Spain: An Extremaduran Mystery Beast (1974)

Source: www.zoopedia.blogspot.com and IIEE
Date: 11.29.2010

Spain: An Extremaduran Mystery Beast (1974)

In Spain, Extremadura’s beastiary is both rich and extensive. Creatures of unknown nature, having grotesque or chilling shapes, have terrorized witnesses and entire towns, in some cases. Beings and humanoids form part of the Extremaduran folklore, and one of the first articles of this space deals with José Pancho Campo’s encounter with a strange entity, claiming to be the devil, and displaying hooved feet. This incident resulted in the witness’s untimely death under strange circumstances: similar events have occurred in other nearby locations in Las Hurdes, La Vera and other places in Extremadura, where diabolical apparitions have been reported. The entity or being of Saucedilla, as we have mentioned earlier, is a cassocked being standing some three meters tall, appearing to float in the air. There are direct eyewitness reports of “ojos rojos” (red eyes), a roadside apparition that cannot be explained, or of the Entiznau, a typical supernatural being from the folklore of Las Hurdes.

This region of Spain has not eluded news items on curios subjects, such as the reports published in Karma-7 Magazine #24 (Year 3), November 1974, mentioning that in late August of that year, in the town of Moraleja, a village in Caceres Province, not far from the Borbollón Reservoir, a large number of people witnessed a large animal crossing the lake’s waters. A sailboat regatta was taking place on the day that the “monster” made its appearance on the resevoir’s waters, making it visible to a considerable number of onlookers, some of them using binoculars.

The monster had a length of some four meters and a thickness of 20 centimeters. It traversed the lake at high speed, moving along the surface, and accompanied by another creature of similar characteristics, although smaller.

By the next day, the news had reached local residents and those from nearby. Hundreds visited the lake, without the strange animal ever being seen again. What did people actually see? Was it a prank?

The story is all that remains for curiosity seekers and residents of Extremadura interested in the legends of their region.

(Translation (c) S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to IIEE)

Argentina: Parana River Object

Luis Burgos of Argentina's FAO sends a photo of an unknown object over the Paraná River (between Argentina and Uruguay) as South America basks in glorious springtime.

Mexico: "The Circles of the Gods"

Most English-reading audiences will probably be familiar with the name Diego Rivera – the larger-than-life muralist whose artistic vision recast historical perceptions of Mexico and colonial history – and his wife Freda Kahlo, whose works came in into their own in the 1990s. Rivera's murals are one of the great tourist attractions of Mexico City, visible to all in the Presidential Palace and other major sites.

But on this occasion it is the great man's daughter – Prof. Guadalupe Rivera, author and academic – who draws our attention with her book Los circulos de los dioses (The Circles of the Gods): a work of fiction which explains the presence of “gods” in ancient Mexico through extraterrestrial visitations.

In 1970, Prof. Rivera had a sighting of the bouncing red lights known as “brujas” (witches) in the Sierra Gorda region of the state of Queretaro, a hotbed of paranormal activity. Known in the Otomí dialect as “tzintzinimes” (red witches, to be precise) the incident's impact remained with her for years, spurring her to write the novel. “It is a work of historical fiction that draws on real situations from Mexican life with the alleged presence of aliens in our territory,” explains the author. “The novel takes place in Sierra Gorda and the main characters are local landowners and miners, who have close ties with natives of the Parne tribe, who own mercury mines in the region.” As the plot unfolds, the miners come across a spaceship buried in an enormous cave.”

Cuba: The "Ingeniería OVNI" Documentary Debated

Cuban UFO researcher Orestes Girbau has informed us that on November 27th, 2010, Havana's Ruben Martinez Villena Public Library will be hosting a UFO gathering aimed at debating the contents of the "Ingeniería OVNI" (UFO Engineering) documentary.

"The gathering," he writes, "is organized by the Steering Committe of the A.C.U. (Cuban Ufological Association)and will assemble researchers and their guests. A multidisciplinary panel represented by Dr. Jorge Bermúdez, Enrique Pérez Gutiérrez, Sergio Mena and an important scientist -- a special guest whose name shall be made known later." Girbau himself is also part of the panel.

The researchers and their special guest shall spearhead the event, answering questions from the audience in library's activity room. Information on the latest UFO cases in the archipelago and other parts of the world will also be disseminated. This event conmemorates the 12th anniversary of the creation of the A.C.U.'s Steering Committe.

Spain: Barcelona's Giant Winged Cryptid (1990)

Source: Criptozoología en España (blog)
Date: November 4, 2010

Spain: A Giant Winged Cryptid Over Barcelona? (1990)
By Javier Resines

The twentieth anniversary of an unusual and highly original case within Spanish cryptozoology took place a few months ago. In June 1990, a giant bird decided to frighten—with its imposing presence and unpleasant crowing—a sizeable number of Barcelona’s residents.

What was extraordinary, aside from the apparition in itself, was the way it became known through a series of letters to the editor of a renowned Spanish newspaper. We must bear in mind that this phenomenon goes beyond the purely cryptozoological to go into the field of anthropology or social psychology.

On the morning of June 10, 1990, readers of Barcelona’s “La Vanguardia” had the chance to read a brief missive sent to the paper’s editor by Pere Carbó, a resident of the city. The anonymous citizen said: “I cannot help but to make known my surprise at this unusual event: on the evening 28 May, some residents of the Les Corts district were awakened by the unbearable crowing of a bird. It wasn’t just any bird. Our astonishment was immense when we stepped out to the balcony to see the black silhouette of a bird of tremendous size. It perhaps measured between 3 and 5 meters, and I am not exaggerating. Numerous residents saw it and numerous comments were made the next day. We assume that others must have seen it other neighborhoods. What was it? And what’s stranger still, why hasn’t it been mentioned in the press?”

This letter became the starter’s pistol that unleashed a veritable flood of letters from readers who claimed having seen the animal in various locations and under various circumstances.

Thus, during the following weeks, the creature was seen (day and night) in various parts of the Catalonian capital and in locations such as Gavá, Sant Joan Despí, Salou, Bellvei del Penedés and the region of Empordá. According to eyewitness accounts, the bird ranged as far away as 100 kilometers distant from Barcelona.

According to witnesses, the animal was dark (mainly black or grey) with a wingspan of between 3 and 15 meters, making loud crowing sounds in three different tones, and whose membranous wings were reminiscent of a prehistoric pterodactyl. In other cases, however, it was classified as a “mutant pigeon” or a black crow, naturally. As we can see, the descriptions were so wide-ranging as to preclude an identikit drawing of the bird.

A few days after the apparition, the Police acknowledged in a story published in El Periodico de Cataluña that it had received hundreds of calls reporting the presence of the gigantic being, while the citizen hotline crashed as a result of the event.

The most unusual hypotheses on the nature of the uncanny bird were put forward. Thus, Xavier Tutusaus (a reader who signed his letter as “botanist”) suggested that it was a specimen of Avis Cervus, a mythical species described in real in the 16th century (half deer, half bird) which – according to his theory – was passing through the city during its “customary” journey to Madagascar.

Moreover, Santiago Mayosa, officer in charge of the ornithology service of the Barcelona School of Biology, was unable to put forth a scientific explanation to the existence of an animal with these characteristics, theorizing that it could be an albatross, a species from the southern hemisphere whose wingspan can reach three meters, but completely unknown in the Catalonian littoral. The Department of the Environment of the Generalitat, on the other hand, offered a laconic solution: the bird in question was nothing more than a mere vulture.

In spite of this, the bird paraded through the Catalonian skies for three months, although several cases collected by local researcher Jordi Ardanuy lead us to believe that the bird (or birds, as the case may be) was not passing through the city, but rather had or has a local habitat. Let us see some of the cases compiled by Ardanuy: in the summer of 1991 or 1992, eyewitness J.A. Pérez was driving his car in the company of his wife near the El Prat airport when he saw a bird six times larger than his car. The animal, which looked prehistoric, made no noise whatsoever.

In early 1996, in Girona, a family was able to see a bird measuring some 5 or 6 meters. It was dark, silent, motionless wings and thick legs.

On April 14 of that year, Lluis Villamaría and a group of friends envisioned an immense black bird in broad daylight near Montseny. The bird flew by beating its wings barely three meters over the ground.

As we can see, we are faced by a curious phenomenon within domestic case histories. The apparently numerous witnesses made the fact known through editorial pages in a newspaper. This in turn caused the reaction of other readers who decided to share their experience, offer an explanation, give an opinion or, as was the case with some letters, add a humorous tone to the entire matter.

As a result of this initiative (let us call it a grass roots initiative), other dailies such as El Periodico de Cataluña, Avui and the Europa Press agency (as well as mystery magazines) decided to give a certain credibility to the story that became the talk of the streets of Barcelona for a long time, and collect reports to which they had access.

But what were the citizens of Barcelona facing back then? Several hypotheses have been put forth to explain the giant bird. The one that gathers the most supporters considers a voluntary or involuntary hoax that may have started with a malicious letter, followed by others who “thought” they had seen something or heard something. Errors of perception and a desire for celebrity, or to feel part of an extraordinary event, could lead a mystifying event to become real for many citizens.

The fact is that this animal (or whatever) became rara avis (pun intended) within cryptozoology at the international level.

So that all readers of our blog may have access to the full information on the case, the Criptozoología en España team has compiled the documents published by La Vanguardia. These are the letters, surveys, opinion pieces and editorials that the paper devoted to the bird. A total of sixty pages of material that our friends can request by writing to our e-mail address: criptospain@yahoo.es. We will be delighted to share the information with all of you.

(Translation (c) S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Angel Rodriguez, GEIFO)

Argentina: UFO Sightings on the Rise in Merlo

Source: El Diario de la Republica (newspaper)
Date: 11.22.10


Argentina: UFO Sightings on the Rise in Merlo

As a consequence of frequent sightings with Unidentified Flying Objects in the Sierra Comechingones, the local Planetarium organized a series of chats on the conference. The most recent sighting took place in October of this year.

On the evening of March 30 of this year, several residents of communites located on the western slopes of the Sierra Comechingones made phone calls – alternating between surprise and alarm – to the Villa de Merlo Planetarium after having witnessed the zig-zagging, east-west motion of a triangular UFO with whitish lights on its vertexes. The object lost itself in the sky toward the west.

Months later, on an October afternoon, a major real estate firm in Merlo published the daylight photo of a property in the mountain in a local newspaper. When magnified, the image revealed the presence of an unidentified flying object. These are not the only sightings that have taken place in the area, and for this reason, the city Planetarium organized a series of chats on the subject.

The press release issued by the Observatory states that as a result of frequent UFO sightings in the Sierra Comechingones, it shall hold lectures on the phenomenon. However, the Planetarium isn’t the only agency issued in the subject, as several researchers and ufologists from various parts of the country have been motivated to study the complaints closely. Among them is the renowned “Patagonia Ovni” organization.

“In the light of these events, which unquestionably constitute a true mystery, but fully rejecting [the possibility] that what was seen was an alien spacecraft, the Planetarium shall approach the subject from a scientific standpoint in a series of lectures to be held over coming days,” explained Martin Fernández, the institution’s press officer. Anyone interested in information related to the chats may obtain it from www.planetariodemerlo.org

(Translation (c) 2010, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

The Magic of Lost Cities

The Magic of Lost Cities
By Scott Corrales

"When will we discover Wasukanni, capital of the Mitanni empire? When will we excavate Kussara, the erstwhile seat of Anittas, first king of the Hittites? Who is going to discover the city of Nessa, entombed in the soil of eastern Anatolia, or identify the location of Arzawa?"
--- Ivar Lissner, "The Living Past" (1962)

The notion of lost cities is very appealing to the Western mind. It conjures up images of ancient ruins covered in lianas and jungle vegetation, concealing treasures forgotten by man or sometimes the opposite--fully functioning cultures of either warlike or benign people voluntarily or accidentally cut off from the flow of our civilization, representing a source of danger and opportunity to the adventurer or the explorer. Of course, lost cities in real life have more in common with archaeological finds like Angor Wat, Ebla, or forgotten Troy itself than with the ones that will occupy us here.

As distances shrank during the 19th century and intrepid explorers pushed back the frontiers of the unknown, the lost city and its treasures had to be moved farther still. Authors of fiction, such as Jules Verne, chose to keep his plots safe by relocating his lost cities beneath the Earth's surface in his classic Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864). His British contemporary, H.Rider Haggard, sent his memorable protagonist Allan Quartermain into the heart of unexplored Africa to find King Solomon's Mines (1885). Both of these novelistic endeavors were probably inspired to a certain extent by the writings of hollow-earth enthusiast John Cleves Symmes, whose Symzonia (1820) described a highly advanced technological society beneath the ice and snow of the Antarctic.

But while science fact and science fiction each endeavored to give us different kinds of lost city (the former less glamorous than the latter), the esoteric tradition and cryptoarchaeology held their own variety of forbidden kingdoms, accessible only to initiates or to those unlucky enough to come across them.

The Quest for Iarchas

Apollonius of Tyana was a philosopher and mathematician who lived in the year 17 of the Common Era. and a keen follower of the Pythagorean tradition. A contemporary of Jesus, the Cappadocian philosopher was also considered to have been divine and endowed with supernatural powers. Temples were built throughout the Roman Empire after his death or disappearance and even coins bearing Apollonius' image were minted by some ancient cities of the Mediterranean.

This intriguing character is perhaps most famous for his wanderings throughout the Mediterranean countries, Ethiopia, Assyria and India. He returned to the Roman Empire after his travels and displayed some of his paranormal abilities, particularly after settling in Ephesus (in modern Turkey) to open his school. The city was being then being ravaged by the plague,and the Pythagorean philosopher commanded that a certain beggar be stoned to death, as it was really a devil in human guise. The beggar, tradition tells us, was literally covered by a mound of stones thrown by the angry Ephesians. When efforts were made to drag the beggar's corpse from under the rocks, nothing at all was found, and the plague ended immediately.

But it was Apollonius of Tyana's quest for the "City of the Gods" during his travels through the Himalayas that are of interest to us. In the company of his apprentice, Damis, he reached the mysterious city of Iarchas. Historians have tried to identify it with one of the many Greek cities founded in the Punjab by Alexander the Great, but without any avail. The philosopher himself has this to say about it: "I have seen men who are living on Earth but are not of this Earth, defended everywhere yet defenseless, and having nothing beyond what we ourselves possess."

The story tells us that as Apollonius and Damis approached their destination, strange things occured. The road behind them appeared to vanish and the landscape around them became surreal. They were led to the ruler of the city (in certain versions also identified as Iarchas) and told that they had reached the realm "of men who knew everything" and were shown a variety of wonders, such as a working model of the solar system built under the sapphire dome of a temple, as well as impressive feats of levitation. Master and apprentice were invited to dine with Iarchas' eponymous ruler, and were served by four automatons; night was made as bright as day through the use of "luminous stones" and Apollonius was surprised by what he described as "living wheels" which transported messages from the gods. Being a geometrist, it is understandable that this most remarkable personage was fascinated by the fact that Iarchas was "on Earth, yet at the same time, outside it."

Chroniclers tell us that Apolonius acquired considerable powers after his sojourn in the "City of the Gods", most notable among them the ability to "draw fire from the ether" and the gift of teleportation, which he used successfuly when brought before the Emperor Domitian under charges of sorcery. Present at the trial were witnesses to his "miracles" under the reign of Nero, and who were willing to testify to his powers. The philosopher reportedly looked at the emperor and said: "You may hold my body captive by not my spirit, and let me add, not even my body!" with which he disappeared in a brilliant flash of light, made all the brighter by the fact that the paranoid Domitian had ordered the walls of his palace polished to mirror brightness to foil any assasination attempts.

Curiously, all sources agree about one thing: on the 16th of September of the year 96 C.E., while Apollonius lectured in the gardens of Ephesus, he suddenly fell silent and his face became clouded with unspeakable anger, exclaiming: "Strike the tyrant! strike him!" Regaining his composure, he turned to the puzzled assembly and said, "Be of good cheer, people of Ephesus. The tyrant has been murdered this very day in Rome."
The life of this remarkable character has been interpreted in various ways: to the Theosophists, particularly George R. Stow, who wrote a biography of Apollonius, he is an "ascended master" and one of the many guises of the ubiquitous Count of St. Germain; Jacques Bergier posited that Apollonius had been in contact with extraterrestrials; still others believe that this first century thaumaturge was an extraordinary human who visited a strange repository of hidden wisdom, possibly located in another dimension within our own world.

The Forgotten Capital of Hsiung-Nu

While mysterious Iarchas may indeed have existed "beyond the circles of the world" (to borrow that evocative phrase from J.R.R. Tolkien), one could venture the guess that many would-be adepts have lost their lives searching for it. Yet there are other lost cities in Central Asia which are endowed with an equally potent aura of mystery.
Central Asia, stretching from the Tarim Basin to the enigmatic Gobi Desert, is considered by many--notably historians Roy Chapman Andrews and Henry Fairfield Osborne--as the original birthplace of mankind. During his exploration of this region of mystery, Andrews found prehistoric remains of trees, foliage, and freshwater crustaceans, indicating that the area was once rich in water and vegetation. A six foot, six inch tall human skeleton was also unearthed and identified as "proto-Mongolian".

Until not very long ago, schoolchildren studying early European history were told that Attila and his Huns, whose activities contributed greatly to destroying the Roman world, were known to the Chinese as the western, northern and southern Hsiung-Nu; the Avars, another eastern horde that spread terror throughout the Middle Ages, were likewise identified with the Juan-Juan. But it may have turned out that our instructors were wrong, after all.

Controversial author Peter Kolosimo, who can rightfully lay claim to being the "Italian Von Daniken", caused a stir among cryptoarchaeology buffs and academics alike with his book Timeless Earth (1968). The Hsiung-Nu, this author tells us, were not only not the bow-legged, horse-riding Huns, but rather a sophisticated, star-worshipping culture whose capital city was nestled in the desolate reaches of the Tarim Basin (not far from the modern Chinese nuclear test range at Lop Nor). Of Middle Eastern rather than Asiatic origin, this mysterious civilization appeared to share some kinship with the Mitanni or other Mesopotamian cultures. Most history texts have few words to spare on this forgotten race. One of them succinctly states: "according to some researchers, the Huns were descended from the Hsiung-Nu, a Siberian peoples who had settled between Lake Balkhash and Mongolia in the 4th century B.C.E." Maps show the extension of this realm as going as far as the Korean border, although the same map shows the "residence of the Hsiung-Nu chief" as being on the banks of the Ongin River in Mongolia. In 209 B.C.E., Mao-tun became Emperor of the Hsiung-Nu and forced China to pay tribute to his kingdom.

According to Kolosimo, Father Duparc, a French explorer, reached the ruins of the Hsiung-Nu "capital" in 1725, finding a succession of monoliths which had apparently been part of a place of worship. Other discoveries included a three-tiered pyramid and a royal palace "with thrones surmounted by images of the sun and moon". Successive expeditions found jewels, weapons and accoutrements, but none of Duparc's findings, as the ruins had apparently been covered by sandstorms. A Soviet team reached the area in 1952 and reportedly found the tip of a monolith resembling structures found in Africa's mysterious Zimbabwe. The author goes on to say that Tibetan monks befriended the Soviet scientists and showed them documentation describing the past glory of the nameless Hsiung-Nu city. Kolosimo tells us that a "fiery cataclysm" was apparently to blame for the loss of this highly advanced civilization and the descent into barbarism of its survivors.

Even more tantalizing are the indications that this lost city may have been the source of the paranormal/psychic abilities that Tibetan monks are endowed with, such as thought-transmission and the ability to "communicate with other planets".
But the association between the historic Hsiung-Nu and these more mysterious namesakes indicate that the denomination must be largely coincidental. The highly advanced inhabitants of the ruined city of the Tarim Basin probably had more in common with the mysterious mummified bodies of visibly caucasoid ancients discovered in 1997 and tentatively identified with the "Tocharians" of the ancient chronicles. Perhaps the intense search for oil presently underway in the Takla Makan desert may unearth some clues as to this truly forgotten civilization and its city: one potential opportunity lies in the use of space-based, remote sensing devices such as the SIR-CX-SAR deployed on the space shuttle Discover in 1994 to reveal manmade structures along the Silk Road in the Takla Makan desert. This amazing radar system can find objects buried up to under 3 meters in the sand. Similar advances were employed to find the lost city of Ubar in the Hadramaut (Yemen/Oman).

A Citadel for Prester John?

The same game of historical "maybe/maybe not" that affects the Hsiung-Nu city in the desert applies to Prester John.

Documented sources throughout the middle ages inform us of the repeated visits to the Pope and other European monarchs of envoys claiming to be from the "kingdom of Prester John", bearing gifts and messages from this mighty ruler.

Around 1165 C.E., a letter was recieved at the court of the Byzantine Emperor, Manuel Comnenus, from a distant prince known only as Prester John, who claimed to recieve "the tribute of 72 kings" and was "a devout Christian and everywhere proect the Christians of Our empire." In the war-torn Crusader era, with the christian kingdoms of the levant slowly being pushed into the sea by the Muslim tide, news of a powerful ally was welcome indeed. Attempts at placing the location of his kingdom were many: some placed Prester John beyond India; others in the Caucasus; the mapmakers who placed a figure of a scepter-wielding monarch in what is modern Ethiopia won out, and the "kingdom of Prester John" became a magical realm straight out of the chansons de geste of the period, high in the mountains at the birthplace of the Nile.

After the travels of Marco Polo proved beyond a doubt that the only powerful monarch beyond India was the Great Khan, efforts at finding Prester John in Africa began in earnest. In 1520, the Portuguese sent a delegation to Ethiopia in the hope of forming an allegiance with this immortal prince against Arab merchants who proved a hindrance to the Portuguese spice trade. Instead, they ran into the King of Ethiopia, who had never heard of Prester John.
However, while the "Prester John" craze may have been a medieval hoax, every hoax has a germ of truth to it. Could there have been a Coptic or Nestorian bishop named John who ruled a small kingdom, inflated beyond belief to frighten his enemies or merely to salve his insecurities?

This line of speculation might be reinforced somewhat by an article in World Explorer Magazine (Vol.1 No.4) entitled "The Mysterious Egyptian Castle-Fortress" and penned by J.J. Snyder. The author alleges that while flying a large cropduster plane to the Sudan from Aswan in Egypt he flew over a "black, fortress-like castle" which surmounted a small hill, and had "twin battlements facing southward" in the most desolate region of the Nubian Desert, on the Egyptian/Sudanese border. While none of his fellow crop-dusting pilots could confirm the sighting, Snyder felt the structure "was vacant...and could have been deserted for hundreds of years or longer."

A trick of the landscape? Maybe. But what if Prester John had been less of a king and more a cult figure like the "Old Man of the Mountain" who ruled the Order of Assassins? Could the black castle seen by Snyder have been the "lost" citadel of this medieval ruler? Unlikely, but an enchanting possibility.

Lost Cities--Physical and Metaphysical

When we sever ties with history and even with folklore, we drift along the powerful currents of speculation that draw us closer to mysticism. This is best exemplified by the beliefs espoused by a number of South American (predominantly Argentinean) writers such as Guillermo Terrera, who have come up with an entire cosmology of lost cities and hidden human history.

Terrera makes clear distinctions between real lost cities and the purely metaphysical ones (subterranean and presumably metaphysical ones), yet making the latter no less "real" than the cities of the Mayas, Incas or Aztecs. The metaphysical cities would include Thule, Agarthi, and Shamballah. Central to this cosmology is the magical mountain of Uritorco, a place of new age pilgrimage. "The link between the knowledge of the Comechingones and their ancestral beliefs," indicates Terrera, "was proven decades ago when the legendary Staff of Power or Stone of Wisdom was found in the vicinity of the Uritorco by Master Ofelio Ulises in 1934, shortly after returning from the Tibetan city of Shamballah (sic) where he studied for eight years. It was precisely in this city that he was shown the location of the basalt rod whose construction had been ordered by the chieftain Multán eight thousand years ago."

Understandably, Terrera's statements are hard to digest, but he is hardly alone in his cavilations. French author René Guénón posited the belief that geography does not take into consideration the folds or "wrinkles" which can and do occur on the surface of the world. Dubbing these irregularities as dwipas (a word of Hindu origin), seven of which are accessible to the initiates. These are worlds much like our own, holding oceans and continents. At least one of these is inhabited and holds the city of the "King of the World", a place where sacred traditions are upheld and where initiates go to be tested. Guénón states that secret societies on our world are sworn to protect the knowledge of how to reach this place--to the death, if necessary--from mere mortals.

There are still indications that South America may contain disturbingly "real" cities: A very curious event took place in the late 1960's while Louis Pauwels was putting the finishing touches on his classic La revolte des Magiciens: his co-author, Jacques Bergier, had received a puzzling mineral sample from a Brazilian mining and metallurgy firm called Magnesita S.A., which looked for magnesium derivatives for use in diverse metallurgical processes. The company's manager, Miguel Cahen, had sent Bergier a sample of a strange crystal found on the borders of the mysterious region of inner Brazil known as the "forbidden land". Under analysis, the shard proved to be a fragment of magnesium carbonate of uncommon transparency and purity, "with very curious properties on the infrared spectrum, emitting polarized radiation," Pawels adds. Since the crystal did not match anything in the mineralogy texts, Bergier turned to a French government agency which ruled the crystal's origin as artificial. No further tests were possible since no other samples of the material could be located.

The "forbidden land" where this mineral oddity was found is none other than the region which lies between Brazil's Amazon, Tapajós and Xingú rivers, the source of so many rumors and contradictions.

The City of the Caesars

With a name like la Ciudad de los Césares (city of the Caesars), this lost city should surely conjure up visions of ancient Rome. But it in fact refers to a lost city of Patagonia which has been the subject of numerous quests over the centuries. Tradition holds that this astonishing city was located at edge of an Andean lake and that its towers and spires reflected lights of gold and silver, if not the materials themselves. Contemporary folklore indicates that the city becomes visible only on Good Friday and then disappears -- a South American Brigadoon.

But it wasn't Brigadoon that the 16th-century conquistadores were looking for as they set out on horseback in search of this hidden kingdom. Stories of the El Dorado-like wealth of this mountain city were common among the rustic tribes of the area, and the belief soon spread that this magical city had such an abundance of precious metals that even the most common tools were made of gold and silver. It was variously referred to as "the enchanted city," "Trapalanda," and "Lin Lin" before finally being known as la Ciudad de los Césares. Spanish chroniclers believed that the city had been founded by nobles from the Inca's court, fleeing from the depredations of Diego de Almagro, and defended by fierce Araucanian warriors.

The city acquired its curious name not from any ancient monarch but from the expedition of Francisco César in 1526, which hoped to conquer the tantalizing prize and return its wealth to Spain: setting out from a fort at Sancti Spriritus, his band of soldiers penetrated the Andean range and found tribes with great wealth in gold, silver and cattle, which the bold explorer brought back to his fort, only to find it destroyed.

In 1620, Captain Juan Fernández (whose name still survives as that of an archipelago off the Chilean coast) approached the supposed location of la Ciudad de los Césares from the island of Chiloé, crossing the tortuous glaciers of three-thousand-foot Mt. Tronador, until reaching lake Nahuel Huapi. Despite indications that this was the Andean lake on whose shores the fabulous city existed, nothing was found. Seven years later, Fernández led a 200-man expedition north of the location of modern-day Neuquén and but failed to find reach his goal.

Descriptions of Ciudad de los Césares were very detailed: "It had walls with moats, ravellins and a single entrance guarded by a drawbridge...its buildings were sumptuous, almost all of them of dressed stone and well-roofed, in the Spanish style..Nothing could equal the opulence of its temples, covered in solid silver. The same metal was employed in making pots, knives and even plowshares..to have an idea of their wealth, the residents sat on golden seats within their homes. They were fair, blond, blue-eyed and with dense beards; their language was incomprehensible to the Spaniards and the indians alike.

Well into the 18th century, the Captaincy General of Chile ordered his chief auditor to compile nine volumes of information on the "lost city" based on a proposal by Capt. Manuel Josef de Orjuela in 1781 to launch an expedition aimed at subjugating Ciudad de los Césares. Don Pedro de Angelis published a condensed version of these findings in his Colección. In 1863, Martin de Moussy's Atlas located the "fabulous ciudad de los Césares" as being in the general vicinity of lake Nahuel Huapi.

Historian Enrique de Gandía mentions in his Historia Crítica de la Conquista Americana (1929) other efforts at finding this mythical city as well as two other locations--the "Sierra de Plata" (Silver Mountains) and the reino del Rey Blanco (realm of the White King)--a sort of Patagonian "Prester John" whose allegiance was sought by the conquistadores. As late as the 1930's, the City of the Caesars was being sought in earnest by Francisco P. Moreno, a student of Patagonian tribes.

Patagonia's Enigmatic Citadel

But the ubiquitous Ciudad de los Césares is hardly the only anomalous location that Argentina can contribute to the lore of lost cities.

For a number of years, Grupo Delphos, spearheaded by Argentinean scientist/researcher Ing. Flugberto Ramos, has paid special attention to a curious geological feature on Argentina's Atlantic Coast which could well prove to be the best documented discovery of a supposedly mythical lost city.

The location appears on the maps as cerro El Fuerte (Fort Hill) and dominates the approach to Golfo San Matías. Seen from a distance, the perfectly sided plateau looks like an island rather than a rocky outcropping. Some of the surface stones appear to have been worked by stonemasons many centuries ago, and a curious vitrified substance has been found covering curious drawings. Walls of superimposed stone held together by some kind of whitish mortar have also been discovered. Perhaps most important is the unexpected discovery of a totemic figure inscribed with unusual carvings and, in Grupo Delphos' opinion, "completely different from any object made in the Americas."
Historians scoff at these suggestions and geologists state that the only fort present is the plateau's distinctly military aspect. Yet French maps of the area, dating as far back as 1779, label the feature ancien fort abandonné (ancient ruined fort), and a British map from 1849 does the same. Flugberto's team has further discovered clearly artificial features such as pier and four docks.

In the light of these findings, scholars are willing to concede the possibility that pirates may have fortified the point in the past and used it as safe haven. But even the safety of these conjectures fell by the wayside when the group discovered a slab of dressed stone clearly marked with a Templar cross!

This discovery prompted Flugberto to offer the following working hypothesis: "In pre-Columbian times, some centuries before and after 1000 A.D., a series of enclaves may have existed in Patagonia which were established by some kind of Templar or proto-Templar order, made up of fair-skinned indoeuropeans. There would have been at least three cities--a fortified port on the Atlantic, and another on the Pacific, both at the same latitude. The third would have been in the Andean foothills, corresponding to the Ciudad de los Césares."

The suggestion that the mountain city of silver and gold described earlier in this article may be connected to the mystery citadel spawns further speculation, much to the fury of academics. Could these cities have been supplied from Europe by an order not linked to the medieval Catholic church, but following its own precepts? The members of Grupo Delphos have tentatively proposed the boldest concept yet--the citadel, and indeed the elusive Ciudad de los Césares, were the enclaves of an order entrusted with the keeping of the Holy Grail [author's italics], which would have been removed after the Spanish takeover of these distant lands.

Despite the outrageosness of this notion, the reader is urged not to throw his/her hands up in despair: an old French book about the Holy Grail, the Livre du Graal (edited by Victoria Cirlot, Rama XI Eds. Paris), makes mention of a castle in a "strange land overseas" whose dimensions, physical layout regarding the local environment, and characteristics of the bay in which it is located closely match those of the Patagonian citadel...

Conclusion

Archaeologists raise their voices in protest against those who would purvey stories of mysterious places while suggesting that their existence in any way, shape or form contravenes what has already been determined by academe. Any questionable ruin in the Central Asian desert becomes an abandoned Buddhist temple; any curious feature in the Americas becomes a geological anomaly; oral traditions regarding the existence of a given locale are chalked up to mistranslation and misinterpretation. Other cynics will say that dreamers are bound to fill in any empty space on the map with ruined cities of past glory and lost kingdoms simply because "something" must have thrived once in these barren areas.

Nevertheless, millenia are like seconds in the inexorable procession of history. Who can say what future generations will look back in time and think about mythical cities that may be languishing in oblivion...cities with names like London or New York.

Bob Pratt: Saucers Over Guantánamo

In October 2002, INEXPLICATA published an article by the late Bob Pratt in Issue #11. We are reprinting here for the benefit of our new readers. To those who may be new to ufology, Mr. Pratt was a distinguished reporter of the UFO scene since the 1970s, Bob has made English-reading audiences aware of the rich ufological history of Brazil and his book UFO Danger Zone deals with the darker side of the phenomenon in the South American giant.

Saucers Over Guantánamo: A Story About Cuba
by Bob Pratt

The story that I was working on about UFOs seen in Cuba didn't work out.

It started in early May when Scott Corrales picked up a story from Ovnivision, which got it from Terra Net in Chile, about an American researcher named Mike Birds having visited Cuba and learned about some UFO happenings there. Scott passed it on to his network of people, one of them being me. I passed it on to half a dozen others who I thought would be interested. One of them passed it on to still others. One of THEM responded with an email to both my guy and me, even though he didn't know me. It included an attachment of an email he had sent to some friends on September 23, 2000, saying a flurry of UFOs were seen over the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in 1958 or 1959, AND that jets were sent up to intercept them. In doing so, he said, they encountered huge mother ships.

If true, that would be astounding. I immediately replied by email asking if he would mind if I shared that info with others. He replied saying that was all right, but I decided I would rather interview him first to get more details. It turned out we live not too far from each other and we set up a luncheon meeting at a local restaurant.

Let's call this man Bud. Bud said he was 10 or 11 at the time this happened. His father (a high-ranking officer on the base) and mother had been out for the evening, attending the opening of an enlisted men's club on another part of the base. They were driving home late that night on a lonely two-lane road that went through hilly country. The father was driving.

As they came around a curve in the road they saw a disc-shaped object hovering just above a field on their right, on his mother's side of the road. It was 30 to 50 feet in diameter and 50 to 100 yards away from them. It was glowing brightly but the light was not blinding. They could see windows in the craft and what appeared to be people passing back and forth beyond the windows, although no features could be seen. This was all observed while the car was stopped. A short time later the craft began to move slowly away and then shot upward into the dark sky. There was no sound heard from the craft as it hovered or later moved.

Bud said he was in his room at home and knew nothing about this at the time, but when his folks came home he heard his father sternly warn his mother not to say anything about the incident to anyone.

Curious, the next day Bud asked his mother why his father had spoken so sternly to her, and she told him what they had seen. He said she described the craft as "two pie plates joined at the edges."

A day or two later he asked his father about the UFO and his father claimed he didn't know what Bud was talking about. But the next day when his father went off to work, Bud talked to his mother again and she readily acknowledged that it really had happened just as she had said earlier.

Bud said this happened at a time when UFOs were seen frequently around the base for several months. Many people had seen them and that people (his friends as well as adults) talked openly about it. Furthermore, he said, it was no secret that jet fighters were sent aloft from the Naval Air Station at times to intercept UFOs. He said a base newspaper published stories about pilots chasing UFOs and circling around huge mother ships hovering high in the sky as smaller UFOs returned to it. The mother ships were estimated to be 800 to 900 feet long. Bud says he remembered those measurements because aircraft carriers that came to the base were about 800 feet long. "I remember thinking the mother ships were as big as aircraft carriers," he said.

This was just before Fidel Castro and his rebel army overthrew the dictator Fulgencio Batista. When Bud's father's tour of duty ended in 1959, the family moved to New York State. Bud said when his new schoolmates asked him about life in Cuba, he was surprised that no one knew anything about the UFOs.

Some years later, Bud said, he again asked his father about that night and again his father denied knowing what he was talking about.

Eventually the father retired, and he and Bud's mother settled down at a home in Long Island for six months during the summer and in another home in southern Florida the rest of the year.

Some years later, after he had grown up and was out on his own, Bud visited his parents and had rented a videotape of the movie Communion to watch with them. Bud said that in one scene a UFO comes down slowly out of the sky and settled in a wooded area, and as they watched this scene Bud's father suddenly blurted out: "That happened to us in Cuba!"

"My mother nearly fell out of her chair," Bud said. "She said, 'THAT'S the first time he's ever talked about it!'"

Both of Bud's parents died several years later.

Bud's father had a longtime friend, another naval man 15 years his junior, who was also at the base at that time. This man is now retired and lives in California. Bud said he visited him last year and asked if he remembered the UFOs. The longtime friend replied, "Oh yes, we used to see them all the time."

"And the mother ships?" Bud asked. "Oh yes," the man replied.

* * *

That's the basic story Bud told me. There were many more details, and the story about his mother and father may have been true. But I now believe the other things probably did not happen, at least the way Bud told me. I asked if I could talk to the old friend in California and Bud said he doubted the man would want to say anything.

Bud is an intelligent man now in his 50s who says he has lived or traveled in 22 countries. If his printed rQsumQ is correct, he has several degrees, including a master's in international affairs. He is a little vague as to what he does now. He says he does "intelligence" work in "mergers and acquisitions," meaning he checks out people and companies that are targeted for buyout by other companies. For some years he lived and worked in Australia but had returned to Florida to handle his parents' estate.

I met with him for a long lunch twice and he seemed quite interested in the paranormal and in conspiracies, especially government cover-ups of various kinds.

A friend of mine vouches for Bud's integrity. My friend was a neighbor for some years and knew Bud and his parents well. He doesn't think Bud would pull anything on me.

Between the two lunches I began looking for other Cuban UFO incidents and, among other things, came across a UFO report by a man named Chester Grusinski. Mr. Grusinski told Flying Saucer Review that he was a sailor aboard the aircraft carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt and that a UFO was seen one night in September 1958 while the FDR was on a shakedown cruise out of Guantanamo. He said he was one of about 25 men on deck who saw the object approach the ship.

Using the Internet, I found some sites that gave me names and email addresses for about 75 people who had either lived on the Guantanamo base or served aboard the FDR during the time these incidents allegedly occurred.

About 30 people replied, most of them men and women who had been young dependents on the base in the late 1950s or early 1960s and went to the base school about the same time that Bud did. None of them ever heard of any UFOs being seen on or near the base, nor did anyone ever hear of any planes being sent aloft after UFOs.

One woman remembered nothing about UFOs but asked her mother (the father was based at the naval air station from the mid﷓1950s to the early 1970s). The mother said she was certain no planes were sent up after UFOs because she and her husband socialized with officers of all ranks and believes she would have heard something of that nature.

On the other hand, two women (students in those days) said there was always talk about flying saucers. "Platillo volador," one called them. The other woman checked with her brothers and none of them remembered anything about UFOs. "This story has popped up before," she said, "and I don't know of anyone that was at the base during the times we were there 1957﷓1965 that is aware of these happenings."

One man said that as a boy he delivered both of the base's two newspapers in those days, hung out at their offices and read everything in both papers, He said never read or heard anything about UFOs.

Still another man stated: "I strongly suspect someone is pulling your leg on this one... I've never heard of that story and was indeed on﷓base during that time period. I am highly suspect of the claim ... about sending jets aloft to intercept the UFO's, as the Gitmo NAS did NOT have any jet-powered aircraft until October 21, 1963 (the day before the Cuban Missile Crisis began)."

Several people suggested that older boys on the base might have been pulling Bud's leg and the stories that Bud heard back then is what he remembers today, although it is possible that his parents' encounter did happen.

Regarding the Chester Grusinski story, I received an email from a former FDR crewman who said: "I was on that cruise, going aboard the day of the ship's departure on that Gitmo cruise. I was a radarman in OI div. In our division, we also were the ones that stood the look out watches, and I can assure you that the only thing flying were mosquitoes, and navy jets."

Since I do not know Mr. Grusinski or the former radarman, I don't know what the truth is there either.

I informed Bud by email on July 30, 2002 that I have set his story aside for the time being because I cannot get any confirmation. I also relayed to him the replies of some of the others who had lived at Gitmo at the time. I haven't heard from Bud since then.

One benefit of this whole thing is that I found two Cuban UFO web sites, learned about several interesting UFO cases in the Matanzas area in the 1950s and one or two in later years (but nothing about Guantanamo), and I did make contact with several UFO researchers in Cuba.

Bob Pratt
October 11, 2002

Argentina: More on the Chicoana Crop Circles

Source: Diario Contexto
Date: 11.10.10

Argentina: Mysterious Circles in the Wheat Fields of Salta – UFO or Natural Phenomenon?

While hundreds of curiosity seekers arrive, digital cameras in hand, to record the new manifestations of “The Chicoana Prints” in Salta, numerous reports are emerging with regard to sightings that occurred prior to the agriglyphs (circles and giant drawings in cultivated fields) being reported in the wheat fields of Las Mesitas, along the access route to the town on provincial highway 32.

Moreover, the communal association of this town will ask the owner of the private field to demarcate the area in which the event occurred in order it may be studied by ufologists and specialists before being harvested.

Farmers and their combines may erase these figures in coming days.

“We don’t want a repetition of 2008, when we didn’t even have time to make aerial photos of these strange geometric drawings in the Chicoana fields. There must be a reason for having these events repeat during the same season,” stated Rafael Romano, governing secretary of the local communal association, as he confirmed the planning of aerial views from various sectors of the town in the next 24 hours.

Public opinion regarding the curious event is divided between skeptics and followers of the UFO phenomenon.

“The ears of wheat are tilted without suffering any harm whatsoever, as if something strange had rested upon the field. They are identical to the ones that appeared in Tilián two years ago,” according to a renowned teacher of the Islas Malvinas learning center in Chicoana.

“The marks appeared over days, gradually. It didn’t happen in a single day. These shapes appeared in their entirety only in those fields. People have not reported any strange sightings in recent days to the sheriff’s office. It seems to be something related to the winds,” was the statement given by Sgt. Luis Paz of the local police headquarters.

However, residents of Chicoana and La Merced claim having seen, in recent days, luminous objects flying around at low altitude and noiselessly.

“We were fishing at the Cabra Corral reservoir in the area known as San Vicente, when a powerful light crossed the reservoir at around 2 in the morning, at low altitude and without making a sound. We thought it was an aircraft in distress. However, as it neared the shore, it was larger and left a wake on the water’s surface. It passed over our heads. As it followed its trajectory, it lost itself over the hills of La Candelaria, over in Chicoana,” reported Luis Pastrana, a resident of the town of La Merced, who witnessed – along with six companions – the sighing of a UFO some 20 kilometers distant from Las Mesitas.

(Translation (c) 2010. S. Corrales, Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

Mexico: Uncanny UFO Videos

Prof. Ana Luisa Cid presented two very interesting videos as part of her UFO segment in the “La Sobremesa” TV broadcast (Channel 28, Mexico City) during its most recent transmission. The first video was taken by Mr. Eusebio Tarango in Ciudad Juarez, a veteran sky watcher with twenty years’ experience, showing a glowing object in a blue, cloudless sky that apparently responded to Tarango’s commands to blink at him, then to blink even brighter, and finally to “come down and heal him.” The object complied with the first two commands, and appeared to launch a small orb as a response to the third request. The lesser orb rose straight into the air before vanishing altogether. This video was recorded on approximately October 17, 2010.

The second video is as unusual as the first. It was provided by Carlos Rios, a trainer with a prominent Mexican soccer team, and shows an unusual physical object moving over the snow-crowned summit of Mt. Popocatepetl (17,000 feet) and reflecting the sun’s rays as it moved. While a FOX Sports crew was interviewing soccer player Luis Menes, the athlete himself pointed out the fact that something unusual was taking place over the volcano. The FOX cameraman turned and pointed his camera at the summit, capturing a clearly metallic structure tumbling in the air. This video was recorded on January 20, 2010 at 3:30 p.m.

INEXPLICATA thanks Prof. Cid and “La Sobremesa” for the information. The full video can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPLfder6eVM

Argentina: New UFO Prints in Chicoana

Source: Radio Salta – Argentina
Date: 11.08.10

Argentina: New UFO Prints in Chicoana

The strange pictograms appeared on Friday in the Las Mesitas area, along the access road to the town. Local residents expect sightings.

SALTA – Some thirty pictograms in a variety of different shapes appeared carefully outlined in a wheat field along the main road to Chicoana, some 30 kilometers distant from the provincial seat and to the southwest.

Two years after the first manifestations that occurred at this same time of the year in this region of Lerma Valley, the phenomenon is still attributed – according to witnesses – to strange luminous objects that fly over the area at low altitude. While no enigmatic lights were seen in this instance, locals state that the cycle will repeat itself with numerous UFO sightings.

With these new manifestations, the mystery of the “Chicoana Agriglyphs” deepened the enigma among residents of this peaceful community, regarding the reason for the figures’ reappearance in the same area and season, with drawings among the wheat fields similar to those found in October 2008.

The pictograms have angular, rectangular and linear shapes, all of them intertwined, exceeding a radius of three meters. Judging by their layout, the appear to have been designed by some geometric device. As with the events described in 2008, these figures have been flattened from above and in a clockwise direction to the wheat.

It is notable to find that they are aligned southward, much like the ones described two years ago, toward the triangle formed between the wilderness of Tilián and Las Mesitas, and the La Candelaria hill, where several air traffic accidents occurred in the past, attributed to strange electromagnetic alterations resulting from a “meteor strike” in that mountain range.

Julio Espinoza and Raul Cantero, renowned ufologists and disciples of Antonio Zuleta, surveyed the entire area after receiving notice from some locals in order to set on record the existence of other figures in fields adjacent to where the new apparitions occurred.

“It is an event of extraordinary majesty when seen from above. Unfortunately, no one has bothered to take aerial photos to study this phenomenon, which responds to the presence of greater minds in the imaginary road that links Chicoana and Cachi,” said Espinoza.

For those specializing in the subject, these pictograms correspond to “a string of messages that indicate or inform of an event.” While no new manifestations were found in nearby fields, “the formation of new figures in those fields, or in others, with the corresponding observation of craft in the region,” has not been discarded.

As to how they were made, they noted: “Eyewitness accounts to the 2008 events report dozens of multicolored lights fluttering at low altitude, vanishing after a matter of seconds. They coincide with the prints. They are related to a mothership that leaves prints in its path. Who indeed knows why?” stated Cantero.

Background information gives us marks made during alleged UFO landings in the fields of Canada, Great Britain or even Buenos Aires. But none of them matches the peculiar characteristics of these geometric pictograms, with systematic signs scattered by apparently ethereal luminous objects.

Civil Defense and the municipality of Chicoana made transactions with the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) in Salta to obtain technical measurements that will rule out any type of radioactive contamination in these wheat fields. Jorge Anesi, of the CNEA’s Department of Geological Prospecting and Radiometry, stated in his report that “these signs in the wheat fields are not related to anything esoteric or extraterrestrial, and are related to new climatic phenomena.”

For a video on the 2008 agriglyphs please visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVeeGAZhN2M

(Translation (c) 2010, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO and Radio Salta)

Peru: Spirited Away by the Faerie Folk?

During another search of the old hard drive for an entirely unrelated matter, I came across an article from the SAMIZDAT newsletter which preceded INEXPLICATA from 1992 to 1998. It was inspired by the research of our Peruvian correspondent at the time, Dr. Raul Rios Centeno. While copies of it may be floating out in cyberspace somewhere, here it is again, twelve years later.


Abducted by the Fairies?
By Raul Rios Centeno, M.D. (c) 1998
Translated by Scott Corrales

Dr. Raul Rios Centeno is a UFO investigator based in Lima, Peru. His investigative efforts take him to the remote areas of his Andean homeland, where impoverished peasants still speak Quechua rather than Spanish and believe in a hodgepodge of pagan and christian beliefs. Piura is a department of northern Peru, located approximately 873 kms NW of Lima. Its inhabitants are friendly and welcoming and are closely bound with their shamans and "curacas".

There are regions such as Catacaos and Monsefu in which pagan rituals combine with Catholicism to the point of confusion.It is therefore not surprising that this should be the reason why many interested in the paranormal, or merely those who are devotees of faith healing, esoterica or the Taror should visit this Peruvian region if only for "a quick throw of the cards".I had the opportunity, at my own request, to visit the area in order to treat the victims of the atmospheric phenomenon known as "El Niño".

I feel that if anyone has any doubts that this land -- in which the Moche or Mochica pre-Hispanic culture flourished -- holds a special attraction, all they have to do is pay it a visit. They will not be disappointed.The following account is one of many which I have been able to gather. Many of those with whom I came into contact could not believe that a "man of science" like myself should have any interest in what they term "family stories." The audiotapes I brought with me -- a box of ten 90-minute tapes -- were insufficient for the task, and I had to undertake the painful task of erasing some of my music tapes in order to record what villagers were telling me were inexplicably quotidian events.

Spirited Away?

"I myself never believed in such things, doctor. Even now, I don't know what to think." These were the words with which don Modesto Salas, a Piuran farmer in the town of Catacaos, began his story.His small farm is located some 2 km SE of Catacaos. He lives off his crops and a few animals he raises. The region's heat and its proximity to the Equator -- only some 220 kms away -- causes the well-known algarrobos trees, mangroves and banana plants to grow. Modesto has lived for almost ten years with Ms. Olva Vandilla, with whom he has three children: Manuel José, 9, Olga Luzmila, 7, and the missing Evelyn Rosario, who would have been five years old next April. Despite the strong customs which reign in the Peruvian localities in which the Catholic Church still preserves its predominance -- although there are numerous sects and "new churches" which have attracted followers for reasons we shall not discuss here -- Modesto and Olga never married. They don't believe it necessary to sign a contract that they may someday find has expired. They prefer to live together "for no other reason, doctor."

The aproximately ten-acre farm has at its center the small house in which the family resides. The two eldest children were baptized as soon as they were born, in step with Catholic tradition, but when it came to Evelyn's term, something unexpected happened: the local priest died. For this reason, a priest from the region of Flores, some 25 kms away, would come to Catacaos every Sunday for the eucharist and confession.

"I went to talk to him, doctor. I asked, I begged, but the padrecito didn't want to. He told me that all ceremonies had to be done in Flores. He even pointed out to me that a few couples wished to marry, and he had turned them down, saying he'd only been entrusted with the Sunday masses. A new padrecito would soon arrive, and he would be able [to do these things]."

"I wanted to baptize my Evelyn where she was born, because to baptize her in another place where I don't know anyone, and where I have no friends, doesn't seem right to me." Time went by and the priest never showed up. Evelyn remained unbaptized. "My daughter grew up pretty. She was tall and had grey eyes. At first my friends laughed at me, saying that she wasn't my daughter, and that Olga had certainly deceived me, because how could my daughter have grey eyes, when both me and my wife have brown eyes?"

According to Olga, Evelyn was the most rambunctious of all her children, although she was also the strangest. "There were times when she would sit on the ground and start talking, even shouting and laughing. Other times she'd climb up the tree and would begin talking alone. My wife told me this wasn't normal and told me to take her to a doctor, because the girl was suddenly going insane!"

"The doctor referred me to a young lady who asked Evelyn to draw pictures -- she showed her little figures. The young lady told me Evelyn was a the age in which kids have imaginary friends, and that it would stop once she went to school. Last June, Evelyn climbed onto one of the carob trees; Olga had seen her climbing up and down the carob tree for a number of days. The girl would stay up there for three hours at a time, talking alone." "Evelyn told her mother that she had little friends her own size and that she was the only one that could see them. They would show her their toys and even offered her their food."

When Modesto went to speak to the psychologist, he showed her Evelyn's drawings. He told her that some children may see things, but that his girl had counted the three little figures and given them names. "She would tell me about her little friends, and told me that the food they fed her was transparent and sweet, like gelatin. There were times when she would stop playing with her brothers to climb up the blessed tree." Unlike Olga, Modesto is a strong believer in the occult. On occasion he has consulted seers, sorcerers and shamans. The town shaman told him that when a child remains unbaptized it can communicated with beings from otehr dimensions, which we commonly know as fairies. Westeners speak of fairy treasures, but in this case Evelyn never discussed treasures, only the food and games and pranks they played. The shaman told Modesto the child must be baptized before they "conquered her."

"He told me that he could baptize her, because otherwise she would be with the demons. God did not make fairies; they are envoys of the Evil One, and can often cause problems for the families to whom they appear." When Olga learned that her husband wanted the shaman to baptize Evelyn, she retorted that the shaman wasn't a priest, and that their daughter would only be baptized by a man of the cloth. "I made an agreement with the shaman to come to my house. I would send my wife to visit her mother, and since Evelyn was always up on the tree, I would make her stay." The shaman reached Modesto's home where, according to him, he could feel the devil's presence. He prayed and chased the enemy off. Everything took place as planned: the shaman baptized Evelyn with a special oil he kept in a bottle.

"He told me he carried holy oil blessed in the Huaringas, and that it not only served to have God bless her, but it would also bring my little angel joy and happiness." Evelyn was baptized in strict privacy as per the ritual imposed by the shaman, her father being the only witness. The shaman asked Modesto not to wash the girl's head for two days. He agreed and the shaman departed.

"After the baptism, Evelyn returned to the tree and cried disconsolately. It seemed as if someone was chastising her and she cried as if when her mother reproved her." Olga returned that afternoon, and on that very same day, what they call the kidnapping took place. "I was on my hammock enjoying the air when I saw little Evelyn climb the tree after my wife got home. Now she was talking and laughing, as if drunk. I though she was playing as usual and didn't pay much attention."

At a given moment, everything went quiet and the sky grew cloudy all of a sudden. It seemed as if a massive rainstorm was about to fall. So since there's usually ligthing when it rains that way, I went to the tree where I'd last seen Evelyn, but she was no longer there." Modesto thought that Evelyn had gone into the house, but he was surprised that he hadn't seen her come down. Upon entering the home, which was some 30 meters away from the tree, he asked his wife about the child. "Olga told me she'd seen her go up the tree and that she should still be on the blessed tree because she hadn't seen her come down."

Modesto returned to the tree, checked the adjacent ones, but could see nothing. Olga ran out, shouting desperately, but it was all in vain. At that moment Olga approached the tree and climbed up to find some trace of her daughter, but only found "something like a cobweb on the trunk, which was slightly burned. It appeared freshly burned due to the smell that emanated from the trunk."

At that moment, they thought they heard a howl coming from the doorway to the house. For one moment they thought it was Evelyn, but upon getting closer and opening the door they found nothing at all. "It was a sound like that of a pututo [Andean flute], but it came from the sky."

Modesto and Olga never found their youngest daughter again. The police was notified, word was sent to radio stations and to a television channel in Piura, but the whereabouts of their daughter were never discovered. "Doctor, I feel the fairies took my little angel. Otherwise, how can I explain her disappearance? Not even the dogs barked. Nothing."

The information provided by Modesto leads one to think about an abduction. What is strange about the case is why was the child taken after the alleged baptism? Could it be that they were awaiting her baptism before taking her? If so, what reason could they possibly have to kidnap a not-quite-five year old child?What entities kidnapped the girl? What was the transparent food she was offered? Why was she scolded after her baptism and why was she later intoxicated, drugged, or put to sleep? Why did the parents not notice anything? What was the meaning of the cobweb-like substance and the burned tree-trunk? Was there any radiation involved?

Spain: Saucers of the Spanish Civil War

UFOs of the Spanish Civil War
by Javier García Blanco

Ten years would have to pass before the so-called "modern age" of UFOs would kick off in 1947 with Kenneth Arnold's famous sighting. However, strange flying objects and their crews were already plowing across our skies, even as Spain was embroiled in a civil war.

Nationalist and Republican soldiers at the front wondered what those unidentified flying objects might be.

"Kenneth Arnold did not describe the objects he saw as "flying saucers", rather he said that the artifacts he had seen moved like saucers skipping off the water's surface." It was the press that came up with the equivocal designation. Curiously, from that moment onward, witnesses described objects resembling flying saucers." this is one of the arguments wielded by pseudoskeptics to deny the reality of the UFO phenomenon. To them, the UFO "myth" was born from a journalistic error. However, the truth is quite different. The "champions" of rationalism forget (whether intentionally or not) that much before Arnold saw those boomerang-shaped objects (for this was the actual description given of the objects), hundreds, if not thousands, of witnesses around the world had already described disk-shaped unidentified flying objects.

And Spain was no exception.

Researchers have gleaned a wealth of accounts which make mention of this type of object, since at the start of the century, when no one spoke of flying saucers and much less of UFOs. In fact, some ten years prior to the start of the modern UFO age and Arnold's sighting, Spain was fighting its Civil War.

It need not be said that the generation which was forced to live through that fratricidal conflict was not much given to imagining little green Martians. There were other more pressing concerns to worry about, but nevertheless, our files include several cases in which a variety of witnesses had face-to-face encounters with the phenomenon.

Like a Mexican Hat

The sun had already risen and the soldiers whose battalion defended the Peñón de la Mata position (to the north fo the Province of Granada) on February 5, 1938 endured the cold as best they could.
They guarded their position carefully under perfectly cloudless skies and our witness--a fighter with the 76th Brigade--suddenly became aware of the presence of something abnormal in the skies over Granada.

Located at a considerable distance, and at an altitude of 200 meters, the soldier saw an object resembling "a Mexican hat" the color of flat aluminum. The sun's rays, reflecting off its surface, enabled him to see that it was a metallic device. It flew slowly as it approached the witness's position. It was then that he was able to observe it with greater detail:

"Seen from below, its shape was exactly that of a cartwheel. In its center, from where the spokes emerged, it had what looked like a photo camera lens and gave a sensation of depth."

When the object approached even closer, passing almost directly overhead, the soldier was even able to make out some curved black windows which appeared on the side of the remarkable "Mexican hat". The following is a transcript of an interview with the ABC Andalucía newspaper:

--Did the object leave a wake in its path or anything similar?
--Well, yes. It gave out a sort of vapor from its sides and gave the overall impression of having a small tail. I can't tell you exactly where it was coming from, but as it came out it formed what I already said: a little tail.
--Was its trajectory always straight or did it make any kind of turn?
--It made a slight skip as it moved away, similar to a pulse.
From that moment onward, he stopped looking at it, since the pressing reality was not conducive to distraction. For this reason he was unable to see how the object vanished, perhaps, over the horizon.
--Could you describe for us, as precisely as possible, what the object looked like?
--Overall it looked like a Mexican hat, as I've told you, but with the detail that its ends formed straight angles. Afterward, as it approached and passed almost directly overhead, I was able to see that it had small windows and was completely round. It gyrated in a counterclockwise motion. At first I thought it was a truck tire that had exploded, but "that thing" seemed to have a life of its own, aside from the fact that had it been a truck tire, we would have seen it fall. Its diameter would have been approximately three meters.
--Which way did it go?
--From north to south.
This ends the soldier's description. But what exactly was it that those astonished fighters saw? A military prototype? In Spain, and in the 1930's? Let's see what J.J. Benítez has to say about military aviation during the Civil War in his book La Punta del Iceberg:

"In 1936, the Spanish Air Force was small and antiquated. The main fighter aircraft was the Nieuport NID 52 hemi-plane, of which it had 40 left. The aircraft with the largest number of operating units was the Breguet, a twin-engine biplane for reconnaissance and bombing operations (60 units). Germany's earliest aid took the shape of 20 Junkers aircraft. Shortly after, other Italian, German, Russian, French, American, Dutch, British and Czech vehicles would arrive."

However, despite the material aid from other countries and received by the various combatants, neither of these airplanes met the characteristics described by the eyewitness. A circular aircraft in 1938 Spain? While it is true that the Germans did design and build a number of circular wing aircraft, these vehicles did not come about until the Second World War, and could not very well have been flying over Spanish skies. [Anyone interested in man-made UFOs can consult the book Los expedientes secretos del CESID, written by our colleague Manuel Carballal].

The eyewitness, who chose to remain anonymous, wound up losing a leg three days after the sighting. Many years later he became a painter, and would sign a sworn statement attesting that what he had described was completely true.

Humanoids at the Guadalajara Front

Only five months after the sighting over Granada, other military men would become witnesses--this time in the city of Guadalajara--of a no less remarkable event.

It was half past eleven o'clock on the evening of July 25, 1938. The witnesses (a lieutenant and his aide) were descending down a gully located in the town of La Alcarria. Suddenly, a powerful white light drew their attention. Shortly after the light was extinguished, a disk-shaped object some 11 meters long and 5 meters high appeared before their eyes.

The disk which was some 60 meters away from them, appeared to be suspended at some two meters over the ground. The witnesses described it as: "two plates joined on their convex sides, separated by a line or section of a darker color." Furthermore, the object's lower section had a sort of column which descended very slowly and appeared to contain two humanoid figures.

Next, the object began projecting a circle of bluish light on the ground. When the circle of light reached the military men, they felt a sensation of cold. Shortly afterward, the light turned off and the column rose in complete silence, all of this accompanied by colored sparks emanating from the object.

At the time, the onlookers believe they saw "the two halves" of the object begin to rotate, each in an opposite direction from the other. The disk began to project a powerful white glow and rose into the air with great speed, vanishing into the heavens. As with the Granada case, there is no apparent explanation for the sighting. In spite of the fact that both military men believed that they had witnessed a German prototype or something belonging to the "reds", we have already explained that this was materially impossible. The main witnessed (the lieutenant) rejected any publicity regarding the subject and insisted upon remaining anonymous to our colleague Manuel Carballal. Having eliminated the possibility of fraud, what is left? We can only accept that the UFO phenomenon was widespread in Spain in 1938.

UFO Landing in Avila

It was Juanjo Benítez who brought this case to light in his book La Punta del Iceberg. The eyewitness, Mariano Melgar, who was a 7 year-old boy at the time, had been sent by his parents to the town of Muñizo to safeguard him from the horrors and perils of the war. It was the summer of 1938, and one morning, while the boy tended to the cattle, the incredible event occurred.

"I looked after some of my relatives' cows at the time, and on that hot summer morning, at around twelve o'clock, I left town toward a rural area located some 2 or 3 kilometers from Muñizo. I reached the little forest and sat down among the trees while the cows ate in a nearby field. It was then that I heard a buzzing sound that almost pierced my eardrums. I looked up to the sky and saw a flash of light amid the blue. Suddenly I became aware that it was a circular device that fired off flashes like silver. It came down not far from the copse's edge and touched ground. I took shelter behind one of the trees and spied its movements."

It was then that Melgar closely observed a circular object measuring some 15 to 20 meters in diameter and which featured a sort of cupola on its upper half. Several legs which supported the object could be seen in its undersection and dozens of colored lights went on and off on the "ship's" fuselage.

Suddenly, a door opened on the structure and after lowering a ramp, three "men" emerged: "Only a few seconds had gone by when I saw a "man" appear through the door. He was followed by a second one, and then a third.

But while the first two walked along the ramp and moved some five or ten meters away from the craft, the third, who was slightly shorter than the others, remained at the doorway. The first two men almost reached the top of the door, and I figure that the door was some two meters tall and another two wide. The fact is that the first two began collecting something, I couldn't tell you if it was plants or soil. One of them kneeled, of that I'm sure. They had something in their hands, perhaps it was a bag. I tried to approach the strange pilots, but I hadn't walked more that five meters when the one standing at the doorway fired a flash at me that almost landed me on my back. That scared me, so I went back to the trees."

After Mariano made a second attempt to approach, and received a similar discouragement, the "men", who seemed to be moving in slow-motion, returned to the vehicle. One of them made the unusual gesture of raising a hand as if waving to the youngster. "From there I was able to see the object taking off. First the ramp went back in and the door closed next. Then, within seconds, the device rose some 50 to 100 meters into the air, spinning on its own axis, and many colored lights could be seen. It then went away toward Barco de Avila."

This ends the boy's tale. He had remained in absolute silence about his unusual experience for forty years, until Benítez's fortuitous interview. As with the earlier cases, the then child identified the crewmen and their aircraft as "one of General Franco's aircraft." However, he himself acknowledged years later: "Today I know that "thing" couldn't have been related to our war in any way."

Epilogue for a War

The Spanish Civil War came to an end in March 1939, when Nationalist troops reached Madrid. However, UFO activity continued, apparently oblivious to the conflict's progress.

In May 1939, some residents of the Horcajada farmstead were startled by the unexpected arrival of a humanoid entity with metal legs, who was seen on a number of occasions. One of the witnesses, Adelaida Rubio, claims that the entity, whose appearances were always prefaced by a powerful flash, had the aspect of a "strange soldier", moving clumsily along with large strides.

Two months later, on July 1, 1939, several children who looked after cattle in Zahara de los Atunes (Cádiz) witnessed a flying object eighteen meters in diameter. When the UFO flew over their heads at low altitude, they felt a sensation of extreme heat. The object landed with a whistling sound some 30 meters away, kicking up a dust storm. A door emerged on the object's side and two beings emerged from within, one of them tall, and the other short and squat bearing a sort of flashlight which was able to illuminate the surroundings despite the fact that it was noon. After walking some twenty paces away from the UFO, the beings turned around and re-entered the craft. The strange encounter lasted 15 minutes.

While Spain tried to rebuild after the horrors of the war, sightings and landings continued to occur all over the country. Cases earlier than 1947 (the start of the UFO "myth" for our illustrious pseudoskeptics) in Spain number in the dozens.

Who knows how many cases may have never been disclosed, remaining locked forever in their protagonists's memories? One way or another, these case which predate Arnold's show that UFOs were already crossing our skies when the words "flying saucer" had not yet been uttered.

For more information:
OVNIs en Andalucía caps. 61, 62 y 63. ABC Andalucía.
BENITEZ, Juan Jose. La punta del Iceberg. Ed. Planeta.
BENITEZ, Juan Jose. El ovni de BelΘn. Ed. Plaza & JanΘs. 1983.
MAS ALLA de los OVNIs Encylopedia. Los OVNIs aterrizan. Vol. 3. Chapter 24.
Phenomenes Spatiaux no. 28, junio de 1971, 18﷓19
CARBALLAL, Manuel. Los expedientes secretos del CESID. Ed. Planeta.
Barcelona 2001.
JIMENEZ ELIZARI, Iker and FERNENDEZ, Lorenzo. 50 años de OVNIs, Chapter 19. ENIGMAS Magazine.

Puerto Rico: Enfoque X TV

Puerto Rico's Enfoque X TV - hosted by Luiseppi Quiñones (center) and Inexplicata contributing editor José A. Martinez Echevarría (right)-- interviews Carlos Torres (left), director of "Ovnis al Día" magazine regarding the 1998 encounter between fishermen and an unknown object in the city of Lajas' La Pitahaya sector.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9tu0luQRPA (in Spanish)

Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO Bigfoot Casebook

In the field of UFO and paranormal research, certain years stand out among others. Thus we have 1947 best remembered for Kenneth Arnold's historic sighting over Mt. Rainier, 1952 for the “UFO siege” of Washington, D.C., 1961 for the Betty and Barney Hill abduction, and so forth.

But of all these years, perhaps none is so important as 1973 – a year of no special significance to the younger reader, or to those recently entering the field, but all too memorable to those who actively researched anomalies, or those who just followed their exploits in the press of the time. Dubbed “The Year of the Humanoids”, 1973 represented the high-water mark of CE-3s occurring in the outer space of the roads, fields and byways of our world as opposed to the “inner space” of homes and bedrooms, where the contemporary abduction phenomenon now occurs.

In an age that seeks to distill the high-strangeness and anomalous properties of UFO cases, an alchemy bent on finding nothing but nuts-and-bolts in the crucible, it is refreshing to find a book like Stan Gordon's Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook, which looks back at the year 1973 and the events that occurred in the Keystone State. A moment in time so baffling and filled with activity that law enforcement turned to researchers of arcane for assistance.

Luckily, Stan Gordon happened to be in the right place and the right time, ably assisted by the team of researchers collectively known as the Westmoreland County UFO Study Group. During the fever pitch of activity, which began with unexplained aerial lights and encompassed some of the most active (and hair-raising) sightings of the paranormal humanoid known as Bigfoot, phone calls were coming in at all hours of the day. Silent Invasion chronicles this mind-bending moment in the research of the unknown, previously available only in old periodicals and newsletters.

The reader is treated to the first CE-1 incidents over Southern Pennsylvania, the CE-2's researched by members of WCUFOSG, and one of the most chilling CE-3 events in the annals of UFO research: the October 25, 1973 incident in Uniontown, PA – the crossroads of ufology, Bigfoot research and perhaps even demonology, witnessed by members of the research team.

A word of advice to those venturing into the subject for the first time – read this with a light on!

-Scott Corrales
INEXPLICATA