UFO ROUNDUP Volume 4 Number 14 April 5, 1999 Editor: Joseph Trainor
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TORONTO UFO BACK AGAIN
The Toronto UFO made two more appearances last week near Canada’s largest city.
On Sunday, March 28, 1999, at about 8 p.m., Aaron W. “was out with a friend in Jack Darling Park in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada when we saw a glowing orb over the Lakeview Generating Station” located two kilometers from the Toronto city limits.
“It was a bright, gold-coloured light that hovered for five minutes, then split into five separate lights and disappeared below the horizon,” Aaron reported.
The following evening, Monday, March 29, 1999, at 8:45 p.m., Aaron “was out again at Lake Ontario on a beach in Rattray Marsh. I looked over my head to the northwest, and I saw a bright red light streak across the sky. When I pointed it out to three other witnesses, it became very, very dim, but they did see it for approximately two seconds. The witnesses lost sight of it, but I continued to watch for ten seconds as it danced across the sky.” (Email Interview)
MORE UFO SIGHTINGS ARE REPORTED IN ONTARIO
UFOs were reported throughout the month of March 1999 in Canada’s Ontario province, with many sightings around Sudbury and Elliot Lake.
On Wednesday, March 14, 1999, at 3:40 p.m., a motorist driving from Elliot Lake (population 14,089), a city 117 miles (187 kilometers) west of Sudbury, to Provincial Highway 17 “reported seeing a cone-shaped object moving across the sky from west to east. The front end was squared off. There was no vapour trail behind it, and it was as white as a cloud.”
On Friday, March 12, 1999, at 10 p.m., a boy living in Sudbury (population 92,884), a city on Highway 69 approximately 260 miles (410 kilometers) north of Toronto, “was trying to get to sleep when he looked out his bedroom window and saw a triangular object in the night sky. It had three colored lights–one at each corner. One light was red and the other two were white. He also noticed a fourth light in the center of the craft–a smaller red light which was moving around in a circular pattern. He said the triangular craft was about as big as an aspirin (held) at arm’s length.”
On Saturday, March 13, 1999, at 1:05 a.m., a man in Garson, Ont. “saw a big, round object moving slowly across the sky in a northwesterly direction. He said it blinked four times before disappearing and described it as being ‘lime green in colour, oval-shaped and as large as a garbage can cover held at a distance of 15 feet.'”
On Monday, March 15, 1999, at around 3 p.m., two men ice-fishing on Dunlop Lake, near Elliot Lake, Ont., “saw a glare moving across the sky.” They described the UFO as “the object was a lot bigger than a plane” and “it was a silver bullet-type thing.” The witnesses “said it flew above the trees about three or four miles away and then just disappeared. Both the top and the lower halves were reflecting sunlight, he said, but the middle section was blurry.”
On Saturday, March 20, 1999, at around 3 a.m., two women driving east on Highway 17 from Sault Sainte Marie, Ont. “saw what looked like a bright star in the sky. Then it suddenly came down at tremendous speed and flew past their car. The witness, who was in the passenger seat, said that as the large ball of light flew past the car, sparks were shooting off from end to end. She looked back through the rear window of the car to see the object, and it stopped and hovered above the road.”
On Monday, March 29, 1999, at 11:15 p.m., the same Sudbury boy who saw the UFO on March 12, told MUFON that he “saw a similar object racing across the southern sky.” (Many thanks to MUFON Ontario, Sudbury Section, and Errol Bruce-Knapp for these reports.)
STRANGE “TREE CIRCLES” STUDIED IN CANADA
The presence of over 2,000 mysterious “tree circles” or “forest rings” in northern Ontario and northwestern Quebec has researchers in Canada puzzled.
The “forest rings” were found in boreal forests ranging from Nipigon, Ont. (population 2,430), just north of Lake Superior, to Matagami, Quebec (population 2,467), a small city on Provincial Highway 109 about 120 miles (192 kilometers) north of Ottawa, the national capital.
The rings were discovered by Dr. Jean Veillette, a geomorphologist with the Geological Survey of Canada in Ottawa,
According to the National Post, “Dr. Veillette first became intrigued by the rings in the early 1980s when he noticed them on several photos he was seeing from a mapping project in Quebec’s Alitisi region. The light colour of the rings results from sparse vegetation growth, which contrasts with the dense tree cover within and around the rings.”
“‘I researched them as I went along,’ he says, ‘and noticed there were more rings as I moved north.'”
“Since then he has looked at 38,000 air photos and recorded more than 2,000 of the rings, which seem to be concentrated in an arc north of Lake Nipigon in Ontario to Matagami, Que. There is also an isolated cluster on Anticosti Island at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.”
The rings are perfectly round, ranging from ‘only’ 30 metres to two kilometers across…They are found typically in areas of carbonate-rich soil and/or bedrock. located in forest regions of black spruce, tamarack and pine, anchored in moist peaty ground.”
“Theories of how the rings were formed have emerged from every scientific and not-so-scientific source. Ufologists claim an extraterrestrial influence; astronomers suggest meteor strikes; prospectors claim they signal diamond-bearing kimberlites,” a blue, igneous rock found in the Laurentian Shield deposits. (See the National Post for March 16, 1999. Many thanks to Paul Anderson of Circles Phenomenon Research-Canada for the article and the background information on the forest rings.)
GREEN FIREBALLS DAZZLE VIEWERS IN IRELAND
Mysterious green fireballs were seen twice over Ireland the night of Saturday, March 6, 1999.
That night, at 11:30 p.m., Edel Chadwich “was driving across the bog (ostensibly a road–Edel) between Borrisokane, County Tipperary, and Cloghan, County Offaly,” about 135 kilometers (81 miles) southwest of Dublin, the national capital.
“Anyone who knows this road knows that it is unrelieved flat bog,” Chadwick reported, “I saw what I perceived to be a meteorological phenomenon. It was a very clear dry night, cold. I saw what looked like a very large shooting star, comet-type thing, about ten times larger than the (Hale-Bopp) comet that was visible last year. It moved through the sky extremely quickly but not from a very big distance. It was a very vivid green. It hovered for a second or two and vanished.”
Forty minutes earlier, at 10:50 p.m., David Moore of Astronomy Ireland, editor of Astronomy and Space magazine, was making telescope observations on Djouce Mountain (727 meters or 2,385 feet) in County Wicklow, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of Cloghan when he spotted a similar green fireball.
“There was a brilliant fireball on Saturday night, March 6,” Moore informed Dave Walsh, editor of Blather, the Irish online newsletter of Paranormal Provocateurism. “I saw the ground light up myself from Djouce Mountain when we were using my telescope. It happened to the north.”
Noting the time discrepancy, Walsh wrote, “Has someone made a mistake, or were there ‘two’ large fireballs over Ireland that night?” (See Blather for March 31, 1999. Many thanks to Dave Walsh for letting UFO Roundup use this item.)
UFO FLAP CONTINUES IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL
Two more UFO incidents took place in the state of Sao Paulo in southern Brazil last week.
On Tuesday, March 16, 1999, around 10 p.m., a glowing UFO appeared over the Residential Sete Quedas apartment complex in Itu, located 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of the industrial city of Sao Paulo. The hovering UFO was videotaped by one of the witnesses.
At the apartment complex, located in the Itaim section of the city, “Gabriel de Carvalho Filho watched again with his wife an aerial ballet starring the object.”
“The Folha da Cidade reporter, Eduardo Luiz Santion, videotaped the object and watched for 15 minutes with the other witnesses.”
“Minna Luise de Paula, also a resident of Sete Quedas, who saw the ‘glow’ of light on Tuesday, said the shape and size of the light reject the possibility that it was stars or a balloon.”
“Francisco Bento Feitosa, who works at Sete Quedas, said he nearly lost his cool when he saw the light. He did not believe in UFOs, but his faith was shaken badly Tuesday night.”
Residents of the hillside section of Itu also saw the UFO. “Clarice Fukuda was one of these, and through her window, noticed the light in the direction of the Gaplanas Building.” (See the newspaper Folha da Cidade for February 20, 1999. Muito obrigado a Thiago Ticchetti por eso caso.)
On Sunday, March 21, 1999, around 12:30 a.m., Denise Ribeiro “was with my husband in the backyard of our house” in Butantam, a suburb of Sao Paulo, “because the night was very, very hot. Around 12:30, my son called our attention to a red light that he was seeing. At the first moment, I thought it was the planet Mars. It was very visible this night. But I noticed that this light was a little bit bigger than the planet.”
“Looking more closely, I saw a point formed by four red lights, in a cross shape. The lights did not blink. They were very clear…The ‘object’ was stopped, apparently at a very high altitude. So, after ten minutes at a dead stop, the ‘object’ started to go to the west very slowly, a straight line at a constant velocity. Two of the four lights turned off, (the UFO) made a turn and started to rotate on its own axis. Again it began to move but more in a descending motion and stopped at an angle of 45 degrees to the horizon. Then it went away to the west.” (Muito obrigado a Sociedade de Estudos Extraterrestres, SOCEX, por eso caso.)
UFO RATTLES A HOUSE IN LAVERNE, CALIFORNIA
On Monday, March 29, 1999, at 4 a.m., Ryan H. was sound asleep in his second-floor bedroom at the family home in LaVerne, California (population 30,897), a suburb 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Los Angeles.
Suddenly, Ryan awoke to find “the whole room shaking and rattling, as though a medium-sized earthquake was in progress. However, he suddenly understood that something very strange and different was happening,” in that “the source of the shaking seemed to be overhead as well as from east to west.”
Thinking a large animal might have leaped from a nearby tree onto the rooftop, Ryan went to the bedroom window “and was very startled to see a large, red, ball- shaped object, that was glowing very brightly orange, high in the sky. He went over to another window for a better view and saw that the object was moving rapidly in a westerly direction. It also stopped and hovered noiselessly.”
After watching for 30 seconds, Ryan ran to an adjacent bedroom and awakened one of his brothers. The two men, both in their twenties, “stepped out onto a second-story balcony and watched the orange glowing ball for approximately 10 minutes.”
As the UFO began to move again, Ryan waved his flashlight at the object, “and the bright orange object stopped and hovered again. Ryan then went to wake his other brother and their parents.”
“Then, as the whole family watched, the object abruptly began to move again, this time rapidly in a southerly direction. Then it suddenly stopped to hover again, and Ryan and his brothers saw a bunch of smaller orange lights seem to drop earthward from the underside of the large object.”
Following that maneuver, the orange UFO “pulled out and disappeared.”
Moments later, the family caught sight of another and startlingly different UFO. “He described it as a large, dull gray, cube-shaped object with all of its corners and edges rounded off. He said the object’s color made it very hard to see in the semi-cloudy, pre-dawn sky. All three of the brothers watched as it floated towards the horizon.” (Many thanks to Tim Hagemeister of NACOMM for this report.)
ANOTHER UFO SIGHTED OVER PHILLY SUBURB
On Tuesday, March 30, 1999, a couple in the northwestern section of Philadelphia spotted a UFO.
The witness, a woman, was with her friend, a male doctor, when she saw the strange object.
“I told him, ‘Look up there at 11 o’clock high. Look at those lights.'”
“It’s just a plane,’ he said.”
“I said, “No, it’s not. When have you ever seen lights blinking in a circular motion? It’s a UFO!”
“He then said, ‘Well, it could be a helicopter.'”
“Then I told him to look to the right of the object. ‘That’s a helicopter!'”
“‘Well, whatever it is, it’s moving fast,’ he said.”
It was 8:30 p.m., the witness said, “And we were coming back from supper. I have a habit of looking up at the sky from this intersection. It was heading southwest from King of Prussia (population 18,406)” on Route 202 about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Philadelphia “to the airport. We lost sight of it due to trees. We weren’t able to make out a shape, but the lights appeared to be on the bottom of the craft, one white and one red. They were blinking on and off generally in a circular motion.”
This was the second UFO sighting near King of Prussia, Pa. during the past two weeks. (Many thanks of J.R. Gillis of Independent Researchers Association for Anomalous Phenomena (IRAAP) for this report.)
(Editor’s Comment: The UFO’s flight path took it very close to Wissahickon Avenue in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. Wissahickon Avenue has a long mystical history. Originially a powwow site for the Lenni Lenape (Delaware Indians), the area was settled by Johannes Kelpius in 1694. Kelpius was a disciple of the Rosicrucian adept Knorr von Rosenroth. The group was into all kinds of magickal doings. Kelpius finally became a hermit and moved into a cave in what is now Fairmount Park. He died there in 1708. His group eventually became known as the Ephrata Moravian Brethren. Two of its leaders, Conrad Beissel and Michael Wohlfarth, befriended a young Benjamin Franklin when he moved to Philadelphia from Boston in 1725.)
UFO SPOTTED OVER SOUTHAVEN, MISSISSIPPI
Mississippi recorded its second UFO of the month on Wednesday, March 31, 1999 in Southaven (population 17,949), a town on Highway 55 about seven miles (11 kilometers) south of Memphis, Tennessee.
At 6:45 p,am,, a Southaven man “reported seeing an unusual flying object he describes as ‘a Little Orb.’ The observer was outdoors at 6:45 standing in his driveway. The object was low on the horizon of the northern sky and appeared to wobble.” (Many thanks to J. Michael Long of Mississippi UFO for this report.)
Y2K: NEW ZEALAND PLANS FOR OPERATION ABACUS
New Zealand joined the roster of NATO countries planning to contain and control civil unrest caused by the Year 2000 computer problem. Other countries with such contingency plans include the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and Israel.
“Authorities in New Zealand are expected to call for help from the military in the event of civil unrest caused by Y2K. In a closed-door session, officials from 86 territories are meeting to discuss the likelihood of failures and how the public will react. All military units are to be on standby New Year’s Eve and have been warned not to grant holidays at this time.” (See Y2K Newswire for April 2, 1999.)
In Australia, QANTAS Airlines announced a possible cutback in flight service due to Y2K, according to a BBC report.
“BBC reported that QANTAS airline warned that Y2K could cause disruption of its service. A spokesman said, ‘QANTAS planes will only fly if it is safe to do so. Therefore, some contingency plans may reduce frequency of flight” during the emergency. (See Y2K Newswire for April 2, 1999.)
Remember the last Blue Moon in January? We saw two strange Fortean events during the period. Your editor wondered if the same thing would happen during the March Blue Moon. And, sure enough, it did. Read on…
COYOTE CAPTURED BY COPS IN NEW YORK CITY
During January’s Blue Moon, we had an out-of- place Siberian tiger shot in New Jersey. This time around, it was a Western coyote that appeared in New York City’s Central Park.
According to NYC Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, the coyote “was spotted at 6 a.m. Saturday (March 27, 1999) in Riverside Park at 149th Street, he said.”
“On Tuesday night (March 30, 1999), cops saw the animal on Central Park’s West Drive near 80th Street and then again on Wednesday (March 31, 1999) in the Hallett Bird Sanctuary at the park’s southeastern corner, said police Capt. James O’Neill, commanding officer of the (NYPD) Central Park precinct.”
“By yesterday morning (Thursday, April 1, 1999), sightings had come in from all corners of the park, including the Great Lawn, a maintenance yard at 79th Street, on the west side, and 96th Street, near the East Drive.”
“Stern was briefing reporters at the Bethesda Terrace near 72nd Street at about 11:30 a.m. when word reached him that the coyote had been trapped in the bird sanctuary.”
Officer Stephen Collins of the NYPD Emergency Services Unit (ESU) took aim at the coyote with a tranquilizer-dart rifle.
“When the first two tranquilizer darts missed, the coyote fled into the pond. Bad move: its slow dog paddle gave Collins an easy target.”
The coyote “swam to the other side and started pacing north on the East Drive. The mob followed in hot pursuit–gathering tourists, joggers and curious New Yorkers as it went–until the coyote gave in to the drugs and collapsed in Memorial Grove near 69th Street.”
“‘It’s my first coyote and hopefully my last. They’re too much work,’ said Officer Stephen Collins, who fired the dart that brought the howler down.”
“The coyote was taken to the Bronx Zoo, where he was recovering last night.”
“‘He’s now going to be known as the Central Park Coyote,’ Stern said.” (See the New York Post for April 2, 1999, “Coyote corralled in Central Park,” page 9, and the New York Daily News for April 2, 1999, “Cops collar coyote–in Central Park,” page 3)
WEIRD MASS ANIMAL DEATHS REPORTED IN THE SUDAN
A bizarre mass demise of fish and animals took place in the Sudan during Blue Moon.
Residents of Juba, a city on the upper Nile River located 800 kilometers (500 miles) south of Khartoum, the national capital, were stunned to find thousands of fish and dozens of crocodiles and hippopotami floating dead in the river.
“Residents of Juba believe the river’s pollution is causing the deaths and refuse to use the water or to eat any of the fish from the Nile.”
Residents also reported an unusual oily green malodorous foam floating on the river, which they believe originated in Uganda, a neighboring African nation 140 kilometers (84 miles) to the south.
“An environmental official described the river water as ‘greenish and smelling badly of decomposing animal bodies.”
“The local government on Tuesday (March 30, 1999) issued a statement saying that the water was safe for human consumption.”
(Editor’s Comment: During January’s Blue Moon, there was a strange mass demise of birds in Bastrop, Louisiana. See UFO Roundup, Volume 4, Number 5.)
1879: THE WEIRD CREATURE OF HUMMINGBIRD MINE
Of all the strange incidents that have taken place in Idaho, the mysterious deaths of Henry Ludlum and Albert Humburg in 1879 certainly rank near the top of the list.
The incident took place in April 1879 in Sleight’s Canyon (now Paris Canyon–J.T.), a few miles west of Paris, Idaho. Humburg, an immigrant from Germany, owned the mine but leased it out to the three bachelor Ludlum brothers.
Henry Ludlum told his brothers that he had heard strange noises coming from behind the rock walls while working in the shaft. His brothers said it was simply the ground settling. When Henry insisted that he had heard odd, faint shrieks, whistles and metallic clanking noises, his brothers simply laughed at him. Incensed, Henry decided to obtain some proof. Here’s how it all went down in the words of Humburg’s daughter, Mrs. Emma Hymas.
“I will never forget that April morning when I was just four. There was still a lot of snow with a right heavy crust on top. Ludlum banged on our door and said one of his brothers went down in the mine to work and had not showed up. They had called down the mine shaft over and over again, but there was no answer.”
“Father just left the breakfast table, put on his new red cap, and went. That new cap just stuck in my mind because I wondered why he did not have it on when they found him.”
“The Ludlums had run into pockets of ‘foul air’ in their mine, but had been lighting fires to kind of make it safe, I guess. When Father reached the mine, he said he would go down in the bucket to see what was wrong.”
“He found Ludlum, all right, but he was dead.”
“He tied the body tightly to the bucket with a rope and gave the signal to be pulled up. About halfway up, the other fellow heard a groan and a body drop.”
“When they called and got no answer from Father, they got scared and hurried to Paris (Idaho) for help. Paris was a long way down the canyon with snow- crusted roads.”
“A lot of men came back with them. They had some horses hitched to a bobsled, but by that time it was way in the afternoon, and nobody wanted to go down in that mine…”
“Finally they got some kind of grappling hook and kind of hooked it into his overalls, which were brand new. By being right careful, they finally pulled him out. Bob Spence, a lawyer who was there, figured he could see some signs of life in Father, but they did not know much about artificial respiration in those days.”
“I can remember so plain Mother leaving the house and climbing the hill by our place with my brother Albert, who was only six, and sending him down the other side of the hill on our homemade toboggan to tell our neighbors, the Foxes, that Father was dead.”
“They finally got the bodies down to the courthouse where they had some kind of an inquest. Neither one of those mines was ever used again…”
No one could explain the mystery. Two grown men, strapping Idaho pit miners, found dead underground and not a mark on them. Nor could they explain Albert Humburg’s strange soft groan or what had taken his new red hat.
The Humburg mine eventually became known locally as the Hummingbird Mine, and it’s still up there in Paris Canyon, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Soda Springs, Idaho.
Drop by and visit this summer…if you dare! (See Folklore from Utah, Wyoming and Southern Idaho, edited by Austin E. Fife, Volume III, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, 1958, pages 16-17)
FUN UFO WEBSITES:
Italy’s Centro Richerche Oggetti Volanti Non- Identificado (CROVNI) has a website up and running dedicated to UFO sightings. Check them out at http://www.iper.net/crovni/
Don’t miss our parent site, UFOINFO, with its fine array of photos, news, features and links. Drop in any time at http://ufoinfo.com.
Back issues of UFO Roundup can be accessed and downloaded at our webpage. Come on in and browse at our page at http://ufoinfo.com/roundup
That’s it for this week. Join us again in seven days for more saucer news from all around the planet, brought to you by “the paper that goes home–UFO Roundup.” See you then.
UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 1999 by Masinaigan Productions, all rights reserved. Readers may post news items from UFO Roundup on their websites or in newsgroups provided that they credit the newsletter and its editor by name and list the date of issue in which the item first appeared.
