Bolivia: Remembering the Tarija UFO Crash (6 May 1978)

Source: PLANETA UFO (Argentina) and El Deber (Bolivia)
Date: 05.06.2016

Bolivia: Remembering the Tarija UFO Crash (6 May 1978)

38 Years Since Mysterious Object Fell at the Border
An unidentified flying object fell to the ground at the border between Bolivia and Argentina. Eyewitnesses remember that moment. According to their stories, NASA was involved.

38 years after a metallic and incandescent object fell at the border between Bolivia and Argentina, there are enduring mysteries about what took place on May 6, 1978.

Elias Vacaflor, a witness to the events 38 years ago, says that NASA was on the scene and did not say a word about what was taken away after the UFO crash. According to the former congressman, letters were sent to the government - both to the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Relations, without replies having ever been received. They only agreed that it was a "subject that did not give rise to any concerns."

"I remember that the sky lit up in an unusual way due to the flying of an object resembling a cylinder flying for Northwest to Southeast," says Vacaflor.

Residents of Mecoya, Mecoyita, Sidras, La Merced and other communities surrounding the crash area also witnessed the object and heard the subsequent explosion. Residents of Argentina, the neighboring country, also felt it, and the press offered information on the extraordinary event. The Clarín newspaper ran the headline "UFO Found on the Border Between Argentina and Bolivia."

Journalist Juan Antonio Abarzúa, who worked for El Tribuno de Salta at the time, said that NASA helicopters arrived at the crash site.

Abarzúa, who formed part of that newspaper's visit to the scene, coincided with another team headed by physicist Orlando Bravo. He says that upon reaching the crash site, they found a scene of total destruction: a mountain - Cerro El Salle - had been destroyed, leaving a furrowed crater measuring 1,500 meters long, 800 meters wide and 50 meters deep (4920 ft. x 2600 ft. x 160 ft.).

Residents of Mecoya had already told them that the "gringos had taken away" the remains of whatever had fallen there.

(Translation (c) 2016 S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to David Maygua of El Deber and Guillermo Giménez of Planeta UFO)