Source: Codigobelegeuse.blogspot.com & PLANETA UFO
Date: 08.16.2019
An article by Orestes Girbau Collado
Cuba: A UFO South of Havana (1968)
Those of us who approach UFO research in a responsible manner must not forget what the year 1968 meant within the world UFO context. August occupied a special place within the dissemination of the phenomenon in Cuba.
There was another sighting during that season which was added to others in the Caribbean at the time.
16 AUGUST 1968 - Bearing the suggestive title "Strange Object South of the Province of Havana", Cuban newspaper El Mundo reported the following:
"Our newsroom has received many phone calls showing interest in the flight of a strange object over the southern reaches of Havana Province. Many of these callers agree that the phenomenon was seen around six thirty in the morning on Friday.
"At that same time, the first multiple reentry vehicle warhead (MIRV) missile was launched from Cape Kennedy. It was known to experts as "Poseidon" with a radius of action of 4,800 kilometers. The rocket is far heavier than the actual Polaris missile.
"This newsroom contacted the Department of Astronomy of the Cuban Academy of Sciences, which reported that the object sighted bore no relation with any atmospheric phenomenon, and that its origin was nonetheless undetermined."
I am adding only two things: first, the object coincided in time, but not space, with the launch made from Florida (USA). It will suffice to look at a map of the Caribbean to realize the difficulty in seeing the American missile due to its flight trajectory. Moreover, why was the UFO not visible over the Cuban capital? Was it perhaps flying too low to be seen in Havana? Was it perhaps detected by radar?
This author is convinced a solid object was involved and not an anomaly witnessed from a given area in the Cuban southwest, when it could be shown that it ought to have been visible from the north, had it indeed been a rocket launched at the same time as the UFO sighting, as required by geographic latitude. The north would be the most appropriate area. It was not a phenomenon in the upper atmosphere, nor barium or sodium cloud (artificial) or some Aurora Borealis of the sort that is sometimes visible from our archipelago.
Nothing further was said, and it remains a mystery to this very day.
[Translation (c) 2019, S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Orestes Girbau, Martha Jacqueline Herrera (Código Betelgeuse) and Guillermo Giménez (Planeta UFO)]