UFO ROUNDUP Volume 7 Number 01
Volume 7
Number 1
January 1, 2002
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-mail: Masinaigan@aol.com
AS I WAS SAYING BEFORE I WAS SO RUDELY INTERRUPTED...
No need to get too wordy about it. As you can see, UFO Roundup is back. We're starting a new volume in a new year, and we're hoping for a slightly longer run than we had in 2001. I have a few more remarks, but I'll save them for the end.
Right now, we have some phenomena to cover.
CESSNA DISAPPEARS IN THE LAKE MICHIGAN TRIANGLE
A small Cessna airplane, with four people aboard, disappeared over Lake Michigan in early December 2001.
"A search for four people, missing since their small rented airplane apparently plunged into Lake Michigan on Sunday," December 9, 2001, near Wilmette Harbor was suspended shortly after sundown Monday," December 10, 2001.
"The Coast Guard Group Milwaukee failed to turn up any sign of the missing single-engine Cessna aircraft that was carrying four people, including three licensed pilots, from Dayton, Ohio to Racine, Wisconsin."
"The Coast Guard identified three of the missing as Roger Licht, 61, of Kenosha, Wis. and husband and eife, Adam and Susan Bukowski, both 20, of Cudahy, Wis. The name of a third man, from Kenosha, was witheld pending notification of family members."
"A group of officers from the Chicago Police Marine Unit assisted Coast Guard helicopters and a utility boat in the 572-square-mile search" of Lake Michigan. "Coast Guard Auxiliary airplanes also participated."
"Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Todd Gatlin said a person could be expected to survive a few hours in the 45-degree (Fahrenheit) water depending on the type of clothing worn and the safety equipment at hand. Early Monday morning, Gatlin said the reasonable point of survival, given the best-case scenario, had passed."
"Licht's son Marty said his father was a flight instructor with 30 years' experience."
"Adam Bukowski was a student of Licht's who had recently earned his pilot's license and was working toward a commercial rating, which would have allowed him to fly larger, commercial planes, Marty Licht said."
"The third man was a fellow pilot and a close friend of Licht's, and he had more than 20 years' of flying experience, Marty Licht said."
"Officials did not know who was at the controls of the plane at 6:18 p.m. Sunday" December 9, "when it lost contact with a control tower in Elgin," Illinois. "The investigation has been turned over to the National Transportation Safety Board."
"Coast Guard Lt. Richard Sundland said the plane was last spotted on radar at O'Hare International Airport" in Chicago "just after 6 p.m. Sunday. The plane was three to five miles (5 to 8 kilometers) east of Wilmette Harbor when it began losing altitude, dropping from 1,500 feet to 300 feet in less than a minute, Sundland said."
"The four people aboard the plane knew each other and were on a day trip to the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, according to officials." (See the Chicago Tribune for December 11, 2001, "Plane search stops as hope fades," page 7.)
(Editor's Note: This is the latest in a long series of small aircraft that have vanished without a trace over Lake Michigan. For more, read The Great Lakes Triangle by Jay Gourley, Fawcett Gold Medal Books, New York, N.Y., 1977.)
TRIANGULAR UFO SEEN BY A MOTORIST IN OXFORDSHIRE
On Thursday, December 27, 2001, Sarah H. "was driving away from Wytham village, Oxfordshire, UK" on a two-lane country road "towards Botley Interchange, the road running parallel to (Motorway) A34, heading south, at 8:45 p.m."
"The UFO hovered west of the road, remaining in one position," Sarah reported, "The UFO was triangular in shape with one light at each point (corner). It was hovering above Wytham Wood. It was silent. It hovered for approximately four minutes, no higher than 200 feet above the trees. Its fuselage was dark."
Sarah added, "I have no pictorial evidence" of the encounter, and she feels a bit "nervous about being considered a loony." (Email Form Report)
LUMINOUS UFOs VIDEOTAPED IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL
On Wednesday, December 12, 2001, "a UFO was videotaped over the city of Araraquara," in the state of Sao Paulo in southern Brazil. "Several people in the Estadio Ferroviaria in the bairro (district of) Ponte saw 'an object of great luminosity that appeared to have little deviation from its course and altitude as it passed over the city. It disappeared as mysteriously as it forst appeared.'"
Two days later, on Friday, December 14, 2001, "a UFO was filmed over the satellite city (suburb) of Samambaia," near Brazil's national capital of Brasilia, at about 9 p.m. "The object was described as a brilliant white light making circular maneuvers in the sky."
News media contacted CINDACTA (Brazil's NORAD--J.T.) but a spokesman said the agency had seen nothing unudual on their radar screens. (Muito obrigado a Eustaquio Andrea Patounas por esos casos.)
MAJOR UFO FLAP REPORTED IN MEXICO CITY
UFOs dominated the skies over Mexico City and its suburbs last week.
On Saturday, December 15, 2001, at 3 a.m., an AeroMexico Boeing 727 jetliner encountered a glowing UFO over the city of Toluca, near Mexico City. According to Mexican ufologist Alfonso Salazar, "The radars of the control towers at the airports in Toluca and Mexico City detected the intruder at an altitude of 12,000 feet and circling the metropolitan region. An airport official, using binoculars, described the UFO as 'a circular, unusual object' which 'caused great excitement among the air traffic controllers.'"
On Sunday, December 16, 2001, at 7:30 p.m., Pedro Hernandez grabbed his videocamera and began shooting color footage of a UFO flying over the small town of Metepec, near Toluca. According to Hernandez, the UFO "presented bright lights at each corner of its triangular form. The front (of the UFO) was a reddish color but without any lights. The UFO darted about swiftly in the night sky, and we videotaped it for several seconds before it went flying off in the direction of the volcano (Mount) Popocatepetl. The object became lost in the haze of the horizon."
On Monday, December 17, 2001, a UFO "shaped like a sombrero (hat) and with three protuberances on its upper half was seen by various eyewitnesses in the area of Tasquena," another suburb of Mexico City. "According to reports, the UFO flew freely in the skies above the Distrito Federal, ascending and descending up to 200 meters (660 feet) during a period of ten minutes."
On Tuesday, December 18, 2001, at 10 a.m., "several fiery UFOs were seen hovering in the skies above Popocatepetl. Witnesses in Cuernavaca, in the state of Morelos (nearby) said they saw five gleaming UFOs above the volcano."
According to Mexican ufologist Amado Marquez, "the UFOs moved about individually, and witnesses identified five of them during a five-minute viewing period. They were last seen crossing the sky in a triangular formation."
On Wednesday, December 19, 2001, at 1:20 p.m., eyewitness Javier Guevara videotaped an oval UFO freely moving through the sky above Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl," a suburb just east of Mexico City. "The UFO was described as 'an obscure color and presented a dome in the center of its upper surface, with a small protuberance on its lower surface, alternately slowing and accelerating at a dizzying velocity."
Guevara said he videotaped the UFO for four minutes before it disappeared into the eastern horizon. (Muchas gracias a Alfonso Salazar y Eustaquio Andrea Patounas para estas noticias.)
UFO SIGHTED IN YONKERS, N.Y.
On Wednesday, November 28, 2001, at 9:30 p.m., Patrick R. "went outside for a smoke" at his home in Yonkers, N.Y. when he spotted "a UFO moving very slowly upward. I just happened to look up and saw a green line, fairly bright, in a vertical position.. The line seemed to grow and shrink, on and off. The amazing part was how thick the cloud cover was that night. It had to be pretty bright to come through those clouds."
"Anyway, at one point, a plane flying towards the light made it 'go out' or disappear, as we on the ground were able to tell."
"Minutes later, it returned for another interval of maybe five to ten minutes. Another witness told me it seemed to be 'moving like a caterpillar...the bottom would get fatter, then it would get taller, then it would move upward.'"
"I did manage to catch most of the image on my camcorder because it stayed around so long." (Email Form Report)
FAMILY OBSERVES UFOs IN RED BANKS, MISSISSIPPI
On Friday, December 21, 2001, at 12:30 a.m., Jeremy S. and his brother "were in the street" in Red Banks, Mississippi (population 500) "and we saw two bright balls in the sky. The first two were seen to the north. They looked low. We thought they were flashlights at first. We ran up the street to get a closer look."
"When we reached the top of the hill, about 10 bright balls rose from behind the trees to the east. We watched them move north and west towards the first two balls we saw. They stopped to form a motionless triangle, and they held this position for about ten seconds."
"Then individual UFOs would move out and then back into the formation in straight lines. This lasted for about 15 seconds. After this, they all broke formation and moved slowly to the west. They reached a flashing towers and flew back and forth near it. They changed their lights from bright to dim about every 25 seconds. Two dim UFOs flew into a bright UFO and disappeared within it."
"We ran back and got our father, and we went back to the spot down the road where we could see the flashing tower. All the bright-ball-type UFOs were still there. My brother, my father and myself watched the sky for about five more minutes. When we got within a mile of the tower, they all started to fly slowly away in different directions."
Jeremy estimated that the glowing UFOs were "about as high as a passenger aircraft (30,000 feet) and all were slow-moving."
Red Banks is just north of Highway 78 about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Oxford, Miss. (Email Form Report)
OSAMA IN SHAMBHALA?
And the big question of the New Year is: where is the accused terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden?
Bin Laden, 44, the fugitive Saudi millionaire and known as "The Sheikh" to members of his Al-Qaeda underground sect, was last seen in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, after filming the latest of his inspirational cave videos.
Since then, rumors of his fate have abounded. Here are a few
(1) He's Dead, Jim--"Terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden died of a serious lung disease in Afghanistan's Tora Boran mountains earlier this month."
"The Taliban official, who claimed to have attended the low-key funeral of Bin Laden, said that Osama, who suffers from serious complications of a lung disease, succumbed for lack of adequate medical attention, the Pakistan Observer reported."
"Bin Laden's burial was attended by his closest aides, including his most trusted bodyguards, family members and some Taliban friends, he said."
"As his body was lowered into the grave, his bodyguards fired a volley of bullets in the air as a sign of respect." (See the Pakistan Observer for December 26, 2001, "Osama died of lung disease in Tora Bora," page 1.)
(2) He's Alive and Well and Living in Tennessee--"Suspected terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden is alive and probably escaped somewhere to the southern Afghan-Iran border, according to Bin Laden's biographer Hamid Mir." (See the Times of India for December 26, 2001, "Osama still alive, says biographer," page 1.)
(3) Nope, He's in Pakistan--"Confusion about whether Osama Bin Laden is alive and, if so, over his whereabouts increased Thursday (December 27, 2001) amid claims from an Afghan official that he might be in Pakistan and the release of a videotape the terrorist leader may have made two weeks ago."
"Mohammed Abeel, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, said Bin Laden was being sheltered in Pakistan by friends of Maulana Fazal-ur Rehman, an Islamic fundamentalist with supporters in two provinces (Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier) on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan." (See USA Today for December 28, 2001, "Afghan: Terrorist leader in Pakistan," page 1.)
(Editor's Note: Rehman is the leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam sect. He was imprisoned in September by Pakistani president Gen. Pervez Musharraf for supporting the Taliban of Afghanistan.)
(4) Maybe He's in France--"Osama Bin Laden plans a TV suicide that will trigger attacks on landmarks in London, Paris and the U.S."
"His estranged wife, Sabiha, said last night he would order one of his elder sons to shoot him rather than be captured."
"Sabiha, 45, added, 'That will be the signal for a new war of terror. The targets this time will be the Capitol in Washington (D.C.), Big Ben in London and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.'"
(Editor's Note: Bin Laden has 15 children by his four wives. His designated successors are his sons, Abdullah and Hamza Ali.)
But there's another possibility. Osama Bin Laden and his fellow fugitive and son-in-law, Mohammed Mullah Omar, might be hiding out in Shambhala.
Shambhala is Sanskrit for place of peace and tranquility. "Though its true location has never been found, Shambhala is recognized and honored by at least eight major religions and is regarded by most esoteric traditions as the true center of the planet...It is said to be inhabited by adepts from every race and culture who form an inner circle that secretly guides human evolution."
In his book Shambhala, Oasis of Light, Andrew Tomas wrote that this remarkable "secret kingdom" existed both above and below ground in somewhere in central Asia, either in or close to Afghanistan, "with a network of tunnels hundreds of miles long. Cars of strange design flash along their length, and they are illumined by a brilliant artificial light which affords growth to the grains and vegetables and long life without disease to the people."
In her book Shambhala, Victoria LePage "says that many marvels are supposed to have been seen in this underground world: museums, libraries, stores of jewels and technological inventions thousands of years ahead of their time. And, according to ancient Chinese lore, the aircraft and space vehicles of the Immortals of Shambhala journey among the stars."
LePage thought Mount Belukha was the mythical Mount Meru of ancient Indian lore. She wrote, "Within the magic ring of myth, the cosmic mountain is pre-eminent, both for its universality and its spiritual resonance. It has figured in the mythology of every race on earth and has been revered even in lands where there are no mountains. It is always pictured as the Axis Mundi and as bearing the habitats of sages, saints or gods upon its sides."
The Hindu Kurma Purana identifies Afghanistan as Sweta-divepa, the White Island which sits in a now-vanished inland sea, "the paradiasical homeland of mahayogis possessed of supreme wisdom and learning."
In his book The Children of Mu, Col. James Churchward revealed that his guru, an aged Hindu rishi, told him that the ancient tunnels of Afghanistan were dug back in 20,000 B.C. by the now-extinct Uighur Empire. Some of these tunnels lead directly to Shambhala.
According to Pashtun legend, there are three "secret entrances" to the Uighur tunnels hidden in the region. The hardest-to-find of these is somewhere in the valley of Shah-e-Monjan, located 200 kilometers (120 miles) northeast of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.
A second "entry cave" is near Qala Panja, a mountain village at a high altitude of 3,660 meters (12,000 feet), about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Kunduz. This area received its first visit from Europeans when the British explorers, Percival Lord and Dr. John Wood, passed through on February 19, 1838 on their expedition up the Oxus River, now the Gilgin River.
Across the border in Pakistan is the most well-known "entry cave," located near the mysterious ruins of Mahor Gahr in Kashmir. The ruins border Mansar Lake and may be the actual site of a scene from the Hindu epic Mahabharata.
In one chapter, the hero Anjuna launched a fiery missile that hit the ground at Mansar. The same missile exploded out of the ground at Surinsar, about 35 kilometers (21 miles) away. The present Mansar and Surinsar lakes were formed in the craters of the two explosions. Each lake is four kilometers (two-and-a-half miles) in circumference.
Did Osama and his son-in-law take refuge in Shambhala after fleeing Kandahar?
Unfortunately for interested pilgrims, there are no signposts helpfully pointing out the caves. Like they say in Qala Panja, "You don't find the Shambhalans. They find you." (See also Atlantis Rising Number 21, "The Search for Shambhala," page 42, and Atlantis Rising Number 31, "The Ancient Heart of Central Asia," page 24.)
STRANGE DREAMS OF THE MULLAHS
September 11, 2001--the image is stark, stunning and unforgetable--a modern jetliner crashing into a tower at the World Trade Center in New York City.
Seeing it on live TV as jarring enough. But some of the mullahs of Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network claim to have seen the exact same scene in their dreams a year ago.
On Saturday, December 15, 2001, the Bush administration released the full text of a videotape the CIA claimed to have taken of Osama Bin Laden in Kandahar in November. During the discussion with his aides of the WTC events, Osama mentioned several strange incidents of prophetic dreams among the Al-Qaeda faithful.
On tape, Osama said an aide, Abu Al-Hasan Al-Masri, "told me a year ago: 'I saw in a dream, we were playing a soccer (futbol in Latin America) game against the Americans. When our team showed up in the field, they were all pilots!' He said, 'So I wondered if that was a soccer game or a pilot game? Our players were pilots.' He (Al-Hasan) didn't know anything about the operation until he heard it on the radio. He said the game went on, and we defeated them. That was a good omen for us."
Another mullah, Abd Al-Rahman Al-Ghamri "said he saw a vision before the operation--a plane crashed into a tall building."
Abu Daud, a Taliban cadre, also reported a precognitive dream: According to Osama, "He (Abu Daud) told me that he saw, in a dream, a tall building in America, and in the same dream he saw Mukhtar teaching them karate. At this point, I was worried that maybe the secret would be revealed if everyone starts seeing it in their dream. So I closed the subject. I told him if he sees another dream, not to tell anybody because people will be upset with him."
(Editor's Comment: Apparently Osama believes precognition is contagious.)
And unidentified Taliban woman in Kandahar also "recounted a dream about two planes hitting a big building." (See the Duluth News-Tribune for December 16, 2001, "Text of the Bin Laden videotape," page 5A.)
>From the UFO Files...
1962: THE PHANTOM TRUCKER OF GENEVIEVE, ILLINOIS
Among the strange "highway apparitions" here in the USA is the phenomenon of the phantom trucker. These are ghostly presences who appear to motorists stranded in big snowstorms and facilitate a rescue. This week UFO Roundup presents a classic report of that kind...
"It was January 1962," forty years ago, and Mrs. Pat Barker was on the move. She recalled, "My husband Quincy, who was in the (U.S.) Air Force had been stationed in Germany. When he was reassigned to the States, we had to travel with our two children, Tammy, 3, and Larry, 5."
"It was a bitter-cold January and we were headed from New York to Nellis Air Force base in Las Vegas (Nevada). Little Larry was gravely ill."
"We were stuck in a motel in Genevieve, Illinois. The temperature dipped to 18 below zero (Fahrenheit) and our son was spiking a fever and throwing up blood. We had taken him to the doctor earlier in the day and he'd prescribed medicine, which I administered every few hours."
"Just in case Larry took a turn for the worse, Quincy went outside every few hours and started the car so the engine wouldn't freeze up. The doctor told us to bring Larry back the following day and he'd let us know if we could continue our journel or if our sick son would have to be admitted to a hospital."
"It was a long, cold night, and as dawn came, Quincy went out again. This time our worst fear came true. The car wouldn't start and it was snowing heavily."
"'What are we going to do?' I asked with a mother's desperation."
"As if to answer my question, someone knocked on the door just at that moment. A tall, burly man stood outside and said, 'I'm a trucker. I noticed your car wouldn't start. I think I can help.'"
"Quincy was startled. He hadn't left the car hood (bonnet in UK-J.T.) open, indicating trouble, nor had he noticed a truck nearby. Certainly he hadn't asked anyone for help."
"Together they walked outside, and the trucker pulled a can of ether from his pocket. One quick squirt on the carburetor and the engine started right up."
"Amazed and delighted, Quincy turned to thank the man, but he had vanished."
"When my husband returned to the motel room, he said, 'I went all the way to the road looking for tire tracks, and there were none!'"
"Looking back almost 40 years, we are still awestruck to think how this person came out of nowhere, helped us, then disappeared into thin air! If he wasn't an angel, what was he?" (See the tabloid The Examiner for March 27, 2001, "Mystery trucker started our frozen car--and then vanished into thin air," page 43.)
A BRIEF WORD FROM YOUR EDITOR:
When I first began the UFO Roundup back in February 1996--a time which will undoubtedly go down in history as the era of "the JonBenet Simpson bombing"--I treated it as sort of a lark. It wasn't until Volume 1, Number 12 that I began to have some idea of the newsletter's impact on the UFO community not only in the USA and UK but worldwide.
However, it wasn't until May of 2001, when I was forced to put a halt to the newsletter because of serious vision problems that I truly began to realize just how important UFO Roundup has become. Following the hiatus announcement, I was literally floored by the number of emails from readers and well-wishers. It left me stunned, grateful and, most importantly, humbled by your expressions of thanks and encouragement.
I had the operations in August and October, and my vision has improved to the extent that I can again do the work of writing and editing the newsletter. So we are off again in our quest for information about UFOs, aliens, strange disappearances, vile vortices, out-of-place animals, time warps, weird paleontology, lost civilizations, unusual sects, spontaneous combustion, angel hair and other skyfalls and anomalous phenomena of every kind catalogued by Fort.
Looks like the Almighty has given me the green light. I only hope that I prove worthy of the trust you readers have placed in me.
Join us again next week for more UFO and paranormal news from all over the planet Earth, and occasionally elsewhere in the solar system, brought to you by "the paper that goes home--UFO Roundup." See you then!
UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 2002 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.
