ufo_data/bin/rr0/tran1991.md

• January 17-February 28: Gulf War.

• March 31: Dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.

• Following the intervention of SOBEPS and Belgian European deputies after observations in Belgium, the European Energy Commission decides to investigate the case and comes to the conclusion that a European study of UFOs could be considered with some interest. Jean-Jacques Velasco rides the wave and takes the lead, so it is naturally an expansion of the competencies of SEPRA that the European deputies in charge of the case propose.

• April 5: Launch of GRO-Compton to study the gamma rays of the Universe.

• April 17: Ariane puts the European observation satellite ERS 1 into orbit.

• April 20 Photo taken around Sao Paulo. See images/foret.jpg

• Spring: Last testimonies in Belgium starting in 1989.

• June: The Deep See, a well-equipped submersible, searches for traces of Spanish galleons sunk off the coast of Miami. In their place, it discovers 5 bombers from World War II, lined up on the ocean floor. One of the planes bore the same serial number and call sign as the leader of Flight 19, which had left its base on December 5 1945 and had never returned. The most skeptical then cite this example as a classic case of a pseudomystery invented from scratch by clumsy and sensationalist investigators. The fate of Flight 19 seems then partly explained. But why did two compasses, which had just been subjected to conformity tests, simultaneously fail? In fact, despite the discovery of the Deep See, the exact position of the 5 bombers remains a mystery, because finally, the 5 planes spotted by the treasure hunters were not the Avengers of Flight 19. The site turned out to be an old exercise area, where planes had been regularly sunk between 1943 and 1945. The US Navy revealed that Lieutenant Taylor's aircraft bore the same serial number as an aircraft that had sunk in the waters of the Bermuda Triangle well before he undertook this mission.

• July 1st, 12 PM: In Nr. Troy (Ohio), a father and his 12 year old daughter observe a large silver object, at 15 or 20° above the horizon. The object has a pen or cigar shape, and is estimated to be between 1/2 and 1 mile away. The witnesses are used to airplanes, living 12 miles Northeast of the Dayton Cox airport. The object has 4 times the length and 2 times the width of a commercial aircraft, without tail, wings or windows, nor any sound emitted. There are 2 other dark or grayish areas on the shiny surface. When the father goes to get his video camera, the object disappears in a green flash.

• July 2, morning: A flight of 5 green military helicopters is observed above the area where the object was seen, then directly above the witnesses' house [[Franklin Reams, MUFON UFO Journal, No. 291, July 1992]]{.source}.

• July 7th: During a raid against drug traffickers in Atlixo, near Puebla (Mexico), a policeman photographs an object passing in the sky (see below). Similar objects are filmed or photographed in the same region. The authorities are unable to explain the appearance and origin of these phenomena.

• July 8: Near Nr. Selkirk, Borders (UK), truck driver Steve Hallett is driving along the A7 road, with the region's TV transmission tower in view, when he suddenly sees in the air a large, luminous, disc-shaped craft, about 40 feet in diameter. The object has colored lights and appears to have a dome on top. The truck's instruments go haywire. He stops, mesmerized, and watches the UFO for about 15 seconds before seeing it disappear into the night sky at an impressive speed.

• July 9: Steve Hallett is interviewed by Jill McPherson on Radio Borders.

• Observation of July 11th in Mexico. See images/1991-07-11.jpg.

• July 25th, 4am: A group of campers observe a white spherical light above a nearby field. At several moments, a smaller red light emerges from the white object and descends to the ground, where it must move for a short moment to join and re-fuse with the white globe. The observation lasts an hour Christian Page / François Bourbeau, Ufology Research of Manitoba associates{.source}.

• August 20

• 13 h 35 : Igor Yadigin, a mechanic from the Naval Air Force, boards flight 2523 leaving Voronej for Saint Petersburg.

• 14 h 05: Yadigin is invited to join the crew in the cockpit. The crew points out an immense luminescent white milky hemisphere just below and to the right of the Big Dipper constellation, which is visible from the starboard side of the plane. In the center of the sphere is an emerald-colored object that none of the crew members can identify. From this object a beam of light is directed towards the ground. Witnesses see the lights of another plane as it clearly tries to alter its trajectory to avoid the unidentified object. The object disappears 15 minutes later.

• August 30: Launch of the Japanese solar observation satellite Yohkoh.

• September

• September 10: One week after the release in France of his book Investigations on Extraterrestrials Who Are Already Among Us, Jean-Pierre Petit receives a summons from the CNRS Directorate.

• September 15: Cameras on the space shuttle Discovery (flight STS-48) film, above Western Australia, the movements of mysterious bright objects. The most spectacular of these objects appears near the top of the image, near the Earth's horizon. The enlarged image shows the object moving to the left before the screen is lit up by a burst of light. Then the object changes direction and accelerates. A few seconds later, another object passes in front of the camera and heads into space. Professor Jack Kasher of the University of Nebraska and a collaborator of NASA studied these sequences and produced a 105-page report. Conclusions: According to NASA, they were ice crystals, which is physically impossible because ice crystals could not change direction in such a way. Our calculations show that if the objects were 16 km from the shuttle, the largest one accelerated from 0 to 4023 km/h in one second.

• Bower and Chorley working on a new crop circle design. See images/BowerChorley.jpg.

• September 16: As part of the celebrations for Mexican National Day, a parade of fighter jets is organized over the capital, Mexico. A mysterious object then emerges from the clouds, in the background of the air parade, stealing the show from the pilots. The event will repeat the following year at the same time, and then again in 1993 during a helicopter parade.

• October 29: First close-up image of an asteroid, Gaspra, by Galileo.