The Witness
Name: Jose Chavez Jimenez
Age: 28
Marital Status: Single
Profession: Welder. Works at the Astilleros Españoles company in Seville
Address: Calle Comandante Castejón, 1- Gerena (Seville)
We had the impression that the witness was a very well-balanced person. He’s a countryman, rough, tied to the soil, who told us what happened in short, simple phrases, entirely sure about what he was saying, or in other words, he told us exactly what he saw as if it hadn’t the slightest bit of importance. He could’ve been telling us any commonplace event on the street. He felt no fear during his sighting of the phenomenon. He has no idea about what he saw, and [the same applies] to the UFO phenomenon.
There is another witness of this sighting, whom we have not interviewed, but according to Mr. Chavez, his companion “hadn’t had a good look at that thing”, and was therefore unable to recall the events in detail.
The Area
The time is late March 1977. The time is approximately 10:00 in the evening and the witness was hunting in the open field along with some friends. They were stalking “jabatos” (young wild boars) at a location some 3 kilometers distant from the Gerena-El Garrobo highway. There is a “cortijo” (country home) known as “La Mesa” two kilometers distant from where the hunters stood, owned by Mr. Lucas Acuña Tavares. The entire area is located approximately some 27 kilometers northeast of Seville. The hunters were somewhat stealthy and had spread out here and there, between the alders, holly oaks, mounds and weeds of this rough mountainous area. At one point, they were halfway down a mountain slope, facing a valley that extended beneath them.
It was a calm evening with entirely clear skies. The moon was waxing at an elevation of 45 degrees over the horizon, and behind our witness.
The Sighting
Mr. Chávez was stalking any young boar that might appear in the area that covered by his eyesight. Looking to the north, near the horizon, he saw a very bright, white star that didn’t hold his attention. It was no more than a star.
Concentrating on his endeavor, and after a certain time had elapsed, he looked at the light once more, ascertaining that it was moving toward him, but very slowly.
Somewhat curious at this point, and ascertaining that it was a machine rather than a star, he looked more closely at the white light, mindful of his prey, and noticed that the light became increasingly larger.
]Around 23:30 hours, the curious light was virtually over his head and at a certain height. He was then able to see in full detail that it was a circular object with an apparent diameter equal to three times that of the full moon, with a source of white light in its center, having a size similar to 1/4th of its total diameter. Around this core, near the object’s edges, he was able to see a large number of small lights – red, green and other colors.
All of these lights were fixed, not intermittent, and cast no light whatsoever over the area occupied by our hunter. The brightness of the central light, of course, was greater than the surrounding lights, although these enabled Mr. Chávez to make out the object’s edges and become aware of its roundness.
The only thing that astonished the witness was the absolute silence with which the object traveled. Despite having practically overhead, he could not hear the least noise. He only heard the incessant barking of the dogs guarding the “La Mesa de las Vacas” country home some 2 kilometers southeast of his position. These dogs would continue barking for a long time, until Mr. Chávez and his companions gave up on their hunt around 24:00 hours.
Suddenly, they heard the deafening roar of jet engines. The witness turned around and saw the unmistakable lights of two jet fighters, flying low and closing swiftly on the place where the unknown object hovered. Given their location of origin (southeast), Mr. Chávez surmised that they came from Seville to “hunt down” the UFO. “They were on its tail,” as he would state during the interview.
Interested in knowing what the luminous object’s reaction would be, he stared at it and realized it was changing position. When the fighters were in range, the object sped away “edgewise” at a terrific speed, heading toward Portugal (west). It completely vanished from sight in two or three seconds.
The fighters followed the same course as the object, and shortly after, the witness saw them return, vanishing toward Seville. “There’s no doubt that they couldn’t catch the object,” Mr. Chávez thought.
Conclusion
We can attest to the fact that the witness of this unique sighting has not read anything at all about Unidentified Flying Object. “Those things don’t scare me,” he said. “If one ever comes close to me, I’m not planning to cut and run.” We would state that he has no idea at all about UFOs or the UFO question.
It is precisely because of his lack of knowledge on the subject that we deem two details in Mr. Chávez’s story to be important, along with the rest of his sighting: the barking of the dogs and the “edgewise” position of the UFO at the moment of extreme acceleration.
As any ufologist knows, animals have exhibited unusual behavior in the proximity of an unidentified flying object. We believe that there is no point in presenting any such case, as these are widely known to all.
With regard to the UFO’s vertical (or edgewise) position at the moment it accelerated, we are aware of other sightings in which this detail occurred. Ufology even has a few visual records, such as the photograph taken by Erich Kaiser in the Austrian province of Styria on 3 August 1954, where three objects can be seen traveling “edgewise” and in a straight line (Stendek magazine, No. 27, March 1977, pg. 16 and 17).
Neither can we vouch for the photo’s authenticity nor that of Mr. Chavez’s story. We only want to highlight the surprising coincidences…and that our witness does not seem to be sufficiently well-versed in the subject to imagine such methods of displacement.
Technical Information
Date: Late March 1977, between 22 and 23:30 hours
Place: Between Gerena and El Garrobo (Seville)
Object: Round
Size: Three (3) times larger than the full moon.
Number of witnesses: 2
Noise: None
Sighting Duration: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Credibility Index: 2
Rarity Index: 3
Researchers: Joaquín Mateos Nogales, Manuel Filpo Cabana, J. Ignacio Alonso and Antonio Moya Cerpa (Gerena Group)
Report and Drawings: Antonio Moya Cerpa.
[Translation (c) 2013, Scott Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to José Manuel García Bautista