Angel Carretero: A "Spectacular Light" in Huelva, Spain (1932)[Abstracted from Andalucía Misteriosa]YEAR 1932
Reference 19321208 Arroyomolinos de León (Huelva)
OBSERVATION OF A SPECTACULAR LIGHT PHENOMENON AROUND MIDNIGHT ON DECEMBER 8, 1932, IN ARROYOMOLINOS DE LEÓN (HUELVA)
(The event is transcribed exactly as recorded by researcher Ignacio Darnaude)
LOCATION: The site is the town of Arroyomolinos de León, in the province of Huelva, situated on the border with Badajoz; it lies on the road from Seville to Fregenal de la Sierra, approximately 100 kilometers from La Giralda. The mindset and speech of the locals (*arroyencos*) are far more characteristic of Extremadura than of Andalusia. It is a quiet, pleasant agricultural and livestock-farming area surrounded by beautiful *dehesas* (pasturelands) where the Iberian pig is raised—a hardy animal that, following the traditional slaughter, provides us with excellent hams and cured meats. The beautiful, elongated town—which at the time had a population of around 5,000—is nestled in an attractive landscape of hills and valleys dotted with holm oak groves, at an elevation of 700 meters.
CHRONOLOGY: These strange events took place between December 8 and 9, 1932—the holy day of the Immaculate Conception—right around midnight (between 11:30 PM and 12:00 AM). The sky was overcast and a persistent rain was falling, though there was not the slightest sign of thunder or a storm. The downpour continued after the strange phenomena had occurred. THE WITNESSES: Three people have been identified who definitely saw the "burning melon"—which terrified the residents of Arroyomolinos—high in the sky: Ms. Regina Santos Núñez, residing at 110 Primo de Rivera Street, just below the National Schools (the road running the length of the village); and Josefa González Vázquez (along with her sister Esperanza), living in the Church Square.
THE SIGHTING: During the calm, damp midnight of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a spectacular light suddenly appeared, caused by a mass shaped like a "fire melon" (literally) that was plummeting from the sky directly over the village, though it seemingly did not crash into the ground. As the incandescent body descended to a certain altitude, the spindle-shaped object broke apart or fragmented, triggering a deafening explosion—distinct from the familiar rumble that follows lightning. We have not determined the apparent size of the illuminated ellipsoid, its speed and descent trajectory, nor the altitude at which it disintegrated.
PUBLIC REACTION: These were the turbulent times of the Second Republic. Two months earlier, on October 6, 1932—amidst a tense General Strike—disturbances had erupted in Arroyomolinos, leaving four Civil Guards injured. Social unrest in the village was acute; fear and hatred hung heavy in the air. About twenty detainees were crammed into the jail on Grande Street (where Florencio Darnaude Campos, an Army legal officer, had been held for a time).
When the alleged meteorite thundered across the sky, the locals believed it was a high-powered bomb planted by political extremists, and widespread alarm ensued. Those who were already asleep woke up with a start, and the townspeople rushed into the street in a state of high agitation, asking what had happened. Inside the Civil Guard barracks, more than twenty officers—stationed there since the October uprising—were on alert; upon hearing the loud crash, they took up defensive positions inside the building, rifles at the ready, fearing a terrorist attack against the security forces.
A worker employed by contractor Cristóbal Luque (a native of Valencina, Seville)—who was working on the construction of the Arroyomolinos-Cañaveral de León road—had been fast asleep in his room at the Fonda de Parente (an inn facing the road to Fregenal). He found himself suddenly standing in the middle of the street, fully dressed and wearing his boots, yet holding his socks in his hand, with no memory of how he had gotten there.
THE BLACKOUT: Immediately following the massive crash, the electric lights across the town went out for about two seconds before coming back on normally. Antonio Darnaude Campos, the entrepreneur who operated the producer-gas-powered alternator supplying the electricity, stated that he could find no explanation for the power interruption, as the engine, the dynamo, and the wiring network had suffered no damage whatsoever.
At the time, the facilities were under the supervision of electrician Guillermo Silva Ballesteros. He stated that nothing unusual had occurred at the "Electro-Harinera-Panificadora San Fernando" plant that would account for the momentary voltage drop in the power lines. The engine unit and the alternator continued to operate without interruption, and Guillermo did not touch any switches or rheostats during those few seconds.
ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERFERENCE: At the residence of Antonio Darnaude [Narciso’s bachelor brother, father of the man recounting these events], a man gifted with a reliable memory for past occurrences—residing at 33 Primo de Rivera Street—saw the electrical wiring on the upper floor catch fire immediately following the atmospheric blast. An employee named Martín Rodríguez Garrido (better known as “Martín, Tío Peregrino’s son”), who was staying on that same floor with his wife Hipólita (the family’s domestic worker) in Antonio’s house, ran upstairs and managed to extinguish the flames consuming the copper wiring. Downstairs, the glass bulb of an electric light—which had been switched off when the detonation occurred—was pulverized into tiny fragments.
A pair of wires connected to a radio receiver ran from the building at number 33 across the road to the “casino” (tavern) on the opposite sidewalk; there, connected to a loudspeaker, they allowed radio broadcasts—picked up across the street by the device belonging to the owner of the flour, bread, and electricity factory—to be transmitted to the patrons. These patrons sat at *camilla* tables, warming themselves with charcoal braziers placed beneath the table skirts. Both conducting wires snapped at the exact moment of the explosion.
Of the only three radio receivers in Arroyomolinos at the time, two were damaged by the sonic event and ceased to function. The fixed capacitor at the antenna input of Antonio Darnaude’s receiver burned out. Dr. Diego Vélez Escassi’s radio had been turned off, yet the following day it produced no sound whatsoever. The third unit belonged to Cornelio Fernández, who kept it on at his home on the corner of San Roque and Primo de Rivera Streets; no disturbances were noted there at the critical moment.
ADDITIONAL EFFECTS: A crack opened in the plasterwork of one of the interior walls of the parish church. At the Fonda de Parente (29 Primo de Rivera Street), a partition wall separating two guest rooms collapsed, causing great consternation for Domingo Parente, the town’s burly innkeeper.
Inside the aforementioned small electric plant, within the engine hall, there was a covered, dry pit—measuring approximately 1.50 meters wide, 2 meters long, and 2.50 meters deep—that housed the engine's exhaust pipe. The engine ran on low-grade gas produced by a large generator located in an adjoining room and fueled by rockrose wood; a pipe also ran through the pit, carrying water from an outdoor well. The bottom of this hole consisted of solid, remarkably hard bedrock. The following morning, it was discovered with astonishment that the floor of the pit had been churned up and was covered in loose stones—"a load of rock fragments"—torn from the hard subsoil by an unknown force of tremendous power. Some of these rocks weighed over ten kilograms.
The shockwave—or whatever it was, for the cause of so many anomalies remains entirely unclear—had been so formidable, yet so selectively localized, that it shattered three square meters of solid stone flooring to a depth of several centimeters, all within the confines of a narrow shaft situated below ground level.
A significant detail: at the power plant, the inn, and the parish church—locations where physical damage was observed inside the premises—neither the roofs nor the walls sustained the slightest harm. The same occurred at the home of Antonio Darnaude, where a kitchen sideboard collapsed with a loud crash, smashing the household crockery, and two panes of glass in the window connecting the kitchen to the patio were shattered. In the adjacent building at 31 Primo de Rivera Street—home to a fascinating "general store" owned by Francisco Marín Carneiro (incidentally, the brother-in-law of the central figure, Josefa González Vázquez), an unforgettable, cluttered establishment that sold any item its bustling clientele might request, and which stood next to the inn run by Domingo Parente—a deep trench (caused by what pressure or thrust?) appeared in the earthen floor of the corral, measuring 2.00 x 1.50 x 0.50 meters. The topsoil and clay had been excavated and lay scattered around the newly formed hollow.
A LOCAL MINI-ORTHOTENY?: It is a curious fact that the locations where the unidentified ellipsoidal light caused damage lie roughly along a straight line (reflecting the theory of Aimé Michel, who posited that the points of certain UFO sightings sometimes align on a straight line), or rather within a relatively narrow longitudinal strip. The church and the power plant are separated by a distance of one kilometer. The inn, the social club, Marín’s grocery store, and Antonio Darnaude’s large house all belong, broadly speaking, to this same alignment we expanded it to some extent.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: No other anomalous collateral phenomena were reported to us. Nor were there any accounts of craters, sinkholes, or potential fragments of the blazing fireball being found on the ground. Likewise, no details were provided regarding the crucial data of the speed at which the "flaming melon" was plummeting toward Earth, nor whether its descent was vertical or involved slanted or horizontal movements (in the latter case, an object that slowly bears down on a location and/or zigzags could never be a conventional meteorite).
At that time, the Mayor of Arroyo was Domingo Darnaude Campos, and the Justice of the Peace was Cipriano Corona. The parish priest might have been either Antonio Montero Gordillo or Valentín González—a detail that remains unconfirmed. Healthcare services were overseen by two physicians: Diego Vélez Escassi and Nicolás Martín Rocha. Commanding the local Civil Guard detachment was Lieutenant Fernández Palomo, a native of Málaga. The corporal was Manuel Millán, born in Ubrique; he would later go on to head the security detail for General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, the liberator of Seville during the Civil War.
One of the officers was named Poveda, an expert marksman who had served in King Alfonso XIII’s guard. Other guards whose names are remembered include Benito Cebrián Ruiz, Casildo Ortega, and Mr. Masero. As a curious aside—though unrelated to the unusual 1932 event—around the summer of 1952 (?), following a violent storm, the streets of Arroyomolinos were found covered in countless tiny frogs; their origin—a rather far-fetched explanation—was attributed to the Abismo stream that runs through the town.
DETAILS OF THE SIGHTING BY JOSEFA GONZÁLEZ VÁZQUEZ: The woman who would later become the wife of law graduate and teacher Manuel Márquez ("El Estudiante") spotted something high up that looked like "a ball of yarn or sphere shedding many sparks—a sort of skein with a thread unraveling from it." At first, she thought it was a lightning bolt, as the "ball" illuminated the entire area—and even the interiors of the houses—with a powerful light. The glowing object "fell" (or did it descend until it struck the ground?) at a location known as Barranco de la Morena.
MORE ON PARENTE’S INN: Benito Sánchez Márquez ("Benitorro")—a former Justice of the Peace and taxi owner who was staying at the inn when the "meteorite" nearly landed—attests that a Chevrolet truck parked in the courtyard of the adjacent lodging house sustained damage. Meanwhile, pictures hanging on the walls of the guest rooms fell to the tiled floors, and cracks appeared in some of the walls. The witness swears that "something fell" at the inn, though he cannot specify what. At the time of the incident, Domingo Parente, his wife Pilar, and two maids—Magdalena Gines and I. Domínguez (sister-in-law of local transporter and businessman Diego Valero, known as "El Aceitero")—were gathered around the dining room table.
When "the thunderous boom" occurred, Domingo was so startled that he suffered a sudden collapse and fell to the floor. It took more than half an hour for those around him to revive him. Benitorro recounts that "some people in Arroyo felt faint" due to the aerial blast, and the doors of some houses flew open on their own. According to him, news of the “noisy meteor” appeared in a newspaper—though he cannot recall which one—suggesting it would be worthwhile to check the archives of *ABC* and *El Correo de Andalucía* (Seville), *Odiel* (Huelva), and *Hoy* (Badajoz) for the period between December 9 and 15, 1932.
THE GALAROZA “FIREBALL”: On the very day the “rugby ball” crashed down on Arroyomolinos de León—December 8, 1932—at around 6:30 p.m. (five hours before the celestial spectacle in Arroyomolinos), the solemn annual procession of the Immaculate Conception was proceeding uneventfully through the decorated streets of Galaroza. This town, located in the same province of Huelva within the Aracena mountain range, had a population of 2,600 and lay 29 kilometers by road from Arroyomolinos.
Suddenly, the many faithful walking slowly in the two lines of the religious procession gazed in astonishment at the sky, where they saw “a large, fire-colored ball that was spinning and seemed to be tumbling over itself.” The luminous phenomenon moved slowly—so slowly, in fact, that some devotees had time to smoke pieces of glass to observe it better, which indicates that the spherical object was emitting an extremely intense glow. This mass sighting has been described in detail by Rosa Rodríguez (who later married Benitorro); she explains that “the ‘burning’ ball was seen by all of Galaroza,” suggesting it would be possible to locate other witnesses.
It is certainly interesting to note the coincidence of these two highly unusual and striking phenomena occurring in locations separated by only about fifteen kilometers as the crow flies, and by a mere five hours in time.
What was the nature and origin of the “burning melon” of Arroyomolinos and the “ball of fire” in Galaroza? Was there any connection between the two displays?
If the blinding “unraveling ball” over Arroyomolinos was a natural body in freefall, it triggered a series of highly unusual and difficult-to-explain electromagnetic and physical effects. As for the “fiery orange” that escorted the Marian rosary procession in Galaroza at a snail’s pace, it cannot—to our knowledge—be equated with any natural phenomenon or any aircraft of that era. This second aerial intruder—and quite possibly the first as well—was clearly what, fifteen years later, would be dubbed an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO).
Given that the celestial “melon” appeared so close in time and space to the “rolling sphere” of the *Pura* (Virgin Mary) procession, one suspects a non-natural link between these two astonishing events—though many clues have likely been lost, given that they occurred sixty years ago. If a witness from Arroyomolinos were to state that the “burning melon” descended slowly or failed to follow a straight trajectory, we would know for certain that mysterious, intentional events—orchestrated by some alien intelligence for arcane reasons—had unfolded in the skies of Huelva, first in Galaroza and then, hours later, in Arroyomolinos.
We are grateful to Manuel Darnaude for his valuable assistance in interviewing witnesses, and to Antonio Moya Cerpa for his two excellent descriptive drawings of the objects that descended from the sky in Arroyo and Galaroza. The dossier for this story includes the following documentation: the entry for Arroyomolinos de León from Pascual Madoz’s *Geographical Dictionary of Spain* (2 pages), along with 3 maps and 17 photographs of the houses and streets of Arroyo.
Comments: Without a doubt, this is perhaps one of the best-documented historical cases. It can be inferred from the investigator's account that relatives of the individual may have witnessed the event, which explains the aforementioned statement.
