UFO ROUNDUP Volume 1 Number 17
Volume 1 Number 17
June 9, 1996
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-mail: Masinaigan@aol.com
UFO news continues to break in Australia and Brazil. However, the saucers aren't exactly ignoring the USA. Read on...
BLUE-LIGHT UFO FOLLOWS CAR IN MASSACHUSETTS
At about 1 a.m., on Saturday, June 1, 1996, a UFO with prominent blue lights appeared over Leominster, Massachusetts, and moved east over Lunenburg, Townsend and Groton. It encountered the witness's car near the intersection of Route 3 and Interstate Highway 495 just south of Lowell.
According to the witness, "I was on Route 3 near Lowell and had just pulled onto 495 heading south. It was around 1 a.m. I was alone in the car and (on) the highway. I had just passed Exit 30 (the Ayer/ Leominster turnoff). Then the lights hit me from behind. Blue lights. Very round, very close to the ground. At first I thought it was a state trooper, but then the lights were gone."
"They reappeared just ahead of my car, heading south, as well," he added. "They were much higher in the sky this time and flashed forward suddenly. Then they stopped. A quick zigzagging of 90 degrees to the left (eastward) and they were gone. Faster than anything I have ever seen. Seconds later, a shooting star (meteor) flashed in the southern sky (near Bolton, Mass.)."
The witness feels that the UFO was checking out the now-empty Fort Devens, the U.S. Army base near Ayer, Mass. that was shut down in 1995. "My supposition is that they were checking out Fort Devens, perhaps curious as to why nothing flies out of there these days." (Note: Leominster and the surrounding "Montachusett" area have had UFO sightings dating back to July 1909. The most recent took place on January 29, 1996, when a silvery cigar-shaped object was seen over Ashby Road in nearby Fitchburg, Mass.)
GIANT TRIANGULAR UFO SPOTTED NORTH OF SACRAMENTO
Late on Saturday evening, June 1, 1996, two college students, Matt and Jason, were driving north on California Highway 99. They were in rural Sutter County, just north of Nicolaus, 32 miles north of Sacramento and about twenty miles west of Beale Air Force Base.
According to Matt, "Out in the middle of empty dark farmland," they "spotted a triangular configuration of lights or a craft well up in the sky. The triangular craft had a glaring red light in the middle, which pulsed irregularly."
Suddenly, the UFO "dropped much lower in the sky, to about 500 feet elevation (altitude) and moved sideways from east of the highway (near the Feather River) to over the highway. It suddenly accelerated to jet fighter speed and proceeded horizontally to a position just west of the highway where it came to a sudden halt and hovered."
Matt and Jason estimated the size of the UFO to be "as big as a house," adding that "Its surface structure was dark. Then suddenly the craft sent down a greenish glowing beam from the bottom toward the ground. Sparkling particles could be seen swirling in this column of green light. Just as suddenly the light beam went out, and the delta craft departed."
California ufologist Richard Boylan, Ph.D. said the June 1st UFO sighting was "the latest in a series of large, low triangular anti-gravity craft spotted over the greater Sacramento metro area."
OCTAGONAL UFO SIGNALS BOYS IN MARYLAND
Also the night of June 1, two ten-year-old boys in suburban Montgomery County, Maryland, 35 miles northwest of Washington, D.C. spotted a large UFO hovering "almost directly overhead. Its lights were white."
According to the witness, Quark121, he and his friend "had them (the lights) in view for 10 to 15 minutes."
Thursday night, June 6, 1996, Quark stepped into his backyard sometime after 9 p.m. and saw the lights again. Alone this time, he grabbed a flashlight and attempted to signal the UFO.
"I found there were more aliens blinking in long complicated patterns," he said. "When I tried to communicate with it this time, it kept blinking but brighter. Once it got to about floodlight brightness. I was alone this time. I got scared and went in."
As he returned to the house, Quark got a close look at the UFO itself. He described it as "octagonal Navy blue," adding that another set of "white lights" had taken up the first UFO's original position in the sky, where "the other departed on the (June) first."
UFO FLAP STILL GOING STRONG IN AUSTRALIA
On Tuesday, June 4, 1996, the Examiner, a newspaper in suburban Melbourne, Australia, published an update on the continuing UFO flap in that country. According to the Examiner, UFOs were seen last week in Narre Warren and Packenham, Victoria, and in Emerald and Cockatoo, Queensland.
From Monday, May 26, to Wednesday, May 28, UFOs were seen repeatedly in the Emerald and Cockatoo. According to Ross Dowe of Australia's National UFO Hotline, "Some people had seen it three nights in a row. They were a bit put out because they don't believe in UFOs."
Asked what the objects could be, Dowe told the Examiner: "I have no idea."
On Monday night, May 26, a brightly-glowing saucer, red in color, appeared over Packenham. The police in nearby Narre Warren sent a cruiser to investigate.
The following night, Tuesday, May 27, the UFO visited Narre Warren, prompting a flurry of phone calls to police headquarters. Eleven people on Lantana Drive watched the UFO fly south from the Dandenong range, east of Melbourne. One resident, Dianne Walkerton, brought out her camcorder and shot nine minutes of video footage, showing the glowing, yellowish-orange saucer flying east. As the UFO passed over nearby Packenham, it was seen by eight people in a milk bar. According to the Examiner, "All were adamant that it was not a helicopter. Rough estimates were that the object was 300 feet above ground. It made no sound but was generally described as disc-shaped with three bright yellow-orange lights in triangular formation, flying below the low cloud."
At 11:40 p.m. on Wednesday, May 29, Ms. Walkerton and her neighbors again saw the saucer. According to Barbara Schyler of the UFO Encounter and Support Line, the residents watched the object for 10 or 15 minutes before it vanished over the eastern horizon.
Dennis Allan of the UFO Encounter and Support Line said, "It was not a plan, not a kite, it was not a balloon."
On Thursday night, May 30, police received six calls from the Warren Wood estate (housing development) in Narre Warren." Residents claimed to have seen "a brightly-lit large object flying low and fast in the direction (east) of Packenham at around 7:30 p.m."
At 1:10 a.m. on Friday, May 31, a saucer was reported hovering over Cranbourne Road near Narre Warren.
(Note: Australia had one of the earliest UFO sightings. In February 1927, two brothers riding herd on cattle near Fernvale, New South Wales, saw a glowing, domed, disc-shaped UFO fly slowly overhead, lighting up the entire valley. It landed a few miles ahead of them. Checking the site the next day, the men found a circle of scorched grass.)
GENERAL SAYS BRAZIL HAS ITS OWN X-FILES
Reports of the retrieval of two live aliens in the city of Varginha last January continue to make headlines in Brazil.
On Wednesday, June 5, 1996, several UFO groups held a news conference in Brazil. Claudeia Covo, an engineer and president of the Instituto Nacional de Investigacoes de Fenomenos Aerospaciais (INFA) described the reported Varginha retrieval as "certainly the most extraordinary thing we have ever heard about, and we have lots of reports of the UFO apparitions. It was a real complex operation involving military personnel as well as civilians and resulted in the capture of unidentified biological creatures."
Brazilian ufologist Vitorio Pacaccini said his group has interviewed 14 witnesses, including four soldiers who were with the truck convoy that allegedly ferried the aliens to Campinas and on to Sao Paulo. "We have the testimony of an army officer who was there at the Escola de Sargentos in Tres Coracoes who was directly involved in the operation. He described in detail everything that happened during those days."
The Brazilian Army denies that any retrieval took place. However, Brig. Gen. Cherubim Rosa Filho said Brazil does keep "a detailed dossier" on UFO incidents. These files apparently date back to the Joao Prestes/Jose dos Santos case of March 5, 1946. The "dossier" is kept by Brazil's NORAD, the Centro Integrado de Dolesa Aerea E Controle de Trafego Aerea (CINDACTA) in the capital city of Brasilia. Gen. Rosa Filho said, "It is true that there are lots of cases which remain unsolved even until today."
More has surfaced on the incident in Varginha on January 30. According to National UFO News, that day, at about 10 a.m., a woman saw several children on the edge of the ravine in the Jardim Andere, excited and yelling about something. "I went over there to stop them," she said. "When I saw what they were throwing stones at, I just about died. There was a horrible creature with large red eyes trying to huddle down and escape being hit by the stones."
After chasing the kids away, the unidentified woman went home and phone the Varginha Fire Department. The firefighters surrounded the ravine and went in just after 10:15 a.m. They grabbed the creature and brought it out at around 10:30. The Policia Militar put it in a cage on a flatbed truck, covered the cage with a white sheet, and then drove to the military school in Tres Coracoes.
(Editorial Comment: Throwing stones at helpless creatures!? No wonder the galaxy's intelligent phyla consider Homo sapiens an inferior species.)
Next Week: More UFO news from "the paper that covers the saucers." See you then!
