A Survey of Close Encounter Experiences
By Scott Corrales, Inexplicata
On February 16, 2001, forestry technician Ingrid
Sperberg, 26, a resident of the city of Angol in northern Chile, managed to
meet her cyberpal Patricio Vallejos, 25, a systems analyst from neighboring La
Serena. The two had agreed to meet in person after a long friendship over the Internet,
and Sperberg offered to show the out-of-towner the sights of her home town.
Vallejo
arrived at Angol's bus terminal at eight thirty in the evening, as sunset
crowned the city. At the station were Sperberg and her friend María Cristina
Sepúlveda, 42, who had agreed to provide the transportation for the city tour
and act as an unofficial chaperone on their meeting.
Maria Cristina
drove the cyberpals around Angol and at one point, the three of them agreed to
visit a scenic lookout from where it was possible to see the entire city of
Angol brightly lit and standing out against the surrounding darkness.
Arriving at
the lookout at 10:15 p.m., they were surprised to find they were the only car
at the location, which is variously known as "El Mirador" or "Las
Piñas" by the locals. They parked their car some four meters away from an
iron gate adorned
with cartwheels, which guards the entrance to a field
planted with pine and eucalyptus trees. Sperberg and Vallejo got out of the car
to enjoy the view while María Cristina remained beside her vehicle.
When the
forestry technician and her friend looked back toward the field, they witnessed
a white light ascending vertically from a distance estimated at some four
hundred feet away. Rejoining María Cristina by the car, the trio witnessed a
beam of light spreading open, fan-like, orange colored its base and soft violet
at its top. According to their account, which appeared in a local newspaper,
the beam of light "lit up everything some 40 meters around. Dry grass, depressions,
the green of the trees and shrubs could be clearly seen."
The phenomenon
lasted for some three to four minutes, during which a very frightened Ingrid
Sperberg excused herself from her companions to get back into the car. A
self-confessed skeptic about the UFO phenomenon, Sperberg stated, "I don't
like seeing strange things."
A few more
minutes elapsed before a solicitous María Cristina Sepúlveda went to check on
her friend, discovering that the car's dome light, which had been hitherto
working perfectly, did not activate upon opening the door. Puzzled, Maria
Cristina repeated the maneuver a few times to no avail. It was necessary for
her turn on the light source manually.
Meanwhile,
Patricio Vallejo remained outside the car, taking in the veritable light show.
Vallejo, who suffers hearing problems, did not notice the sound of
"ringing bells" that the women had been clearly able to distinguish
during the event.
The lights and
sounds came to an end when the UFO abruptly vanished. Vallejo coaxed his
cyberpal out of the car by assuring her that the coast was clear and that all
had returned to normal.
He couldn't
have been more wrong.
Sperberg became aware of a sound in the now-still night: a noise similar to that piece
of metal being dragged over the loose paving stones of the country road they
were on. "That's when I looked up, and behind the iron gate I could see
two figures standing 1.20 meters, tall, dark, nearing the gate. They weren't
walking‑‑they were dragging themselves along."
According to
the event's protagonists, the beings' faces, hands and legs were invisible, and
the entities gave the impression of being shadows. The nature of the sound was
also elaborated upon later: Sepúlveda characterized it as sounding as though
the beings "wore metal booties".
"When I
saw them," Sperberg told journalists, "I looked at Patricio, who was
alert to what was happening. At first I thought it could be people, as I
struggled to find a rational explanation to what was going on. I heard the
sound of metal. I’m sure that the figure on the left carried something strange,
like two metal rods, but I'm not sure what they were."
The entities
halted their progress only a few feet away from the decorated iron gate. The
one on the left crossed the iron obstacle as though it were non-existent, and
following a small walk-around, made an about face and returned to the field,
rejoining its companion. The shadowy pair moved away from the stunned
onlookers; Maria Cristina shone her car's high-beams on them as they departed,
but there was nothing to be seen.
Ingrid
Sperberg's plea to her companions about leaving the place as soon as possible
was well received: the three boarded the car and left the scenic lookout
behind. By their calculations, they returned to Angol at 10:40 p.m., so the
entire event lasted 25 minutes. María Cristina would later add that as the car
departed, she was able to see one of the dark entities through the rear view
mirror, apparently pacing the car, before dissolving into an amorphous black
mass.
In retrospect,
Sperberg and her companions agreed that the ghostly entities made no attempt
to communicate with them, but that the beings made a noise similar to speech, a
"mumbling" sound; during the event, all three agreed that the
immediate temperature appeared to be much greater than it should have been for
that time of night. The heat appeared to be concentrated in the area occupied
by the witnesses (microwaves?). The unusual heat was accompanied by an odd
smell reminiscent of "burning wiring" or "burning rubber".
Although
Ingrid Sperberg was the one most ill at ease with the paranormal events, it
would be her friend María Cristina who would experience the unusual
aftereffects of the ordeal. Ever since the close encounter on February 16, Sepúlveda
claims to have been roused from sleep by the sound of metal being dragged on
loose stone--the clangor made by the shadowy figures. Given her religious
beliefs (an Adventist) she has refused to consider hypnotic regression and has
attached religious significance to her experience, particularly after a healing
experience which may be related to the encounter.
Sepúlveda told
the press that she had had a dream in which an entity completely different from
the shadow beings--an angelic, luminous entity she describes as "a
beautiful person"--healed her of a fleshy mass that was growing in the
back of her throat, and for which she had sought medical attention. She awoke
from the oneiric experience to discover that the lump was inexplicably gone: a
fact confirmed by her physician.
UFO researcher
Ernesto Escobar states that the four friends were not alone in their
experience, since his UFO study group was investigating a case which occurred
on March 16 involving a group of five friends who had come to Angol to visit
with friends and decided to stop at the scenic lookout, where they were
startled by three beings standing in excess of six feet tall and with long arms
and legs, who emerged from behind some shrubs. After talking among themselves
-- at least that was the eyewitnesses' impression -- the entities turned around
and vanished.
Escobar's team
has focused its attention on collecting soil samples from the ground allegedly
trodden by the tall entities, and upon an anomalous spring not far from the
metal fence where the sighting took place. The liquid coming from this spring
has been described as having a "gelatinous" quality and "an
unknown type of chloration was discovered upon analysis", stated the
researcher to reporters from the Diario Austral de Temuco, adding that
"the importance of these apparitions resides in that they are events which
repeat themselves at the same place, the number of people who have witnessed
them is significant, the object are highly mobile and close to the ground, and
feature the apparition of humanoid figures."
Skeptics have
always complained about the reliability of CE-III's, regardless of the country
in which they occur. The opinion of a trained witness--usually a police officer
or other uniformed personnel--is believed to carry greater weight than that of
the casual observer faced with the unknown, as in the cases we have discussed
so far.
But the
situation acquires a wholly different complexion when members of the military
are involved. Soldiers, sailors and airmen, given the nature of their training,
are therefore believed to have greater accuracy in their statements. The
following accounts involve recent CE-III's with military personnel.
On November
25, 1998, a sentry patrolling the perimeter of the Morón de la Frontera Air
Base near the city of Seville (Spain) at five o' clock in the morning was
startled to hear a sound he likened to "steel plate being cut" (a
similarity to the metallic clangor heard by Ms. Sepúlveda in the Chilean case).
The sentry
shouted a challenge; when no one responded, he loaded his rifle and fired two
shots in the air, while letting loose the German Shepherd watchdog that
accompanied him on his rounds. Almost immediately following the two loud
reports, an entity described as a two meter tall "sort of person"
emerged from the surrounding thicket.
According to
Spanish researcher José Manuel García Bautista, the sentry was astonished by
the being's height and its fluorescent green eyes, adding that the darkness
kept him from making out its physical details. With his heart pounding, the
sentry fired another shot straight into the creature, to no avail. He then
ordered the German Shepherd to attack; the animal charged the dark figure, but
stopped short of it with a loud whimper. The highly trained guard dog cowered
back to the sentry, who was at a loss as to what to do next. The entity spared
him further confusion by vanishing into the thicket once more.
After
contacting his superiors over a handheld radio, the sentry was taken to see the
base commander, who advised him to keep the whole affair confidential and
awarded him a week's leave. But before going off on his furlough, the sentry
noticed that his guard dog now sported a long scar running along its left
shoulder blade: physical proof of the encounter with the unknown creature.
From the late 1980s and well through the 1990's, the
Caribbean island of Puerto Rico held pride of place as the no-holds-barred
strangest place on the planet: sightings of UFOs in the air, land and sea,
strange creatures like the Bigfoot-like Comecogollos and the ubiquitous Chupacabras,
and the possibility of collusion among the military and island authorities to
keep these matters a secret, filled the pages of many a book and magazine
around the planet.
In spite of
these and other paranormal goings-on, it is still possible to come across
traditional CE-3 cases. One of the most compelling ones occurred on July 31,
2000 in the densely populated Bairoa sector of Aguas Buenas, a bedroom
community of metropolitan San Juan.
According to
researchers Lucy Guzmán and Edwin Plaza, the Aguas Buenas incident began in the
early morning hours of the 31st, when Marie Molina, the witness to the events,
was awakened by an unusual sound on her corrugated zinc roof at exactly five
o'clock in the morning, followed by the sudden and frantic barking of her
neighbor's watchdogs. Parting the items of clothing she'd hung across the
window in order to peer out into the darkness, she was startled beyond words.
Standing with
its back to her, at an estimated distance of 15 feet, was a tall creature with
pallid, wrinkled skin, long ears, arms and legs, and an egg-shaped head. Ms.
Molina was apparently able to see the corners of its elongated white eyes with
black centers, but unable to make out the details of its mouth and nose, nor
the number of fingers on its hands.
But the most
curious detail of this backyard encounter was the fact that the strange entity
shook its body incessantly, with its hands clenched in what Molina took to be a
prayerful attitude. The witness would later tell Guzmán and Plaza that the
creature's shudders reminded her of "a person afflicted with a muscular
cramp and who is trying to relive it [by shaking]."
Ms. Molina
watched the creature for approximately fifteen minutes until she developed a
sudden, perhaps irrational, fear that the shaking creature would somehow try
and get into her house. This prompted her to reach for the phone and call
another person (described as "a sister, friend or neighbor" by the
researchers) who urged her not to call the police for help, since "she
would not be believed", and asked her to hold on while a relative was sent
out to rescue her.
Five minutes
after having made the phone call, Ms. Molina decided to check on her unwanted
visitor again, but this time accidentally bumping her leg against an object
near the wall. The sound caused the creature to stop its activity (but
apparently not its shaking) and turn to look at her. Clearly able to see its
face now, the witness remarked that it appeared to be giving her a telepathic
command to shut her eyes. This prompted her to step back from the window and
rub her eyes repeatedly in an effort to focus and somehow break the suggestion
placed by the entity. The fact that it had been able to "command" her
to take action only served to ratchet Ms. Molina's fear even higher--if the
shaking creature could control her mind so readily, what might be in store for
her?
Another five
minutes of barely restrained panic elapsed until Molina heard her name being
called from the street--it was the person that her telephone contact had sent
to rescue her. Perhaps feeling heartened by this, she ran back to the window to
see if the creature was still in the backyard, but it had vanished. In an
article for Inexplicata (Fall 2000), Lucy Guzman notes that Marie Molina had
experienced some mild changes in the wake of the event: a chain smoker all of
her life, Molina no longer felt the urge to smoke, "nor was she in bad mood
over not smoking."
The 2000 Aguas
Buenas case brings to mind another Puerto Rican case which occurred in mid-'70s
during the UFO wave which included the mutilations caused by the Moca Vampire.
On April 17, 1975 Orlando Franceschi, an ambulance driver for a hospital in the
city of Ponce, on the island's Caribbean shore, returned to his house after 8:00 p.m. that evening only to become aware of the fact that
something unusual was going on in his backyard. Franceschi's could see his
watchdog jumping into the air in a frantic effort to clear the fence get away
from whatever it was. The homeowner, tired after a long day's work, angrily set
off for the backyard, taking the precaution to arm himself with a shovel which
he kept against one of the house's exterior walls.
Nothing could
have prepared the ambulance driver for what he found in his backyard: a bizarre
entity with long, pointed ears, a long nose, lipless mouth and greyish, ashen
skin. Franceschi would later describe it eyes as being "black spots",
and having a jawline reminiscent of an ape's. The creature walked toward the
homeowner with a jerky, stiff gait.
In a mixture
of fear and anger, Franceschi struck the five foot tall intruder with the
shovel, but was surprised to see that it was unharmed by the terrific blow.
Oddly enough, the entity backed off, perhaps deliberately allowing Franceschi
to deliver a second shovel-blow without any effect. But when the human was
winding up to deliver a third strike, he began to feel his body becoming numb
and paralyzed, leaving him at the mercy of whatever it was that could withstand
such physical punishment without flinching. Helpless, expecting the worse from
the non-human figure, the ambulance driver was shocked to see the entity (which
he described as a "zombie") fade into thin air.
Although some
rough similarities exist between the creatures--the black-centered white eyes,
pointed ears, pallid skin and apparent ability to employ mental powers against
humans--there are no unexplained craft present in these CE-III's, and therefore
the beings cannot be properly be considered "ufonauts" (although this
should not really pose a problem, since many accepted CE-III's like the
Kelly-Hopkinsville event in 1955 did not feature UFOs. Perhaps both of these
Puerto Rican cases, separated from each other by a gulf of 25 years, would
benefit from the revisions to the classification system set forth by Jacques
Vallée in his book Confrontations (Ballantine,1988). Vallée proposes a
complementary classification of "AN" for anomalous events,
paralleling the CE 1, 2 and 3 classifications. His AN-3's would apply to
"anomalies with associated entities. This class could include ghosts,
yetis and other instances of cryptozoology as well as elves and spirits"
(p.217).
We do not know
if Mr. Franceschi benefitted from his encounter (in fact, we can only infer
from the text that the ambulance driver shared a characteristic exhibited by
"Lucky" Sutton during the Kelly-Hopkinsville case--the unnerving
astonishment that the intruder was immune to harm), but we can see that Ms.
Molina's ability to quit smoking indicates that an unexpected benefit was
derived from her sighting, much in the same way that Mrs. Sepúlveda in the
Chilean case was inexplicably healed of her condition after the event. The
Spanish sentry does not appear to have benefitted in any way aside from a very
welcome furlough.
Liliana Flotta and Eduardo Grosso, researchers
from the Argentinean city of Rosario, believe that healings in the wake of
CE-3's or AN-3's are commonplace, particularly in their country. They cite the
case of a young married couple, Sergio and Sandra A. (ages 26 and 27,
respectively) who were startled to behold an unexplained phenomenon taking
place in the inner courtyard of their building, which was on the same level as
their ground floor apartment. The husband saw only a luminous floating sphere,
while the wife was Cleary able to see a diminutive floating being.
"According to Sandra," write Flotta and Grosso, "their upstairs
neighbor was terrified that night by a ball of light that appeared inside her
apartment." The researchers were able to confirm this event after
interviewing the party in question.
Prior to the
experience, Sandra A. had experienced health concerns involving a fibroma, but
shortly after that fateful evening in July 1992, she started having dreams
about a diminutive entity coming into her room and inserting a needle into one
of her ovaries. Such was the intensity of the pain that she would wake up
screaming.
Soon after
these "dreams" and the experience shared with her husband, Sandra A.
discovered that she was pregnant and that a sonogram showed no trace of the
fibroma. "Sandra and Sergio have since relocated to Greater Buenos Aires,
where she gave birth to a boy," conclude the authors.
In our age of
abductions and post-abduction trauma, looking at cases that involve UFO
occupants or unusual humanoids as they go about their enigmatic business in our
countrysides may seem hopelessly antiquated. However, unlike most abduction
experiences and bedroom visitations, traditional CE-III's have the benefit of
taking place away from the home and under circumstances involving more than a
single witness to the event. To a certain extent, it helps that witnesses to
traditional CE-III's are usually fully awake and engaged in other tasks
(talking to friends and sightseeing, standing guard at an army base or having
just returned from work, as in the cases we've seen here). Although the media
has celebrated a number of breakthroughs in securing evidence of alien
abduction, the ability to collect samples, such as the soil and anomalous water
in the Chilean case, serves to bolster a case's credibility. Unfortunately,
none of these things brings us closer to solving the riddle posed by these
experiences.
