UFO ROUNDUP Volume 2 Number 30 July 27, 1997 Editor: Joseph Trainor
UFOLOGISTS AND REPORTERS HEAD FOR NOVA BRASILANDIA
The reputed UFO crash near Nova Brasilandia on July 1 has drawn ufologists, reporters and TV news crews from all over Brazil.
According to Ataide F.S. Neto, president of the Brazilian UFO study group AMPUP, “The residents of Nova Brasilandia affirmed that the unidentified flying object passed over (on July 1), ripping the skies over that county. According to the locals, the object was an enormous ball of fire that illuminated the region, leading them to suspect that the UFO crashed at some point in the rural area of the county.”
Nova Brasilandia is 260 kilometers (156 miles) northeast of Cuiaba, the state capital of Mato Grosso do Sul. The area is also 200 kilometers (120 miles) from the Chapada dos Guimaraes, a UFO hotspot during the 1986 flap.
Neto said the crash “happened at around 8 p.m.” on July 1, 1997. “A huge ball of fire passed over the houses and went toward the serras (mountains). After two to four seconds, they heard an earsplitting din, like an explosion.” The sound was heard “in a radius of 160 kilometers (100 miles), and due to the impact, the land shaked. Soon after that, a gleam of light appeared, and it lasted for about one minute.”
Neto said AMPUP investigators believe that the object crashed in the Serra Azul, perhaps 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Nova Brasilandia.
But news reports in Correio de Mato Grosso and on Sistema Brasileiro de Televisao (SBT–Brazil’s biggest TV network–J.T.) claimed that the UFO crashed on Divino Fogoio’s ranch 70 kilometers (42 miles) from Nova Brasilandia.
A man named “Heleno” claimed to have gotten within “200 meters” (120 feet) of the impact crater. “He says that the stuff is the size of a van, the color is silvery, and that part of it is above the ground and the rest is buried.”
At the farm called Bela Vista, reporters from the newspaper Correio de Mato Grosso interviewed vaqueiro (cowboy) Gilberto Braga, age 26, on July 9, 1997.
“Previously he (Braga) had affirmed he saw the object,” Neto reported. “Now he denies it. However, in the filmed report (by Gazeta TV–J.T.), he appeared almost crying, wanting to say something more.”
One Nova Brasilandia resident was quoted as saying that the UFO crashed at Bela Vista farm and “Fogoio is there with the stuff. I saw Fogoio with a piece of the object.”
Another said, “What Joao told me is that the object is the size of a Volkswagen (Fusca model).”
Sr. Calixto, a reporter for Correio de Mato Grosso went to the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE) in Sao Jose do Campos to obtain satellite photos of the region. In this manner, he hopes to pinpoint the crash site. (Muito obrigado a Paulo Andrade, Pedro Cunha e Ataide F.S. Neto por eso caso.)
(Editor’s Comment: Interestingly, the alleged crash site is just north of the Serra do Roncador. Seventy-two years ago, in July 1925, Colonel Percy H. Fawcett, his son Jack Fawcett, and their partner, Raleigh Rimmell, disappeared in this region while hunting for the legendary underground cities of Matalir and Araracauga. For more weird news from Brazil, read on…)
ICE METEORS BOMBARD SOUTHERN BRAZIL
On Tuesday, July 22, 1997, Jurandir Zullo, a scientist at Campinas State University, revealed that Sao Paulo state had been struck twice in recent weeks by large blocks of ice weighing in excess of 50 kilograms.
The first “ice meteor” crashed on July 11, smashing through the tiled roof of a bus factory in Campinas, 99 kilometers (63 miles) northwest of Sao Paulo city.
Zullo reported, “People saw it just after it landed, and it was around 248 square inches in size. They then put it in the freezer, but it still melted a little. When we got there, it weighed 220 kilograms (110 pounds).”
Four days later, on Tuesday, July 15, a second “ice meteor” struck a farm field 59 kilometers (37 miles) north of Campinas, creating a small impact crater.
“The tower at the (Campinas) airport has said that there were no airplanes passing over when the ice blocks fell,” Zullo reported.
In April 1995, Chinese scientists recovered “chunks of meteoric ice” that plummeted to Earth on a farm in Zhiejang province.
(Editor’s Comment: Campinas, S.P. is the city where one of the Varginha aliens was autopsied on January 22, 1996.)
UFOs SIGHTED IN NORTHERN KENTUCKY
On Friday, July 18, 1997, at just about noontime, Sandra Brown and John Gardner were driving on Highway 35 through Sparta, Kentucky when they spotted a daylight disc in the sky.
“You’d have to say it was a UFO,” Brown told the Gallatin County News. “We pulled over on the side of the road and watched it for about five minutes.”
Ms. Brown described the UFO as “round, silver, had no lights and was a little bigger than a car.”
“It kind of just sat there,” Brown said, “It hung in the sky in one place and then, in the blink of an eye, it disappeared…I know people will think we’re crazy, but we really saw this.” (See the Gallatin County News for July 23, 1997, page 1, “Couple Report Seeing UFO Flying Over Gallatin.”)
Sparta, Kentucky is at the intersection of Highways 35 and 467, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of Cincinnati, Ohio.
The following day, Saturday, July 19, 1997, at 7:30 p.m., Mark S. was outdoors in his hometown of Alexandria, Kentucky (population 4,735) “and just happened to look up at the sky. I saw something moving across the sky and I thought it was a jet flying at high altitude. As I watched the object, I realized that I couldn’t see any wings.”
“Then I noticed a second object moving in the same direction,” he reported. “Not too far behind the first. I could not see any wings on the second object, either. Both of these objects were identical. They appeared to be flying very high, where you would normally see military jets flying. They resembled a missile, not very long and all white.”
“I could see something orange in color at the rear end of these objects. I couldn’t tell if the orange piece was part of the object or flames coming from an engine. Both were traveling almost due north (towards the city of Cincinnati–J.T.), and from my perspective, they were about one foot apart. They were both moving pretty fast. I first noticed them as they were directly overhead, and it took almost one minute to move out of my line of sight. There were no visible vapor trails or any other evidence that they were there.” (Many thanks to Kenneth Young of T.A.S.K. for the Kentucky reports.)
HOVERING ORBS SEEN IN SALIDA, COLORADO
On Saturday, July 12, 1997, at 10 p.m., Alan, a cook at the Patio Restaurant, spotted “a white globe appearing as a bright star and then blowing up to about half the size of the full moon” over Salida, Colorado.
Salida (population 4,870) has been a UFO hotspot for the past two years. The town is located on Colorado Highway 50 about 85 miles (136 kilometers) southwest of Denver.
The white globe retreated to the south, passing over Methodist Mountain, 12 miles (19 kilometers) south of Salida.
On Friday, July 18, 1997, at 12:30 a.m., Laray Chappell, age 16, was watching a Flight for Life helicopter south of Salida when she saw “a green globe south of town over Methodist Mountain. Viewed for a few seconds hovering, and then shoots straight south in a downward movement and disappears behind a ridge. As it took off at tremendous speed, she said there was a streak much like a shooting star.”
Ms. Chappell, the daughter of Salida ufologist Tim Edwards, described the UFO as “about half the size of the full moon, pure green and was a very strange sight.” (Many thanks to Tim Edwards for these reports.)
UFOs SPOTTED OVER NEW JERSEY AND LONG ISLAND
On Sunday night, July 20, 1997, two engineers in Voorhees, New Jersey (population 20,179) observed a UFO for over 45 minutes.
Bob Fulmer and Richard Miller spotted the UFO in the sky over Voorhees, a suburban community 15 miles (25 kilometers) southeast of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“The craft was changing colors from white to green to red and back to white in the northern sky,” reported George A. Filer of MUFON. “It moved back and forth at fairly slow speed, hover and then would slip off at high speed and then return…No structure could be observed. It finally flew away at high speed.”
On Saturday, July 12, 1997, at 11:45 p.m., MUFON investigator Andrew Casaveno “was in his backyard in Uniondale, Long Island, New York and very briefly witnessed a bright light roughly 3/4 the size of the moon moving sideways from southwest to northeast and then completely vanished. He could not distinguish any features of this object other than a slight oblong shape and extreme brightness.”
Uniondale (population 24,500) is located 10 miles (16 kilometers) east of John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, N.Y. (See Filer’s Files #28, copyright 1997 by George A. Filer, for these stories.)
STRANGE SIGHTING DEEPENS MISSING LEAR JET MYSTERY
On December 24, 1996, at 10 a.m., a Lear jet preparing to land at the municipal airport in Lebanon, New Hampshire (population 11,134) was asked to “go around” and try again. Minutes later, the jet vanished from the tower’s radar screen.
Seven months of sophisticated air and ground search have failed to turn up any trace of the missing Lear jet and its pilots, Johan Schwartz, 31, of Westport, Connecticut and Patrick Hayes, 30, of Clinton, Connecticut.
On Saturday, July 12, 1997, “Allison Gilliland of Grafton (New Hampshire), head of a search and rescue team, was a passenger in a Cessna looking for the jet…when she spotted ‘something manmade, that was flat and white and large,’ Gilliland said.”
“‘It may be nothing, or it might be something positive.'”
“Gilliland said the object she saw was about 4,500 feet up a slope north of Lincoln (N.H.).”
“The terrain around the object is rough and will be difficult to get to on foot, she said. Gilliland said she and a volunteer pilot made a couple of passes over the site and figured a helicopter would be better suited to identifying the object.”
“Lee Schwartz, 74, the pilot said he was busy flying the plane and trying to avoid the mountain peaks. He said he did not seen what Gilliland saw and could not confirm what the object was.”
The “white, flat object” was sighted on the slope of Mount Lafayette, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Lebanon airport. However, no further confirmation of sightings of Lear jet wreckage have been forthcoming.
As of July 27, 1997, Schwartz, Hayes and their Lear jet remain missing. (See the Boston, Mass. Herald for July 14, 1997, “Search for Jet Resumes After Sighting.”)
MORE CROP CIRCLES FOUND IN THE NETHERLANDS
On Tuesday, July 15, 1997, residents of Vlissingen, a town on the Westerschelde in the Netherlands, approximately 131 kilometers (82 miles) southwest of Amsterdam, reported five new crop circles.
The circles were found in a corn field near Vlissingen. The largest circle had a diameter of 6 meters (20 feet) and was surrounded by four smaller crop circles.
Thus far in 1997, the Netherlands has reported a total of 27 crop circles. (See the newspaper Brabants Dagblad for July 16, 1997. Many thanks to Jeroen Wierda of Picard UFO Research International for this news story.)
MYSTERIOUS LIGHT FLASHES OCCUR IN FRANCE
On Monday, July 21, 1997, at 3 p.m. and again at 5 p.m., mysterious flashes lit up the horizon in the town of Clamart, in the department of Haut de Seine. Town residents described them as “enormous blue-violet flashes in the sky.” The first luminous glow lasted for three seconds. The flash at 5 p.m. lasted for approximately 8 seconds. (Merci beaucoup a Banque OVNI de France pour ces nouvelles.)
BIGFOOT GOES WILD
On Tuesday, July 15, 1997, Jackie Hutto, 14, of Neeses, South Carolina (S.C.) heard the family’s dogs howling in their backyard pen. As he went to investigate, Jackie spied “a large, brown-yellow Bigfoot, 8 feet (2.5 meters) tall, with big ‘block- shaped’ stained teeth…that creature was clearly a male.”
He saw the creature “lifting the chain-link dog kennel out of the ground in which it was embedded.” Seeing the boy, the Bigfoot dropped the kennel and dashed into the woods.
Jackie told the Neeses, S.C. Times and Democrat newspaper that the Bigfoot “smelled pretty bad.” His 16-year-old brother supported his story.
But not everybody in Neeses believes that Bigfoot raided the Hutto place.
“I think it’s a bunch of baloney,” Darlene Riley of Neeses told the Times and Democrat. “I have about 10 kids in the house who are scared to go out and play. My kids have not been out of the house all day long because they were scared when they saw this (news story).”
Neeses is on South Carolina Highway 321 approximately 36 miles (57 kilometers) south of Columbia, the state capital. The area is covered with small creeks and rivers and swampy land bordering large farms.
According to cryptozoologist Scott McNabb, who announced plans to visit the site, the area “is sparsely populated” and “is a haven for all sorts of wild game.” (See the Neeses, S.C. Times and Democrat for July 18, 1997. Many thanks to Scott McNabb for the original news story.)
OUT-OF-PLACE ALLIGATOR APPEARS IN RHODE ISLAND
On Tuesday, July 22, 1997, at noontime, Delcia Warrell and her two children were walking to her car at their home at 140 Harrison Street, Pawtucket, Rhode Island “when they spotted a 20-inch alligator resting in the shade of the car.”
“They didn’t pause to investigate.”
“‘He’s got sharp teeth,’ said Leon Warrell III, age 7.”
“‘It was under the car,’ added his sister, D’Nelle Belle, aged 9, ‘It ran out from under the car. We ran up on the porch. We were scared because it was snapping.'”
The alligator holed up in a clump of bushes in front of 136 Harrison Street, as local residents telephoned the police. Animal Control officer John Holmes “quickly captured the alligator with a six-foot snare pole. The alligator, pale green with yellow eyes, snapped and writhed as Holmes lifted it. Then it hissed when Holmes rested it on the ground before placing it in a plastic pet carrier.”
“‘It’s definitely an alligator,’ Holmes said, ‘That’s a first for me.'”
“The alligator was turned over to zookeepers at Roger Williams Park in Providence on the advice of wildlife experts with the state Department of Environmental Management.” (See the Pawtucket, R.I. Times for July 23, 1997, page 1, “Alligator Gives City Residents A Scary Thrill.”)
HORSE MUTILATIONS BAFFLE POLICE IN IOWA
At least seven horses in eastern Iowa have been stripped of their tails during the past couple of months. The latest theft occurred this week in Solon, Iowa (population 969).
Val Upmeir, who owns a stable where the tails of two horses were cut off last May, said, “I have no idea who would be mean enough to do this. They didn’t cut the whole tail off. Whoever did it had a conscience. They left a fifth of what had been there.”
It takes almost two years for a horse’s tail to grow back.
Don Gaddis, whose horses were also sheared, said, “We’re into the fly season. They need their tails to keep the flies away.”
Solon is Iowa Highway 965, about 175 miles (280 kilometers) east of Des Moines. (See the Pawtucket, R.I. Times for July 23, 1997, page 1.)
BIZARRE FIBROUS MATERIAL FALLS ON CITY IN IDAHO
Stories of a strange dark-colored fibrous material and seven unexplained local deaths have some residents of Caldwell, Idaho (population 17,699) jittery.
On Saturday, July 19, 1997, one resident reported, “The news talked about strange stuff being dropped from the sky over Caldwell. It was all over houses, cars, equipment, shrubs, etc. They said it looked like feces, but that they were unable to confirm what it was. Isn’t that strange?”
The resident also claimed that seven people in Caldwell had died “of a strange disease that takes all their air out of your lungs and oxygen out of the blood. Channel 2 News out of Boise said that there were no common ties of any kind” that might explain the unusual respiratory malady.
Caldwell is on Interstate Highway 84 in Idaho approximately 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Boise, the state capital. (Many thanks to T.W. for forwarding this story.)
from the UFO Files…1909: AIRSHIP FLIES OVER SCHOOL IN KELSO, N.Z.
(This week we continue our look at the little-known airship flap in New Zealand of late July 1909. Many thanks to ufologist Murray Bott for these reports.)
On July 19, 1909, three residents of Oamaru, a town of the coast of New Zealand’s South Island approximately 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Kaka Point, reported “a flickering light” moving about in the sky.
Four days later, on July 23, 1909, “a small group of schoolchildren and some residents reported that an airship came down and bobbed around in the sky over the school for a few minutes.” This incident took place in Kelso, S.I., New Zealand.
A reporter for the Otago Daily Times went to Kelso, interviewed the witnesses, and submitted this report: “All those scholars who saw the ship were interrogated singly and independently and were asked to draw an impression of what they had seen. The result was six drawings, the degree of resemblance and unanimity of which was nothing short of dumbfounding to all sceptics. Special interrogation of the boys revealed the fact that none had drawn the diagram before not had they been interested in airships prior to witnessing this one. One of the boys in addition to the side view was able to draw it from beneath as the ship passed over his head. This showed two sails on each side. One boy drew a revolving propellor at the rear.” (See the Otago Daily Times for July 31, 1909.)
FUN UFO WEBSITES
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Talk about weird weeks! And the wierdness isn’t over yet. Remember two weeks ago, July 13, when we mentioned that it was the anniversary of the 1793 assassination of the French revolutionist, Dr. Jean-Paul Marat? Well, you’ll never guess what today is.
Give up? July 27 is the birthday of Dr. Marat’s assassin! Yes, it was on July 27, 1768 that Marie-Anne Charlotte Corday d’Arlmont, better known as Charlotte Corday, was born in Normandy. Isn’t that bizarre?
So if you’re in the tub today, and you happen to see a lady in a black hat and a striped skirt toting a kitchen knife heading your way, grab that towel and run!
Meanwhile, I’ll let historians of the future figure out whether or not the fair Charlotte was Dr. Marat’s mistress; Adam Weishaupt’s mistress; or both.
That’s it for this week. Join us next Sunday for more saucer news from “the paper that goes home– UFO ROUNDUP.”
UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 1997 by Masinaigan Productions, all rights reserved. Readers may post news items from UFO ROUNDUP on their websites or in newsgroups provided that they credit the newsletter and its editor by name and list the date of issue in which the news item first appeared.
