Bolivia: Residents of La Paz Treated to UFO Sighting

Source: La Prensa (newspaper)
http://www.laprensa.com.bo/noticias/12-10-09/noticias.php?nota=12_10_09_alfi1.php
Date: 10.15.09

Bolivia: Residents of La Paz Treated to UFO Sighting

A swarm of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) was seen yesterday in the skies of La Paz by residents of that city’s northern section. A physicist asked for restraint when making interpretations of this event.

According to witnesses, the objects were observed between 13:30 and 14:00 hours.

“We were on our way out when we saw strange objects flying in the sky, and that prompted several neighbors to come out and take a look,” said Guillermo Balboa, a resident of Calle Bolivar in the Agua de la Vida district.

With his eyes fixed on the horizon, he pointed his index finger at the point in the sky where he saw the two strange flying objects. These were spheres that drew the attention of locals, who contacted the media to express their alarm.

Balboa added that several objects remained aloft for over half an hour before “vanishing suddenly” without leaving a trace of their presence, or the direction in which they had headed.

”First I thought they were balloons, but when they started to glow intensely, I thought they might be flying objects, and within a few minutes, they’d vanished,” he explained.

Another person who refused to share their identity with this newspaper commented that she saw the object he left the house to go to the market, and refused to share additional details.

In this regard, Francesco Zaratti, director of the Laboratorio de Fisica de la Altura at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres (UMSA), said that the very first thing to be done is “seek a natural explanation.”

“It is normal for people to see what they want to see up in the sky. There’s a trend among the population to identify situations of this type. In this case, I would not be surprised if they were atmospheric balloons launched to measure atmospheric pressure,” adding that in several instances, atmospheric balloons launched from Brazil are dragged by air currents and people mistake them for strange flying objects.

Regarding the alleged presence of unidentified material in the sky over La Paz, he advised that such statements require extreme caution. “I will not believe unless there is an explanation as to the cause.”

In order to confirm if the SENAMHI, the National Meteorology and Hydrology Service, was conducting atmospheric tests, this newspaper unsuccessfully tried to obtain a response over the phone. Efforts to contact the San Calixto Observatory in La Paz were equally fruitless.

Further details

The most recent sighting of strange objects over La Paz was on July 26 at 15:00 hours. Pedestrians at the intersection of Avenida Pando y Montes saw strange flying objects in the sky.

In October 2005, thousands claimed to have seen lights in the sky over Oruro. The case has not yet been explained.

According to “El Deber”, personnel from the U.S. space agency (NASA) visited the country in 1978 and allegedly recovered an extraterrestrial craft that collided 25 kilometers from the mining community of La Mamora.

This incident was reported by Argentinean researcher Pablo Romaniuk, who was also a member of his country’s Accident Investigation Board at the time.

(Translation (c) 2009. S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Laura López)