by: Jorge Martin UFO Researcher – Puerto Rico Editor of Evidencia OVNI (Puerto Rico) and FSR Consultant.
(Précis translation from Spanish. G.C.) (EVIDENCIA OVNI No.2)
During his recent visit to Puerto Rico, Bob Pratt, U.S. investigator, said: “Puerto Rico is incredible. In other parts of the world, you see a wave of a certain type of case for a certain time and in a certain place – but here all types of UFO cases are occurring everywhere all the time. You see UFOs entering or leaving the sea, entering into mountains, landings encounter with entities, abductions, physical examinations, military jets pursuing UFOs and vice-versa, encounters with “Bigfoots” – in fact, the lot! Puerto Rico is a veritable “paradise” for the investigator who has dedicated himself to probing the entire UFO situation”.
Similar comments have come from other visiting investigators, such as Timothy Good of England, Yun Ichi Yaoi of Japan, Jaime Maussán from Mexico, Salvador Freixedo and his wife Magdalena del Amo from Spain, Command-Sergeant Major Bob Dean from the USA, and many, many others.
The case that I am describing today occurred at 7.45 pm. on December 28, 1988, when, according to numerous local eyewitnesses, a gigantic vividly illuminated “Triangle” apparently captured two military jet aircraft and then vanished, over the area of the Sierra Bermeja (“Vermilion Range“) and Lake Cartagena, in the south-western corner of the Island of Puerto Rico, where the great bulk of the phenomena seems to be concentrated. (see map above). So far as we have learned, the two jets were from the U.S. Navy – possibly F-14 Tomcats.
All the many witness accounts, from the towns of Lajas and Cabo Rojo, as well as their sketches of the UFO and the two aircraft, are in complete agreement. Among these many eyewitnesses was Sr. Carlos Manuel Mercado, residing at Betances, beside the Highway No. 101 and near the Sierra Bermeja and the Samán area. Mercado and his family had already had numerous UFO sightings, and we trust him because everything that he has said is backed up by so many other eyewitnesses.
Soon after the episode of the big triangle and the two vanishing jets, we were in that area, investigating, when Mercado contacted us saying that he had to tell us confidentially about something that had been worrying him greatly for months past. He said that six months before the affair of the triangle and the two jets, something important had happened to him, He said that so far he had not dared to tell anyone, because they would never believe him. He went on: “You investigators know that we have experienced very strange things here. I seek no publicity. I just tell you this because I know that you are a sensible and serious person and will listen to me.
“In July 1988, prior to the affair of the triangle and the jets on December 28 of that year, this thing, of which I have told nobody, happened to me. It left me too shaken. It wasn’t something bad – but it had a profound effect on me. “This is the very first time that I have told anyone. I was carried off by some of those Martians. It was at night – about midnight – I couldn’t sleep owing to the terrific heat, so I got out of bed and went to the sitting-room.
My wife remained asleep. I lay down on the sofa in the sitting-room, to see if it was a bit cooler there. “After a few minutes, I saw a glow of whitish light coming from outside, as though from the road, and I heard a strange noise, like a powerful hum- zuuuuuum something like that, I’d say.
“A couple of minutes or so later, I heard what seemed like something tapping on the window in front of me – a metallic sort of sound, as the window has metallic shutters – aluminum slats. “I got up and opened the window, and there they were – three little fellows standing there under the window, in the sun-lounge of my house. It shook me.
Because they were so different – they looked a bit like us. But they weren’t human. In front of his house, on the other side of the road, was standing a flying saucer.
“They were little chaps, as I say, and ugly, with heads a bit bigger than ours, and no hair. They had no ears, and their eyes were huge, dark. I could see no noses on them – just little holes. And a little slash for a mouth. Their faces looked flattened.
“Their skin was sort of grayish, and their faces and hands covered with little bumps or lumps. Do you know how acne looks? Well – it was like that. Ugly they were. They were about three to four feet high (a bit over one meter) and they were thin, and dressed in overalls like mechanics wear, from top to toe, of a sort of grayish-creamy looking color, a sort of sandy shade.
“Only their heads and hands were not covered by the clothing. “At first I felt scared, but they told me not to be afraid, that they weren’t going to hurt me, and only wanted to show me something. And they told me this, as it were in my mind because they didn’t open their mouths even once. When they told me that, my fear left me. 
I didn’t know why really, but I had the feeling that they were good, and that they weren’t going to do me any harm. “They asked me to come out, so I opened the door and went out. Then two of them took hold of me, one on each arm, and took me out up the road, and it was then that I saw the machine. It was one of those saucers of theirs, a vessel, I tell you. It was standing there on the ground, just outside the entrance to Samán, beside Highway 101, right in the corner opposite my house.
I didn’t know why really, but I had the feeling that they were good, and that they weren’t going to do me any harm. “They asked me to come out, so I opened the door and went out. Then two of them took hold of me, one on each arm, and took me out up the road, and it was then that I saw the machine. It was one of those saucers of theirs, a vessel, I tell you. It was standing there on the ground, just outside the entrance to Samán, beside Highway 101, right in the corner opposite my house.“What I could best compare it to would be – you know – those watering-carts that they have on the streets – well – a bit like that… The lower part was round, and it had a raised cupola on top. And on the cupola, it had very big lighted windows.
“Below, all around the rim, the thing had lots of lights, of all colors. And, underneath, four tall metal legs on which it was standing. In the center underneath there was a hole, and a ladder coming out of it, and the little chaps told me to go up the ladder. I went up it with them and we arrived on top inside where the big windows were. There was lots of machinery there, and sort of panels, controls, little lights, and some other little chaps working the controls. And also one other – who was different.
“They explained to me that this one – the different one – was their captain and doctor and that from then on he would take over with me. And so they went off to do other things.
“Well, as you could imagine, the truth is that I felt better with him – because he looked more like us, less coarse, and smoother. His skin color was the same as theirs – greyish – his head a bit bigger than theirs, but his eyes not so big. And he had a nose like us, but pointed, and the surface of his skin was not like the skin of the little fellows with those awful lumps. “He was dressed in a broad white tunic right up to his neck, and broad sleeves down to his wrists. The tunic reached down to his feet and he seemed to have something white on the feet.”
“He was dressed in a broad white tunic right up to his neck, and broad sleeves down to his wrists. The tunic reached down to his feet and he seemed to have something white on the feet.”According to Mercado, the appearance of this being made him feel more comfortable. The being indicated to Mercado that he was in control of this craft and that the idea of bringing Mercado into him was in order to show Mercado something important that he could later share with other people. He told him not to be afraid, and that they were soon going to take him back. At that point, Mercado heard a humming sound and felt how the support legs of the craft were rising and fitting into it, and he heard the metallic noise of it and the other accompanying sounds. Then he heard an even louder hum, and the machine took off at speed.
AN E.T. BASE BENEATH THE SIERRA BERMEJA?
Most impressed, Mercado could see, through the wide windows of the control chamber in the cupola, that the craft was climbing.
“I then began to think that we were going to go very far, but, instead of that, the craft headed towards one of the peaks of the Sierra Bermeja, which is very well known to me, because I have often been up there, and it is called the Monte El Cayúl. “There, behind the Cayúl, is a deep ravine between it and the next peak, and that is where the craft headed for. I was scared now because I thought the craft was surely going to strike and explode, but to my astonishment, the side of the mountain opened up, and there was a hole there in the ravine, and in just a minute or so, we went down into that hole.
“The craft carried on as it were down a tunnel, and then we came to a big open place down there, very deep. It was like a vast, gigantic cave, with these people in it. “The ship landed in a section where there were lots of other craft – lots of them, but of different types. Some were round, like the one that had brought me, some were triangular, some were square – all different sorts. But no airplanes or helicopters or anything of that sort! Nothing from here! (Or, at any rate, if there were any, I didn’t see them.)
“The tall being told me to come out with him and he made me put on a sort of big, like enormous dark spectacles so that I could see everything down there clearly. It was all very well lit down there. You couldn’t see where the light was coming from, but it was a very brilliant light, very white. All the walls there were covered with a very shiny silvery metal.
And lots and lots of the little chaps were there, and an enormous lot of activity. “Many of the little men were working on the ships, and others seemed to be preparing things, like machinery or electronic stuff.
That was a vast world down there. There were buildings there like military barracks. “The tall being explained to me, mentally (for he too didn’t talk with the mouth) that they have been down there for a long, long time. He said they don’t want to leave there. He said that there, beneath the Sierra Bermeja, they have the Base for the maintenance of their craft.
That approximately is what he said. “He said they wanted me to see all that because they wanted me to tell the folk here (us terrestrials) that they don’t have any bad intentions, and don’t want to do us any harm or conquer us. “He said that what they want is to be able to sort of inter-relate with us totally, at the social level, mingle with us, but that our Authorities don’t want that.
He insisted that I should tell the people outside all this, that they don’t want to conquer us or do us any harm. “So I asked them why it should be I – I who am nobody important – whom nobody would believe? “But he said that was of no importance. That when I said all that to them, the people outside who possess understanding would know that I was telling the truth. “He also said that they were taking other people down deeper, and telling them the same things that they were telling me. And he said that they weren’t going to go away from there.
“After that, he made me get into the craft and it went up the tunnel again. I saw that we came out through the same hole by which we had gone in and that a sort of lid closed down on it. It was as though a part of the mountain, along with its trees and grass and everything, just lifted up. Afterward, it was just as though nothing had happened there. “We landed at the same spot where they had picked me up, and I got out with the little chaps. They told me that they would return another day.
“We landed at the same spot where they had picked me up, and I got out with the little chaps. They told me that they would return another day.They took me right back to my house, and then they departed. “It was after they had gone that I began to get nervous. I thought about it for quite a bit, and then I went to the bedroom to tell my wife, Haydée, all about it, but she was still asleep so I left her without troubling her. I lay down and slept till the next morning. Then, when I woke her up, I told it all to her, and she believed me.
“You know, I’m still waiting for them because I like what happened. In my opinion, they aren’t bad. I could feel it. If they had wanted to do me harm they could have done it when they took me. I’d like them to come back so that I could go with them again. They aren’t bad people. “I’m telling you all this because, when that UFO took those two airplanes, I was very nervous, because the airplanes were harassing it, it carried them off.
That has left me very worried because I have the feeling that those beings are good, and it looks as though somebody wants to get them out of there. There’s something going on there! COMMENT Such is the statement of the eyewitness Carlos Manuel Mercado regarding his unusual experience. But there are a number of points to consider regarding what he reports.
The place indicated by him as the spot where the opening on the flank of El Cayúl Peak lies, in the ravine behind it, has also been reported to us as the general area to which other people of the region who have allegedly been contacted by alien beings of this same type of “Greys” were also taken. Owing to the promise of confidentiality that we have given to these other eyewitnesses, we cannot mention their names here, but at least in two other similar cases, we can say that a woman employed by the Municipality of Lajas allegedly was carried to some immense subterranean facility beneath the Sierra Bermeja by alien beings who took her from her home. She had been “medically examined” by the “Greys” down there, and she had been given a similar explanation to the explanation given to Mercado. Her whole account of the place is completely identical to Mercado’s description.
Then again, likewise, a high military official of the Puerto Rico National Guard, residing in Aguadilla, was seemingly also abducted by the same beings and taken to precisely the same place, which is described by him in more or less exactly similar terms. Later, when he emerged from the trance in which they had kept him during all the time of his experience down there, he was found beside a pool up on the Peak of El Cayúl. We must also mention here various other ‘situations’ that call very much for careful study in view of all that we have described above and that we have also otherwise heard. These ‘situations’ are connected with a series of ‘coincidences’ occurring in this same region of the Sierra Bermeja. Firstly, on top of a peak lying to the right of the Cayúl Peak (i.e. as seen from the direction of Cabo Rojo), there were erected, about seven years ago, some facilities said to be for a station of the Voice of America Radio.
The area around it was declared a restricted area, the excuse being that this was on the general grounds of security and nobody living in the region was permitted to approach the place. However, so far as we know, until now, no transmissions from that alleged Station have ever gone out. So why, then, was the building erected there? If it is not being used for the function for which it was allegedly built, what then is its true role? At times unidentified individuals have been seen visiting there. Who are they, and what are these people doing?
They might very well be watching, from there, what is going on in the coastal zone near Lake Cartagena and the Sierra Bermeja…..Or they might indeed perhaps be participating in what is afoot there? On many occasions, the residents of Boquerón, Las Palmas, and Betances (all in Cabo Rojo Municipal Region) and of Olivares (in Lajas Municipality) have observed large UFOs of different shapes (triangles, discs, cigars, etc.) hanging stationary over the Cayúl Peak and over the mountain where the building of the alleged Voice of America Station is located. What are the UFOs looking for so persistently up there?
Perhaps these experiences that Carlos Manuel Mercado and the lady from Lajas and the military officials claim to have had given us the answer? Is there really an alien installation beneath the Sierra Bermeja as they assure us to be the case? In our last issue (EVIDENCIA OVNI No.1) we published an article on the strange death of Diego Segarra, the fisherman from Cabo Rojo. We reported on the experience of a person close to him, who made a video film of the landing of a UFO on the Sierra Bermeja, and of the emergence from it of two “Grey” beings and of a tall, human, ‘albino’ type of person who left the site in a military jeep driven by two soldiers. The spot where this happened, according to the fisherman Segarra, was at the foot of the El Cayúl Peak.
The reports from this entire area are extremely numerous, and in future issues, we will be continuing to analyze them.
© Flying Saucer Review Library of Congress copyright FSR Publications, Ltd. 1981.
Contributions appearing in this magazine do not necessarily reflect its policy and are published without prejudice. Gordon Creighton (Editor FSR)