Peru: A Mysterious Flying Object over Miraflores (1950)

Source: PLANETA UFO and El Comercio (Peru)
Date: 06.13.2018
An article by Miguel Garcia Medina

Peru: A Mysterious Flying Object over Miraflores (1950)

The enigmatic subject of UFOs is no stranger to the pages of the El Comercio newspaper, as evidence by a copious amount of articles in our files.

The year 1950 records considerable information about unidentified flying object sightings in many parts of the world. There is one that stands out from the rest given the place and the witness associated with the sighting. "A flying disk has been seen in the skies over Lima," says El Comercio in its 15 March 1950 edition.

"There were numerous witnesses to the strange object that was seen flying from Chorrillos to El Callao," says El Decano. "The mysterious fireball stopped over Parque Salazar in Miraflores before heading northwest, vanishing behind San Lorenzo Island."



Following the enigmatic events at Roswell in the U.S., oftentimes called into question but remembered to this day, the presence of beings from other worlds here on Earth became a matter enshrouded in mystery. We are referring to the event that took place in July 1947, when an alien spacecraft allegedly crashed into our planet on American soil.

This incident brought the matter of UFOs to the first pages of newspapers worldwide, and it is therefore not surprising that events linked with extraterrestrials multiplied in the print media.

To this day, sightings worldwide, including Peru, are in the thousands, although only a few have a documentary record (photos, videos, etc.) and many more have remained as mere witness accounts, such as this one published by El Comercio over 65 years ago.

This is a strange event that took place on Saturday, 11 March 1950 in Lima and was described in detail to the newsroom of this publisher by Julián Gardol, an airport engineer with Panagra -- Pan American Grace Airways. The story has a special turn to it, as the witness was an official who was well-versed with aviation, and his story is framed within the prior knowledge that adds greater likelihood to his story.

"It was more or less 8:20 in the evening," Gardiol explains, "when the strange sighting occurred," adding: "There were many people strolling and chatting around Parque Salazar. The sky was dark and moonless. Suddenly a luminous orange sphere, larger than any star, appeared over Morro de Chorrillos."

"At first it was thought that it could be a heavenly body of considerable magnitude, or a meteor flying swiftly through space. It was later ascertained that this was not the case. The object traveled to where we were, passing over Chorrillos, stopping for five minutes, remaining motionless, only to quickly head out to sea."

[Translation (c) 2018 S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Guillermo Giménez]

Mexico: UFOs of the 1960s

Mexico: UFOs of the 1960s
By Scott Corrales
[Excerpt from "Forbidden Mexico", Institute of Hispanic Ufology Press, 1999]

In spite of the considerable number of UFO sightings during this time period, it wasn't until the following decade that the UFO phenomenon would add itself to the other events which stirred the national consciousness, such as increased political radicalism among the young, the massacre of innocents at Tlatelolco in 1968 and the troubled '68 Olympics -- events which mirrored similar developments in France and in the United States.

One of the most impressive photographs of a UFO during this period was the 1965 snapshot taken by Juan David Mateos. According to the photographer's testimony, he was driving along the road from Villa Ahumada to Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, when he saw a dark, oval shaped craft approaching at an altitude of less than twenty meters and a distance of only sixty meters. Mateos stopped the car and clicked away at the unknown object, earning himself a place in saucer history.

On July 10, six residents of the city of Chilpancingo, capital of the state of Guerrero, were left spellbound by the maneuvers of two large, glowing objects in the darkened skies over their community--a two-hour performance which would be replayed later that month over Mexico City, where another pair of brilliant objects remained suspended at treetop level before shooting off into the sky.

Two students at Mexico City's Instituto Nacional Politécnico would become the protagonists of a still-debated "close encounter of the 3rd kind" which would be among the first of its kind in the country. The brothers Yayo and Payo Rodríguez achieved national prominence when on the morning of August 19, 1965, at eight o'clock in the morning, they claimed having witnessed the landing of a sizeable glowing disk on an open field near the Politécnico's campus. The otherworldly vehicle allegedly charred vegetation as it settled to the ground on its tripodal landing gear. As if the landing of this spaceship, drawn straight from My Favorite Martian, wasn't enough, the Brothers Rodríguez also claimed that a pair of diminutive beings wearing respirators of some kind emerged from the craft and walked up to the terrified students, depositing at their feet a metallic object. The dwarfish "away team" returned silently to their conveyance, which took to the air in a matter of seconds.

The Rodríguezes delivered the putative extraterrestrial fragment to the campus laboratory, where it was apparently subjected to analysis by investigators. According to an article in Mexico's El Gráfico newspaper (defunct) a few days later, a number of journalists and photgraphers from different media organizations visited the site, where burn marks were plainly visible and where traces of a curious liquid, characterized as "fuel" were found. Despite the good physical evidence, Yayo and Payo were not considered credible witnesses. Even Dr. Santiago García, in his landmark book OVNIS Sobre México, would headline his chapter on the Rodríguez case as "¿de cual fumarían?" ("which did they smoke?").

The age of the great UFO-induced blackouts was about to begin during these troubled years. As a foretaste, perhaps, of what would happen later on across the northeastern U.S., the city of Cuernavaca, some fifty miles south of Mexico City, would suffer three separate power failures on the night of September 23, 1965. The Ultima Hora newspaper indicated that the blackout had been caused by a large luminous flying saucer which crossed the heavens over the city--an inverted soup-bowl device which was seen not only by thousands of citizens but by city mayor Emilio Riva Palacios, who was attending the opening of a film festival with members of his cabinet. The lights went out during the showing, and upon going outside, the city fathers were treated to the sight of the massive object's glow, which reportedly filled all of Cuernavaca valley.

But the force behind all these aerial phenomena appeared to be enamoured of la capital, Mexico City, with its juxtaposition of massive colonial structures, modern skyscrapers and ancient ruins: it chose the 16th of September, the one hundred fifty-fifth anniversary of Mexico's independence from Spain, to manifest half a dozen luminous objects over the city's skies, casting downtown Mexico City into unbreakable gridlock as drivers left their vehicles to take a better look at the phenomenon. Newspapers reported that aviation authorities had received in excess of five thousand telephone calls from people asking if they had also seen platillos voladores. On September 25, a citizenry weary of craning their necks skyward endured another leisurely display of the unknown as a vast luminous body passed overhead, remaning motionless for a while before shooting out of sight at a terrific speed. Only days later, two smaller objects would buzz the gilded dome of Mexico's Palacio de Bellas Artes, a turn of the century structure that dominates La Alameda park. The early evening sighting was witnessed by a few dozen people waiting at a bus stop; they described the objects as "enormous luminous bodies with intermittent sparkling lights."

By this point in time, some of the world's major newspapers had picked up on Mexico's saucer situation. Paris's Le Figaro reprinted an editorial from Italy's Corriere della Sera on the subject: "Mexico City International Airport has officially recorded, of late, some three thousand cases of mysterious apparitions described in detail. At nightfall, people gather on the terraces and balconies of their homes to search the skies...a clamor of voices can occasionally be heard, saying: "There goes one! Can you see it?" Invariably, what follows is this: traffic is paralyzed on neighoring streets, since drivers also want to partake of the spectacle. The roadways grind to a halt, leading to monstrous traffic jams. After a while, witnesses to tho the event are willing to swear that the presence of platillos voladores causes engines to stall and plunges homes into darkness. Throughout Mexico, the number of blackouts has been inexplicably high..."

[At this point, the reader will allow me to insert a personal note. These mysterious blackouts continued well into the Seventies when I lived in Mexico City. My family's apartment overlooked busy Avenida Insurgentes--the artery that sections the city from north to south--and every room had a wall-to-wall, ceiling-to floor window offering an unlimited view of the avenue, the houses and buildings on the other side, and the mountains in the distance. It was not at all uncommon for the light to brown out and then black out completely, leaving people stuck in elevators and snarling traffic for hours at intersections. But the common denominator to all these blackouts, in my eight-year-old mind, was the bright yellow light that could be seen without fail crossing the sky in the horizon. Was it indeed a UFO? Who can say?]

Spanish ufologist Antonio Ribera, who kept careful tabs on the Mexican scenario, indicates in his book América y los OVNIS (Posada, 1977) that foreign sources as unlikely as Kenya's Mombasa Times were carrying stories about the situation: On October 2, 1965, a fourteen year old girl in the city of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, ran away screaming in fright when a flying disk some twenty feet in diameter dropped out the heavens to hover directly over while issuing a soft, whistling sound. The object was surrounded by multicolored lights which appeared to dangle from it. After this daytime apparition, the object was seen over the same city again at night.

The coming of 1966 gave Mexico a respite from its ufological experiences, but it was to be a brief one. 1967 would rekindle the frenzied activity of the preceding year.

On Saturday, February 11, 1967, a Guatemalan Aviateca airliner managed to avoid a near-collision with a UFO as the airliner prepared its final approach to Mexico City's saucer-plagued airport. The airliner's pilot, Col. Alfredo Castañeda, radioed the tower that a silvery round object, with what appeared to be "a reddish ball" on top of it, had suddenly crossed the airliner's path as it flew over Oaxaca. His co-pilot, the flight attendants and many of the passengers had also been witnesses to the unusual and possibly hazardous phenomenon. Mexico's airport limited itself to saying that the intruder "could not have been a weather balloon."

Stories began to circulate on March 30, 1967 regarding the collision of a spindle-shaped object against a hillside near Mezcala, state of Guerrero. A reporter for Ultima Hora indicated that at least a thousand residents of the village of Xochilapa had seen the object plummet earthward and heard the deafening explosion which inevitably followed. Many of the villagers agreed that the heavenly bullet had been roughly cigar-shaped and emitted a blinding light, "making it impossible to confuse with a meteorite." An infantry unit of the Mexican Army was allegedly dispatched to collect the object's remains, but nothing else was heard about the event.

Between 8:00 and 8:30 p.m. on May 7, 1967, the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Hidalgo, Veracruz were visited by a veritable celestial armada of UFOs: at least twenty individual blue, yellow and red lights flew in formation over the heads of thousands of bewildered onlookers. The formation was spearheaded by a colossal red saucer and leisurely appeared to be following a northwesterly course. Newspapers in these four states carried the story but no photographs of the formation. A similar occurence took place on August 6, 1967, when the citizens of Poza Rica, Veracruz, were treated to the sight of several "waves" of unidentified flying objects -- each wave having its own color -- as they flew overhead to become lost over the Gulf of Mexico.

While the Poza Ricans gawked at the spectacle, Captain Angel Fojo of Aeromexico Flight 145 was facing a similar prospect: at an altitude of twenty thousand feet over the state of Guanajuato, his DC-9 was running into a formation of three glowing disks an estimated 30 miles away from the airliner. Captain Fojo's best estimate was that the speeding objects crossed the horizon in a matter of thirty to forty seconds.

The late Jim and Coral Lorenzen of APRO documented a considerable number of cases occuring in Central and South America in '67, and while Mexico's UFO activity during this particular year was by no means as significant as the "fleets" (to use the Lorenzen's own expression) that were engaged in a show of force over Argentina and Uruguay, APRO's files nonetheless contained a few cases of great interest regarding our southern neighbor.

As indicated in their book UFOs Over the Americas (Signet, 1968), APRO's founders were on their way to visit a number of South American locations and took advantage of a layover in Mexico City to meet with their correspondent, Jesús H. Garibay, who briefed them on the most important cases at the time. One of them involved two witnesses (a father and daughter) to the landing and takeoff of a UFO, with the added benefit of the photographs taken of the event.

"The principal witness," wrote Coral Lorenzen, "is a mechanical engineer, and the other is his daughter. On May 6, 1967, the two were driving between Durango and Mazatlán. At 11:00 a.m., they spotted a disc-shaped object on the ground off the highway. They stopped the car and took three photos as the object was taking off. The first shows the object at the level of the treetops, partially hidden by a tree. Two parts of its landing gear are clearly shown. The second shows the object apparently in flight against the clear sky: no landing gear are visible in this exposure. The third photo showed nothing. APRO is still on the track of this set of photos, and not knowing if the principals want publicity or not, we have decided not to release any names at this time." (p.65)

The remainder of the year and the beginning of the following one would simply be a repetition of sightings until December 30, 1968, when a mountain rescue team on the slopes of the Popocatepetl volcano witnessed the maneuvers of a strange object conducting maneuvers over the summit of the nearby Iztaccíhuatl volcano. The artifact moved deliberately toward the mountain's eastern glaciers before flying toward Puebla, vanishing from sight. The object would come into view once more during its return trip to the mountains at 8:00 p.m.

Carlos A. Guzmán of Mexico's CIFEEAAC, happened to be one of the researchers in this early case. His group's findings indicated that the mountain rescue team's sighting was corroborated by a number of reports from the city of Puebla at the time: the newsroom of the city's El Sol de Puebla was swamped with phone calls from all over the city, reporting the maneuvers of "a strange white object, as bright as the planet Venus, flying noiselessly over the city." One witness, Francisco Martínez, claimed to have seen not only the object itself, but the various lights which composed it; Reynaldo Ponce, a student at Puebla's distinguished school of architecture, observed the UFO through a theodolite and was able to make a sketch based on his sighting. The entire report was compiled by APRO correspondent Jesús Hernandez Garibay and forwarded to that organization's Arizona-based headquarters.

A year later, on September 18, 1968, Antonio Nieto-- a cab driver plowing the city of Coatepec's main avenue -- thought that an otherwise slow night was coming to an end when he pulled over to pick up a fare, or so he thought: his would-be passenger turned out to be a black-clad figure with glowing hands and enormous cat-like eyes that glowed eerily in the taxi's lights as it stood on the curb. The terrified cab driver stepped on the gas and put as much distance as he could between himself and the frightful apparition.

As chance would have it, he ran into a fellow cabdriver who had also been hailed by the nightmarish apparition. Leaving one cab behind, both men set off in the other vehicle and went in search of a local journalist, who accompanied them to the spot where the improbable creature had last been seen. Their effort was rewarded by a third encounter with the entity, which now held in its glowing hands a crystal wand which emanated a radiance that hurt the eyes. A staff writer for Mexico City's Excelsior noted that in spite of the ufonauts' vaunted ability to cross space, they encountered the same difficulty as Earthlings when it came to hailing a cab.

High Strangeness could also be found in the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. On February 17, 1969, an unknown animal washed up on Veracruzan shores at a location known locally as "El Palmar de Susana" between the fishing communities of Tecolutla and Hautla. The authorities were dumbfounded by their find: the creature's head weighed approximately a ton, measuring 6 feet across and 4 feet from top to bottom. Scientists who at first thought they were dealing with a decomposing whale carcass were startled by a 9-foot long "beak" that projected from the skull. The creature's hide was described as "wooly" and resistant to all manner of knives, machetes, axes and saws. Biologists Sergio García, Martín Contreras and Daniel Yutch were entrusted with studying the cryptid without reaching any conclusive results. According to Dr. Rafael Lara Palmeros, the mystery remains were purchased by the University of California, and their final whereabouts are equally enigmatic.

Argentina: Operación NOA - The Infiernillo Lights

Argentina: Operación NOA - The Infiernillo Lights
By Luis Burgos

The wilderness of El Infiernillo is among the twelve most mentioned places where UFO event play out regularly. It is located in Northwestern Tucumán at 3042 meters above sea level in the midst of the Valles Calchaquíes on Route No. 307, linking the provinces of Salta and Tucumán. The case histories have repeated with the same likeness and behavior: Lights that issue from the mountains, some of them pursuing vehicles, others that land in the middle of the road, etc. The question is the same that we ask about the other eleven similar sites in Argentina. What is there in that region that is so attractive to them? For the time, all we have are hypotheses. Let's examine some of the best-known cases of their time:

On the night of November 4 1962, Pier Livio Quaia, a trucker, was driving along the Salta-Tucuman route and paused when he noticed an oval-shaped object in the middle of the road. It measured some 12 meters in diameter and was red, white and green in color and surrounded by windows. The object flew over his truck, causing it to shudder, and making a strong whistling sound. The trucker fired shots at the object.


In early November 1962, young José Torramorel and Hernán Caverlotti were riding in a motorcycle along the route that links both provinces. In the vicinity of El Infiernillo, an incandescent, spherical object measuring some twenty meters in diameter landed at the same time the motorbike pulled to a halt. Two other cars also slowed down in the vicinity. Another similar object touched down on a hillside. After a while both devices lifted off and the bikers ascertained that their machine was unusable and that they now sported burn marks on their arms.

On August 10, 1970, another truck driver reported that while driving along that desolate stretch of road, he witnessed an oval-shaped object, measuring 20 meters in diameter and issued a dull buzzing noise. This object accompanied him for a fair stretch of road until it took off, leaving a blue wake in the sky.

[Translation (c) 2018 S. Corrales, IHU]

Argentina: Residents of Chos Malal Reportedly See a "Flying Saucer"

Source: lmneuquen.com and Luis Burgos
Date: 06.04.2018


Argentina: Residents of Chos Malal Reportedly See a "Flying Saucer"

The phenomenon occurred in recent hours. One local told LU5 that it descended in a field scant meters from her home.

A resident of Chos Malal reported a strange phenomenon that took place in recent hours in a rural of the Northern Neuquén locality.

Marisa San Martín told LU5 that an unidentified flying object (UFO) startled her relatives in a field 30 kilometers distant from the town. "It was 50 meters from the house, lighting up everything, causing my mother astonishment," said the woman.

The vehicle, seen by its light from the Chos Malal urban area, did not get to land. The situation took place on Tuesday night at around 20:30 hours, but had already been seen on Monday.

"It was about 6 meters in the air and remained for some 20 minutes, then it took off," said Marisa, who added: "Something similar occurred two years ago."

She denied that it could be a drone since the area where the "flying saucer" was located has no vehicular access that would have allowed anyone to enter and pilot the object. It wasn't a car either.

"Many took it as a joke, but several people saw it from Chos Malal itself," insists Marisa, adding: "My mother was left in a state of panic and fear, because we don't know what it might be."

[Translation (c) 2018 S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Luis Burgos, ICOU]

Operación NOA - Remembering the Belén UFO Case

Source: ICOU (Argentina)
Date: 05.30.2018

Operación NOA - Remembering the Belén UFO case
By Luis Burgos

A controversial case occurred in this locality of Catamarca in the late 1950s. Fernando Arquibola García claimed to have made contact with a "cylindrical" UFO resting vertically over a road in Belén at noon on January 1, 1958.

While the percipient was not aware of the presence of any occupants (beings), he perceived "voices" in Spanish issuing from within the object, sending out messages.

Whether the case is real or a fabrication, what makes it special is that it is apparently the first case involving the non-telepathic transmission of messages without visible entities in sight, but with a UFO in plain sight! Either the humanoids chose to refuse to disembark from their craft or telepathic communication wasn't fully perfected at the time (?). Argentinean ufology never recorded a similar case again.

[Translation (c) 2018 S. Corrales, IHU]

Mexico: The North American T-28 Trojan, The Mexican Air Force and UFOs

Source: Alfonso Salazar
Date: 05.31.2018

Mexico: The North American T-28 Trojan, The Mexican Air Force and UFOs
By Alfonso Salazar

The story was told to me by an aeronautical engineer who served in the Mexican Air Force around the 1970s, flying in a squadron of T-28s based out of Cozumel.



On several occasions, while conducting nocturnal flights, they were able to observe several luminous objects over the sea engaging in maneuvers that were impossible for any known airplane or helicopter. These lights were red and orange. Even mechanics and ground personnel at Air Base Number 4 in Cozumel got to see these luminous objects, which we would undoubtedly classify as unidentified flying objects (UFOs). No reports were ever filed about what the pilots saw over the water, and many pilots were convinced that these were indeed UFOS.



[Translation (c) 2018 S. Corrales, IHU]

Mexico: "Black Diamond" over Toluca on Video

Source: El Diario de Santiago (www.radiosantiago.cl) and Planeta UFO
Date: 05.25.2018

Mexico: "Black Diamond" over Toluca on Video

Chile's Radio Santiago posted a news item concerning an unidentified object with a curious configuration, featured in a video reportedly taken in the Mexican city of Toluca. The text - kindly provided to us by Planeta UFO - reads as follows:

"We were sent this record from the city of Toluca in the state of Mexico. Is it a UFO or one of the so-called Globos de Cantoya (Chinese Lanterns)? It should be noted that Cantoya Balloons are illuminated within, and this UFO appears to lack any lights whatsoever."

The video of the unusual daylight object is available at: https://youtu.be/F7Hu6HwKXjM

Argentina: "Wandering UFO" over Retiro

Source: Cronica (Buenos Aires) and Planeta UFO
Date: 05.27.2018

Argentina: "Wandering UFO" over Retiro

A flying object caught the attention of a pedestrian in the vicinity of the microbus terminal.
The object flew over the 'Reloj de los Ingleses' at Plaza San Martin.

Hugo Cubas was walking to work along a path in Plaza San Martín, in the heart of the eponymous district in Retiro, on Friday May 18 around 7 o'clock.

According to his testimony, it was a beautiful morning, when suddenly, from behind the tower of a major international hotel, he saw an image in the sky that caught his attention, as it was not an airplane or a helicopter, but nevertheless under intelligent control. He immediately took out his cellphone and took three snapshots, one of them with the enormous building to the left of the UFO.

The second photo had Torre de los Ingleses in the foreground, with an passenger airliner that had either taken off from the Jorge Newbery Airport or about to land there.



The third photo shows another commercial airliner flying north, probably over Rio de La Plata. In the foreground there is the bough of a large tree and to the right, yet again, the strange, seemingly solid light that moves intellgently.

Although Cubas kindly shared his images with us in an effort to ascertain whether it was a hot air balloon or a weather balloon, it was impossible to confirm the presence of any known objects in the vicnity. What is clear is that Buenos Aires, like many other places around the world, was the scene of an inexplicable event in its skies.

[Translation (c) 2018 S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Guillermo Giménez, Planeta UFO. Photos courtesy of Cronica and Mr. Hugo Cubas]

Mexico: Airliner Struck By UFO (2015)

Our friend and colleague Alfonso Salazar shares with us some photographs of the Interjet Airbus A-320 (Registration XA-BIO) that was struck by an unidentified flying object at 23:00 hours on 15 August 2015. The photos were taken by personnel at Mexico City International Airport and the case was investigated by Mr. Salazar himself.

Giant Triangular UFO Visited Antofagasta Twice (1978)

[The late Dr. Osvaldo Muray was perhaps one of Chile’s most enterprising researchers, and INEXPLICATA is honored to have featured his work in past issues. Our friend and colleague Raul Núñez has shared the latest issue of NOUFA (Noticiero Ufológico Autónomo - #55, May 2018) with an article by Dr. Muray that will startle our readers – Scott Corrales, IHU]

Giant Triangular UFO Visited Antofagasta Twice
By Dr. Osvaldo Muray

In both instances, aircraft from the Chilean Air Force based at Cerro Moreno scrambled in pursuit of the UFO, whose size was estimated at fifty times that of a fighter-bomber. During its second visit, it was witnessed by thousands of onlookers from San Pedro de Atacama until it hovered above the air base.

A flying triangle of a size equivalent to some fifty fighter bombers (an estimated length of three hundred meters) visited the city of Antofagasta during the second half of 1978 and in both instances was pursued by fighters from the Antofagasta Cerro Moreno air facility of the Chilean Air Force, obviously without much success. This is one of the most spectacular events to have taken place in Chile in modern times, and curiously both events are scarcely known, in spite of the fact that it among the best-documented cases, with witnesses and experiencers of the highest solvency one could wish.

The first case occurred round the month of October, 1978, and the second in December. Two FaCH pilots were involved in the first and during the second, three pilots sent by an Air Force general. During the second incident, the giant flying triangle was seen from San Pedro de Atacama (on the border with Argentina) until it reached the coast, which means a journey four hundred kilometers in less than five minutes. The second case involved hundreds of witnesses who followed the path of the mysterious vessel, which after displaying itself in a broad area of Chile’s Sixth Region, vanished as enigmatically as it arrived.

There are no exact dates for either the first or second case. However, both were confirmed by Gen. Benjamin Opazo Brull, Wing Commander 1, based at Cerro Moreno, shortly after the spectacular fighter chases became known. It is possible, however, to place the first of them around October, and its main protagonist was Captain Danilo Catalán Farias, a pilot with eleven years’ experience in fighter aircraft at the time.



According to the stories that became known months after the events occurred, it was said that Catalán and another pilot were given orders to scramble their fighters and intercept an enormous object of unknown origin approaching from the Argentinean border toward Antofagasta. Two F5-E fighters took off swiftly to accomplish the mission.

Shortly after takeoff, Catalan’s wingman had to return to base due to being low on fuel, while the task ahead promised to be long and without a clearly scheduled return. Danilo Catalán opened his afterburners and placed himself only a few miles from the object, ascertaining that it was triangular and enshrouded in a strange cloudiness. The UFO did not welcome the Chilean flyer’s scrutiny and perhaps in a display of its immense superiority, made an unexpected 90-degree turn, impossible for any terrestrial aircraft, and vanished from the airspace.

Captain Catalán, in the measure that the enormous and enigmatic craft drew closer, provided a detailed description of what was going on during the cat-and-mouse game. These details were forwarded immediately to the Air Force Command for two major reasons: one, the case could prove to be extraordinary and have an unexpected outcome, and two, the Air Force Commandant at the time, Gen. Fernando Matthei, had a particular interest in the subject.

Catalán’s flight toward the giant triangle was very swift, since the pilot had been ready to take off on a training mission. At that precise moment, the control tower advised him that the radar screens showed an unidentified flying object – a concept involving any aircraft entering national airspace and remaining unidentified until it is indeed identified and requests permission to transit through the air corridors.

Catalan’s wingman’s fighter set off to intercept the object but was unable to find it. Low on fuel, it returned to base. Catalán substituted his companion in finding the UFO, gaining altitude until he found it, coming within two miles of the object. At that altitude, they were aware of what they were getting involved with.

The pilot was able to see a massive structure, larger than any known airplane. The weather was clear with excellent visibility. The shock waves produced between two aircraft as they approach each other were tremendous, which gave an idea of the UFO’s size. Finding itself harried, the object made the turn discussed earlier and disappeared.

All of this was picked up and ascertained by the radar at the Cerro Moreno control tower.

The disappearance of the flying triangle did not mean the matter was over…at least not for the UFOs.



The UFO returned in mid-December, two months after Captain Danilo Catalán’s failed pursuit. This time it was accompanied by tremendous expectation as it made its way over the heads of thousands of onlookers in a wide area of the Chile’s Second Region.

The first to become aware of the UFOs presence were the Carabineros (state police) of San Pedro de Atacama, a small Chilean community close to the border with Argentina and Bolivia. The policemen radioed their superiors in Antofagasta, some 400 kilometers to the west, that an enormous object with blinding lights was headed for the coast.

Students of the Instituto Superior de Carabineros who were surveying the area had a similar sighting. The object was later seen by thousands of residents of the city of Calama and picked up by the control tower at the city’s airport.

News of the UFO’s presence reached the control tower of the Cerro Moreno air base in Antofagasta, where three F5-E fighter-bombers were scrambled. The squadron consisted of Cmdr. Javier Prat Colon, Capt. Luis Lira Bustos and Lt. José Fernández Marín. Commander Prat subsequently made the following narration of their fantastic experience:

“The time was approximately twenty hours on a day in December 1978 when we were given the order to take off. Calama had advised us of a large object at some 10,000 feet. When I was in flight, I was told to head to the vicinity of Maria Elena (a major nitrate field), where it had been seen last. I flew there, and it was still daylight. It was completely clear, cloudless and there was still some darkness in the upper elevations.

“We teamed up with the fighter behind me at 20,000 feet to insure that we would be above whatever we were going to encounter. We headed for the area and found nothing at all. After making a few turns over Maria Elena and Pedro de Valdivia (another nitrate field), we found a third fighter engaged in a similar task, that is to say, finding an object allegedly at ten thousand feet.

“In order to confirm this, I looked first to the east, where it should have been darker and stars should have been visible, but there were none. It was toward the zenith, and even toward the West, that we found the large UFO. I asked Lt. José Fernandez Marin in the other plane if he could see something shining to our left and replied affirmatively, adding that he was heading it its direction. There was a ten mile or more separation between us. Lt. Fernandez had fallen behind and I had lost him from sight during one of the turns, and he was approaching at high speed. He employed the excess velocity to make direct run at the UFO.

“I asked him to read out his altitude. I didn’t see it, but I began my own turn and ascended toward the UFO. Since we did not have it in sight and were heading toward a common point, we had to be careful. I told the control tower that we had seen the UFO, we were heading for it and that I estimated it to be at some 70,000 feet. I later thought that I’d exaggerated the altitude. I repeat: I estimate some 70,000 feet, as Fernández read out the distance. He ascended to 30,000 and I flew at 25,000, keeping five thousand feet between us. At the moment that Fernandez’s aircraft began condensing, we were already at some thirty five or thirty eight thousand feet.

“By design, the fighter cannot go beyond 50,000 feet. I then told him to advise me when he’d exceeded that mark. I reached 48,000 and Fernández hit 53,000, and the UFO was still overhead. When we were around thirty five thousand feet, the object began changing its configuration from round to triangular, and the ratio I managed to estimate been the UFO and Fernandez’s aircraft was one to fifty, approximately, and I can say this, because in order for the UFO to be visible from as far away as Tocopila, Cerro Moreno, Calama and other points from which it could be seen simultaneously meant that it size must be tremendous. The Carabineros from Monturaqui and San Pedro de Atacama were the first to see it and they notified the other plane (the one flown by Captain Lira).

“The UFO was completely motionless. I can say this because we were flying under it at 48,000 feet.”
Lieutenant Fernández added the following on his part: “I exceeded 53,000 feet, but at 35,000 feet I advised Commander Prat that I could see the UFO had a triangular shape and asked him for confirmation. He replied that it was triangular. From then on, it grew in size but remained in a well-defined triangular configuration, very well defined.”

Commander Prat added to the object’s description: “It was a triangle, and I explain it as looking like three neon lights joined at their ends. The color was the same color as neon light – an intense blue color, very intense. It was black at its core, but Lieutenant Fernández says that pilots in the other fighter reported seeing something in the black part.”

Lieutenant Fernández added: “What I was able to see in the black area was really that it was darker, that is to say, it remained blue but more diffuse, and its shape was completely triangular. It seemed to have a ribbon…but I saw nothing else.”

Commander Corona recalls: “It was as quite a shock. I told myself, ‘this is the second time’ – I remembered what happened to Captain Danilo Catalán. I didn’t know that his sighting had involved a triangular object. I related it due to the fact that it escaped from him at a ninety-degree angle and increased its speed. That’s how I connected it to him.”

Fernández: “Personally, it gave me an odd sensation when I first saw it. Later, as I closed in and began to ascertain its shape, I thought it might be a high speed jet, and if so, we would never catch up with it. But when I flew beneath it and saw it was perfectly static, I thought it must be a UFO because I couldn’t find a logical explanation for it. My impression was to feel a measure of disquiet for the unknown.” He adds: “I don’t think it was terrestrial. Given its size and shape, it’s practically impossible that an aircraft of that type could remain aloft as it did. Finally, we returned to base and were able to see that the UFO remained a long time before vanishing.”

Captain Luis Lira, who joined the pursuit of the triangular object, had this to say: “I made contact with the UFO on the ground. We were off-duty at the base when a warning from Carabineros came in, reporting that an unidentified object had flown from San Pedro de Atacama toward Calama. Logically, we didn’t believe it and thought, well, let’s see what happens. It’s a prank. Five minutes later, a subofficer informed us that we had an unidentified flying object directly over the base. An officer went out to check, and then said: “Hey, there really is a thing overhead.”

“We went out to look. All of us present were pilots. We looked at the runway and saw an object looking like a very bright balloon at an elevation we placed at between six and seven thousand feet. Finally, we decided to go up in a plane and see what was going on. Five minutes had elapsed from the moment that Carabineros gave notice from San Pedro de Atacama until the UFO was parked over our base.

“When we reached twenty two thousand feet, and could see it closer, we had the impression that it wasn’t a balloon. It was a triangle, very bright, like aluminum, reflecting the sun brightly. They triangle looked exactly as it had been described by the other pilots. At that moment we thought the UFO was turning toward us. I say we thought, because I don’t think the object really made a turn. We felt afraid. I even told my co-pilot: “hey, it’s turning toward us”, and he replied “it sure is.” We headed downward in a typical combat maneuver, but when we could tell that the vessel had returned to its original course, we climbed and reached 25,000 feet.”

When Captain Luis Lira was asked about the object’s size, he had this to say: “According to calculations one could make, at its altitude and dimensions, I daren’t say anything because its size had to extraordinary. I personally believe that here must be civilizations elsewhere.”

However, we have Commander Prat Corona’s opinion. Having his wingman’s aircraft in view along with the UFO, he was able to deduce that the flying triangle was 50 times larger than the F5-E fighter-bomber. In other words, the mysterious object must have been 300 meters long.

UFOs of this type are seldom seen around the world. More than an aircraft, they have been compared to floating cities. The people of Antofagasta had the extraordinary privilege of seeing such a unique specimen of extraterrestrial fauna twice.

[Translation © 2018, S. Corrales, IHU]