SUM. E INSTALACIÓN ACCESORIOS

UFOs have been reported flying around the skies of this planet for hundreds and possibly, thousands of years, and many books have been written about that aspect of the UFO puzzle.

But they have, in many instances, landed and left evidence of their presence behind. It is this phase of UFO activity which we will deal with in this chapter.

In our 1967 book Flying Saucer Occupants, we documented several landing cases which involved landing traces and also demonstrated a correlation between certain types of UFOs and specific types of terrain.

Briefly, we will describe the more important incidents.

Summer 1956:

A pilot driving through the desert and bound for Nellis Air Force Base experienced a sudden and inexplicable engine failure. He tried to start the car with no success, then started walking. He saw a strange shape at the side of the highway and, being curious, approached it. To his surprise it took off. Before it left, however, he got a good look — it was circular and disc-shaped with a dome on top. When it took off, he clearly saw three circular appendages underneath. The pilot went back to his car which started with no trouble. When he reached Nellis, he reported the incident to intelligence and he and one of their officers immediately drove back to the scene. On the ground at the location of the sighting, they found three clearly defined concave impressions in the sand.

September 13, 1966:

About ten years later, on the Emmanuel Rotenberger farm near Gwinner, North Dakota, landing impressions which closely resembled those seen by the pilot, were found in a plowed field. At 7:30 a.m., eleven-year-old Randy Rotenberger ran excitedly into the house and told his mother that a strange object had landed in the field. Mrs. Rotenberger told him to lock the door and stay inside, which he did, but he watched through the window and made these observations: the object appeared to be metallic and shaped like two bowls fastened together, lip to lip. Two red lights and a green one were arranged along the joining. It sat on three legs which ended in "feet" or gear which were circular and looked like bowls with the rounded part down.

The legs jutted downward and slightly outward, giving the boy the impression of the legs of a camera tripod. There was what appeared to be a transparent "bubble" on the top of the object. No forms or movement could be observed inside. Randy thought the object was perhaps 8 to 10 feet high at its thickest portion and "about one and a half times as wide as a Cadillac is long" — or about thirty feet in diameter.

After sitting on the ground for about one minute, the object took off. There was a blue glow on the bottom, and it made a roar followed by a "buzzing" sound. Randy called his mother again just before the object left, and she heard the noise which accompanied its departure.

This incident was investigated by General Homer Goebel, State Air National Guard Commander at Fargo and Assistant State Adjutant General for Air. Goebel inspected the site of the landing and found

three impressions in the soft earth. Each was a foot in diameter, round in shape, tapering down to a rounded base. They formed a triangular pattern with sides 26, 23 and 22 feet apart, and they gave the impression of indentations made by pressing three bowls into the ground. Goebel told the St. Paul Dispatch: “They look pressed, not dug” and “I’d hate to call it a hoax because the boy sounded as if he was quite sincere.”

When interviewed by telephone from APRO’s office, Randy Rotenberger was cooperative, but not overly talkative, and positive of what he saw; he readily admitted he had been frightened.

Another type of landing impression was documented in 1957, when three different landings took place within days of each other. One was at La Madera, New Mexico; another at Canyon Ferry, Montana, and the most famous and well-investigated one occurred at Socorro, New Mexico.

April 24, 1964:

On April 24, 1964, Patrolman Lonnie Zamora of the Socorro Police Department, was chasing a speeder on the southern edge of town when he saw a blue flame in the sky and heard a loud roar in the direction of a dynamite shack in the desert. Fearful that youngsters had been "messing around" the dynamite shack, he gave up the chase and headed his patrol car toward the shack over a desert trail leading up over one mesa, down through a wash, and up onto a second mesa at the far end of which the dynamite shack stood. At first, it seemed that his patrol car could not make it up the incline, but on the third try, he succeeded. At the point of entering the wash he looked "upstream" and spotted what appeared to be a light-coloured car standing on end and two humanoid figures beside it (he said they looked about the size of young boys) about 600 feet away. One of the figures seemed to look toward Zamora as if startled by his presence. Zamora could not make out any details, because of the dust (apparently kicked up by the object's landing) as well as the distance. At this point, he radioed police headquarters and asked State Patrolman Sam Chavez for assistance. Chavez immediately set out and might have viewed the object himself had he not taken the wrong street.

Meanwhile, Zamora continued. As he topped the second mesa, he heard two metallic bangs. Pulling his car up to where he thought the object was, he got out and took three steps toward the wash. The figures were gone but the object, white and egg-shaped, was still there. Then a roar filled the air and the object lifted off the ground. Zamora turned and ran in the other direction to the other side of the mesa and threw himself into the wash northwest of the patrol car. With a blue jet of flame about 3 feet long issuing from underneath, the object elevated toward the dynamite shack and when approximately 20 feet above it, the roar was replaced by a high-pitched whining sound and the flame vanished. It headed into the southwest at low altitude and high speed and was out of sight in seconds.

Only seconds later, Chavez arrived upon the scene to find a thoroughly frightened, dirty, and dishevelled Patrolman Zamora.

Afterwards, Zamora reported that the strange vehicle had rested on four girder-like legs which retracted when it elevated from the ground. In the gully were found four depressions which appeared to have been made by four wedge-like members pressing outward at an angle from a central area.

Imaginary lines connecting opposing depressions intersected at right angles. Those downhill from this imaginary intersection were at greater distances from it than were those uphill from it. Desert growth in the area of this intersection — a clump of range grass, a shrub, and a small barrel cactus — showed signs of short-term high heating. The grass and the shrub were charred and smouldering in upper portions toward this imaginary intersection and the cactus had been scorched and burned in the same manner. The desert soil was of the general character of beach sand underscored with coarse gravel. It was not possible for a human being to walk in it without leaving obvious tracks. When Chavez and Zamora descended to the landing site, the absence of tracks made it obvious that no one had preceded them. Deputy Luckie, who arrived as Chavez and Zamora began their examination, verified this point.

When we examined the scene less than forty hours later, we were able to patrol the perimeter of the landing area and determine that no one had entered it except by the trail that Zamora took. Because it had rained heavily in the three days previous to the incident, Zamora, Chavez and Luckie were able to testify to the fact that no ground vehicle or pedestrian had preceded them to the area since the rain. Because of the residual moisture found two days after the incident, the range grass in question could not sustain burning when we attempted to ignite it with matches and a cigarette lighter.

Chavez, following the methodical instincts of an experienced law officer, had "checked out" his friend despite the absence of tracks. Zamora had no implements with him with which to dig.

May 20, 1967:

Steve Michalak is a Polish-born industrial mechanic living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A chance meeting with a UFO on the ground while prospecting in a wild area in the vicinity of Falcon Lake, Manitoba, which is about 75 miles east of Winnipeg, resulted in strange second- and third-degree burns on his chest and a minor burn on his face. After several years, the burn scars are still evident, and he claims that they occasionally become reddened as though the burns were recurring.

The incident took place at 12:13 p.m., when Michalak's attention was arrested by the noise of a number of geese which had been aroused when he first arrived in the area, but they quieted down shortly after becoming used to his presence. Michalak looked up to see what was disturbing the birds and saw two red objects approaching at about 14 to 15 degrees from the horizontal and on a heading of 240 degrees. The first was about 15 feet above the ground and the second slightly higher and they approached at very high speed. The first object came to rest on the ground, blowing leaves and rock lichen from the landing spot. Michalak was crouching in the brush, examining a rock sample and out of sight of the object. The second object hovered for a few seconds, then took off at high speed.

The machine just sat on the ground for the next half hour and radiated heat in "rainbow-like" colours. While airborne, it had been a dull red colour, but when on the ground, it had the appearance of stainless steel. During the period that it sat on the ground, Michalak took out pencil and paper and sketched the object. After about 25 minutes, a square door with rounded edges opened and a "fantastic" purple light emanated from the opening. He pulled his welding glasses down over his eyes and was then able to see flashing red, green, and blue lights inside the object, but could not discern whether or not they were on a control panel. At this time, Michalak said he heard a high-pitched whining sound like that of a motor running at high speed and smelled an odour resembling that of a burned-out electrical motor, and heard a "whooshing" sound as if air was being taken in and expelled. Michalak then approached the machine, noting the heat that radiated from it. He claims he heard the sound of voices, so he spoke to it but got no answer. He tried English, Russian, German, Italian, and Polish. While he was talking, the sound of the motor stopped; he heard voices again, and then the door closed and moved out to become flush with the outside of the object. Although he saw the door and knew it was there, he said, when it was closed there was no evidence of an opening or seam nor were there any seams or rivets of any kind visible over the rest of the vehicle.

Michalak then reached out and touched the side of the object with his canvas-base, rubber- coated glove, which melted and slipped off the surface. As he looked down at the glove, the machine began to move in a counter-clockwise direction and he was blown to the left by a blast of hot air or exhaust which set his clothes on fire. The machine then took off in the direction from which it came.

May 31, 1967:

11 days later, another landing took place near a farm outside Beausejour, Manitoba, about 45 miles from Winnipeg. A farm woman, who requests anonymity, was sitting on her front porch at 11:30 p.m. waiting for her husband to come home. She said she saw a brilliant red light with a smaller blue light

beside it come toward her from the south. It illuminated the ground and appeared to land, whereupon she became frightened and went into the house. The next morning, she and her husband investigated the area where the object had apparently landed and found a semi-circular area 30 yards by 50 yards in flames. The strange aspect of this case is that on the 15th of June, the area was still smouldering despite the fact that there had been considerable rain in the interim. Soil samples taken at the site yielded nothing.

As we proceed in this examination of the ground markings associated with the landing of unidentified flying objects, it will become extremely clear that there are many ways in which the UFOs manifest themselves on the ground, such as in the following case:

July 5, 1967:

On Route 31 near the Depot Road area in Coventry, Connecticut, a motorist sighted an orange ball of light which appeared to be hanging from a tree. The driver immediately drove into Coventry and notified the police, but by the time officers arrived on the scene, the area was deserted. After receiving the full report from the police, APRO Field Investigator Larry Fawcett examined the area and found a grassy spot which had been swirled flat as if compressed be some rotating force just a few yards off the road from the point where the ball of light had been seen.

This particular type of ground marking, which had been found quite frequently in Australia several months before the Coventry case, had been dubbed "saucer nests" by the press, alluding to the original designation for a UFO which had been popularly used in the 1940's and 1950's.

January 9, 1967:

Another such "nest" was found by Ronald E. Januzzi, a mineralogist of Danbury, Connecticut, near his museum on the Danbury-Brewster highway. It was found on the morning of the 9th of January 1967 and was considered to be too large to have been caused by an animal; however, no UFO was seen in the vicinity which could be linked to the spot.

July 20, 1967:

Another case with a different marking involved young (18-year-old) Barbara Fawcett of Pompano Beach, Florida, who was driving to Islamorada where her mother was staying, at 11:30 p.m. on July 20, 1967. Her small Ford was the only vehicle on the highway at the time, so when a large yellow light showed up in her rear-view mirror, she became frightened. It made a constant high-pitched roaring sound, and when she tried to speed up to get away from it, it overtook her car, swayed up a few feet as if to land on top of it. But at that moment, a car approached from the opposite direction and the bright yellow glow coming from the object covered the road for a second, and then completely disappeared.

Arriving at her mother's home at Islamorada, Barbara told her mother of her experience, rested for a couple of hours and, convinced that it had been an illusion, decided to return to Pompano in order to elude early morning rush hour traffic. She and her sister and a toy poodle began the journey back on U.S. Highway 1 and reached the Jewish Creek area at 2:30 a.m. on July 21st. The only other car on the road had turned off at Ocean Reef, and the girls were alone when the dog suddenly began to shake violently, not making a sound. Then the girls saw the yellow light again as it rose out of the swamp west of the highway. This time, it did not look perfectly round as before, but somewhat jagged. "It wobbled and floated up, down, and from side to side," Miss Fawcett reported.

was going to collide with it. But as the car nearly reached the object, it veered to the right under the power lines and landed on one of the large sand dunes to the right of the road. At this juncture, the light became smaller and smaller until it reached the size of a pinpoint and finally disappeared. Less than a minute later, the large light again appeared in the rear-view mirror of the car, and Barbara kept going as fast as her car would go and reached Pompano Beach. She later reported the incident to officers at Substation Four in Homestead, the Air Force and Homestead police. Investigation showed an immense scorched area on top of a particular sand dune near the edge of the road where Miss Fawcett estimated the object had landed.

October 9, 1967:

Our next ground marking report came from a 14-year-old Tucson, Arizona, boy who observed a "maverick" as far as UFO prototypes are concerned, at 5:40 p.m. on the 9th of October in 1967. Richard (he and his parents ask that he remain anonymous) had ridden his bicycle part-way home with a friend and was returning alone, following the track of a mini-bike. He decided to ride along the floor of a wash (a wash is a deep ditch-like affair in the desert floor which carries run-off water in the rainy season) and was nearly home when he had to ride up the side of the wash to avoid a tree which was growing across the wash in his path. There had been some rain and the floor of the wash was hard-packed. As Richard detoured, he spotted a cylindrical object sitting on two legs about 44 feet away from him. He rode a little further until he was about 35 feet from the object, whereupon it left the ground, ascended straight up with a discernible side-to-side motion, and disappeared from sight within 12 seconds.

Later questioning indicated that the object was approximately 8 feet tall, 2½ feet wide, and it was shaped much like a water heater except that the top was rounded. It appeared to be metallic, reflecting sunlight, but not reflecting the images of trees, brush, etc., in the vicinity. The object was supported by two legs which angled out from the bottom, ending in two "feet" in the shape of round "pads". A curved bar ran between the "legs" just above the "feet", indicating that it was a strengthening or bracing member.

Richard proceeded immediately to his home and told his mother what he had seen, and the two of them went back to the wash where she took several colour photos of the impressions left by the object and of the general area. The imprints indicated that the "legs and pads" made a twisting motion as they left the ground. The tracks measured 13 inches across and the area of the impressions from edge to