Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Unsolved Mystery: The Object That Fell Between Bolivia and Salta















Source: El Tribuno.com
Date: 06.28.11


Unsolved Mystery: The Object that Fell Between Bolivia and Salta
By Antonio Abarzúa, El Tribuno

On May 6, 1978 at 1730 hours, residents of the communities along the Bolivian and Argentinean borders, along a segment that starts from the tripartite corner with the Republic of Paraguay, looked skywards. A penetrating, buzzing sound caused them raise their eyes as one and up to this very day, thousands of people remember the extraordinary event: a metallic, oval shape the [apparent] size of a soccer ball, incandescent, crossed the sky from east to west at an unheard-of speed, apparently out of control and in free-fall.

The unidentified flying object (UFO) lost itself in the horizon, but a tremendous explosion made itself felt later on. The communities of Aguas Blancas, Salvador Mazza, Los Toldos and Santa Victoria Oeste in the Argentinean province of Salta trembled; the same happened to the Bolivian settlements of Tarija, Padcaya, La Mamora, Las Cañas and Bermejo, just to name a few.

Everything pointed to the strange object having crashed at some point along the border between the two nations.

The Gendarmería Argentina, under the orders of Cmdr. Juan Nicasio Boari, head of the 20th Orán Squadron, sent three patrols to the Baritú National Park to find the UFO or whatever had crashed to the ground. Likewise, airplanes were sent to survey the area. A similar determination was made by the Bolivian Air Force, which sent its own air and ground forces to the probable impact area.

A team of scientists from the Universidad Misael Saracho in Tarija, led by Argentinean physicists Orlando Bravo, announced that that the point of impact had been determined, with a relative degree of certainty, on Bolivian soil, in a mountain range facing the Argentinean community of Mecoyita, in Santa Victoria Oeste.

The Bolivian Nuclear Energy Commission dispatched a team of scientists to the site under the command of Lt. Cmdr. Francisco Mariaca.

The resulting expedition would depart aboard a Bolivian military helicopter. The team would also include a journalist (Antonio Abarzúa, author of this report) and photographer Luis Benjamín Arias of El Tribuno. When everything was ready at the Tarija Airport to set off, a U.S. Air Force plane landed on the runway, from which emerged Col. John Simmons and Capt. John Heide, who interviewed the commandant of the local base, Col. Jorge Molina Suarez. Questioned by the press, they denied that their presence in Tarija had anything to do with the UFO. After a two-hour stay in the community, they boarded their plane and departed.

Minutes later, Col. Molina advised us that the expedition’s helicopter had suffered a breakdown and those wanting to participate in the mission would have to do so on foot. Two donkeys, loaded with food and tents, were made available to the volunteers, along with a military escort headed by a lieutenant and four soldiers.

El Tribuno, Dr. Orlando Bravo and his team, plus Cesar Mascetti of Buenos Aires’s Channel 13 and his cameraman, Oscar Isse, set off on foot. Along the road, the locals stated that dozens of helicopters had been operating for days in the mountains. After a two-day walk, the expeditionaries reached Mecoya, at an altitude of nearly 5000 meters. Upon reaching the point of impact, they were struck the ravaged landscape. One mountain – El Salle – was totally destroyed, with a crater measuring 1500 meters long, 800 meters wide and some 50 meters deep. Heat-crystallized rock was evident at the bottom, and others had been displaced farther afield, but there was little else. The residents of Mecoya told us: “If you’re looking for the remains of what fell, the gringos already took it.”

Upon returning to the base – this time on horseback, using animals provided by the residents of Mecoya, the expeditionaries were welcomed by two Americans: Journalist Bob Pratt and Charles Tucker, president of the International UFO Bureau. When they learned of what happened, and that no exotic debris had been found, they remarked: “It’s always the same. NASA and the Air Force get ahead and take it all away.”

At that place we were told: “Bolivia has declared the case closed” and upon returning to Argentina, the news was that “Gendarmería interrupted its investigation.”

[Contributing Editor Guillermo Gimenez adds the following: “On May 6, 1978, a U.S. photographic monitoring satellite – ID 1972-052C, Catalogue Number 6096 OPS7830 – weighing 60 kilograms, placed in orbit on 7 July 1972 from Vandenberg AFB aboard a powerful Titan 3D booster, began to experience orbital decay. If this is the object that fell on the border between Salta and Bolivia, U.S. interest in recovering immediately becomes apparent.”]

(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Antonio Abarzúa of El Tribuno and Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

A UFO Landing Strip in Argentina?


A UFO Landing Strip in Argentina?

We tend to give contactee-related (or space-brother inspired) news items a wide birth here at Inexplicata, but our friends at Grupo G.A.B.I.E. have sent us a news item from the El Intransigente.com website (http://www.elintransigente.com/notas/2011/6/21/insolito-construyendo-pista-ovnis-cachi-88629.asp) regarding the latest effort by somebody somewhere to build a “landing strip for flying saucers”.

The website informs us that Werner Jaisli – described as wearing druid robes and a trusty pair of cowboy boots to keep him safe against snakes and scorpions – is building an ovnipuerto on the outskirts of Cachi, one of Argentina’s notorious hotspots for all manner of UFO and paranormal activity.

“The construction,” says the article, “has a great deal of esoteric drawing to it, as befits the event, and seeks to be a sort of runway for eventual visitors from outer space.”

Resembling a sort of antique wind rose emblem, the construction was requested “by the space navigators themselves.”

“Some theories claim that the Nevado de Cachi harbors visitors from space within it, but the fact is none of this can be proven or refuted, beyond Werner’s ingenious creation.”

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Spain: Bigfoot in the Aragonese Pyrenees, Part II






















Source: Criptozoología en España
Date: 06.24.11


Spain: Bigfoot in the Aragonese Pyrenees, Part II
By Javier Resines

A week a go we had the privilege of publishing an exclusive – part of the documentation gathered by Florent Barrére about his investigations into the “wild man” of the Pyrenees. Specifically, it involved the first expedition by a group of French explorers into the Bielsa (Huesca) region in 2008.

Today we publish the second and last part of the adventure in which, a year later, they return to the area in search of evidence concerning the existence of an hominid unknown to official science.

Expedition to Bielsa (Part II)
By Florent Barriére

4. Expedition 2: Structures and a Set of Prints

The second expedition near Bielsa took place in August 2009 and used a country house in Azet, in the vicinity of Saint-Lary, as a base. On this occasion, two enigmas were encountered: the discovery of new wooden structures and a footprint which must be ascribed, without any question whatsoever, to a bipedal animal.

Along with Philippe and Jean Luc Coudray, we decided to return to where broken trees where photographed in July 2008: Route D11, leaving Bielsa and passing through the small hamlet of Espierba. The old structures were not found again, but a new star-shaped structure was photographed along this route.

These deliberately-built structures, very rough to be of any use to humans – whether in wood or stone – are in each geographic area where proof of the wild man is abundant. Ivan T. Sanderson writes in his “The Abominable Snowman” (1961): “Sherpas, if we are to believe in rumors, have discovered stone structures in areas frequented by the “meh-teh”, aside from excrement, animal carcasses and other objects. This rumor agrees in a certain way with evidence found by natives of British Columbia, who may have found a sort of incubation chamber crudely built with stones in a cave. We also have, through the Russians, accounts of certain inhabitants of Central Asia, who claim that the “almas” braid the trees and use them as a shelter to spend the night”.

And if star-shaped tree trunks may seem to be accidental structures, there are smaller ones on the ground, also found in British Columbia, that appear to defy the laws of chance: in fact, how likely is it for three branches to be accidentally entwined at a central point? Only a careful study on the laws of how trees fall will shed light on this enigma.

The animal print that was found somewhat more distant, near Route D19 and the surroundings of Espierba, has also seemed of interest due to the bipedal locomotion it suggests: alternating three or more prints, arranged along a single right axis, with considerable distance between each step.

Due to the dry, broken soil, it was only possible to obtain a fragile cast of the anatomical details of this series of three prints, which does not allow for subsequent analysis and comparison with other animal prints recorded in the area: wolves, foxes, bears, wild dogs...

However, some details are evident:

1. The print displays a clear alternation between a right and a left foot. The anterior extremities have not been set on the ground. Therefore, the print belongs to a bipedal animal.
2. There is no irregularity that suggests the sole of a shoe: the print is not from a shoe. Therefore, the print corresponds to a barefoot, bipedal creature.
3. The distance between each print is very large, nearly the double of a normal human stride.

Therefore, the print can be attributed to a bipedal, barefoot animal with a considerable stride.

(End of the second and final part)

This, therefore, is the fascinating evidence of an alleged wild man found by the French team in the Pirineo oscense. The similarity between the structures made with tree-trunks in the vicinity of Bielsa and the ones found elsewhere in the world, such as in the mountainous region of Shoria, located on the Eastern Siberian taiga, is striking.

At least this is what can be gleaned from the 2010 expedition to that remote part of world, led by Igor Burtsev, director of the International Hominology center. In his opinion, “we thought at first that yetis made these constructions to use them as shelters, but then we reached the conclusion that they are a sort of point of reference, a way-station. In this way, the can mark their territory and communicate with their fellows.”

Perhaps the Russian scientist is right and both the alleged Siberian yetis and they Pyrenaic cousins have an optimal level of intelligence that enables them (this is all speculation, of course) to create primitive constructions as a warning or communication with other members of their group or perhaps with other groups of hominids.

Our thanks once more to Florent Barrére for allowing us access to his formidable work and we wish him the greatest success in his research around this mystery, which he is pursuing on both sides of the Pyrenees.

(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Javier Resines and Florent Barrére)

Chile: A UFO Over Vicuña (1969)

Chile: A UFO Over Vicuña (1969)

Source: NOUFA (Chile)
Date: 06.24.11
Original Source: Revista Vea No. 1567 (06.12.1969)
From the files of Luis Altamirano


A strange slight wakened a group of residents of the Gabriela Mistral district in the early morning hours of June 3, 1969. Concerned, they looked at their alarm clocks. The time was five minutes to six and the sky was normally dark at that time. It was a UFO spinning at an incredible speed.

Revista VEA recorded this nocturnal sighting and interviewed the main witnesses of the phenomenon, even while they still could not believe what they had seen. The object was round with an [apparent] size of 65 cm in diameter. It was impossible to determine its size, as the powerful light it irradiated made it impossible to see the object's full details. It's color was pale white on its external circumference and darker toward the middle. It emitted continuous flashes, which made it impossible to see its structure.

"It wasn't the moon. I couldn't have been more wrong, because it was over to the left, and the morning star was even more to the left. Besides, its light was stronger than any star. I was looking at it for fifteen minutes. It remained static most of the time, but once it moved quickly to the left to a distance equal to four times its diameter, it became stationary before moving again. The object caused fear among the animals." This is how Enrique Alcayata described the situation after being consulted. He added that this mule reared when the UFO flew over their heads toward the Cordillera.

According to eyewitness accounts, the UFO was located some 150 meters over the summit of Cerro La Virgen. It was shaped like a top, but what was most memorable to the witnesses was the manner in which it bathed onlookers in light.

Other witnesses to the event were German Morales Arce, an official with INDAP, María Herrera Rojas, Julio Morales, Ernesto González, Teresa de Olivares and several schoolchildren from downtown Vicuña. Juan Alberto Egaña, a police subofficer, ratified the testimony provided the witnesses who saw the strange object.

(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to NOUFA)

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Argentina: La Plata Experts Join Air Force Team












Source: Quilmes Presente (www.quilmespresente.com)
Date: 06.18.11


Argentina: La Plata Experts Join Air Force Team

Two of the five civilians summoned to form part of the Comisión de Estudio de Fenómenos Aeroespaciales are from our city.

In January 1976, when he was fifteen years old, Carlos Ferguson was on his way back from playing soccer with some friends when he saw something in the Saavedra district that would mark his destiny. What he claims having seen is the same thing that “over a dozen local residents and drivers” reported: a disk-shaped metallic object measuring three meters in diameter, flying over the terrace of a home in broad daylight and at a stone’s throw away.” Since then, Carlos – founder of the Red Argentina de Ovnilogía – has spent his life trying to understand what he saw that afternoon, and life has just given him an opportunity that he did not even dream of.

Carlos Ferguson, who lives in La Plata and works for the logistics office of the Dept. of Education, is one of the five civilians summoned by the Argentinean Air Force to constitute the Comisión de Estudio de Fenómenos Aeroespaciales (CIFA). Created on May 26, this agency represents the formalization of a phenomenon which, while raising questions, has been formally investigated by many other countries: France, Russia, the UK, U.S.A, Brasil and Uruguay among others.

But Ferguson isn’t the only resident of La Plata asked to form part, ad honorem, of the new commission. Accompanying him is Carlos Iurchuk, a 41-year-old systems analyst who has spent fifteen years researching the UFO phenomenon. Both form part of a team that includes pilots, weathermen, radar techs and satellite positioning techs and other experts under the command of Capt. Mariano Mohaupt.

Far from attempting to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life, his mission is aimed at “scientific investigation of reports that involve the domestic airspace, and which have increased over recent years.” As the Argentinean Air Force indicates: “the number of persons claiming to have seen UFOs is far greater than anyone would imagine.”

(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Puerto Rico: Ufology on the Airwaves




UFO researchers Luiseppi Quiñones (center) and José A. Echevarría (right were guests of the Los Ovnis y Usted radio show hosted by Noel Morales (left). The show, broadcast from Ponce, Puerto Rico on WLEO 1170 AM, discussed UFO activity on 5 March 2011 over Laguna Cartagena, the island's main hotspot during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Listeners were urged to pay more attention to activity overhead, particularly with the boom in still and video cameras.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Argentina: Researcher Challenges Official UFO Commission














Source: Diario Popular (Argentina)
Date: 06.19.2011



Argentina: Researcher Challenges Official Commission Over Ituzaingó UFO
By Sebastián Aranguren

The enigmatic sequence of UFO cases recorded in recent times over Ituzaingó in Western Greater Buenos Aires has led ufologist Luis Burgos to launch a challenge against the recently created Comisión de Investigaciones de Fenómenos Aeroespaciales (CIFA), urging it to discuss the chain of events that now numbers dozens of witnesses in that sector of Greater Buenos Aires. The Ituzaingó events resulted in a flurry of media coverage which brought to light the manifestations of strange, unidentified flying objects plowing the nation’s airspace without any official clarification on the bizarre situation. From the organization he leads – Fundación Argentina de Ovnilogía (FAO) Burgos was among the first ufologists to popularize the subject by reporting on a series of phenomena taking place in precisely the area that now concentrates the attention of scholars, journalists and curiosity-seekers, and which he dubbed “The Western Corridor” (Corredor del Oeste, in Spanish). In the preliminary investigations he has performed, as he advised Expedientes Secretos, the cases occurring at Ituzaingó are not necessarily framed within manifestations of alien intelligence, but rather “the possibility that they may be U.S. or Israeli experimental aircraft.” Speaking in a personal capacity rather than as director of his UFO research organization, and RADIO, the researchers’ collective that he presides, Burgos railed against CIFA, believing that the specialized commission must “at least issue an official communiqué about what’s going on in Ituzaingó.”

In conversation with Expedientes Secretos, Burgos stated that the current wave of cases detected over Ituzaingó began last March and noted in this regard that the two and a half months elapsed since the first sightings merit “an explanation or at least information” on the cases on the part of the organization constituted by elements of the Argentinean Air Force and ufologists of national renown.

Instead, Burgos remarked: “we are faced with absolute silence...if we have a phenomenon occurring as close at hand as Ituzaingó, and a research commission engaged in these matters, why it has not become involved in the situation cannot be understood.” The official silence noted by Burgos has given rise to speculation that the unidentified flying objects in Western Greater Buenos Aires “are triangular super-secret aircraft” whose design and operation Burgos attributes to the United States and Israel. What is taking place in Ituzaingó, in Burgos’s opinion, “may go beyond a conventional phenomenon with UFO characteristics.” In other words, he said “it may be placed within both a terrestrial and extraterrestrial context, and the Commission should account for it.”

(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Deeper Understanding: The Unexplained and the Unimaginable


















Deeper Understanding: The Unexplained and the Unimaginable
By Scott Corrales (c) 2011

Charles Fort – that first scribe of the forbidden – stated in his works “something, somewhere, asserts a legal right to this earth.” At best, the human race was the tenant of an unknown landlord, uncertain of the terms of the lease or when rent was due; at worse, our world was a hunting preserve for an uncaring suzerain.

Another man entertained similar notions, but his name and writings have slipped into obscurity.

Aside from the odd television documentary on the enigmatic case, few remember the story of Donald Crowhurst, the man who endeavored to sail around the world as part of a trimaran regatta sponsored by the Sunday Times, but who suffered a nervous breakdown during the challenge, as evidence suggests. Whether Crowhurst was trying to cheat his way to a victory, or whether he committed suicide, are matters beyond the purview of this article. What concerns us here is the twenty-five thousand-word document he drafted during his one-man odyssey, dismissed by many as the rantings of a madman. But a paragraph of his meditations stands out:

“God and his Son played at the heart of the Cosmos. He was the Father in all of his perfection, and his Son was likewise perfect. They played a lovely game that consisted of transforming apes into gods. It was a fun game, and all the while they played, they followed a simple rule: the apes were not allowed to know about the existence of the gods...”

Was Crowhurst insane or gifted with a burst of enlightenment? The words of a mariner who vanished in the summer of 1969 serve as a fitting preamble to this article. A technified, mechanized humanity seeks an answer to the paranormal in the shape of interplanetary beings in fanciful spaceships powered by bewildering elements, when the riddle’s solution may have been with us all along. We are the apes, slowly becoming aware of the invisible hands puling the strings.

In an interview with Spain’s El Ojo Crítico, Freixedo was asked his opinion about the miraculous apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at El Escorial in the 1980s and early ‘90s. “It was just another game of the gods,” he replied before breaking into his story. On one occasion, he’d visited the site where the religious phenomenon was taking place to meet with Amparo, the seeress at the center of the manifestations. It so happened that two saffron-robed Buddhist monks had also been brought along to pay their respects to the holy site.

“There we all were,” Freixedo continued, “when the Virgin appeared to the fragrance of roses and all that. And when it was over, everyone rushed to see the two Buddhist monks to see if the apparition miracle had succeeded in converting them to Catholicism. But no, the monks calmy replied that it was just a manifestation by the Devas. In their religion they have the Devas and the Ashuras, in the same way that we have angels, Muslims have the djinn and such. It’s all the same.”

Vedic tradition gives us the supernatural and beneficent Devas, whose existence is invisible to humans yet share the human characteristics of being doomed to an endless cycle of birth, maturation, death and reincarnation. The word to describe these entities comes from the Sanskrit term that means "beings of light" or "glowing ones". Living in a dimension adjacent to our own, the purpose of these etheric presences is to keep the physical universe which we inhabit running smoothly--roughly akin to a maintenance department, out of sight but ever present. The Devas are assigned to three distinct environments: the heavens, the upper atmosphere and the earth, and have control over the lesser nature spirits which exist in everything from clouds to trees to rocks.

However, Persian Zoroastrianism did not share such a sanguine view of these entities. The Devas became known as Daivas and were associated with the forces of evil--the semidivine creatures that chose the path of druj (untruth) over the path of asha (truth). Zoroastrian teachings and the Vedas agree that this order of non-human creatures is often at war with another order of beings, and that their struggles often spill over into the mortal world.

The Persian Empire under the Achaemenid Dynasty was one of the largest land empires of antiquity. Stretching from Macedonia to the Punjab and from Uzbekistan to Egypt, the Persians managed a far-flung realm that included most of the civilized world of its time. Between 486 and 465 B.C.E., one of its rulers, Xerxes--better known to posterity as biblical King Ahasuerus in Ezra 4:6 and in the book of Esther--contended with a number of wars and uprisings throughout his kingship and left detailed records of his response to each of these crises. One of them is particularly interesting:

"Speaks Xerxes the king: When I became king there were among these lands which are written above [some which rebelled]...by Ahuramazda's will such lands I defeated, and to their place I restored them. And among those lands were some in which the Daivas had been worshipped of old. Then by Ahuramazda's will of such temples of the Daivas I sapped the foundations, and I ordained: the Daivas shall not be worshipped. Where the Daivas had been worshipped before, there I worshipped Ahuramazda with Arta the exalted..."

If the Persian Daivas can be identified with the Indian Devas, perhaps the words of Xerxes predate the angel's admonition to Saint John about not worshipping such divine messengers: "I am thy fellow servant...and of thy brethren," which appears in the book of Revelation and has been quoted by other researchers on the subject.

These clearly non-human yet humanoid-looking entities have appeared before startled onlookers in guise of sylphs, undines and dozens of creatures of medieval and ancient legend. While trolling through folklore for evidence is hazardous work at best, we can readily find a number of traditions (Native American, Middle Eastern, Asian) in which a human mates with one of these "more than human" quantities and has offspring, or like the unfortunate hunter who spied on the goddess Artemis as she bathed, meets his or her doom.

Like Pets to Alien Masters

Salvador Freixedo's La Granja Humana (Posada, 1989) presents the high-strangeness story of a young Mexican named Jose Luis and his bizarre friendship with a small child/man known only as "Fair" (el rubio, in Spanish) due to his blond hair.

Jose Luis told Freixedo that he had first encountered his odd friend during a camping trip: a group of schoolboys had pitched their tents in the woods and encountered another boy their age (or so they thought) who led them to his own "tent" -- a rectangular, shiny affair resembling an excursion bus. From that moment on, "Fair" became a fixture in the lives of Jose Luis and his friends, visiting them at school to fill their heads with tales of space travel and the future, and making it a point of visiting Jose Luis at home on his birthday year after year. The strange little visitor earned the affection of Jose Luis' parents "because of the good advice he always imparted" to their son and his companions. In a manner worthy of an Outer Limits episode, people noticed that "Fair" never seemed to age with each subsequent birthday visit, but said nothing either out of fear or due to a belief that the small figure may be suffering from a glandular disorder. But his enigmatic visitor's apparent lack of development was the least of Jose Luis's problems.

"Fair’s role in the Mexican youngster's life seemed to be, suggests Freixedo, to groom him for future greatness (whether this greatness has been achieved remains unclear) by clearing any and all obstacles. When Jose Luis took a humble job in an important corporation, a number of managers supposedly died of a variety of symptoms until Jose Luis found himself in a powerful position--all of this after consultation with "Fair". Something similar occurred when Jose Luis remarked that he was in love with a married woman:

The fact is that one day, when Jose Luis was feeling particularly depressed, "Fair" told him: "You're sad and I know why."

Jose Luis tried to deny that he was particularly sad about anything...but "Fair" insisted: "You're in love with a young woman who can't correspond your affections because she's married. You're saddened to see that achieving your wishes seems impossible [...] don’t worry. Within a year, when I come back to visit you, you'll not only be married to the young lady, but you'll also have a child by her--no matter how impossible it may seem."
(Freixedo, p.210)

And so it was. The method used to remove Jose Luis' "rival" from the picture isn't mentioned.

Freixedo elaborates further about the experiences of Jose Luis and his mysterious friend, but the above will suffice for our purposes. Did the diminutive and ageless "Fair" belong, as the author suggests, to the order of intermediary beings between humans and angels known in the Islamic world as the Djinn? Citing Gordon Creighton's work on this order of non-humans, whose reality is accepted in religious courts throughout the Middle East and North Africa, Freixedo discusses their capricious behavior toward humans, often selecting one of us as a protégé or even as a pet, and manifesting a fascination for human reproduction and human affairs (much like the abducting "Greys" our own time).

How far does this interest extend on the part of these powerful yet far from divine order of beings? Anthony Roberts suggests that the large-eyed, black-haired and pointed-faced Mesopotamian love goddess Ishtar was of their number (said physical traits being common to ultraterrestrials, in his opinion) along with other similar entities. Ancient myth had it that no mortal--understandably--was immune to the goddess of love. But what about today?

Some thirty years ago, a curious little book entitled UFO Encounters of the Fourth Kind (Zebra Books, 1978) explored the carnal obsessions evinced throughout history by these beings who appeared to us now in as "space people". Author Art Gatti made reference to a 1969 epidemic in Morocco having to do with "Aycha Kenaycha", described as a "dark demoness" or succubus who appeared to drug users undergoing astral experiences by summoning each of them in their mothers' voice. The drugged-out astral traveler would find himself facing an astral form capable of stealing their souls, not just their astral selves. Gatti states that the nationwide epidemic which filled insane asylums and jails to capacity ended in the 1970's, and that its end was brought about by the Islamic equivalent of exorcism rites...or a drastic reduction in hashish consumption.

Even a no-nonsense writer like Andreas Faber Kaiser, who achieved prominence through such works as Jesús vivió y murió en Cachemira (Jesus Lived and Died in Kashmir) and Sobre el secreto (About the Secret, an in-depth look at the ruins of Nan-Matol on Ponapé), found that his early beliefs about extraterrestrial intelligences and alien contact in human prehistory began to change in the light of his discoveries about the interest that non-human intelligences have displayed in altering the course of human warfare. In Las nubes del engaño (The Clouds of Deception) Faber Kaiser writes about the number of battles that seemed to have been “thrown” to one side or another by “divine” interventions. Lights appearing in the heat of battle, mysterious horsemen leading charges into enemy forces, claiming to be gods or saints, inspiring one faction and spreading terror among another. Would alien scientists and explorers, no matter how well versed in the customs of a planetary society, behave in such a manner? Perhaps, as the “prime directive” is an artifact of 1960s science fiction. But dispassionate monitoring is a more likely method.

Such dispassionate monitoring could take interesting shapes, extending even to overflights by “flying rolls”, “sparkling shields” and other phenomena mentioned in humanity’s past. Jacques Bergier took matters a bit further, saying that bizarre creatures could be deliberately placed among us by higher intelligences to test our reactions before being returned to their “box” in another reality. The powers of these higher intelligences, he argues, could extend to inducing novas in nearby stars to depopulate entire planets – namely our own – and bringing an end to the Age of Reptiles. “These beings, who could truly be called gods, set in motion of series of events that will not stop with man, but will continue until this evolution results in other gods, beings equal to their creators.”

More recent cases of the fascination felt by non-humans to our own kind is evidenced in Robert Leibling’s Legends of the Fire Spirits (Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 2010), the most complete compendium of research on the jinn to date. The author cites a case involving a student at the University of Dhaka who believes that she had a djinn named “Lucy” as roommate in the summer of 1995. A young woman of unearthly beauty, she appeared able to enter rooms locked rooms and displayed other unusual talents. But as we have seen occur in the fairy tradition, the human involved in the situation often commits a misstep: in this situation, the human student bought “Lucy” a necklace and sneaked behind her to place it around her neck in front of a mirror. To the girl’s astonishment and horror, she was able to see the necklace reflected in the mirror, but not Lucy! Passing out from fright, she awoke to the faces of her concerned dorm-mates but not Lucy’s. The strange and beautiful woman who could not be seen in a mirror was gone forever.



Lifting the Veil


“You have misunderstood me. When I said they transcended the animals, I was including the most efficient animal, Man. The macrobe is more intelligent than Man.”
“But how is it in that case that we have had no communication with them?”
“It is not certain that we have not. But in primitive times it was opposed by prejudice. But though there has been little intercourse, there has been profound influence. Their effect on human history has been greater than that of the microbes, though equally unrecognised. The real causes of all the principal events are quite unknown to the historians.”

- C.S. Lewis, “That Hideous Strength”


"Human beings appear to be helplessly compelled to choose between two primary dependencies: either to accept belief blindly, or hurl itself into the open grave and put its trust in Science, which plays ninepins with apparent reality and denies the inexplicable as a matter of principle, along with whatever has not been sifted through the screen of pragmatism. Humans either "must believe" or "must accept" those who profess to have knowledge. If they do not do so, they are either punished or handed a failing grade [...] The constant threat of proscription, dangling over humanity's head like the Sword of Damocles, is the key to manipulation at the immediate level."

These words -- reminiscent of the thoughts of John A. Keel -- are actually the equally gifted pen (or keyboard) of Juan G. Atienza, the Spanish filmmaker/author/mystic whose works in the '70s and '80s were a source of inspiration to a generation. The quote appears in one of his least known but most important works: La Gran Manipulación Cósmica (The Vast Cosmic Manipulation), which does its best to transcend ufology, paranormal research and religion to come up with an explanation to the mysteries that have vexed the present generation of researchers.

While this is not meant to be an exegesis of Atienza's work, it is interesting to note that many thinkers have stepped "out of the box" to come up with the same conclusion: far from being the favorite sons and daughters of a paternalistic deity, our entire species appears to be in a rat's maze devised by a cold, unfeeling intelligence. This intelligence appears to have nothing to do with the relationships upon which we base our own behavior and knowledge (cause-effect, means-end, antecedent-consequence) and understanding this, he writes, is "the best way to consciously face many of the mysteries posed by alternate realities, and square off against the manipulation that the human species has been subjected to, with a possibility of success."

To know the gods, Atienza concludes, is to have a chance at besting them.

Enumerating the number of organisms below humanity (the realms of the animal, vegetable and mineral, at our beck and call), the Spanish thinker quickly posits that beyond "the apex of natural evolution", as we like to think of ourselves, there are entities that live at a higher dimensional level than our own and which share reality in the same way that we share the fields with cattle or the crops we raise for our own sustenance. Much in the same way that we exert our will over beasts through the use of reason, these higher-level denizens (the "macrobes" of C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength, to give the reader an easy reference) control us through a "super-reason" that is completely irrational to us, and which we are unable to understand. So-called Fortean phenomena and UFOs are the best examples of this irrationality, which is nonetheless driven by a clear sense of purpose. We may debate whether this purpose is "good" or "bad" -- a debate found un UFO research since its earliest days -- but much as a sheep does not necessarily want to form part of a flock, it is placed in one by a shepherd. These supradimensional forces (the "supertutelary" forces referred to by Charles Fort) are humanity's shepherds, and we obey them either directly "or through the dogs that assist the shepherd". Is this, then, the role played by elementals, "devas" and other entities?

In his book Investigating the Unexplained (Prentice-Hall, 1972), zoologist Ivan Sanderson presents a cogent explanation for the question "how can these things be?” After stressing the fact that many so-called "intangible" creatures present clearly "tangible" aspects, he propounds the existence of an entirely new set (or sets) of dimensions separated from what we understand to be our normal space/time, but "so close to ours in either respect that bits and pieces fall through from one to the other, and then possibly back again..." Perhaps more important is the great researcher's assertion that we are increasingly surrounded by measurable evidence of these other dimensions in touch with our own, inhabited by denizens of unsuspected natures, ranging from "abysmal idiots to godlike entities."

Sanderson ends his exposition on the matter by postulating a number of concepts: that there are other universes intertwined with our own, that the number of these may be infinite, that intelligent life may be common in some of them, and more importantly, that some of these intelligences figured out how to make round-trip sorties from their home universes.

Less consideration has been given to another possibility: the likelihood that these manifestations were forcibly brought into our reality--summoned--through the practice of sorcery.

It is understandable how such an possibility would receive short shrift from the outset. To believe in the summoning of entities involves a belief in ceremonial magic that not many are willing to concede, since the laws of the physical world demand that a given input be provided to obtain the desired output. No human has the ability--we would like to believe--to command the elements, coerce others to take action, or draw strange creatures from other realities for unsuspected purposes, but the record would appears to indicate otherwise. Indeed, journalist Ed Conroy, in writing about Whitley Streiber's abduction experiences (Report on Communion, p.249), suggests that one of the ways in which the issue of "visitors" may be approached is through the analysis of Western ceremonial magic practices, with their extensive tradition of contact between humans and non-humans.

Conclusion

Hollywood and the special effects machine have treated us to a flurry of humans vs. aliens presentations (even National Geographic has gotten in on the act) in which visitors from another world swoop down on Earth in warships – not the exploration vessels of an advanced civilization – and destroy a fair chunk of our planet. These formulaic productions inevitably introduce us to a band of heroic survivors who do their best to stem the tide of the invasion and eventually roll it back, matching human ingenuity against unknown alien firepower. Whether it’s V or The Battle for Los Angeles or Alien Invasion, extraterrestrial visitors are solid targets to be grappled with and perhaps defeated (or we can let germs do the job for us, like H.G. Wells did). Here we can find the root of the obsessive belief in the ETH – if there is some intelligence flying in the skies over our heads, killing our cattle, whisking our fellow citizens out of their beds, and it comes from a star system we can pin down on a chart, we stand a chance against it. To face the likelihood that these intelligences have been with us forever, are seldom visible, and that we are at a disadvantage to them goes against the grain of the human need to struggle and live to see another day.

In other words, no one wants to pay to see a movie, or watch a TV series, about shadow boxing.

The last word on the subject was uttered decades ago, and ironically, by a scientist: “ I think they’re (UFOs) something much more metaphysical than extraterrestrial. They may be from a parallel universe. The mystics and great religious leaders have told us for a long time that the physical world we see around us is not the sum total of our environment – that there are other planes of existence. If evidence suggests that there is a paranormal dimension to the UFO phenomenon, we’re going to have to pursue that. UFOs signal what may well be the end of the ‘normal’ world and the coming of another one.” (1)

Oh, and the scientist? That was J. Allen Hynek.



(1) Quote appearing in Unmasking the Enemy (Pacheco & Blann, 1994. p.267)

Friday, June 17, 2011

Spain: Searching for Bigfoot in the Aragonese Pyrenees















Spain: Searching for Bigfoot in the Aragonese Pyrenees – The First Expedition
By Javier Resines, Criptozoología en España

Since time immemorial there has been speculation surrounding the existence of “wild men” in certain isolated of the Pyrenees where access is difficult. This likelihood has regained currency following the information supplied by recent expeditions made in to the region of Bielsa, Huesca (Spain).

Our gratitude goes out to French researcher and filmmaker Florent Barrere, promoter and popularizer of these expeditions, for allowing us to gain access to his reports and extract the article we reproduce below, created by this seeker of the unknown. He describes the events surrounding the two expeditions organized by the Les films de la grotte association with the aim of securing information on the “Wild man of the Pyrenees” following news of the case known as the “Peña Montañesa yeti”.

Enjoy the report...

Expeditions to Bielsa
By Florent Barrere

1. Location of Bielsa and its Surroundings

Bielsa is a small town located at the entrance of the valley of Monte Perdido in the province of Huesca of the Aragonese Pyrenees. In order to enter this valley from France, the easiest route to follow is the road to Saint-Lary-Soulan in the valley of Aure, passing through the Saint-Lary tunnel. Some Spanish towns with low population densities – with the exception of Bielsa – offer a wealth of surprises in the valley of Monte Perdido: Peña Montañes, Espierba, Parzan...

The main mountain forest in Monte Perdido is known as La bola verde o pineta, which is to say, “the green valley with trees”. It is a very damp valley typical of the Pyrenaic forests: deciduous hardwood forests and shrubs up to an elevation of a thousand meters, then mixed with conifers from the 1000-1800 meter line.

2. Incidents in the Vicinity of Bielsa

A well-known case occurred in the region known as Peña Montañesa (Huesca) in the Aragonese Pyrenees. This is peaceful area that is only visited by shepherds and their flocks. On May 4, 1993, a group of six woodcutters came across a strange creature standing 1.7 meters tall in this wilderness. According to Manuel Cazcarra, one of the workers, they were cutting trees when “around 15:45 hours, I suddenly heard screams, sharp screams like those of a wild goat. We thought that one such animal had fallen off a cliff, and I went over to see what had happened. When I saw it, it was climbing a pine tree, holding a branch with its hands and feet. It screamed. A 90-meter distance separated us from the creature. I summoned my companions to come and see, and the first of them was Ramiro Lopez, who arrived in time to see the being descend from the tree to hide behind a large bush. The rest of my companions came over, but were unable to see it. However, they had to dodge a tree-trunk violently hurled at them, undoubtedly by the monkey man.”

These are the simple and exact words used by a man who has seen bears, although these have become scarce in the Spanish Pyrenees. He was sure that it could not be a bear or any other known animal in the Pyrenaic fauna. When we asked Manuel Cazcarra if he had come across other traces in the following days, he answered: “A few days later, the window of one of our Land Rovers was broken. And only a few days ago, a tractor truck was half destroyed.” That very same week, a Guardia Civil (state police) patrol, accompanied by one of the lumberjacks, reported to the area and found strange prints on the ground. While they did not appear to belong to any animal known to the Guardia Civil, and with a view toward avoiding a panic, the hypothesis was put forth that the prints probably belonged to a bear that escaped a nearby wildlife preserve.

3. Expedition 1: Broken Trees

The first expedition to the surroundings of Bielsa was organized at the initiative of Philippe Coudray, who along with his twin brother Jean Luc Coudray, visited the region in June 2008 to attempt a “hominological first contact” after learning of the recent account of the Spanish woodcutters. With the experience gleaned from the expeditions in search of the North American wild man (Sasquatch 2007, Texas and Sasquatch 2008, British Columbia), Philippe Coudray was able to go deep into the mountains of Monte Perdido valley and give his opinion on some wooden structures or broken trees – intentionally created – that were found.

Philippe and Jean Luc Coudray’s first photographic location was around a small paved road known as D11, which leaves Bielsa toward Espierba. The broken trees are along the roadside leaving Espierba.

Three sets of broken trees have been found at different heights along this road, normally between two and three meters tall. They have been photographed by the Coudray brothers, with this being the most characteristic image of the broken trees (see photo)

A priori, these two young trees could have been accidentally broken following a powerful storm, as is customary in this mountain forest.

However, the structure’s details tell us something more: aside from both trees being at the same height, which can occur naturally, the two young tree trunks are supported by a softer branch that is artificial, as it was placed to support the structure.

Therefore, what could be construed as a mere accident of nature – a pile of wood arranged at random by natural agents – appears to be an intentionally crafted structure, whether the height of both broken pine trees is accidental or not.

(To be continued)

Thursday, June 16, 2011

UFOs Responsible for Volcanic Activity?











Source: Diario 24
Date: 06.15.2011


UFOs Responsible for Volcanic Eruptions?

There are hundreds of consequences to the bothersome ash of the Puyehue Volcano, everything ranging from school closures to paralyzed airports. But the latest news to emerge has to do with the source of the eruption -- a cause that some ascribe to the presence of beings from other worlds: the recently famous UFOs.

A recently displayed series of photos and recordings depicts unidentified flying objects hovering in the volcano's vicinity just as the volcano was reaching its maximum violence.

No expert, however, has confirmed the sightings made with video and still cameras. The fact remains that many agree that the Puyehue Volcano had not been active for many months. Can UFOs really be the cause of this event?

[Note: The link to the video provided by Diario24 -- http://www.eldiario24.com/nota/224581/avistan-un-ovni-en-el-volcan-puyehue.html - does not lead to the Teletrece newscast video, but to a privately created montage.]

(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Argentina: Residents Terrified by "Striking Imp"

Date: 06.15. 2011
Source: Rosario3.com


Argentina: Residents of Santiago [del Estero] Terrified by “Striking Imp”

Local residents state that the small creature appears in dark places and pummels people. Police has issued a statement asking people not to walk alone in the dark.

Do imps exist? It seems that they do in Santiago del Estero. According to residents of Suncho Corral, there appears to be a creature that hits people. Locals have taken to calling it “the dwarf”, and police have cautioned people to avoid walking alone at night.

The Nuevo Diario de Santiago del Estero newspaper reports that residents of Suncho Corral allege that the imp appears in the pre-dawn hours, adding that it also attacked a child on its way to visit a friend’s house.

Another local was startled by the creature as he went for a ride in his bike. The creature supposedly wore “an enormous hat and had large ears.”

Father Juan Cruz Fariña of the San Miguel Arcangel church believes that it could be “a product of magic” and if so, “The Church could attempt an exorcism in an effort to expel demons from the possessed body.” However, he explained that “nothing about this case suggests a possession. It could be many other things, such as fanciful imaginings or confusion by the people of Suncho. I therefore ask everyone to take matters calmly and above all, to have faith in God. There is an explanation to all phenomena.”

[Note: Cases involving supernatural entities variously described as “imps”, “dwarves”, “goblins”, etc. have emerged from Argentina on many occasions. Skeptics have scoffed at these accounts, decrying the ignorance of the local population. These manifestations are nonetheless recurrent and appear to select certain areas of the vast Argentinean countryside, such as the city of Saenz Peña or Santiago del Estero. No photograph or sketch accompanies this report. In a certain way, the description given of this imp is reminiscent of the “little man wearing a hat reminiscent of a Mexican hat” in Farmersville, Texas, in 1913. – SC]



Link: http://www.rosario3.com/noticias/enserio/noticias.aspx?idNot=92879&Un-duende-golpeador-aterroriza-a-los-santiague%C3%B1os

(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU)

Peru: Air Force Investigates Strange Phenomena













Source: La República (Perú-newspaper)
Date: Wednesday June 15, 2011-06-15


Perú: Air Force Investigates Strange Phenomena in the Peruvian Skies
By Consuelo Alonso C.

UFOs? The Peruvian Air Force (FAP) acknowledges that there’s something going on in our airspace. The Dirección de Investigación Aeroespacial (DINAE), which investigates events that still lack a scientific explanation, has been in service for a decade.

Are we alone in the universe? This is the question that millions of human beings have asked themselves for centuries, and Peruvians are no exception. There is a department within the prestigious Peruvian Air Force (FAP) that was created in December 2001 and is devoted to the research of anomalous aerospace phenomena (to avoid calling them UFOs) and even now undergoes a restructuring phase to obtain a larger budget and more personnel.

There are three theories about the need for creating this office: The first one suggests that a decision was made to create it solely to keep up with our neighbors of Chile and Ecuador, who opened their respective agencies to research the subject. Second, that they wanted to investigate, in depth, a sighting that took place in the La Molina district, and finally, that part of the ministerial cabinet at the time saw a gigantic vessel fly overhead during an official visit to the jungle, and asked someone to tell them what was going on.

In any event, what was known as the OIFAA began its investigations with outstanding scholars, such as the recently deceased anthropologist Fernando Fuenzalida Vollmar.

However, despite the time elapsed, “they have no statistics or figures” on those “anomalous aerospace phenomena”, according to Abraham Ramírez Lituma, advisor to the Dirección de Investigación Aeroespacial (DINAE), to which the department in question reports, adding that this does not dismiss that such events “undoubtedly take place (in the skies of Peru) and probably occur all the time in the rest of the world.”

What types of events is he specifically referring to? Ramírez Lituma indicates that in spite of the foregoing, nothing has been authoritatively ascertained, even after the earnest investigations conducted. But there can be no question that something is definitely happening, to the extent that at the official level within the FAP we find the eyewitness account of three of its members, claiming to having seen or pursued an unidentified flying object (UFO).

One of them is Cmdr. Oscar Santa María Huertas, who claims having had an encounter with a bulb-shaped craft on 11 April 1980 while stationed at the La Joya Air Force base in Arequipa. Another 1,800 men in formation at that military facility witnessed a motionless object some 3 miles distant.

His orders from the high command were to intercept it and shoot down. He boarded a Sukhoi fighter and when he was within firing range, fired 64 rounds at it with no effect.

After pursuing the vessel for several minutes – and watching it make sudden stops, in violation of all known physical laws – he noticed that it was a wingless object, lacking doors, motors, rivets or anything known to man.

“What am I up against?” was his first thought, as he recalls, before returning to base somewhat fearfully. Today, while not going as far as to say that he saw something alien, he is convinced that the technology displayed by that vehicle, measuring 10 x 10 meters, does not exist on Earth, and did not exist at the time.

Even the United States Department of Defense issued a document bearing the title “UFO Sighting in Peru” which describes the incident, indicating that the vehicle’s origin remains unknown.

Events such as this, 55 years ago, kicked off the aerospace age worldwide, adds Ramírez, and the Peruvian state also decided to create OIFAA, as there was the need (constitutionally mandated) to oversee and insure the safety of our territorial airspace against possible enemies, whether terrestrial or extraterrestrial. And what do you think? Are we alone?

Perú’s first official UFO research case, carried out by the OIFAA, was headed by researcher Anthony Choy, and involved the presence of a series of vessels flying over Chulucanas in Piura.

A religious procession witnessed the event, seeing how the objects engaged in a variety of maneuvers to form geometric figures for two and a half hours.

Unfortunately, despite the existence of videos, this event has not been explained. But there are two hypotheses: that either aliens are involved, or simply luminous electrical phenomena.

This research determined that mysterious Cerro Pilán was at the heart of these extraordinary phenomena, said Choy.

(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Suspension of Disbelief: Baffling Paranormal Cases














Suspension of Disbelief: Baffling Paranormal Cases
By Scott Corrales
(c)2011


The location: The Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The year: 1979. The protagonists: two youths involved in the paranormal. The responders: Elements of Spain’s Guardia Civil (state police). The outcome: Mind-bending.

Two fifteen-year-old boys, enthusiasts of flying saucers, contacteeism and the occult in general, had decided to contact “alien intelligences” by means of a Ouija board – the vehicle of choice in such matters, it would seem – and had sustained a prolonged relationship with entities claiming to be captain this or commander that, spouting the same shopworn rhetoric about the environment and spirituality. But things were about to take an unexpected turn in the summer of 1979 as the non-human intelligences purportedly from distant planets upped the ante: were the two young seekers of the truth ready for a close encounter?

One evening, with their fingers on the planchette, the boys were told where and when to report for their meeting: a day in August of ’79, and in one of the most remote and desolate locations on Grand Canary. Out where the buses don’t run, as they say. Armed with courage and decent footwear, the seekers walked the sun-blasted expanses encouraged by the long-awaited meeting with the alien masters.

But there was no one there, as might have been expected. Late in the afternoon, possibly showing signs of heat prostration, one of the young men – unable to move -- asked his companion to go for help, walking the hard distance back to the village of San Nicolás, fifteen kilometers away. Loath to leave his companion, the healthier of the two set off on the three-hour walk, arriving late in the evening. In the early morning hours, the would-be contactee returned to the remote location with a doctor and some of the concerned residents of the tiny island village, hoping it wasn’t too late to offer assistance.

“They found nothing of the fellow but ashes,” writes Atienza, “which Guardia Civil officers had to collect with shovels, as they disintegrated at the slightest touch. The coroner’s verdict was death by intense heatstroke. The survivor was committed to a mental institution a few months later.”

One is unsure as to which is the more monstrous of the two events – the bizarre manner of passing of the stricken contact-seeker, or the coroner’s dismissal of his ashes as “death by acute heatstroke”. Although no UFOs were reported or seen, and one of the pair never came into contact with anything, much like the Barra de Tijuca contactees in the 1950s in Brazil (readers will remember the two men found with strange lead masks), they were summoned to a place by unknown forces. Had both young men fallen sick, perhaps rescuers would’ve found two piles of ashes.

Such a case should appear in all the UFO case histories, but it doesn’t. It isn’t even mentioned in UFO chronicles of the Canary Islands. A call for help was placed to Alfonso Ferrer, author of Las Cronicas del Fin del Mundo, a resident of the Canary Islands who kindly made inquiries into the case on our behalf. He approached José Gregorio González, whose books on Canarian ufology and mutology enjoy a wide readership. Ferrer provided the researcher’s verbatim reply:

“This case is a sort of urban legend, but with a factual background. As far as I know, there were two individuals, and the succinct description given [in Atienza’s book] is correct. The problem consists in locating the survivor, given that the other party died. The survivor was apparently accused of murdering his friend and was not exactly treated with kindness. He did some jail time, but had mental issues, as one can imagine. I was able to contact him a few years ago – we exchanged letters and a few phone calls, but I had the impression that he wasn’t fully healed. I agreed to meet him in Las Palmas on two separate occasions and he never showed up. He has never replied to my calls or correspondence since then – I think that his family realized I was contacting him [about this matter] and decided to intervene. To protect him, I suppose.”

The trail goes cold at this point, and the reader is left to wonder whether it is just another “UFO tall tale” of many that abound in the 60 year history of writings on the subject. We may never find out what happened on the Canary Islands in August 1979, but it is as good a preface as any to other cases in which innocent humans involved with the paranormal have come to an unfortunate end.

On this side of the ocean, and much closer to home, we have the case of Heriberto Garza. The difference in this case is that Garza – an educated man in charge of a ceramics factory – was not actively looking for contact with non-human intelligences. One night, while in the privacy of his home, watching television, he heard an unusual noise in the living room. Fearing that a break-in was in progress, he went to investigate and was startled to find a tall man with distinguished, almost feminine facial features. Taken aback, Garza demanded to know how the figure had entered his apartment. The entity told him in perfect Spanish that it could obviate physical obstacles and go where it pleased--but the reason for its visit was to grant Heriberto Garza "an experience that many would wish to have." His involvement with creatures from an improbable world known as Auko was about to begin.

Garza claimed to have subsequently been taken aboard a spacecraft where he met other beings similar in appearance to his original contact. One alien took his left hand and drew blood from his ring finger before returning him to his apartment, a return trip that he did not remember. He suddenly found himself sitting on an easy chair back home, with the door to the outside hallway open

Strange phenomena began to occur soon after this experience. One morning, while shaving in front of the bathroom mirror, Garza saw his reflection vanish, only to reappear as he heard alien voices ringing in his ears, bearing a message that he was unable to understand. He would soon be subjected to intense telepathic communication with his non-human "friends", the consequences of which led him to seek psychiatric advice.

Mexican researcher Jorge Reichert and Spanish ufologist Salvador Freixedo were the first to involve themselves in the Garza case in 1972, but during a follow-up visit with researcher Ian Norrie, Reichert was perplexed by the change in Heriberto Garza's demeanor. The once-articulate man spoke sluggishly and did not appear to be himself. At one point, Garza said: "I want to show you what is happening to me" and proceeded to unbutton his shirt. The researchers were astounded to see a number of nipples growing randomly across Garza's abdomen, some of them small, others larger and with abundant hair. Reichert and Freixedo concluded that something had been injected into Garza that tampered with his DNA. Detailed study of the case became impossible when the experiencer "disappeared". Visitors to the humble apartment building in Puebla were angrily turned away by Garza's son, whose father appears to have become an early casualty of tampering by uncaring non-human forces.

Two cases in which, it can be argued, no UFO was ever seen and therefore should not be included in “negative effects caused by UFO phenomenon”. But researcher Javier García Blanco gives us a case with not one, but two, unidentified objects.

In the summer of 1980, Luis Gonzalez and his wife Bienvenida, residents of the Spanish village of Mediana (Zaragoza) hopped into their old station wagon at three o’clock in the morning for the long trip to Mercazaragoza, a large wholesaler from which they made regular purchases to stock their small family business. As they left the little town, something was waiting for them.

According to their daughter Ana, her parents left home along the road, and upon reaching a hilltop, found themselves suddenly flanked by two strange objects, which Bienvenida would later describe as “a pair of silver bells, with very strange colors. Inexplicable, but very beautiful.” The couple was terrified, but there was no point in turning back – they continued driving toward Zaragoza with their unwelcome, unworldly escorts. Within a few kilometers, the silvery bells blinked out of existence as if they had never been. The journey continued without further comment and the supernatural occurrence was soon forgotten. But seven years later, the couple would die from a blood disorder that would baffle physicians. Coincidence, or a result of their exposure to unknown radiation emanating from their strange escort that morning on the way to market?

The trustworthiness of sources plays a crucial role when writing about matters of high strangeness, especially when harm to humans is involved. Noted researchers like T. Peter Park and Chris Aubeck have done their level best, in this case, to find the whereabouts of John Macklin, the author whose little compilations of ghostly tales fired the imagination of many young readers in the late 1960s and early 1970s with accounts that had a distinct ring of truth, but with a signal lack of footnotes or sources. I am nonetheless including the following account – taken from Mr. Macklin's A Look Through Secret Doors (Ace Books, 1969) as an example of the mysterious situations that often involve unlucky experiencers and law enforcement.

In May 1951, a young woman named Clarita Villanueva found herself at the center of a paranormal mystery that was supposedly witnessed by hundreds of people one muggy afternoon in Manila, the capital city of The Phillipines. Aside from the dumbfounded onlookers, two trained observers would also have their names attached to this case: Dr. Mariana Lara, a medical officer attached to the Manila Police Department, two officers from the selfsame department, Arsenio Lascon, Mayor of the City of Manila, and prominent journalists of time.

According to Macklin's account, a police cruiser responded to a disturbance near the port of Manila. Upon reaching the waterfront, the officers found many dozens of onlookers clustered around the form of a woman on the ground, screaming at the top of her lungs as she wrestled with an unknown assailant: “Get it off me! Please! I can't stand the pain!”
No one dared to lend the poor soul a hand, unsure if she was insane or possessed by demons. Any forces attacking her were completely invisible to the human eye, yet the police officers were able to make out bite marks and bruises appearing on the woman's arms and neck. Resolutely making their way through the crowd, the law enforcement agents grabbed the writhing, screaming woman and managed to get her into their vehicle for the trip back to the station. But there was nothing anyone at the precinct could do for her, as they suspected Clarita Villanueva was either inebriated or drugged. Dr. Mariana Lara opined that the woman was going through some form of epileptic fit; placing her in a holding cell was the best remedy anyone could think of.

With Clarita safely behind bars, the policemen lent a deaf ear to her pleas for assistance and not being left alone with “whatever” seemed to be accosting her. She eventually passed out and the station went about its normal business – but only for a few minutes: The woman in the holding cell woke up a few minutes later, shouting that “the thing had found her again, and was coming at her through the cell's iron bars.” The terrified woman described her invisible assailant as having the general shape of a male human, but with large, bulging eyes and the sartorial detail of wearing a cape pinned to its shoulders.

The guards entering the cell could only see fresh bite-marks on her arms. At this point they decided to summon not only Dr. Lara, but also place a call to Mayor Lascón for advice. According to Macklin, the assembled authorities concluded that there was an external cause at work, as Ms. Villanueva “could not possibly inflict bite-marks on her own back.”
But even this vote of confidence didn't help Clarita's situation. She was remanded to court the following morning to face charges of disorderly behavior in public. But even in the hallowed halls of justice, the woman wailed that the creature had returned, and even as she did so, her police escort noticed how deep bites manifested on her skin during a brutal attack that lasted five minutes before she dropped to the floor in a dead faint. Another medical specialist pronounced her wounds as “genuine”, adding: “she was not the cause of the bites”.

The local press soon turned the Villanueva mystery into the talk of the town. Mayor Lascón and Dr. Lara swore under oath that they had seen the bite marks forming, especially when the mayor gallantly offered to be at Ms. Villanueva's side aboard the ambulance taking her to the general hospital. The fifteen-minute ride to the medical facility, remarked the mayor later on, “felt like twenty-four hours in hell.”
Once hospitalized, the attacks by the invisible creature drew to a close and Clarita Villanueva was on the road to recovery. Dr. Lara, skeptical of the paranormal, was quoted as saying: “What happened to Clarita Villanueva is a total mystery. She was attacked by something with sharp and invisible fangs. We'll never know what it is, but I'm not at all hesitant to admit that I was never so frightened in all my life.”

Accentuating the positive-- and downplaying the often negative aspects of the unknown – has been a trademark of communities involved with the paranormal (abductees, contactees, ouija board users, etc.) but cases such as the ones presented here suggests that such involvement is less than wholesome. The baffling cases are sent to the bottom of the drawer, waiting for their moment in the sun.

Mexico's Infrared UFOs











Mexico’s Infrared UFOs
By Ana Luisa Cid

Salim Daniel Sigales lives in Mexico City’s Gustavo A. Madero District. He has a degree in Computer Science and works at Benito Juarez International Airport (MCIA). He is interested in the UFO pheomenon and has devoted many hours to skywatch, securing some very interesting evidence.

Having developed a problem with his knee three months ago, he was placed on medical leave and forced to remain home. From his place of residence, and with great patience, he began recording passing aircraft, only to learn that the air corridors are frequented by unknown objects. Salim also employs an infrarred lens, of which he says: “It has served me well. I’m able to detect things that cannot be picked up by the unaided eye. When I recorded the video that shows the moon, there was apparently nothing strange in the sky, but my camera’s screen did show a rather large sphere.

One night in 2006 he saw a UFO very close to him, some 5 meters away, making a peculiar sound. He claims that he was so shocked that he was unable to record it. “I tried to analyze its navigation system. It wasn’t very big. I suppose it was some sort of monitoring device. It emitted beams from its lower section,” Salim emphasized.

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Argentina: Animal Mutilation in San Luis













Source: Planeta UFO and Visión OVNI
Date: 06.08.11


Argentina: Animal Mutilation in San Luis
By Carlos Rubén Capella

San Luis (Pelr) May 5, 2011 – Residents of the Los Eucaliptos district saw their habitual calm disturbed by a macabre discovery made by children playing along the intermittent Cuchi Corral creek. It was the carcass of a dog missing the rear half of its body and all of its entrails, as can be attested by the images accompanying this note.

Faced with this circumstance, many speculated as to the motives behind the unfortunate animal’s demise. “This one was eaten by a wild beast,” said one resident, when asked by another, who challenged him, riposting: “Had it been a wild beast, the carcass would be torn – notice that the cut is straight, as though made by a knife or something similar.”

There were also those who alleged that “this was part of a Satanic ritual.”

What is strange about the situation is that the incision made upon the animal halfway up its body is rather “clean” – that is to say, as if cut by a saw or a similar implement.

Also striking was the darker color of the animal’s flesh around the incision, as if a heat source had been involved in the cutting element.

It should be further noted that the animal was missing all of its entrails.

NOTE: This journalistic source was accompanied by a message from our colleague Andrea Pérez Simondini of the VISION OVNI research group. She says: “We arrived at the town of Merlo, San Luis, to participate in the conference held by the local planetarium, and to our surprise, a correspondent for the La República newspaper -- Eugenia Ramírez – made us aware of this event in the locality of Juana Koslay. Expect further reports.”

(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales. Special thanks to Andrea Pérez Simondini and Guillermo Gimenez)

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Argentina: Another UFO over Salta















Source: Diario 24 (Argentina)
Date: 06.07.11


ANOTHER UFO. Journalist Nestor Sanchez captured the object on film and expressed surprise.

In Salta, a journalist manifested his surprise at having photographed a UFO. The event occured on National Highway 51 at an altitude of some 3200 meters on the Chorrillos slope, a location some 180 kilometers west of the capital city of Salta.

The man who took the photo is Nestor Sanchez, who formed part of a caravan of vehicles on its way to the Chilean city of Antofagasta with the goal of promoting road travel along said road.

According to Salta's "El Tribuno" newspaper, Sanchez explained that he photographed the obejct using a "high speed Nikon D90 camera". "I shot a sequence of images and the object appeared in one of them. It was not recorded by the human eye probably due to the fact that it flew at a high rate of speed," he explained.

Describing himself as "a skeptic when it comes to the subject," the financial columnist for Salta's Channel 11 said he was "surprised". "If one enlarges the image, you have the certainty of facing something manmade. I first thought it could be one of the F-16s of the Chilean Air Force, patrolling the area, but it wasn't. I'm impressed. Sanchez is also the host of a radio talk show on Radiodos, FM 93.
The image was taken on the first of the month (06.01.11) shortly after 11 a.m.

(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

Mexico: Michoacán's Mystery Creature














An Imp, Cyclops or Unknown Creature?
By Arq. Salvador Mora - Director, Grupo La Esfera Azul

On Friday, March 19, 2010, an event occurred in Chiquimitio, Michoacán, Mexico, whose characteristics make it extraordinary within the field of cryptozoology, according to the events described:

Chiquimitío, a town of approximately 1,500 residents, is a small community some two thousand twenty meters above sea level, quite close to the city of Morelia. And that's where some local residents encountered a strange creature, small and walking on all fours before standing on two legs. They described the creature as having thin arms, legs and torso, covered with very little hair. Unfortunately, the few witnesses to this event were gripped by fear, and threw themselves against the unknown entity, lopping off its head with a single blow and throwing its small carcass to the local dogs, which devoured it almost immediately. It should also be noted that Chiquimitío is a farming community, and it is customary for residents to carry machetes wherever they go.

Subsequently, the same people involved in the event took what remains, up to this moment, the only evidence of the case: one cell phone video with a duration of 1 minute and 11 seconds, showing the head propped up against what appear to be wooden boards. A quick inspection of the creature's head can be seen through small sticks, as well as three photos showing it in detail. One of them, particularly, displays the head in comparison with a human torso.

After quickly recording this video and photo evidence, the eyewitnesses sadly chose to throw away the head, leaving no possibility for subsequent physical analysis.
Only a few days after the event, a person known to our group approached us to provide us with the visual evidence, describing how he gleaned all of the information, telling us that a person who worked alongside him in a family business was among the few witnesses to the event. It was this individual who managed to capture the events on video and photo formats, and it was precisely the person who told our friend that at the moment that they saw something whose characteristics were completely unknown to them, it sent them into a generalized psychosis. They subsequently regretted not having preserved any physical evidence for subsequent study.

It should be noted that we first thought it could be case of cyclopia - a congenital deficiency characterized by a single facial orbit visible on the face of living creatures -- that is to say, a single eye -- accompanied by cranial deformation and the absence of a nose (also known as holoprosencephaly) and that the creature's physique, and its similarity to a dog of the Chihuahua breed, could have indeed been an adequate hypothesis. However, a situation that also prompts reflection is that one of the characteristics of cyclopia, while it can affect any living creature, it is evident in approximately 1 to 3 per 1000 births. This low percentage is either stillborn or dies shortly later.

This factor also leads to consideration. This being's head shows signs of having been alive for a longer time, a detail evident in the teeth, which were in some way developed. In turn, the strange shape and size of the ears is striking. These could initially be said to resemble those of a Chihuahua dog. However, this species of canine has rigid and firm ears, contrary to what we see in this unknown creature, as the ears appear larger and more flexible.

It has been said for a long time that in communities near Chiquimitío and several locations in the state of Michoacán, there have been sightings of strange beings resembling the legendary elves, trolls and even cyclops and giants, all of this forming part of the area's legends.

No final conclusion is possible for this case, based on all the foregoing. However, considering the evidence and all that has been investigated, we can say that on 19 March 2010 in Chiquimitío, Michoacán, Mexico, something was seen. A genetically deformed animal, an imp, a troll, a cyclops? You have the last word. Thank you very much.

NOTE: Video of this intriguing discovery can be seen at LA ESFERA AZUL's website: http://www.acusticavisual.net/grupolaesferaazul/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=203%3Aiduende-troll-ciclope-o-criatura-desconocida&catid=40%3Acryptozoologia

(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU)

Monday, June 06, 2011

Argentina: The 1963 Trancas Case Revisited



Keith Bastianini's "Night of the Saucers" depicts the mind-bending experiences of the Moreno family.











Source: Contexto (San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina)
www.contexto.com.ar
Date: Thursday, June 2 2001


Argentina: The 1963 Trancas CE-2 / CE-3 Revisited

The best known episode of an alleged UFO landing and occupant manifestation in Argentina took place in Trancas, Tucumán, 48 years ago.

The event was among the most important in the history of unidentified flying objects. It is an episode that has been considered as “an unassailable case and irrefutable proof” within the voluminous and strange pages of ufology. It has also been considered one of the most exceptional events of the history of the UFO problem due to the abundance and quality of the eyewitnesses, the prolonged viewing of the event, and the discovery of physical residue in the area, constituting “the most powerful evidence” in favor of the unusual phenomenon. Since then, the Trancas Case became a “super-classic case of global ufology”, according to the Mexican website www.perspectivas.com.mx.

On Monday, October 31, 1963, two young women – Argentina, 28 and Jolié, 21 – along with their small children Victoria, Nancy and Guillermo, came in from Rosario, where they lived, to San Miguel de Tucumán, traveling from there to the “Santa Teresa” ranch in Villa de Trancas, where they would meet with parents – Antonio, 72, and Teresa, 63 – and their other sister, Yolanda, 30.

A reason for this visit was that their husbands, both Army officers, had to take part in military maneuvers scheduled for that time period, and would be leaving from Tucumán to Salta the following morning, going by Trancas.

They had an early dinner and exhausted by the trip, everyone went to sleep in their respective rooms. At around 21:00 hours, Dora Guzmán, 15, a domestic worker living in the back of the house, appeared repeatedly, stating that she could see lights on the railroad embankment, located 200 meters in front of the ranch.

The parents were asleep, Argentina was reading and Jolié paid the matter no importance, since she had to feed four-month-old Guillermo. Yolanda, meanwhile, thought it might be a passenger bus.

Finally, Dora prevailed upon the sisters to check out the “strange lights” she was seeing. It was a set of five lights, a hundred meters distant from each other or less, three in front and three slightly farther behind to the north (northeast). They blinked on and off with a certain intermittent quality, shedding beams of light in various directions, even lighting up the farm (the farmhouse and the henhouse).

They had no discernible shape, looking like sources of light. The frightened women suspected that it could be a railroad accident (it was common for trains to run into cattle) or it could be a team of workers repairing the tracks, as they could see some human silhouettes moving around the sources of light some 500 meters or more to the north.

The fear level increased when Yolanda noted the possibility that they might be guerrillas engaged in an act of sabotage (by pulling up the tracks or planting bombs), bearing in mind the rural guerilla warfare of Taco Ralo in southern Tucumán in late 1962. Moreover, the women’s’ husbands were scheduled to pass over those tracks in a matter of hours aboard a military train, and they were alone with their sick father and unprotected minor children.

Searching for another explanation, one of the sisters remembered reading that flying saucers had been seen in various parts of the world, and particularly the case involving truck driver [Eugenio] Douglas (who had seen a device with several entities only days earlier, in Monte Maíz, and had been burned by a thin beam of light). She suggested the possibility that such vehicles could be involved.

They decided to go out to get a better look. Seeing a dim greenish light, they thought it might be a pickup truck driven by one of the farmhands and went to the gate.

They suddenly found themselves bathed in a light emanating from a source eight meters distant. In an instant, they noticed that there was a vehicle measuring some 8 x 3 meters, with a turret and large rivets on its surface. They were so shocked that Yolanda lost her footing, tripped and in seconds they were inside the home once more.

The 15-year-old servant girl came in, screaming that she had been burned, but Argentina and Yolanda ascertained that she was merely frightened. At this point the entire household was awake. The father, in the grip of a nervous condition, tried to go out, but was held back by his daughters.

The doors were bolted shut. The family looked out at the phenomenon through half-shuttered windows. One of the young women believed that the beams of light were piercing the walls, but another insisted that they were only coming through the cracks. The same one believed that the beams were extending and retracting at will, but it turned out that they only did so at floor level on certain occasions.

The situation was desperate. The mother prayed, the servant wept, the sisters screamed and ran from one room to another, following the alternatives. The witnesses noted that the atmosphere within the house became heavy and overly warm. The nearest object (“F”) made a noise similar to machinery in operation, but they could only see a thick and growing mist surrounding it, as well as some lights that gave the appearance of six windows. They were unable to tell if the object was suspended over the ground or resting upon it (the allegedly flattened vegetables were subsequently found there).

Forty minutes elapsed until object “F” – the one that appeared to direct the activities – moved eastward and the others did the same, vanishing toward the Sierras de Medinas, some 20-25 kilometers distant.

[The sisters] later ran to the neighboring homes to inform them about what had happened, but few neighbors saw anything. Francisco Tropiano, a bordering neighbor, managed to see the eastern end of the site, facing his own farm, brightly lit after 22:00 hours.

No one slept that night in the Moreno household. In the morning, Jolié went to the train station to send a telegram to her brother Antonio, who lived in San Miguel de Tucumán at the time of the incident. By the time he received the message – due to the procedure – many other people had heard about it. Even journalists, who did not delay in appearing. Police intervention was subsequently requested. Minutes were drawn up, and the site was placed under custody for a few days without further developments. The Chemical Engineering Institute at the University of Tucumán was asked to analyze the dusty white residue found at the site where the lights had been seen. It turned out to be calcium carbonate with potassium carbonate impurities.

The La Gaceta newspaper provided ample coverage on the event, and continued to report on it for many days later.

Journalist Arturo Alvarez Sosas remembers: “Along with then news director Ventura Murga and photographer Ernesto González, we went to Trancas to chronicle the experiences of the Moreno family. At the time we didn’t know that the phenomenon would unleash such an accumulation of stories and that the movies would finally make all nations of Earth aware of a “close encounter of the third kind” as described by Dr. J. Allen Hynek.”

Jolié Moreno also notes: “My mother was desperate and my sisters were running around. My son was asleep in his little bed, perspiring in such a way that...outside were those lights, lighting everything up, moving intelligently and those figures...it was like Steven Spielberg’s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which was authorized base on the information that existed on this case. I authorized it.”

(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)