Source: Associated Press / San Antonio News, May 23, 1977
"Soldier loses 5 days to UFO"
SANTIAGO, Chile — A Chilean soldier is still in shock after a weird, five-day ordeal with a UFO.
This is his story.
It was 4:15 a.m. in Chile's far north desert country,
Six members of an army patrol were bedded down around a campfire while two men stood guard. Suddenly, two bright objects began descending from the sky.
One dropped into the Andes foothills out of direct sight, but the men in the patrol, now fully awake, could see the glow of its light.
The second, they said, lowered almost to the ground about 500 yards away from the camp. The men said it shone with a violet light with two points of intense red.
Cpl. Armando Valdes, the patrol leader, ordered the soldiers to take up their weapons. Then he set out alone to investigate and, according to the men, simply vanished. Fifteen minutes later, they said, he reappeared, tried to speak and passed out.
They said he regained consciousness about 7 a.m. but that his watch showed only 4:30, the approximate time he reappeared. They also said the date on the watch had been advanced five days, and that Yaldes now had about a week's growth of beard.
According to his comrades, when Valdes was beginning to regain consciousness he said: "You do not know who we are, nor where we come from. But I tell you that we will soon return."
Skeptics
This purported sighting occurred April 25, and since the soldiers' tale was publicized dozens of other unidentified flying objects have been reported up and down the 2,700-mile length of Chile.
Valdes says he does not recall anything that happened during the 15 minutes he was missing-Some skeptics said the soldiers may have seen a desert mirage. But other sightings have been reported on the outskirts of this capital city, in the rainy lake region about BOO mites to the south, and over the Straits of Magellan at I he cold southern tip of the continent.
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the University of Chile jointly operate a space tracking station a few miles north of Santiago, but officials at the station had no official comment on the reports.
A source at the station who asked not to be identified said he felt some of the previous UFO sightings in Chile were satellites or airplanes. But he said the most, recent sightings, made at relatively close distances, did not appear to be satellites.
Oscar Bravo, a radio announcer at Punta Arenas, the major town on the Straits of Magellan, said he awoke about 3 a.m. one night and went, to the kitchen for a glass of water.
Speed
"First, I noticed the sky was bright," he said.
"This caused me to open the curtains, and I could see these two things suspended in the air emitting a strong light, bright and orange.
"The light went out but returned, with a violent color. Then these two things, of oval shape, moved at a rapid speed, opening themselves like a V and closing at a higher point in the sky." They finally disappeared over the straits, he said.
A few nights later, passengers on a bus going from Puerto Monti to Puerto Varas in southern Chile said they saw something similar about. 100 yards above them in the sky.
Several people who have seen UFOs recently estimated their size at about 12 feet in diameter. Most say they are round or oval—"like a huge wagon wheel," said one woman.
|
