Spain: An Offshore Sighting (Huelva, 1981)

Spain: An Offshore Sighting (Huelva, 1981)

From the files of the GEIFO group (Grupo Español de Investigación del Fenómeno Ovni)

Case No.: 007
Case Name: Sighting Over the Sea, Huelva (25 March 1981, 19:00 hours)
Description of Event: According to statements made by Eugenio Burgo Gómez, master of the fishing vessel “Moguer-5”, based in Punta Umbría, Huelva, his ship and six other fishing vessels were returning to port on 25 March 1981 around 19:00 hours when they saw a grayish object over the sea at one meter over the surface of the water. Its approximate size was estimated at some 50 meters at the base an and equal number of meters tall. The object was static, rotating on its own axis. It had a double row of yellow lights.

The closeness to the surface of the water caused it to form whirlpools, obeying the direction of rotation of the object in question.

The observation lasted 20 minutes, after which the UFO ascended vertically and at high speed into the heavens, vanishing from sight. The distance from the object to shore was approximately some 500 meters; the vessel’s trajectory was 000 and its speed was five knots, approximately one mile distant from the harbor entrance.

Points to be Considered:
- Large number of witnesses
- Object had a metallic appearance
- Object was of considerable size
- Proximity of the harbor
- Brushing the water’s surface

Evaluation: Large conical object of metallic appearance with a double row of yellow lights, flying at low altitude, nearly brushing the water’s surface, and rising into the air at high speed, vanishing skyward.

References and sources: Case investigated by GEIFO. Diario de Cádiz
(newspaper)

(Translation (c) 2012 S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Angel Rodríguez, GEIFO)

Spain: CE-2 in Gerena, Seville (1980)

Spain: CE-2 in Gerena, Seville (1980)

From the files of GEIFO (Grupo Español de Investigación del Fenómeno Ovni)

Case No.: 004
Case Name: Sighting in Gerena, Seville (30 November 1980 at 21:00 hours)
Event Description: At nine o’clock in the evening, it was time to close the gate that separates the dwelling from the fenced-in area where some 200 yearling bulls were kept at the “La Caldera’ farm, municipality of Gerena, Seville. This establishment is devoted to raising fighting bulls. The keepers of the estate, Mrs. Josefa Acuña and her son Diego Vidal, witnessed an intense glow similar to daylight, coming from the immediate vicinity of the amateur bullfighting field near the house.

Then noticed the presence of a pyramidal object on the ground. This object had a row of intermittent white lights on its left side, a central red light and some red lights of greater size than the intermittent white lights on the right side.

Both witnesses observed the phenomenon as they entered and exited the dwelling at regular intervals over a period of three hours, although they cannot say for sure, since at the end of that time period they stopped coming out to look, and do not know what became of the object.

The 200 yearling bulls asleep in the area were not disturbed throughout the UFO’s presence; neither were the guard dogs on the property, who exhibited particular aggression toward GEIFO members during a site visit. However, members of GEIFO, with our flashlights and camera flash, caused the bulls to stampede, placing us in great danger.

One bull was found dead the next morning, and another injured. It is said that fighting among these bulls is commonplace, so any connection with the sighting is uncertain.

Points to be Considered:
- The long duration of the object in the landing area is to be highlighted.
- Fights among animals of this type are frequent. It is therefore possible that the dead and injured specimens found have no connection to the sighting.

Evaluation: Landing of a Conical or Pyramidal Object of Unknown Origin.

References and Sources: Case investigated by GEIFO. Diario ABC newspaper, Canal Sur TV.

(Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Angel Rodriguez, GEIFO)

Spain: The Barbate USO (1980)

Spain: Strange Undersea Tracks in Barbate, Cadiz (1980)

From the files of GEIFO (Grupo Español de Investigación del Fenómeno Ovni)

Case No.: 003
Case Name: Strange Undersea Tracks in Barbate, Cadiz (27 June 1980)
Event Description: The story goes back to 27 June 1980 in waters off the locality of Barbate, Cádiz. Ildefonso, a diver with over 15 years’ experience and a local resident, was diving near a tuna trap when he became aware of a series of strange tracks on the bottom of the sea. These marks ran parallel, with a separation of two to three meters between them, following a pre-set and perfectly well-defined path, as the obstacles in this path had been clearly avoided or rounded, causing no damage to the fishing tackle deployed by the tuna trap at the moment.

The story drew media attention under the title “Tracks Beneath the Sea” (Diario de Cádiz) based on a report filed by journalist Juan Jose Benitez, claiming the discovery of track marks resembling those of a vehicle with treads.

Having become aware of the event, we got in touch with the diver, who ratified the events published. He told us that the tracks had been made that very morning, and had they been older, they would have been washed away by the sea.

The tracks were found a depth of 40 meters, approximately. Was a vehicle with crawler tracks operating at a depth of 40 meters?

In November 1983 there appeared a story in the Revista General de Marina (General Navy Review) under the “Weapons” section, discussing a Soviet submarine vehicle being employed on espionage missions on the coasts of Norway and Sweden. This story can be compared to our case involving the crawler tracks. After studying all the available information, it emerged that we were facing a similar case.

On 18 October 1984, we made our suspicions known to the Hon. Admiral of the General Staff of the Navy, in the event that the crawler tracks in question had any connection to some sort of espionage activity in the Straits of Cádiz.

On 20 November, the Diario de Cadiz (11.20.1984) published a story with the title “Soviet Minisubs at Work in the Straits of Gibraltar for Over 10 Years”, seemingly confirming the events.

The Ministry of Defense sent out two agents of the Intelligence Division who contacted GEIFO. One of them pretended to be a member of our group to continue his investigations.

The matter ended with the confirmation – by these agents – that real Soviet espionage was taking place in this area and in the Huelva area.

The Soviets did not deny the facts but stated that they weren’t engaged in espionage activity. Rather, they were looking for the remains of Atlantis (?)

Points to be Considered:

- The tracks match those of a submarine vehicle with a crawler track system.

Evaluation: Soviet espionage activity in the Straits of Gibraltar, confirmed by the Intelligence Service to GEIFO.

References and Sources: Report by the GEIFO group, Diario de Cadiz (11.20.1984) pg. 15, “Provincial” section; letters to the Admiral of the General Staff of the Navy on 18 October 1984; Revista General de Marina No. 724, 1983, “Weapons” Section.

(Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Angel Rodriguez, GEIFO)

Spain: CE-2 in Huelva (1980)

Spain: Cases Investigated by the GEIFO Group (Grupo Espanol de Investigación del Fenómeno OVNI – Spanish Group for the Research of the UFO Phenomenon)

Case No.: 002
Case Name: UFO PURSUES WITNESS IN AYAMONTE, HUELVA (08 June 1980)
Description of Event:

When Carmelo Villar Sousa returned home to Ayamonte (Huelva) from a discotheque on Isla Cristina in the small hours of the morning, he was pursued by a luminous, spherical object that changed its shape to that of a half-moon. The object placed itself over the witness’s motorcycle, which began to hesitate until it finally stalled out.

The witness got off the motorcycle and broke into a run, holding on to his vehicle. The UFO placed itself over him at low altitude, causing Carmelo to lose sight of everything surrounding him. He could only see an intense red light, resembling “a wall of light” according to his own account. He began to feel a sensation of considerable heat.

Upon reaching a bridge, the object pulled away from the witness, placing itself over some dwellings in Ayamonte. Carmelo tried to start the motorbike by going down a slope repeatedly, but to no avail.

The UFO swooped over him again, prompting the witness to dive to the ground in terror; the object flew over him at an altitude of one meter. The object later rose skyward, losing itself a considerable speed in the direction from which it had initially appeared, adopting the shape of a luminous red orb once again.

Information to be Considered:
- Witness claims having experienced intense heat.
- Claims having been surrounded by walls of heat reminiscent of “cohered beams of light”
- Motorcycle begins to experience problems until it seizes up definitively.
- The motorcycle’s relay points were destroyed.

Evaluation: Possible plasma ball of unknown origin
Sources: Report by Grupo GEIFO, Diario de Cádiz newspaper, Correo de Andalucía newspaper, other sources.

(Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Angel Rodriguez, GEIFO)

Forgotten Exporers

Writer and researcher Rosa Santizo called our attention to an exhibit currently on display in the Spanish city of Madrid on a hitherto little known aspect of colonial enterprise: the considerable presence of women explorers as active partners in adventure and settlement. The exhibit bears the title “No fueron solos” (They Didn’t Go Alone) and can be seen at the Madrid Naval Museum from 21 May to 30 September, 2012.

An article by Tereixa Constenla provides some fascinating details on these forgotten characters. She focuses initially on the figure of Isabel Barreto, born in Pontevedra, Galicia in 1567, is the only “lady admiral” ever appointed by King Phillip II (of Spanish Armada fame). Well-educated and the daughter of a noble family, Isabel followed her father to Perú in 1580. She met Alvaro de Mendaña six years later, and learned that he had found small quantities of gold and ivory in the Solomons, believing that there must be considerable quantities in the area.

Barreto and her husband, Don Alvaro de Mendaña, shared a dream: they wanted to find Ophir, the legendary land of gold and precious stones, which they believed to be somewhere in Polynesia. Their expedition set out from El Callao in Perú toward the Solomon Islands in 1595, braving the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean: a total of four ships and nearly four hundred men, women and children who planned to settle in the Solomons. Disease and malnutrition did not take long to spread among the crew, decimating the would-be conquerors of legendary Ophir. Isabel’s husband was among the casualties, and his widow had no qualms about assuming command. Barreto is described thus by Pedro Fernández de Quirós, the ship’s pilot: “[A woman] of authoritarian, virile, and undaunted character, who imposed her will upon all those under her command, especially during the perilous voyage to Manila.”

The galleon and its moribund crew reached the Marquesas seven thousand miles later, no closer to the mines of Ophir than they were at the port of El Callao. Natives in canoes turned out to greet the explorers, but the meeting between cultures ended in disaster, with deaths on either side.

Her crew was no less hostile than before, but none dared to contest her claims, much less her title of “adelantada (royal officer) of the Western Isles”. Manila was reached without further misadventure, and the expedient Barreto did not delay in remarrying, this time to Fernando de Castro, who would become her new partner in the search for Ophir.

Juan Francisco Maura of the University of Vermont suggests that women were present in two of Christopher Columbus’s journeys to the New World – the 1493 and 1497 sorties. Another academic, Mar Langa Pizarro, puts forth the figure of nearly fourteen thousand female passengers during the colonization period. Some of them held important titles, such as María de Toledo, wife to Columbus’s son Diego, who held the title of Vicereine of the West Indies from 1515 to 1520, although she was denied permission to outfit new expeditions after her husband’s passing.

Other Spanish ladies were luckier, despite lacking viceregal trappings: Francisca Ponce de Leon in Seville outfitted a merchantman, the San Telmo, for regular crossings to Santo Doming less than twenty years after its discovery, or María Escobar, the first importer and grower of wheat in the Americas. This business sense was also seen in Mencía Ortiz, who established her own import-export company to trade with the West Indies in 1549. In an age where the Crown demanded the purchase of a permit to sail off to the Americas, brokers could also be found. Francisca Brava was one such agent.

The article by Tereixa Constenla features a quote by Carolina Aguado, in charge of the Naval Museum exposition. The single uniting factor among all these women, she says, “is that they were women to be reckoned with. They left a country in the 16th century in which women had no participation to board ships on terrifying journeys, facing the threat of both piracy and shipwreck, to reach lands that were completely unknown to them.”

Aguado illustrates her point with a fascinating example – the story of Mencía Calderón, who traveled to the New World with her three daughters as part of her husband Juan de Sanabria’s expedition to resupply the city of Asunción in Paraguay with new settlers. It would take six years for the journey to be completed Following shipwreck and an attack by pirates and hostile natives.

Then there were the warriors: Inés Suárez, a maid to Pedro de Valdivia, set off with him in 1537 to conquer Chile, became his mistress, and a formidable fighter against the Araucan tribes, beheading their chieftains without hesitation, and Ana de Ayala, who sailed along the Amazon River with Francisco de Orellana, in an expedition searching for El Dorado, of which she was the sole survivor, along with a few dozen others.

Crop Circles: Other Aspects of the Las Perdices Case (Argentina)

Crop Circles: Other Aspects of the Las Perdices Case (Argentina)
By Andrea Pérez Simondini and Dr. Luis Reinoso

Research into this case lead us to work on the quest for background information in the same place and region. This survey is extremely important when facing such an important case as the Las Perdices print, as it was known journalistically, given the investigative need to associate a physical event such as an imprint on the ground with the manifestation of lights at the same time that the imprint occurred.

Another significant aspect consists of finding background information, as we said, and Guillermo Gonzalez, one of the owners of the property, managed to put us in contact with the owner of another field who had two similar marks appear on his property in 1998.

As you may recall from the first report on this research, VISION OVNI conducted the investigation with Dr. Luis Reinoso of EDOVNI, who gave a chance to gain a different perspective on the case.

Conclusions Reached by Dr. Luis Reinoso, EDOVNI

This case was researched jointly by members of VISION OVNI in the city of Victoria, Entre Rios, whose director is Silvia Perez Simondini, accompanied by her daughter Andrea Pérez Simondini and a group of associates. I was not planning to make any report on the matter, considering that the one presented by Andrea Pérez Simondini and uploaded to the VISION OVNI site sufficiently elucidated all of the eyewitness accounts collected as well as the photo and film evidence uploaded by Andrea and Silvia for the benefit of the public at large and for all persons interested in the subject of UFOs.

But at Andrea’s request, I submit this report on the “Las Perdices” case, having the honor and pleasure of sharing this research with her.

Prior considerations: sharing research on-site with another research group was extremely important, mainly from the human perspective, showing that it is possible to do this when no one is looking for a “leading role” and each party does what it’s supposed to do before the witnesses themselves, before the evidence itself, and above all, facing an array of peoples looking for answers from us about an event they deemed “strange” and “anomalous”. It was a unique experience, in Andrea’s words. Both Silvia and I had to provide answers to the questions posed by these people, who perhaps approached us only out of curiosity, but most of them did so as a result of having had UFO experiences beforehand – some of them in the Las Perdices region, others in Capilla del Monte and in Greater Buenos Aires.

Upon reaching Las Perdices, we got in touch with G Gonzalez, owner of the local FM radio station operating in the area, and which is the second one, since there is another community FM station belonging to the priest of the local church. Gonzalez spoke to us about the area’s characteristics, mainly about its inhabitants, where the majority was “astonished” by the event. But no one wanted to speak in favor or against it, as the fear or ridicule is very strong here. On the one hand, there are those who say such things are “foolish”, but are in fact showing their fear of the unknown, that for which a logical explanation cannot be found. The people we met at the crop circle told us they dismissed the possibility of a prank by teenagers, since “they’re into something completely different”, and could not imagine “truant kids” doing something, as this would represent more work than they’re willing to do.

Furthermore, the eyewitness accounts or the people interviewed did not want their names and surnames to become known, and initially reacted with suspicion and even some mistrust. After hours went by and we made ourselves known, they opened up and the barrier was erased. From that moment onward, they provided us with all of the required information that was captured on videos and recordings.

A detail we noted was the following request from most witnesses: “don’t let it be like 14 years ago, when researchers gathered all the information and promised to send a report or conclusions, yet never did.” It was a bill we weren’t responsible for, but we promised that it wouldn’t occur, not in this case. Andrea tried to get us out the situation by saying: “Those were other times. There wasn’t much communication and the media was different. Today we have the Internet and you’ll be able to find the report on our website, www.VisionOvni.com.ar.” They were much more at ease and helpful after that.

Reminiscing About A Case From 1998, Involving Teenagers from Las Perdices

Gonzalez took us to the home of a family whose children and friends had a UFO experience back in 1998. As they left a confitería (sweet shop) located in the town of General Dezha, 11 km distant from Las Perdices, they were followed by a large white light throughout the return trip. The luminous object followed them along the road and over the high-voltage wires. When they realized this, the young man driving the car tried to go faster, but that was when the object got behind the car and shone its lights within it. At that very moment, the teenagers were overwhelmed with panic and something known as “missing time” took place, or rather “they cannot recall what happened after”. They later found themselves somewhere else in town. The odyssey ended at one of the girls’ homes. The father, who was telling us about the event, swung by that house to pick the up. This event had psychological consequences: the daughter was overcome by a permanent sense of fear before going to bed, bordering on panic and terror. On many evenings she would ask her parents to let her sleep with them, and episodes of bed-wetting persisted for a long while. This condition ended over time.

The car involved – a Renault 12 – developed a peculiarity after the incident. Whenever a compass was brought near it, the needle would go wild, indicating the presence of an electromagnetic field. Despite repeated washing with water and detergent, the field persisted for several months.

A Strange Circle in a Sorghum Field

We reached the indicated location at around 15:00 hours. It was located 1000 meters from an urban zone, in a field surrounded by a rural road known by the locals as “Ríspido”. The field covers 120 hectares and belongs to the Tossi family. The data obtained suggests that [the crop circle event] resulted in a family feud, since the surface upon which it appears belongs to one of the nieces, as there is joint ownership, and this niece did not authorize the event to become publicly known. When the incident became known, the field was overrun, with damage inflicted to the sorghum crop. This was inevitable.

We have been suggesting the need, in the light of similar cases, for the corresponding authorities to take measures and decree a ban on the entry or invasion by private parties or curiosity seekers of the premises where these crop circles appear. This would serve to avoid destruction, intoxication or contamination of the scene. Until professionals arrive (from the University, INTA, etc. or UFO groups) with sufficient equipment to make tests and secure evidence for subsequent analysis, freedom of access should be restricted.

When we arrived, the circle was perfect, but its surface had been trampled. We used an aerial photograph as reference, which had been prepared by Vision Ovni as part of the worksheet for this investigation. We proceeded to make measurements. It measured 25 meters in diameter and presented two parallel straight segments measuring 12 meters each. The plants were flattened in a counterclockwise direction (whirlpool-shaped). A grassy section drew our attention: it had a whirlpool effect and the direction was also arranged or displayed counterclockwise.

Andrea discovered some holes near the circle, but beyond its circumference. These can be seen from the air, and we took the aerial photograph into consideration. Material was extracted from them for subsequent analysis. Andrea extracted the amount of soil needed for analysis from the center of the circle. Other perforations made by specialists from Rio Cuarto University were made, and we do not know the results obtained. We were told however that those specialists had not found any signs of radiation.

On the site, and taking in all possible details, it was not possible to detect the passing of any vehicle that was supposedly employed to make the circle, and it would have had to exist, because it is impossible to erase it by the very arrangement of the sorghum crop itself. This is also visible from aerial photographs. That is to say, we reached the conclusion that whoever created the circle, or caused it to happen, arrived from above. We can clearly see the trails created by curiosity-seekers and by our own team when crossing the barbed wire fence and walking toward the circle. Furthermore, the photos clearly show that entering the field through the barbed wire fence parallel to the road is impossible, as there is a 2 meter height from the surface of the road to the final wire, and there is no breakage whatsoever along that border of the property.

If one arrives by car, or better yet, in a 4x4, being taller, it is impossible to look into the field and see the circle. Its existence was only discovered because a combine, four or five meters tall, entered the area. A similar machine went by during our stay in the area, and Andrea asked permission to climb aboard and videotape the scene. The crop circle’s date of creation is estimated between the 6-7 of April 2012. It became publicly known around 26-27 April and we visited the site on 1 May 2012.

Our presence at Las Perdices was not a mystery, since both Andrea and Silvia had been interviewed on the town’s FM station and many people were aware of our visit with the intention of researching the case. As a result of this, a young mother approached us to offer her own account and physical evidence, and what happened to her 12-year-old daughter as they were recording the crop circle with their cellphone: it displayed anomalies or interruptions at the moment the recording function was used, being captured by the cellphone. She was kind enough to give us the recording, which you can see at the Vision Ovni web page.

At night we went to dinner at the San Lorenzo Club, where we took the opportunity to rest up and discuss all the details of the experience, and make plans for the following day.

Recalling Similar Cases from the Year 1998

After breakfast, we went to Don Juan’s house. He is the owner of the field on which two similar circles had appeared in the year 1998. Dr. Lewis and Mr. Sosa of the City of Rio Cuarto investigated this case. It was during a UFO convention in which I participated in 1998, and remember well.

With the characteristic kindness of people from the country’s interior, Don Juan and his wife welcomed us. They asked us into their home in Las Perdices and began to tell us their story: “There used to be a stream, several trees and a sheep pen near our country home. That’s where a circle measuring 25 meters in diameter appeared.” Today, the stream and trees are gone. He provided us with photos of the field at that time. They also told us that beyond the first circle there appeared another similar one, but in this case, what happens every harvest, is that the yield is increased or the plants grow as though fortified by something.”

We conducted a photo survey of the places where the marks appeared; we spoke to their children and employees.

Don Juan showed us some spheres he found in the field back in 1998. One of them could be part of a meteorite, the others could be worked by human hands, perhaps from the time when natives occupied the land.” All of these were matters worthy of research and we departed, in the end, with many questions, but pleased to have visited Las Perdices. This marks the end of the report.

To see the videos, please visit: http://www.visionovni.com.ar/modules/news/article.php?storyid=798

(Translation (c) 2012, Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU). Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, PLANETA UFO)

Spain: A Humanoid at Fuengirola (CE-3, 1976)

Spain: A Humanoid at Fuengirola (CE-3, 1976)
By Manuel Ramírez, “Ovnis en Andalucía”

On the night of 9-10 July, 1976, a group of young photography enthusiasts agreed to travel to a small country home owned by one of them in the vicinity of Fuengirola (Malaga). They reached the house at around one o’clock in the morning on a warm summer evening. The main purpose of their journey was to test new photographic gear and spend some days at the beach. As they settled in, a member of the group (as told by Manuel Linares to researchers Miguel Peyró, Emilio Linares, Inés Pérez, Ignacio Benvenuty, Ricardo Lineros and Manuel Ontivero of the CIEPE group) informed his friends that according to word of mouth, a flying saucer had been seen to sweep across the skies “like a luminous stain”. No one took him seriously.

However, shortly after taking photographs within the house, the new arrivals began hearing a deep, powerful respiration, comparable to a strange animal panting outside the dwelling. The five young men went outside with more curiosity than fear, thinking that it could be a prank, or the likelihood that a burglar had taken advantage of the cover of darkness to conduct his activities, as the summer house was normally unoccupied. Armed with axes and machetes, the young men turned on some flashlights and set out to explore the surroundings, hoping to find the source of the odd panting they had heard in the silence of the night. The heavy panting stopped the minute they turned on their flashlights. The silence became more intense. It seemed that alleged animal, or whatever it was, had vanished.

At five o’clock in the morning, Manuel Linares was roused from a deep sleep by some strange noises. He alerted his friends and all of them were able to hear the sound of panting respiration once again, punctuated by a whistling sound resembling the sound made by a car braking on pavement.

Three of the young men ran toward a hallway with a window that opened precisely toward the location the sounds were being heard. The approached it at a crouch, fearing discovery by the strange visitor. When they reached the window, they saw the source of the loud panting they’d heard...and it made their blood run cold.

Standing beside a tree was a sort of very tall man, taller than the tree itself, with two very bright sources of light where his eyes should have been. The figure’s outline was lost in the darkness, although the figure appeared to be enveloped in a black robe.

Following a few minutes of genuine panic, their reaction was to find the machetes with which to fight off a possible act of aggression from the strange prowler. Upon leaving the house, they found that the figure had either concealed itself or vanished. The only possible clue was that the surrounding temperature became considerably warmer, and a powerful smell of sulfur filled the air. Manuel Linares returned to his room, from where he saw something even stranger.

“I saw a shadow walk past the doorway, neither quickly nor slowly. I turned on the lights and tried to hide. The shadow, making noises like the sound of deep breathing, walked right by.”

Linares and his buddies took shelter in the house and didn’t dare leave again. Shortly after, a new sound startled them: strange footsteps could be heard on the rooftop. Momentarily, “something” started banging on the doors and windows, as though trying to enter the house. The feeling was could not be described. The banging sound faded after a while and there was no further sign of the “visitor”, but they’d experienced enough, and returned to Seville immediately. The long night siege was over.

Only some facts bear out the story told by the five youths: in that very same area, more or less a year before the night siege, a series of unexplained events had taken place. Many animals of various species had been found dead within a short span of time. No natural cause was found to account for their deaths.

(Translation (c) 2012, Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology. Special thanks to José Manuel García Bautista)

Spain: The Algeciras Humanoids (CE-3, 1980)

Spain: The Algeciras Humanoids (CE-3, 1980)
By Manuel Ramirez, “Ovnis en Andalucia”

On 12 February 1980, Rafael Tobajas, a resident of the city of Algeciras, accompanied his wife to visit some friends, another married couple in which the wife was bedridden with the flu. From the terrace of that apartment, Rafael Tobajas was able to see some strange lights moving in the direction of “Los Adalides”. This marked the start of a strange story that was echoed by the local press and became the talk of the town in Algeciras.

A strange phenomenon repeated itself night after night in February 1980 along the local highway, known by the name “Botafuego” and linking the towns of Llano de la Vega, Garganta del Capitán and Sierra de Ojen. Around 9:30 p.m. every night, lights resembling white fireballs with violet hues crossed the firmament. Many witnesses agreed that these object, upon descending for closer inspection, resembled inverted teacups with red and green lights, shooting beams of light, with protruding antennae from their upper sections. The objects were able to change position and altitude quickly. Their heading, according to local witnesses, was always the same: from North to South, descending slowly over Sierra de Ojén toward the Algeciras neighborhoods known as “Los Adalides”, “La Granja” and Camino Viejo de Los Barrios. The objects made no noise whatsoever and moved speedily.

Rafael Tobajas and his wife, on their visit to the couple with the ailing wife, were the first to see something strange in the sky when they looked out on the apartment’s terrace at nine thirty in the evening. Tobajas had heard, like everyone else in Algeciras, about the remarks being made in the city at the time, and paid little attention to what he saw. He thought it was a bright flash and re-entered the apartment without further concern. Subsequently, however, driven by curiosity, he decided to focus his eyes on the same spot in the distance. There was no doubt that something was moving in the air, wobbling and emitting readily discernible flashes of light. He summons his host and asks him accompany him to the site for a closer look in order to ascertain its nature and observe it in greater detail. His friend declined, and Tobajas and his wife set off on their own.

Driving their car down the old road to Los Barrios, they passed by the entrance to the Los Adalides school. Standing outside was a group of thirty or forty boys armed with sticks and flashlights. Tobajas exchanged some words with the boys and three of them – as many as he could fit in his car – agreed to join in on the closer look, since they too had seen something odd in the night. José A. Sanjuan, José Rodriguez and Diego Gutierrez boarded the car and guided Rafael Tobajas along the narrow road leading to the area where the strange flying craft materialized.

A few kilometers away, upon reaching a garbage-burning pit in the vicinity, they saw two bright lights on the slopes of the Sierra de Ojen. Stopping the car, they used binoculars to focus on two luminous masses dancing in the air for some ten or fifteen minutes. The light show was attractive, but their curiosity grew apace as they objects descended. Looking through the binoculars and unaided, Tobajas, his wife and the three boys were able to see that the two lights were like “headlights” of a dark grey mass whose outlines could not be made out in the darkness.

Mrs. Tobajas is the first to discover something that will cause fear and uncertainty among the group: She is able to see, through binoculars, a figure emerging from the unknown craft and standing nearly three meters tall, perhaps taller. Rafael Tobajas took the lenses from his wife and confirms the sighting, only it wasn’t one, but two figures standing slightly over three meters tall, clad in form-fitting khaki green outfits and walking in slow motion, as though weighed down by their feet. They saw the figures jumping over some bushes, at which point their limbs became perfectly discernible.
The distance between one figure and the other was about a hundred meters at most, and the vehicle was near a stream on the slides of a small mound. No buzzing sounds are heard. The brightness of the craft became more intense, causing the two figures to cast their shadows over the stream. Walking slowly, they appeared to be headed to where Tobajas and his companions observed the events. The children were starting to panic, but Tobajas, remaining calm, fears that something worse is about to happen, as he cannot bring himself to believe what he is seeing. He chooses to put the car in gear and abandon the area as quickly as possible.

As the car raced away down the narrow road, the boys still feel the sensation that the entities were coming after them, moving slowly. After going around a curve, they lost sight of the humanoids. The experiencers agree on what they have seen, and numerous witnesses in the area corroborate the details of the sighting.

A few hours after the sighting, the main witness [Tobajas] returned to the site, finding an array of strange footprints on the ground. On this second venture, a person having no connection to the first group, in order to insure objectivity, accompanied him. The prints discovered in the vicinity of the stream appear to belong – according to experts from the Red Nacional de Corresponsales (National Correspondents Network) – to mortar rounds fired during exercises by the military brigade at Botafuegos. They dismiss the possibility, however, that the events seen that night could have had any connection to the military. Furthermore, there is another detail that corroborates the strange possibility of a humanoid presence in the area.

It took place a few kilometers away from the scene of the events and has a single protagonist: the watchman of an automobile graveyard near Los Barrios.

On the evening of 12 February 1980, the graveyard watchman was snoozing inside one of the vehicles, which still had its doors and windows, to shelter himself from the cold temperature. Fast asleep, he suddenly felt a hand pounding on the car window. He woke up suddenly and was stunned by what he saw. On the other side of the auto glass, he saw an entity with female features, slanted eyes and greenish skin. Taking hold of a long stake he kept handy to ward off potential thieves, and gripped by a mixture of panic and bravery, the watchman opened the car door to give the strange character a beating. Emerging from the vehicle without the visitor offering any resistance, the watchman was able to see the female figure dematerialize before his very eyes.

Overwhelmed by panic, the watchman deserted his post and never went back.

This event, however, did not seem to be the first one recorded in the area in question: in September 1959 at 2:30 a.m., a worker at a pump house in the city of Algeciras was able to see an oval object surrounded by a “visor”, measuring six or seven meters in diameter and hovering 180 centimeters over the ground. Two human-looking figures stood between the object and the onlooker. He placed their height at one meter eighty, and they fled from him upon being discovered. Twenty-one years later, Tobajas, his wife and companions were able to see a similar situation to the one experienced by the cemetery watchman and the pump house worker – one they could not explain.

(Translation (c) 2012, Scott Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to J. Manuel García Bautista)

Follow-Up: The A Graña UAV (Spain, 1966)

Follow-Up: The A Graña UAV (Spain, 1966)
By Scott Corrales

Our friend and colleague Angel Rodriguez, director of Spain’s GEIFO organization, has sent us an update on the fascinating story involving the 1966 account of the UFO that turned out to be a UAV – of sorts. Angel brings to our attention a three minute clip aired on Televisión de Galicia (TVG) on the remarkable incident, bearing the title “Ovni recuperado polo exército” (UFO recovered by the army) and featuring an interview with the eyewitness who actually managed to see the recovered object nestled saftely inside one of the color-coded tunnels deep in the cliffside, surrounded by armed guards.

Juan Daniel Araoz, the witness, says the following: “It had the aspect of a flying saucer, as commonly described, and must have measured some twelve meters in diameter more or less, and had lights that went on and off, green, red and yellow, intermittently. It flew over the area slowly, remained in sight for some twenty, twenty-five minutes, and then slowly made its way toward [the town of] Bazán, and from there to the mouth of the ría.”

The object at some point plunged into the ocean and was subsequently recovered by fishermen, who hauled it back to shore, only to have it confiscated by the military.

Araoz, however, was able to see the object after it was under custody.

“A sailor, at the instructions of his commander, took me to the tunnels, an impressive series of tunnels, because that place is a naval base, full of ammunition, and then when we reached a room, he suddenly told me: “it’s this.” That’s when I saw, in fact, the color of the object that I’d seen, a yellowish color. To my astonishment, I saw the writing “NASA” followed by some numbers underneath. I was stunned, since I was a believer in the presence of extraterrestrial flying saucers.”

This discoidal craft does not match any of the known UAVs or drones in use from 1960 to 1970: Beech AQM-37 Jayhawk, target (1961), QH-50 DASH, attack (torpedo launch),Ryan Model 147/AQM-34 series Fire Fly and Lightning Bug, reconnaissance (1962), Northrop M/BQM-74A Chukar, target, decoy (1964), Lockheed D-21, reconnaissance (1964), Ryan AQM-91 Firefly, reconnaissance (1968) and the BQM-90, target (1970). All of these models had wings.

So what was the mysterious NASA-identified vehicle that crashed into Galician waters in 1966? A piece of Soviet technology captured by the military and tested overseas? A relic of Nazi aeronautics being tested for unknown properties? Until the file on A Graña is released, the field for speculation remains wide open.

Addendum: Only a few hours after posting this item, Angel Rodriguez sent us a photograph of the entrance to Tunnel No.3 (covered by a color-coded door, this one green) with some very interesting commentary about Spain's nuclear ambitions during the Franco years. It would appear that considerable uranium enrichment took place in underground facilities such as these, and that the government had access to (U.S. supplied) Nike-Hercules missiles. Unconfirmed reports suggested that this nuclear force would have been used in the Sahara against the Green March - a chilling prospect. Here is the photo in question:

UFO Crash/Retrievals in Chile

[Stories of saucer crashes and retrievals are not the exclusive province of the American Southwest. The Pacific coast of South America has some interesting cases to offer, as we can see from Raul Núñez's "UFO Crash/Retrivals in Chile. Mr. Núñez is the director of his country's branch of the Instituto de Investigaciones Espaciales (IEEE) and a frequent contributor to Inexplicata. This article appeared in Issue #9 of the INEXPLICATA journal -- SC]



UFO Crash/Retrievals in Chile
By Raul Núñez

On October 7, 1998 at 15:45 hours, residents of Paihuano, a small village in Valle de Elquí (Chile) underwent an extraordinary experience which keep its 2,500 residents on the edge of their seats. A flying object described as having a metallic color and measuring some 15 meters across remained motionless over the Las Mollacas hill, from which the entire town could be seen.

The object began to rise and abruptly made a sudden turn that split it in two before the awestruck witnesses. One part of the object fell on hill's peak and the other behind it. Accounts collected on the field by this correspondent among the many persons who wintessed the uncanny event lead us to consider the following events: a) the object witnessed was metallic (silvery); b) the sun's rays reflected off its structure, aiding its visibility; c) Its shape was elongated; d) it remained on the summit of the hill throughout the afternoon of Wednesday the 7th, Thursday the 8th and Friday the 9th, when it was removed by personnel in uniform; e) all of the townsfolk, including mayor Lorenzo Torres, witnessed the event; f) earthquakes were registered after the object fell to the ground; g) electric blackouts covered the entire region; h) radio and TV broadcasts throughout Paihuano, Pisco Elquí and Monte Grande (two neighboring towns) were disrupted.

In view of the alarm caused by the event, a detachment of Carabineros (Chilean militarized police) looked at the object through binoculars and made an effort to reach the area on horseback after confirming the events described by the locals. The rocky soil, composed of sedimentary stone, made getting to the top an arduous affair--it is known that several efforts were made to reach the top and that one of the animals died during the operation. Furthermore, communications between the police forces and their base were successfully intercepted: the law enforcement agents stated that they had found nothing on the summit, but that "comments would be made after the descent."

This transmission was sent by means of "Condor One", the special code employed by local police only in very special cases, and it is the first and only instance of the Carabineros taking part in this matter. 24 hours later, this unit was relieved military personnel dispatched to the area to take charge of the investigation. Independent researchers carried out a survey among the local population to confirm in detail all of the information on what transpired as of the moment that the military forces cordoned off the area.

A Military Operation

Military personnel did not restrict its investigation to the residents of Paihuano--it extended the operation to cover the neighboring towns of Pisco Elquí and Monte Grande, aside from "combing" nearby hills to expel the local muleteers. This correspondent's investigation, conducted jointly with military analyst and local researcher Roderick Bowen, was able to ascertain that local hotels reported an increase in the demand for lodging by U.S citizens who in all instances claimed to be tourists.

On Friday, October 9, several eyewitnesses described the arrival of trucks bearing uniformed personnel. Residents of the sector nearest the hill, including the goatherds who customarily make use of secondary alternative routes, were issued orders to refrain from ascending the hill and to stay away from the location.

A goatherd who was in the rear of Las Mollacas, and who will not state his name for fear of reprisals, claims having seen the arrival of unmarked helicompters. These vehicles worked tirelessly from midneite until the early hours of Friday the 9th to hoist the object on metallic nets. It was subsequently installed in containers which were dragged to the positions occupied by large trucks belonging to the armed forces.

Researcher Patricio Díaz, who lives in the area, managed to collect several accounts from locals who described the nocturnal operations of these unmarked choppers as they lit vast part of the hill and recovered the strange object on its summit, which shined intensely throughout Thursday the 8th before the startled eyes of Paihuano's residents. Omar Prieto, manager of the "Gabriela Mistral" tourist resort in the town of Pisco Elquí, stated the following: "I had the chance to see it with my own eyes. It was something like the wing of an airplane, everyone could see it. It remained on the hill for 2 1/2 days. After that, it disappeared during the night and there was no further information. Soldiers and members of the Carabineros kept us from going up the hill. Strange things are always going on here, such as blackouts or TV interference. We don't know why."

The site used by the military as their base is known as "La Palmilla" and is located on the slopes of the hill. The tread marks left behind by heavy trucks were in evidence the day after the object was collected, and intense activity was also reported behind the hill. One witness claimed that there was a large cleft, measuring some 5 meters long and some 40 centimeters deep, surrounded by bootprints and heavy vehicle tracks. This account was confirmed hours later by researchers Patricio Díaz, Luis Sánchez Perry, Miguel Jordán and Roderick Bowen, members of ESIO (Equipo Superior de Investigaciones Ovnilógicas), who visited the area to conduct field research.

As of Monday the 12th, persons climbing to the summit of Las Mollacas find stones painted the color of aluminum, clearly giving the appearance of being some sort of premeditated disinformation effort. Surprising hypotheses were aired to explain the strange glare--abandonded beverage bottles, or an optical effect caused by sunlight.

Significant Reactions

The El Tololo astronomical observatory stated unequivocally that the phenomenon had been caused by an out-of-control weather balloon which had fallen in Las Mollacas. However, Gustavo Rodríguez of the Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil and Secretary of the Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (CEFAA) made it clear that there was no information regarding the lauching of a weather balloon in the area, since all activities of this sort require 48 hours advanced notice.


Strangest of all is that El Tololo assumed powers it didn't have, even going beyond the competence of the CEFAA, while this Air Force-dependent agency recused itself and did not even initiate an investigation into the area, at least not officially. During the interview granted to this correspondent, General Ricardo Bermudez, CEFAA's director, stated that his agency simply had no faith in the events occurrd at Paihuano. However, an interesting bit of information emerged in a subsequent conversation with Mario Dusuel, a psychiatric consultant for CEFAA who had visited the area along with geophysicist Carlos Leiva. Apparently, these persons collected the testimony of a muleteer who had been visited by a captain in the Chilean Air Force who questioned him about the object's fall. Now then, if CEFAA officially recused itself in this case, why then did it covertly send some of its best-qualified members to the area?

Incident at Quebrada de Huchumi

Valle de Elquí is a special place. Its soil is rich in minerals and even has uranium deposits which are often related to the UFO phenomenon. On June 15, 1998, only four months prior to the Paihuano incident, an object which had crashed into the snow in the region known as Quebrada de Huchumi was detected, some 20 kilometers from Cerro Tololo. The crash was accompanied by a deafening noise. Windows on many local homes shattered to pieces while an intense, lightining-like flash gave witnesses the impression that "night had turned into day."

The spectacular luminous phenomenon reached the localities of El Indio and Ovalle, located at a distance of some 200 kilometers away. Sudden storms were also detected. Eyewitnesses speak in terms of the panic created: a local taxi driver named Juan Veliz, who carried four passengers along the road from Paihuano to Vicuña, felt powerless in the face of the fear that gripped his passengers. "I'm a highly skeptical person," Veliz told researchers. "But that night last June, my passengers were made very nervous by a great light that flooded the entire valley. It's as if it had suddenly become daylight. I couldn't stop them from getting out of the vehicle in the middle of the road to pray. The fact is that I see lights chasing me constantly when I drive at night. These lights pop out from behind the mountains and I get the impression tha they respond to something that's intelligence. I've lived in this valley all my life and many people have seen the same things I have..."

On this occasion, the Quebrada de Huchumi area was also afflicted by a considerable amount of "official" acitivity. According to eyewitness accounts, the object was recovered and transferred to Vicuña aboard large, containerized military trucks, in exactly the same way seen months later at Paihuano.

This region is constantly visited by "flying lights" reminiscent of the so-called "Foo Fighters". Only scant days before this researcher arrived in the city of La Serena, that city's lighthouse was "buzzed" by strange lights for some twenty minutes. Local residents are familiar with these phenomena due to their frequency.


Everything points to the fact that the authorities are trying to cover up events which have sometimes escaped from their hands. Too many people witnessed the object on the summit of Las Mollacas hill. Moreover, the fear of reprisals is still palpable when interviewing witnesses. Nevertheless, there are photos of the helicopters busy at work in the region and recordings of communications between the military personnel involved in the recovery operations. All of this material is zealously guarded to avoid complicating the lives of persons living in the area and who have kindly provided their assistance with this investigation. Many of them hold positions in public administration and even political appointments.

An Alien Spaceship?

In the light of these events, it is well worth asking if we are facing the prospect of crashed alien vessels or the collision of secret military prototypes. We must keep in mind that these events coincided with the UNITAS Exercises held jointly by the Chilean and U.S. military.

Some researchers have expressed the belief that it is precisely when said joint exercises are held that UFO activity reaches its highest point in Chile. But there are also considerable accounts which support the suspicion that -- in the cases in question -- crashed alien artifacts could be involved. Thus, for example, the research conducted in Vicuña includes the statements made by a hospital worker who claimed having seen some strange bags during the recovery of the remains of the Las Mollecas object. According to his account, said bags are similar to the body bags employed in collecting corpses.

Are we dealing with a secret military operation or a UFO crash? The numerous accounts regarding the activities conducted to "recover the thing that fell" cannot be ignored.

(Translation (c) 2001, Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology. This article originally appeared in Año Cero No.06-119)

Argentina: What Happened at La Aurora?

[This article by our friend and colleague Pablo Villarubia appeared in Inexplicata #12 (Summer 2003). It describes one of the most shocking UFO incidents of the year 1977 - the so-called "Tonna Case", named after its protagonist, rancher Angel María Tonna - SC]


What Happened at La Aurora?
by Pablo Villarubia Mausó

I left Montevideo behind and was heading twoard the city of Salto on the Argentinean border, riding a dilapidated bus in order to rescue from oblivion the events which occurred one distant February 17, 1977. The central protagonist of the story was the owner of the La Aurora ranch, a man named Angel María Tronna. The victims included one dog, several sheep, a bull and one horse -- gravely affected by an object come from afar.

The first thing I did upon arriving was making a straight line toward the office of the El Pueblo newspaper to consult old newspapers which would put me on the track of the "Tonna Case". The Saturday the 19th edition was already legendary, since it presented the first news item on the macabre event.

On Sunday, February 13, 1977, at 5:30 a.m., Julio Cesar Rattín, 18, the youngest son of Angel Tonna, witnessed a UFO at a distance of some 150 meters, suspended of a copse of eucalyptus trees. It was light-emitting disk that illuminated a broad swath of countryside. On the following day, Monday at midnight, Tonna's wife, Elena Margarita Rattín, was watching TV before going to bed when a blackout suddenly occured. Upon going outside to insure the operation of their generator, she noticed an intense glow over La Aurora. Frightened, she ran back into the house.

It was the February 20, 1977 edition that anounced half a page saying "UFO in a ranch near the Daymán: Seen on three occasions." The anonymous journalist said that at 04:00 on February 17, Tonna, his children and some farmhands witnessed a strong light coming from behind a shed in which they stored feed. It was then that they saw a "flying saucer" measuring some 3 meters in diameter at an altitude of 15 meters. "The cows were frightened and stampeded, trampling one of the workers; the dogs howled in terror and we couldn't contain our astonishment. I was able to notice that the lights of the farm and the vicinity were totaly out and that the generator "coughed", threatening to seize up. THe disk moved slowly, almost in a zig-zag motion, and after passing over the pasture pond it headed toward the eucalyptus copse--the same one as on Sunday--and after a while wi didn't see it again," Tonna told the journalist.

The journalist interviewed the children and farmhands of the property. All versions agreed. Tonna spoke of the strange prints that had emerged three months ago on the pasture, shaped like a horseshoe 40 to 50 cm wide and with some parts more deeply sunk into the ground than others. It had a diameter of 3 meters and a variety of mushrooms began to grow inside it. At first the grass was burned but another type of grass soon sprang up to replace it. In spite of the assortment of data offered by the journalistic account, there were even more important elements missing -- some which Angel María Tonna and his people decided not to tell the reporter from El Pueblo.

The Mummified Dogs

It wasn't easy for me to find out more about La Aurora. I ased a few people on the street about the subject, even though 20 years had gone by, the memory fo the event was still fresh in the minds of many citizens. Some said it had all been a hoax, a lie, and others beleived that it was real and were even aware of the appearance of "unidentifieds" in the region for a few years now. Even luckier ones had also witnessed the transit of "flying saucers" over the county, such as twenty-year old Andrea Carpanesi. "What I am going to tell you took place in early 1997 at around 23:30 hours in front of the house in which I live. I was with my friend Cecilia, and looking northward an intense light appeared. The entire neighborhood was looking at it. It was almost orange in color, making a pendular movement. It lasted five minutes. Seeing such things is commonplace around here," Andrea said.
"Could you find out if it was a satellite or an aircraft?" I inquired.
"I called the weather bureau and I was told that no satellites were flying overhead, nor weather balloons or aircraft. They couldn't tell me what it was, iether. But I can tell you something else that's very interesting..."
"Go ahead," I encouraged her.
"Around 1993 I studied at the Universidad de Salto. The word spread that the School of Veterinary Medicine had two very strange dogs. With one of my friends, we sneaked into one of the labs, since it was forbidden to see these animals. I remember it all perfectly because it scared me. We saw a dead dog that had been propped up "alive". It was intact and even looked alive. It was black in color and medium-sized. Some students said that for unknown reasons, both this and another dog which I couldn't see did not decompose or didn't do so with the normal speed associated with death. Furthermore, they added that they had been found at the La Aurora ranch. Nothing further was ever said about the subejct," explained Campanesi.
That very same day I headed to the School of Veterinary Medicine. Everything I heard upon asking about dead dogs at La Aurora was a "we don't know" and an almost unbearable silence accompanied by not very friendly glances...
The next step in assembling this puzzle was to find journalist Carlos Ardaix, one of the first to appear after the incidents of February 1977. This man, with a Basque-French surname, welcomed me into his home and told me about his contact with Angel Tonna: "At that time hosted a radio show with a considerable following. It was when Angel Maria Tonna phoned me adn said: "If you want to know the truth atbout La Aurora and why the city's lights went out, come over." I went with two or three people from the radio sation. When we arrived Tonna was still rather upset. He told me that at 0400 hours they had seen a light behind the shed and thought that it was on fire. The horses, the dogs...all of the animals were frightened. Tonna walked to some 50 meters of where the apparatus was. It approached slowly and Angel fell to the ground, covering his face with his arm to avoid the powerful light. Later the object vanished at high speed," the newspaperman explained.
There was talk of burned or severed wires...
"When I reached the ranch the steel wires were still cut and the cables of the electrical facility. The engine's piston broke down, a very expensive breeding bull died slowly...I understand that an autopsy was performed on it at the School of Medicine and no cause of death was established. The same happened to several sheep, whose wool was singed black and left like rough wifer. A very fierce dog that Tonna kept died little by little. Tonna had a skin eruption on the arm that he used to shield his face from the light.
You did not doubt Tonna's information?
No, he seemed very sincere. In any event, as a journalist, I tried to find other witnesses. One of the farmhands had already seen something similar near the site. I visited other farms near La Aurora, sicne i thought a local may have seen the UFO. I asked a foreman and he told me hadn't seen anything at night. As we walked out, a farmhand chopping wood told me: "We all saw what happened at night, but we were forbidden to speak of it." After that we transmitted Tonna's recording over the air. There was a chain reaction. Many people started visiting the site, like those Americans who wanted to take him back to the U.S. for testing.
Do you recall who these men were?
No. It was said at the time that they were from NASA, but I'm not sure. I think there was an American journalist [among them]. At the time the Salto Grande dam was being built and there were Japanese engineers staying at the farm. One physician--Dr. Menoni--discovered through some photographs that there was considerable radiation in the trees at La Aurora. The Japanese confirmed it on their measurment devices.
What about the burns on Tonna's arm?
It was a burn that would reoccur sporadically. The electocardiogram machine would't work when the electrodes would be placed on him. That's what two doctors I know told me. After two years the burns began to fade. It was something truly strange that could've had something to do with radiation.
So..what about the blackouts?
No one has been able to explain why there were so many blackouts in 1977. On the night on which the events played out in La Aurora there was a half-hour long blackout. In following days there were others, always whenever UFOs appeared.
Could there have been somtehing more behind the events? Human manipulation perhaps?
Never! I can tell you that the breeding bull he had died, and it was worth a fortune. That wasn't a joke. The pedigree horse didn't die...he was a stud and was rendered sterile.
Is it true that the ranch became a place of pilgrimage?
Yes, but Angel Tonna, in recent years, is sick of receiving callers and has chosen not to let anyone in and to refuse interviews. I understand, because he wants to work normally, look after his animals and his property. So many people came from all over the world came, like American ufologists James Hurtak and Bob Pratt, Pedro Romaniuk from Argentina. Tonna showed me a letter in which Antonio Ribera claimed to be interested in visiting La Aurora but he couldn't come. The most controversial was a visit by Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon. No one knows why he visited...
And to these pilgrimages still go on?
Sometimes entire buses of people come seeking cures. Yes, they think the place was blessed by a supernatural force. It was decided to build a crypt to Padre Pío there and don't ask me why. The people who find the warning sign advising them to stay away from La Aurora cross the road where they find the chapel of teh prioest that makes miracles, healings...

Radioactivity on the Farm

On the following day I tried contacting Tonna and his relatives using the phone numbers featured in the localk directory. After some frustrated events, I managed to speak to one of his sons, the veterinarian, and he told me that his father no longer spoke of Angel Tonna. The matter was closed for him.

My only alternative was to open other fronts. One of these was to locate doctor Juan María Menoni, the same one who took photographs in the area which showed traces of radiation. "I'm not a ufologist," he said, "but I became interested in the case at the time. When I visited the site, I found that part of the fence had been melted. The generator and the motor had burned out. I took a sample of tree bark that had been burned by the UFO. A photographer friend suggested that I place the piece of bark over a strip of 35mm film. When we developed the film some strange spots appeared on the film.

Without a word, Menoni went to his office and returned with some photo enlargements which showed the result of the vegetable matter's exposure. "It's curious. It seemed to be charged with radiation, but where was the radiation coming from? It must've been from the mysterious flying saucer."

A few days later, in Buenos Aires, I had an interview with famous parapsychologist and ufologist Antonio Las Heras, who had visited La Aurora in 1978 to look into the case. "What happened there drew my attention. I saw the trees, the toppled eucalyptuses, almost uprooted, as though a giant hand had played with them. I saw the branches ripped off by a UFO's effects. In fact, they looked like someone had smashed them, making them tumble over and over. I found calcined rock with vitreous formation on the sandstone. For vitrification to occur, the tempuratures must be in excess of a thousand degrees [Centigrade]. I saw giant mushrooms measuring a meter and a half in diameter, standing inside the strange marks left by the UFOs. Only radiation could have mutated those living organisms."

Las Heras told me that Tonna had been accompanied by a police dog that fateful night. "The animal died three days later. They said that it had no blood, as though it had been absorbed through its flesh, which had developed an inconsistent appearance, like flesh that has been boiled. The dog's skin was burned in seeral pales and its tail hairs were bristled like wire. No one was able to offer a diagnosis for what occurred," he said, shaking his head.

"What happened to the bull?" I asked, trying to avoid showing surprise at his words.

"It was a show animal of great value and it died with the very same symptoms as the dog, but after a week. The horse--a stallion--was left sterile. The sheep deaths were also mysterious: they had a sort of band around their bodies which passed through their withers. IT was really a burned patch, as though a branding iron had been applied, according to Tonna."


That made me react, associating the facts with the enigmatic manifestationsof the infamous Chupacabras, but much later, in the mid-Nineties. A large amount of farm animals turned up dead in several Latin American countries, generally bled dry, attacked by an unknown creature or force.

Uruguayan ufologist Jorge Monsalve, whom I couldn't locate, also interviewed Tonna around the time. In his book Encuentros Cercanos con OVNIS (Montevideo, 1995), Monsalve explains how he arrived in time to see the Normandy bull, imported from France, still alive. Tonna asked the man to touch the animal's horns: "That being said, I extended my hand and [the horn] practically crumbled in my fingers. A sad and disagreeable experience."

(Translation (c) 2003, Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology)

Spain: The 1966 A Graña UFO was a UAV

Spain: The 1966 A Graña UFO was a UAV
By Scott Corrales

A number of Spanish news outlets reported on May 9, 2012 the interesting story involving a UFO supposedly recovered by the Spanish Navy at El Ferrol (on the Northwestern tip of the Iberian Peninsula) in 1966 was actually a NASA unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Known as the “A Graña UFO”, the object remained a mystery for decades and still does, to a large extent. But recent news items suggest that the UFO was really a NASA UAV which was seen flying over the skies of El Ferrol in November the winter of 1966. According to El Confidencial Digital, the unknown, luminous object emitted a variety of lights as it flew over the city before vanishing into the sea.

But far from returning to its base on Tau Ceti or some other galactic port of call, the UFO crashed into the sea. It was recovered by fishermen who brought it aboard their trawler, amazed by the technology and strange lights and electronics that were completely unknown to them. We will never know what conversations took place among the fishermen that night as to how to profit from this unexpected discovery, but the fact remains that Spanish naval officers were already on land, waiting to relieve them of their prize.

El Confidencial Digital was also able to locate one of the military men involved in the recovery and custody of the strange object. Perhaps more willing to speak now than in previous years, the officer reported that the high command at the A Graña submarine base at El Ferrol were ordered to remain silent.

The officer recalls that the unidentified intruder had the approximate size of a Sabre F-86 fighter, widely used at the time. Wingless and with a large rear nozzle, it was made of a yellowish material identified as similar to the “golden paper” seen on Apollo and Gemini spacecraft. El Confidencial Digital consulted experts who advised the journalists that the material is very light and heat resistant.

Strict secrecy requirement imposed on the military men was made extensive to the fishermen who had found the device. It was loaded onto an Army vehicle and escorted to A Graña, where it was stored in a series of large tunnels dug deep into a hillside. Technicians from the Spanish Ejercito del Aire (air force) reported to the Navy base to analyze the object and determine its purpose. They did not take long to find the NASA logo and acronym stamped onto the device’s fuselage. Existence of these tunnels has been proven by Spanish "urban explorers", who have ventured into elaborate networks of man-made structures under the Meiros Lighthouse.

The UAV, while crude, represented a level of technical sophistication far in excess of any available at the time, and investigators determined that it was a spy device, judging by its sophisticated cameras. The U.S. naval facility at Rota in southern Spain was advised of the discovery, and as one might expect, U.S. military personnel reported to El Ferrol and took the object with them in a military truck. Nothing more was learned of its whereabouts.(http://www.elconfidencialdigital.com/defensa/074515/el-ovni-recuperado-por-la-armada-en-ferrol-en-1966-era-en-realidad-un-prototipo-espia-de-la-nasa-los-detalles-de-un-secreto-militar-silenciado-durante-anos)

Following up on the unusual story, Patricia Hermida, writing for El Correo Gallego, ads that the spy object measured 21 meters in diameter. It was first seen over the piers of the city, before falling into the ocean and being recovered by the trawler Reina María and its crew. “On that strange morning in 1966,” writes Hermida in her article, “a strange object acted as a traffic light in the skies over El Ferrol,” alluding to its yellow, red and green lights.

She writes about eyewitnesses who were not in the least bit shy to tell their story to TVG, the provincial television station of the Galicia region. According to Hermida, the onlookers were adamant about their statements: “The object vanished at high speed toward the fiord, measuring 21 meters in diameter. It flew over Azano and Bazán before vanishing into the sea.” Also interesting is the description offered by the crew of the Reina María fishing trawler, who found the wreckage.

Spain has endured a number of incidents involving the U.S. military, most notably the incident involving the atomic weapon lost at Palomares following the crash of a B-52 Stratofortress, but more recent ones as well.

On Thursday, 2 July 1998, the El País newspaper reported that American spy plane had crashed in the Andalusian town of Barbate in southern Spain. The usual formal denials from the government were put forth, and this was made plain to Willy Meyer, the deputy representing the city of Cadiz and spokesman for the Comisión de Defensa del Congreso (Congressional Defense Committee). On 11 May, Willy Meyer inquired about "the collision of an unmanned vehicle in the vicinity of the town of Barbate's San Ambrosio neighborhood," an incident that would have taken place at an unspecified moment in the summer months of 1996.

The Ministry of Defense assured Congressman Meyer that "timely research has been performed by the agencies having competence in the matter" concerning air traffic over the area in question. The agencies in question included the US Navy operations center at the Rota Naval Base. No evidence concerning the crash could be found.
These political assurances did little to assuage the tempers of the residents of San Ambrosio in Barbate, where the putative spy plane crashed. The residents said they had been stunned beyond belief to see two large CH46 helicopters disgorge their full complement of Marines who sanitized the area and later vacated it at top speed without issuing any explanations. Neither the local police nor the Guardia Civil made any efforts to investigate the matter, which would have been forgotten but for the presence of a daring member of the public who, armed with a photo camera, captured the military clean-up operation in full swing. Willie Meyer furnished the photographic evidence to the authorities, stating: "We wonder if at the time there were records of secret military flights authorized over Spanish territory."