UFO ROUNDUP Volume 7 Number 49
Volume 7
Number 49
December 3, 2002
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-mail: Masinaigan@aol.com
NEW CATTLE MUTILATION IN NORTHERN ARGENTINA
"In the El Oso wilderness of the department of Aguirre, a cow was found with mutilations of the head and genitalia. This event is quite similar to the discovery made in June of this year (2002) in the Quimilioj pasture 16 kilometers (10 miles) south of Garza in the department of Moreno," near Santiago del Estero in northern Argentina.
"The mutilated animal was discovered last Sunday (November 10, 2002) in a field 32 kilometers (20 miles) south of Malbrun and is the property of Oscar Suarez."
"Suarez told (the newspaper) El Liberal: 'The cow was missing the hide off its maxillaries (jawbones), the tongue and left eye, one ear and four teats, but the remainder (of the animal--S.C.) was quite sound even though it had been dead for several days.'"
"He likewise stated that no locals saw or heard anything unusual for several kilometers around. The owner is startled because 'it's odd that no carrion animals, no vultures or crows, have turned up, which they do whenever a carcass is present.'"
"The cow's body was inside the El Oso ranch along an internal road that runs parallel to the barbed-wire fence. 'On Wednesday the (November) 6th, we let the animal out of its pen, and I found it on Sunday the (November) 10th. It had apparently been dead for some two days.'"
"Another detail that drew Suarez's attention is that when he returned on Wednesday (November 13, 2002) to where the animal was found, it was still intact and had not yet decomposed in spite of the days elapsed and the intensely hot weather."
(Editor's Note: Right now it's early summer In Argentina and the other countries of the southern hemisphere.)
"'This is the first time something like it has happened in the region,'" Suarez said.
"He dismissed the possibility that cattle rustlers could have been involved 'because when they are involved, they take the meat and all of the animal's useful organs for sale, but that didn't happen here since the cow was whole with all of its hide.'"
"As a casual remark, Oscar Suarez related that a local advised him that this could be either the work of a Martian or the Devil, 'but locals saw nothing strange.'"
(See the Argentinian newspaper El Liberal of Santiago del Estero for November 15, 2002. Muchas gracias a Scott Corrales y Gloria Coluchi para eso articulo de diario.)
(Editor's Comment: Welcome to South America--Still a Target Week here at UFO Roundup. As with last week, alien activity remains at an all-time high on the big southern continent.)
MORE UFO SIGHTINGS REPORTED IN CHILE
On Thursday, November 21, 2002, "at 10 p.m., Luis Sepulveda Castro, a security guard at a corporate warehouse" in San Vicente de Tagua Tagua in Chile "left the building to look at the sky and was able to see a strange object moving in a northwest to southwest direction."
"Using binoculars, he was able to make out the following details: (1) the object was spherical in shape with a red-colored base (lower hemisphere--J.T.) giving off intermittent green flashes from its upper section (upper hemisphere); and (2) the object moved very slowly."
Sepulveda's "observation had a total duration of 45 minutes."
In the city of Angol, in southern Chile, yet another UFO sighting was reported. Angol has been the site of an ongoing UFO flap for the past two years.
On Wednesday, September 18, 2002, "Juan Carlos Beltran Gonzalez, 37, was in the dining room at the Alberto Larraguibel Morales Sports Facility, having lunch with his friends, Cristian Aguilar Flores, 30, a traveling salesman, and Miguel Albaran Poblete, 22, a college student. Two unnamed security guards were also present."
Suddenly, "the witnesses saw a luminous orange object in the sky from whose edges there emitted a ruby (red) light. The witnesses calculated that the object was flying over 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) in elevation (altitude--J.T.) and moved in a west to east direction," heading for the Andes mountains.
"The object remained suspended overhead until 2:30 p.m., when it suddenly changed course toward the south. Then, abruptly, it changed course once more toward the northwest, forming a triangle (path) in the sky as it followed this route. The object gradually disintegrated as it vanished from sight." (Muchas gracias a Scott Corrales, Guillermo Aguilera y Raul Gajardo para esos informes.)
SPHERICAL UFO SEEN IN CARACAS, VENEZUELA
On Friday, November 23, 2002, "multiple observers spotted a UFO flying over Caracas," the capital of Venezuela.
"According to the report, the sighting, which occurred on Friday night, November 23, 2002, involved witnesses in different parts of the city. They saw a spherical UFO approximately 40 meters (133 feet) in diameter."
"One witness, Zuly Suju, said the UFO had rotating lights along its equator and temporarily hovered over their neighborhood before departing to the west." (See NotiOVNI for November 24, 2002. Muchas gracias a Martha Rosenthal y Daniel Munoz para eso informe.)
NORAD SCRAMBLES F-16s TO INTERCEPT A UFO
"The military command responsible for the defense of North American airspace scrambled fighter jets in response to unverified reports of an airborne condensation trail, or contrail, moving from the Caribbean (Sea) to the United States, defense officials said Thursday," November 28, 2002.
"Lt. Col. Michael Humm, a Pentagon spokesman, said the incident happened Wednesday," November 27, 2002, "and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado Springs, Colo. was continuing to investigate."
"The reported contrail stirred concern that it could have indicated the presence of an unauthorized jet aircraft in or approaching American airspace. After the September 11 (2001) attacks, the Pentagon has taken greater precautions to monitor U.S. airspace."
"A contrail is created by vapor from a jet engine in the presence of cold air."
"The jets that were scrambled to attempt to intercept and identify the source of the contrail found nothing, said Lt. Cmdr. Curtis Jenkins, a NORAD spokesman. He said NORAD had developed no new information since the initial report at 3 p.m. Wednesday. NORAD is reviewing data from its tracking radars in search of evidence, he said."
"A Pentagon statement said NORAD received unverified reports of 'what appeared to be a contrail of unknown origin,' originally in the vicinity of the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean."
"'Initially, it was reported to be heading northwestward toward the United States,' the statement said. 'Commercial airline pilots later reported the contrail over Florida and later over Indiana. Thereafter, no other sightings were reported.'"
"The reported contrail was never verified by visual or radar contact, the Pentagon statement said." (See the Duluth, Minn. News-Tribune for November 29, 2002, "Fighter jets scrambled to intercept reported contrail, but find nothing," page 6A.)
HOVERING UFO SIGHTED IN THE UKRAINE
On Monday, November 18, 2002, at about 6 a.m., "a bright object was noticed hovering stationary over the eastern part of the Crimean Autonomous Republic," in the southern Ukraine. The UFO was spotted east-southeast of Simferopol, a large city on the Black Sea peninsula called the Crimea.
"The object was several times brighter than the planet Venus and was approximately 30 degrees above the horizon. At 6:10 a.m., it suddenly vanished, like an electrical lamp being switched off. The last detail clearly indicates that it was a UFO and not Venus just covered by cloud--the object died out very sharply, not gradually."
Ukrainian ufologists believe that "alien activity could be present here (something like 'portals' used by UFOs detected above the Iograf Mountains north of Yalta and near Northern Demerdzhi Mountain--A.A.), as well as some kind of 'alien navigation beacon' very likely serving to indicate approaches to those portals."
An area of interest to Ukrainian ufologists is the east slope of Mount Ayju-Dag in the Crimea, where just such an "alien beacon" is believed to be hidden. "I myself saw three strange dots of light on the eastern slope of Mount Ayju-Dag in 2001, and there are absolutely nothing like houses, frontier guard posts, etc. in the area," ufologist Anton A. Anfalov reported.
Local scientists said the bright light was the star Sirius, but Anfalov pointed out that Sirius and planets such as Venus, Jupiter and Mars were all in other parts of the sky when the sighting occurred. (Many thanks to Anton A. Anfalov of Ukrainian UFO Research Association (UKUFAS) for this report.)
UFOs CONTINUE ACTIVITY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
On Saturday, November 23, 2002, two separate witnesses "reported seeing some strange lights on Thron Hill mountain," just west of Terrace, British Columbia, Canada, which has been the site of numerous UFO sightings during 2002.
"Five people witnessed the UFOs," ufologist Brian Vike reported, "The weather conditions were good--clear but rather windy. One of the witnesses said the object or light was approximately double the size of the planet Venus. White in color. All of the witnesses watched the light for approximately 10 to 15 seconds while it grew smaller in size and disappeared."
Sightings have also been reported in remote regions outside the Telkwa River valley. On Tuesday, October 22, 2002, at 10:25 p.m., two men were driving on a dirt road in Topley Landing, just south of Granisle, B.C. As they were driving along the beach at Babine Lake, they spotted a strange light a mile (1.6 kilometers) away, hovering over the old Bell Copper mine.
The witnesses "observed a large, glowing, orange-gold, almost saucer-shaped object hovering right over the top of the old Bell Copper mine. At this point, they pulled over to have a look and try to figure out what they were seeing. As they watched the object hover, it would rise up very slowly and come to a complete stop, move sideways and then stop, and drop down roughly to the same height from the ground" where the witnesses had first seen it.
"At one point, the light moved out over the lake and stopped for a few seconds, then went back over the mine once more."
"They estimated that the UFO 'was about the size of the moon, maybe a hair smaller.' They said the ground area around the object was 'lit up for some distance.' Also, due to the brightness of the craft, it cast a reflection in the lake. The men watched the event for approximately seven minutes." (Many thanks to Canadian ufologist Brian Vike for these reports.)
ORANGE UFO SIGHTED IN LEMOYNE, PENNSYLVANIA
On Tuesday, November 19, 2002, at 7 p.m., eyewitness J.H. saw a strange light approaching from the east in Lemoyne, Pennsylvania (population 3,995), just west and across the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg, the state capital.
"An orange light object similar to an aircraft approach light appeared and slowly moved in a southwesterly direction," he reported, "The object disappeared and then reappeared within about five seconds. The object then moved southward, and its altitude became lower. I lost track of the object behind some trees in the foreground. It had a white light and a blue light. The orange object finally seemed to drop behind the treeline and disappeared." (Email Form Report)
TWO SAUCERS SEEN IN NORTH CAROLINA
On Wednesday, November 13, 2002, at 7:30 p.m., eyewitness A.T. saw two faintly luminous saucers hovering above her property in Smithfield, North Carolina (population 11,510), located on Interstate Highway I-40 about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Raleigh.
"It was in my backyard," she reported, "I had got up off my bed because I saw some lights in the sky. I thought that it was a plane. So I got up and saw two disk-shaped objects hovering in my backyard. They had different colored lights that wrapped around them. The colors were green, yellow, red, white and pink. Then they stayed there for awhile. And then they went to the right. They were going slow, then picked up speed. They were at eye level. They were really going slow, then slowly picked up speed." (Email Form Report)
FAST-MOVING UFO SPOTTED IN OMAHA, NEBRASKA
On Wednesday, November 27, 2002, at 11:20 p.m., eyewitness A.W. and her brother were about to make a quick trip to the video store in Omaha, Nebraska (population 390,000) when she spotted something unusual in the sky.
"I went out to my brother's car so we could drop off a movie at the video store," she reported, "And he was only heating up the car. So I just went to the end of the driveway. I just looked up and saw something moving extremely fast across the sky. It was very bright, like pure white, or maybe it only seemed that white because there are not many stars you can see from where I live."
"It was very far away, farther away than planes, and I only saw it for a moment. Like, if I would have blinked, I would've missed it. It's hard to say how large it was. I didn't see anything but a bright light, like a comet. But it wasn't a comet because I've seen those before, and this was much different. It was bigger. It reminded me almost of a wide toothpick shape. And then it was just gone, as if nothing was ever there in the first place. Like I said before, it was going a whole lot faster than a jet would." (Email Form Report)
FLURRY OF EARTHQUAKES HAS CALIFORNIA NERVOUS
"The ground started shaking last Sunday morning," November 24, 2002, beneath San Ramon, California (population 44,722) "about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of San Francisco, but there was little concern. The quake measured 3.9 on the Richter scale and left barely a picture on the wall askew. People in California tend to save their worry for 'the big one'--something catastrophic, like the quake that destroyed much of San Francisco in 1906."
"But when another small quake struck" in San Ramon "Sunday night (November 24), and another Monday morning (November 25), and another and another and another--by Friday (November 29, 2002) the United States Geological Survey had registered what it called a 'swarm' of more than 120 quakes--nervousness set in."
"'Earthquakes are primal-fear things,' said Stephanie J. Hanna, the Geological Survey's communications chief for the Western (USA) region. 'They don't kill as many people as you think, but when terra firma isn't anymore, it scares people down to the deepest level.'"
"Technically the San Ramon earthquakes are regarded as 'background seismicity' because they did not occur on a main fault. But San Ramon is not far from the Calaveras fault, one of three major faults in the San Francisco Bay area that scientists consider most likely to produce a big earthquake."
"More significantly, the San Ramon quakes have happened on a small, previously unknown fault that crosses the Calaveras seven miles (11 kilometers) beneath the (Earth's) surface, potentially triggering quakes on the Calaveras as well."
"'I grew up in San Ramon and normally you have an earthquake and it passes,' said Parshaw Vaziri, the outreach director at the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center in Berkeley. 'To have it be repetitive for so many days has people thinking. There is a fear that this is going to lead to something bigger.'" (See the Duluth, Minn. News-Tribune for December 1, 2002, "Swarm of small quakes has California buzzing," page 16A.)
(Editor's Note: San Ramon is also the site of Mount Diablo, which is sacred to the indigenous peoples of the region. It's been the site of many Fortean events during the past two centuries.)
READER FEEDBACK:
LISA MEITNER WAS NEVER A NAZI SCIENTIST
David Strassler writes, "Lisa Meitner, despite her contributions to nuclear theory, did not participate in the production of the atom bomb, neither did she believe her discoveries would have much use. The creation of the bomb took her by surprise. After the war, she denounced the use 'war technicians have put to our discoveries.'"
"I wouldn't be writing you if not for your huge error of referring to her as a Nazi scientist. She was a Jew and in 1938 fled Germany to Sweden because of the antisemitic persecutions."
From the UFO Files...
1910: UFO VISITS A RANCH IN CRYSTAL CITY, TEXAS
Although the USA's "Airship Flap" of 1909-1910 has been pretty well documented by Charles Fort, John A. Keel, Lucius Farrish and, for New England at least, by your UFO Roundup editor, there were a few other cases of the period that have since turned up. Such as the sighting in Crystal City, Texas.
This event is notable not for its UFO but for what happened later on to one of its youthful witnesses.
Today Crystal City (population 7,190) is a pleasant bedroom community just east of Highway 83, in Zavala County, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Uvalde. But ninety years ago, Crystal City "was a raw frontier town in South Texas so desolate that the coyotes howled nightly at the city limits."
Owning a small "brush country" ranch near Crystal City was a man named William Oscar McClung. He was a child of many ethnicities--Irish, German, Swedish on his father's side and Comanche (the real name for this indigenous people is Nermernuh--J.T.) and Osage on his mother's side. McClung lived on the ranch with his wife Willie and several children.
In December 1910, the ranch was visited by Mrs. McClung's brother, Isaac, his wife Hester and their four-year-old son, Bobby. Isaac's nickname was "Uncle Cue," short for "Mordecue," which is how the McClung children pronounced his middle name, Mordecai. Cue was a frontier doctor by trade, recently licensed by the Texas Department of Public Health, and he often dropped by the ranch for a visit.
One night in mid-December 1910, Bobby was sound asleep with his cousins in the stucco-walled bedroom "when he was awakened by a tremendous detonation."
Wide-eyed, he "found the whole room bathed in a weird light." Running to the window, he saw a luminous spherical object hovering in the air above his uncle's corral, where horses whinnied and cattle bellowed in terror.
Frightened, Bobby ran into the kitchen. Hearing hard footsteps, he turned and saw his tall, black-haired father rush out of the guest bedroom. "What the hell is going on!?" the doctor shouted.
Then he saw his Uncle Bill stride into the kitchen, a fearsome figure in his faded red union suit, battered Stetson, boots and gunbelt. Working the lever on his Winchester, he snapped, "Grab a gun, Cue. It's them no-account Bruntons, and they're a-fixin' to run us off."
The doctor grabbed a double-barreled shotgun. "What did they do--dynamite the house!?"
Taking up position beside the door, Uncle Bill pushed it open with the barrel of his Winchester. "We'll find out."
Bobby watched as the door swung open, and a fading unearthly light spilled into the kitchen. And then it was gone. All that remained was the sound of frenzied animals out in the corral.
While the women and children remained indoors, Bill and Cue, guns in hand, circled the house and then checked the barn. They found nothing amiss. "Hearing nothing further, they went back to bed."
But they weren't the only ones who had seen something strange. People all over Zavala County had seen the glowing object.
"The next day, eyewitnesses reported that a meteorite 'about the size of a barrel' had exploded and burned itself out in the earth's atmosphere.'"
And so the incident in Crystal City was soon forgotten. But not by Bobby. Twenty-one years later, in 1931, he wrote about it to his friend and fellow fantasy author, Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
"Bobby" is better known by the name that appears on his by-line...Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian. (See Dark Valley Destiny: The Life of Robert E. Howard by L. Sprague de Camp, Catherine Crook de Camp and Jane Whittington Griffin, Bluejay Books Inc., New York, N.Y., 1983, pages 59 and 60.)
That's it for this week. Join us next time for more UFO, Fortean and paranormal news from around the planet Earth, 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 news groups provided that they credit the newsletter and its editor by name and list the date of issue in which the item first appeared.
