UFO ROUNDUP Volume 5 Number 02
Volume 5
Number 2
January 13, 2000
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-mail: Masinaigan@aol.com
LARGE UFO PHOTOGRAPHED BY A MISSOURI POLICEMAN
"In the past few days, Millstadt police officer Craig Stevens has slept little, taken countless phone messages from national experts and heard all of the little green men jokes his fellow officers can maintain."
"It's amusing--to a point, he said." "'It's not like I'm the only one who saw it, and I'm Joe Blow from the local bar who just stepped out drunk, y'know?'"
"Stevens, of Highland (Missouri), and at least three other officers from the Lebanon, Shiloh and Dupo police departments said they saw something in the sky early Wednesday (January 5, 2000))--something that looked like a UFO."
"Shaped like an arrowhead, sprinkled with dimmer lights all over its surface and three brighter lights on its tail, the thing made its northeast-to-southwest flight across the Metro East area about 4 a.m."
"The first report came in to Highland police from the owner of a miniature golf course. He was driving into Lebanon, so police contacted Lebanon authorities. The officers there guffawed (laughed--J.T.) at the disaptcher. But he (the dispatcher) spotted the thing heading toward Shiloh, where an officer there spotted it."
"Stevens, sitting in his patrol car in Millstadt on his overnight shift, heard the radio chatter and drove to the north end of town. He scanned the sky but saw only airplane lights."
"Then he looked west."
"Wow! hethought, jumping out of his car. This thing's huge!"
"He said it moved slowly like a blimp, about 1,000 feet (300 meters) off the ground. It was about two stories high (20 feet or 6 meters--J.T.) and about three times as long. In addition to the three lights in the back, dimmer lights sprinkled the entire surface, almost, as he described it, like a 'starfield camoflauge.'"
"He grabbed his Polaroid camera and snapped a shot. The object headed toward Dupo, and Stevens radioed dispatch. The dispatcher radioed back, reporting an officer there (in Dupo) spotted it, too."
"The Polaroid (photo) didn't develop well in the cold, and the image only shows the three bright lights. At the station, Stevens made an unofficial police report and sketched a likeness of what he saw."
"'It's been driving me nuts since I've seen it,' he said, 'I haven't been able to sleep for the last day and a half.'"
"The only calls that Scott Air Force Base received about the object were from the media, a spokesman said Saturday (January 8, 2000). And the military base's control tower is closed at that hour."
"Stevens has also fielded calls from the media, science institutes, UFO experts, and a former FBI man who had 'a hundred questions.'" (See the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for January 9, 2000, "Police officers in St. Clair County report seeing early morning UFO" by Valerie Schremp. Many thanks to ufologists Kenny Young and Ron Schaffner for forwarding this newspaper article.)
(Editor's Comment: Strange to say, the officer has the same name as the late Craig Stevens, the actor who starred in the 1959 TV series Peter Gunn. There's no doubt that Missouri is currently in the grip of a UFO flap. Read on.)
"MISSING TIME" REPORTED IN MISSOURI FAMILY'S UFO ENCOUNTER
On Christmas Day, December 25, 1999, a Missouri family of four was driving home on Interstate Highway I-44. They stopped at a highway rest area near the town of Mount Vernon, Missouri (population 3,726), located about 27 miles (43 kilometers) west of Springfield.
"While out of the car, the family began to notice a strange buzzing and humming noise," reported Brian Adams of the Ozarks Area UFO Research Group. "The son looked up to see a dark chevron-shaped craft hovering just above the trees in the starlit sky."
"The son told his dad to look up, and the rest of the family looked up as well."
"The next thing the family recalls is that they were waking up in their beds at home the next morning." Their home is 16 miles from the I-44 highway rest area. "Their car was parked in the garage with their baggage." They found the Christmas presents they'd had in the car neatly stacked under their Christmas tree.
"They described the craft as no bigger than a small fighter jet in size, but it didn't have any lights on. Only the mother didn't recall hearing the unusual noise from the craft."
"The father also said his eyes were unusually light-sensitive when he woke up. But otherwise no body markings were discovered by the family."
The family is concerned about this incident except "for the son, who said it was 'cool.'" (Many thanks to Brian Adams for this report.)
MYSTERIOUS SKY BOOM JOLTS A TOWN IN OHIO
"Bloomville, OH--Some residents here were ready to change their town's name to BOOMville early yesterday."
"A mysterious explosion shook the Seneca County village and startled residents just after midnight" on Monday, January 3, 2000.
"So far the cause of the boom is unexplained. Officials are investigating."
"Ear witnesses said the night was quiet when suddenly--Ka-Boom!--a single explosion was felt and heard by residents within a mile-wide circle. Resident Nicole Phillips said it rattled her whole house."
"'Scary. It was very scary,' Rene Bernal, another resident, said, 'It felt like our house was hit by something. The walls shook.'"
"'My daughter, Julia, was on the phone, and she came running out of her room yelling that she thought something was coming through her walls.'"
(Editor's Comment: Now that is very interesting! Three years ago, a woman in Santiago de Chile reported seeing an alien come through a circle of light which appeared on the wall of her apartment.)
"Mrs. Bernal's husband, Tim, ran outside. He and a neighbor searched but found nothing."
"The Bernals were among many who called police, prompting Chief Howard Minzer to check the entire village on foot. 'He found no flashes, no power outages and no fires,' said police officer Mark Lawson."
"Officer Lawson had just arrived home when he felt the blast at his midtown residence."
"'It was a very, very loud explosion, definitely somewhere in town,' he said, 'But nothing is damaged in the village, and no one has reported anything.'"
"'We have no idea what it could have been. It's a mystery.'"
"Col. A.J. Feucht, commander of the Ohio Air National Guard 180th Fighter Wing, based at Toledo Express Airport, said no flight by supersonic or any other aircraft was in the air at the time."
Bloomville (population 949) is on Ohio Route 19 approximately 35 miles (56 kilometers) southwest of Sandusky. (See the Toledo, Ohio Blade for January 4, 2000, "Explosive sound shatters quiet of Bloomsville night" by Mike Tressler. Many thanks to ufologists Kenny Young and Jerry Hamm for forwarding this newspaper article.)
GALILEO COMPLETES ANOTHER FLYBY OF EUROPA
The robot spacecraft Galileo "swooped past Jupiter's frozen moon Europa on Monday," January 3, 2000, "but apparently did not experience any computer problem's from the planet's (Jupiter's) intense radiation."
In December 1999, Galileo celebrated the fourth anniversary of its arrival in Jovian space. The spacecraft went into orbit around Jupiter in December 1995 and has had several successful encounters with the gas giant's many moons.
On Monday, January 3, Galileo "'flew within 220 miles (352 kilometers) of the moon's surface,' said project manager Jim Erickson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory."
"'Europa is really just on the edge of the area we consider hazardous from the radiation point of view,' he said, 'We really thought this one would go pretty well, and it has so far.'"
"The spacecraft's computer and instruments appeared to be operating normally. Data collected during the pass was stored aboard the probe's computer to be relayed back to Earth over the next several weeks."
"Galileo measured Europa's magnetic fields in an attempt to detect disturbances from a suspected liquid ocean beneath the moon's icy crust. Some scientists believe life could survive in a liquid ocean beneath the frozen surface."
The year 2000 promises to be a busy one for Galileo. Next up is an encounter with Jupiter's fiery volcanic moon Io on February 22. The spacecraft will fly by the moon Ganymede on May 28 and again on December 28.
Right now the hot gossip in NASA is talk of a "team-up" with the robot spacecraft Cassini, which is now approaching Jupiter. Cassini will bypass the gas giant on December 30 on its way to Saturn. There's talk about a joint mission of observation, utilizing both spacecraft, at the end of the year.
(Editor's Comment: If there are subsurface oceans on Europa and Callisto, and assuming that no space catastrophe has altered the enviornment of either moon, then it's possible that those oceans may contain life similar to that which flourished on Earth during the Cambrian Period 500 million years ago. Species such as Wiwaxia, Opabinia, sea pens and trilobites, now extinct on Earth, may be alive and thriving on Europa and Callisto.)
BOUNCING WHITE UFO SEEN NEAR WASILLA, ALASKA
On Saturday, January 1, 2000, Tracy Y. was at her home in a wooded area near Wasilla, Alaska (population 4,028) when she "woke up at 3:30 a.m. because i felt like I was being watched."
"The bright white light was outside my window at a distance," she reported. "I tried to ignore it, but I had the overwhelming curiosity to try to detect movement. Every time I had myself convinced that it was a star or planet, it would eventually move up, down, left, right."
"It also seemed to go from a bright white light to a faded light whenever it started to move down. I feel like it came a little closer. But I waved goodbye as the chills ran through me, and I went to bed."
In terms of shape, the object "I believed to be spherical. There definitely was a bright white light if not two or three. I could also make out a faint red light. This particular object seemed to be floating eastward" toward Palmer.
Wasilla is located 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Anchorage. (Email Form Report)
OUR LADY OF THE MEKONG?
According to the South China Morning Post, Vietnam had a series of sightings of the Blessed Virgin Mary, formerly known as Miriam bat-Joachim, during October 1999.
Loc Ninh was one of the cities reported to have experienced a Marian apparition. The Post reported "hundreds of thousands gathering at religious festivals and rushing to catch the latest manifestations of the Virgin Mary at sites around the country." (See the South China Morning Post for November 2, 1999. Many thanks to Trinh for this story.)
PYRAMIDOLOGIST DISCOVERS ANOMALIES IN SAQQARA
Engineer Christopher Dunn, author of the book The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt, uncovered some strange anomalies in the Pyramid of Khafre in Egypt during his on-site investigation there.
In his new article, "Return to the Giza Power Plant," Dunn relates how he traveled to Egypt in May 1999 "as a participant in the conference 'Egypt in the New Millenium'" and had the opportunity to examine the large granite boxes called sarcophagi.
"This year, in my backpack I carried a precision-ground 12-inch long parallel, or straight edge, precise to within .001 inch. i also had a precision toolmaker's solid square," he wrote, "Also in my tool kit was a set of precision Starret radius gauges for inspecting the machined radius that makes the transition from one surface or contour to another."
Although prevented from entering the Serapeum by Egyptian guards, Dunn did manage to enter Khafre's pyramid and examined the black granite sarcophagus inside.
"For those interested, I slid this" 12-inch straight "edge along the smooth interior of the granite box with my flashlight shining behind it and demonstrated its exact precision...Modern machine axes are aligned orthogonally or exactly perpendicular to each other to assure accuracy. This state assures us that the corners cut into an object on the machine are square and true."
"I wasn't expecting the corners of the sarcophagus to be perfectly square, for perfection is extremely difficult to achieve. However, I was not prepared for the degree of perfection I found."
"I was flabbergasted as I slid my precision square along the top of the parallel (I used the top of the parallel to raise the square above the corner radius-- C.D.) and it fit perfectly on the adjacent surface."
"'Bloody Hell!' I exclaimed, as the significance of this find came over me."
"On three corners (of the sarcophagus) the square sat flush against both surfaces. One corner had a gap that was detected by the light test, though it was porbably only about .001 inch."
"So not only do we have an artifact with perfectly flat surfaces, the inside corners are also perfectly square. What else is significant about this so-called sarcophagus? The corners themselves."
In the article, Dunn explained how back in February 1999, Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt's Director- General of the Giza antiquities, appeared on a FOX TV special and showed anchorwoman Suzie Koppel "the methods the ancients used to create granite artifacts. This method involves bashing the granite with a round (dolorite) ball until the desired shape is achieved," Dunn wrote.
"Creating the corner radius of the box inside Khafre's pyramid using such primitive methods would have been impossible."
"Checking this corner radius with my radius gauges, I started with a half-inch radius and had to keep working my way down in size until selecting the correct one."
"The inside corner radius of the box inside Khafre's pyramid checked 3/32 inch. The radius at the bottom, where the floor of the box met the wall, checked 7/16 inch."
"It should go without saying," Dunn added, "that you cannot fit an 8-inch (dolomite) ball into a corner with a 3/32 radius, or even a 1-inch radius." (See the magazine Atlantis Rising Number 21, "Return to the Giza Power Plant" by Christopher Dunn, pages 33 and 66.)
from the UFO Files...
1875: STRANGE ENCOUNTER ON MOUNT MONCAYO
For many years afterward, the death of shepherd Gregorio Murillo following his strange trip through the mysterious caverns inside Mount Moncayo was the talk of northern Spain. (For details, see UFO Roundup, volume 5, number 1.) The tale was repeated over and over again in the city of Soria and in nearby villages such as Agreda.
Two generations passed. (My date of 1875 is a guesstimate--J.T.) Usually, the story was told by an old man enjoying the afternoon sun near the fountain in Agreda's central plaza. And he always found an appreciative audience, usually made up of teenaged girls coming to the fountain to fill their family water jars.
One day, an old-timer made the mistake of telling Marta and Magdalena Esquivel.
"Marta and Magdalena were sisters. Orphans from early childhood, they were living wretchedly under the protection of a kinswoman of their mother. A kinswoman who had taken them in for charity and who at every step made them feel, by her taunting and humiliating words, the weight of their obligation."
"Of those two girls, the elder, who seemed to be some twenty years old, was called Marta; and the younger, who had not yet finished her sixteenth year, Magdalena."
"When they reached the threshold of their home and had set down their water jars on the stone bench by the door, Marta said to Magdalena, 'And do you believe in the marvels of the Moncayo?'"
"'Yes,' answered Magdalena simply. 'I believe it all. But you, perhaps, have doubts?'"
'Oh, no! I too believe everything--everything that I wish to believe.'"
Magdalena wondered what her older sister meant by that. Later, when they were cleaning up after dinner, she raised the issue again.
By way of reply, Marta said, "Tomorrow, when we fetch the water, let's go to the spring up on the mountain."
"Why?" Magdalena asked.
"Because I want to look for the entrance to that cave."
"Marta! Have you lost your mind!? You heard what happened to that shepherd."
"Exactly! And that's why I want to go. The cave is brimming with jewels." Marta's eyes had a ferocious gleam. "You heard what the old man said. A handful of those gems would have made Gregorio Murillo the richest man in Castilla!"
"What about los gnomos? (the gnomes)"
"To hell with them!" Marta made a brisk rude gesture. "I'd sooner look at a gnome than Tia (Aunt) Carmela's ugly face another day!"
Magdalena bit her lower lip. "But what if you found those jewels? What would you do?"
"Go to Madrid!" Marta snapped. "Paris! Rome! Some place with bright lights and easy living. All they have here is poverty." Turning away abruptly, she added, "I'm going to the spring tomorrow. You can do as you wish."
Late the following afternoon, the Esquivel girls hiked up the narrow trail to Mount Moncayo. The snow-capped peak rises to a height of 2,332 meters (7,695 feet) and is 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Zaragoza.
Marta walked with a bold and decisive stride, the empty water jar under her arm. Magdalena brought up the rear, all the while thinking, This is NOT a good idea!
Soon they arrived at a natural artesian spring in a narrow wooded arroyo. While the younger girl filled their water jars, Marta explored both sides of the gulch, looking for the elusive cave entrance.
"As the hours went on, that unceasing sound of the air and the water began to produce in them a strange exaltation, a kind of dizziness that, clouding the eyes and humming in the ears, seemed to confuse them utterly. (My emphasis-- J.T. Note the usual "dreamworld" altered state of consciousness similar to that reported by many UFO abductees.)
"Then as one hears in dreams, the far vague echo of speech, they seemd to perceive, amid those nameless noises, inarticulate sounds... then words repeated over and over, always the same; then disconnected, inconsequent phrases without order or meaning..."
"While her sister, drawn on and on as if by a spell, was leaning over the margin of the fountain to hear better, Magdalena was instinctively moving away, withdrawing from the steep rocks..."
Then she noticed something strange overhead. "Seeing the astral splendors overhead," the younger girl remarked, "These are the halos of the invisible angels who have us in their keeping."
Among the weird voices they heard was a sibilant whisper that said, "Water licks the earth and lives in the mud. I roam the ether and fly in limitless space. Follow the impulses of thy heart..."
"Wind and wave were hushed, and there appeared the gnome."
"The gnome (alien?) was like a transparent pigmy, a sort of dwarf all made of light, as a Will-o'-the-wisp; it laughed hugely but without sound, and leapt from rock to rock, making one dizzy with its antics."
"Marta had seen the gnome and was following him with a bewildered gaze...and when the diabolical spirit darted away at last into the craggy wilds of the Moncayo, like a running flame, shaking out sparks from its hair; she felt an irresistible attraction and rushed after it in frantic chase."
"Magdalena!" Obeying the whispery voice, "Magdalena, moving step by step like a sleep- walker guided in slumber by a friendly voice, followed the zephyr, which was softly blowing over the plain."
"Magdalena returned to the hamlet pale and full of amazement."
"They waited for Marta all night."
"On the afternoon of the following day, the village girls found a broken water jar at the margin of the fountain in the grove. It was Marta's water jar. Nothing more was ever known of her."
Marta Esquivel was never seen again. And the legend of Mount Moncayo grew. (See the bookRomantic Legends of Spain by Gustavo Adolfo Becqer, Thomas Y. Crowell and Co., New York, N.Y., 1909, pages 208 to 213.)
ROUNDUP CORRIGENDA: Steve Kaeser had a couple of corrections for our feature, "A Century of UFOs," which appeared in UFO Roundup, volume 4, number 36 two weeks ago.
1964--Patrolman Lonnie Zamora sighted the landed UFO in Socorro, New Mexico, not in Utah.
1966--The college girls saw their UFO at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, USA.
We'll be back in seven days with more UFO and paranormal news from around the planet, brought to you by "the paper that goes home--UFO Roundup. See you then.
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.
