UFO ROUNDUP Volume 2 Number 18
Volume 2 Number 18
May 4, 1997
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-mail: Masinaigan@aol.com
SPANIARDS ENCOUNTER A GROUP OF TALL ALIENS
Reports of UFOs and ground encounters between shepherds and very tall aliens are current in Galicia, a province in the northwestern corner of Spain.
The flap began February 20, 1997 when Heliodoro Nunez was tending sheep at Paradeseca, a village near Orense. The encounter took place in a pasture three kilometers from the Chandrexa road, along the Rio Devesas.
"It was more or less four in the afternoon when I was with the livestock," Nunez said. "Suddenly, the dogs began to bark, glaring at a spot behind me. When I turned, I saw these strange beings."
Nunez described the "several" entities as being 3 meters (10 feet) tall and wearing "strange hats of a conical form. The whole group changed color at the same time, alternately shifting from red to blue to yellow to green. That was not of this world, and the truth is, upon seeing this apparition, I began to pray."
A neighbor, Juan Gonzalez Gonzalez, confirmed Nunez's story, adding that he too "saw something strange" in the pasture "the same day and at the same hour."
Gonzalez said he "saw a red light of very intense tones that hovered above the treetops." But because of the distance that separated him from the spot, he did not see the two "giants."
The case was investigated by Grupo Fenix, a UFO study group based in the port city of La Coruna. Sra. Nunez, the shepherd's wife, told the group that her husband "arrived at home (that day) very much afraid. He was praying all the time, and, the two following nights, he went without sleep and could eat nothing. I don't know what he saw, but he showed much fear." (See the Spanish newspaper La Region for February 23, 1997)
Galicia had its second UFO incident exactly one month later. On March 20, 1997, at 4:13 p.m., a youth group gathered on Mount Espenuca, near La Coruna, to view the Hale-Bopp comet. A UFO flew into their field of view and was videotaped by two of the students. They described the UFO as having "the form of a lozenge and was rimmed by five lights." (Muchas gracias a Javier Garcia para esa historia.)
MORE UFO SIGHTINGS IN SOUTHERN ALABAMA
On April 5, 1997, at around 2 a.m., James Hogan was walking his dog near the Orange Street pier in Fairhope, Alabama (population 7,286) when he saw a UFO.
Hogan said the object "resembled a truck tire on its side and was approximately 600 feet (180 meters) in diameter. It had 10 square windows along its side, and it was completely silent."
Five days later, on April 10, 1997, at 1 a.m., a man in nearby Marlow, Alabama (population 100) shot a videotape of "a strange object" that was hovering at treetop level "over Baldwin County Road 32."
The videotape is being studied by the husband- and-wife investigative team of Clompton and Susan Jones from the Gulf Breeze, Florida chapter of MUFON. The UFO hotspots of Pensacola and Gulf Breeze are 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of Baldwin County, Alabama.
According to Clompton Jones, there have been five UFO sightings in Baldwin County since the discovery of a mutilated cow there back on January 20. Thirty-six hours before the discovery of the mutilated cow, a man driving on a dirt road near the spot "looked to his left and saw the craft," Jones told the Fairhope Courier. "It wasn't cloudy. It was a good clear sighting."
The witnessed described the object as "250 feet (82 meters) across with a bank of white lights across the bottom."
According to the Courier, "another sighting occurred over the intersection of County Road 87 and U.S. Route 90 in Eleanor, Alabama (population 125). A couple returning to Pensacola (Florida) saw a silent vehicle at the side of the road." The UFO "seemed to approach them" and then blacked out. (See the Fairhope, Ala. Courier for April 23, 1997, "Marlow Videotape Sparks Interest From UFO Groups." Many thanks to Steve Wilson, Jr. for this story. For more on weird doings in Alabama this week, see the next item.)
BLACK HELICOPTERS CAUSE STIR IN NORTHERN ALABAMA
On Thursday, May 1, 1997, at 1 a.m., ufologist Michael Malone witnessed an unusual incident near Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville (population 142,513) is located just below the Tennessee state line approximately 188 miles (301 kilometers) north of Montgomery.
"I was asleep on my couch," Mike reported. "I had the patio door open so I could get some fresh air... Anyway, it was about 1 o'clock when a loud airplane noise woke me up. Obviously it was a low-flying airplane. I glanced out on the patio in time to see a single light fly over. Not thinking much over it, just a late night MAC or C-140 flight into Redstone, I ignored it."
The Malones' apartment building is located near the Redstone Arsenal, a U.S. Army base.
"When it happened again within a few minutes, I went out on the patio to see if I could ID the plane. It wasn't a plane but four dark helicopters."
"Three of the four were flying lights out," he added, "The only reason I could see those three was their shape was clearly illuminated under the clouds which were lit up by the lights of Huntsville."
At first Mike thought one of the helicopters was an RAH-66 Comanche, of which only a couple of prototypes have been built. But, on Friday, May 3, he told the ROUNDUP that he "might have seen two AH-64s" instead of one AH-64 Apache and an RAH-66 Comanche.
"A minute or two after this pass, I heard approaching helicopters again," he reported. "I bolted out the door, down to the parking lot, and saw another group of four, again only one was properly illuminated."
The other two choppers included a CH-53 Chinook and "a pretty typical Bell Longranger or whatever the military calls them. (OH-58 Kiowa--J.T.), but this bird had a spotlight shining in front."
"Within minutes of that flyover, another group of helicopters flew over. This time it was three and much less noisy. While it could have been four, I saw only three and what seemed to be missing was the twin-rotor bird (CH-53) which would explain the reduction in noise. Also missing was the searchlight on the lead dark bird, but again the group was followed by a properly-illuminated attack bird. Additionally, the two dark birds had their forward port/starboard (left/right) lights on, but no their rear rotating white lights.
Mike Malone wasn't the only resident to hear the helicopters. According to a local newspaper report, "The helicopters that folks here have been hearing aren't those choppers that right-wing fanatics say will be part of a U.N. invasion. The Redstone Arsenal airfield has served as a staging base for a two-day exercise by the 101st (Aviation) Battalion from Fort Campbell, Kentucky...About 36 helicopters and 150 soldiers participated in a practice attack on Fort McClelland near Anniston (population 29,523)." (See the Huntsville, Ala. Times for May 1, 1997, page B2.)
Yet, when Mike phoned the Redstone Arsenal airfield on Friday, asking about the flights, the officer declined to discuss the nightttime maneuvers. (Email Interview) (Editor's Note: Mike is the third ufologist to report a black helicopter encounter this month, after Tom King of Phoenix, Arizona and Sharolyn Stenger of Arlington, Texas.)
DAYLIGHT DISC SEEN OVER PARADISE VALLEY, ARIZONA
On Sunday, April 27, 1997, at 2:30 p.m., William Hamilton, director of Skywatch International in Arizona, was on the patio at his home in Paradise Valley, a suburb northeast of Phoenix, Arizona "when I saw a bright flash in the northeast sky."
"I took my binoculars to get a closer look," Bill reported. "A white metallic object was hovering at a fairly high altitude and had apparently expelled two long metallic objects that were falling and tumbling. I set my Samsung camera on max zoom and took three snapshots of the objects. The stationary object seemed almost self-luminous."
"When a plane approached, the unknown object 'winked' out, then back on again," he added. "It appeared to be elliptical in shape. I ran into the house and retrieved by Sony camcorder and proceeded to obtain about a minute and a half (90 seconds) of video, and the hovering object, which was now moving slowly north, then stopped again. I originally focused on the object with a palm tree in the picture for reference, then moved to another position. By then the object had vanished from sight." (Many thanks to Bill Hamilton for this report.)
SAUCERS ACTIVE AGAIN IN NORTHERN ONTARIO
During the early morning hours of Thursday, April 3, 1997, an Anishinabe man living at the Wikwemikong Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island, located in Lake Huron's Georgian Bay, spotted a UFO.
The eyewitness "happened to look out of his living room window and noticed a yellow, saucer- shaped object a few degrees above the horizon. In the foreground stood a street light. The time was approximately 4 a.m., and the sky was overcast. He estimated the object to be about half a cigarette held at arm's length. He also said at one point, the light blinked out for half a second or so, then reappeared. Soon after, the object disappeared from view."
The man "told his girlfriend about the sighting the next day. She said it must have been the northern lights (Aurora borealis--J.T.) He responded by saying that the UFO was in the southern part of the sky (over Lake Huron) and the northern lights usually occur in the northern sky."
MUFON Ontario's Sudbury Section is also working on a case in Whitefish, Ont., 12 miles (19 kilometers) southwest of the nickel-mining city of Sudbury.
On Saturday, February 1, 1997, at 12:40 a.m., a man watching a sports program on TV "noticed a yellow light coming through the kitchen window." When he looked outside, he saw "two quarter-moon-shaped objects hovering about 100 feet (30 meters) in the air over the neighbor's property...The objects were slightly blocked from view by tall trees in the foreground. As he watched the UFOs, the thought of reaching for his rifle crossed his mind, but then he decided to go into the living room instead, where the large bay window offered a better view...But by the time he got there, the two objects were gone."
A week later, on February 8, 1997, the man's son and daughter-in-law "who reside in Cochrane, Alberta (population 1,450) observed a similar sighting of two quarter-moon-shaped UFOs." No other details of the Alberta sighting are yet available.
Investigating these cases are Sudbury Section director Michel M. Deschamps and Todd Fraser. (Many thanks to Gordon Courville for this story.)
NEW UFO SIGHTING IN THE NETHERLANDS
A gathering of 30 UFOs, similar to last week's incident in New Brighton, Minnesota, took place at the same time in Heerhugowaard (population 45,000), a city in the Netherlands 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Amsterdam.
One night last week, R. Groeneveld, 62, who lives on the Versproncklaan in Heerhugowaard, spotted several bright UFOs doing aerobatic maneuvers over the neighborhood. "He counted, he says, at least 30 flying saucers above his house. Also his daughter, her friend, a girl friend, and the neighbor have seen the oval-shaped objects with flashing lights in the air. 'I think we're being observed,' Groeneveld said." (See the newspaper Noordhollands Weekblad for May 1, 1997. Many thanks to Jeroen Wierda of Picard UFO Research International for sending us this story.)
UFOs RETURN TO NEW BRIGHTON, MINNESOTA
On Monday, April 28, 1997, ufologist Alana C. Ray visited the site of a UFO sighting four days earlier, Thursday, April 24, in New Brighton, Minnesota. A woman named Kay and her son, Tony, witnessed 30 UFOs flying over their home near Long Lake Road.
Ms. Ray, a member of CSETI, "arrived sometime after 3 p.m. and...met her (Kay's) son and daughter for the first time. I continued to stay until quite late."
"I saw that Kay had just let her two small dogs out," Ms. Ray reported, "and I proceeded to move out onto the lawn. We both looked up into the sky together. Tony joined us, and we all stood looking and feeling an energy. Well, we started to see these lights coming from the southwest. (Silver Lake in New Brighton and Columbia Park in Minneapolis--J.T.) The craft were quite high up in altitude, and yet low enough that you could see the shape and other features."
"As they came in closer, we saw that they were triangular in shape. We saw craft coming from the south and the west heading towards the east and also going towards the north...Later this changed and the triangular and circular craft were going from the north to the southwest."
Ms. Ray reported that she made three phone calls during the two-hour sighting, one to fellow CSETI member Robert Schultz of New Brighton, Minn., another to Craig R. Lang of Minnesota MUFON and a third to the National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle.
"Over the two hours, we sighted approximately 13 to 15 triangular craft and three circular ones," Ms. Ray reported. "One in particular was at a lower altitude and had a huge light, emitting out the front at the vehicle in front of it. Kay had told me that this was similar to the one that shot light through their window the other night (April 24). There were incredibly bright white lights blinking and amber colored lights. Then we heard a combination of what at first appeared to sound like an aircraft, but with a high whirling sound also. I live by an airport and see aircraft day and night all the time, and these did not look or sound anything to what I am accustomed to seeing."
"The circular craft were moving at greater speeds and had more of a variety of colors blinking in circular motion. All of these craft moved irregularly, sliding smoothly most times and then jerking back and forth, and side to side... It was as though they did not go any faster (so) as not to call attention to themselves."
(Many thanks to Errol Bruce Knapp for this story.)
ANOTHER UFO OVER RURAL SAO PAULO STATE
On Thursday, May 1, at 6:50 p.m., "uma luz branca muito forte" (a very strong white light) appeared over the town of Morumbi, in Sao Paulo state, Brazil. The OVNI (Portuguese acronym for UFO) "moved from side to side for about two minutes." The mysterious object was then joined by three dimmer yellow lights, all of them described as "circular," which "accelerated very quickly, flying past the first light." From time to time, all four lights "would flash brightly, then disappear and reappear." The display continued for approximately 10 minutes, and then all four flew westward, seemingly heading for the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. (Muito obrigado a OVNI-Brasil para eso caso.)
UFO CAUSES BLACKOUT IN PUNTA ARENAS, CHILE
On Tuesday, April 23, 1997, during the evening, a woman working as a housekeeper for an elderly lady in Punta Arenas, Chile, reported a strange UFO encounter. Punta Arenas is the southernmost city in Chile, located on the Strait of Magellan.
The woman told Agrupacion de Investigaciones Ovniologicas (AION), Chile's well-known UFO group, that she was cleaning her employer's two-story house on the outskirts of Punta Arenas when, suddenly, "all the lights went on and off for a few seconds, and then went out. Then the TV went on and off by itself."
Immediately she rushed upstairs to see if the elderly lady was all right. The lady reportedly told her, "Don't worry. It's only the OVNIs again."
The woman went to the window, looked up and let out a yell. "There was an OVNI (Spanish acronym for UFO) hovering over the house, big and orange. The OVNI traveled across the yard very slowly. As it passed over the streetlight out front, the light went out."
The woman then watched in amazement as the UFO flew over each streetlight along the road. One by one, the streetlights winked out. She added, "It also turned off the lights of four houses nearby as it glided over them."
On Wednesday, April 30, 1997, a daylight disc was seen "at very high altitude" over Santiago de Chile, the capital, and in the foothills of the Andes just east of the metropolitan area.
More UFOs were sighted in Temuco, a large city 756 kilometers (410 miles) south of Santiago de Chile, and in the nearby towns of Cunco and Villarica, in the foothills of the Andes. (Muchas gracias a Luis Sanchez Perry para esas historias.)
FOUR SHEEP MUTILATED ON ISRAELI COAST
"On the morning of May 1, Amos and Miriam Glam of Sde Uziah, a farming community near Ashdod found a scene of carnage in their sheep pen," Israeli journalist Barry Chamish reported.
Ashdod is a port city on the Mediterranean Sea, 56 kilometers (35 miles) west of Jerusalem.
"Four sheep had been sliced in their cheeks" and a hole two inches long "had been drilled from one cheekbone to the other. Though killed by the operation, the sheep did not bleed."
"The same cheekbone operation was performed on four sheep belonging to the Gueta family of Moshay Dorat near Kadima in January 1995. In nearby Kadima, a UFO was sighted a few days before the Gueta sheep mutilations."
On April 29, "two nights before the Glam incident, a UFO hovered above the family home and beamed a projected light on Mrs. Glam for some 10 seconds. Neither she nor her husband could see the craft which beamed the light."
During the night of April 30, the Glams thought they heard sounds "like mice scurrying" from their farmyard.
Barry Chamish points out that in 1996, only 300 yards (270 meters) away in Moshav Givati, a horse was mutilated one night. "The animal's owner, Chaim Matal, said he saw 'four small figures, like Orientals' in the yard the evening of the incident."
The Glam case was investigated by Israeli ufologist Doron Retem and a local veterinarian, Dr. Arad Nir, whose "initial conclusion was that the sheep died of 'severe trauma' and that the marks were too deliberate and too precise to have been made by wild animals." (Many thanks to Barry Chamish for this story.)
WEIRD PIGLET MUTILATION REPORTED IN JAPAN
On Saturday evening, April 26, 1997, television station RKK-TV in Fukuoka, Kyushu Island, Japan reported a weird animal mutilation on a farm just west of Miyazaki.
Miyazaki is a city on the eastern shore of Kyushu Island, approximately 755 kilometers (453 miles) south of Tokyo.
The news video showed a stunned farmer beside his Isuzu truck talking to the correspondent. The farmer said he had gone to the pen to load a few pigs on the truck when he found 20 piglets mutilated.
The piglets "had deep wounds on the back of the leg, and some had deep wounds on the stomach. The cause was unknown. At least 20 were found mutilated. Some were still alive and in much pain. A few were dead." (Domo arigato to Hanako Danson for this news story.)
TWO SETS OF CROP CIRCLES REPORTED IN BRITAIN
Britain has reported its first two crop circles of 1997. Both were found in fields of oilseed rape (canola), the first crop to bloom in the UK.
On April 20, the first crop circle was found at Barbury Castle, Wiltshire. It was described as "a ringed circle with six half-crescents" in a counter- clockwise direction. "The outer diameter is about 160 feet (48 meters). Central circle 18 to 20 feet (5.5 to 6 meters), diameter of standing ring 48 to 50 feet (15 meters), diameter of the seven rings which form the basis of the design 78 to 80 feet (24 meters)."
A photo of the Barbury Castle crop circle is available at http://alpha.mic.dundee.ac.uk/ft/crop_circles/1997/1997.html. (See CNI News, Volume 3, Number 4, part 1 for May 1, 1997. Many thanks to Mike Lindemann and CNI News for this report.)
On April 26, 1997, the second crop circle appeared in Littlebury Green, Essex, just off Motorway M11. Phenomena researcher Paul Vigay said the circle had probably been formed on April 22 or 23. "The formation consists of a single large thin ring with a much smaller ring attached like a bauble on a necklace. In addition, there are two thin, slightly curved lines forming a large V shape, meeting at the center of the larger circle and extending several yards outside the perimeter." The larger circle is about 300 feet (97 meters) in diameter.
A photo is available at http://rainbow.medbury.com/enigma/Photo/ess97a.jpg (Many thanks to Paul Vigay for posting this news in Usenet.)
from the UFO Files...
1883: STRANGE CREATURE CAUGHT NEAR MASTERTON, NEW ZEALAND
One of the strangest "creature" sightings in the southern hemisphere took place near Masterton, in the far south of New Zealand's North Island.
"On May 9, 1883, great excitement was caused at Masterton, New Zealand when there was at large an unknown animal with curly hair, short legs, and broad muzzle. Its species was unknown. One dog sent after it was flayed alive by it, while other dogs ran away." (See FLYING SAUCERS UNCENSORED by Harold T. Wilkins, The Citadel Press, 1955, page 91.)
FUN UFO WEBSITES
Speaking of crop circles, Martin Keitel of Finland's Center of Circles Information (FCCI)has a Website full of articles about them in both Finnish and English. You can visit the Center at http://crop-circles.sip.fi
For an in-depth look at UFOs in Canada, check out the MUFON Canada site. Director Michael Strainic has a huge archive available. Log in at this URL-- http://www.renaissoft.com/ufocanada/
Don't miss our parent site, UFOINFO, which offers a surprising smorgasbord of news, features and pictures. Drop in at http://ufoinfo.com/index.html
For back issues of UFO ROUNDUP, be sure to visit our page at http://ufoinfo.com/roundup/index.shtml
