- **January 7th, 4:45 PM:** Finnish competitive cross-country skiers, lumberjack Aarno Heinonen and farmer Esko Viljo, find themselves in the forest near Imjãrvi (Finland). They decide to rest in a clearing and watch the stars rise as twilight falls. The two men hear a buzzing sound and see in the sky a very bright light approaching from the north. It turns around at the clearing level and descends towards them from the south. It is surrounded by a red-gray luminous mist. When the cloud has descended to about 15 m from the ground, they see in its center a disc of about 3 m in diameter. The disc stays at this height, continuing to buzz. Then, according to Heinonen: The immense disc began to descend with the red-gray mist, which became thinner and transparent. It stopped at a height of 3 or 4 m, so close that I could touch it with my ski stick. We saw that its upper part was topped with a dome. Along the lower edge was a kind of raised part with 3 spheres with domes spaced at equal distances. From the center of its lower part protruded a tube about 25 cm in diameter, from which suddenly came an intense beam of light. I suddenly felt as if someone had pulled me back. At the same second, I saw the creature. It stood in the middle of the light beam, with a black box in its hands. It was about 90 cm tall, with very thin arms and legs. Its face was like pale wax. The nose looked more like a hook than a nose. The ears were very small and narrowed at the face. The creature wore a kind of suit in a light green material and a shiny conical helmet like metal. The being points the black box at Heinonen, and a blinding, flickering yellow light takes him as a target. A red mist begins to cover the area and red, green and purple sparks begin to rain around the skiers like candles about 10 cm long floating in long curves. The mist becomes thicker and thicker, until, according to Viljo, the beam suddenly began to decrease, rose like a flickering flame and was sucked into the opening of the craft. Then it was as if the veil of mist had dissolved. The air around us was empty! After a few minutes, Heinonen realizes that he can no longer use his left leg, the one that was most exposed to the strange light beam. Viljo supports his friend to his home, about 3 km further. In the months that followed, Heinonen suffered from severe memory loss, constant pain, exhaustion and headaches. For 2 months, his urine was like black coffee. Viljo suffered from facial swelling, headaches and eye problems. - **February 11:** 1st civilian launch of a Japanese rocket *Lambda 4*. - **Mars** - **March 4:** Disappearance of the French submarine *Eurydice* off the coast of Saint-Tropez, with 50 men on board. This vessel was designed for the fight against nuclear-powered submarines and did not make any call, although it was in perfect working order. - **March 7:** The *ATS 3* satellite takes a photo of a total eclipse showing the shadow of the [Moon](Moon.html) over the [United States](USA.html). This dark circle of 160 km in diameter moves from Southwest to North at a speed of 2400 km/h. - The Air Force states: The BPE [Bureau Prospective et Etudes] ensures that none of the testimonies transmitted to it, either by the air or military regions, or by the national gendarmerie, contain information that could interest the Air Force or put it in question. Send these documents to Mr. [Claude Poher](PoherClaude.html), engineer of the [Cnes](CNES.html), authorized "Secret Defense", who was designated by this organization to officially follow this question. Receive from the [Groupement d'Etude des Phénomènes Aériens non inexpliqués (Gepa)](GEPA.html) all information on UFOs in the world. Exploit the conclusions of the works that Mr. [Poher](PoherClaude.html) periodically transmits to the BPE and which have allowed, among other things, to establish the file for the minister last year [ \[Velasco 2004\]]{.source}. - **April** - Off the coast of New Guinea, hundreds of people observe an unknown craft gliding on the surface of the water. According to the natives, these visits date back several centuries. - **April 10:** The first *Diamant B* rocket launches from Kourou (Guyana). - **April 11:** Departure of the [Apollo 13](Apollo.html#Apollo13) mission. After a series of failures during the flight preparations, the mission plans a Haise and Lovell landing in the *Fra Mauro* crater. - **April 13:** Explosion of one of the oxygen tanks of the [Apollo 13](Apollo.html#Apollo13) service module, 322000 km from Earth. The [Apollo 13](Apollo.html#Apollo13) mission is cancelled. - **April 17:** Return of the [Apollo 13](Apollo.html#Apollo13) mission. - **April 24:** First civil launch of the Chinese rocket *Long March 1.* - **May:** An engineering student from [MIT](MIT.html) attends a curious ballet: At that moment, the Great Bear was almost at its zenith. I suddenly noticed that 2 of the stars were moving\... in a circle around a common center while maintaining their position around two opposite points of the diameter, as would for example two small paint strokes at the two opposite edges of a microcross turning on a turntable. They were making about 30 turns/min, in the opposite direction of the hands of a clock, at a constant speed; the brightness of the objects was lower than that of Acturus, a little lower than that of Alpha, Beta and Gamma in the Great Bear. They suddenly stopped. (\...) They remained absolutely still, then they began to move away from each other and the one that was heading south suddenly stopped\... \"The star\" that had started to move north continued its march. - **May:** And June. In its May/June issue, the [*Flying Saucer Review*](FSR.html) reports, with photos, the presence of rock figures very close, although a few millennia younger, to those of Southern France and Northern Spain. These drawings adorn the walls of a cave near the village of Varzelandia in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Here too, discoid forms topped with a kind of dome are found. - **August 30, 9:30 PM:** Meeting of [De Freitas](temoins.html#DeFreitas) in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). - **September** - Start of the operation [Aeneid](projets.html#Aeneid). - **September 8:** In the night, a RAF [Lightning](RAF.html) fighter jet, piloted by Captain William Schaffner, takes off from the British base in Binbrook to intercept conical UFOs detected by radar. Captain Schaffner communicates to the base that he has just discovered among these conical objects a kind of large glass football. At the moment of interception, the radar operators see on their screen the UFOs and the plane become one, then separate. A few moments later, the *Lightning* crashes into the North Sea. - **October 7th:** Charged with recovering the wreckage of the *Lightning* crashed on September 8th, the *HMS Kiddleston* of the Royal Navy is conducting searches, but it is impossible to find the body of Captain Schaffner. The wreckage is stored at the Binbrook base and not shipped to Farnborough where the expertise is usually done. Dispatched on site, the official investigators are surprised to have only limited access to the wreckage and to be watched by 5 civilians, including 2 Americans. They note that the cockpit and ejection seat are intact, but that in violation of regulations, most of the on-board instruments have been removed. A few hours later, they are asked to end their investigation. Summoned by their superiors upon their return to Farnborough, they are ordered to remain silent on the matter in the name of national security. As for the fighter wreckage, it is shipped to [Wright-Patterson](WrightPatterson.html) (Ohio). - **November** - **November 17:** The small robot *Lunakhod 1* traverses 10.5 km on the [Moon](Moon.html). - In *Astronautics and Aeronautics* appears *[UFO: An Appraisal of the Problem](Documents/Articles/AIAA/1970-11_AeronauticsAndAstronautics_fr.html)*, an article from the UFO sub-committee of the [AIAA](AIAA.html). - **December** - In France, shortly before the catastrophe that would leave thousands of cars stranded in the snow, an enormous violet ball crossed the sky at low altitude and exploded [\[Guy Tarade\]]{.source}. - **15 December:** *Venera 7* releases a capsule into the atmosphere of [Venus](Venus.html). It is the first capsule to reach the surface.