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From: Masinaigan <Masinaigan@aol.com> [Joseph Trainor]
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 13:05:29 EDT
Fwd Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 04:46:11 -0400
Subject: UFO ROUNDUP, Volume 3, Number 16
UFO ROUNDUP
Volume 3, Number 16
April 19, 1998
Editor: Joseph Trainor
FOUR UFOs CAUSE CITYWIDE
BLACKOUT IN ARGENTINA
Eyewitnesses spotted four UFOs over Bariloche,
a city in southern Argentina, immediately prior and
during two citywide electrical blackouts.
Bariloche is a popular ski resort in the Andes,
on the south shore of Lago (Lake) Nahuel Huapi,
located 1,040 kilometers (650 miles) southwest
of Buenos Aires.
The first blackout took place at 7:45 p.m. on
Sunday, April 12, 1998 and lasted until 10:11 p.m.
"Spokesmen for Cooperativa Electricidade
Bariloche (CEB) said the origin of the electrical
blackout that darkened a great part of the city
has no explanation. No cause exists to explain
the occurrence."
CEB linemen traced the source of the power
shutdown to transmission lines leading to the
Cipresales transformer substation.
Power was briefly restored for four minutes.
But at 10:15 p.m., Bariloche's lights went off
again, and the city remained without power
until 1:30 a.m. Monday, April 13.
According to the newspaper Diario Rio Negro,
"Gustavo and Beatriz Riveros saw strange lights
hovering above Cerro Carbon (hill) in the eastern
section of the city Beatriz saw two of the lights
'fuse together' over the Lions (a land feature on
the hillside--J.T.) just as the lights went out.
Other witnesses reported strange illuminations
over Lago Nahuel Huapi."
"In the barrio San Francisco, a woman saw
'a ball of red light' descending in a zigzag pattern
toward the large pedestrian stairway at Tiscornia."
A "luminous disc" was also seen near the
intersection of Calle Fernando Beschtete and
Calle La Paz.
In the barrio Nicolas Lavalle, eyewitnesses
saw four luminous UFOs hovering overhead.
One witness, Sara Salizar, said, "They are a large
spacecraft and three smaller ones that attached
themselves to the larger one over and over again."
Andrea Capararo told the Argentine news agency
TOLAM that she and her sisters, Natalia and
Carolina, "at 11:30 (p.m.) we observed in the sky
a kind of large plate with twinkling red, yellow, green
and blue lights, and another object a little bit longer
with red and yellow lights. The luminous objects
seemed permanently supported in the air for several
minutes, then moved away towards the lake."
Natalia and Carolina Capararo described the
saucer as resembling "a tomato bigger than an
airplane" and flying toward Cerro Carbon, east of
the barrio.
"Various inhabitants of the upper (highland)
region of the city, for their part, told radio and TV
reporters that they had first seen a formation of
stars moving across the sky with twinkling lights
colored red, yellow and green and with a brilliant
white radiance, between 10:30 and 11:45 p.m.
Sunday night."
"The moving lights appeared to be attached
to an elongated form and another form resembling
a small bottle, the inhabitants said. The union of
the two objects produced 'a great star,' like a great
electrical discharge, and the lights of the city went
out."
Bariloche is the site of two of Argentina's most
famous incidents, the Dr. Tarda case in December
1968 and the jetliner pilot case in June 1995.
(See the Argentinian newspapers Diario Popular of
Buenos Aires and Diario Rio Negro for April 14,
1998. Muchas gracias a Carlos Iurchuk, Luis Pacheco
y ALFANET para esas noticias.)
NEON GREEN UFO SEEN IN
NORTHERN VIRGINIA
On Friday, April 3, 1998, at 6:30 p.m., a UFO
described as "a small, neon green, egg-shaped
object" flew over downtown Fredericksburg,
Virginia (population 19,027).
Several local residents, plus four officers of
the Fredericksburg police, witnessed the UFO's
overflight.
Eyewitness Robert Tolen of Spotsylvania
County spotted the UFO while he was at a pay
phone at Eubank's Amoco station on Princess
Anne Street. "I believe it was a UFO," Tolen
was quoted as saying in the Fredericksburg
Free-Lance Star, "I don't care what anyone says."
Michael Todaro of Stafford County "was at a
baseball field at Falmouth Elementary School"
when he spied the UFO, saying, "It was one of
the weirdest things I've ever seen."
"If someone else hadn't seen it, I never would
have told anyone about it. Never. Never," Todaro
told the Free-Lance Star.
According to the newspaper, the four officers
"were in the parking lot behind police headquarters"
when they sighted the object.
The newspaper checked with the Wallops
Island missile test range near Chincoteague to
determine if the witnesses had actually witnesses
a rocket test. But a spokesman for Wallops Island
told them that there "were no tests on Friday."
Fredericksburg is just south of Route 3, about
57 miles (91 kilometers) north of Richmond, the
state capital.
The Free-Lance Star also reported a UFO
incident near the Patuxent Naval Air Test Center
in Lexington Park, Maryland (population 9,743).
"Witnesses saw a blue UFO that same evening"
near the center on Highway 235, and "It hovered
for a few minutes, then sped away." (See the
Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star for April 7, 1998.
Many thanks to Kenneth Young, public relations
director for Tri-States Advocates for Scientific
Knowledge, T.A.S.K., for forwarding the article.)
SPHERICAL BLACK UFO
SEEN NEAR DALLAS, TEXAS
On Sunday, April 12, 1998, at 11 a.m., a U.S.
Air Force veteran, Mike H., and his family were
driving north on Interstate Highway 35 northwest
of Dallas, Texas.
As he drove through the suburb of Farmers
Branch (population 24,250), Mike reported,
"I spotted a black round-shaped UFO flying very
fast and just below the clouds. The object looked
quite small to me, less than the size of a pencil
held at arm's length. But due to the height, even a
large object would look small."
At first Mike said nothing to his family, wondering
if the object might be a bird, but then he realized
that "it was flying much too fast" to be a bird.
The motorists kept the UFO in view as they
drove past Royal Lane and L.B. Houston Park,
heading for Interstate Highway 635, aka the Lyndon B.
Johnson Freeway.
"The object was moving faster than we were,"
Mike reported. "Our vehicle was moving approximately
65 miles per hour, and the object moved past us in
the same direction and within ten seconds was out
of sight." (Email Interview)
(Editor's Comment: Ten seconds to the horizon would
mean an estimated speed of 1,440 miles per hour.)
SHEFFIELD UFO CASE CAUSES
A FUROR IN BRITAIN
The March 24, 1997 UFO incident in the Peak
District west of Sheffield is now the subject of an
investigation by the newspaper Sheffield Star,
the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA)
and the Hon. Helen Jackson, Member of Parliament
for Sheffield/Hillsborough.
In early April, the Sheffield Star revealed that
the RAF had conducted a low-altitude training
exercise that night and had participated in a massive
air-and-ground search for a purported missing
aircraft.
Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Jackson submitted a list
of questions about the Sheffield case to the UK
Ministry of Defence (MoD).
On April 7, 1998, John Spellar, Under-Secretary of
Defense sent Mrs. Jackson this response: "It is not
possible 12 months after the date in question to state
precisely where military activities were being carried
out. Records kept show only that aircraft were tasked
to carry out low flying over the Peak District between
2030 and 2107 (8:30 to 9:07 p.m.) local time on the
evening of 24 March 1997. No low-level flying is
permitted over the Sheffield urban area or any other
major conurbation."
The night of March 24, 1997, instruments at the
University of Edinburgh recorded two mysterious
sonic booms in the Sheffield area. Eyewitnesses
on the ground reported seeing a triangular UFO and
up to six RAF Tornado fighters flying overhead.
According to the May/June 1997 issue of UFO
Magazine (page 9), the witnesses described the
object as "a huge triangular-shaped UFO (that) passed
directly overhead at 300 feet at 9:30 p.m. The craft
had pinkish-colored lights around its curved edges and
a blinking blue light on its underside and 'lit up the
street as bright as day.'"
Since March 24, 1997, rumors of a UFO air battle
and a Tornado crash have circulated in Derbyshire and
South Yorkshire. According to the story, the triangular
UFO appeared over Dronfield, Derbyshire. Six RAF
Tornado interceptors engaged in an air attack on the
craft. The UFO supposedly shot down a Tornado,
which crashed in a reservoir near the Howden Moors
in Derbyshire. The UFO then fled into space.
Following the exchange of letters between
Under-Secretary Spellar and Mrs. Jackson, BUFORA
press officer Dave Clarke inteviewed Alan Pattison
of MoD's "UFO desk" and his deputy, Squadron Leader
Tom Manning of the RAF.
According to Clarke, the men "confirmed the planes
involved in the incident were two Tornado GR1 Strike
aircraft which were operating from the base at RAF
Marham on a pre-booked and pre-planned low-level
training exercise over the Peak District. These
Tornados were the type used on bombing missions
in the (Persian) Gulf War and are not fighters that
would be scrambled for an intercept."
"They also admitted that other Tornados and indeed
Jaguar fighters from other NATO bases took part in
the night-time sortie, which included night-time flying at
a minimum 250 feet altitude over the mountains west
of Sheffield."
UFO researcher Max Burns has claimed that the
triangular mystery object was tracked on radar at 9:55
p.m. that night by the Royal Signals unit at the RAF
Linton-upon-Ouse base, near the city of York.
Clarke stated, "The MoD/RAF current position is
that the two sonic booms recorded at 2132 and 2206
(9:32 and 10:06 p.m. by Edinburgh) that night remain
'unexplained.' They claim the low-flying exercise was
over fifty minutes before these sonic events were
recorded and say that they have no record of them at
the time of the exercise."
Pattison and Manning stated, "We did not chase
a UFO, and there has been no cover-up. We responded
to a request by the police to help to search for a crashed
aircraft and sent a helicopter from RAF Leconfield. We
don't know what caused the sonic events, and the whole
thing is a mystery to us, too."
Clarke revealed that the air-and-ground search
involved 200 police, fire and military reserve personnel,
who covered an area of 40 square miles around
Bolsterstone, South Yorkshire. The helicopter from
RAF Leconfield was a Westland Sea King HAS Mk 6,
which assisted the West Yorkshire police helicopter
in the search. (See the Sheffield Star for April 4, 1998.
Also UFO Roundup, volume 2, number 12 for March 30,
1997. Many thanks to Dave Clarke of BUFORA and
John Hayes for this story.)
NEW CYDONIA PHOTO ADDS
TO MARS MYSTERIES
The Mars Global Surveyor snapped a second
high-resolution photo of the Cydonia region on Mars
this week, this time encompassing an area known
as "The City."
On its 239th orbit, Surveyor once again aimed
its Mars Orbiting Camera (MOC) at the desert
lowlands at latitude 40.8 degrees north and
longitude 9.6 degrees west. And, just like last
week, the photo's appearance on the Internet raised
a ruckus.
On Thursday, April 16, 1998, a memo from a
person identifying himself as "Fred Kurros" appeared
on a website, alleging that Surveyor's images showed
artificial structures.
"Apparently, yesterday (Wednesday, April 15) at
the Denver Lockheed-Martin location was really a
party-like atmosphere, people running around and
saying, 'There was life on Mars half a billion years ago!'"
Kurros wrote, "...and NASA is prepared to announce it
in the next three days."
"The new image that clearly (shows) at least one
pyramid structure...with right angles on at least three
of the sides...and it is a perfect right angle. Plus, many
of us have been comparing it to photos of the Giza
pyramid, and the likeness is stunning."
At 2:54 p.m. on Thursday, in an interview with Rob
McConnell, spokesperson Frank O'Donnell, Manager
of Media Services for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, California, denied the "Kurros" story.
O'Donnell stated that "stories being circulated on the
Internet pertaining to an alleged statement that NASA
will be releasing as to alleged 'artificial structures' on
Mars as captured by MGS (Mars Global Surveyor) are
unfounded--and were denied."
O'Donnell added that "the (second Cydonia) photo
received at JPL, after careful examination, shows no
proof of any artificial structure(s)," and pointed out to
McConnell that "people will see in them what they
want to see."
The new Cydonia photo has also stirred renewed
debate among professional geologists.
In a new paper entitled "A Geological and Geomorphic
Investigative Approach to Some of the Enigmatic Cydonia
Landforms," geologist James L. Erjavel disputed NASA's
conclusion that the Face and other landforms in Cydonia
were caused by "differential erosion."
NASA's 1989 McGill survey concluded that Cydonia
was once covered by one kilometer (1,000 meters) of
"erodible sediment" that was blown away by strong
Martian winds "leaving a knobby terrain that is a
combination of exhumed remnants of cratered terrain,
igneous intrusives and cratered plateau material."
Erjavel pointed out that the Cydonia photos show
only a "slight modest erosion" of the region. Erodible
material was present to a depth of only 200 meters
in prehistoric times, not 1,000 meters.
As proof of his assertion, Erjavel offered a comparison
of Cydonia with the cratered area immediately to the east.
Both regions show clearly-defined impact craters of
a diameter of one kilometer or greater. However, while
the eastern region has "a significantly greater number
of smaller craters less than one kilometer" in diameter,
Cydonia has none.
"On the most basic level," Erjavel wrote, "this
dimophism suggests there is a distinct difference
between the cratered and knobby terrains that
cannot be accounted for if exhumation by erosive
forces has been the primary factor in the area's
morphological development." (Many thanks to
Steve Wilson Sr. for these news stories.)
(Editor's Comment: Seeing the second new Cydonia
photo, I was excited to find the remnants of an
'igneous intrusive,' aka a volcanic dike, in the lower
portion of the picture. The dike is similar to the one
at Shiprock, New Mexico and is proof that a
stratovolcano like California's Mount Shasta or
Washington state's Mount Rainier existed in
Cydonia about ten to fifteen million years ago.
Interestingly, these dikes, which are caused by
molten magma seeping up into cracks in the
existing bedrock, are usually found in sedimentary
rocks. I still say the underlying formation that
created Cydonia's plain is sandstone, not basalt.)
SHUTTLE "SPACE ARK" TAKES
OFF ON NEUROLAB MISSION
On Friday, April 17, 1998, the space shuttle
Columbia took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida on
its twenty-fifth mission--a two-week Neurolab
experiment designed to study the effects of space
travel on the brains of living creatures.
The launch had been scheduled for Thursday,
April 16, but a malfuntion in the main comlink data
processor ended the countdowm. "But tens of
thousands of spectators packed around the Kennedy
Space Center yesterday to watch the ship soar into a
clear afternoon sky and glitter for five minutes before
vanishing from sight.
The shuttle could easily be called Altman's Ark
because, riding along with pilot Scott Altman, mission
commander Rick Searloss and crew, are 1,514 crickets
in the larval stage, 18 pregnant mice, 152 rats, 60
snails, 75 snail eggs and 233 swordtail fish.
"Scientists know from 37 years of human space
flight what happens to the body during weightlessness.
The goal of the current mission, called Neurolab, is
to understand why."
"By knowing how the nervous system adjusts to
the lack of gravity, the space agency will be in a better
position to send astronauts to Mars and establish
moon colonies."
On Saturday, April 19, Columbia's doctors, Dave
Williams and Jay Buckey Jr. conducted complex
animal dissections, "removing the brains of four rats
so scientists can see how the nervous system
changes in weightlessness. Scientists say the only
way to know precisely how the nervous system
adapts and develops without gravity is to remove
and preserve body parts in orbit." (See the New
York Post for April 18, 1998, "Shuttle roars off into
space with a cast of thousands" and for April 19, 1998,
"Shuttle crew looks to brainless rats for help.")
(Editor's Comment: One can only hope that some star-
hopping species unfamiliar with Earth does not select the
next 15 days to visit our solar system. Their curiosity
piqued by that strange vehicle orbiting the blue planet,
they might focus the old tractor beam, reel in Columbia
and schedule everything aboard for what the Post
euphemistically calls "post-landing dissection.")
from the UFO Files:
1928: KARJAT TO POONA
VIA HYPERSPACE
A strange case of apparent teleportation took
place in Poona, India back in April 1928. A nine-
year-old boy, Damodar Ketkar, had been plagued
by a type of teleportation phenomena since the
previous year. Coins, toys and other small objects
miraculously popped into view above his bed--inside
a mosquito net--and dropped onto the sheet. The
phenomena were meticulously recorded by Miss
Kohn, his British governess.
But, seventy years ago, on April 23, 1928,
Damodar made the jump into hyperspace himself.
Miss Kohn writes, "At 9:45 a.m. on April 23rd,
the elder boy (Damodar) suddenly materialized in
front of me in your doorway like a rubber ball. He
looked bright but amazed, and said, 'I have just
come from Karjat.' He didn't come through any
door."
"My sister describes the posture of the boy as
having been most remarkable. When she looked
up from her letter-writing, she saw him bending
downward: both his hands were hanging away from
his sides, and the hands hanging limp--his feet were
not touching the floor, as she saw a distinct space
between his feet and the threshold. It was precisely
the posture of a person who has been gripped around
the waist and carried, and therefore makes no effort
but is gently dropped at his location."
Suddenly, as if released by an invisible agency,
Damodar tumbled to the carpet, shaken but unhurt.
The phenomenal manifestations in the Ketkar
household at Poona, 200 kilometers (120 miles)
southeast of Bombay, continued until 1930 and
then mysteriously ended. (See POLTERGEISTS
by Alan Gauld and A.C. Cornell, Routledge and
Kegan Paul, London, 1979, page 114)
FUN UFO WEBSITES:
The second Cydonia photo is available at this
site: http://www.mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/target/
CYD2/index.html.
I'd like to take time to correct two URLs from
last week's issue, both on the first Cydonia photo:
Try the Malin site at this URL: http://www.msss.
com/mars/global_surveyor/camera/images/
4_6_face_releases/index.html
Also, try the JPL Surveyor site at this URL:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/target/CYD1/index.html
Brazil's Sociedade de Estudos Extraterrestres
(SOCEX) has a new site up and running. They are
at http://www.tabajara.com/socex/
Don't miss our parent site, UFO INFO, with its
vast array of stories, features, photos and links.
Drop in at http://ufoinfo.com
For back issues of UFO ROUNDUP, try our
website at http://ufoinfo.com/roundup
To our readers in Venezuela, Feliz Dia de
Independencia! We'll be back next week with
more saucer news from "the paper that goes
home--UFO ROUNDUP." See you then.
UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 1998 by Masinaigan
Productions, all rights reserved. Readers may post
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