SUBJECT: DESCRIPTIONS OF 5 SIGHTINGS FILE: UFO1502
The following article was originally published in the science magazine
OMNI. It is reproduced here exactly as it appeared in its original form,
without so much as a misplaced comma, period, or question mark.
From "OMNI"--December 1990
UNSOLVED MYSTERIES: FROM FRANCE TO NEW YORK, THE FIVE THORNIEST
SIGHTINGS OFTHE EIGHTIES
by Jerome Clark
1. PHYSICAL TRACES AT TRANS-EN-PROVENCE, FRANCE. On January 8, 1981, Renato
Nicolai, an elderly, near-illiterate Italian immigrant, saw a
saucer-shaped "ship" land briefly on his property. When the Groupe
d'Etude des Phenomenes Aerospatiaux Non-Identifies (GEPAN), the French
government's official UFO-study project, investigated, it found two large
concentric circles, one inside the other. Soil and vegetation samples
were brought to plant traumalogist Michael Bounias, whose analysis,
conducted over a two-year period at the Intsitut National de la Recherche
Agronomique, determined that the leaves had inexplicably lost 30 to 50
percent of their chlorophyll pigment and aged in a way that neither
expected natural processes nor laboratory experiments could duplicate.
Later GEPAN head Jean-Jaques Velasco said, "The effects on plants in the
area can be compared with that produced on the leaves of other plant
species after exposing the seeds to [a considerable amount of] gamma
radiation." Yet strangely, there was no evidence of radioactivity in the
Trans-en-Provence plant samples. To all appearances, GEPAN concluded,
"something similar to what the eyewitness has described actually did take
place."
2. INTRUDER IN THE UPPER ATMOSPHERE. In December 1986 U.S. Naval Space
Surveillance System radar screens in the southern and western United
States tracked a mysterious flying object as it entered the
upper-atmosphere, performing complex maneuvers at dazzling speed. The
object later entered orbit in a bizarrely random way. A flash alert--the
kind of warning that could signal the start of World War III--was sounded
at the Pentagon and throughout the North American Air Defense Command,
but the object disappeared as abruptly as it had arrived. A report of
the incident put on President Reagan's daily brief is said to have led to
the creation of a classified UFO working group within the Defense
Intelligence Agency.
3. GIANT UFO OVER ALASKA. Flying over northeastern Alaska on November 17,
1986, at 5:10 P.M., the crew of a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 observed
fast-moving rectangular lights. The lights were soon joined by a larger
object, which was picked up on both the plane's radar and ground radar.
Minutes later the "mother ship," as the JAL observers described it,
vanished temporarily from the screens, then reappeared behind the 747.
Now the crew got a good look at it: It was Saturn-shaped (a disc with a
rim extending from and around its midsection) and the size of "two
aircraft carriers." Pilot Kenju Terauchi took frantic evasive maneuvers,
but the UFO kept its position directly behind the airliner. At 5:39 P.M.
the object vanished from sight and radar screens.
4. TEXAS SCORCHER. On December 29,1980, near Huffman, Texas, two women and
a seven-year-old boy in a car observed a brilliant, diamond-shaped UFO
floating above nearby trees and emitting scorching heat. The witnesses
suffered severe and lasting illnesses from the encounter, and a
radiologist said the cause appeared to be radiation sickness. Seeking
answers and compensation, the witnesses sued the government without
success.
5. WESTCHESTER BOOMERANG. In 1983 and 1984 thousands of people in seven
suburban counties of New York and Connecticut saw weird flying objects
that resembled flying wings. One witness compared a UFO to a "boomerang
with lights running up and down it's wings." Another said it was "so
huge it filled up the entire sky." Sometimes the boomerangs, said to
travel at everything from lightning speed to 5 mph, passed no more than a
dozen feet above witnesses' heads. Reports of the Westchester boomerang
have been complicated by the discovery of pranksters flying ultralight
aircraft in tight V formation. Despite this possible cause for the
sightings, some researchers say, the best reports remain unexplained.
And identical boomerangs have been observed elsewhere in the United
States.
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