Chile: No Connection Between UFOs and Chupacabras(2002)
By Liliana Núñez Orellana
For any reader interested in finding a connection between the slayings of animals attributed to creatures known as “Chupacabras” and the UFO phenomenon, the simplest procedure would consist in scanning the press for both types of stories. If we compare them in volume, we shall see a significant imbalance that would suggest, initially, a lack of connection between both phenomena. Nonetheless, an analysis of the scant journalistic manifestation serves to dispel this preconception even further. Let us examine the source material.
News Broadcast on Televisión Nacional, Señal 7, Santiago de Chile
First quarter of April 2000.
The problems faced by a camera crew attempting to record a triangle found in the Quebrada de Panipica (4,333 meters above sea level) in Chile’s 2nd region, are made public. It was only on the third attempt that the object was able to be recorded in color, having appeared earlier in black and white. This triangle seemingly has an electromagnetic effect over machinery and equipment.
As days went by, a witness named Wilson Torres, an equipment technician, said that he had found that triangle in the year 1989. It is only possible to see it from a height.
UFOs in the Desert – El Mercurio de Calama – Page A3 – Thursday, 13 April 2000.
The development and magnification of photographs taken in the interior of Calama, in the Commune of San Pedro de Atacama, made plain the existence of an equilateral triangle measuring 40 meters on its sides, located between the mountains and near the Sairecabur volcano, at an altitude of over four thousand meters.
The formation was first noticed by elements of the Anti-Narcotics Brigade of the Calama Police, who took photographs in the interior or the province as part of a study for a proposed landing strip. Upon developing the film and magnifying it, they noticed a curious shape on the terrain in the bottom of a gorge known as Panipica, surrounded by the convergence of the slopes of three mountains.
Without giving it further importance, they took advantage of a journey to the interior to reach this location, some 60 kilometers northeast of San Pedro de Atacama, some 4000 feet above sea level.
An equilateral triangle measuring 40 meters on each side startled the police officers, because from the height of one of the mountains, it looked like a huge set square, whose interior had an intense gray, nearly black, color. Once they reached the place, the authorities ascertained that this triangle was surrounded by grass. The interior surface, however, measuring 40 meters per side, is a plain of solid stone, flattened and burned on its upper side, as though subjected to very high temperature.
They thought it might be a heliport, but considering the prevailing wind direction, this proved impossible, because no known craft could make a landing with such a hindrance. The surface and its periphery do not match the traditional landscape of the north, and it is not a geoglyph, in the estimation of the police officers. Their immediate deduction is that it could have been a place where a meteorite fell, or where a UFO could have landed.”
UFO Landing Strip – El Mercurio de Calama – Page A27- Thursday, April 13, 2000
Flattened Stone Triangles Adorn the Desert
A Visible Landing Occurred in 1994.
Polygon Appears Protected by Electrical Forces
In the Province of El Loa (2nd Region) and at an altitude of 4,233 meters above sea level, there exists what have some have considered to be a possible landing site for unidentified flying objects, some two kilometers from another runway that has attracted police attention due to drug trafficking.
More than shapes, two triangular structures over a broad expanse of terrain, flattened to a considerable depth, suggest the intense pressure they were exposed to, as if something of considerable weight rested upon them.
From these locations it is possible to see the Sairecabur volcano and the Chatxas mountain, snow-crowned, undeniably contributing to the intense cold of the region. The triangles follow the lines of the Panipica Gorge. One of the triangles was discovered by the Anti-Drug Brigade of the Calama Police while the other was found by reporters. The larger triangle measures some 40 meters on each side; it is an equilateral triangle, although seen at a distance, it looks like an isosceles triangle – having two equal sides and one unequal one. The smaller triangle is similar but less visible, as it becomes lost between two mountains.
The surface surrounding the triangle is surrounded by the plants known as “leon echado” (sleeping lion) by residents of the interior, due to its aspect when it dries out. It is pure scrub vegetation and is always swept by the wind, despite its hardness. The triangulation is formed precisely because the vegetation disappeared, possibly burned off or due to an extraordinarily powerful wind that left the surroundings with the green plants pointing in the same direction. The sector is covered by four-inch stones, but these have been demolished within the triangle into the “rip-rap” employed in highway paving. They are tamped down in such a way that exceeds the capabilities of known drum rollers employed in paving operations. The flattening is in excess of two meters deep. Some of the four-inch stones resisted the pressure and remained inside the formation, but their coloring is different from the rest. At the point where the three heights of the triangle come together, there grows a plant of such hardness that it cannot be removed by hand or even using a small tool.
The [triangular shape] seems to be protected by an electrical force. The automatic systems of the photo camera failed in that place, and was only able to operate from the surrounding areas. The desert has thousands of shapes caused by changes in colors, topography and visible geological features, but these triangles do not correspond to what is readily visible. The ground conditions dismiss the likelihood that the triangles could be the bottom of a lagoon. If this were the case, we would be talking about the Neolithic period and it would have been discovered a long time ago.
The locale is suitable to the description given last year to this newspaper by a Calama resident who was allegedly saved from certain death in the heights due to the appearance of two UFOs. He saw two vehicles that employed a highly peculiar communication system by means of shapes traced in the air. He claimed [the craft] emerged from in between the volcanos and after some lengthy communication, they disappeared. The Calama resident walked up a slope. In the distance, he was able to see laborers working with heavy machinery. His descriptions correspond to the topography and geography of that sector. The workingmen could have been from a mining company located to the north. Quarry work can be seen to the South of this location.
In days following this experience, the man was found near San Pedro de Atacama and was taken to a first aid station. The experience with the two UFOs took place in 1994.
More Recent Events
“It was like an electric arc light, lasting for a fraction of a second, lighting up the entire valley of Calama, but it was snuffed before it hit the ground, and could have easily fallen in Argentina or in Chiu-Chiu.”
There just so happens to be a straight line running from Calama to the triangle. The straight line runs through Ayquina. This happened on March 19th and the witness was Jorge Elias Zenteno,58, an electronics technician and current night watchman of a graveyard located to the west of Calama on Route 60, 4 kilometers from the city limits. The phenomenon took place at 1:10 hours on St. Joseph’s Day, and coincides with the date that concerns the Institute of Astronomy, whose director, Luis Barrera, reported to NASA in the U.S.A. regarding meteorite falls between 22:00 hours on 18 March and 22:00 hours on 19 March.”
Something Fell from the Sky – El Mercurio de Calama – Page A26 – Sunday, May 20, 2000
“Two months ago, perhaps more, three green colored meteorites (similar to a flare) crossed the skies of Antofagasta from East to West. They did not travel continuously: the first one entered our atmosphere around 23:00 hours on a Saturday; the second at 01:30 hours in the morning; the third at five o’clock in the morning. These meteorites were seen by over a hundred people. Records of this phenomenon were submitted by Luis Barrera, Director of the Institute of Astronomy of the Universidad Catolica del Norte.
No logical explanation for what occurred was ever put forth. The three meteorites allegedly crashed in some point of our cordillera. When they struck the Earth’s surface, no impact or tremor was felt – only a large flash that filled the horizon.
Nothing was ever heard again about the meteorites. Two weeks later, a strange “runway” is found in the desert of our region. It is a triangle measuring forty meters on each side; its interior is completely flat and without stones. The presence of a powerful magnetic field was ascertained in this area, capable of causing alterations to wristwatches, photo cameras and video cameras. What is going on here? Is this an extraterrestrial landing strip? Is this where the meteorites fell, which weren’t meteorites at all but alien craft? Many questions can be put forth about the subject without finding an answer. This triangle remains an unsolved mystery. The animal slayings in the provinces of El Loa, Tocopila and Antofagasta commenced shortly after the appearance of this “landing strip” – that is to say, we are talking about three facts that could be related to each other, or not at all. No rational explanation, however, has been found for these three cases. Meanwhile, the Chupacabras keeps attacking and killing animals in other regions of the country.”
My Observations on the Subject
The discovery of the notorious triangle occurred nearly 11 years prior to the mass killings of animals. This account demolishes journalistic information that endeavors to relate it with the animal deaths in the 2nd Region and other parts of the country, showing that chroniclers and journalists forged a link between these items that has never been proven, employing significant elements.
For a while now, I have kept a record of UFO sightings in Chile since the year 1580 on a map. I did something similar with the Chupacabras. This does not mean that one supports the other.
Up to now, no eyewitness accounts involving UFO sightings in days prior, during the night or during the morning have come forth regarding animal deaths between January 2000 and October 2002, in any part of the national territory.
We are unable to even statistically consider the frequency of UFO sightings and the record of killings, which exceeds 200 cases confirmed by the press.
I incorrectly believed at one point that an event in Punta Arenas could bolster a case in the 2nd Region or anywhere else. Over the course of months and days, I’ve come to realize it is quite the contrary. For this reason, these words set forth my working hypothesis regarding the lack of relationship [between UFOs and animal deaths] at least in Chile, until the contrary can be proven. We are still collecting journalistic information and requesting support from experts on the subject. There is still much to be collected, researched and contrasted in this regard.
[This article originally appeared in Espacio Compartido (Barcelona) No. 25, 2nd. Vol., July 2003. Translation © 2014 S. Corrales, IHU]