UFO ROUNDUP Volume 4 Number 30
Volume 4
Number 30
November 18, 1999
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-mail: Masinaigan@aol.com
NEW CHUPACABRA ATTACK IN BRAZIL
On Friday, November 5, 1999, a total of 30 chickens were found dead in a chicken coop in the Parque Sao Bento section of Sorocaba, Sao Paulo state, Brazil.
"The chickens had holes in their necks and the bodies contained no blood. The eggs in the nests were not touched."
The chickens were found by their owner, Laercio Longo, who said that the "cages of the aviary were wheeled, and none of the chickens had been devoured by the predator."
"'What happened here is a mystery,' Longo said."
"This is the second attack in the neighborhood,' said Longo, attributing the attack to the Chupacabra. Four months ago, chickens were killed in the same manner" in Parque Sao Bento.
However, Dr. Rodrigo Teixeira, veterinarian at the Sorocaba Municipal Zoo, had a different opinion.
On Thursday, November 11, 1999, Dr. Teixeira was interviewed by Brazilian ufologist Thiago Luiz Ticchetti.
"Dr. Teixeira said the 'spots' found on the chickens' bodies were made by terrestrial animals. According to him, the probable culprits could be the saringue (a small rat) or a wildcat or a skunk."
"He said chickens weigh 1.5 kilograms and carry seven milliliters of blood. This blood, when poured on the floor, is quickly absorbed, or is lapped up by the predator. Blood is very attractive to all wild animals. It has lots of minerals that the animals love."
Sorocaba is loczted 176 kilometers (110 miles) west of Sao Paulo, which is both the largest city in Brazil and in all of South America. (See the Brazilian newspaper O Estado do Sao Paulo for November 6, 1999, "Chupacabra ataca em Sorocaba." Muito obrigado a Thiago Luiz Ticchetti por eso cso.)
BLUE FIREBALL DAZZLES VIEWERS IN FLORIDA
On Tuesday, November 9, 1999, at 9:16 p.m., a "blue fireball" streaked through the sky over DeLand, Florida (population 16,491), a town on Highway 92 about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Orlando.
"A blue ball of fire that streaked across the sky above Volusia County has residents wondering whether the sight was something iut of this world."
"Chet Jones, who caught a glimpse of the burning mass over DeLand Tuesday night, is betting it was a UFO."
"'I believe it's probable,' said Jones from his home on the St. Johnsbury River. 'I know they exist.'"
"At 9:16 p.m., one caller told the Volusia County Sheriff's Office he saw a fireball pass over in the direction of Clyde Morris and LPGA Boulevards. It was headed for Ormond Beach."
"Sheriff's deputies, along with Daytona Beach police officers and a sheriff's helicopter, searched for over an hour. They found nothing."
"The National Weather Service in Melbourne (Florida) reported no unusual activity Tuesday night. Officials at the Federal Aviation Administration tower in Daytona Beach and at the FAA Regional Office in Atlanta (Georgia) said they saw nothing out of the ordinary."
"'If a pilot would have seen it, they would have reported it,' FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said."
"Roger Hoefor, curator of astronomy at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach, speculated that people may have seen a bolide meteor. Bolide meteors appear to be falling, when in reality, they're simply crossing the horizon."
"'This one was not falling,' Hoefor said, 'It was still going in its orbital path.'" (See the Miami Herald for November 10, 1991. Many thanks to Errol Bruce-Knapp for this news article.)
(Editor's Comment: Meteor or UFO? That's a good question. And this wasn't the only such case last week. Read on.)
GLOWING FIREBALL SEEN IN CENTRAL TEXAS
On Monday, November 8, 1999, ufologist Mike Harman was driving home to Granbury, Texas, located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Fort Worth, when he caught a glimpse of an unusual object in the sky.
"I was driving home to Granbury at 10:15 or maybe 10:30 that night on Davis Road, heading southeast. The road is very dark and narrow, winding and lined with 20-foot trees (6 meters in height--J.T.) It's hard to look at anything except the road, lest you end up in a ditch."
"I caught a very quick glimpse of a ball of fire, trailing a blazing trail. It was off to my left, a lot more east of my line of sight. I could only see it from where it came into view at the top of my (car's) windshield until it dropped behind the tops of the trees, maybe 10 degrees, from 45 degrees to 35 degrees above the horizon."
"It was falling at a very fast rate. It took less than a second to pass into and from my line of sight. It was a very bright yellow, and from my viewpoint, it appeared to be very large but a great distance away. It fell at an angle, from left to right (east to west)...I don't think I've ever seen anything move that fast." (Many thanks to Mike Harman for this report.)
SPEEDY FIREBALL SHOCKS CROWD IN NORTHERN ITALY
On Wednesday, November 10, 1999, at about 11:15 p.m., people at the I Portal shopping center In Modena, a large city in Emilia-Romagna province, Italy, about 250 kilometers (180 miles) north of Rome, spotted a "large shiny luminous object" plunging through the night sky.
They saw "a bright luminous object that moved with incredible velocity, following a descending trajectory. The object left a luminous trail with three different colors ranging from an intense white and yellow to a brilliant green." (Grazie a Alfredo Lissoni e Vittorio Manzini di Centro Ufologico Nazionale d'Italia per questo rapporto.)
(Editor's Comments: The amazing thing about these sightings is, if they are indeed meteors, they are all a week ahead of the Leonid meteor storm, which is expected to peak tonight.)
BLINKING UFO SIGHTED IN CHINO VALLEY, ARIZONA
On Friday, November 5, 1999, at 11 p.m., the witness "was locking up the house before heading to bed" at his home in Chino Valley, Arizona (population 4,840), located 89 miles (142 kilometers) northwest of Phoenix. "The sky was particularly clear and beautiful, and I opened my back door to have a better look."
"There were three bright lights on the horizon, and I thought they were on a small aircraft. And they must have been about 10 miles (16 kilometers) away."
"I thought I might be seeing an actual aircraft headed toward Prescott airport. These lights were somewhat larger and flashed rhythmically from white to reddish and back to white again. They also moved a little more slowly, and I had the distinct impression that they were searching for something."
"Two of them stayed in the area in which I first saw them. One took off west across the northern end of the Chino valley. It may have been as close as three to five miles away from my house, and it crossed the valley at about the same speed as a small aircraft. There was no sound of engines, and it was close enough that I should have heard a sound if it was an aircraft. The light itself had an onion-dome shape like Russian churches. I rushed to my front door (facing east) and watched the light. It slowly faded into the eastern sky." (Email Form Report)
TRIANGULAR UFO SIGHTED NEAR LIVERPOOL
On Monday, November 15, 1999, at 1 a.m., the witness reported that she had sighted "four bright lights in a symmetric triangular formation" over Southport, Merseyside, Lancashire, UK.
The lights "appeared to be around a central light that was red. These lights were white. The object was observed for about two minutes when each light went away from the center" simultaneously "and then proceeded to disappear."
"The object remained motionless until it split up and (the white lights) went in different directions. The different lights moved extremely fast." (Email Form Report)
UNUSUAL PLANE CRASH REPORTED IN CHICAGO
Another unusual plane crash took place in Chicago on Thursday, November 11, 1999, which may have been caused by the reputed Lake Michigan Triangle.
"Investigators said Friday that a sudden and catastrophic loss of power may have killed the two engines on a corporate plane that crashed into Lake Michigan during takeoff from Meigs Field on Thursday, killing all three people on board, including an executive for a Chicago company."
"Officials of Hartmarx Corp. identified the victims as Richard Roydon Roicks, 55, president and chief operating officer of the company's Trans-Apparel Group sportswear subsidiary, and company pilots Marc Derickson and John Powell. Their bodies were found strapped inside the wreckage of the Beech King Air 200 turboprop."
"'It didn't seem like the aircraft had enough power to get into the air,' said David Bowling, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). 'So obviously we'll be looking at the engines to see if they were producing adequate power.'"
"Bowling added that a cockpit voice recorder may be found in a portion of the wreckage that has already been salvaged and could aid investigators in determining what went wrong. The NTSB is also requesting the maintenance records of the aircraft from the home base in Michigan City, Indiana, Bowling said."
"The twin-engine plane was attempting to depart Meigs (Field) at about 8:30 p.m., bound for South Bend, Indiana, when witnesses said it failed to become airborne and crashed nose- first into the lake."
"The salvage operation began Friday morning as police divers assessed the condition of the wreck."
"Lt. Earl Zuelke, commander of the Chicago Police Maritime Unit, said the wreckage had appeared to be sitting 'fairly upright' submerged in water about 20 feet (6 meters) deep."
"The Beech King Air 200 involved in the accident was a 1976 model, a twin-engine turboprop with 850 horsepower engines that can carry eight to 15 passengers, according to the manufacturer, Raytheon Aircraft Corp. of Wichita, Kansas."
The Beech King Air 200 was the second civilian aircraft during the past 18 months to crash in Lake Michigan after taking off from Meigs Field.
"About 18 months ago, another privately- owned twin-engined aircraft, a Cessna 340A, took off from Meigs and failed to become airborne, crashing into Lake Michigan about 200 feet from the field. One person died in that August 1, 1998 accident. Although the NTSB has yet to issue a probable cause finding, the final report by NTSB investigators suggests pilot error in the 1998 crash."
For more information about strange power losses in aircraft operating over Lake Michigan, see the book The Great Lakes Triangle by Jay Gourley, Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Greenwich, Conn., 1977, "Chapter Six: Impossible Engine Failures," pages 68 to 81. (See the Chicago Tribune for November 12, 1999, "Loss of power hinted as cause of Meigs crash," page 1.)
CROP CIRCLES REAPPEAR IN LOWVILLE, ONTARIO
On Friday, October 22, 1999, a new crop circle formation was discovered in a field of corn eight feet high in Lowville, Ontario.
Lowville was the site of a "random pattern" crop circle formation on October 17, 1998.
The new formation consisted of a "teardrop-shaped" circle and other "discoid" shapes.
"Researcher Patrick Cross reports that he and fellow researchers who went into the formation on the ground experienced various equipment anomalies," including electromagnetic frequency (EMF) emissions and weird compass movements. The compass needles of three of the researchers deviated from magnetic north by the precise same degrees while they were inside the crop circle.
The team also reported "a white cobweb-type material found under some of the flattened stalks." (Many thanks to Paul Anderson of Circles Phenomenon Research-Canada for this report.)
BLACK HELICOPTERS SEEN IN TEXAS AND MARYLAND
After weeks of inactivity, black helicopters are back in the USA news, with multiple sightings in Texas and Maryland.
On Friday, October 22, 1999, a male witness spotted a large squadron of black helicopters conducting large-scale maneuvers in the open "brush country" of the Big Bend desert near Marathon, Texas (population 105), a small town on Highway 90 approximately 178 miles (284 kilometers) south of Odessa.
On Wednesday, November 10, 1999, at 7:30 p.m., fire sirens mysteriously sounded, and several black helicopters flew over Havre de Grace, Maryland (population 8,592), a town at the mouth of the Susquehanna River approximately 45 miles (72 kilometers) northeast of Baltimore.
"I live in Havre de Grace, Md., near the Aberdeen Proving Ground," the witness reported. "About 7:30 p.m., several helicopters flew over my apartment building and were circling low over the (Chesapeake) bay. I recognized one of the new police helicopters used for searches. It's almost silent running and appears to be a very powerful machine. I think there were a mix of civilian and military vehicles (aircraft), but I couldn't see all of them because of the trees."
On Thursday, November 11, 1999, several motorists on Interstate Highway I-45 in South Houston, Texas (population 14,207) saw a black AH-64 Apache attack helicopter "flying very fast at just above the rooftops, traveling south." (Many thanks to Cliff Capers and Steve Wilson Sr. and others for the above reports.)
Y2K: MARINES, UN TROOPS TRAIN IN SOUTH CAROLINA
U.S. Marine Corps units and foreign United Nations troops from countries still unidentified held joint training maneuvers at five locations in downtown Columbia, South Carolina (population 98,052) last week.
According to John Quinn and Bob Anderson of NewsHawk, Inc., "Although virtually not a word of this is being breathed by either national or local news sources, Columbia, S.C. is being subject to an Urban Warfare assault by masses of U.S. Marines and, according to reports we've been forwarded, UN troops."
Live-fire MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain--J.T.) exercises were conducted in the area between Gervais Street and Blossom Avenue.
Columbia, located on Interstate Highway I-20 approximately 112 miles (189 kilometers) northwest of Charleston.
On Thursday, November 11, during the 7 p.m. news broadcast, a local TV station advised viewers "to stay away from five parts of downtown Columbia, five parts in our city's Restaurant Row, as it was being used by the Marines for urban warfare exercises. The late night news showed the five parts deserted except for Marine vehicles and transports. Latest reports are we now have up to several hundred Marines in the city."
On Friday, November 12, 1999, a Columbia resident reported, "Today I was taking my wife and our son to the dentist and some choppers flew over our truck. I'm not a military person but it looked like two dark green (UH-60) Blackhawks, one other smaller dark chopper, some kind of 'air crane' large chopper, a big white chopper (bigger than a Blackhawk) and a smaller white chopper--just like the smaller dark one but white."
(Editor's Note: United Nations helicopters are usually painted white with the black letters UN on the side hatch and the logo United Nations on the tail boom.)
According to Quinn and Anderson, conflicting statements have been made on TV about the duration of the exercise. "Although the assault was originally scheduled to last a week, it was then extended to a month, and now, we hear, the military troops are occupying the South Carolina (state) capital indefinitely."
A complete news blackout is in effect.
Interestingly, Columbia was one of the 38 cities listed in the U.S. Navy study last spring describing "partial" widespread failures of utilities on January 1, 2000 as a result of the Y2K computer problem.
Another city on the Navy's "partial failures" list was Kingsville, Texas, near Corpus Christi, which was the site of Operation Last Dance, another large-scale MOUT exercise, back in March. (Editor's Comment: Maybe they should put up a billboard on Elmwood Avenue reading "Welcome to ZOD...Zionist-Occupied Dixie...formerly known as Columbia, South Carolina." And do likewise for Andrews, North Carolina, which is still being buzzed by black helicopters.)
from the UFO Files...
1913: TOO MANY THOMPSONS
Last week, UFO Roundup related the story of the "Big Blow," the massive gale that struck the Great Lakes on November 9, 1913.
Just prior to the storm, Capt. Arthur W. Dana, who was second mate aboard the steamer Robert W. Bunsen that day, said the weather was very strange. "The sun was out, but you couldn't see it. The sky had an odd, coppery hue that reflected on the water and gave everything an unreal appearance."
Eight ships were sunk on Lake Huron during the storm. They included the Charles S. Price, then the largest ship afloat on the lakes, the James Carruthers, the pride of the Canada Steamship Line, the Isaac M. Scott, the Wexford, the Regina, the Argus, the Hydrus and the John A. McGean, commanded by "Dancing Chauncey" Ney.
Strangest of all the storm's phenomena involved 22-year-old seaman John Thompson of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Thompson, a crewman aboard the James Carruthers, missed the boat when it departed just prior to the storm. Then, picking up the Toronto Globe on November 11, 1913, he read that his dead body had washed ashore at Goderich, Ontario, on Lake Huron's eastern shore.
It was true! "A sister of young John, who lived in Sarnia, on learning that bodies were coming ashore from the Carruthers and believing that her brother was aboard this vessel, sent word to the family in Hamilton."
John"s father "hastened to Goderich" and reclaimed the body. It was placed in a coffin in the Thompson parlor, and the family made preparations for a wake.
Halfway through the wake, John Thompson walked through the front door. His father yelled, "Johnny!" His mother took one look and fainted.
After an emotional reunion, the undertaker led John aside and asked, "Are you really young Thompson?"
"Of course I am," John replied, producing his maritime papers.
"Well, John," said the undertaker, stroking his beard, "If you're you, then who the hell is that!?"
Looking toward the coffin, John got the shock of his life. Lying there was his exact double. "A body which bore every resemblance to" John himself "even to the tattooed initials J.T. and a remembered scar."
The corpse's uncanny resemblance had fooled John's father at the coroner's office in Goderich, "and at Hamilton others had also identified it."
"The return of the son alive was almost as great a shock as the report of his death. He had left the Carruthers and had been aboard another vessel at the time of the storm."
"The body which the father had claimed was sent back to Goderich."
So who was "Thompson 2?" Could it have been a clone? But who could have successfully cloned a young Ontario sailor back in 1913?
Or perhaps some sort of strange gateway opened between our world and a parallel Earth on November 9, 1913. "Our" John Thompson missed the Carruthers and shipped out aboard another vessel. On the parallel Earth, "Thompson 2" made it to the dock on time and was aboard the Carruthers when she foundered. And then his lifeless body somehow floated into "our" Lake Huron. A mystery, indeed.
In any event, "our" John Thompson earned the distinction of becoming the only man who ever had a drink at his own funeral! (See the book Lake Huron by Fred Landon, Bobbs-Merrill Co., New York, N.Y., 1944, pages 329-330.)
(Editor's Comment: Last week's story about Chauncey Ney drew some commentary. One reader wrote, "Chauncey Ney's last words--"I love the night life. I want to boogie. Toot-toot. Beep-beep." And another offered this quote from German philosopher Friedrich Neitzche, "I will believe in God only if he dances." That was strange...even for Neitzche.)
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." 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.
