked.

[Translation (c) 2014 S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Jorge Moreno, SIPSE and Guillermo Giménez, Planeta UFO]