MISIDENTIFICATION: The Rosario, Argentina Beam-Firing UFO
By Silvia Perez Simondini
(Posted to the www.visionovni.com.ar website)
As the public is well aware, many people in Rosario were shaken by the manifestation of a UFO that engaged in zigzagging, up-and-down movements with intermittent lights as it traveled on the night of January 30 into the morning of the 31st.
Many witnesses reported seeing two or three objects that same night.
Vision Ovni took down the eyewitness reports and began its investigation, accompanied by a series of sightings made in other parts of the world showing observations made in various parts of the world, displaying video images with one, four and five objects producing the same phenomenon visible in the Rosario case.
We commenced our research in Rosario by interviewing witnesses, a detailed task carried out by Elias Kolev; witnesses in the area and outlying regions were surveyed. Meanwhile, Vision Ovni’s website and blog continue to receive videos and accounts of the events. We also received explanations from the parties making the claims. Four working hypotheses were confected out of all this material.
Hypothesis One: Static Aerial Promotion by the Alto Rosario Shopping Center
This hypothesis was dismissed after making calls to the Alto Rosario shopping center, whose management denied the existence of any aerial promotion campaign over its facilities. On the other hand, consultations were made with the Fisherton Control Tower, as it is the regulating body that authorizes such displays.
Hypothesis Two: Nocturnal Flights by Light-Equipped kites
On this occasion, using information posted by an anonymous user to Vision Ovni’s blog at Clarin, we found the Rosario Vuela organization, which flies these kites. This group is a gathering of friends who are passionate about this hobby. Upon learning of its existence, Andrea Perez Simondini contacted them immediately, addressing an e-mail to Guillermo Percoco, the groups web manager. In its reply, the aforementioned group assumed responsibility for the event. The details are provided below:
Mail from Andrea:
Hello Guillermo:
You have a lovely web page.
As you can see from the subject, I’m a member of the Vision Ovni team and as you can imagine, I’m writing about the sighting on the evening of the 30th-morning of the 31st. As many witnesses have reported that the movement of the reported object resembled that of a kite, and with the authorities at Fisherton reporting that no permit for kite contest or practice had been issued, nor for any aerial publicity, I wanted confirmation from your organization if you did indeed perform maneuvers with the kites, as this is the last source we need to verify.
If this is true, I would like a letter from you confirming your organization’s event to declare the matter closed. If not true, I think it’ll be a long time before we learn the real causes of the event. I wanted to advise you that next week we’ll be holding a press conference due to the number of witnesses to the event and we would like to bring this mystery to an end. It would be a good thing for you to send me photos of your maneuvers so that people will have a record of it.
I’m requesting your authorization to mention your group as being responsible for the episode or not, so that people will be clear about it, one way or another. If it was indeed your group, you mobilized a lot of people and caused us to make expenses that we can’t always cover.
I hope you receive this message in the understanding that while UFO research may be a lark to some, there are others who take it earnestly, in the same way that you engage in your hobby.
I eagerly await your reply.
Sincerely,
Andrea Perez Simondini
Vision OVNI
Reply Received:
Hi Andrea, thanks for writing (e-mail cc’d to visionovni@hotmail.com). We were in fact preparing a note for publication on our page, which you can read here: http://www.rosariovuela.com.ar/?p=82
What you call a UFO was INDEED US. It was a light-emitting kite. The report on the page gives you extensive details as to how this was done. I’d like to clarify a few things in this regard:
1) IT WASN’T a prank. It was an activity we engage in regularly and is called nocturnal kite flying. We aren’t’ the only ones doing it; it’s done in many parts of the world (YouTube: kite night led, there are even a few links posted in a comment to your blog)
2) We are NOT an institution or organization. We are simply a group of friends who get together to fly kites, like any other group of friends meeting to play soccer, fly radio-controlled planes, etc. (for this reason we are unable to send you an institutional letter or anything similar)
3) The kites are small, not large like I’ve seen some people say (the one we use is 1 meter wide by one meter tall)
4) It wasn’t any kind of promotional campaign. We do not profit in any way from the groups activities. We don’t charge to have people see, don’t charge admission or to test our kites, or anything like it.
5) The shopping center had absolutely NOTHING to do with it (several radio stations wanted to phone the public relations people to inquire, etc.)
And what’s most important: AT NO TIME DID WE INTEND TO MOCK ANYONE, OR CAUSE FEAR, PANIC, ETC. among people. It wasn’t a joke. It was a field test to corroborate that the 2007 video was indeed a recording of one of our kites. It was done at night for obvious reasons. It was done over the shopping center because we fly at Scalabrini’s and it turned out that the wind was blowing in that direction. It was done twice because we did not find what we were looking for, and because night flying is something we do often in the summer. It just never happened that so many people would see it.
We have photos taken with the rest of the people, but the person who took them still can’t publish them. Therefore they’re not in the article, probably when conditions are back to normal (his electricity still hasn’t been restored).
With regard to your blog’s comment about us being concealed, it is COMPLETELY UNTRUE, as you’ll read in the article. We were in a park, in a well-lit sector, with our families, cars, bags, etc. My apologies for not making a longer reply, but I had a very long night on account of the storm and I’m very tired. However, I want you to know that I’m at your disposal for further replies and/or to show you how it’s done. But I’m listening to your radio show and wanted this to reach you as soon as possible.
[...]
As those of us at Vision Ovni tend to say, sometimes humorously and sometimes in earnest, those who seek shall find. As you can see, Rosario Vuela becomes responsible for the episode that caused hundreds of people to pull over in the vicinity of the shopping center.
To Vision Ovni, this case has been closed, but there are still loose ends to deal with:
· what caused an optical effect with the beam’s emission-- which according to the parties responsible was attributable to an optical distortion in camera lens – when we have witnesses who saw the beam without optic elements.
· The number of objects. Rosario Vuela explains that people saw two objects due to the LED dangling from the bottom of the kid. There are witnesses who report seeing 2 and 3 objects that night.
· Reports of the traffic lights suspended in red, rather than intermittent (yellow) at the time of the manifestation have yet to be explained. There are witnesses who state that this indeed happened and from the investigation undertaken by Elias Kolev with Traffic Control, we know that traffic lights should have operated normally that day. The effect on cellphones we attribute to a lack of battery power when the need to photograph or record arose.
Finally this case would explain the beam-emission phenomenon seen in recordings from England, Germany, Russia, Mexico and Costa Rica and the 2007 Rosario event: not on account of the kite soaring, but due to optical defects in the lenses of the cellphones making the recordings.
An agreement was reached with the Rosario Vuela group to perform a field test aimed at recreating the phenomenon observed in the Alto Rosario shopping center under the same conditions, in order to provide a practical demonstration to those who were startled by phenomenon.
[...]
Finally, this case was a lesson to all of us. It teaches us how much further we must go to perfect our fieldwork. And to Rosario Vuela too, because I’m certain that they will inform the public during their next field maneuver so that no person will have doubts about the maneuvers, and to people who have been motivated for the first time ever to state their observations in public. They cannot imagine the importance that this has to those of us who research the UFO phenomenon, as the main component in any case is the witness, and it is for the witnesses, and their commitment to reporting what they saw, the we sought the ultimate possibility and found it, even if no UFO was involved in this event.
(Translation (c) 2009, S. Corrales, IHU)