Brazil: The Barroso Case (1976)

[Our friend and colleague Paulo Poian informed us today a motion picture project based on one of Brazil's most stunning cases of alleged UFO encounter after-effects. An electrifying read! -- SC]


Brazil: The Barroso Case (1976)
By Elias Bruno

Francisco Barroso’s father claims having been abducted at Quixadá (CE). The case was studied by UFO researchers and was the basis for the film “Area Q” shot in that city.

The Barroso case took place on 3 April 1976 in Quixadá, and displays the terrible aspects that can be concealed behind a UFO event. Following an encounter with a UFO that fired some sort of beam at him, experiencer Luis Barroso Fernandes, underwent a strange mental deterioration at the same time that his skin became gradually rejuvenated. Toward the end of his days, he was barely able to utter three words: “mama”, “dada” and “fear”. After being examinated by over a dozen specialists in various medical fields, his case remains a mystery, and a warning about the hazards that may lie behind contact with UFOs.

The everyday routine of businessman Francisco Leonardo Barroso, the son of the farmer allegedly attacked by aliens in the sertao of Ceará in the 1970s, remains unchanged after having starred in the movie “Area Q”, inspired by untold contact experiences in the region. The businessman stated that his father, who died 19 years ago, taught his brothers how to defend themselves and avoid being taken away by unidentified flying objects (UFOs). “To avoid this, you’ve got to go for the roots of a tree. You’ve got to get under the roots of the tree, and the device they use (the Ets) will lose contact”, he explains. Barroso says this father was left with reddened skin and mental retardation after having been spirited away by a UFO.

According to the son, farmer Luis Fernandez Barroso had a very close encounter with extraterrestrials in the 1970s. “Once a week, he went to the farm to look after the herd and enjoyed going out in the small hours of the morning, about 0200 hours. One day, while driving a wagon, he says he came into contact with something that looked like an airplane – only it descended, came down near him, and fired a powerful, nearly blinding beam of light at him,” he says. “Not only do I believe this, I’ve seen it for myself,” remarks Barroso when asked about the belief in UFO manifestation near the city of Quixadá.

Proprietor of a general store in the busy municipal downtown area, he works at the store until noon and then heads for the farm in the rural area where his father’s alleged abduction took place. Francisco Leonardo is the only one of Barroso’s sons who still lives in Quixadá. His mother also passed away; one of his siblings lives in Paiuí and another in a municipality of Ceará’s sertao.

Aftereffects of an Alleged Abduction

After the contact experience, the businessman claims having seen his father undergo physical and psychological changes. His skin was red, “as though burned”, and his mental faculties were diminished after the alleged alien contact, forcing the children to assume the reins of the family business. The case was brought to the attention of ufologists in several countries, such as Portugal, Italy and Spain. They came to the farm to study Barroso’s symptoms and listen to his stories. “My father also went to many hospitals in Fortaleza, and they said that his mind was like that of a child,” says Francisco Leonardo. His father died on the farm in 1993, and according to the son, the appearance of his skin did not match his age. “It was as though it had grown over again,” he says.

Barrosos son almost underwent the same experience when he was driving along the same road to the farm. “I was on a motorbike and saw an object emitting a very bright light. I turned away to keep from being blinded by the light and I slowed down. I remembered two of my father’s pieces of advice: “Don’t be scared and don’t be nervous”, he said. After that, these apparitions would become commonplace in the businessman’s life, saying that it wasn’t a problem “after one gets used to it.”

“I have no ill will against the extraterrestrials, as there were other similar cases to that of my father’s. It was an accident. It could happen to me, to you, or to anyone else,” he says. The businessman has still not seen the movie, but is pleased to know that this father served as its inspiration. “My father was among the first to undergo such an experience. To see that story in the film is admirable, as he really went down in history.”

An Unsolved Case

Ufologist Reginaldo de Athayde (co-editor of Revista UFO) followed the Barroso Case from the moment that the farmer was abducted until his death. “For 17 years, I’d go to Quixadá once a month with other researchers to visit Barroso,” he says. The contact experience was documented in the book “ET’s, Santos e Demonios na Terra do Sol” (Ets, Saints and Demons in the Land of the Sun – Biblioteca UFO, 2000), in which Athayde also discusses other cases involving alien contact in the inland municipalities of Ceará.

The ufologist also told G1 that efforts were made to pursue research into the case following Barroso’s death, but the farmer’s children did not consent to an autopsy. “We believe that this case will never be solved, but we did what we could during the 17-year follow-up.”

“Area Q”

Filmmaker Halder Gomes, of Ceará, was responsible for scouting the locations of “Area Q”, to be shot in Arizona, USA and in the municipality of Quixadá. “In March 2009, I suggested to director Gerson Sanginitto that we approach this ufological subject in another way, based on the stories and anecdotes that I heard while growing up,” says Gomes, who was born in the municipality of Senador Pompeu, also in the Ceará sertao. His birthplace is only a few kilometers from Quixadá, a city surrounded by abundant rock formations known as monoliths, and which are used as a setting for the film.

Halder Gomes, who is also the film’s executive producer, says that the research work dug up cases involving not only Luis Fernandes Barroso, but also stories involving lights seen by the dwellers of this region of Ceará. “We created an entirely fictional story, but some characters could be associated [with real ones], as was done with the Barroso Case, which is rather well-known. The stories of author Raquel de Queiroz, a resident of Quixadá, were used in defining the colors issued by the UFOs,” he explained.

The film tells the story of an American journalist who is hired to research cases of unidentified flying object sightings in Quixadá, a city that became internationally known due to its alien abduction stories, such as the Barroso Incdent. The movie was released on 13 April in fourteen capital cities, and with some scenes filmed in Los Angeles. It was directed by Gerson Sanginitto. The cast includes U.S. actor Isaiah Washington and Brazilian talent Murilo Rosa, Tania Khalil, Ricardo Conti and Karla Karenina.

(Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Paulo Poian, Revista UFO)

Spain: Possible Abduction or Teleportation (1986)

Source: www.andaluciamisteriosa.com
Date: 04.27.2012


Spain: Possible Abduction or Teleportation at Alcalá de Guadaira (1986)
By Angel Carretero Olmedo

Although the witness had his first UFO experience at the age of 17, we shall focus on the event that took place on the evening of 9 November 1986 around 23:15 hours. An industrial engineer, Pedro Oliva Ramirez, was heading in his car from Seville to the town of Alcalá de Guadaira, where he was residing temporarily.

Nothing noteworthy occurred during the first leg of this journey, until he suddenly went around a curve and found himself driving along a six lane highway, three lanes in each direction. It was a completely straight segment of road, and startled by this feature, began to pay attention to what was an entirely new situation for him.

He saw a plain to his left at a distance of some 100 meters, measuring some 400 meters long, with five or six industrial concerns lined up alongside them. These were fully lit and had an estimated height of 80 meters. Unfamiliar structures also appeared on his right, but these were housing units standing some twenty stories each. There was very dense grass at the edge of the road, some 70 centimeters high, to the left and to the right.

After regarding this anomalous landscape, he felt a sensation of heat invading his vehicle while hearing the sound of chorused, distant voices. A few meters away from the car, he saw something looking like a large soccer goal. He was unsure whether to cross it or not. One of the voices tells him that he has been transferred by aliens to another country in another hemisphere.

He drove along the highway for an hour before making a stop. Larger cars pass him on the third lane, looking like outdated Cadillacs – white or beige in color, with dark narrow license plates. He got out of the car and wandered along the edge of the road for a quarter of an hour, looking at the fine grass with the aid of his car’s headlights. He also noticed other vehicles passing him with a frequency – or at intervals – of 8 minutes between one and the other. He boarded his car again and kept driving for another hour. He stopped again and got out for another quarter of an hour.

Resuming his drive, he found an unmarked detour to his left. This road was narrow and patchy-looking. He drove for half an hour before finding a triple sign that read: MALAGA in one direction, SEVILLA in another and ALCABALA in yet another.

He took the detour leading to Seville, and without quite knowing why, stopped driving. When he looked to his left, he found himself standing outside his home in Alcalá de Guadaira.

Angry, he decided to retrace his steps and find the crossroads, but was unable to find it. Nor was he able to find the triple road sign nor the six-lane highway.

The witness notes that the drive between Seville and Alcalá de Guadaira takes him half an hour. On this occasion, it took him three hours and five minutes, and a fuel consumption equivalent to two hundred plus kilometers.

Two days later, on 11 November, he read his horoscope in the Diario ABC newspaper and was startled. The horoscope reads: “Aries – a friend, possibly a Gemini or Capricorn, will save you today from going back into the time tunnel to relive an grim experience.”

We have available a handwritten letter by the experiencer – two pages long, dated on November of that year and addressed to Joaquin Mateos Nogales.

There also exists a sort of pamphlet, bearing the title Mis Amigos (my friends), dated August 1988 where this man discusses his life-long experiences in 14 handwritten pages.

Available documentation: Copy of the letter and the aforementioned pamphlet.
Researcher: Joaquin Mateos Nogales
Possible abduction and/or teleportation case.

(Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Angel Carretero Olmedo)

Argentina: Mysterious Circles Caused by UFO Landing at Las Perdices?

Source: Diario de Córdoba
Date: Thursday, 26 April 2012

Argentina: Mysterious Circle Caused by UFO Landing at Las Perdices?

LAS PERDICES – The discovery of a circle with a 25 meter diameter in a field located in the Las Perdices rural area became the mandatory subject of conversation among residents of this quiet and lovely locality in the Tercero Arriba department.

While many locals claim that the surface impression is due to a landing by an unidentified flying object, others seek a more down-to-earth and human explanation.

The strange circumference was seen at first light yesterday on a sorghum plantation in a field located 1.5 kilometers east of Las Perdices, a property belonging to the Tossi family.

[...]

Elver Costa, another resident of Las Perdices, stated that the subject has captured public opinion in the locality and with passing hours, residents have visited the site in droves.

While the owner of the field has not made any statements, other sources claim that he will ask for an explanation of the event from the National University at Rio Cuarto or another institution of higher learning. It should be recalled that the sudden appearance of these circumferences or circles in fields has occurred on numerous occasions in various parts of the world, the cause being widely attributed to UFOs.

In Argentina, the latest phenomenon having similar characteristics occurred in February of last year in several fields of southern Córdoba and in Buenos Aires.

One of the rings was detected in a cornfield belonging to a rural property in Villa Rossi (Cordoba) and General Villegas (Buenos Aires) on the provincial border. Another two circles were seen in a field at Huinca Renancó, a few meters from each other. In all of these cases, the same hypothesis emerged, one that ascribes authorship of these circles to some flying object.

(Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

Argentina: A Crop Circle in Las Perdices

Source: Diario de Córdoba & Planeta UFO
Date: 04.25.12

Argentina: A Crop Circle in Las Perdices

A 25 meter circumference that appeared in a sorghum field in Las Perdices gave rise of all manner of conjectures among residents of the southern reaches of the province, going as far as to suggest the possibility that an unidentified flying object could have landed on the spot.

According to the local daily newspaper “Puntal”, the circle was noticed during the early hours of Monday morning. “It’s something curious, odd. You can see that something landed on the site, leaving a perfect circumference,” explained Enzo Diaz, a local resident.

The field is located on a rural property some thousand meters to the east of the locality, owned by a farmer surnamed Tossi.

Doubts and the lack of a convincing explanation about the circle’s appearance, which was photographed by locals, created a sea of uncertainty, and the notion of the UFO still hovers in people’s minds.

What do you think?

NOTE: Photos of the crop circle are the property of PUNTAL.com.ar and are visible at http://www.diaadia.com.ar/cordoba/sospechan-que-ovni-aterrizo-perdices

(Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO, Diario de Córdoba, Diario Puntal)

Mexico: Of Spirits and Ouija Boards

Mexico: Of Spirits and Ouija Boards
By Scott Corrales (c) 2012


A man is elected to the highest office of the land. He is a noble-spirited reformer from a wealthy family, vegetarian and given to such strict celibacy that he will never have a family with his own wife. Some might term his ideals as outrageously “new age”. Sessions are formally held for the president to contact the spirit of departed first executives for advice; there is also talk of channeling going on at the presidential palace.

The foregoing paragraph might serve as a blurb for a political novel in which the idealistic elected official comes to a sticky end due to his questing spirit. But this situation actually took place – not in the new age minded Eighties, but in the first decade of the 20th century, when Francisco I. Madero, an avowed spiritist, became president of Mexico after the 1910 revolution.

Young Francisco’s idealism had been such that his family always thought he was destined for the priesthood. Having gone to France to further his education, however, he promptly fell into the embrace of the intellectual and esoteric trends of the time. Allan Kardec’s works on spiritism were widely circulated, hermetic and Gnostic associations were rife, and the works of Camile Flammarion and the occultist Papus (Gerard Encausse) were widely circulated. Upon returning to San Pedro de las Colonias in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, Madero established the Sociedad de Estudios Psíquicos (Society for Psychic Research) and served as its main trance medium and amanuensis. In 1907, the spirit guide known as “José” advised those present at a séance that “a great crusade for democracy” lay ahead for Madero. The rest is history, as they say.

Séances had been held in ultra-catholic Mexico since the 1870s, but the Ouija board, patented by Elijah Bond in 1890, represented a new and unfamiliar source of communication with the departed.

In the early 1980s, a Mexican priest received an anguished phone call from a young man living in Mexico City’s Popotla District. The youth begged the padre to come to his house, where “something evil” was taking place. The address – given as number 51 Cañitas Street – would become a landmark address in the study of the paranormal. The priest gave the desperate caller a bit of advice: to place an open Bible at the entrance to the home. On the following day, the residents of the house discovered to their horror that the holy book “was weeping blood”, according to statements. Worse yet – at the time this event was discovered, the priest who offered the advice stumbled on the steps of his church and broke his neck.

According to the story, the Amityville-like ordeal at 51 Cañitas began with a simple Ouija board session, leading to ghostly apparitions, oppression and even obsession. The story became known thanks to Carlos Trejo, a researcher who was at the center of the Ouija sessions held at that location.

The session held in 1982 started out as a gag between friends, although the querent who set the events in motion was none other than Norma Trejo – the researcher’s sister – who asked the board about a former boyfriend, supposedly killed in an accident. The planchette swiveled around, spelling out: Siempre estoy contigo, y ahora me encuentro dentro de Manuel (I am always with you, and now I’m inside Manuel). Manuel, Norma’s current boyfriend, began to contort, his body twisting into impossible postures to everyone’s horror.

The events set off by the Ouija session sent those present into a “twilight zone” worthy of contemporary Hollywood horror films involving unwary teenagers. A dark presence had seized the home at 51 Cañitas, turning it into a house of horrors in which poltergeist manifestations took turns with demonic obsession. The dark force that caused Manuel to twist into strange and fearsome shapes was driving him mad, while temperatures dropped, friends and relatives experienced possession episodes in which they spoke with strange voices, and objects lurched from one part of the floor to another.

Perhaps the most terrifying incident involved a hooded, taloned figure that appeared in the dark, trying to reach Norma. It would haunt the hallways and the rooms occupied the younger members of the Trejo family. The improbable and frightening manifestations would vanish with a mist that would hang in the air after it was gone.

According to the story, the Ouija session at Cañitas Street claimed an incredible fourteen lives: first among them, the priest – Padre Tomás – who died upon recommending the use of the Bible. He was followed by Manuel, possessed by the entity, who would die in a car crash with his family; another session-goer died of a bullet-wound during a bar fight; Sofía Trejo, Carlos’s spouse, died of a brain tumor. The list goes on to a tally of fourteen lives supposedly lost to a paranormal incident that began in May 1982.

Accused of being a hoaxer by some, Trejo still lives on the property that claimed the lives of his loved ones and has written books on the subject. A motion picture – Cañitas – opened on March 30, 2007. The film by Julio Cesar Estrada and starring Armando Hernández as Trejo, was panned by critics (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0491534/)

According to Trejo -- seeing that even an exorcism of the property had failed, resulting in a shower of exploding glass windows – the family conducted its own research, discovering that the house had been built on the ancient boneyard of a 16th century monastic order “involved with the Inquisition”. This opens other avenues of inquiry.

Far from circumscribed to Europe, the Spanish Inquisition (a source of humor to fans of Monty Python) was very active in its colonial possessions, having been established in Mexico City 1571 by Pedro Moya de Contreras, the High Inquisitor of New Spain. Following the cruel and bloodthirsty code set down by Torquemada, the Mexican Inquisition freely employed torture and confiscation of assets to achieve its purposes. Could the hooded and clawed figure have been, indeed, the spirit of one of these torturers, or one of its victims?

The house at 51 Cañitas is located in the city’s Popotla District, one of the oldest, having been part of Aztec Tenochtitlán. In the year 1598, a prison belonging to the Inquisition was built in this general area at the orders of Alonso de Peralta, which also contained a chapel used by religious devotions by the Holy Office, containing portraits of Saint Ildefonsus and Saints Peter and Paul. An inscription can still be found at 5 Perpetua Street which reads: “Under the rule of His Excellency the Count of Monterrey, the Honorable Don Alonso de Peralta who alone attends the court of Inquisition of Mexico City, with his chief architect being Baltazar Mexia, brought water to this building on 8 November 1598” – referring to a supply of potable water channeled in from a nearby spring.

This “secret prison” – a place of horror and torment – is also mentioned in the writings of Artemio del Valle Arizpe, the official chronicler of Mexico City in the 1920s. “In the courtyard of the orange trees, and under the series of dungeons in its southern section, lies an underground vault that has been seen by a few [...]. These vaults were explored years ago by General Miguel Miramón, Dr. José Lobato and my father, when they were youths. What purpose did they serve? We do not know. Some, filled with fear, have turned them into the site of mysterious scenes...”

As from the 18th century, the Mexican Inquisition was headquartered in the contemporary Palace of Medicine, built in 1732 at Plaza Santo Domingo, where it still stands to this day (http://www.ciudadmexico.com.mx/atractivos/imagenes/palacio_medicina.jpg). Restoration of its cells is ongoing. The original buildings and outlying structures may, as Carlos Trejo suggests, have been in the area occupied by 51 Cañitas and other dwellings.

Uruguay: Witnesses at Loggerheads with Air Force Over UFO

Source: Diario El Pais
http://www.elpais.com.uy/120413/pciuda-635888/ciudades/testigos-polemizan-con-la-fuerza-aerea-por-un-ovni/
Date: 04.13.12

Uruguay: Witnesses at Loggerheads with Air Force Over UFO

“They weren’t airplanes”, they argue. CRIDOVNI: “Case Closed”

By V.D. Castillo and R. Roselló

The Air Force report was unequivocal: the objects seen were nothing more than airliners. But the two witnesses insist that what they saw and recorded was something else. Such polemics tend to surround the UFO phenomenon.

“This commission, after having analyzed the witnesses’ account, determines the photos and videos provided on Saturday 7 April at the times indicated, correspond to fly-overs by two passenger transport airplanes belonging to Copa Airline and Aerolineas Argentinas,” says the report from the Comisión Receptora e Investigadora de Denuncias de Objetos Voladores No Identificados (CRIDOVNI) belonging to the Uruguayan Air Force.

But the expert opinion did not satisfy the witnesses. In Durazno, the two campers who recorded the objects at the mouth of the Los Molles creek in photo and video form, insist that they didn’t see airplanes.

“They weren’t airplanes. We never stopped seeing the light. We followed it everywhere it went and when it flew over us, those were movements that an airplane doesn’t make,” stated Edinson Volpe, who witnessed the event on Easter Saturday along with Lazaro Iriarte.

“If it’s an airplane, you’ll feel its turbines. This passed within fifty meters of us and we only heard a buzz,” states Volpe.

The witness added that he lives in an area that is heavily transited by airplanes and “what we saw on Saturday wasn’t one of them.”

OPEN CASES. “We’re accustomed to such reactions. For this reason we’d rather not comment after making a report. It’s case closed as far as we’re concerned. It involved fly-overs,” said Coronel Sanchez, CRIDOVNI’s director, to El PAIS.

The Durazno case went on to augment a file of over 1200 reports investigated by CRIDOVNI in its three decades of institutional existence.

Sanchez estimate that there are over 40 cases -- among the ones investigated-- for which no explanation was ever found, despite having exhausted the investigation protocol. One of the first was a complaint received in 1979 by commercial pilots who photographed a strange object that accompanied their flight for a good part of the trip.

After 33 years of existence, CRIDOVNI was unable to explain this and other phenomena. Three more recent cases that puzzle the Air Force researchers have also fallen into this category. They involve sightings made on the Montevideo coast between January and March of this year.

During the customary investigations, much like in the Durazno case, military radar systems that detected the presence of objects flying through the air were consulted, even though these objects did not correspond to any official or commercial flight.

“It could involve an airplane that doesn’t want to be identified. An illicit flight, an object launched into the air at a party, there can be many explanations of this sort,” Sanchez pointed out.

The fact is that during the investigation process, which can be as long and tedious as a police investigation, and includes the questioning of witnesses and the examination of photographs and videos, no conclusion was reached.

The military officer notes that over 95% of the cases have a logical or natural explanation, despite appearances. He recalls the case of the object seen in the Downtown district when a crowd went out to greet the Uruguayan team in 2010: it was a nylon bag.

According to CRIDOVNI’s records, 48% of the phenomena reported involve sightings of “red lights” in the sky. These are “luminous spheres” seen in various parts of the country and which are believed to be gas emissions. “We think that we properly control the air space, with people’s help,” Sanchez commented.

(Translation (c) 2012, Scott Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

Uruguay: Uruguay: How Uruguay’s “Area 51” Responds to UFO Reports

Source: El Observador
Date: 13 April 2012

Uruguay: How Uruguay’s “Area 51” Responds to UFO Reports
By Sebastián Amaya

Thirty-two years ago, the Uruguayan Air Force (FAU) created the Comisión Receptora e Investigadora de Denuncias de Objetos Voladores No Identificados (CRIDOVNI – Commission for the Intake and Investgation of Unidentified Flying Object Reports), making it the first Latin American country to have an agency devoted to researching this phenomenon.

It came about as a result of the number of reports on UFO sightings received in the 1970s. Currently, with new technologies, the Commission continues receiving images and complaints, such as the one that occurred recently in Durazno.

In order to learn the protocol followed when a UFO report is received in Uruguay, El Observador newspaper consulted Col. Ariel Sanchez, president of CRIDOVNI, at the office that carries out tasks that resemble those performed by the legendary “Area 51” in the United States.

UFO Does Not Mean Extraterrestrial

With the appearance of digital cameras and cellphones, CRIDOVNI receives several photos a month from citizens who report having captured UFOs in their pictures. “They send us many digital photos. When they transfer them to their PCs and see a little spot, they associate it with aliens when in fact it was an insect or a bird,” said Sanchez, giving the example of the photo taken when the Uruguayan football team returned home after the World Cup.

After performing an investigation, it was determined that the image did not show a UFO. It took a visit to the scene of the events (Avenida Del Libertador) to ascertain the formation of wind tunnels in the area, which cause a considerable number of plastic bags to take flight.

Cases such as this are legion. CRIDOVNI has a mechanism for eliminating possibilities, among which the extraterrestrial alternative is the very last option. “People translate UFO into extraterrestrial, and we endeavor to inculcate that the acronym stands for an object that flies and cannot be identified. But a number of things must be eliminated before considering the final alternative.”

When a photo or record is received, an investigation process takes place. “To us, the photo loses value if the witness saw nothing at all and has just found them on his or her computer. This opens a vast array of possibilities, which can range from an insect to a camera defect.”

CRIDOVNI has an evaluation table that has been in use for several years, one that stresses “the level of strangeness, the eyewitness account and the psychological profile of the person” who reports the case, remarked the colonel. “What the witness actually saw is the most valuable thing to us. The photo or video are secondary and may have supporting value or not when [the witness] testifies to the sighting.”

“We call it the UFO phenomenon because the phenomenon is not only the object that was seen or that can be photographed, but everything that surrounds it, such as the press that goes after the story and the witness who presents the report,” said Sanchez.

Controls

FAU monitors Uruguayan air space. “Today more than ever, with the radar systems we employ, we try to make sure they aren’t drug or illegal weapon smugglers. Moreover, we also keep track to act in cases involving aircraft in a communications blackout mode, possibly caused by some illegal agent aboard who has kidnapped the aircraft,” explained CRIDOVNI’s president.

Several items must be cleared before a phenomenon can be deemed extraterrestrial: aircraft, weather events, astronomical phenomena, space junk, low-atmosphere physical phenomena, even military maneuvers such as those that use flares.

Furthermore, even radars sometimes capture unidentified flying objects that turn out to be planes who’ve lost contact with radar stations. There are also unidentified aircraft that try to remain unidentified to engage in illicit activities.

Other possible UFOs include eucalyptus forests in upland areas that may be picked up by radars due to some atmospheric alteration, as may also occur with buildings or metallic roofs. Other “deceptions” include “clutter losses” formed by data exchange problems between the radar systems’ computer protocols, simulating the on-screen existence of something that isn’t there.

“There are many hypotheses and at the end we come to the extraterrestrial subject. This has the least support, as there is no evidence of any kind about this possibility,” Sanchez stressed.

However, the colonel acknowledged that there have been cases that do not respond to any of these phenomena, which are classified as UFOS. “They have been seen, and we have been able to corroborate through radar that they were there when the witness saw them. They have even been photographers, which enables us to complete the photo-radar-witness circle, which is a rather important fact to research”.

“These are the UFO cases that we have been unable to determine. We are working with a couple of situations in Montevideo that are under investigation,” he noted.

Disinformation

“People still don’t have an understanding of the heavens, or are able to identify many things flying over us and which we cannot see,” said Sanchez, who understands that there is “disinformation” about UFOs.

“Over time, it has been a subject that has been handled more by the communications media, movies, the press and books, which have placed added value on the subject because it captivates peoples and sells well,” he remarked, adding: “the phenomenon exists and manifests itself in the sky. Broadly speaking, it is a luminous phenomenon that has been reported by pilots and air traffic controllers, picked up on radar and is a subject that really exists. What we must do is investigate what causes it.”

He also admitted that the extraterrestrial possibility is also within the working hypotheses. “It is the one that attracts people the most,” but cautions” without dismissing that possibility, there are others that may cause the phenomenon to come about.”

An Agreement with Chile

To have more information on the subject, CRIDOVNI recently signed an agreement with its Chilean counterpart. “We undertake to work jointly, perform investigations, exchange information and anything relevant that may provide information on the UFO phenomenon,” said Sanchez.

This is the world’s first agreement between two air forces to approach the subject. “What we have done in the region is significant. We hope that more countries will sign on to this accord,” he noted.

(Translation (c) 2012, Scott Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

Uruguay: Campers Witness UFO on Good Friday

Source: El Pais and TresUFOs
Date: 04.14.12

Uruguay: Campers Witness UFO on Good Friday
By Victor Rodriguez - El País

DURAZNO - Four groups of campers along the lakes of Rio Negro enjoying “Tourism Week” claim having seen an unidentified flying object, shaped like a triangle and highly luminous, flying over the area.

Several of those who experienced the unusual event took photos and recorded the strange and powerful light that appeared in the sky, leaving more than one onlooker bewildered. Some of the campers, terrified, took shelter in their tents or ran into the wilderness.

Fishermen consulted by El Pais described that their experience was among the most “unique and frightening” in their lives when on Saturday morning, with Good Friday barely over, a glowing light approached from above to within 150 meters of the site, oscillating for 15 minutes before the eyes of the stunned tourists.

A member of one of these groups, who told the story to Radio Durazno, said that the strange triangular light made a final pass over the site, flying over the campground before losing itself swiftly in the air.

The local radio show’s news segment also noted that contact had been made with the Uruguayan Air Force (FAU) which advised them that no maneuvers had been held on that day, at that time or place, thus dismissing the likelihood that the object could have been an airplane.

On 31 May 2011, residents of San Gregorio and Durazno saw lights in the sky and thought they came from a UFO. However, on the next day, they learned that they had been flares launched from the La Carolina Target Range near San Gregorio.

The case from last year involved a training exercise by the “Ataque” Air Squadron, using its IA-58 Pucará aircraft to fire flares within the target range’s sphere of influence.

Lazaro Iriarte was among the ones who saw the object during Tourism Week. He was in the company of six others at one of the campgrounds.

“Around 0.15 hours on Saturday morning, we were camped on the banks of Rio Negro and noticed a very bright light in the sky, suspended in mid-air for a few minutes, and as we looked at it with some of our fellows, began to notice that at a given moment, the light began to rise even more in the sky, and that’s when it drew our attention,” states Iriarte.

The light became smaller within a matter of minutes, and the object appeared to head toward Durazno. “While we kept looking to see what it was, the light became brighter and came rather quickly toward where we were camped. We had a chance to take photos and record the moment. The most extraordinary feature was when it flew over our campground,” he recalls.

The object, he says, “was the size of an airplane and we could feel a buzzing sound as it flew over us. I can’t tell you the elevation at which it flew overhead, but at that time we wanted to take photos and record. When it passed over the campground, I could see that it was shaped like a triangle, with lights illuminating the object’s outline, and then we saw a sort of craft rotating around it.”

El País Digital
http://www.elpais.com.uy/12/04/11/pciuda_635513.asp?utm_source=news-elpais&utm_medium=email&utm_term=text-link&utm_content=Campamentistas%20fotograf%C3%ADan%20un%20extra%C3%B1o%20ovni%20en%20Turismo&utm_campaign=Resumen%20Matutino

(Translation (c) 2012, Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology)

Argentina: VISION OVNI Looks Into Strange Pujato Ground Traces

Source: El Tribuno Digital
http://www.eltribuno.info/Jujuy/146895-Vision-Ovni-de-Victoria-estudia-extranas-huellas-aparecidas-en-un-campo-de-Pujato.note.aspx
Date: 10 April 2012

Argentina: VISION OVNI Looks Into Strange Pujato Ground Traces

A cornfield that appeared to display strange marks caused astonishment to many citizens of the town of Pujato (Santa Fe Province). The event prompted a visit from member of Visión Ovni, the Victoria-based group devoted to the study of unidentified flying objects.

On 5 April, cornstalks standing 2 meters tall were found flattened in the same direction in the middle of a lot. The field is some 2 kilometers distant from Route 33 and the marks were found by Rubén Marelli, the owner, who presented a complaint on the following day.

Visión Ovni’s science team, consisting of Elías Kolev and Andrea Pérez Simondini, among others, studied the phenomenon. During a field survey, they found a trail measuring 2.10 meters wide and nearly 600 meters long, which presents side trails that open and mark a sort of figure eight, doubling back on themselves.

The ground print begins the moment that the rural gate is traversed, and ends 10 meters from the rural gate on the opposite side of the field.

“We were able to find strange prints within the field, presenting a sort of “drag-mark” measuring 10 centimeters by 40 long, ending abruptly in a sort of nest made of sticks, with some very interesting perforations on the ground,” noted the research team.

Researchers are gathering evidence and eyewitness accounts. “We have a lot of material. We hope to gather more information about the event in upcoming hours,” noted Andrea Simondini.

[NOTE: El Tribuno gives the landowner’s name as “Rubén Marelli”, while other media outlets dub him “Raúl Marelli”]

(Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

Argentina: Pujato Field Owner Dismisses UFO Involvement

Source:NotiExpress
Date: 10 April 2012

Argentina: Pujato Field Owner Dismisses UFO Involvement

Raúl Marelli, owner of a 32-hectare field in the Pujato area, found a 600 x 2 meter fringe of flatttened vegetation. Local residents stated that an unidentified flying object (UFO) landed on Saturday morning on a cornfield, making its mark.

Marelli, a 62-year-old farmer and cattleman, reported to the constabulary of the locality in Santa Fe to make his report, mainly for the damages suffered. What remains unclear is who or what caused the damage. No crops were stolen and no tracks of vehicles vehicles were found in the area. Only the flattened corn stalks.

“The property was planted three months ago. There are a few months more before harvest and everything looks flattened. It’s a not very straight, rather fertile piece of land, with the plants flattened in the same direction,” the property owner told Radio 2 this morning.

While he acknowledges not having found the tracks of machinery or a vehicle, the man dismissed the possibility that a flying saucer was involved.

“I’ve been living here for many years and there’s never been anything that’s led me to think that. But if you want to investigate and change my mind, I’ve got no problem with it,” he said.

The man recognizes that even if it was a directed attack, the losses are not considerable. “I don’t know what they did it. If it was to cause damage, it was minimum. The finest lot contains 300,000 kilograms of corn. The affected lot has only a thousand, in other words, there are 299,000 left. I don’t understand what their intentions were.”

Police personnel are investigating the event and some researchers are already discussing the possibility that a “crop circle” is involved – what is known as a landing strip for flying saucers. “I don’t share any of those beliefs. I don’t believe,” said the farmer.

(Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

Chile: Regarding "Military Secrecy"

Source: NOUFA (Noticiero Ufológico Autónomo)
Date: 9 April 2012

Chile: Regarding “Military Secrecy”
NOUFA Newsroom

The accident involving a C-212 Aviocar belonging to the Chilean Air Force (FACh), also known as the Juan Fernández tragedy, was an aviation disaster that took place at 17:48 hours local time (20:48 UTC) on 2 September 2011 when a C-212-300 Aviocar carrying passengers and a military crew crashed into the sea as it approached Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile.

Domestic repercussions were tremendous, as the flight included personalities of the country’s television and social elite, plus military figures. The total number of victims came to 21.

Interpretations as to the causes of the accident have been changing since the very first moment. Furthermore, new background information has been added as to the reasons for the aircraft’s failure: lack of maintenance, insufficient fuel for the journey, excess weight, birds, an undeclared change in pilots, unexpected air turbulence, etc., etc.

Now, “military secrecy” is being invoked to the astonishment of the victims and the entire country to conceal errors (not only in this accident, but many others as well...)

Moving along to the subject of UFOs, which is what concerns us here, we believe that if the Chilean Air Force (FACh) invokes “military secrecy” in an air accident involving civilian and military figures alike, we can easily imagine that should something important become known about the UFO phenomenon, the civilian population would be even less able to receive transparent and timely information on the subject from this branch of the military. It is logical to think that this clause can be invoked whether national sovereignty is affected, and while both subjects are not comparable, the subject of UFOs has indeed been treated as a military secret.

The foregoing is to reflect yet again that the UFO phenomenon is a hard one to discuss, and we will never know, openly and first-hand, what it really is. Much less if it is the hands of military and official agencies that consider themselves the guardians of our collective security. Declassification by military authorities throughout the world has not revealed anything extraordinary...and we believe that the Truth, and transparency of information, are the greatest protection one can afford the population.

A subject that invites earnest reflection.

(Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Raul Núñez and IIEE)

Argentina: Alleged UFO Sighting and Landing in Pujato

Source: NotiExpress
Date: 04.08.2012

Argentina: Alleged UFO Sighting and Landing in Pujato (Santa Fe Province)

A striking incident shattered the customary peace of Pujato, a community of some 4000 residents located 42 kilometers west of Rosario on Route 33. Several persons claim that a UFO landed in a local field, leaving clear traces in the corn.

The owner of a 32 hectare field, and local residents, claim that an unidentified flying object (UFO) landed in the early hours of Saturday on a corn field, crushing a radius of 600 meters long by 2 meters wide on the property.

Raúl, a 62-year-old farmer and cattleman, reported to the constabulary of this community in the province of Santa Fe to present a complaint, mainly for the damages suffered. What is remarkable is that who or what caused the damage remains unclear. There was neither a crop theft nor traces of vehicle tracks on the soil: nothing but crushed vegetable matter.

Those living near the cornfield further reported witnessing a craft with strange lights and colors flying over the area, according to Hector Lopez, a reporter from Radio 2. These people happened to be in the vicinity of the local cemetery (as if the report needed further colorful details) at the entrance to the community on Route 33.

The incident took place around 3 o’clock in the morning. The mark left by the putative UFO measures 600 meters long by one meter sixty wide.

Walter Freniche, the local sheriff, confirmed the report and told Radio 2 that the area of crushed vegetation was checked out. He notes that there was no theft, and no tire tracks were in evidence. “Although it’s quite possible the event took place some four or five days ago and they can no longer be seen.”

Freiniche added that “residents claimed seeing lights” although none of them approached the constabulary. “The comment exists, but they never came to make a statement,” he said, adding: “It’s a tough case.”

Personnel from Pujato’s Section 14 are investigating the case, with technical assistance from an agronomer who was surveying the field in question.

Source: www.notiexpress.com.ar/news.cgi/accion=vernew&id=132847

(Translation (c) 2012, Scott Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

UFO on the Chile / Argentina Border

Source: Publimetro and Planeta UFO
http://www.publimetro.cl/nota/vida/fotos-carabineros-avistan-a-un-ovni-en-paso-fronterizo-austral/xIQldc!NvC2KRHo5Pimk/

A UFO on the Chile/Argentina Border:

A strange flying object was photographed by personnel from the 5th Carabineros (state police) barracks at Panguipulli while on patrole in the Carririñe sector on the border with Argentina.

The object was photographed by 2nd Sgt. Hernan Barriento Muñoz and 2nd Corporal Patricio Ovando Imigo, who returned to the barracks once their duties where done. Once there, they were able to review the photos taken during the inspection trip.

Once the photographs were analyzed, officials realized that there was an anomaly in one of the clips, suggesting an alleged UFO.

The police officers dismissed the possibility of a spot on the lens, since the position of the "flying object" varies in all of the photos, according to the SoyChile portal.


(Our thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)