UFO ROUNDUP Volume 6 Number 02
Volume 6
Number 2
January 11, 2001
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-mail: Masinaigan@aol.com
FAMILY ENCOUNTERS A UFO IN CENTRAL ARGENTINA
On Tuesday, January 2, 2001, at 3:30 a.m., Julio Salguero and his family were driving home to Corralito (population 2,200), small town south of Cordoba in central Argentina. They had spent the New Year's holiday with relatives in Villa Maria and were now on their way home.
Hoping to cut down the travel time, Salguero turned to getting home and sleeping in their own beds.
With Salguero in the car were his wife, his 14-year-old daughter, his 12-year-old son Julio Jr., his two younger children, ages 2 and 1, and his 14-year-old niece.
Hoping to cut down on the travel time, Salguero left the highway west of Villa Maria and took a little-used dirt road across the pampas. An electric power line ran alongside this road.
"When he passed through Rio Tercero, he chose to traverse the 18 kilometers (11 miles) of land devastated by recent floods."
"At the time in question, some 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Corralito, began the experience which he related on the radio talk shows" the following day.
"'We were calmly driving along when suddenly my wife screamed, 'Be careful!' and we saw a light heading straight for us,'" Salguero told the Argentinian newspaper La Voz del Interior. "'I hit the brakes. What I could see was a round, very powerful light, like a welding light, over a meter (4 feet) in diameter. It seemed to be heading straight for the car, but it suddenly stopped and backed off. It remained at the height of the power cables (18 meters or 60 feet) that are now on the side of the road, moving up and down,' he explained."
"Salguero stated that he had not planned to make all of this public, but it became known when a friend from the FM radio station El Sol in Tio Tercero, with whom he had discussed the event."
"'The light lit up everything for a few minutes, without an exaggeration, as if it were broad daylight, due to its intensity. It also rose some 30 meter (100 feet) into the air and suddenly vanished. Neither I nor my family can state which way it went because we'd be lying. What we saw is that it vanished suddenly, like a light being switched off,' he declared, fully aware that his story may be less-than-believable to some."
"'There is a boy named Alejandro Yori, who says he saw a powerful light moving around the pampas all the way from Corralito,' remarked Salguero," adding that his wife and children would corroborate his story.
"Salguero owns a cable-TV system in Corralito and also does electronics work. He is considered a credible individual by his neighbors, and no one in the community believes that he or his family would concoct such a story."
"After calculating that the episode lasted 'two to three minutes,' Salguero said he kept his foot on the brake with the (car's) engine running, and that he signalled with his headlights 'out of despair and for lack of anything better to do, since we were really scared. We couldn't sleep last night,' he remarked."
At 3:30 a.m., while the Salgueros were having their UFO encounter out on the pampas, there were simultaneous and unexplained power failures in Corralito and in nearby Rio Tercero. Both communities are located about 110 kilometers (66 miles) south of Cordoba and about 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Buenos Aires, the national capital.
"'As far as we know, no reason for the power outages has been found,' he said."
"Salguero described himself as 'a believer in God' and remarked that he neither reads nor is interested in UFO- related subjects and that he would rather not have had the experience. "I don't drink. Besides, there's not just my word, there's my wife and children and niece.'"
"Twelve-year-old Julio Jr. told the newspaper, that he saw 'a light hovering over the high voltage line on the roadside that evening.' He added that 'it was white and didn't seem to be so large, but it cast a lot of light. It then became larger and changed colors , becoming more blue, sky blue, and then violet until it disappeared all of a sudden.'"
"He added that he saw the light 30 meters (100 feet) from the car. I was very scared,' he admitted."
"According to the Falda de Carmen (scientific) research station, there was a similar incident in Corralito ten years ago," back in 1990. (See the newspaper La Voz del Interior for January 5, 2001.
(Muchas gracias a Scott Corrales, autor de los libros Chupacabras and Other Mysteries y Forbidden Mexico, y tambien Gloria Coluchi, para eso articulo de diario.)
HOVERING UFO SIGHTED IN NEW SOUTH WALES
On Monday, January 1, 2001, at 3:20 a.m., Kylie Petsky was driving on the Pacific Highway north of Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia when she spotted an intense bright white light on the west side of the highway.
"I was driving on the highway between Emerald Beach and Sandy Beach when I saw a bright white light, round in shape, as large as a car, hovering in the west, then moving to the east across the highway," Kylie reported, "The UFO followed my car for ten minutes.. It was a real bright white light but it was not blinking. The light appeared suddenly, hovered, then moved to the other (east) side of the highway, seemed to follow my car for ten minutes, disappeared suddenly."
Coffs Harbour, N.S.W. is located about 329 kilometers (200 miles) north of Sydney. (Email Form Report)
TWO HOVERING UFOs CAUGHT ON VIDEOTAPE IN CANADA
On Monday, January 1, 2000, "sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m.," Nathan Wright and a few companions were outdoors on Manitoulin Island, a large island in northern Lake Huron, just south of Canada's Ontario province.
Suddenly, Nathan spotted two curious lights in the southwestern sky. "There were two lights and they hovered over the southwestern part of the island," he reported, "One light had a double tail and a very bright center. Yellowish, I would say. We were looking toward the southwest part of the island. I distinctly saw two objects-- one looked like a comet--but they did not move."
Nathan immediately grabbed a videocamera and began shooting. "I also caught them on videotape for about 30 to 60 seconds. They were bright yellowish and there was no sound." (Email Form Report)
(Editor's Note: Manitoulin Island is a sacred site in Midewiwin, the traditional religion of the Anishinabe, an indigenous people of the USA and Canada. They are also known as Chippewa or Ojibwe.)
TRIANGULAR UFO SIGHTED IN SOUTH CENTRAL INDIANA
On Friday, January 5, 2001, eyewitness G.E.D. was driving east on Indiana Highway 45 between Bloomington (population 65,000) and New Unionville (population 2,000) when, he reported, "I saw a very Unusual aircraft on my way home from work. I saw a bright yellow light with a white light, maybe not as bright, hovering in the sky. There were two red lights on top, none on the belly. So I rounded a bend and I saw that the craft was about 50 feet (15 meters) above treetop (level), crossing the road from right (south) to left (north). directly overhead."
"I pulled off to watch and noticed that other vehicles behind me had also done the same. There was no noise. I rolled down my window to listen. Nothing. As the craft passed over my car, I got a quick look at it against the night sky 'light pollution' from Bloomington. It was triangle-shaped with a white light at each of the three wing tips (corners) and appeared to be black in color. A mile or so down the road, the snow looked (as if it had been) blown across the road like drifting. The rest of the road was clear. I thought 'copter' (helicopter) at first until I saw the thing. Not like anything I had ever seen."
Bloomington is approximately 68 miles (111 kilometers) south of Indianapolis. (Many thanks to Steve Wilson Sr. for this report.)
COUPLE SEES A UFO IN VENTURA, CALIFORNIA
On Saturday, January 6, 2001, at 9:15 p.m., Warren L. was driving to dinner with his girlfriend when "my girlfriend pointed at an odd 'aircraft' in the sky," he reported, "We immediately got out of the car to get a better look. At once I knew it was not an aircraft, as we known an aircraft to be."
"The object was a mix between rectangle, triangle and parallelogram. That is, we could not definitely describe or perceive its shape. It was dark-colored (like a USA military Stealth bomber--W.L--a constant leading-edge light, a constant trailing-edge light, and a repeatedly flashing middle light. All lights were white."
Warren heard a strange "almost imperceptible" sound as the craft passed overhead. "It sounded like an electrical drone or buzzing completely different from that of a prop (propeller) plane. The buzzing sound was not very loud--quite like a small private aircraft at the same distance from us."
"The craft moved in a straight line at approximately 2,000 feet (600 meters) at the speed of a blimp. The speed of the object just does not make sense, because it was going too slow to stay in the air based on current jet technology. (That is, not enough speed to maintain lift for an aircraft of that size--J.T.) The size of the object was the length of my index finger at arm's length. My estimate is that the object was the length of two or three Boeing 747 jetliners in a row. As it moved away into the distance, the leading edge just disappeared. This leads me to believe that the leading light was pointing away from us and could no longer be seen from our position." (Email Form Report)
NASA: SPACECRAFT NEAR TO LAND ON EROS
"NASA scientists plan the first 'controlled descent' of a spacecraft onto an asteroid's surface" in February 2001.
""The landing provides a dramatic finish for a year-long mission to explore Eros, one of the rocky asteroids orbiting near our planet."
"'It's a very risky landing,' says mission head Robert Farquhar of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, USA. 'But the mission is ending, so we might as well try something spectacular.'"
The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (BEAR) "spacecraft is running out of fuel and has accomplished nearly all of its scientific goals."
"'Basically, we're out of money, out of time and we'll be out of fuel,' Farquhar says."
On February 12, "controllers plan to land the spacecraft in a series of rocket firings to slow its descent. The spacecraft has circled Eros since Valentine's Day last year (February 14, 2000) capturing unparalleled looks at the surface of an asteroid. The mission has revealed surprising complexity in the asteroid's composition, Farquhar says. For instance, scientists learned that geologic activity of some unknown form reshapes the asteroid's surface."
"Eros, a potato-shaped rock about 21 miles (34 kilometers) long, circles the sun on an eccentric path that takes it from within 12 million miles of Earth's orbit to a spot outside the orbit of mars, where it is now, 150 million miles out from the sun," or about 52 million miles from Earth.
"If the landing succeeds, the probe will return little information aside from its position, perhaps serving as a beacon for later explorers," sort of like a "space buoy."
""Images of the surface" of Eros "from an altitude of only 1,640 feet should result from the landing--allowing resolution of features as small as 4 inches (10 centimeters) across." (See USA Today for January 8, 2001, "NASA shoots for 'spectacular' landing," page 1.)
MIRACULOUS FLOWERS SPROUT ON A GOLD STATUE IN SOUTH KOREA
"Flowers that bloom only once every 3,000 years are budding on the head of a sacred Buddhist statue."
Buddhist priests in South Korea "say the legendary flowers blossoming on the forehead of Kian Yin the Compassionate" only appear "when the 'Sage King of the Future' (also known as Maitreya, the future Buddha--J.T.) comes into the world," which one Buddhist leader called, "a delight that gives joy beyond description."
"The Miracle of the Flowers, as it's now being called, happened in the Chonggyesa Temple," in a suburb of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. "Tens of thousands of pilgrims are flocking to see the white blossoms on the tip of the eyebrow of the shining, gilded statue of Kuan Yin."
"'Kuan Yin is a gentle Buddhist deity who refused to enter paradise (Nirvana--J.T.) because she heard the cries of suffering humanity,' says religious expert Dr. Kenneth Ireland (No relation to Kathy--J.T.) 'She is acknowledged to save the soul of everyone on Earth, turning her back on none.'"
""'Many are now saying that the monastery of Chonggye-sa could become the Buddhist Lourdes because many cures are being performed there.'"
"According to the monks, 21 threadlike stems are growing from the statue of Kuan Yin, each with a tiny white flower 'no bigger than the tip of a ballpoint pen.'"
"This is the first time in the 1,000-year history of the monastery that the flowers have blossomed."
"'Buddhists say sighting the flowers is like witnessing the birth of Buddha,'" he added.
"Experts say it's unthinkable that the 500-year-old statue of Kuan Yin, gilded every three years over the (original) woodwork, could produce growing flowers without divine intervention."
"'Botanically, the flower is related to the ficus,' says botanist William Grant, 'There is just no way it could take root in the statue.'"
"Dr. Ireland says the flowers are regarded as divine in India, Japan and China and are believed to bloom only when a momentous event is about to happen."
"Buddhist monks are currently keeping a prayer vigil at the statue, waiting for the event that will change mankind's future forever." (See the tabloid newspaper Sun for January 9, 2001, "Miracle of the Flowers," page 16.)
READER FEEDBACK:
UFOLOGIST DOUBTS TRUTH OF BAKERSFIELD UFO STORY
Larry Hatch writes, "You may want to touch up the geography in one California case."
"There is no desert north of Bakersfield, CA, just farmland. There is no 'Pine Mountain' in California, neither a town nor a landmark" according to "the most recent U.S.G.S. (U.S. Geodetic Survey) National Gazeteer of the USA."
(Editor's Comment: There is, however, a 'Pine Mountain' shown north of Bakersfield in the 1997 Rand-McNally Road Atlas, page 12. Perhaps a California reader can explain this discrepancy.)
"There is only one Highway 97 i193California, CA S.R. 193, which runs east and west of Auburn, CA. and the Sierra foothills east of Sacramento. No desert here at all."
"The witness said he was seeing 'three lights flying in repeated circles. They flew in formation for a while, then flew away. (The witness was) North of Bakersfield between Highways 193 and 36." (See UFO Roundup, volume 5, number 52, "Californians report two new UFO sightings," page 6.)
"There is only one Highway 36 in California, CA S.E. 36, which runs between Fortuna and Eureka and Red Bluff, again way up in northern California. CA 193 and 36 are at least 70 miles apart (as the crow flies--L.H.) at their closest points."
"Both are hundreds of miles from Bakersfield and neither are they anywhere near a desert, nor to one another."
"His daughter was a student in Santa Cruz,. He called her dorm 'on his cell phone' and she said she could see it from her dorm window.'"
"Santa Cruz, CA is hundreds of miles northwest of Bakersfield on the Pacific Coast, south of the San Francisco Bay area. Santa Cruz is 15- to 250 miles southwest of CA 193 and 36 It is a bit doubtful that the coed could see it from her dorm window."
"Maybe the correspondent is pulling your leg." (Editor's Note: As of this writing, the source has not offered any commentary on Larry Hatch's precise, point-by-point refutation of those claims.)
ADELAIDE HILLS IS NOT IN THE A.C.T.
Concerning the Australian UFO report in UFO Roundup, volume 6, number 1, Peter Johnson writes, "Since when has the A.C.T. (Australian Capital Territory--J.T.) been anywhere near Adelaide, S.A.?" "Seems someone got their facts wrong?"
1985: REPTOID HALL
Concordia College is a quiet school located in rural Moorhead, Minnesota, about 19 miles (16 kilometers) east of Fargo, North Dakota. There's not much to distinguish Concordia from many small schools in the USA's Upper Midwest. But there is one thing that makes Concordia College unique.
Hoyum Hall, one of the girls' dorms at Concordia, appears to be home to a colony of Reptoids.
Over the years, there have been a number of strange Reptoid sightings at Hoyum.
In late January of 1986, freshman Amanda Flynn (all names have been changed to protect the ladies' privacy--J.T.) was in the bathroom, clad in her underwear, washing her hair in preparation for a date that night.
Amanda was leaning over the sink, scrubbing her shampoo-lathered hair with her fingers. Suddenly, she felt a thumb and forefinger pinch the elastic waistband of her panties. The chilly fingers pulled the waistband far back and let fly. Snap!
"Owww!" Looking at the mirror, Amanda saw "a hooded and caped figure behind her, reflected in the mirror." The hood shadowed much of his face, revealing a gaunt dark green reptilian chin and thin, lipless mouth. The black cape hid much of his body, showing only a glimpse of a scaly chest.
Amanda gasped out loud. Then she got angry, thinking it was probably some fraternity brother from Fargo. Lifting her hand, she spun around instantly. "You son of a--!"
Amanda's intended slap passed through empty air.
There was no one behind her.
In March of 1988, freshman Kathy Oberg returned to Hoyum from her early morning jog and decided to take a shower. Soon she was in an upstairs bathroom, soaking herself beneath the streaming showerhead.
Suddenly, Kathy became aware of a shadow blocking the bathroom lights. Turning around, she saw "the mysterious figure hovering above the shower door." The sight of those scaly three-fingered hands gripping the shiny aluminum door frame sent a burst of panic through her. She let out a scream they could have heard in Minneapolis.
In late February of 1989, sophomore Nancy Petersen had "attended all her classes, endured a full hour of orchestra rehearsal, and then worked in the cafeteria line to earn her board. She's tired, but she has to study a good three-and-a-half hours in a dorm full of girls before she can go to bed."
"Then, more than ready for sleep," Nancy "climbs up to her loft and flops down. She reaches to pull up her blanket," but a shadowy pair of hands moves the blanket toward her, covering her to her shoulders.
Thinking it was her roommate, Nancy murmured, "Thanks, Margie."
But as her head nestled on the pillow, Nancy's eyes popped wide open. Hold it! Since when does Margie have only three fingers!? Nancy sat up instantly. "There, at the foot of the bed, on the same ladder she just climbed up seconds ago, is the horrid figure."
Nancy was "sure the door was locked when she came back from the bathroom. Was there a ghost in the dorm?"
On a warm night in early May of 1993, freshman Angela Tarohachi was awakened from a sound sleep by the sound of metallic rattles. Blinking sleepily, she peered over the rim of her top bunk and saw a shadowy female figure standing there. Oh, my God! Angela thought, It's that ghost they told me about last September!
While Angela watched. the lock tumblers rattled again, and the latch moved as if by magic. The silent, motionless female figure stood at least four feet away. She didn't touch the door at all. The door swung silently open, and the female departed.
Deciding to wake her roommate, Jenny Lou Reilly, Angela whispered, "Jenny! Jenny, wake up! I just saw the ghost!"
There was no answer. Angela peered toward the bottom bunk. It was empty. Jenny Lou was gone.
The door, though, was still open. After climbing down the ladder, Angela put on her bathrobe and rushed into the hallway. There, at the window, stood her sophomore roommate. Jenny Lou's auburn red hair was up in curlers. She was wearing long black opera gloves, thigh-high fishnet stockings, black dress pumps, a black choker--and nothing else.
"Jenny! What are you doing!?" Angela cried, rushing down the hallway.
But then Angela got an even bigger surprise. Her red-haired roommate was standing in front of the window, sound asleep.
"I waved my hand in front of her nose--nothing. Jen was really out of it," Angela recalled, "I didn't know what to do. They say you're not supposed to wake sleepwalkers, that they'll go back to bed on their own. Well, I couldn't just leave her standing there. If any boys had come by outside, they would have freaked out. So I went back to our room for her terrycloth robe."
No sooner had Angela returned than her roommate began sleepwalking again, wandering the corridors of Hoyum Hall, with her freshman roommate tagging along behind.
"We must have wandered the building for at least a half an hour," Angela recalled, "Occasionally, Jen would mutter something unintelligible. Or she'd stop in the hallway, turn and face the wall, and start pressing different points on it with each hand. Or she'd just stand there, as if she was waiting for an elevator or a door to open. It was plenty weird, believe me. Finally, she went back to our room, sat down on her bed, slowly took off her shoes and slid under the blankets. A minute later, she was snoring."
The following morning, Angela questioned her roommate about the episode, and "Jenny Lou looked at me as if I had three heads. 'So where did you get the opera gloves?' I asked her. When she saw what she was wearing, Jenny Lou's face turned redder than a tomato. Boy, she was just sooooo embarrassed."
Yet Jenny Lou Reilly had never had a sleepwalking episode before--not even as a small child. She had no recollection of the previous night's events. Nor could she explain how she had come by her unusual attire.
In addition to the Reptoids, Hoyum Hall has been plagued by many poltergeist manifestations.
"Sometimes students who are known for their neat rooms will find them out of order, clothing and books and papers strewn all over the floor. Locked doors open slowly in the early evening hours. Or radios and TVs are blaring when their owners are sure they turned them off when they left their rooms. Sometimes, even in midwinter, when the heat is on in the rooms and halls, a cold draft or a cold spot will be felt, always in the same part of the same rooms. Some of the girls wake up to hear their names being called out, but there's no one around and the hall is perfectly quiet."
Such is life at Concordia College's "Reptoid Hall." (See the book Ghostly Tales of Minnesota by Ruth D. Hein, Adventure Publications, Cambridge, Minn., 1992, pages 63 to 65.)
We'll be back next week with more UFO and paranormal news from around the planet Earth, brought to you by "the paper that goes home--UFO Roundup." See you in seven days.
