UFO ROUNDUP Volume 5 Number 01
Volume 5
Number 1
January 6, 2000
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-mail: Masinaigan@aol.com
CHINA HAS THE FIRST UFO OF THE NEW MILLENIUM
UFOs kicked off the New Millenium with the surprise appearance of a daylight disc on New Year's Day.
At about 6:30 a.m. Beijing time on Saturday, January 1, 2000, a silver-gray UFO appeared over the Great Wall of China. As it hovered, it was captured by Cable News network (CNN) TV cameras and broadcasted live in the USA.
Eyewitness M. Lamb was watching the CNN coverage "when CNN showed a shot of the Great Wall of China at sunrise...When they cut to the shot, there was a gray orb floating over the wall. Then it floated to the right, then up. Then they (CNN) cut away from the shot without any explanation of the floating object. It was silver and appeared to float or glide without any means of propulsion." (Email Interview)
"In Pusalu, a patch of struggling corn and bean farms 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Beijing, villagers believe cosmic forces were at play on December 11 (1999)."
"As they tell it, an object the size of a person shimmering with golden light moved slowly up into the sky from the surrounding mountains."
"'It was so beautiful, sort of yellow,' villager Wang Cunqiao said. 'It was like someone flying up to heaven.'"
Mrs. Wang told the Chinese media that the mysterious yellow object rose above the red roof of Pusalu's one-story village hall.
The Journal of UFO Research is China's "bimonthly magazine--circulation 400,000--devoted to UFO research. The conservative, state-run media report UFO sightings. UFO buffs claim support from eminent scientists and liaisons with the secretive military, giving their work a scientific sheen of responsibility."
"'Some of these sightings are real, some are fake, and with others it's unclear,'said Shen Shituan, a real rocket scientist, president of Beijing Aerospace and honorary director of the China UFO Research Association. 'All these phenomena are worth researching.'"
"Research into UFOs will help spur new forms of high-speed travel, unlimited sources of energy and faster-growing crops, claims Sun Shili, president of the government-approved UFO Research Association (membership 50,000)." (See the Duluth, Minn. News-Tribune for January 3, 2000, "Aliens or Illusions?" page 5A.)
CIGAR-SHAPED UFO SEEN BY THREE IN VITEBSK, BELARUS
A cigar-shaped UFO appeared the day before Christmas in the eastern European nation of Belarus.
On Friday, December 24, 1999, at 8:44 a.m., Oleg V. Kirillov, 29, and two other men saw the UFO in Yurievka Gorka, a suburb of Vitebsk.
Kirillov described the UFO as "a cigar-shaped object, color blue-red, the color of a cloud at sunset. bright like a cloud but without any rays or a trail. Its size was about three meters (10 feet) by five meters (17 feet). The front portion was rounded and symmetrical. The rear portion seemed blurred."
"There was not any noise at any time. After three or four seconds, the object suddenly vanished. There was no impression of a real solid object.. It was more like an image, maybe semi-transparent."
Vitebsk is a large city in Belarus approximately 320 kilometers (200 miles) north of Minsk. (Many thanks to Errol Bruce-Knapp for forwarding this report.)
UFO FLAP BREAKS OUT IN NEW ZEALAND
"UFO fever is threatening to break out after a rash of calls to police about fast-moving, coloured lights in the sky north of the city," i.e. Auckland, located on the North Island.
"Police received six calls over two hours from several different areas north of Auckland on Saturday night (December 25, 1999) but have been unable to explain the lights."
"One caller said the lights moved 400 metres (1,320 feet) in less than two seconds whilst two others said they moved up and down in the sky very fast."
"Inspector Barry Smalley of the Police North Communications Centre said there was something in the sky, but no one knows quite what."
"'There's something there. Because of the path it was travelling, it may have been something coming through the atmosphere.'"
"'It's another mystery. We'll have to get Mulder and Scully (fictional heroes of the TV show X-Files) on it.'"
"The first call to police was at 9:30 p.m., twenty minutes after the first sighting from Raglan of what appeared to be a green flare when looking in the direction of Auckland. The flare died before it hit the sea."
"Further reports had the lights moving north."
"The last sighting was about 11:36 p.m. from Tinopai, in Northland, where a resident reported 'huge lights' over the hills due north. The lights were reported to have moved about 400 metres in two seconds."
"Two more strange lights were reported 'going straight up and down sky, intensely bright and intensely red,' looking across Kaipara Harbour. The lights were reported to be darting about in the sky." (See The Press of Auckland, N.Z. for December 29, 1999, "Night Lights Mystery," page 2. Many thanks to Steve Wilson Sr. for forwarding this newspaper article.)
UFOs RING IN THE NEW YEAR IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
On Wednesday, December 29, 1999, at 2:40 p.m., Bryan C., 42, "had returned from the grocery store" and had just arrived at his home near La Jolla Hermosa Avenue in La Jolla, California, he reported, "When I heard a helicopter to the north."
"As I always do when I see or hear a plane or helicopter, I looked as it approached and noticed a white object sitting off to its eastern side. At first I thought it was a reflection of the sun. Then I thought it might be a bird. But whatever it was, it matched speed and altitude as it paralleled the helicopter."
"After it went overhead, I continued to watch the two (craft) and stared intently at the object. The object stayed the same until ten seconds, when it veered towards the east and away from the helicopter."
"The helicopter made a steep turn towards the west as the object made a curving motion and disappeared into the horizon's brightness."
"The object was about 2.5 to 3 feet in length. It was a milky white orb, and some of the edges were slightly translucent. It was shaped like a star with dozens of spikes or points in a spherical pattern. It also looked like a white rose with many pointed petals. It was not illuminated from within but seemed to have a constant luminosity."
Bryan added that he had an impression that the helicopter was in pursuit of the object. This, he added, was unusual because it was not a police or a military helicopter but had a civilian livery or color scheme. (Email Form Report)
On January 2, 2000, at 9:32 p.m., Michael R. and two other witnesses spotted three silent but unusual bright UFOs over Lancaster, California (population 97,291), a city 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Los Angeles.
Mike was "about one mile west of Route 14 and Avenue J" in Lancaster when the UFOs "suddenly appeared on a relatively flat trajectory from the north, heading south."
He described them as "three very brilliant flourescent green dots" which "followed the same trajectory until turning into tails, then turning yellow in color before disappearing almost simultaneously."
Mike said he and the other two witnesses saw the overflight from three separate locations "within a block of each other. It was so bright as to call our attention to the side of our field of view. No sound, no explosion at the change of color or the disappearance. Clear skies. No discernible wind." (Email Form Report)
MOTORIST SEES A UFO NORTH OF BANGOR, MAINE
On Wednesday, December 29, 1999, around 6:30 p.m., a man was driving on Interstate Highway 1-95 in Maine, from Millinocket to Belfast, when he spotted a bright UFO hovering in the sky in Old Town, just north of Bangor (population 33,181).
The witness was driving along "when something caught his attention in the nighttime sky."
"He said it was a very bright light," the witness's wife reported. "He didn't think much of it since the Bangor International Airport was only 10 miles away. That is, until he saw it move ever so slowly, then it shot across the sky and out of sight at a much faster rate of speed than any aircraft could fly. Then it was gone."
"When he walked through the door and told me this story, he was upset because he was alone in the car and wished I could have been there to see it."
Bangor is on I-95 approximately 132 miles (211 kilometers) northeast of Portland. (Email Form Report)
Y2K: MILLENIUM TURNS QUIETLY EVERYWHERE BUT JERUSALEM
Well, it was a pretty quiet millenium after all. Except for a tiny handful, computers didn't crash. Jesus Christ didn't land on the Mount of Olives. Madame Pele didn't set off a volcano on Bishop Street in Honolulu.
It was all pretty quiet.
Not to say that there weren't some strange moments. Such as in mid-morning here in Duluth on December 31, 1999, just about the time it was hitting midnight in Auckland, N.Z. All at once, the PA system at work began playing a familiar tune--Scott Joplin's ragtime hit The Entertainer, from a century ago.
Laughing, I turned to fellow worker Jim Englund and said, "Y2K's working already. We're going back through time to 1900."
I was tempted to run down to the lobby newstand, pick up a copy of the Duluth Herald and see if Lord Roberts had made to to Spion Kop yet.
But in Jerusalem, it was more of the same old same old.
"'The Temple Mount will be the most sensitive place in the world Friday,' Israeli Cabinet Minister Haim Ramon says. 'We have to be ready for everything though it's going to be difficult to monitor everyone.'"
"Nearly 3,000 police will be deployed in and around the Temple Mount along with Israeli Special Forces and special 'millenium units' made up of police and agents from Israel's spy agencies."
"Nearly 400 video cameras have been installed in an attempt to identify possible terrorists."
"Israel has already deported nearly 60 Christians this year, including 34 Americans who planned to carry out violent attacks or posed other unspecified security threats, officials say. Some become so enraptured on their visit to the Holy Land that they assume the identity of a biblical character such as Jesus, Moses or Elijah."
"Israel's Givat Shaul Mental Health Center expects the number of people suffering from the disorder, dubbed the Jerusalem Syndrome by psychiatrists, to increase to 300 during the millenium's opening year, up from the annual average of 150. Police say they have arrested up to four people each day for 'weird behavior.'"
"Among some of the recent arrests:"
"A British man, dressed only in a loincloth, who said he was John the Baptist and yelled, 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord!' atop the Mount of Olives."
(Editor's Comment: Big deal! If this guy showed up in Vandavasi, India, people would automatically assume he was an itinerant sadhu from the Javadi Hills.)
"A California woman, dressed in only a blue bed sheet, who said she was the Virgin Mary and had been commanded by God to declare it was time to rebuild the Temple."
(Editor's Comment: Good thing it wasn't a white sheet. Rabbi Meir Lau might've thought she was Ku Klux.)
"A Michigan man, carrying a pair of small cardboard wings, who said he had been commanded by Jesus to fly over Jerusalem."
(Editor's Comment: Sounds pretty harmless to me. But then, I'm not a Zionist.)
"'We are here to save the place from the crazies,' says Israeli Army Sgt. Matan, 21, one of 48 Israeli soldiers who began deploying Wednesday at the Temple Mount. Israeli soldiers are not allowed to give their last name. 'There aren't many here, but one is enough.'" (See USA Today for December 30, 1999, "Israeli authorities bulk up forces," page 8A.)
"Outside Jerusalem, hundreds of police and park wardens surrounded a field in the northern Israeli city of Megiddo, where, according to the New Testament Book of Revelations, the final battle of Armageddon will take place. Hundreds of Christian pilgrims have been visiting the site daily in anticipation of the battle."
"Police say several dozen Christian extremists, most of whom have gone into hiding to avoid being jailed or deported by Israeli officials have been illegally distributing pamphlets titled Earth's Final Warning at the homes of Jews, Muslims and other Christians."
(Editor's Comment: Gone into hiding? Gee, just like Anne Frank.)
"They also have been preaching in hostels, homes and cafes that President Clinton and Pope John Paul II are Antichrists, and have even urged people to prepare for the showdown of Armageddon."
(Editor's Comment: This is terrorism? Sounds like a typical revival meeting in Coushatta, Louisiana.)
"But one of nearly a dozen extremists, some of whom were interviewed behind locked doors and refused to be photographed, said they are planning to do anything violent if Christ does not return soon. Most say they would attempt to remain in Israel or the Middle East to await his eventual return."
"'We are not proclaiming any violence or aggression,' said Karin Houwers, 28, of the Netherlands, who, with two others, leads a nightly walking tour of Jerusalem to explain their Biblical principles. 'Those who are saying these things are deeply misguided.'" (See USA Today for December 31, 1999, "'Clock is ticking,' and Israel readies for stroke of midnight," page 3A.)
"One man, rmed with a six-inch knife, came ready to fight Satan in the biblical Armageddon."
"Another, carrying Bibles and religious tracts, hoped to fly to heaven by jumping off a church tower on the Mount of Olives."
"And a third, holding lighted candles and pre-printed tickets, invited Jews at the Western Wall to 'board the train to the new (heavenly) Jerusalem."
"But neither the train nor the devil showed up. And the priest who runs the church refused to give the man the key to the tower. Instead, all three were arrested and deported over the weekend."
(Editor's Comment: Yes, another great victory over terrorism.)
"'All was peaceful in Israel,' a police statement said, 'Thankfully, there were no troubles--and no Armageddon.'"
"While most Christian pilgrims said they were treated well by ultra-Orthodox Jews, others complained that religious Jews mimicked their prayers, called them 'fanatics' and even cursed at them as they retraced the traditional steps of Jesus along Jerusalem's Via Dolorosa, or Way of the Cross."
"Religious Jews, the ultra-Orthodox Israeli newspaperYated Neeman said, fear that the pilgrims will turn the Jewish state into 'a vast center for Christianity.'"
"'We wish the Christians would take their religion and crosses and go back to their churches,' said Abraham Lowenstein, 23, an ultra-Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn, N.Y., surrounded by six other religious Jews who nodded in agreement. 'We don't know much about Christians, but what we've seen we don't like."
"The feeling appears to be deeply embedded. A Gallup poll of 479 Israelis, conducted last month (December 1999) by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, showed:"
"75 percent of Israeli Jews could not identify the date of Christmas,"
"64 percent did not have a single Christian friend,"
"62 percent had never met a Christian,"
"18 percent thought Christians were interested primarily in converting Jews,"
"17 percent see Christians coming to Israel this year as a threat to the Jewish state." (See USA Today for January 3, 2000, "Christians fear that extremists poisoned mood," page 5A.)
From the UFO Files...
1815: SPAIN'S MYSTERIOUS MOUNT MONCAYO
Like Mount Shasta in California, Mount Moncayo in northern Spain has a legend of strange caverns underground, complete with glittering cities. And some of these tales have much in common with contemporary reports of alien abduction.
Mount Moncayo is on the border of the Spanish provinces of Castilla and Aragon, located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Zaragoza and 200 kilometers (120 miles) northeast of Madrid. The mountain is 2,332 meters (7,695 feet) high and looms over the nearby city of Soria.
The people of Soria have many stories about strange disappearances on the mountain. One of these took place in the early Nineteenth Century, after the Napoleonic wars (my date of 1815 is a guesstimate--J.T.), and it involved a shepherd in his 20s named Gregorio Murillo.
Murillo "following some stray of his flock, penetrated into the mouth of one of those caves whose entrances are covered by thick growths of bushes and whose outlets no man has ever seen."
"Going on along that cavern, he had come at last to vast subterranean galleries lighted by a fitful, fantastic splendour shed from the phosphorescence in the rocks, which there were great boulders of quartz crystallized into a thousand strange fantastic forms. (my emphasis-- J.T.) The floor, the vaulted ceiling and the walls of those immense halls, the work of nature, seemed variegated like the richest marble; but the veins which crossed them were of gold and silver, and among those shining veins, as if encrusted in the rock, were seen jewels, a multitude of precious stones of all colors and sizes."
"No noise of the outer world reached the depth of that weird cavern; the only perceptible sounds were, at intervals, the prolonged and pitiful groans of the air which blew through that enchanted labyrinth, a vague roar of subterranean fires furious in their prison (my emphasis--J.T.), and murmurs of running water which flowed on not knowing whither they went."
"The shepherd, alone and lost in that immensity, wandered I know not how many hours without finding any outlet, until at last he chanced upon the source of a spring whose murmur he had heard."
"This broke from the ground like a miraculous fountain, a leap of foam-covered water that fell in an exquisite cascade, singing a silver song as it slipped away through the crannies in the rocks."
"About him grew plants he had never seen, some with wide thick leaves, and others delicate and long like floating ribbons. Half hidden in that humid foliage were running about a number of estraordinary creatures, some of them manlike, some reptilian, or both at once (my emphasis--J.T.)"
"There, darting in all directions, running across the floor in the form of repugnant, hunchbacked dwarves (aliens?) scrambling up the walls, running along...So there they were keeping stored up in heaps all manner of rare and precious things. There were jewels of inestimable worth; chains and necklaces of peals and exquisite gems, golden jars of classic form, full of rubies; chiseled cups; armor richly wrought; coins with images and superscriptions that it is no longer possible to recognize or decipher...And all glittered together, flashing out such vivid sparks of light and color that it seemed as if the whole hoard were on fire."
Immediately Murillo dipped his hands into the mounds of jewels, gasping as the cool stones trickled past his fingers. And then he paused, the short hairs on the back of his neck bristling. He experienced a sudden sense of dread, of a lurking doom that was growing closer and closer.
All at once, he heard the pealing of the bell in the monastery of Nuestra Senora del Moncayo. "On hearing the bell, which was ringing the Ave Maria, the shepherd fell to his knees, calling on the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ."
"And instantly, without knowing the means nor the way, he found himself on the outside of the mountain, near the road that leads to the village, thrown out on a footpath and overwhelmed by a great bewilderment as if he had just been startled out of a dream." (my emphasis--J.T.)
Disoriented, Murillo stumbled back down the mountain road to Soria. "When he came back to the village, he was as pale as death; he had surprised the secret of the gnomes; he had breathed their poisonous atmosphere, and he paid for his rashness with his life. But before he died he related marvelous things."
It's a shame the townspeople did not keep more accurate contemporary records of this strange incident. I wonder--did he die of "breathing their poisonous air?" Or did the shepherd die of radiation sickness brought on by his exposure to those strange giant crystals in the heart of Mount Moncayo? (See Romantic Legends of Spain by Gustavo Adolfo Becqer, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York, N.Y. 1909, pages 199 to 202.)
ROUNDUP CORRIGENDA:
Australian ufologist Bill Chalker, author of The Oz files--The Australian UFO Story, had some corrections for last week's article, "A Century of UFOs" in UFO Roundup, volume 4, number 36.
"1900 - Hanging Rock! Let's keep this affair where it belongs--an enduring and haunting piece of fiction. Unless there's information I don't know about, this story never happened. It is fiction, exquisite fiction penned by Joan Lindsay in her wonderful novel Picnic at Hanging Rock (Penguin Books, 1967) and then it was a great film (1980) directed by Peter Weir."
(Editor's Comment: Janet Bord mentions the Miranda McKay/Irma Leopold/Hanging Rock case in one of her recent UFO books. But I think Bill Chalker is right on this one. There is no mention of any "missing girls" case in the Melbourne Argus for February 1900.)
"The only cross-shaped mystery I recollect Lismore (N.S.W.) being associated with was of a glowing "cross" that titillated locals around 1978."
(Editor's Comment: Again Bill is right. The date 1918 is Unsolved Mysteries of the Twentieth Century is probably a typo.)
Also, Frederick Valentich's middle name is Paul, not Michael.
And the Knowles family had their harrowing UFO experience of January 1988 in the state of Western Australia, not South Australia.
Now that Y2K is over, we can kick back and relax and watch that hilarious new situation comedy on CNN--The New Hampshire Primary.
But don't return your Spam and beans to the supermarket just yet. The next Apocalypse is due in May. Edgar Cayce (1874-1945), the prominent New Age psychic, forecast that Earth's axis would shift during the year 2000. Fllorida would end up where Greenland is now and vice versa. Some people think the massive destruction will occur on May 5 or May 17, 2000 when the sun, the moon and five planets will be in perfect alignment with Earth for the first time since 1962. We shall see.
In the meantime, we'll be back next week with more UFO and paranormal news from around the planet, brought to you by "the paper that goes home--UFO Roundup." Enjoy the New Millenium!
UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 2000 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.
