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