UFO ROUNDUP Volume 4 Number 04
Volume 4
Number 4
January 25, 1999
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-mail: Masinaigan@aol.com
CHUPACABRA STRIKES AGAIN IN GUANICA, PUERTO RICO Chupacabra struck again in Guanica, P.R. on Tuesday, January 12, 1999, killing 10 chickens and two ducks. The incident occurred in a backyard poultry pen in the Laguna section of Guanica, a town on Puerto Rico's south shore approximately 23 miles (37 kilometers) west of Ponce. "Ten chickens and two ducks were found dead in their pen. Ada Figueroa, a local resident, told the EFE news agency that the ducks, owned by her husband Heliberto Figueroa, and the chickens, property of her neighbor Cruz Luco, were found with two puncture marks on their bodies Tuesday, January 12." "Mrs. Figueroa pointed out that the animals had been in securely locked pens and that it was remarkable that her dogs had barked incessantly all night. She briskly asserted that Edwin Luco, the mayor of Guanica, had visited the site to see the dead animals for himself. The marks were very similar to those which had been reported on the bodies of other mutilated animals whose owners claim were victims of the Chupacabra--the strange, furtive, crimson-eyed entity who propelled Canovanas mayor Jose 'Chemo' Soto to stardom." (See the newspaper El Nuevo Dia of San Juan, P.R. for January 13, 1999, "Further Adventures of 'El Chupacabras.'" Many thanks to Scott Corrales, author of CHUPACABRAS AND OTHER MYSTERIES, for this report.) GREEN FIREBALL SIGHTED IN HONOLULU On Tuesday, January 19, 1999, at 10 p.m., Raymond Petry was on Punaohu Street in the Makiki section of Honolulu, Hawaii when he "saw a blue-green fireball move quickly from approximately southeast to the south." Despite the "partially puffy cloud cover over the city," Petry was looking eastward when he spotted the fireball. It was "much slower than a meteor--it seemed to linger at the end." A luminous glow surrounded the object, "just a fuzzy brightness--about two to three times the thickness of the trail." He first saw the fireball in the "southeast about 10 o'clock high" and it moved to "about 11 o'clock left of the Punaohu Street center line, which according to Bryan Maps there runs about 40 degrees west of south." He also reported "just the slight meandering above and below the city-top horizon." "It did not extinguish before it moved below the visible horizon," he added, "The trees below obscured it." (Email Interview) OVOID UFO SEEN BY FOUR NEAR LIMA, PERU On Friday, January 1, 1999, at 8 p.m., Massimo G., his wife Angela and two friends were relaxing just outside their rented tourist camper in Barrano, a suburb of Lima, the capital of Peru, when they noticed "a dazzling flash of light" in the east, over the mountains of the Cordillera Occidental. "I found myself in the Peruvian capital for a family reason," Massimo reported. "My wife Angela was born in Peru and emigrated to Genoa. With several friends, we rented a camper for our tour of the Andes. At 8 p.m., we caught a glimpse of a flash that illuminated the tops of the mountains, a burst of light as bright as the sun. We were at our camper in the suburb of Barrano (about 5 kilometers or 3 miles northwest of Lima's Plaza de San Martin--J.T.), observing the approach of this descending light. We compared it to an intense molten light, of oval form, which maneuvered above the crest of the mountains, speedily and in a jerky motion--up, down, right, left, etc." "At first we thought it was an airplane, but it continued to follow these strange patterns. Neither myself nor my wife nor the two friends who were with us could interpret this phenomenon in a logical fashion. The luminous form performed there aerial maneuvers for another 20 seconds. I would estimate that it was perhaps three kilometers away (to the east--J.T.)." (See La Rete #42 for January 15, 1999. Muchas gracias a Alfredo Lissoni para eso caso.) (Editor's Comment: Curiously enough, this UFO turned up on the 44th anniversary of Peru's most famous encounter. On January 1, 1955, eight silver discs slowly flew over the Plaza de Armas and Avenida Nicolas de Pierrola in Lima and were seen by hundreds of people.) MYSTERIOUS FLASH STARTLES COUPLE IN MISSISSIPPI On Saturday, January 9, 1999, at 12:35 a.m., Bethany J. and her companion were in a car on a recently-paved road close to Chapel of the Cross off Highway 463 near Canton, Mississippi. "It was raining slightly," Bethany reported, "We had been sitting in the car for a little over an hour when the event occurred. The car windows were completely fogged over." "My eyes happened to be closed. I saw through my lids a sudden flash of light. Through my closed eyes, all I could see was a huge, extremely bright red circle with a yellow ring around it and a few more colors in between the red and yellow." "My companion's eyes were wide open. He saw a red, then white flash of light the width of a car. There was no sound or visible damage. The light irritated my eyes and temporarily impaired his vision. We started the car and left immediately." An hour later, Bethany added, "My eyes were still irritated." Canton (population 10,062) is on Mississippi Highway 16 about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Jackson, the state capital. (Many thanks to Michael J. Long of Mississippi UFO Files for this report.) UFO HOVERS OVER STORES IN PALMDALE, CALIFORNIA On Sunday, January 17, 1999, a woman who lives near Avenue M and the Sierra Highway in Palmdale, California (population 68,842) stepped outside of her home and sighted a UFO hovering nearby. The sighting took place a little after 7 p.m. The witness said she "saw a very bright white light," which was "coming from an object hovering above a cleaning business." "It was saucer-shaped with a dome on top and also had red and blue lights associated with it," she added, "A blue and gold aura hung around the object as it hovered silently." The case was investigated that same evening by William J. Hamilton, executive director of Skywatch International. Hamilton reported that he "arrived at Sierra Highway around 8:30 p.m." with his videocamera and "stationed myself near the end of the runway near Air Force Plant 42 and Lockheed." However, he added that he "did not detect anything unusual." Returning home, Hamilton spoke to the witness on the telephone. "She said her neighbor saw the object initially and pointed it out to her. She said it hovered very low near a building 800 feet from her, and she had seen nothing like it before." Palmdale is on Highway 14 about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Los Angeles. (Many thanks to Bill Hamilton of Skywatch International for this news story.) MYSTERY BOOM RATTLES CENTRAL DELAWARE On Friday, January 8, 1999, a mysterious sonic boom rattled central Delaware. Calls poured into police agencies from Dover (27,630), the state capital, and nearby towns, including Lebanon (population 400), Camden (population 1,899) and Wyoming (population 977). "No one is quite sure what caused the sonic boom that shook the Kent County area on January 8. An aircraft of unknown origin shot through the sky at supersonic speeds, causing walls to shake and windows to rattle. Numerous phone calls flooded local police offices demanding answers." "According to 1st Lt. Dale Westover (USAF), spokesman for the Dover Air Force Base, 'Nearby air stations and bases have been contacted in regards to the aircraft, where it came from and why it was flying so low, but no one will take responsibility for the aircraft." "'We're not sure what it was, but it wasn't one of our C-5s,' said Airman 1st Class C. Todd Lopez of the 436th Airlift Wing" office of Public Affairs. The flyover occurred at 6:45 p.m. Inquiries were sent to the Patuxent Naval Air Station in Maryland, to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and to the Air National Guard in Atlantic City, New Jersey. (See the State News of Dover, Del. for January 9, 1999, "Sonic boom is super mystery" by Bruce K. Ford. Many thanks to Gerry Lovell of Far Shores for forwarding this newspaper article.) DAYLIGHT DISC VIDEOTAPED IN NORTHERN IRELAND On Sunday, January 17, 1999, at 8:15 a.m., Harry Welsh, 42, and two friends were near the beach in Millisle, County Down, Northern Ireland, near Ballywalter, when they spotted a saucer flying offshore. Instantly Harry lifted his videocamera and began shooting. He got "30 to 35 seconds of footage" of the "disc-shaped object over the Irish Sea, flying in a northwesterly direction at (an altitude of) 1,500 to 2,000 feet. Conditions were very good, very little high cloud." Harry's videotape shows "a mysterious saucer-shaped object shooting across the sky... Appears to be four to five miles away, heading in a northwesterly direction. Speed hard to judge," adding that the object stopped a few times "before disappearing at very high speed." Alan Sewell of the Centre of Irish UFO Studies said, "I am very excited. It looks very convincing. It is not a conventional aircraft. It's unidentified." James Patterson, 45, of Ballynure, County Antrim, who captured a UFO on video two years ago, had this comment: "There will appear to be similarities with what I saw." Harry Welsh said, "I've been flooded with requests from TV companies and UFO enthusiasts. I'm glad at the response because I want to know what it is, too." (See the British newspaper Sun for January 18, 1999. Many thanks to Alan Sewell of the Centre for Irish UFO Studies for forwarding the newspaper article.) UFO FLAP SPREADS TO ALL REGIONS OF ITALY On Saturday, January 9, 1999, at 10:30 p.m., a teenaged boy returning home in Cava dei Tirreni spotted "a black discoidal object" hovering above some houses. The saucer, he reported, "had a diameter estimated at 10 meters (33 feet), emitted no sound,and showed no lights or colors of any kind. It circled twice over the town before flying away." On Monday, January 11, 1999, at 7:20 p.m., a fireball appeared in the sky over the city of Bologna, 300 kilometers (180 miles) north of Rome. "The UFO crossed the sky for 15 seconds in a southeasterly direction." Witnesses telephoned the Carabineri (Italian police--J.T.) and the control tower at Marconi International Airport. Tower personnel said there was nothing on radar. On Monday, January 18, 1999, at 5:30 p.m., a UFO appeared over Trescastagni, a town on the island of Sicily, described by witnesses as "a luminous object that crossed the sky going from the west to the south." "The group spotted the object near the peaks of Tre Monti on the outskirts of Trecastagni and took note of the luminous trail rising in the west. It crossed the sky, lighting up the clouds like the last burst of sunshine and then went in a southerly direction. Some witnesses spoke of one object with three lights and a luminous molten glow. Others spoke of a trio of luminous objects proceeding in formation. The object reportedly zigzagged and its speed was too excessive for it to be a conventional jet." (See the Italian newspaper La Sicilia for January 19, 1999, "Oggetto volante avvistato a Trescastagni." Grazie a Gianfranco Degli Esposti e Alfredo Lissoni di Centro Nazionale Ufologico per questi rapporti.) UFO SIGHTINGS CONTINUE THROUGHOUT AUSTRALIA More UFO reports flooded in recently from various regions of Australia. On Monday, December 21, 1998, Rajendra Kumur reported sighting a UFO near Kulgera, Northern Territory. "I saw a bright orange oval-shaped object 10 kilometers (6 miles) southwest of Kulgera, N.T. It was moving around slowly. It had red, yellow and orange lights on it. The object seemed to be getting brighter, then dimmer a little at a time. We watched it for around an hour." On Saturday, January 16, 1999, Joseph M., 33, was working the night shift at a cotton farm near Bolloon, Queensland, 400 kilometers (240 miles) southwest of Brisbane, when he spotted a UFO. "I was on night shift Saturday, driving a tractor out in the cotton fields," Joseph reported. "I turned the tractor around to the west when I saw this bright yellow light. It was oblong shape, size of a shirt button at arm's length. At first I thought it was a plane with a bright light, so I kept working, not paying much attention to it for a further five minutes. I turned the tractor around again and saw that the lights were still there. So I turned off the tractor to see if I could hear any engine noise. No sound or hum. I climbed out of the cab to get a better look, then the light moved at great speed to the right and stopped. It did it a second time." "I thought, Wow! That's no plane. So I got back in the cab and bolted the doors. I just sat there watching it. The object started to change from a bright yellow to two lights, bluish-purple, about a meter (3 feet, 3 inches) apart. It was as though they were not attached in the middle because you could see between them. They both started to move very quickly, then I lost them." Asked how he felt about the encounter, Joseph replied, "Bloody scared! I never believed in UFOs before, but now I suppose I'll have to." On Tuesday, January 19, 1999, at 8:03 p.m., a group of young people at Old Bar Beach in Taree, New South Wales, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) north of Sydney, reported seeing "a lot of white lights moving around in all directions." At 9:33 p.m., they again phoned the UFO hotline and said, "We're looking at the lights, and now they're forming an arch in the sky. It's really scary. We have to go. We're leaving the beach." Australian ufologist Diane Harrison telephoned the police and asked if the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was holding night maneuvers. The police dispatcher reportedly answered, "Yes, we have had quite a few phone calls from as far away as Port Macquarie about orange balls of light in the sky," adding that "it was just the RAAF dropping flares." Ms. Harrison then phoned RAAF Williamstown and asked if they were holding night exercises. She was told "No, ma'am, we are not." (Many thanks to Diane Harrison of the UFO Australian Research Network for these reports.) UNKNOWN THREAT PUTS CASSINI IN SAFE MODE On Monday, January 11, 1999, the spacecraft Cassini, bound for Saturn, suddenly and inexplicably went into "safe mode." The $3.4 billion spacecraft, expected to arrive at Saturn in 2004, "went into so-called 'safe mode' when it detected a potential problem...The probe sensed a possible problem on Monday, triggering a program designed to halt non-critical activity. The spacecraft began using minimum power and putting its 12-foot (3.5 meter) antenna forward to shade the rest of the spacecraft." "Program manager Bob Mitchell said engineering data from the spacecraft are being transmitted to Earth to help engineers discover what caused Cassini to go into safe mode." "JPL (NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory--J.T.) engineers suspect that during a tracking maneuver, Cassini's star scanner may have scanned a patch of space without the bright stars the spacecraft uses to orient itself in space." "Mitchell said he expected Cassini would be taken out of safe mode later this week after the problem has been identified and the data thoroughly analyzed." Cassini is now on its way to Venus for its second rendezvous with that planet. After that, it will pass close to Earth to pick up the momentum needed for its flight into the outer solar system. (See the Miami Herald for January 14, 1999, "Saturn- bound spacecraft has problem." Many thanks to Steve Wilson Sr. for forwarding this article.) (Editor's Comment: Here we go again. Three weeks ago, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft mysteriously hopped into safe mode for no explainable reason. Now it's Cassini. Perhaps the spacecraft radars are reacting to the close approach of a meteor...or a UFO.) from the UFO Files... 1972: BIGFOOT ENCOUNTER IN SOUTHERN IDAHO "Until Justin 'Judd' Phelps, resident of St. Charles (Idaho), disclosed his 1972 sightings, the Bigfoot phenomenon had not been reported outside of the Pacific Northwest. Phelps, a lineman-engineer on the Union Pacific Railroad, claims to have seen the creature in the depths of a canyon near St. Charles on January 2, 1972." "His (Bigfoot's) tracks were similar to a bear's but slimmer and about a size 13 in length. They sunk about a foot into the snow. Each time the creature was sighted, it stamped its feet and shook its head like a child in anger. Measured against a nine-foot (2.7 meter) tree, it measured six feet (1.8 meters) tall." "In hopes of catching a glimpse of the creature again, on January 2, 1972, Phelps left his St. Charles home on a snow machine and arrived at the place of his previous sighting around noon. It was bitter cold, so he built a fire." "He had been there about two hours and the fire was getting hot, so he decided to put a little snow on the fire and then he got a feeling that he was being watched." "It was between 1:30 and 2 p.m. He looked up from where he had been resting, stretched on his snow machine, and saw just 100 yards away, an ape-like creature with grayish-brown hair returning his gaze." "It was standing by a young pine tree, and when it saw Phelps look his way, it waved its arms and stomped its feet and headed for the deeper woods." "The first time Phelps saw the creature it frightened him and he fired above its head." "This time, however, he spoke soothingly to it and attempted to take a picture. When he pulled the self-developing (Polaroid) film from the camera, there was no figure on the scene, possibly because he had an older-model camera and his hands had been shaking while attempting to capture the creature on film." "Upon investigating the spot where he had seen the creature, he found tracks which had sunk about a foot (30 centimeters) into the loose snow. The snow at the site was six to eight feet deep, about two feet being new snow. He did not follow the trail." "Phelps tried two days later to make contact with the creature again but was unsuccessful." (See FLICKERING MEMORIES: FOLKLORE IN THE BEAR LAKE VALLEY, Volume 2, by Bonnie Thompson, Printers Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah, 1977, pages 59 and 60.) (Editor's Note: Bear Lake, which straddles the state line between Utah and Idaho, is also the home of a Loch Ness-type plesiosaur, which has been seen sporadically during the past two hundred years. St. Charles, Idaho is the boyhood home of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor who carved Mount Rushmore.) FUN UFO WEBSITES: Don't forget to visit our parent site, UFO INFO, which has the latest in UFO news, feature stories, photos, videos and links. It's easy to reach. Just set your browser for http://ufoinfo.com Back issues of UFO Roundup can be accessed, read and downloaded at our webpage. Check us out at http://ufoinfo.com/roundup Well, that's it for this week. Is everybody ready for the Blue Moon? According to Charles Fort, things really get strange during a Blue Moon. It will be interesting to see what news items arrive on our editorial doorstep this week. We'll be back in seven days with more UFO news from around the planet, brought to you by "the paper that goes home--UFO Roundup." See you then. UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 1999 by Masinaigan Productions, all rights reserved. Readers may post news items from UFO Roundup on their websites or in newsgroups provided that they credit the newsletter and its editor by name and list the date of issue in which the item first appeared.
