RETRO UFOLOGY
Argentina: The Great Alberti Mothership?
(Luis Burgos FAO/ICOU)
At 7:30 pm on February 7, 1963, Felix Carraizo and his wife were driving along National Highway 5, linking Buenos Aires to La Pampa province. In the vicinity of Alberti, he slowed down before coming to a full stop. The reason? According to Carraizo, his wife was nervously pointing an immensely large and glowing "something" floating over the right hand of the road. In fact, over a stand of trees, there was a motionless, silver-grey colored cylindrical object, in a vertical position and somewhat tilted. Neither witness could believe what they were seeing.
"It could have been over 200 meters long," they said, “and perhaps 20 meters in diameter. There was a blinding light coming from its mid-section. It hurt the eyes. There were four rectangular lights resembling portholes, blinking along the fuselage, one of them was even brighter than the intense glow. Three more dotted the lower section of the cylinder..."
Felix Carraizo remembered that he had a still camera in the backseat, and without any hesitation, reached for the instrument and snapped a phot. Upon lowering the camera, he noticed that the object was now in motion. A cloud-darkened sky served as backdrop.
"Before I could take a second shot," he said, "the luminous cylinder rose upward at high speed and with successive bursts. Then it assumed a horizontal position and became lost in space." The experience lasted little over a minute. Carrizo used a Schneider Alpa-Xenar 1: 3,5/75 telephoto lens, 1/250 shutter speed, f-16. The film used was Kodak Plus-X Pan 35mm.
These then are the details of the event and the witness's testimony. A case that gave rise to broad and intense debate in forums. During a trip along the same road in 2020, we were unable to locate the exact location of the incident. We later appealed to Luis Bianchi (FAO La Plata) to provide an illustration and Patricio Barrancos (FAO Buenos Aires) to colorize the original photo.
[Translation (c) 2021 S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Luis Burgos, FAO/ICOU]