Contributing editor Guillermo Gimenez draws our attention to an article by Luis Burgos of Argentina's FAO organization regarding the possible presence of "humanoids" in the Province of Buenos Aires in the early 1940s, before Kenneth Arnold's legendary sighting over Mount Rainier:
The First Humanoids in Argentina
By Luis Burgos (FAO)
Tres Arroyos, located over 600 km south of Buenos Aires, shall henceforth no longer be known as “Argentina’s Wheat Capital” but as also as the place where the first humanoid encounter of the country took place.
In early 1971, in mid-summer, I had the chance to spend the season in Orense, a lovely beach resort, which together with Reta and Claromecó represent the main tourist attractions of the season. Logically, and given the fact that I was taking my very first steps in field research, my conversations had mostly to do with the subject [ufology]. Thus, my mind was stirred by anecdotes and remembrances. The cause of this was Mr. Vicente Pedone, who was my host at the time.
According to Don Vicente, in the early 1940s, he was a Sergeant of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police, and his beat covered such locations as Orense, San Cayetano, Copetonas, Oriente, Cristiano Muerto, etc. These towns were well known to him.
One night, while in the company of an officer surnamed Gitani in a field warehouse, a local boy came running over to them, breathlessly, saying that he had witnessed “a plane crash to the ground in flames”, deep in the fields. Faced with this story, Don Vicente and his subordinate reported to the alleged crash site, accompanied by the young man (whom I shall call NN, given his anonymous status). After covering a good distance in the police car, the guide pointed out the possible crash site: there, two hundred meters away from the group, near a hill, was a very strange disk-shaped luminous object that remained still in their sight. Around the object, an undetermined number of “figures” could be seen “coming and going”
At a distance, the beings seemed very tall and were clad in luminous, metallic outfits. Their movements were sluggish and they carried what appeared to be mugs (“tarros”) in their hands.
Evidently, this sight impressed the witnesses to such an extent that they made a prudent retreat. But their astonishment and nervousness increased when Don Vicente tried to get the vehicle going, he was unable to do so. He tried one, two, three and more times to no avail. Therefore, rather than running away across the field, they all agreed to remain in the vehicle to see what developed. “We were abandoned to the outcome of the events,” remarked the protagonist of this episode.
Several minutes later, they noticed that what they took for an airplane began to move backward with a slow, even motion and speed, always at ground level. This action caused Don Vicente to try to get his police car going once more, since time had become endless to them. Finally he managed to turn the engine over and make an abrupt departure. This brought an end to this reminiscence, and it’s a shame that they didn’t stay long enough to witness the final phase of the phenomenon. The next morning, Don Vicente obtained confirmation from NN, that the landing site in Oriente betrayed signs of burned grass. Unfortunately, the police did not verify this on-site. Therefore, only the story told by NN remains the proof of such physical evidence.
(Translation (c)2009, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Luis Burgos and Guillermo Giménez)