MAJOR UFO FLAP GRIPS PHOENIX, ARIZONA
On Tuesday, March 10, 1997, at 9:15 p.m., Steve Blandings and his wife were at their home in Ahwatukee, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix near Sky Harbor Airport, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) west of Interstate Highway 10 and just south of Chandler Boulevard. The southward-facing balcony offers a panoramic view of the South Mountains and the Gila River Indian Reservation.
“I noticed a bright yellow light in the southwest sky over the Gila River reservation,” Steve told the ROUNDUP. “It stayed in the same place for about 20 minutes. I called my wife outside to the second story balcony, and the light moved down on the horizon from its position at about 20 degrees to the horizon, below and left of Orion’s belt.”
“Five minutes later, the light was back again. We got our binoculars and saw that it was a glowing orange sphere. I then got out a video camera and taped it for about 10 minutes while it wildly oscillated.” The UFO also appeared to be “spinning or rotating.”
The following night, Wednesday, March 11, the Blandings and another couple checked the southern sky at 9 p.m. “My wife saw it appear in the same place (Gila River reservation),” Steve added. “Then a second one appeared. Some Air Force planes came in low on the horizon. As soon as the planes got near, the spheres disappeared. My wife got about 10 seconds (of videotape) of one of the objects. This time (they were) perfectly round, while last night, the top and bottom were flat. The second one (UFO) seemed like a black dot in the middle of the spinning object.”
On Thursday night, March 13, precisely at 9 p.m., a UFO appeared over the Gila River reservation. “It looked the same as the first night,” Steve reported. “Many neighbors came over to our house to look from our balcony and viewed the UFO.” Onlookers saw “flashes of white light as it crept closer to the horizon at about 10 degrees. It came around 9 p.m., the same as the previous nights, and appeared in just about the same southwestern area of the sky. It would appear and disappear and stopped doing stuff at about 10 p.m.”
With a little help from this newsletter, Steve got in touch with William Hamilton, assistant director of Arizona MUFON. Bill Hamilton showed up at the house on Friday night, March 14, along with UFO videographer Tom King and Dr. Steven Greer of CSETI.
“After a 15 or 20-minute wait,” Steve Blandings said, “the globe appeared low over the horizon, in the same spot as the previous night. We ran to get Tom’s video camera and telescope and caught a little of the object before it disappeared behind the (South) mountains.”
When the UFO reappeared, it brought along a few reinforcements.
“We thought it was over, but in 10 minutes, it appeared again along with five other friends. The six UFOs shaped themselves into a perfect line on the horizon for about five minutes and then dropped one by one. Tom caught it all on his videocamera with various visual focus and zoom lens.”
Midway through the sighting, Hamilton and King moved a couple of blocks to the south, which offered a better-unimpeded view of the hovering UFOs.
“We were looking off toward the southwest when one of the mystery lights appeared,” Hamilton said. “It was glowing a bright golden yellow, unlike any flare or aircraft lights we have ever seen. When we saw them in the deserts of California, we called them ‘orbs’ as they appear to be spherical.”
Between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. on Saturday, March 15, the “orange sphere” UFOs were reported flying over Prescott (population 20,005) and Tucson (population 330,600).
In Kingman (population 9,257), radio station KAAA 1230 AM allegedly aired a report claiming that “8 to 11 UFOs” had been seen “flying in a straight line over the town.”
(Many thanks to Steve B., Bill Hamilton and David Grimes for this story.)
UFOs DOMINATE NIGHT SKY OVER COLORADO
On Friday, March 7, 1997, at 1:30 a.m., Nancy Brown, unable to sleep, rolled out of bed at her Aldasoro Ranch. The ranch is located on the Western Slope in rural San Miguel County, just north of Lone Cone mountain about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of Telluride.
Looking toward the southwest, Mrs. Brown suddenly spotted an array of “flashing red and green lights.”
“I saw five of them,” she said, “They all looked the same except for the one that went over the house, which I saw the bottom of. That one had two circles (lights), one was red, the other light green, and they were circulating (revolving) and pulsating. It was really bright.”
Mrs. Brown woke her husband and asked him to come and look. She asked if they might be planes. Mr. Brown reportedly replied, “No, they’re too bright.”
As the couple watched, the UFOs “home base” (mother ship) came over Miller Mesa. “There were other UFOs flying around it,” Mrs. Brown said. “It was oval-shaped, like the size of a planet, with a red station pulsing in there,” adding that their experience had the feel of being “real technical.”
The Sheriff’s Departments of Montrose and San Miguel counties reported no other UFO sightings in the area that night. (See the newspaper The Morning Sun for March 11, 1997.)
On Sunday, March 9, 1997, at 11 a.m., five people in Salida, Colorado (population 4870), 80 miles (128 kilometers) east of Telluride were stunned to see a “mother ship” UFO flying north through the San Luis Valley. The eyewitnesses– Cheryl Edwards, Larry Chappell, Wade Swift, Ryan Swift, and Cathy Rautelle, saw the object from three separate locations in Salida.
Witnesses described the UFO as “a large cylinder” with “a center light.” The object was escorted by six triangular UFOs, three on each side, flying in a V formation.
The scene looked something like this:
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On Friday, March 7, according to ufologist Tim Edwards, “a Venus-like object” was seen “north and east of town,” near the ridge of Big Baldy Mountain (10,742 feet or about 3,200 meters). (Many thanks to Tim Edwards for the Salida update.)
CRYSTALLINE UFO LIGHT SEEN NEAR DALLAS
On Thursday, March 13, 1997, at 9 p.m., Robert Caudee was driving through Arlington, Texas (population 160,123) midway between Dallas and Fort Worth when he “noticed a very bright light, crystal-white blinking light–strobe-like. I watched the light as it went erratically towards the east. The movement was unlike any an airplane or helicopter might make. Between flashes, the light seemed to move from one point to another faster than usually seen with a typical aircraft. I followed but was unable to catch up with the light before it dropped near the Arlington Municipal Airport.”
“I quickly drove to the airport parking lot,” he added, “to look for a plane that had recently landed but (he) saw nothing.” (Email Interview)
GREEN FIREBALL PACES CAR IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
On Friday, March 14, 1997, at 3:10 p.m., Michael Caledonian was driving south on Highway 101 in Eureka, California (population 24,153). As he drove along the eastern shore of Humboldt Bay, heading towards Bayview, he “looked to the west and saw an electric green ball of fire flying alongside me” about 1,250 feet (405 meters) away. The UFO “was traveling not much faster than I was (75 mph). There were a green trail at least ten times as long as the ball, and, after several seconds, it (the UFO) blinked out without ascending or descending.”
“If it was not ET, then it was military,” he added, “It was definitely strange.” (Email Interview)
LARGE DOMED SAUCER FLIES OVER PORTO ALEGRE
On Friday, February 28, 1997, a large domed gray- silver saucer with an array of blinking colored lights appeared over Gravatai, a suburb of Porto Alegre (population 1.8 million), the capital of Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul. The UFO appeared at 10 p.m. and was described as “a flashing object, the size of a small airplane, half-moon shaped.”
“I get shivers every time I remember it,” said mechanic Fabriano Vargas, 22, who, with some friends, saw the UFO from the Parque Garibaldi, close to the Taquara Highway.
Cecilia Flores, Vargas’s fiancee, was the first to see it, but she thought it was the Hale-Bopp comet. She called everyone’s attention to it.
Residents of the Rua do Lago, in the Monte Belo section of Gravatai, saw the UFO at the same time.
“It was making a final maneuver, looping and disappearing close to Morro do Coco,” said Julio Souza, 21, “It vanished after a burst of glaring radiance.” (See the newspaper Zero Hora of Porto Alegre, R.S. for March 2, 1997, page 44.)
The saucer next appeared over the Rio Guiaba, just north of downtown Porto Alegre. It flew south parallel to the Rua Marechal Floriano Peixoto, then further south towards the Avenida des Andre de Rocha and then east towards the Avenida Independencia, where it was seen by thousands.
Witnesses included Helio J. Zamal and his girlfriend, who were waiting for a traffic light to change when they spied the saucer. “I noticed a large number of lights in the sky, at our right, not more than 50 meters (165 feet) above ground.” Lights were “mostly white, some green, some yellow, some red, all put together as if it were an outdoor panel in the sky. Then I noticed that my friend–she was looking up at it, too, and I made some comment. Suddenly, it started to move. It made short and fast moves, stopping and changing directions abruptly. Then I knew it was really something unconventional because I was trying to convince myself it was merely an advertising device. We began to follow the object as it moved and watched it for three minutes more. Once in a while, the lights turned off and we could see against the sky the silhouette of the object, round, flat, with a hint of a dome on top.”
From Independencia, the saucer flew due north, along the Rua Conceiao, and left the city.
(Many thanks to Helio J. Zamal for this report.)
UFO VISITS CANAL COUNTRY IN THE NETHERLANDS
On Tuesday, March 11, 1997, at 7:30 p.m., Robert van Troon and Manuela Hoogstratten went for a stroll along the Galgerwaardstraat in the village of Oosterwijk, on the De Linge River near Leedam, 55 kilometers (35 miles) southeast of Amsterdam.
“We went for a walk, and it was a starry evening,” Manuela reported. “So I looked towards the stars and saw a very bright star. At first, I thought it was Venus, but then it moved. It moved very strangely, very quickly.”
At first, the UFO moved north, over IJsselstein, then west towards Gouda. Manuela estimated the UFO as “three meters (10 feet) in diameter” because “it was one millimeter at arm’s length.”
The UFO was still hovering above the canals east of Gouda when the couple went indoors at 9 p.m. (Email Interview)
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UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 1997 by Masinaigan Productions, all rights reserved. Readers may post any stories from UFO ROUNDUP on their websites or in newsgroups as long as they credit the newsletter and its editor and list the date the original item appeared in the newsletter.