Monday, July 26, 2021

Argentina: Cattle Mutilation in Hasenkamp


 

Source: FAO/ICOU

Date: 07.24.2021

 Argentina: Cattle Mutilation in Hasenkamp

 Research by EDITH MONEDA (ICOU-Colón) with DANIEL PADILLA (Ufologist)

 Geographic Location

 Hasenkamp is a community some 80 km northeast of Paraná, capital city of Entre Rios. The case in question took place in mid-July, almost surely on Thursday, July 15, in a field known as "El Sambuyón" leased by a man surnamed Lescano.

 The Mutilation

 A red Aberdeen Angus heifer, weighing some 400 kg, had given birth to two young some days before, and surprise was widespread when the animal was found mutilated in bizarre fashion some 5 kilometers away from the farmhouse in a grassland dotted with espinillo trees. The animal was found under a Nandubay tree (Prosopis affinis) near a wire fence, missing the organs typical to such cases: one eye, an entire udder, tongue, genitals and part of its jawbone. The incisions were cauterized and there was no trace of blood on the field. Oddly enough, both ears were intact. In the affected area, the grass was blackened, as if by some kind of spilled fluid, in the words of the animal's proprietor.

 On Site Research

 Police authorities were notified of the event and the Crime Prevention Brigade of the Paraná Police took on the case, sending a police veterinarian to the scene. A week after the incident, a research team made up of Edith Moneda of ICOU and ufologist Daniel Padilla from Colón visited the area. They were accompanied by part of the Lescano family (father and three children) and they were able to ascertain some significant points of interest, such as:

1. The animal was 'dragged' a meter away from its original position.

2. No traces of any associated anomalies were found in a survey of the surroundings.

3. The acting veterinarian performed abdominal incisions without first ascertaining any strange anomalies or justifying the cause of death.

4. Most noticeably, despite having died 8 days prior, the carcass showed no signs of rigor mortis, as though it had occurred only days before. All of its soft parts, blood and exposed flesh, were normal, without any insects settling upon it.

5. The hyoid bone was remarkably 'clean' without any adhesions. This is a determining factor, as in several cases we have been told that 'not even professional deboners can do such a good job'.

6. The other highly strange event has been the discovery of a small, perfect circle measuring 5 centimeters, cauterized, and located on the animal's hide over the udder. A vital element that was extracted by researchers for study.

7. A magnet was passed all over the cow’s body in a search for metallic elements (filings, parts, etc.) with negative results.

8. There is a windmill with a water tank some 1000 meters from the animal. It shows no anomalies.

9. The locals did not see any 'nocturnal lights' about prior or after the event.

10. In the Hasenkamp event, the mutilating agent did not 'return' to continue mutilating the body, as has happened in other instances. According to the owner, everything was the same as when they found the animal the first day.

 Hypothesis (Luis Burgos)

 While research is ongoing, we can develop a framework toward a "working hypothesis". During a survey of the field two days before finding the lifeless animal, the owner attested that it was in good health and so were its two calves. He did not check on them the next day, and the day after, he was startled to see the calves alone in the field. He undertook a search for the mother and found the unpleasant surprise. We must therefore suppose that it is possible that the cow was 'separated' during the night, mutilated and deposited where she was later found, distant from both little calves. Faced with such a prospect, it is obvious that some questions are more disquieting than the answers. Had the animal been stalked beforehand? Did the mutilation take place on site or elsewhere? Was the body inoculated to keep it fresh for several days? The fact is that we're facing a mutilation of exceptional characteristics that will not have a satisfactory 'official' explanation, much like the hundreds that have taken place since April 2002. What is most convincing to researchers is that this entire event, which took place in 48 hours, invalidates the possibility of any conventional methodology or the involvement of local fauna.

 Research credit: Edith Moneda, indefatigable ICOU travel companion, to whom we are deeply grateful for her willingness to investigate, undertaking a nearly 600 km.long journey at her youthful 82 years of age. An example to be followed by anyone who wants to engage in field research. Congratulations and thanks!

 [Translation (c) 2021 S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Luis Burgos]

 

Thursday, July 22, 2021

Astonishing Tales: A Voice from Beyond the Grave

 


 

Source: OVNIRADIO ICOU

Date: 07.20.2021

 Astonishing Tales: A Voice from Beyond the Grave

Luis Burgos: Well, I think this case ranks up there with the top astonishing cases, because it was incredible and is still remarked upon to this very day. It was the source of many doubts and controversies, but the witness stands by what he saw and well, I was an indirect witness to what occurred. I had to visit the site in person to ascertain what he was saying, right?

"It all happened in the summer of 2001, a lousy time economically speaking for many in Argentina, but apparently not for FAO (Argentinean UFO Foundation) because we undertook three separate outings in three months. In February a trip to Victoria, in March a visit to El Volcán in San Luis, and in April we wound up in Sierra Ventana, Villa Ventana. An impressive outing that I don't even think we could duplicate nowadays, as the resources of the FAO members just aren't up to it.

"It turned out we were staying at an Alpine cottage in San Luis, a very lovely place, with a beautiful landscape up in the mountains. Spectacular weather too, and among those present was Fernando, who was our group's official photographer, who would take care of all the details for each outing. He took part in practically ninety per cent of all FAO outings and research trips.

"I recall one warm, pleasant morning in San Luis, when I felt the urge to go fishing at the Las Piedras Reservoir. Not far from El Volcán. A lovely reservoir. Well, I wanted to gather some earthworms to go fishing and indulge in the sport, since that evening we were setting up a skywatch. At a given time I remember my wife was preparing for lunch at around 10 a.m., chopping vegetables in the kitchen. Other members were still sleeping; some had gone out shopping...I also remember Fernando came running downstairs in a fright, shouting for me and my wife. I wasn't scared, but it startled me as to what could have happened, as an absolute sense of serenity dominated the place. He approached me as white as a sheet of paper and said: "No, no, you can't imagine what just happened to me!" We urged him to calm down and asked him to explain what had happened. He replied: "No, I went some thirty or forty meters away to take landscape shots of the trees and the mountains when I heard an odd voice, a guttural voice, otherworldly, very strange..."

"I exchanged glances with my wife and then asked Fernando, was it a ghost, did it appear? “No," he replied. "[the voice] went something like WAAAAHHHHHH..." or something like it, although it wasn't exactly the same. All I could think to do was wash my hands, as I'd been gathering earthworms, and tell him, well, let's go and have a look together, see what's going on. My wife stayed in the kitchen, mystified, and the two of us went up the hillside. "Now hold on, Fernando" I said, "could it have been the sound of a cow mooing or something?" "No, no no" He was convinced that it wasn't anything conventional or quotidian, or something that anyone could have shouted. It was a guttural voice. Something astonishing, from the netherworld.

 "So we went up the hillside, getting pricked by thorns. All we could see was cow dung, proving that animals had been in the area. From that height, looking at the landscape, there was nothing unusual to be seen. So we came back down and discussed the situation with my wife, and there we were, between the credible and the incredible. [Fernando] was clearly still in shock, as twenty minutes had elapsed and he was still talking about it.

"According to his story, he had the camera in his hand and even as he came down, the heard the voice a second time - in other words, he didn't hear the sound just once. As he ran down the slope, camera in hand - and you can imagine, he could've tripped and fallen, broken the camera or suffered an injury - he said he was coming down the slope, running, agitated, he stopped because he heard the sound once more. And that's when he told himself that this wasn't an animal, wasn't a coincidence, it was something directed at him. He's still bewildered about it to this very day, and he brings it up at all our gatherings. Nobody believed poor Fernando. They even accused me of having played a prank on him, which was unthinkable. Others thought he must have been drunk or drugged, yet hearing a guttural sound at ten o'clock in the morning transcends all paranormal guidelines, I mean, had it been at night like in horror stories it would've been another thing entirely, like what happened in the haunted house in Punta Indio. He stood by his story. Later in the evening, Oscar Perco, a deceased member of FAO, said he saw a figure 'dressed in white' near the house, by the mountainside...well, he sweetened the situation, I'm not sure if he added or detracted from the credibility of Fernando's experience.

"This is a story, I believe, that will be remembered to the very last days of FAO. A matter that was never, ever, satisfactorily explained."

[Translation (c) 2021 S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Luis Burgos, FAO/ICOU]

 

Sunday, July 18, 2021

Haunted Deserts: UFOs in the Emptiness

 


Haunted Deserts: UFOs in the Emptiness

By Scott Corrales (c) 2017

Many years ago I wrote an article for FATE magazine about lost civilizations in our planet’s desert areas – regions that may have once been suitable for large, organized communities, even cities, but had which had succumbed to erosion and were now simply uninhabitable. Even in the Sahara Desert we find the ruins of Roman settlements in desert oases, otherwise hospitable locations that settlers had to abandon due to a proliferation of scorpions, for example.

They may be the repository of lost civilizations, but it can also be said that our desert regions appear to be teeming with something else – unusual happenings that fall under the loose mantle of UFO phenomena, in the strictest sense. Are these luminous manifestations the residual energy of the peoples who once occupied this region, reduced to flickering lights in the dark? Perhaps even manifestations of the spirits of the empty lands that kept them in abject terror during the long desert nights? Or are we more inclined to think in terms of extraterrestrial visitors availing themselves of these hostile, recondite areas to shelter their spacecraft and operating bases on our small blue marble?

Colombia’s La Tatacoa desert in one of these locations, nestled in the heart of the mountains. The first report we have of its existence comes from Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, one of the lesser-known Conquistadors, entrusted with the mission of “reaching the Kingdom of Perú by following the course of Magdalena River, demanding gold from local natives to finance the expedition.” Easier said than done, as the explorer traversed some of the most astonishing badlands in the South American continent, known as the “valley of sorrows” due to the overwhelming presence of rattlesnakes.  Later researchers would find in La Tatacoa a startling deposit of Pleistocene fossil remains.

The odd geographical feature has also been become known for its constant UFO sightings. A woman named Orfanda Soto, a permanent resident of this forsaken location, claims having seen these spectacular lights from her farm. “On two separate instances,” Orfanda told journalists from Colombia’s Huila Extra website, “me and my family have witnessed flashing lights and objects shaped like Chinese hats flying directly overhead. The light emitted by these UFOs is tremendous. It can even go straight through rock surfaces.”

Expanding on her UFO sightings in this desert region, Mrs.Soto told listeners of Colombia’s NCN Radio that fifteen years ago, she and her family were gathered around seven o'clock in the evening when a 'flying saucer' staged an appearance. The shock caused a pregnant woman present at the gathering to lose consciousness. The object made a noise similar to that of an airliner 'as it takes off', according to her description. Orfanda Soto made it clear that these things do not frighten her, nor is she worried about being abducted by one of the objects - on the contrary, she would like one of the nocturnal visitors to carry someone away 'in order to make sure that we're really dealing with flying saucers.'

The prevalence of these lights led to the creation -- at a cost of five million Colombian pesos and fifteen truckloads of stone – of a platform that has been dubbed an “ovnipuerto” (UFOport), but is more correctly described as a place where people gather to obtain healing from earth energies. It has been a success with the contactee set, who assure that only “those who manage to tune into the vibratory frequency to be found within the five concentric stone circles will be able to contact the higher goals of other worlds”, whatever that means. There are suggestions that a Sasquatch-type creature may also live in the area - El Mohán, described as a monstrous, hairy humanoid.

Riddles of the Atacama Desert

As we head deeper into South America, we come to the better known salt deserts of Chile and Bolivia. The Atacama Desert is notorious for being one of the driest places on Earth, although abnormal weather conditions – such as the event in the year 2015 – have caused it to become covered in desert flowers, despite receiving less than half an inch of rain in a twelve month period.

Archaeologist Juan Schobinger has written in his Prehistory in the Americas (NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000) that Chile faces one of the richest seas in the world and is backed by one of its most forbidding deserts. The dryness of the salt desert, where rainfall is measured in inches per century, made it ideal for preserving cultural artifacts such as baskets, textiles and even food.

It also preserved something darker—the rituals of forgotten shamans who would bury sacrifices deep in the desert for the “gods” to feast upon. The sacrifices would be held at night and the victim, usually a llama or a dog, left out. At daybreak, the ancient medicine men would return to the site to insure that the gods—the meandering lights of the desert—had accepted the offering. The carcass would be utterly exsanguinated and a puncture mark could usually be found somewhere on the body, which was then transported back to the primitive settlement to be consumed by the community. Subsequently, evidence of this communion between man and his deities was buried under a cairn known as an apachetca, a tangible link of the trade between ancient man and supernatural forces. It is easy to dismiss this as the savagery of ancient man until we remember that the books of the Pentateuch mentioned that the blood of the sacrifice belonged to the godhead.  Contemporary thinkers of the paranormal like  Salvador Freixedo have written at length about this curious aspect of the human worship (Defendámonos de los dioses, Spain: Quintá, 1985).

The first contemporary UFO account from this part of the world dates back to the year 1868, when a local newspaper, El Constituyente, reported on a strange even in the Copiapó Valley. The news item, dated November 14 of that year, reports: "Yesterday, around five o'clock in the afternoon, the time when work is over at the mine, all of the workers were gathered together, expecting our evening meal, and we saw a giant bird flying through the air, having taken it at first to be a cloud. As the object came closer, we were rightly startled, realizing that it was an unknown flying entity, perhaps even the Djinn from The Arabian Knights. Flying a short distance over our heads, we became aware of the odd structure of its body. Its large wings were covered in dark feathers, the monster's head resembled that of a lobster (or locusts), while its body only displayed glittering scales that sounded like metal as the strange animal pulled away".  A compelling description, but of a cryptid or an unknown vehicle?

Centuries later, miners toiling in the same copper mines as those of the 19th century took a spectacular video of something bearing no relation to anything in The Arabian Nights. In 2013, a survey team photographed an apparently cylindrical object resting on one of the nearby mountainsides. Voices captured on the tape can be heard to say that ‘no one would believe this is actually happening’ as the large object flew across the skies.  A corroborating photograph from the Cerro Negro region was also taken in 2013 by workers of the Grupo CAP mining concern.

Perhaps even more startling than these events was the alleged CE-3 involving Argelio Araya, a desert hermit who witnessed an enormous "spaceship" disgorging its crew complement of so-called Grey aliens. The terrified loner braved the distance that separated him from the local police station, where he was met by senior warrant officer Claudio Ramirez, who documented the event and ordered search of the landing area where the object and its occupants had been reported.

In March 2005, local newspaper El Chañarcillo reported that a blackout in the city of Copiapó had supposedly been caused by two unknown objects flying at high speed over the city, submerging the community into stygian gloom between eight and nine o’clock in the evening on the third of March of that year. The story gained traction in spite of the usual denials from the area power utility, the Empresa Eléctrica de Atacama, particularly when a witnessed stepped forward to tell his story. Gonzalo Delgado told the newspaper that he was returning to the city along the Cuesta de Cardone when he saw how the two objects in question “crossed the sky at high speed, and when I turned around to look at the city, I realized it had vanished. That leads me to believe that it was at the time that the power failure occurred. Two trucks were also coming down the road at the same time, whose drivers could have also seen the phenomenon."

Hostile UFOs in the Brazilian Desert

When 16th century Portuguese explorers reached the northwestern corner of Brazil, they were faced with a surreal landscape - impossibly blue green waters and enormous dunes of white sand. Accustomed to the sands of North Africa, they promptly referred to the area as Ceará (the Sahara Desert, or Saara in Portuguese, although this etymology has been challenged). Its spectacular dunes aside, this semi-arid region of caatinga-type vegetation has also been a hotbed of UFO sightings, something that can be said for the entire Brazilian northeast.

A UFO "invasion" allegedly occurred on March 3, 1996 when a still-unexplained blackout plunged the community into darkness at 6:45 p.m., and 26 UFOs cruised through the skies unmolested. Wellington Santos, director of EPUC (Equipo Pesquisa Ufologica Guarabira), observed that "the UFO situation in Guarabira is one of a kind in Brazil and the whole world, since never have there been so many collective sightings involving people of all ages, sexes and occupations, having repeated sightings over a long period of time."

Massive cigar-shaped craft flew over the region of 23 cities. According to EPUG's report, a farmer went out in the middle of the night to fire a shotgun-blast at one of the smaller discoidal craft which came closer to the ground than their putative "motherships." His hostile gesture was duly reciprocated by the UFO, which aimed a beam of light at the assailant, inflicting third-degree burns. In Mamamguape, fifty-five miles from Joao Pessoa, one of the cigar-shaped objects (known locally as charutos) reportedly fired a gas weapon against a hapless man who was running away from it. On October 14th, three hundred Guarabirans witnessed another UFO invasion, which included a massive craft reportedly as big as a twenty-floor building. "Had this been a southern city," Santos noted ruefully, “journalists would be raining out of the sky."

 In 2015, the town of Santa Quitería in Ceará would face a similar wave of hostile UFOs. Car and motorcycle drivers would complain of being chased in the dark of the night by strange fiery objects along the stretch of road linking communities in this remote region, prompting some to leave their cars at home and use rail transportation instead to cover the distances involved. The A Voz de Santa Quitería news portal (www.avozdesantaquiteria.com.br) presents the following quote from an anonymous local driver: "I was on my motorcycle with my wife, heading for my parents' home. Suddenly, a reddish light approached us...we felt a wave of powerful heat, prompting me to head into the bushes and get off the motorcycle. We were very frightened by that thing. We decided it was probably the device that chases people to suck their blood. Once the lighted vanished, we resumed our journey to my parents' house."

The news portal adds another case from the same region. A married couple motoring along the road leading to Trapiá was confronted by a shining object "engaged in making pirouettes" over the treetops. They were so taken aback that they wondered if it was prudent to continue their trip, but the bizarre craft - if craft it was - made the decision for them by flying off into the darkness. Reporters advised their readers to avoid taking any violent action or retaliation against the objects, "since we are uncertain as to how they might react."

The town of Almecegas - a sandy fishing community of two hundred souls, whose homes are sheltered by languid palm trees against a cloudless blue sky - has also become a UFO hotspot. A place that looks peaceful and inviting in the light of day becomes an island of fear in darkness, as its residents look to the sky for signs of abnormal lights. Fishermen have narrowly escaped from the strange objects when their boats are offshore at night - a situation reminiscent of the infamous Ilha de Colares attacks of the '70s, involving the mechanical "chupas".

Prof. Humberto Sales is responsible for most of the research being conducted in this remote area. He writes: "Stories like this are striking, because even one such isolated case would suffice to prompt us to look into the apparitions at Riacho de Meio, the location where the bulk of the sightings occur." Another reported case involved bikers on their way back from the locality of Aprazível. As they rode along, a powerful light appeared, flying low over their heads, causing one biker to fall off his motorcycle out of sheer panic.

 

Mysteries of the Mexican Deserts

 On July 11, 1970 the world turned its attention from the ongoing lunar exploration missions and worldwide political crises to focus on a relatively small region of the deserts of northern Mexico.

 An Athena rocket V-123 rocket launched from Utah's Green River missile base went astray and landed in the Mexico's Bolsón de Mapimí, a desert region covering roughly forty-seven thousand square miles of the states of Coahuila and Chihuahua and is considered the southern reach of the Chihuahua Desert. The rocket, originally aimed at the White Sands range, somehow deviated twelve hundred kilometers to land in the so-called "Zone of Silence" or vértice de trino, as it is also called in Spanish due to the fact that it occupies the place where the states of Durango, Coahuila and Chihuahua come together.

 Quick diplomacy by the Nixon Administration averted an incident between the neighboring countries. Some Mexican sources, however, questioned the nature of the "accident" and suspected the Athena misfire could have been deliberate effort by the U.S. aimed at exploring the mysterious area. American communiqués stated that the rocket's payload contained Cobalt-60 in an airtight container that would have almost certainly survived the impact, but a gargantuan effort was made not only to recover the payload, but also to remove and containerize supposedly 'irradiated' soil to be returned across the border. Nearly seven hundred U.S. and Mexican personnel combed the desert for a month, collecting all manner of specimens.

 UFO researcher Santiago García, the undisputed expert on the subject, believed the U.S. had left behind a remotely guided vehicle, perhaps similar to the Soviet Lunakhod that would remain idle during the day and operate in the cooler desert night. García was of the opinion that this putative probe was looking for uranium deposits, but keeping an eye out for more interesting phenomena was not out of the question.

 In 1975, a businessman known only as "Mister Wong" was making milk deliveries along an established route one night. When he came to the village of Nuevo Delicias, he was blinded by a tremendous light ahead on narrow desert road. Wong's eyes adjusted to the sudden flash, and he was startled to see a saucer-shaped object hurtling toward him. He promptly began rolling up his truck's windows, as if doing so could save him from a certain impact with the unknown object.

 The incoming object, however, avoided the truck with ease, flying overhead, turning around, and returning whence it came at low altitude, vanishing into the darkness. Wong - who was accompanied by his wife at the time, noted that the object made a shrill noise "like that of an old blender." He was more fearful of the possible collision than of the strange object itself, since according to his testimony, the local ranchers and truck drivers were quite accustomed to seeing these strange objects, which landed at a rocky outcrop at a location known as Cuatrociénagas in the state of Coahuila, where it was possible to find evidence of their landings in the desert sands.

Wong conveyed all this information to researcher García, who would find it corroborated by an even more incredible event.  In early 1976, Jesús Berlanga approached the ufologist with a series of photographs purportedly showing a UFO landing less than two hundred feet away from Berlanga's father, who was exploring the promontory known as Cerro del Imán (Magnet Hill), when he came across the glowing, hat-shaped object. As though startled by the human's presence, the object rose into the air with a thunderous roar, allowing young Jesús and the other members of the expedition to see it.

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

OVNIRADIO ICOU - Entities Along the Highways




OVNIRADIO ICOU - The Invaders - Humanoid Case Histories

By Nelson Polanco and Luis Burgos

Episode 26 - Entities Along The Highways

 Nelson Polanco (NP): Luis, do you know that when we discussed the Route 33 incident --

Luis Burgos (LB): The southern Santa Fe one?

NP: -- the interview conducted by Luciano Masoni with Estela, who talks about the tall humanoid creature that followed her, running alongside her car? it really struck me when Estela said that this entity made a 90 degree movement and crossed the road. A few years ago I had learned about other cases involving road-crossing entities.

LB: The case histories are abundant. The phenomenon isn't very common, but it isn't isolated either. There are considerable case histories involving people on foot, or driving in a vehicle, on the road itself or on the roadside. It's as if they're showing off.

NP: That's what I wanted to tell you - we won't be dealing exclusively with humanoid beings crossing the road, but also others seen standing on the roadside. As a result of this case - Estela's - a number of cases came to mind concerning entities standing on the side of the road and one case that I witnessed myself when we journeyed to Punta Piedras. I was with you, Luis...

LB: Yes, the famous case involving "Walter's Truck"

NP: We were traveling with Walter Patente and we saw that figure standing on the side of the road in the dark, dressed in white on Route 11...

LB: On Route 11. Ripio.

NP: Yes, yes, exactly. A desolate place, around 10 pm

LB: Yes...

NP: ...as we drove past in the truck, the figure sort of pulled into the darkness...

LB: ...as if hiding.

NP: ...that's right, as if hiding. And the question went unanswered. Who was that strange character? Especially with the way he was dressed, wearing a white outfit down to his feet, and he didn't even look at the truck. The character remained standing sideways, and when the truck drove by, he sort of ducked into the darkness, into the canefield. This inspired me to look for more cases, and I know that you, Luis, will be discussing some next.

LB: This brings to mind a case that took place this year, in January 2019. An event that occurred to a FAO member, Cristián Dano, in the vicinity of Punta Lara, Santiago. He was driving along with his family and he saw a humanoid figure crossing the road...

NP: It was the night of the eclipse.

LB: Exactly. Given the geography, the incident was similar to the Route 11 incident. And Nelson, without going too far afield, we have cases we have investigated over the years involving people who've witnessed similar situations. One says: "How's this? A humanoid on the road, when it has the entire countryside to land a UFO, it should stand by the road? But that's how it is. That's where they show themselves. You know that Marcelo…

NP: We're talking about…my apologies, Luis...we're discussing cases involving humanoids with no associated craft.

LB: Unassociated humanoids. Yes, we aren't going to talk about associated cases, because the UFO is already there for that. We're talking about characters that have run into witnesses in cars or on foot, but without the presence of a UFO, which is either not present or cannot be seen with this silhouette or figure. Marcelo Martinich, back in the '90s, was driving alone at night along a road in Santa Fe, and one such entity crossed his path, something that is common in the south of Santa Fe. It was tall, with stylized, silvery clothing and took three or four long strides to cross the road.

NP: Incredible.

LB: It came out of a dense patch of vegetation and crossed the road.

NP: We should note that this dangerous, since the shock caused to the driver should be more of a source of fear than curiosity.

LB: Yes, but Marcelo took a different tack. As you know, instead of speeding away - as has occurred in many cases -Marcelo stopped the car only a few meters past the point where the figure had crossed the road. He got out of the car in the dark and began hollering at the figure, trying to provoke it...

NP: A wild man!

LB: "Come out of there, come out, I saw you!" He told it. He waited a few minutes, the figure did not emerge, and Marcelo continued his trip. bear in mind it's not only about the humanoid's behavior as it crossed the road, made itself visible, but Marcelo's attitude as well. He's one of the few witnesses who's actually wanted to confront it.

NP: Most witnesses take off in a hurry.

LB: They flee, or at some given moment, they realize what's happened, as was the case with Estela; or with Cristian Dano, who didn't stop. Even us - when we were driving in the truck with twelve people, instead of stopping to investigate, we continued as if we hadn't seen that figure. We were in a hurry; we reached our destination around 10 pm. We had a thousand incidents that evening. Anyway, Marcelo's attitude is commendable. As you know, I have a very significant case that befell Josefina, the wife of a former FAO member, in the '80s, in which her mother...

NP: (unintelligible)

LB: Josefina's mother and her husband had gone on holiday in the south, the southern reaches of the province of Buenos Aires, and in the locality of Médanos they had...

NP: Médanos, we have to discuss Médanos.

LB: Yes, another day we'll touch upon that case, which involved a doctor from La Plata and it ended badly. So it was in Médanos - which is a very mysterious town, that's where we attended the CIFA event organized by Roberto Apendino, as you know, we stopped in Médanos to recreate that case. To me it’s one of the strangest towns in the province of Buenos Aires, and the people of Médanos will say Burgos is nuts. Anyway, Josefina suffered an accident and was hospitalized in the Bahía Blanca area, and Josefina had to bring her back by ambulance to La Plata to pursue treatment. But there wasn't any ambulance - they used a morguera (hearse). They brought her back in a hearse (laughs). On the way back, they were driving along Route 3 near the locality of Hinojos when they saw a very tall, stylized figure standing by the road, dressed in silvery white, and was standing just like the figure from the canefield, with its arms close to its body. Josefina asked: "What's that?" and the driver replied: "Do you want to stop? Do you want to take a look at it?" She said, "No, no no, let's go on." Later on the driver explained that figure had appeared in front of more than one motorist in the vicinity of Hinojos. There's been talk about the "ghost of Hinojos" elsewhere and it has no bearing on this thing that Josefina saw.

NP: It's become an urban legend.

LB: Yes, but Josefina saw it with her own eyes. Not her mother. Her mother was in the back of the hearse with her knee swollen like a bag. But she and the driver witnessed it, and Josefina can attest to the fact even today. And later on, Nelson, I'd like to end with a case I've mentioned in Hechos Asombrosos and elsewhere - the case that triggered me. I always say that the Apollo lunar landing was my trigger for becoming a ufologist on July 20, 1969. But in 1965, when I was nine years old, during one of the many trips we took to the countryside to Magdalena, half way between La Plata and Magdalena, there's an area called La Curva de la Muerte (Death's Curve) and I was in the front seat with my mother in the truck used to bring foodstuffs to certain localities. At that moment, when the truck reached the curve, I heard a voice shouting: "What is that? What is that?" It was my mother, and at the time I wasn't asleep but distracted, and I saw, on the curve itself, a small figure no taller than one meter dressed in what looked like a white tunic, holding its hand out like a traffic policeman, as if gesturing for our truck to stop. We then heard a noise, as if stones were hitting below the windshield, down by the radiator and the front bumper. Hector, the driver, asked if he should stop, and the farmhand who came with us said: "Stop, I'll get out and kill him." My mother urged Hector to continue.

NP: So the being threw something at the vehicle.

LB: Something was thrown at the vehicle. But we did stop one kilometer ahead.

NP: You stopped by the creek.

LB: Yes, the creek. We stopped and nothing was broken. No damage to the headlights, nothing at all. But we felt the blow. But what struck me the most is that there appeared to be a tail coming out of that white tunic or suit or whatever it was, a tail of fire. It was fire. The character with the outstretched hand ordering us to stop had everything behind him on fire.

At that time, 1964-65, there was no one living there, no houses, anything. I know the area like the back of my hand. If you go there today you'll see it's a town. But there was no one there then. Today you can argue that [the figure] was a prankster or a highwayman forcing us to stop. But I assure you that back then there was no one, much less anyone willing to pull a prank on a cold winter night. I remember it was cold. Anyway, on the return trip to the city of Ensenada, where I lived at the time, we stopped at the site and Hector, the driver, and the farmhands who came with us searched the area to see if there was something burned at the spot, but couldn't find a thing. In other words, the fire was an illusion; it was no fire at all.

NP: It's more likely that it was light and not fire.

LB: I think it wasn't fire, but the first thought that comes to mind was fire. This case, in my judgement, was the trigger event that drew me into this field. So when my private tutor said to me, "Burgos, write something of your own", I would tell her "there was a flying saucer, it came down, and a Martian took me." This was what started me out in the UFO field. So cases like this - like your own incident in the Route 11 cane field - are the ones that form part of our data bank of 5500 Argentinean cases.

NP: Well, as I said in the earlier program, we will continue reporting on these strange incidents. If our listeners have cases of their own that they'd like to share, involving roads, strange characters and their apparitions, please contact us. Luis, this subject fascinates me. Well, we'll meet again in the next installment of Los Invasores

[Translation and transcription (c) 2021 by Scott Corrales with thanks to Luis Burgos and Nelson Pacheco]