ufo_data/bin/overmeiere/tran_chron27.txt

!1996
!1998
#1996, August 16th and 17th
ARGENTINA, Salta
(excerpt from "Alien Encounters" Ed. Andy McDermott, December 6th 1996, p. 38)
"Rumors circulated that an extraterrestrial vessel had crashed in the northeast. It was a 200 m diameter disc, probably shot down by air-to-air missiles. The region was surrounded by the military, and the search was supported by helicopters for several days. The population said it was a large triangular object and dozens of hermetically sealed nylon bags, containing the bodies of the extraterrestrials (200 bodies!) were probably sent to the USA." The article referred to what the FAO (Fundaccion Argentina de Ovnilogia) was saying. The full story of the FAO, written by Carlos Iurchuk, was sent to the British by Luis Pacheco, by email and was found in "Ovniciencia electronico n° 6 October 1996". In reality, on August 16th the Paz Zamana couple were observing the movements of an orange light above their property and the next day they saw a "thing" fall from the sky. (vog: probably a space debris) In fact, at 1:45 pm hundreds of inhabitants of Salta saw a huge beam of light over a distance of 300 km followed by two strong explosions while a kind of earthquake was felt. A column of smoke was rising from the supposed crash site. On the official side, an investigation was carried out by the Universidade Nacional de Salta (UNSA) and by the Centro Atomico de Salta, while the search was undertaken by rescue groups from Rosario de Lerma. The evidence: a photo showing the white smoke column left by the "UFO" and a video filmed by plane at 3,370 meters altitude, showing a large area of vegetation on fire, but which, the next day, was extinguished. Navy aspirant Pedro Olivera, 31, in charge of the rescue services, said that with binoculars he had seen a metallic object shining in the sun. While an employee of the university added: "What is it? We don't know, but it's something quite sophisticated". In any case, there was no question of encircling the place or recovering "bodies" and the official information was that it was again a meteor, as there have been so many lately. ("Gente", Buenos Aires; "Diario Cronica", Buenos Aires; "Diario Popular", Buenos Aires; "La Tribuna", Salta; FAO)

#1996
Russia, space
Failed attempt to land a probe on Mars. The probe is lost, coming back to Earth. It was carrying half a pound of plutonium. It is assumed to have fallen into the Pacific Ocean, in Chile or Bolivia... The plutonium has not yet been found. (The Associated Press)

#January 14, 1996
Great Britain, Welley-Wigan
Mr. Dennis Porter was walking his dog around 9:45 PM and strolling along the path alongside the Leeds-Liverpool canal, walking in the direction of Red Rock. When he reached the small bridge that crossed the canal, the witness stopped to light a cigarette. At that moment he received a blast of cold air so strong that he stumbled. Looking up, he then saw an object triangular in shape, about 10 meters in width, silently passing overhead before accelerating and disappearing at a dizzying speed towards Wigan. He described the triangle as perfectly equilateral, with what looked like an overheated wheel protruding from its belly, which otherwise had the appearance of matte aluminum. (UFO Magazine - UK).

#1996, January 20
Brazil, near Varginha (Minas Gerais)
The agricultural worker couple Oralina Augusta and Euricode Freitas, living 10 km from Varginha, were woken up around 1 am due to the lowing of their cows. They got up and saw through the window the animals circling the house, completely disoriented. They saw in the sky an object gray in shape like a submarine, the size of a van. This object flew without noise and a kind of white smoke was coming out of it. (UBIRAJARA F. RODRIGUES from CBPDV - Brazilian Center for Research of Flying Saucers - and VITORIO PACACCINI from CICOANI - Civil Investigation Center of Unidentified Aerial Objects - "The Varginha Case, August 1996)

#1996, January 20
Brazil, Jardim Andere (Varginha)
The most spectacular encounter took place in Brazil in Jardim Andere, a suburb of the city of Varginha. On Saturday, January 20, 1996, the Varginha firemen were called at 8 o'clock in the morning, because a mysterious creature was in the park. The firemen are used to having to evacuate wild animals that have come out of the forests and are lost even in the suburbs. They went to the place with a cage and were amazed to see a creature like they had never seen before. It measured about 1.20m, had red-blood eyes, olive-colored skin, three long bumps on the head and made a buzzing sound. Four firemen managed to catch it with some difficulty, called the army and closed off access to the park. The creature was loaded into a wooden box and a truck from the army took it away. That same day, at 3:30 pm, three young girls returning from work saw a strange creature against the facade of a house. Believing they had seen the devil, they ran away screaming. In the following minutes, dozens of people gathered in the street and some children threw stones at the creature. The firemen and the military arrived in turn to catch the being in a net. These two creatures would die quickly but there were no details about their remains. Within 24 hours, UFO investigators were on the scene. They questioned dozens of shocked witnesses (military, doctors, firemen) and were so impressed that they called for a congress in Curitiba in June, dedicated entirely to the incident. (Jan HERTOGHS "Humo" of 24.9.96, p. 47) (note from vog: Brazilian investigators correct this report as follows:) At 8 o'clock the firemen are called for "a strange animal" in the park. They arrive around 10 o'clock and find a group of children throwing stones at the "animal". Three adults observe the capture of this being by 4 firemen. At 10:30 the creature is caught without resistance in a net, put in a box which is covered with a tarp. An ESA (Exército) van takes this package in charge and heads towards Três Coraçoes. The fire truck returns to the Varginha district.<br/><br/>At 3:30 pm Liliane, Valquiria and Katia (22, 16 and 14 years old) see in the Rua Benevenuto Bràs Vieira, near number 76 a strange creature, less than 7 m away from them. They flee screaming and crying. At 4:10 pm the mother of Katia and Valquiria goes to the meeting place. There is no more creature but there is a very strong smell, unidentifiable, at the place. At 6 pm there is a hail storm over Varginha. The electricity is completely disrupted, trees are uprooted. At 8 pm the military police capture the second creature (note from vog: it is not specified where). The creature is sent for care to the hospital where admission is refused "since it is not human". It will finally be delivered to the Regional Hospital. This is followed by a back and forth of officials. In the night, around 2 o'clock in the morning, the creature is transferred to the Humanitas university hospital, under good military escort. At 9 o'clock on January 22 the dead creature is made available to the ESA. It will only be taken away in the night of January 23, at 4 o'clock and it will be deposited at the military school. The next day (January 24) Doctor Fortunato Badan Palhares (who identified the funeral remains of Mengele) performs an autopsy on the creature in Campinas. (...) There are 48 witnesses at the various stages of the events. Among them the military: Sergeant Pedrosa, Corporal Vassalo, Soldier De Melo, Sergeant Cirilo, Captain Ramires, Lieutenant Colonel Olimpio Vanderlei, Commissioner Tibério. (UBIRAJARA F. RODRIGUES DU CBPDV - Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas de Discos Voadores- and VITORIO PACACCINI DU CICOANI - Centro de Investigaçao Civil de Objetos Aéreos Noa Identificados - "O Caso Varginha, agosto de 1996)

#1996, January 27
Mexico, Vera Cruz
Around 10 pm a gigantic rectangular UFO was observed by hundreds of people, during a thunderstorm. The object was approaching the city, coming from the northeast. Before seeing the object, the witnesses saw two huge flashes of light. One of the witnesses, the Texas farmer Pedro Alaniz had a 20/20 vision of the phenomenon. He was on Camino (route 180) driving south towards Alvaredo, when he saw the UFO. He was able to give a detailed description. It was flying from northeast to southwest at about 200 miles/hour. It measured about 90 m long and had bright white lights on its belly, going from the front to the back. The tail took up 1/3 of the total length and had 5 appendages shaped like "fingers". Near the tail, on the left side, there was a pale blue light. The object was heading towards Cosamaloapan and was filmed by dozens of amateur camcorders. (Ufo Folklore Center - Masinaigan)

#1996, January 30
Space, Saturn
(Note from vog: Excellent hoax to sell a book or to misinform?) During an Alan Handleman radio show, Dr. Norman R. Bergrun ("The Ring-makers of Saturn" re-edited in 1986 by Pentland Press) claimed that a large UFO in the shape of a cigar had been photographed in orbital phase around the rings of Saturn. He said that judging by the photographs, the vessel appeared so huge that it could contain an entire civilization. It would be an electromagnetic vehicle. Dr. Bergrun specified that NASA had not reported this observation under the Space Act of 1958, stipulating that the public should only be informed of facts concerning space if they are qualified as non-hostile. A craft of this size would surely be classified as hostile. (...) Three immense vessels assembled of 13 units whose diameter is equivalent to that of the Earth (UECDDS: report Jan. to April 1977, several unnumbered pages) New detection of rings, satellites with capricious behavior, appearance and disappearance of objects: the harvest of observations collected during the last passage of the Earth in the plane of the rings of Saturn, August 10, 1996, brings a new vision of these amazing structures. (...) The overall brightness of the rings seen in the slice would be dominated by the brightness of the outer ring F, whose thickness is estimated at 1.5 km. (...) Of the eleven small known satellites, two were not present: one, "Pan" which orbits inside the main rings, was not identified, the other, Prometheus, accumulated an unexplained delay of nearly 50 minutes compared to its ephemeris. (...) About a dozen new objects were detected in the vicinity of ring F. (...) It seems that we are witnessing an incessant carousel on a scale of a few months at most, of formation and destruction of bodies in ring F, at the limit of the so-called "Roche" zone. This zone corresponds to the place where tidal forces due to the planet tend to destroy the satellites in formation, roughly balancing the gravitational forces between the particles which, in turn, tend to accrete the material into small moons. (...) If all goes as planned, the European-American probe Cassini / Huygens will leave in October 1997 for Saturn which it will reach in 2004 for a 4-year stay (La Recherche No. 293 of December 1996, article "Jeux de Lumière dans les anneaux de Saturne" by Bruno Sicardy and François Poulet, pages 34 to 37; library ref. "Planetary Rings, by R. Greenberg and A. Brahic - The University of Arizona Press 1984)

#1996, March 7
Spain, Ferrerias, Friol.
An employee witnessed the landing of a UFO, 56 m from his house. Three small humanoids descended from it. The device left triangular marks on the ground and outside of it there were also footprints, "feet that have nothing human" (...) (Investigation: Manuel Carbalal, Cnifo Newsletter)

#1996, late May
Ireland, near Boyle
Rory Thornton, local ufologist, declares that a saucer coming from the planet Sunas (vog: Sun-as?, very indicated as a name) made a forced landing near Boyle. The whole affair was kept secret by the Dublin government. Rorty Thornton is a kind of seer who runs a mental health clinic (sic!) in Newcastle, Galway. The extraterrestrials would have missed their shot, hitting the treetops and crashing into the waters of the lake. The whole region was surrounded by the police and there were at least six Americans driving around in jeeps (note from vog: that many?) According to the locals, something did happen in the night, but they think it had much more to do with NATO than with extraterrestrials. (Irish Sunday Mirror, 21.9.97, p. 4)

#June 1996
ROMANIA, Vidra (Carpathians)
MOI-TV of Bucharest reported that a saucer had landed in Vidra, a very isolated village in the Carpathians. The whole village saw it, as well as a flock of occupants, smaller than humans, with large ears and big eyes, gray in skin color. Frightened, the villagers fled, locking themselves in their homes. The next day a red sphere was seen above the woods of Galati, 150 km east of Vidra, near the border with Ukraine. (Email Interview) (Ufo Roundup, vol. 1 no. 38 - Masinaigan)

#1996, June 25-26 (July 23)
LITHUANIA, Nemejis
A UFO was observed around midnight (at 4:55 AM), on the road from Vilnius to Miadininkaï, 10 km from the capital, for half an hour by two police officers who alerted the entire Lithuanian police. The object, round, luminous, shaken by pulsations, was stationary 20 to 30 meters above the ground. (It was equipped with red and yellow lights that lit up and went out intermittently). "At the same time a strange noise similar to an electrical or electronic crackling was heard," they specified. The police officers, (including chief Anatoly Dobrynin) after observing it for half an hour, approached it. (This object was sending a beam of green light towards the ground from time to time). When they arrived at about 50 meters, the object began to move, rose into the air, then quickly moved away in the direction of Vilnius. (It was then 6:35 AM: the observation had lasted about 100 minutes) Trucks full of soldiers from the rapid reaction forces and police dogs went to the site, but arrived after the UFO had left. The police studied the terrain, measured the radiation, recorded the noise on a tape recorder that could still be heard after the UFO had disappeared. The dogs, calm, detected nothing. The tall grass, above which the object was located, was withered on a perimeter of 10 meters. (The Midi Libre of June 30, 1996) For the information added in parentheses: (Masinaigan, Richard S. Ralston "Ufo Folklore" Internet, November 1996)

#1996, July 11
Austria, Drosendorf
A 76-year-old man, Rudolf Slam, allegedly saw a UFO land in a field. The witness had gone out on his balcony around midnight to smoke a cigarette when he saw a triangular-shaped, luminous object slowly land in the field. The witness rushed to grab a camcorder to film the phenomenon, but his batteries had run out. (...) In the field, an investigation revealed a triangular trace on the ground, made up of circular holes 10 cm deep located precisely 1.70 m apart. Burned grass was discovered at the center of the trace. The witness said that the object took off after a few minutes, then quickly disappeared while emitting a 300 m long trail of flames and a deep rumble resembling thunder. (Phénoména n° 33 p. 23)

#1996, July 14
Spain, Zaragoza
At five o'clock in the morning, the camcorder of the couple David Remiro and Ana Pilar Muñecas was recording a sequence of what they called a "UFO like the one from the other day". The images were transmitted by a regional Aragonese television transmitter. During my interview with the witnesses we agreed that if they saw the same UFO they could call me. I didn't expect them to do it, and even less at five o'clock in the morning. But three days later they called me: the UFO was there. I went to the place. Result: their lack of astronomical knowledge had made them take the planet Venus for a UFO. (Angel Briongos Martínez, Investigator, Zaragoza - Spain - abmz at arrakis.es)

#1996, July 16
Spain, Los Villares (Jaén)
A countryman, Dionisio A., had a daytime encounter with three beings that seemed to not belong to our world. Although he received us amiably, this 66-year-old man was still in shock, suspicious of us, and only wanted to say "just what was necessary". Several times during the interview he interjected with the statement: "I will never pass by here again, never again." The place was one kilometer from the village. Dionisio said: "Since I'm retired, I walk a lot in the countryside. I came almost every day here around noon. There is this stone on which I sit to rest. When I arrived here, I saw a device next to the electric pylon. There was an unbearable smell, like when burning used oil. I thought it was an ICONA container. But it wasn't. The object was made of a very shiny metal, transparent like crystal, and there were four black crystal hatches. It wasn't on the ground, but suspended 30 cm from the ground. It was like a bell three meters wide and 1.5 meters high but in the shape of a half moon. On one side there was a symbol like a "yoyo". And then I also saw this surprising thing: two dark cables came out of the back and joined the high voltage line above. "

At that moment Dionisio's heart began to beat violently, because he saw three motionless beings, like statues. Where did they come from, he doesn't know. They measured about 1.7 meters. There were two men and a woman, wearing clothes so close to the body that at first he thought they were naked and had painted themselves a silver color on the skin. Their tight-fitting clothes reflected the sunlight. They were of Asian type with high cheekbones, very pale, with slanted eyes. They had large hands with five well-defined fingers. They wore boots of the same color as the outfit. There was no expression on their faces and that's what made Dionisio even more uncomfortable. "Suddenly I received a great blow in the chest that made me lower my eyes. When I looked up again, the woman was pointing to one of the companions further back. They had small mouths without lips, like a line. When speaking they did not open their mouths. I did not hear their voice with my ears, but inside my head. Then I felt bad. When I became aware again of the bad smell of burned fuel accompanied by a buzzing, I looked up: there was nothing here, no device, no men, nothing. " Since the encounter Dionisio has been going badly: he is always tired, he does not eat anymore and he is afraid "they" will come back to take him away. The next day the son went to the site and found traces. Two weeks later they were still visible: four cylindrical holes 9.5 cm in diameter and 1.5 cm deep, forming the corners of a perfect square of one meter. No vegetation was burned, but folded and bent as if it had suffered a great weight, despite the fact that Dionisio said that the device was 30 cm from the ground ©Midwar Flash-Net 1993-1998, All Rights Reserved.

#1996, July 25
Israel, Haifa, Tveria and Arad
At 5 in the morning the local police were overwhelmed with calls. People were seeing in the sky a very bright "star", which as it approached became a more or less incandescent disc. (Note from vog: Simultaneity of testimonies over a large distance; Arad is 200 miles from Haifa; probable atmospheric entry) (Ufo Reality - issue 4 - p. 7 - 1996)

#1996, August 14
Argentina, Chubut, La Pampa, Rio Negro, San Juan, Cordoba, Catamarca
Many witnesses in these locations were able to observe, at a few minutes interval, around 8:45 PM, a phenomenon that stirred up the population and authorities. It first appeared as an enormous luminous sphere slowly crossing the sky, emitting a wavering light. Then it changed into a diffuse ring of light that increased in intensity as it approached the cities it flew over. Following a trajectory from south to north, it was responsible for various anomalies, such as an electrical power outage in Comodoro during its passage. An agriculturist from Guatrache told the press that he had seen the UFO escorting the vehicle he was in for about fifteen minutes, and that he had clearly distinguished protuberances resembling feet, as if it wanted to land. The phenomenon quietly disappeared. (Phenomena #33, p. 25) IN REALITY: the observation around 9 PM and for a duration of about twenty minutes, throughout South America and Chile, refers to the Russian Molniya telecommunications satellite, stage 3, being put into orbit (Alejandro Agostinelli, Nezws Sept. 1996 - CISU).

#1996, around August 18
ITALY, Valtellina
Three young boys observed a flying humanoid in the woods. It flew 50 cm above the ground at first, then it kept rising higher and higher as it moved away. (Archivi NEWS Settembre 1996 su concessione del CISU).

#1996, September 14
Israel, Nazareth
Youri Iskov (Isakov) is of sound mind and body. (...) With a moustache, in his sixties and alert, this immigrant from the former USSR claims to have received a visit from extraterrestrials. According to his description: bald humanoids, of small size, with two eyes, a mouth and three fingers on each hand. These strange beings would have burst into his house in Nazareth near the Sea of Galilee and taken him away without mercy, pulling him by the hair, into their flying saucer. There, unable to speak - his tongue inexplicably stuck to the roof of his mouth - he would have been subjected to various experiments for three hours. The extraterrestrials would have notably smeared his body with a sticky green and yellow mixture, all the while commenting on their operations in a babble that was audible but incomprehensible. After which, brought back to his starting point, Youri rushed straight to the police to tell of his misfortunes. Without taking him very seriously, the investigators still had the product that remained on his body analyzed. To their great surprise they found no trace of the most common substances on Earth, revealing an unusual chemical composition with 55% aluminum - an abnormally high rate. (Le Figaro - Saturday, September 21, 1996 "Les extraterrestres sont chauves" - signed Ph. G. which dates the event to September 16, 1996). Uri Sahov (Shakov, retired cook), resident of Nazareth, was on his way to post a letter when he suddenly heard a whistling (and was flown over at very low altitude by a huge UFO) and felt himself grabbed by the hair and shoulders. He was taken away in what he described as an egg-shaped UFO inside of which he saw several small beings one meter tall with heads like bulbs and thin limbs. They emitted incomprehensible sounds and seemed to have a larger being as their leader, rather greenish, with a strange head, rather narrow, with an eye on each side like fish. Uri then remembers that one of the small beings stepped forward towards him, sprinkling him with some kind of yellow powder. He claims to have undergone a certain number of horrible medical tests during which he eventually lost consciousness. When he came to, he was lying on his back in the middle of a football stadium 500 meters from his home. Feeling very ill and dizzy he returned home and called the police.<br/><br/>Taken to the hospital he had to undergo another battery of tests. He still had yellow powder on his face which the doctors took samples of to analyze. The results indicated that it was composed of 60% aluminum (as well as iron, calcium and potassium, but containing no trace of silicon) and bore no resemblance to the earth in the vicinity. The samples were said to have been sent to NASA. (PHENOMENA n° 34 of 1997, p. 13) (Ufo Roundup, vol. 1 n° 25, cites the Associated Press) Barry Chamish, journalist, in an article published on the Internet "Ufo Folklore Center" under the title "Yuri Isaacov - another blow to Israeli ufology" explains that Michael Heseman of "Magazine 2000" (Germany) called by him to meet Yuri, proposed, since the witness claimed to be ill, to have him examined in Houston by abduction expert Derrel Sims. If Yuri had no money Heseman would have paid for the trip on condition of obtaining a copy of Yuri's medical report. At the hospital they were told by Dr. Michael Kedem that Yuri had signed an exclusivity contract with a lawyer by the name of Michael Luxemburg. Without Luxemburg's agreement, nothing could be copied. Luxemburg contacted wanted $5,000 for this "work". By the end of February 1997 Heseman was filming an interview with Yuri where the latter claimed that the week before two extraterrestrials had been in his apartment as well as in an old lady's from the neighborhood. (...) Finally Barry Chamish concluded that Yuri had set up the whole story for financial gain, and that for the neighborhood Yuri Isaacov is a pathological liar. (note from vog: THEREFORE, if we believe Barry Chamish, this case is a HOAX, however, is this same journalist not subject to caution? He was the first to bombard the foreign press with this story, as well as with those of December 1996)

#1996, 15 September
Portugal, Cabeca da Penha (Serra da Guardunha - Beira Alta)
A young man went hunting in this border region with Spain. On his way he decided to visit a cave about which it is said that in the 14th century a little girl was found after three days of disappearance. (see 14th century - Fundao) Once in the cave, the young man lost consciousness. He came to in a huge "underground hangar" surrounded by three kinds of extraterrestrials. Several silver ovoid UFOs were parked there. The humanoids, the young man recounts, are part of an interstellar alliance for observing Earth. Their base under the Serra da Guardunha is one of the four bases they have here, the others are in Warminster (England), the Grand Canyon (Arizona USA) and Peru. After hearing all this, the young man lost consciousness again. He regained his senses at eight o'clock in the evening, on the ground, next to the cave. (Wouldn't one say that this young man is repeating word for word what William Hermann of Charleston (South Carolina) said at the end of 1978 and was widely exploited by authors?) (Masinaigan at aol.com)

#1996, 25 September
Belgium, Alken (Hasselt)
There was a recent sighting in Alken, near Hasselt, on the 25th of September. Something like a balloon, which was descending into the meadows, with 4 things, like legs, but which were wriggling with each descent or ascent of the thing. No gondola. The closest distance was not even 100 meters. It descended into a meadow and had to go up a bit to pass over a row of poplars. The witnesses took agricultural paths to approach it, and where they always saw the balloon, when they arrived at the scene: nothing! Nothing in the air, nothing on the ground. It was broad daylight, it was noon and the sun was shining. Duration: about 25 minutes. Officially no balloon was in the air that day. (source: FUO - Hasselt, Belg.)

#1996, October 6
Palestine, Tulkarem
Residents saw creatures, larger than humans, with skin resembling that of frogs. The witnesses explain that they were very frightening to people before they left the sky (with no other details). These testimonies were taken very seriously by the Palestinian press. According to Palestinian scientists, it would probably be "highly technological products" sent by Jewish settlers... (© 1997, UFO nieuwsbrief jaargang 2, nummer 1)

#1996, October 14
Israel, Jenin
Abdul Alharzrad, an Arab living in Jenin, was driving at night towards the Dotan post. On the side of the road he saw a man hitchhiking. He took him on board. To his astonishment, this hitchhiker changed his appearance completely: he became huge, dressed in black, with a dog's head with drooping ears and a single cyclops eye. Panicked at this sight, Abdul slammed on the brakes, causing a fishtail. He quickly got out of the vehicle. The entity also got out, took a few steps in his direction and faded away on the spot. (UFO Roundup vol. 1 no. 31)

#1996, October 23
Israel, Tel Aviv
At 2 in the morning, Rachel and Leah Gorovitz were driving in a jeep in a side street of Montefiore Street in Ahuzat Bayit, a district of Tel Aviv. The street was deserted. They saw there a small individual (1.5m) but very obese in a red suit, carrying a backpack that seemed to be an integral part of the vest. He walked like a robot, had a pale wax face without any expression. The individual was coming in their direction. The driver, taken by panic, maneuvered to turn around and leave at high speed. Later the magnetism of the jeep was measured, it attested several hundred milligauss higher than the average of vehicles in Tel Aviv. (Ufo Roundup vol. 1 no. 36 - 1997)

#1996, November 7
ROMANIA, Constanza
Elena Antonescu, 29 years old, was watching a gymnastics competition on television in her apartment. During the commercial break, she went to the kitchen to smoke a cigarette and opened the window. The night was dark, full of clouds. However, she saw a small red star. While continuing to smoke her cigarette, she stayed in front of the open window, looking for other stars, which she did not see.
Then she saw a red ball, not circular but shaped like a rugby ball. At this point she wanted to close the window, but she was stunned to see this ball come 50 meters from her. She ran and rang the neighbors, asking them to look outside. Seen up close, said Elena, it was more like a half moon, with a flat base, of a color between bright red, orange and pink. The neighbors, braver, continued to observe this thing for a quarter of an hour and saw it slowly move west. (Ufo Roundup vol. 1 no. 38 - Masinaigan)

#1996, November 9
India, Bombay
Just before sunrise, around 6 o'clock, people in the streets of the Kandivli district of Bombay saw three small UFOs, described as the size of cricket balls, flying above their heads at great speed but only 9m from the ground. At 6:45, they suddenly shot off into space and disappeared to the west. (See the Times of India for November 11, 1996.) (Ufo Roundup vol. 1 N, 39 - Masinaigan)

#1996, November 22
South Korea, Seoul
At around 7:20 local time, hundreds of people were able to observe a yellow-green sphere with a golden streak in the middle. People called radio stations, television stations, and police stations to report the phenomenon which was slowly drifting westward, passing over the Han-gang river. The cameraman of a cable television channel was able to film the observation for several minutes before the light gained speed and quickly disappeared. This film was shown on CNN. (PHENOMENA #34 of 1997, pp. 14, 15 and photo extracted from the film).

#1996, November 30
Netherlands, Enschede
At around 6:30 pm, three witnesses observed a UFO. It was a pink-red ball heading south to east. One of the witnesses initially thought it was a helicopter about to land on the roof of the "Spectrum" (hospital) of Twente, and was surprised to hear nothing. The phenomenon had the apparent size of a full moon and flew on a constant trajectory. Another witness, in a car stopped at a red light, observed the same object. The third witness, living in the south part of the city, saw the thing fly over the city center, heading northeast, with his whole family. (© 1997. UFO nieuwsbrief jaargang 2, nummer 1)

#1996, December 19
USA, Clearwater (Florida)
Large images appeared at a window, CNN reported, and people gathered to see the Virgin appear on the window of an office building. Sister Martin, a nun from the Order of St. Anne in Bangalore, India, said that God was giving them a sign. The image, two stories high, appeared on December 19th on the glass walls of the financial building. It varied in color from blue to green to red, and there seemed to be a well-defined head and clothing on a torso. Skeptics said that it was only reflections of light on more or less dirty windows. But the nuns of the cited order prayed and sang out loud, drawing a lot of people into the same gestures. Finally, the financial company asked for a team of window washers to put an end to the pilgrimage.... (1996 by Jeroen Wierda Picard UFO Research International)

#1996, December 20
Belgium, Bastogne-Bertogne
At around 12:30, a tourist plane disappeared from the air force's radar screens. At that moment, it was supposed to be flying over the Bastogne and Bertogne region. Curiously, despite the searches carried out throughout the afternoon, no trace of a possible plane crash was found and no one in the region seems to have seen anything. It is true that a thick fog has been covering the Bastogne plateau since this morning. It also prohibited the use of a helicopter. The searches, which were interrupted at 5 pm, will resume tomorrow morning at 9 am. ("La Wallonie" of 20.12.1996 "Appearance of a UFO or an airplane?")
IN REALITY: C. T. d'Havelange wrote to me this: "As a rescuer, my sister participated in the search parties coordinated by the army. As usual, the people in charge of these parties did not provide any concrete elements to the people on the ground, so they did not know exactly what they were looking for. (...) Finally, it appears that the story is a misunderstanding. The day before, a German helicopter landed on a base in Bastogne, after activating its distress beacon. The next day, the aircraft took off again but it would have forgotten to turn off its beacon. It would have cut it off later, after a certain amount of flight time already completed. (???) Moreover, loggers reported to the authorities having heard an aircraft (small plane or helicopter). They did not see anything because of the fog, but they imagined that this aircraft could be in trouble. So there was on the one hand an erroneous human testimony and on the other hand an accidental distress signal. My sister and many others traveled miles in the Ardennes woods for nothing. Moreover, if there had been something to find, they would not have found it since the group leader who held the compass and who made the people walk in line managed to make them go around in circles. False alarm then, but my version is accurate to the detail."

#1996, December 21 and 22
Israel, Achihod-Ahyud (Akko)
In the night, the police were called by the villagers. People reported the presence of blue luminous disks flying over their farms. The next day, Mrs. Tziona Damti observed an "alien" near her father-in-law's barn. Of humanoid type, it measured about twenty centimeters high, was greenish in color, had limbs (arms and legs) without fingers and large black eyes. She found it in the morning of December 22, lying on the ground in a puddle of green liquid and called the police. In order to preserve the small corpse from decomposition, Tziona Damti and her husband put it in the freezer compartment of the fridge. When the police arrived, the creature's body, taken out of the freezer, had shrunk to only 5 centimeters long. It was sent for autopsy to the Technion Institute in Haifa. Having seen images of the creature on a television show, the microbiologist, Dr. Rachelle Fishman, suggested that it could be an absorbed embryo (by another animal) or newborn of a vertebrate, such as a salamander. Another scientist suggested an embryo of a chameleon. The liquid found on the site would have been the amniotic fluid. (Note from vog: this was confirmed by the analysis, it seems) Another farmer in the area said that the extraterrestrials had stolen 18 sheep from him in the night of 21 to 22 December, while in the nearby town of Tamara, an Arab shepherd also complained of the theft of sheep that night. (Life & Time, electronic telegraph issue 610 25.1.1997) (Ufo Folklore Center produces on the Internet under the title "It's a bird, it's an alien, it's a fraud" an article by the journalist-uflogue Barry Chamish, but very curiously transmitted by Dr Rachelle H.B. Fishman, whose address is: The Sea View, PO BOX 387, Zichron Ya'akov - 30900 ISRAEL. This article features the protagonists already mentioned above, adding even less likely details, such as that the creature was observed the day before and that it jumped in the air if one wanted to catch it, as well as the unappetizing fact that it began to disintegrate from the head which liquefied ... But also mentioned on the spot, arguing over the remains of the ET which is put up for auction at a starting price of 10,000 dollars, Uri Geller himself and Michael Heseman (Germany). The latter made headlines during the famous Roswell autopsy shown on TF 1 some time ago. Heseman claimed in Leeds, at a conference, that he had interviewed and videotaped this interview with the cameraman Barnett (who sold the film to Santili) in case something happened to Barnett. Needless to say, at present no one saw this interview. The article continues by claiming that "the little material" of the ET provided to the laboratory for analysis did not allow to reach a conclusion. All this seems to me to derive from a sick fantasy, or from a manipulation of opinion for the purposes of disinformation.)


#1996, December (around the 22nd?)
Israel, Rishon Lezion
Derrel Sims, ufologist, and Barry Chamish, journalist, report the story of a teenager named Alex Lemkin. At 11pm this young man was walking in the park when he saw a small girl of about 6 years old, with strange behavior. Believing her to be lost, he approached her and to his amazement the girl had an albino complexion and long hair of the same color. While he was looking at her, the girl broke into dozens of small lights. His memories stop there. He regains consciousness lying on the grass of the park, with several unexplained scratches on his back that hurt him. (Joseph Trainor - Masinaigan - Ufo Folklore Center)

#1996, December 29th and 30th
Palestine, Nur-a-Shamat
After spending the night in his bed, Daoud Ahmad wanted to get up on the 30th of December when two creatures jumped on him and bit him. The intruders were about 60 cm tall. They had an ugly head with a single Mohawk-style fringe of hair, and they had only one eye (note from vog: two cyclopes escaped from the encyclopedia?). These creatures had enormous strength, and they were dressed in leather clothing. "After they bit me, I lost consciousness," said Daoud Ahmad, who was quickly taken to the hospital, treated, and released the same day. According to Palestinian television, the neighbors heard strange sounds coming from the bed, but not a single one saw anything or anyone emerge from the house afterwards. (CNI News, Vol. 2 No. 21, Part 3 - Mike Lindemann)

#1997, October 14
Israel, Negev Desert, Tel Sheva
Mr. Bashad, an Arab Bedouin raised in Europe, and his friend Mr. Massoud, left the Arab town of Tel Sheva in the direction of Beersheba. Driving at night on the unlit highway, Mr. Bashad saw along the road a man standing on the side of the road. This unusual presence made him stop in front of the individual and he asked if he could help. At that moment, the humanoid passed his palm through the metal of the door, as if it did not exist, while the two motorists saw his horrible face of "mutant". They put the gas without asking for their rest. The entity remained attached to the door for a distance of 2 km, at the speed of the vehicle (75 miles per hour) before dissolving as if it were made of air. (Ma'Ariv Journal of 15.10.1996 - Ufo Roundup vol. 1 no. 36)

#1997, January 5
Israel, Tel Aviv
Manipulating the crowd was psychic Helinor Harrar. Hadn't he predicted in 1995 the victory of Benjamin Netanyahu in the elections? After the Achihod story of December 21, 1996, he thus predicted the arrival of three huge flying saucers for this Monday, January 5, 1997. By the hundreds, the Israelis were on the beaches from the morning. An atmosphere of celebration reigned there, and loudspeakers mounted on trucks broadcasted the musical theme of the X-Files. Nothing happened. (Note from vog: this is not the first time a psychic has led people astray!) (Ufo Roundup vol. 2 no. 2 of 12.1.1997, Joseph Trainor)

#1997, January 5
France, Ille et Vilaine
At the place called Chantepie, around 2 am, B.C., 57 years old, a farmer, was woken up by an explosion sound and a shrill whistle. His wife, however, kept sleeping. He got up, went to the kitchen to have a bite. Suddenly, outside, a big flash. He looked through the window and saw, in the middle of his fields, something like headlights. He went out taking his hunting gun. He hurried towards the blinding light and tried to shout, but no sound came out of his mouth. He felt stopped by an invisible force. He couldn't move anymore. Then he saw two beings coming out of the blue luminous shape. The viscous and transparent shapes passed near him, seeming to ignore him, heading towards the barn on his right. He felt prickles all over his body, he was sweating and he realized he was in the snow in his nightshirt and slippers. He was scared. The small humanoid shapes passed near him again and he saw them merging into the electric shape that disappeared vertically instantly. Then B.C. went back with difficulty to the kitchen. It was 5:15. He had spent 2 hours and 45 minutes outside in the cold, at -9°C, in light clothing and he was sweating. His slippers were frozen. When he entered, his wife was still sleeping. The lights were all on (Sentinel News n° 6; July-August '97 p. 36)

#1997, January 12
Puerto Rico, between Caguas and Humacho
Pedro Viera, a retired policeman, was driving around 2:30 in the morning on Route 40 between Caguas and Humacho. Suddenly he saw a disc-shaped UFO hovering over a field, lifting a cow in a "tractor beam". The animal passed through an opening in the bottom of the UFO and then disappeared from view. Viera accelerated, engaging in a kind of pursuit. Speeding along Route 40, he kept the UFO in sight. His chase was abruptly interrupted by the arrival of an old 4x4 model, and he had to stop on the side of the road. Two men in black uniforms emerged from the 4x4, approached him and said "let them do what they had to do". At first Viera didn't understand, but then he had to accept the evidence that these words were related to the UFO. Meanwhile he had obviously lost sight of it and Viera returned home. Five hours later, around 7 in the morning, Puerto Ricans found a mutilated cow along Route 40. They said the animal seemed to have been thrown from a considerable height. (Scott Corrales) (UFO Roundup vol. 2 no. 8, Joseph Trainor)

#1997, January 22
USA, Central Region
At 3:30 in the morning a bright green light ball traveled across the entire sky of the Central US and was observed in five states, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas. Wayne Wyrick of the Kirkpatrick Planetarium in Oklahoma City said the phenomenon looked like a plane on fire descending. Major Steve Boylan, spokesperson for Norad, said it was debris from a Delta II missile used to launch a satellite in December. In the January 25th edition of The Daily Oklahoman, the testimony of a woman is reported; she saw the ball descend as if to crash just west of Oklahoma City. (...) On January 24th, Ed Longcope went to feed the cattle in the fields, when he saw something shining half-buried in the ground, in the cow pasture. It was a fairly large hollow ball (medicine ball) of metallic appearance, with nuts on the opposite sides and a median rib. The half-melted object was entrusted by the witness to the local sheriff who sent it to the New Braunfels Meteorological Institute. The object could not be identified there and eventually the object was entrusted to Randolph Military Base (east of San Francisco). A few days before this find, witnesses had seen unusual lights in the sky in the New Braunfels region (Joseph Trainor - Masinaigan - Ufo Folklore Center) IN REALITY: According to United States Command No. 1-97, Springs Colorado: the body of the Delta II missile, launched on April 24, 1996, entered the Earth's atmosphere at 3:30 in the morning. This cylindrical tube measured 7 feet long by 4 feet in diameter and could be observed in at least five states and fell 3 miles east of Georgetown, Texas, the tank (the largest part of the second stage, landed in Austin less than 100 m from a house. It measured 9 feet long, 6 feet in diameter, cylindrical in shape with rounded ends, weight about 750 kg. The piece found by Ed Longcope was the rounded base of the second stage of Delta II, 80 cm in diameter and weighing about 35 kg. On February 7th, near Seguin, other debris from Detlta II were also found. (MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 347, March 1997 pp. 3-7)

#1997, January
USA, Colebrook (New Hampshire)
In this village of 1070 people, a 73-year-old woman claims to have had the visit of 12 extraterrestrials, sitting around her table, taking notes and murmuring to themselves. They did not want to leave before 3:30 in the morning, despite her polite requests repeated.... Until this visit, the person in question had a perfect reputation, since then she is no longer the same. (source: UFO Folklore Center)


#1997, February 9
MEXICO, Saltillo, Concepcion del Oro
In the first week of February 1997, USAF retired Colonel Mr. Wilson was in a village in Mexico to investigate UFOs. The place is called Concepcion del Oro. It is in the vicinity of Zacatecas. Nearby is the Pico del Toro mountain at 2793 m. The American investigator spoke with the locals, including one Gonzales Cabrio. People saw a saucer land and spoke with the men who came out of it. These "extraterrestrials" said they were from the planet... UMMO! They said they were on a mission on Earth. The Mexicans were not scared of their appearance... because these "ummites" were small, stocky, and very dark-skinned, like the Mexicans! Of course, they spoke Spanish. The story does not say if, in addition, these Mexican ummites wore the sombrero. (Concon.files on the Internet) (vog: and to think they made the Spaniards believe they (the Ummites) were tall blondes…)


#1997, February 13
Chile, Llano (Santiago)
Around 11:30 PM, Marta Aguilar Montoya and her two young children were sleeping in their bedroom in Gran Avenida, in the Llano section of Santiago. Suddenly, the mother was awoken by a crackling sound coming from the television, even though she was certain it was not turned on. She got up and saw a "slim" figure standing 1.5 to 1.6 meters tall, wearing a tight-fitting suit and a helmet with a visor. She could not see its eyes. This apparition also had a backpack attached to the helmet by two straps over the shoulders. Her husband being away at work, Marta was terrified. She grabbed her two children in her arms and stayed there, watching. The occupant kept "looking" at her but made no movement. After several minutes it turned towards the wall of the room, and Marta heard the electric crackling sound again, a kind of "SSHH" crackling noise. The creature disappeared through the wall, leaving an imprint of its silhouette on the wall. This imprint disappeared after two minutes. The cases of Lago de Rapel and Llano are being investigated by the ufology group AION. (Luis Sanchez Perry) (UFO Roundup vol. 2 n 8 - Joseph Trainor)

#1997, February 20
Spain, Paradeseca (Orense - Galicia)
Heliodoro Nunez was tending to sheep in a pasture 3 km from the road to Chandrexa, along the Devesas river. It was around 4 pm when I was with the flock, he said. Suddenly the dogs started barking and I received a ray of light on me. Turning around I saw these strange creatures. He describes several entities 3 m tall and wearing strange conical hats. The whole group changed color simultaneously, from red to blue, then to yellow and again to green. "It was not from this world, and at the sight of this apparition I started to pray". A neighbor, Juan Gonzalez Gonzalez, confirms saying that he saw something strange in that meadow at the same time. It was a red light of a very intense tone hovering above the trees. But due to the distance separating him from Nunez, he did not see the giants. The investigation was carried out by the Fenix group from La Coruna. To the investigator, Nunez's wife recounts that her husband came home that day completely scared. He only prayed, could not sleep for two nights and could not eat anything. (La Region newspaper, 23.2.97) (Ufo Folklore Center - Roundup vol. 2 n° 18 of 4.5.97) (vog: coincidence to say the least: the Vatican had just issued a new stamp, anti-Semitic moreover, where one sees Jews wearing the famous pointed hat mandatory for them in the Middle Ages)

#1997, February 22
CANADA, Aklavik, NWT
Five people were followed along the road by two gray-silver objects that flew above the highway and then gently glided towards the snow and landed. The objects had rows of "windows" lit up with a bright blue light. As they continued on their way, taking a crossroad, the witnesses lost sight of the objects. (The 1997 Canadian UFO Survey)

#1997, March 4
Netherlands, Amsterdam
(AFP) The police deployed a dozen cars and patrols, following calls from Schiphol Airport and other citizens that a spaceship was about to land. This was reported to the press by spokesperson Klaas Wilting. "They were observing stationary bright lights that did not appear on the radar screen," he said. "We only found a huge crane, 50 meters high, reported in the night with stroboscopic lamps, that is what misled people," he added. It was enough that the radio mentioned the observation of lights for dozens of calls to reach the police....

#1997, March 5
Italy, San Martino Spino
A strange object, shaped like a refrigerator, was "yet" observed by a retired man from San Martino Spio around 8 o'clock in the morning. The object was resting on the ground "on some legs". There seemed to be two portholes. Only an hour later the object rose up and flew away. (Resto del Carlino, ed. Modena, March 7; avvistamenti 97, CISU)


#1997, March 9
Canada, St Emile de Suffolk (Quebec)
At 7:15 pm an object was observed that was black and square, 2 m long, with two powerful headlights. It was reported that there was a wall of light 165 m long and 11 m high. (BANQUE OVNI, Bagneux France, 1997, p. 5/8, updated 13.5.97) Paul Dassault, 67 years old, was walking near his house. To his right, about 200 feet away, he saw two large yellow lights in the woods. He was alarmed, as there is no road there, not even a trail for a snowmobile. After a few seconds, he realized it was a solid, black, square object 6 feet long (1.8 m) with two bright yellow lights. Deciding to investigate, he entered the woods, but from the center of the object a huge wall of light emerged on either side, 165 meters long and 11 meters high. Frightened, the witness returned home, but he saw that the UFO was still in place. (investigation by CEIPI of Quebec)

#1997, March 13...until July and beyond.
USA, Prescott Valley, Arizona
According to the police, a man had seen a UFO above the Prescott Valley shopping center around 8:00 PM. Peter Davenport, from the National Ufo Reporting organization, received dozens of calls first from Paulden, then from Prescott, then from Glendale and the last observations were taking place above Tucson. A man from Paulden told the newspaper "The Daily Courier" that he had seen an object shaped like a diamond. An astronomer called to say he had seen an object with five white lights. Apparently from the AFB Luke base, two planes with cameras were launched to intercept the object. Upon its return, one of the pilots was shocked. However, the base spokesperson, Sgt. Rolla Suttmiler, denied this information. (Aufora News Update 16.3.1997, collected by AREPS.) The first call came from a former policeman saying that he and his family had seen a strange cluster of red lights moving very quickly in the sky around Paulden at 8:16 PM. This cluster of lights clearly had orange-red lights among them, with 4 to 5 red lights in the lead, followed by a single light seeming to be in the back of the others. The lead lights seemed to be in a "V" formation or like a boomerang. The following calls came from Phoenix where several people saw 4 or 5 very intense white lights pass by at 8:17 PM. These people reported that the formation had a triangular shape with a complex group of lights along the sides. One of the observers said that the orientation of the white lights seemed to change as he watched the phenomenon with his family.<br/><br/>
In Prescott Valley, a witness was outside with his wife and sons when they saw the cluster of lights to the northwest of their position. The lights seemed to be in a triangular formation and all seemed to be red in color except for the lead light which was white. The phenomenon was observed through binoculars for 2 to 3 minutes before passing to the right of the witnesses who then saw a "band" to the right. The phenomenon disappeared to the SE of Prescott Valley. In the quiet night, none of the witnesses heard any sound coming from the phenomenon. The next witness came from Dewey, 10 miles south of Prescott. Five adults and young people, in a car driving north on Highway 69, saw a cluster of lights in the sky in a V formation. The driver stopped in a commercial parking lot and all the occupants got out. At that moment the phenomenon was directly above them where it hovered for several minutes. One of the witnesses in this group reported that the phenomenon was so big that he couldn't cover the surface of the thing with his fist at arm's length. He estimated that the phenomenon was at 100 feet in altitude and said it was absolutely silent. He saw a small private plane in the vicinity of the object and that the phenomenon seemed to be heading towards the Prescott airport. This witness then alerted the airport as well as the AFB Luke base, whose telephone operator confirmed having received many calls. Other testimonies then came in from Chino Valley, Temple, Glendale, Phoenix, Kingman and Tucson. All these witnesses described the phenomenon in detail. An amateur astronomer from Phoenix saw to the left of his house a mass of solid, non-shining lights and was able to discern that each was composed of two smaller lights. He saw two planes in the vicinity of the phenomenon, planes that were turning around to the west and east. The phenomenon was moving from north to south. (...) Later, between 8:45 and 9:00 PM the phenomenon was seen for about ten minutes, hovering and disappearing behind the mountains in a southerly direction. A lot of witnesses made statements having seen F 15c intercepting the object and photographing it with gun-cameras before returning to the Luke base, this aspect of the observation is unfortunately impossible to verify. (NUFORC, B. Davenport- News 002 collected from the Internet by CAAP - Roulers, Belgium) A video film was made by Tom King and Bill Hamilton (CBS EVENING NEWS). In the different phases one can see: - an orange light appearing in Ahwatukee around 9:50 PM, it comes to position itself near two other orange lights. - then, a few seconds later, another orange light arrives. - then one sees the 4 orange lights and a fifth arriving on the left. A pilot leaving Skyhabor Airport said he had seen this formation above his plane. (E-mail Bill Hamilton, web page by Tom King -and- Ufo Folklore Center AUFORA News update 17.5.1997) IN REALITY: military exercises, nighttime interceptions, with a simulated battle at an altitude of 5000 to 50000 feet in the air space known as BUKEYE MOA. There are identical exercises every quarter, Wednesday and Thursday evenings.

#1997, March 19
Spain, Karting de l'Escala, Girona
At 4am, the Girona police officers, M.D and M.C in a car, observed a phenomenon they qualified as identical to "Foo Fighters", round in shape, orange in color, without any perceptible noise. The phenomenon was first observed stationary at 4m from the ground, 40m away, just above the karting. When the police officers wanted to take a photo with the camera on board, the UFO made a sudden approach towards the patrol car, before accelerating incredibly and disappearing in the sky. The sky was clear without clouds, there was no wind or rain, the temperature was 10°C. (the full case is published in the Monográfico nº1 of the magazine ENIGMAS, Jordi Jiménez)

#1997, March 24
Great Britain, Sheffield
Monday night half of the city of Sheffield was left without electricity around 11:45 pm.
In the night, around the same time, there was an alert in the Peak district after the observation of what seemed to be an airplane flying very low above the marshes. This observation ended with a red light flash and a trail of smoke. Other people, including a group observing the Hale-Bopp comet, said they saw an object followed by smoke and a strange red glow on the marshes. A few minutes later a couple heard a loud explosion that shook their house near Strines Inn. Having found nothing after their personal searches, these witnesses called the police.
The police officers who arrived on the scene saw what they believed to be a plume of smoke rising from the marshes towards a wooded area. They said there had been no distress call in the area and the Civil Aviation Authority said there was no missing plane. The West Yorkshire police and the RAF were called in to carry out aerial searches in the marshy area around Bolsterstone, while the local police and military carried out searches on the ground. Nearly 100 military personnel scoured over 40 square miles, without finding any wreckage. The searches continue with little hope of finding anything. It would be a strange observation of a crash without any fatalities. After the strange observations of the last few weeks in the suburban area of Sheffield, rumors have been circulating after it was revealed that researchers were examining a video sequence showing an object flying very slowly. This film showing an object flying with flashing lights was taken by a man who was outside observing Hale-Bopp, on the same night as the events described above. Scientists from the University of Edinburgh, seismology department, also revealed that they had recorded a sound explosion on their equipment, immediately after the observation in South Yorkshire. They say that this supersonic bang could only have been caused by the Concorde, a military plane flying low, or by the fall of a fairly large meteorite. However, any attempt to contact the Ministry of Defense or the RAF has failed. The police confirm having received 40 different calls from witnesses describing the phenomenon as a single wing flying low over northern Sheffield, or of triangular shape. (English report received by AREPS on March 30, 1997) IN REALITY: the RAF was questioned in Parliament and specified that it was involved in a low-altitude flight exercise that night with jets flying at 250 feet (80 to 90 meters) altitude and that this was part of the specific training. The Tornado planes were not interceptors but Gr 1 bombers from the Marham base (Norfolk).

#1997, March 31
Finland, Rovaniemi (north of the country)
Ufologists observed an aerial battle between an air force jet and a squadron of five UFOs, according to Lars Osterman. They came to know of the affair because of the calls of the pilot (whose name will not be disclosed) and who kept repeating that he had trouble. His plane was an F-18A Hornet of the Finnish Air Force Suomen Ilmaviomat based at Lapin Lennosto 400 km north of Helsinki. The F-18 had taken off for a routine 960 km patrol along the border with Russia. As it flew over the frozen tundra southeast of Lake Inarijarvi, the pilot suddenly saw three UFOs (discs) flying in the direction of the northeast. Approaching to get a better look at what they were, he saw that there were 5 discs instead of 3. He alerted the base by radio and received the order to intercept the objects. The five UFOs shone with an orange color and suddenly veered towards the northwest. The F-18 chased them to Ivalo, a town 200 km north of Rovaniemi. From there the F-18 chased the discs towards the west up to above Inari, where, after a failed interception, the UFOs took the course towards the east and disappeared at high speed and high altitude above Lake Inarijarvi. At the moment the formation was breaking up the pilot had asked for permission to fire. Permission granted to fire at will. The pilot went towards one of the discs and, finding himself exactly behind it, made the intimidation maneuver. But then he suddenly heard in his helmet an alarm sound. The on-board computer was cut off and the 20 mm cannon ready to fire had returned to its waiting position. Wanting then to use the air-to-air missiles, a red malfunction light began to blink. The UFOs left at Mach 4 or 5. Finally none of the flight equipment was affected and the pilot was able to return safely to the base. The last time he saw the UFOs was in the direction of Talvikula in Russia. (Email Interview with Lars Osterman, Ufo Roundup Volume 4, Number 1, January 5, 1999, editor Joseph Trainor)


#1997, April 8
Belgium, Lochristie (East Flanders)
Christophe W. left as usual on his bicycle to go to his workplace. It was 5:40 in the morning. Five minutes later, as he was riding on the Anvers road, he saw to his right, 500 meters away and at 7° elevation, a bright light, sometimes hidden by the presence of houses. A few minutes later, when he arrived near the parking lot of his workplace, this light flew over the parking lot, preventing the young man, who was scared, from venturing there. The phenomenon, which in the meantime had presented itself as three large white lights in a triangular arrangement, with a small red light blinking from time to time in the center of this configuration, was positioned obliquely above the Anvers road, at 91 meters altitude. Held at arm's length it measured 11.5 cm and the calculations made gave it a real size varying, according to the degrees of angle of observation, between 43 and 66 meters. The phenomenon was silent. There, above the witness and the parking lot, this thing began to zigzag, do loopings, execute a lot of incredible maneuvers, for more than ten minutes. It was only when the young man's boss arrived at the parking lot in a car that the phenomenon returned from where it had come, but on the other side of the road. Total duration of the observation: 20 to 25 minutes. Consequences: fear that persists: the boy never ventures alone on the parking lot in the early hours of the morning. (investigation by Joris Rogge, whom I thank very much)

#1997, April 27
Croatia, near Zagorje
Television reported something strange at 8:15 PM in Ziva Istina (Living Truth). The presenter said that a UFO appeared above Zagorje. It had the appearance of a giant cigar. It was a man who at 6:45 PM was watching television and suddenly saw a red light coming from the window. He left his chair and went out into the garden to see what it was. About 160 meters above a field he saw a fireball hovering just above the ground. He described it as a black ball surrounded by fire glows, about 12 meters high and 15 meters wide with three "holes" that could be considered as portholes. After the UFO left, a 28 m. diameter crop circle was found in the field. He also found footprints larger than his own, which were size US 9. The witness, however, gave different versions of his observation and is not very credible. (Giuliano Marinkovicc in Croatia: ufoinfo.com/organizations/org_croatia.html) (Ufo Roundup places this event on April 16, 1997)

#1997, April 29
Italy, Udine region
The media were making fun of the announcement made by Antonio Chiumiento, claiming to have collected testimony of an abduction that occurred in the outskirts of Udine, shortly after midnight on April 29. A 22-year-old man, accompanied by some friends, was doing pranotherapy (breathing exercises) when he was allegedly sucked up by a red conical beam of light that lifted him, passed him through walls, and then disappeared from his friends' sight. Looking out the window, they saw rotating luminous trails in the sky that gradually dissolved. Four hours later, the young man reappeared on the couch from which he had been "captured" and told that he had found himself inside a luminous room, where three monstrous-looking beings at least 3 meters tall had examined him, taken blood samples, and injected him with a substance in his arm. This product caused inflammation and he had to undergo an operation as a result of the injection (in a terrestrial hospital this time) (Adn-Kronos, May 23; Televideo RAI, May 23; La Stampa and various other newspapers on May 24, reported by CISU in Avvistamenti).

#1997, May 1 (or 5?)
Netherlands, Udenhout and elsewhere
At 12:13, horses started galloping like crazy. Veterinarians believe there must have been something in the air: a storm, an earthquake. The KNMI (Dutch Meteorological Institute) finds no explanation. Suddenly, all at the same time, the horses in the riding school, ridden by children, reared and threw the children to the ground. At the same time, between Riel and Goirle, a horse in harness started galloping. In Hilvarenbeek, citizens saw with amazement a wild horse galloping in the street. All the owners are unanimous in declaring that they have never seen anything like it in their lives. The most astonishing thing is that all the horses started running like crazy at the same time, while Mr. H. Haak from the weather station sees nothing on the seismographs, although he admits that there are sometimes small shocks in Hilvarenbeek. (Source: Brabants Dagblad, May 5, 1997)

#1997, May 17
Test Flight: Unmanned X-36 Aircraft
USA, Rogers Dry Lake, Edwards
At 7:08 (PDT) the tailless, unmanned aircraft lifted off and in five minutes reached 4900 feet (about 1600 meters). In the next six months, 24 more test flights of the X-36 are scheduled. Rod Baily, the X-36 program manager said that the craft has the look of what aircraft of the future will be like. There are already two 28/100 scale models of the X-36, which have neither vertical nor horizontal tail. They measure 18 feet (a bit less than 3 m) long, 3 feet (m) high, 10 feet (3 m) wide with wings included, and weigh 1250 pounds (600 to 620 kg). They are equipped with a 350 kg thrust Williams Research F112 turbofan engine. The aircraft is controlled by a pilot on the ground, in a cockpit cabin, equipped like a regular aircraft, with a headset. The technologies necessary for this pilotless combat aircraft are being studied jointly by NASA and McDonell Douglas.

#1997, May 23
Portugal, Quintas (Tras os Montes)
In the village of Quintas, about twenty people observed around 22 o'clock an extraordinary phenomenon. It was something quite large, round at first, and then transformed like a daisy flower. This thing approached, went behind a hill, and then reappeared on the other side. The color was a deep, luminous blue, but it did not illuminate anything and was apparently at an altitude of 60 to 70 meters. Its diameter was about 20 meters. Some saw a religious symbol, since this light very much resembled the rosette of church stained glass windows. The newspapers of Coimbra spoke of it abundantly. (Bruno Miguel Lopes and Luis Ribeiro) (UFO Roundup Vol. 2 No. 22 - 1.6.97 - Joseph Trainor)
IN REALITY: Ufologist Joao Cardoso made his investigation and saw the light cannon in Lamego, yet 100 km away from Quintas. But since the sky was cloudy and the cloud layer was low, the powerful machine of Lamego is probably the cause of the observation.


#1997, June 7
England, London
Investigators are astounded by a near collision between an Aer Lingus plane and an unidentified object. The BAe 146 flight, departing from Stansted in East England to Dublin (Ireland) had to make an emergency maneuver when the two pilots saw a red craft with blue and white lines coming straight at them north of London. The Aer Lingus jet passed only 30 meters above the craft two seconds later. The crew immediately reported the incident to air traffic control, suggesting it might have been a military plane, like the RAF's Red Arrows acrobatic team's Hawk. However, all searches of the radar records yielded no results: there was no other plane in the area. Investigators are certain there were no "Red Arrows" of the RAF in the air that day, and as for the Hawks, the last one to land had been on the ground for four hours already. (...) (The Daily Telegraph newspaper Friday 13 June 1997 and The Ottawa Citizen 13.67.1997) - The incident occurred at 9000 feet altitude above Hertfordshire. Aer Lingus still has no explanation, especially since the pilots say it was not an airplane at all. (UK Ufo-news)


#1997, June 17
USA, Tampa, Florida
In broad daylight, around 11:20, Olga Booker, the initial witness, was driving towards her home when she saw what she thought was a balloon with red and white lights. It wasn't a balloon, she realized, and she began to follow the phenomenon in her car. The object resembled a large iron pot and flew slowly from south to north above the trees and houses. It was pyramidal in shape (note from vog: I want a pyramid-shaped pot too...) with one side slightly curved, and had a pulsating orange-red light in each corner. There was also a series of small blinking white lights. She estimated the number to be around thirty, on the back side, which she saw while following the phenomenon. It was flat, like a pancake (vog: pot or pancake? In my opinion the witness had an empty stomach crying out for food) without wings or tail, without portholes. There were also lines, scratches or small grains going from left to right giving a copper reflection to the surface. (Mufon Ufo Journal No. 353, page 8, Sept. 97)


#1997, July
USA, Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards (California)
The first X-38 atmospheric vehicle left the Johnson Space Center in Houston for the Edwards base. Its future vocation will be to be an international space station for crews in orbit: it will be the shuttle to one or the other orbit. (...) Its flight control system is completely electric and although the tests will undoubtedly reveal surprises, the head of the X project, John Muratore, is confident in the results to be obtained. (...) This X-38, named "No. 131" will be launched from a B 52 at an altitude of 25,000 feet, at the end of August 1997. It will then fly, unmanned, completely remotely controlled. The tests will probably continue until 1999, since it should be operational to be launched from a Space Shuttle in the spring of 2000. To land, it will use a parachute like the current shuttles. The Americans hope in the coming years to attach a Russian Soyuz as a habitat for the crew, but if the crew consists of 6 people, a transformed X-38 will be necessary. (www.nasa.gov).

#1997, August 11
Peru, near Lima
At 11:15 PM a UFO emerged from the clouds above the Pacific and slowly flew over Magdalena del Mar, a suburb of Lima. Eventually the UFO hovered 300 meters above the ground, along the coast and near the police station. A policeman on duty saw it and sounded the alarm. A spotlight was turned on and directed at the UFO which appeared to be "light by itself, red in color, with a black dot inside". Viewed through binoculars, the UFO moved in a "diagonal" manner (note from vog: ??) A little later, the UFO still there, the spotlight was again directed at it. The UFO quickly rose into the sky and positioned itself a little further above the ocean. There it emitted a powerful beam of light, sweeping from left to right and illuminating the houses and boats of the police patrol. Shortly after midnight the journalists arrived with their cameras. The UFO remained in position until around 3 in the morning. (UFO Folklore, Roundup vol. 2 n° 33 - 17.8.97 -Joseph Trainor)

#1997, September 10
Palestine, Tulkarem
Muhand Faras, 16 years old, was returning home from school when he encountered "a strange man with some kind of root in the middle of his face. He had green skin like a frog. His hands were very thin, ended in three fingers, and his nails were very long. The stranger made some threatening gestures towards Muhand, shouted something, and flew off into the sky. Muhad, too scared, didn't even try to follow the creature with his eyes, also thinking that it could have "fired something dangerous" at him. (Yerushalayim for September 19, 1997; CNI News, volume 3, number 15, part 1, for October 1, 1997. Mike Lindemann)

#1997, September 18
Palestine, Dir al Ajwan (Tulkarem)
Police are investigating an attempted abduction of a 10-year-old girl by an "alien" from space. The Israeli magazine Yerushalayim recounts that the girl, Suha A'anam, was doing her schoolwork on the balcony of the second floor of their house in Dir Al Ajwan (64 km from Jerusalem). Suddenly she felt herself grabbed by the arm, and looking up, saw an "alien". She screamed hysterically so that the neighbors were able to intervene in time to save her. She was taken to the hospital in Tulkarem, presenting scratches on her arm. A neighbor told the police that she heard a helicopter noise and looking out the window, saw a kind of "tornado throwing ashes" in front of the balcony of little Suha. (Yerushalayim for September 19, 1997. CNI News, volume 3, number 15, part 1, for October 1, 1997; Mike Lindemann)

#1997, September 19
Spain, near Barcelona
A motorist, Carlos P.A. aged 34, attacked another man, Jesus T.L. aged 55, with a machete, leaving him in a critical state. The massacre took place on the highway between La Roca del Valle and Vilanova del Valle, near Barcelona. Upon arriving at the crime scene, the police found the assailant covered in the blood of his victim. The victim had been struck multiple times in the neck, with the 22 cm long machete. The murderer was taken to the psychiatric annex of the Modero prison (Barcelona). He continually explained to the authorities that he had received the order to stop his car and attack the other person "by a voice coming from Mars or perhaps from a flying saucer hovering there". He claimed to have had contact with extraterrestrials already before the attack. (UFO Roundup, vol. 2 no. 37, 28.09.97 - Joseph Trainor)

#1997, October 2
USA, SPACE
(Source: Associated Press, CNN) Secretary of Defense William Cohen today gave the Army permission to send a laser beam into space, towards an American satellite. Cohen said that the test does not aim to destroy the satellite, causing a number of debris, nor to put any other satellite, American or not, at risk. The targeted satellite is nevertheless "dying". Among the more than 500 current satellites in space, about 220 are American. The only limitation, the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, prohibits nuclear-type destruction. In 1985, laser tests were defended by Congress for a period of 10 years. The time has expired, tests can resume...

#November 26, 1997
Chile, Punta Arenas
At 11:34 PM, Pilar Olazabal was driving her friends Juana Villalobos Moreno and Carlos Iturbide Masana home. "300 meters from their house there was something strange, an oval thing that seemed to be on fire. It lit up the whole road". The strangest part of the observation was that the thing was only seen by the two women, the man didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The apparition lasted several seconds. When they arrived at their friends' house, the trio talked a bit more about the strange thing, then Juana took the road to go back home. Ten minutes later, in one of the main streets of the city, she saw in the rearview mirror a lit object following her. "It was very close, only 50 meters away and 20 meters from the ground. The UFO was oval and had yellow, blue and red lights". Juana parked and the object flew over her car, less than 20 meters away. She could see it in its entirety. The object then accelerated and flew away like an arrow towards Estrecho de Magallanes (Strait of Magellan). (The case is being investigated by Bertran Cardenas of AION)

#November 1997
Germany, Bernkastel, Kuess
At around 11am J.G. and his father-in-law approached the Kuess train station. About 100 meters away, there was a dilapidated facade with a window without glass. J.G. then saw the top (roof) of a passenger wagon pass behind the window. The wagon was orange. J.G. then pointed out to his father-in-law that trains usually run at this time of day. They arrived at the station, which was closed. Going around the ruined facade, they were surprised to find that there was nothing behind the wall. No railway tracks, no platforms, no trains. Only an open space with a burgundy-colored truck parked there. A row of houses and people painting the facades (in white). (GESAG, Bulletin 98, March 1998, p. 4, direct testimony)

#1997, December 2
USA, Miami
(Woman Mysteriously Falls From Sky - The Associated Press Wednesday,
December 3, 1997; 9:28 a.m. EST) A woman dressed in black mysteriously fell from the sky into the wall of an apartment complex. The inhabitants heard a loud crash and went outside to find the body cut in two, half embedded in the wall, said Inspector Delrish Moss. Nearby there is a 20-story tower, but Moss believes that given the way the body was embedded, the woman fell from much higher. "We have no indication" said Moss.
The woman was wearing a long black shirt and black pants, no identification was found on her remains. She was white, with medium-length brown hair and seemed to be between 30 and 40 years old (...) The police will try to identify her by her fingerprints.
The autopsy will also determine if the woman was alive at the time of the fall. In May 1996 a compressed body covered in grease was found in the outskirts of Miami and it was said that this person had been a stowaway who had fallen from the wheel well of an airplane. In the same week another body of a stowaway who had fallen from an airplane was found in the water outside of New York City. (note from vog: ufo = unidentified flying object, right? so as long as the body is not identified.... Apart from that, I find it very hard to believe these stories of stowaways falling...).


#1997, December 2
Belgium, Genk
The FUO (Hasselt) reported that in the evening of December 2, during the shift at the Ford factory in Genk, 200 people saw some kind of large black diamond that made a strange noise: like stones spinning in a cement mixer. When the object turned, all its lights were on one line. The ufology group was alerted at 10:10 PM. In the last days of November and the days following December 2, a similar object was seen by other witnesses in Waterschei, Zolder, and Maasmechelen. FUO contacted Eurocontrol to see if a "Galaxy" was in that part of the sky. This was not the case. (see meeting in Hasselt on March 7, 1998)

#1997, December 8
England, Yorkshire (in flight)
A Boeing 737 of British Midland Airways took off from London's Heathrow Airport for Belfast (Northern Ireland). At 2:15 pm, the jet flew over Liverpool on its northeast trajectory. One of the passengers suddenly saw a very large UFO in the direction of the right wing tip of the aircraft. The distance between the plane and the object was estimated to be 240 km. Miles Johnston of the BUFORA group said it was an enormous, black, thin object with a very intense light in one corner. The object seemed to be flying very slowly (difficult to estimate at that distance). The length of the thing was 20 times its thickness. It had the shape of a cigar and must have measured more than 650 meters long. It was observed at approximately the same altitude as the plane, 33,000 feet, but all on the horizon. This places it above Yorkshire, said Johnston. It was observed by the passenger for 15 minutes (vog: by only one of the passengers? That's so unlikely...) Under the object there was a layer of clouds, so the object could not have been detected from the ground. After 15 minutes of observation, the object itself entered the clouds. Before that, it was visible under a beautiful sun. (Filer's Files #51 for December 24, 1997, George A. Filer of MUFON)


#1997, December 14
Canada, Vancouver, BC
Seven witnesses observed an object that had the shape of the "@" sign (though "A" is more accurate). It suddenly came into their view and stopped halfway. It was a kind of silver, flat pyramid. It hovered for a while, then went up and down like a yo-yo before suddenly disappearing. (The 1997 Canadian UFO Survey)

#1997, December 23
CHINA, Canton
Hundreds of Chinese workers from the industrial zone adjacent to Canton saw a UFO in the sky. It was oblong and white, with a row of portholes. At intervals a beam of light came out from the lower part. Around the portholes there was a luminous halo. For several minutes the UFO hovered and flew slowly above the factories and houses, before suddenly flying away at an enormous speed. ("Il Stampa du 27.12.97, Edoardo Russo du CISU, Italy)

#1997, late December
Australia, Kajabbi (Queensland
A very large UFO landed near an isolated railway track and was observed by the crew of a freight train. The event took place in Kajabbi, also known as Milk Stop, at the end of a Cloncurry line on the Brisbane-Mount Isa route (a passenger train, the Sundowner, makes the trip twice a week). Kajabbi is 1,936 km northwest of Brisbane. As the freight train arrived at Kajabbi, the crew saw something like a huge structure, next to the tracks. It was rust-colored, partially transparent, and long enough to be a train (300 meters). As the train approached, the object rose and flew away. The crew was shocked by the observation and some of them no longer wanted to return to the site. (UFO Roundup vol. 3 no. 9, 1.3.98, Joseph Trainor)

#1998, January 10
France, Grisy les Platres (Val d'Oise)
D. Bruno, 62, a retired aviation technician, and three friends, went out hunting and drove north on the D 27 road. As they approached Grisy-les-Platres, Bruno noticed the presence in the sky of a series of lights as bright as the Moon. He was intrigued by the strange arrangement of the lights at an altitude of 20 meters. As the four friends got closer, they couldn't believe their eyes or identify what they were seeing. The lights seemed to be linear luminous portholes spaced 5 meters by 3 meters and located on an enormous black mass estimated to be 45 meters wide. This phenomenon was hovering above the road. "It must have weighed thousands of tons," said Bruno, who had lowered the side window to hear the noise the object was making and was leaning out to get a better view of the underside. The thing was huge, preventing them from seeing the sky above them. A central part of the construction was a lighter gray color than the rest and was octagonal in shape. Below there were dazzling lights. This was the last memory Bruno had of the object. Then Bruno came to his senses, still on the D27, having passed Grisy-les-Platres by 4 km and in fact having passed the rendezvous point by 3 km. The friends were in the same state of confusion. On January 23, 1998, 13 days after the encounter, Bruno had to see the doctor about marks of burns that appeared on the left side of his face and an eye infection. (Franck Marie and Banque OVNI Bagneux)

#1998, January 7
Croatia, near Sibenik
Second week of January. The newspaper "Vercernji List" reported that four extraterrestrials had landed in a meadow north of the port city of Sibenik (on the Adriatic Sea). According to the newspaper, farmer Jako Vrancic was with his herd when a UFO landed without making any noise. The object is described as resembling an iron. He said the extraterrestrials had the size and appearance of children. The farmer offered them to share his snack, ham and dried figs, but they replied that they were not hungry. There was no problem of communication, it seems, since the little strangers spoke bad Croatian. Vrancic had no fear, since "he had already seen such things on television". After their brief visit, the four creatures returned to their craft which took off. The newspaper adds that Vrancic is an honest man, and known to be rather down-to-earth. (CNI News volume 3, number 22, part 2, Mike Lindemann and James Sutton.)

#1998, January 8
Tenerife, Santa Cruz
At 1:30 in the morning, the Spanish police raided a building on Barrio de la Salud street and arrested 32 members of a local UFO group. A few hours earlier, the group's founder, German Dr. Heide Fittkau-Garthe, 57 years old, psychologist, who had settled in Tenerife in 1985, had already been arrested. The Spanish Minister of the Interior, Mr. Antonio Lopez Ojeda, said that Dr. Fittkau-Garthe was charged with incitement to suicide. He added that the police were certain that Mrs. Heide Fittkau-Garthe's sect was a sub-sect of the Order of the Solar Temple (cfr New York Times for January 9, 1998, "Suicide Sect Leader Held On Canary Islands," page A-8). The group had a double name. "Centro Sagrado de Isis" (Sacred Center of Isis) and "Orden del Santuario Solar" (Order of the Solar Sanctuary) and had its headquarters in Tenerife. The arrested people were 14 men, 13 women and 5 children under 12 years old. The police spokesman Juan Antonio Perez said that "Dr. Fittkau-Garthe had subjected the members to brainwashing, who now needed to be "deprogrammed". In the building a toxic chemical substance was found, it would probably have been used for collective poisoning. (The Boston, Mass. Globe for January 10, 1998, "Police Find Poison at Home of Suspected Cult Leader," page A-9.) On January 9, the police spokesman told the press that the UFO group had planned to go to Pico de Teide, an extinct volcano located 80 km southeast of Santa Cruz, and that at the top they had an appointment with the "space brothers" who were to take them aboard a spaceship. (Boston, Mass. Globe, January 10, 1998). The police had noted a large influx of Germans and Belgians this week, all members of the sect. Thanks to Interpol, the operation was successful, the case was also broadcast by Spanish television.

#January 18, 1998
USA, Paradise Township (Pennsylvania)
Hundreds of gallons of a strange substance, like a kind of brown wax, fell in the afternoon on the Snell family home. "It fell from the sky, splashing the roof, windows, walls, barn, driveway. The police don't know what it is, nor does anyone else. It's the color of mud but not granular. Our insurance agent ordered an analysis". Rose Snell discovered the substance when she returned home around 7:30 pm. She thought the boys had organized a mud battle. She was about to say two words to her son Marc, who at that moment was returning home. However, what he told her was very surprising. "I came home around 6 pm," he said, "and there was all this on the door, on the windows. There was also on the windshield of my car and I tried to remove it with a product. It only came off with difficulty. It's like paste or like wax..." The Snells then called the Northern York County police. When the patrolman arrived with his strobe light, they could then see that their entire property was covered with this material. Lt. Mark Bentzel has the impression that this substance fell from the sky. (Source: The Pennsylvania Daily Record for January 21, 1998)

#1998, February 18
Netherlands, Pendrecht (?)
On February 18, at 9:15 PM, I was going with my daughter to visit a friend. My daughter saw something coming and I exclaimed: "What is that?" and we stopped walking to look at the object. It was totally silent, no wind, no engine, nothing, we looked at it with our mouths open. It had a floor with semi-circular windows, everything was silent and it seemed like it was just us two. It seemed like we were alone in the world. I started screaming, but nobody heard us until the object had passed, which suddenly tilted and came towards us. I saw the ventral side and suddenly I saw three very large lamps (spherical) that looked like a triangle (sic). Then I saw a lot of small lamps and then my daughter and I only saw a very deep black hole. We started running. A few months later I had a tumor in my breast, with small tumors all around it. The doctor had no idea what it was but the tumors were not malignant. (Continued in December 1999) (Registered letter from C.V.d.L. to Ufo Belgium, Marc Broux, received on February 7, 2000 after a telephone interview on January 19, 2000)


#1998, February 19
USA, Toms River (New Jersey)
At 10 pm Bob M. and his friend, George P., were driving west on the Garden State Parkway (Route 37) when they approached a pine forest area. They decided to turn back onto Route 37 and make a U-turn. At this moment George had to slam on the brakes in order to avoid a large object next to the road, in a kind of clearing. The thing, in the shape of a saucer, resting on three legs, was only 10 meters away from them. They stared in amazement for a minute at this craft on three legs, with a kind of small staircase, all of it aluminum-colored, without any other markings, then Bob asked: "Do you see what I see?" George replied "If you see a flying saucer, that's exactly what I see..." They didn't want to stay there and, putting the pedal to the metal, they drove back onto the asphalt and the busy roads. Bob still wanted to go back, but George refused. So they drove straight home, and arrived an hour later. To their surprise the sun was rising! (It must have been 6:15 then) In their opinion it could only have been midnight. (Filer's Files #8 for 1998. George A. Filer of MUFON)

#1998, 8 March
Italy, near Rho (Lombardy)
Very early in the morning a local farmer observed a UFO in the shape of a pear with its tail pointing downwards, white in color. This thing was hovering above a wheat field. The farmer called his wife and together the couple observed the phenomenon for half an hour. However, during the middle of the observation, an opening appeared in the object and an occupant emerged from it: it was very small, between 60 and 80 cm tall, with very large black eyes. This occupant floated in the air, very close to its craft, for about 10 minutes. Then it went back inside and the object shot vertically into the air, lighting up. (Investigation in progress by Giancarlo D'Alessandro of the Italian Center for Ufological Studies: CISU; La Padania newspaper of 15.3.98)

#1998, 3 April
Germany, between Moringen - Lutterbeck - Fredelsloh (100 km south of Hannover)
Date: 3 April 1998 from 21.30 to 22.00
The night was dark and cloudy, there was no moon or stars when we were driving through the village of Fredelsloh. My wife, looking out the side window suddenly saw something dark covering the sky above our car. I was driving and looking at the road, so I didn't see anything special. A minute later a large rotating object came from the hill above the valley and crossed the road right above our car. We only saw the lights which were in two concentric circles, about 10 in the outer circle and 7 in the inner circle. The diameter must have been 50 meters. There were no colored lights: they were all white and each one was as bright as the car headlights. The rotation speed was about one and a half rotations per second, so it was not easy to distinguish one light at a time. But each light must have had a diameter of about 50 cm. This object flew at an altitude between 10 and 20 meters above the fields to a wood, in a bend, inclining as an airplane or helicopter would. But there it made a U-turn quickly to return to the road, stopping its trajectory near our car and flying alongside us at our speed which was 100 km/h.
Then the object rose up, inclining, and I could see its amazing size. It flew above the car to go to the other side, then made the reverse maneuver. This repeated 5 or 6 times during our journey. Apart from the noise of our car we heard nothing, felt nothing. The car radio was not on. The maximum speed of this object was 400 to 500 km/h and the acceleration observed was 2 to 3 g. (I know my speed, I know the points where the object crossed the road and the distance between these points and I made calculations) It is impossible that it was only a projection in this very cloudy sky. We met three other cars on the road. Did the occupants see what we saw? Thank you. Michael m_michael at gmx.net

#1998, April 12
Argentina, Bariloche
Four UFOs were observed immediately before and during a general power outage. The first power outage of the electrical network occurred at 7:45 PM and lasted until 10:11 PM. The spokespeople of the Cooperativa Electricidade Bariloche (CEB) claimed that there was no explanation for the event that left a large part of the city in darkness. The current was cut off on the transmission lines of the Cipresales substation. However, at 10:15 PM, there was a new general outage and it lasted until Monday, April 13 at 1:30 AM. The newspaper "Diario Rio Negro" reports the testimony of Gustavo and Beatriz Riveros who saw strange lights above the Cerro Carbon hill to the east. Beatriz saw two lights merge above a field, at the exact moment of the power outage. Other witnesses observed bizarre illuminations above Lake Nahuel Huapi. In the San Francisco neighborhood, a woman saw a red fireball descend in a zigzag towards the stairway cut into the rock at Triscornia. A luminous disc was observed elsewhere at the intersection of Calle Fernando Beschtete and Calle La Paz. Nicolas Lavalle saw four UFOs hovering: "there was one big one and three smaller ones," he said, "the small ones attached to the big one." Andrea Caparo and her sisters Natalia and Caroline observed around 11:30 PM a saucer "like a tomato and bigger than an airplane" huge with twinkling red, yellow, green and blue lights as well as another longer object with red and yellow lights. These objects remained in sustentation for several minutes before leaving towards the lake. (TOLAM Agency and AFP, Diario Popular Buenos Aires, Diario Rio Negro of April 14, 1998)

#April 19, 1998
Space
The shuttle "Space Ark" was launched for a "Neurolab" mission. The shuttle Columbia departed to complete its 25th mission, which will last two weeks. The goal is to study the effects of space travel on the brains of living species. In addition to the pilot Scott Altman, the commander Rick Searloss, and the crew, the voyage includes: 1514 larval crickets, 18 pregnant mice, 152 rats, 60 snails, 75 snail eggs, and 233 swordfish. (New York Post for April 18, 1998, "Shuttle roars off into space with a cast of thousands" and for April 19, 1998, "Shuttle crew looks to brainless rats for help.")

#April 25th 1998
Netherlands and England
The London newspapers Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail reported that the Royal Dutch Interceptor Squadron had pursued a giant triangular-shaped UFO over the North Sea. According to the Daily Mail, the RAF radar at Fylingdales in North Yorkshire had an echo of an unusual flying object, zigzagging at a speed of 17,000 mph (27,200 km/h) and RAF fighter planes were dispatched for interception, while two Dutch F-16s also attempted, but in vain, to approach the object, which increased its speed to reach 24,000 mph (38,400 km/h) flying northeast and towards the Atlantic Ocean (vog: weird... I thought the Atlantic was more to the west compared to the Netherlands...) Still according to this newspaper "official spokespersons of the RAF were dumbfounded by the object, which was really being piloted intelligently taking into account the numerous maneuvers it was executing". "It was triangular in shape and had the size of a warship, that is 900 feet (about 300 meters)"
According to the Daily Telegraph, "recordings studied by British and American experts, would show objects changing shape at mid-altitude as well as an object as big as a warship flying at 33 times the speed of sound". The recordings would be shown in June at the Space Symposium to be held at the RAF Cranwell Air Warfare Center in Lincolnshire." The newspapers published the articles on Monday April 27th, but the RAF press office denied that a joint operation with the Dutch had taken place concerning a UFO. They said that indeed a symposium would be held in June, but that it concerned military strategies in space and not UFOs at all. The Daily Telegraph wrote on April 29th 1998 "that it stood by its story and its RAF source". According to Graham W. Birdsall, editor of the English ufology magazine "UFO Magazine" this "source" would be Philip Burden, a former employee of the Ministry of Defense, who, when he was still engaged more than ten years ago, wrote small articles for the publication "RAF News". (Daily Telegraph for April 27, 1998, "RAF Spots Speeding UFOs with New Radar," Daily Mail for April 27, 1998, "24,000 MPH UFO Buzzes Britain." and Errol Bruce-Knapp, Graham W. Birdsall and Dave Clarke of BUFORA) (vog: IN REALITY I SUPPOSE THIS IS A HUGE JOURNALISTIC HOAX, this is also the opinion of Dutch ufologist Andy Denne of AURA.)


#1998, August 8
ITALY, Claut (Pordenone - Giulia)
At 5:30 in the morning, five people saw an extraterrestrial flying above the football field. According to Italian ufologist Antonio Chiumiento, two farmers, the manager of the football field and a tourist couple saw the phenomenon. The flying extraterrestrial then joined the saucer that was hovering high up. It then left at the speed of light. "Angelo F., one of the farmers, was taking his snack near the field before starting his work when he saw a multicolored object. In his opinion, it measured 70 cm at arm's length. The manager Angelo B. observed the thing as it passed over his head. He described it as "a humanoid with a big head and a very thin body, like a doll. The being must have measured about 130 cm tall and wore a body armor in the shape of a V and was in a "packaging" of light. Once the being had joined the UFO, it immediately shot off at a dizzying speed (Il Manifesto, Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno of 15.8.1998, and Edoardo Russo, Lucio Cassano and Remo Ponti).

#1998, August 10
Australia, Quirindi (near Tamworth, New South Wales)
(Investigators: Moira McGhee, Bill Chalker, Bryan Dickeson, Diane Harrison, Robert Frola UFO Group: INUFOR, UFOIC, UFOR(NSW), UFOICQ)
Mrs. Eunice Stansfield, 61, had just finished having tea in the garden with her daughter Noelene. It was about 1 pm, and she was bringing the cups into the house when she heard her daughter say "Oh no, here it comes!" Coming out of the house they saw "spider webs" falling from the sky where they saw about twenty silver balls maneuvering and accelerating at an altitude higher than commercial airplanes. The substance resembling spider webs was falling to the ground, on the telephone lines... Her daughter, who had stayed outside, was covered in it. Trying to grab them, they disintegrated in her hand. The family car was covered in it but when she tried to take them to put them in a jar, the thin threads disintegrated. (Tamworth's North Daily Leader, 10.08.98) On August 11, 1998, Moira McGhee from INUFOR visited the witnesses and was able to collect a closed yogurt pot that had been placed in the freezer in which a bit of the material had been kept. It was apparently intact and was subjected to analysis.
<br/><br/>During the observation, Mario, Eunice's husband, a former NATO pilot, estimated the altitude of the spheres to be 50-60,000 feet. Among the single balls there were two pairs of spheres connected to each other by a cylindrical shape. The observation lasted more than an hour and a half and probably close to two hours. These balls were coming from the east in waves and then began to maneuver. Eunice said that the largest ones measured 5 to 8 cm long at arm's length (if the altitude is correctly estimated, this gives them a diameter of between 820 and 980 meters. The maneuvers observed seemed very complicated and difficult to follow by a single witness. The spheres were gathering, approaching each other, moving away, flying making right-angle turns, making "mirror" maneuvers in pairs; the balls were coming slowly, then began to move quickly, flying directly over the house. At one point four of these spheres seemed to be placed one on top of the other while remaining motionless in the sky. Then the upper one fell forward, followed by the other two. All this seemed to be done in deliberate and controlled movements. Then from a V formation of 5 spheres, one went left, the other right and the three others then formed a straight line. Finally Mario saw one of the smallest spheres enter a formation of two large ones connected by a cylinder. No trail or emission was seen coming from these spheres. Until several seemed to drop something from the back. This something solidified when falling and had the appearance of spider webs covering the lines, trees, hedges, everything. During the observation Eunice was calling friends and neighbors asking if anyone could film the phenomenon. Weather conditions: it was the first day of blue sky after a period of rain, but the temperature was still cool for the season, there was a bit of wind. In the neighborhood and the region, all the dogs were barking frantically during the entire duration of the observation.

#1998, August 12
USA-SPACE
The spy satellite exploded directly after launch. The launch of the top secret Vortex satellite ended in disaster, 40 seconds after launch when its Titan 4A carrier missile exploded. The 20-story tall missile rose from its launch pad at Cape Canaveral at 7:30am on Wednesday, August 12, 1998 "nosedived and exploded without warning". Barely two seconds later, controllers activated the destruct command to break the missile into smaller pieces to minimize damage to people and things on the ground. The double bang was heard for miles around and set off all the alarms in the area. Most, if not all, of the pieces landed half a mile out to sea. Titan 4A was carrying 250 tons of highly toxic fuel. There were no reports of injuries. Built by Lockheed Martin Corp., the missile was carrying the Vortex satellite for the US National Reconnaissance Office, the NRO. This constitutes one of the largest financial losses in US space program history. The missile was estimated to be worth $300 million and the satellite was worth between $800 million and $1 billion. The satellite was supposed to orbit to provide the US with intelligence on "hot spots" in the Middle East, China, India, and Pakistan. (USA Today for August 13, 1998, "Rocket, spy satellite explode.")

#1998, August 21
Italy, Citta di Castello, Perugia.
People from one of the suburbs of Perugia, in Citta di Castello, claim to have seen "a flying humanoid extraterrestrial". The encounter took place on the outskirts of the suburb, where the witnesses saw "a small extraterrestrial bent like an old woman picking herbs". As the silhouette did not respond to the people's calls, they approached it cautiously.
"When they got to 200 meters from the being, something like a silver cylinder appeared. The cylinder began to hover two meters above the ground. The humanoid then rose up into the hovering object, which then quickly accelerated vertically, disappearing in a few seconds."
(Corriere dell'Umbria of 28.8.1998 and the Cisu, cfr Edoardo Russo, Simone Cumbo)

#1998, August 26
USA - SPACE
Another Galaxy satellite destroyed by an explosion during launch.
Galaxy 10 has joined the list of satellites that have had trouble this summer, following the explosion of its carrier rocket, 55 seconds after launch from Cape Canaveral. At 9 pm on Wednesday, August 26, the launch of Galaxy 10 was scheduled by the new Boeing Delta III rocket. The 225 million dollar communications satellite, owned by PanAmSat Corp., was to replace Galaxy 4, which mysteriously left its orbit at the end of May, interrupting communication services and TV channels worldwide.
The Delta III rocket, 12 stories high, began its ascent correctly after launch. But NASA's long-range cameras saw it nose-diving just before exploding into a huge orange fireball around the 55th second of flight. A large part of the rocket fell into the Atlantic Ocean 16 km east of Florida and exploded, causing a huge mushroom cloud that could be seen for miles. (USA Today for August 27, 1998, "Rocket blows up," and the Providence, R.I. Journal for August 27, 1998, "Another rocket explodes on liftoff," page 2.)

#1998, September 10
Russia (Kazakhstan) Baikonour
The end of summer 1998 marked the most catastrophic disaster concerning the launch of satellites. On September 10, 1998, Russia attempted to launch a missile carrying 12 commercial satellites from the Baikonour base. The Zenit-2 launcher departed without incident, but after 5 minutes of flight the device made a sudden downward curve and crashed. It would be a failure of the computers. On board were a dozen Globalstar, communications satellites built by Loral Space Systems Division of Loral Space and Communications Ltd of New York. The satellites were to serve as elements of a global system for mobile telephony and costing 2.6 million dollars. The missile and its cargo partially burned during their re-entry into the atmosphere (The Providence, R.I. Journal for September 11, 1998, "U.S. satellites destroyed in Russian-led launch," page A-7).

#1998, September 15
South Africa, Schalkrust (Lydenburg)
Engineer J.L. de Villiers was slowing his train to a stop at 3:32 a.m. as it approached the Schalkrust station, which is located near a 4 km square flat field. "A strange orange-yellow light was going up and down in the middle of the field at great speed," de Villiers said. "It was not a very big object, the size of a football or a bit more," he said. "This thing was going up to 20 meters high at great speed, came back to ground level, and then went up again. After a minute it vanished into thin air." Leon Bouwer, UFO Roundup's correspondent for South Africa, reports that there are several abandoned coal mines in the province of Mpumulanga (formerly Eastern Transvaal) where Schalkrust is located, and that possibly the train crew could have seen one of these gas geysers. (Stig Agermose, Errol Bruce-Knapp, Leon Bouwer and UFO ROUNDUP, Volume 3, Number 38, Editor: Joseph Trainor)

#1998, September 17
Himalaya, Mount Everest
Craig Calonica, an American climber, was descending from a high-altitude camp site when he saw two Yetis wandering in the snow. It was during his descent from 6500 meters to the site located at 5200 meters that he saw the creatures. He said they had thick, black and shiny fur and they walked in a human-like way, but with hunched shoulders. "I saw something and what I saw was not human, not a gorilla, not a bear, not a goat or a reindeer," said Calonica. The Nepalese cook of Calonica was a co-witness. The description of the Yeti is identical to that made by Lt. Col. C.K. Howard-Bury during his expedition in the Himalayas in 1921. This observation took place on the north face of Everest, about 56 km southeast of Dinggye, Tibet. (Reuters Agency and Erik Beckjord of the Sasquatch Research Project)

#1998, October 30th and 31st
USA, Baca Grande (Colorado)
In the newly partially built neighborhood, a woman was looking out the window and saw small extraterrestrials running through the garden. This person told her story to ufologist Christopher O'Brien. "It seemed like small objects were hitting the wall of the house at the same time," she said. "You can see the surroundings because there are no trees at all for about a hundred meters. The small extraterrestrials had heads proportionate to their size, which was about 1.20 m. In their run they were accompanied by some kind of very hairy pig."
The next day, Saturday October 31st, the woman saw a fast flying oval object enter through the garden door and then slow down as it rose into the hall, above her. The object had the color of milk with a reflective band around it, which seemed chrome. The witness was so stunned that she didn't want to look at the thing anymore, which gave the object the opportunity to disappear. She estimates that the thing was about 3 meters away from her. (Ufo Roundup, Volume 3, Number 45 November 9, 1998, Editor: Joseph Trainor - Christopher O'Brien, author of THE MYSTERIOUS VALLEY)

#1998, November 25
Spain, Seville, Moron de la Frontera Base.
Declaration of the radio amateur D.B.R. with the call sign "Alfa" residing in Alacala de Guadeira, Seville: "I am a career military man assigned to guard duty. At around 5 in the morning, two hours before the end of my guard duty in front of the special hangars 1-509 with my partner Pastor-Aleman, I heard a noise in the bushes, as if someone was sawing wood. My partner said to me: "Let's go! Let's go!" and with a machine gun in hand, I saw movement and I shouted "Who goes there?" without receiving an answer and I fired two shots in the air. From the bushes emerged a tall man, more than 2 meters. We did not have flashlights and so we did not see his features since it was still dark. But what scared us were his bright eyes, of a fluorescent green and so I shot a 20-bullet magazine at him. The man did not move, he stayed still. I shouted in panic to my partner to shoot too. But when he found himself in front of the huge man (he must have been close to 2 meters 50) he started to back away, then he started to whimper and put his head on my shoulder. I inserted another 40-bullet magazine. When I was ready to shoot, the man raised his hand as if in a salute, looking at me calmly with his luminous green eyes and he returned to the bushes. I looked around a bit, but I could not find him anymore. I called the central by walkie-talkie. They sent me a patrol and they took me to the commander. When I told him what had happened he said to me: "See, hear and be silent, and that is as soon as you leave this room." He immediately granted me an unsolicited week of leave. When I returned to my duty a week later, I went back to the site: there was no trace of anything: not even the shells, or even the ashes of my cigarette! Since that event I feel bad, I have cold sweats and my hands tremble just by thinking about it. Yet on the base strange things often happen, but none have disturbed me so much." (continued on December 5, 1998, same place, same witness)
The investigator adds that this military man aged more than 25, behaves as if he is persecuted, and only observes the street around his house in a state of true paranoia. (Carmen Pina, Box 1129, Seville, 19.6.1999)

#1998, December 5
Spain, Seville - Moron de la Frontera base
Account from radio amateur D.B.R. with the call sign "Alfa" residing in Alcalà de Guadaira, Seville: "In a special hangar, whose number I can't remember if it was 1-6 or -0, five patrols arrived. We had to surround the hangar. In less than ten minutes we were deployed and then a US ARMY trailer with a cylindrical shape resembling a missile (but I'm not sure if it was one) came out of the hangar. Its color was metallic silver, without any registration number or other references. On the object there was a hatch or a door that opened. At that precise moment the commander ordered us to keep the object in sight with our weapons. In this position we waited for a certain time for the appearance of an American plane in which the trailer with the cylindrical object was loaded. The transport plane took off escorted by two other planes." (UCU, Carmen Pina, PO BOX 1129, Seville) (vog: I highly doubt that the cylinder has anything to do with extraterrestrials. ...)