UFO ROUNDUP Volume 3, Number 45
Anonymous
UFO ROUNDUP
Volume 3, Number 45
November 9, 1998
Editor: Joseph Trainor
CHINESE JET FIGHTER
PURSUES A UFO
On Monday, October 19, 1998, four military
radar stations in Hebei province, China, reported
the presence of an unidentified blip hovering above
a military flight training school in Changzhou.
Once authorities determined that the intruder
was not a military or civilian flight, Colonel Li, the
base commander, ordered a Jianjiao 6 jet fighter
to take off and intercept the UFO.
"At least 140 people on the ground saw the
object."
"To observers at the base, the UFO first appeared
to be 'a small star' and then grew larger and larger,
perhaps as it descended to a lower altitude, the
report said."
"They described an object with a mushroom-shaped
dome on top and a flat bottom covered with bright,
continually-rotating lights."
The crew of the Jianjiao 6 interceptor consisted of
a pilot and a radar officer. The two officers said "the
object clearly resembled depictions they had seen
in foreign science fiction films...When they got within
4,000 meters (13,200 feet) of the UFO over Qing
county, it abruptly shot upward, easily evading
subsequent attempts to get closer."
"It appeared to be toying with the fighter by
repeatedly outdistancing it and then reappearing
right above it, the report said."
The pilot requested permission to fire on the
UFO with the plane's automatic 20mm cannon.
He was denied permission to shoot by ground
control and was told to continue to pursue and
observe the object.
The pilot broke off pursuit at an altitude of
12,000 meters (39,600 feet) when the jet began
running low on fuel. "The UFO then disappeared
before two more modern (Chinese fighter) planes
could arrive in the area."
Changzhou is 150 kilometers (90 miles)
northwest of Shanghai. (See the Hong Kong
Standard for November 4, 1998. The story
apparently first ran in the Hebei Daily around
October 22 and was picked up by the Chinese
weekly newsmagazine Baokhan Wenzhai. Many
thanks to Errol Bruce-Knapp and Andy Denne
of A.U.R.A. for forwarding the article.)
ISRAELIS VIDEOTAPE A
TRIANGULAR UFO NEAR
TEL AVIV
On Friday, October 9, 1998, electrical engineer
Adrian Dvir met with his group of five "alien healers"
at his home in Rishon Letzion, a city approximately
24 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Tel Aviv.
Dvir and his colleagues claim that they were given
mysterious "healing powers" by aliens from space.
Midway through the meeting, one of the members
spotted a UFO moving through the sky. Dvir grabbed
his camcorder and began shooting.
"The finest moment of the film is a closeup of the
craft revealing three beautiful balls--one orange, the
others silver and white in a perfect triangular formation.
This is one of the finest UFO films ever taken in
Israel," said author/researcher Barry Chamish.
One week later, on Friday, October 16, Avishai
Granot, a computer graphics artist, "spotted two
triangular craft which flew over the eastern section
of Rishon Letzion."
Granot said, "This UFO came from the north at
lightning speed, hovered over the city for about a
minute, and disappeared in a flash, making a
suction sound as it went."
A 20-year-veteran of the Zahal (Israeli Defense
Forces--J.T.), Granot said, "I know every craft and
weapon we've got and it wasn't one of them."
On Thursday, November 5, 1998, Barry Chamish
and ufologist Gil Bar visited Rishon Letzion and
interviewed the two men. They also viewed the
videos shot by Dvir.
"When he (Granot) saw Dvir's film, he immediately
identified the craft on the screen as the one he had
seen."
Like Gulf Breeze, Florida or Crestone, Colorado,
Rishon Letzion is a notorious UFO hotspot, Chamish
said. One year ago, in November 1997, "Gil Bar, 16,
filmed an Israeli F-15 chasing a UFO over Rishon
Letzion in broad daylight." (Many thanks to Barry
Chamish, author of WHO MURDERED YITZHAK
RABIN?, for giving UFO Roundup permission to
quote from his news story.)
MYSTERIES FLOURISH IN
EQ PEGASI CONTACT CASE
The EQ Pegasi case exploded into a flurry of
charges and counter-charges last week.
On October 23, 1998, a man calling himself
"Paul Dore" posted GIFs on the Internet which
purported to show a strong alien radio signal
emanating from the EQ Pegasi star system,
22 light years (132,000,000,000,000 miles) from
Earth.
Dr. H. Paul Shuch of the SETI League and
Dr. Nathan Cohen of Boston University branded
the material a hoax.
On Monday, November 2, John Doe, alias
"Paul Dore," hit back at his critics. "This is
assuredly not a hoax," he said, explaining that
the similarity of signals was caused by his own
hasty error in posting. "I was so excited I got
onto the Internet on a CLOSED list."
Doe added that "two astronomers at the
Effelsberg Radio Observatory" in Germany had
confirmed the "hit" and announced that the three
of them would appear at a news conference on
Wednesday "to announce the discovery of
repeating artificial signals from space."
On Friday, October 30, 1998, K.H. Benton,
a radio operator living in Castel, on the Isle of
Guernsey, claimed that he, too, had picked up
a signal from EQ Pegasi.
"I am an amateur radio operator on the Isle
of Guernsey (UK) offshore from Normandy,"
Benton reported. "When I saw the story of the
possible SETI discovery on the BBC, I undertook
to see if I could pick the signals up."
Benton used his 4.5 meter dish to scan the
23 centimeter band (1296 Mhz to 1450 Mhz) plus
an ICOM 8500 receiver and a SETIFOX program
up and running on his processor.
"At 12:30 UTC, about the time EQ Pegasi rose
in the sky, the program began logging what looked
like a faint carrier signal," Benton reported. "If this
is a signal from another star, it is incredibly strong.
This would have to be beamed directly at us as far
as I can tell."
Researchers seeking confirmation tried to log
onto the website operated by the Billion-channel
Extra-Terrestrial Array (BETA project) in Harvard,
Masschusetts, 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of
Boston. They complained that they could not
access the BETA site.
On Monday, November 2, the Max Planck
Institut fur Radioastronomie in Bonn, operators of
the Effelsberg Radio Observatory, denied that their
astronomers were using the observatory's
100-meter radio telescope to scan EQ Pegasi.
Institute spokesman Dr. Rolf Schwartz said,
"The story circulating that the MFIfR is involved in
observations to confirm a SETI signal is wrong.
The MFIfR is not involved in any SETI project."
Unaware of this, Doe posted a new message,
saying, "At noon, I received a call from the two
astronomers stating that they would not be with
me at the press conference and that I was
'essentially on my own.' 'Fine, then,' I replied,
and then apologized and hung up."
"Next, my supervisor rang me up to tell me
that I was to cease my experiment immediately,"
he added, "This was quite strange because he had
been supportive ever since the news broke."
Arriving home at 7 p.m., he claimed to have
found "three gentlemen in my residence. My wife
Helen had the look of sheer terror in her eyes. It
turns out one of them was from the Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) at
Cheltenham, and the other was from RAF Feltwell,
and the third from the American National Security
Agency (NSA) They asked if we could speak in
private."
"Over the course of nearly two hours they
explained to me that what I had discovered was
not extraterrestrial in nature but was" in actuality
an intelligence-gathering satellite "with something
known as Project 415."
Doe claimed that the men compelled him "to
sign a security oath...which stated that should I
further describe any details on this subject I will
be subect to prosecution under the terms of the
Official Secrets Act."
No sooner had this statement appeared
than the real Paul Dore emerged, claiming
that Doe had "stolen my resume from my
website" which "had been inactive for the past
two and a half years."
According to the Boston Globe, "The
perpetrator made most of his claims anonymously
but then was tentatively identified by SETI
researchers as an engineer named Paul Dore;
an anonymous resume he had posted was
identified as Dore's through an on-line search."
Dr. Shuch said that "he had just heard from
the real Paul Dore and is now convinced that he
is not the perpetrator. Apparently, whoever was
playing the hoax had simply used and altered
Dore's resume."
"He's a decent guy, and he has nothing to
do with this," Dr. Shuch said.
"'It has all the earmarks of a hoax,' said
Darren Leigh, a radio astronomer who operates
one of the largest such search efforts in the
world today, the BETA project...Nevertheless,
Leigh said, the 84-foot dish of the Oak Ridge
Observatory's BETA telescope was trained on
the region of the sky where the signal had been
claimed, just to be sure. And there's nothing
there."
The Wednesday press conference was
abruptly cancelled.
On Wednesay, November 4, people trying
to access the EQ Pegasi website "found a
National Security Agency logo" filling the screen.
Peter A. Gersten of Citizens Against UFO
Secrecy (CAUS) telephoned NSA headquarters
at Fort Meade, Maryland and spoke to Vanessa
Taliery of the agency's public relations department.
Gersten reported that Taliery had told him
that "anyone can download the NSA seal and
emblem and place them on a site." He said
Taliery "seemed unaware of the story" that was
burning up the Internet.
Speculation about the EQ Pegasi signal
continues to spur a fiery debate. (See the
Boston Globe for November 4, 1998,
"Earthlings say: Not so fast," page A-10)
HOVERING UFOs SPOTTED
IN WESTERN NORWAY
On Tuesday, November 3, 1998, at 4 a.m.,
witnesses in Vaksdal, near Bergen, Norway,
"reported an object in the eastern part of the
sky. It was stationary for about an hour,
with flashing lights green on the top and red
on the bottom."
Vaksdal is about 280 kilometers (175 miles)
west of Oslo, the national capital.
The same morning, between 3 a.m. and
5 a.m., a few residents of Stavanger, a seaport
on the North Sea about 240 kilometers
(150 miles) southwest of Oslo, reported
seeing "a meteorite with a blue tail" over the
eastern section of the port city. (Many thanks
to Asgeir W. Skavhaug for this news story.)
SEVEN LUMINOUS DISCS
SEEN IN GRAFTON, N.S.W.
On Thursday, October 22, 1998, at 11:22 p.m.,
seven luminous discs flying in a V formation were
seen in Grafton, New South Wales, Australia,
about 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest
of Sydney.
"This formation was huge," reported local
ufologist Barry Taylor. "At 20 centimeters
(8 inches) at arm's length, the formation must
have been about 25 to 30 meters (83 to 100 feet)
in length, and each disc was about three meters
(10 feet) altogether. I only observed them for
four seconds as they flew over. Missed catching
them on video by two seconds."
"The seven red illuminations were covered by
a white haze," he added, "This haze blended
with the haze of the next illumination (following)
They were close together and 'held in position.'
The light from each disc was intriguing to see.
A soft, smooth, creamy yellowish-white appearance
that looked to have depth." (Many thanks to Barry
Taylor for this report.)
MYSTERY METEOR LIGHTS
UP THE CITY OF WINNIPEG
On Monday, November 2, 1998, at 8:15 p.m.,
ufologist/researcher Christopher A. Rutkowski
"had two calls and heard of three other reports
of a bright bolide-like object...Most witnesses
were in the eastern end of Winnipeg and
Transcona," in Manitoba province, Canada.
The witnesses "reported seeing a 'silver-red'
ball in the southeast, heading west. It had a
'long bright tail' behind it, but no sparks."
"Have two witnesses insist the object
'stopped' in mid-flight, remained stationary and
then moved away." (Many thanks to Chris
Rutkowski for this news story.)
ALIENS, WEIRD ANIMAL
REPORTED IN COLORADO
On Friday, October 30, 1998, a woman living
at the new Baca Grande housing development
near Alamosa, Colorado, looked out the window
and spotted small aliens running across the yard.
"The resident reported small objects hitting
her house," author/researcher Christopher O'Brien
reported, explaining that the house "is out on the
(San Luis) Valley and has no tall trees within a
quarter mile."
The woman described the intruders as
"small hooded figures about four feet tall
(1.2 meters)." She also claimed to have seen
"a hairy pig" running past the house, a sighting
O'Brien said "Sounds more like a Prairie Dragon
sighting."
The next day, Saturday, October 31, 1998,
"the woman also observed a fast-moving oval-
shaped object enter through her back door and
slowly headed up the hallway towards her.
She described the anomaly as being 'milky-
looking with a reflective band around the rim.
The band appeared to be like chrome. The
witness was so startled that she stopped looking
at the object, which apparently then disappeared.
She estimated, at its nearest, it was ten feet
(3 meters) away from her as it came down the
hallway." (Many thanks to Christopher O'Brien,
author of THE MYSTERIOUS VALLEY, for this
news story.)
(Editor's Comment: If there's an award for
Strangest Halloween Visitor, this floating
Baca Grande anomaly is a cinch to win.)
UFO FLAP ENTERS THIRD
WEEK IN MONTANA
Since Friday, October 16, 1998, residents
of Polson (population 6,000) and Ronan
(population 2,500), two towns on Highway 93
in western Montana have been puzzled by
the nightly appearance of a red UFO over
the Mission Mountains, just east of town.
The large UFO is seen every night between
2 a.m. and 5 a.m., hovering about 9,000 feet
above the mountain range.
"The UFO is reported to be quite large with
one continuous red light, a flickering (not blinking)
green light and a flickering blue glow which
appears under the craft." None of the witnesses
have been able to identify the shape of the craft.
On Friday, October 30, 1998, Scott Johnson,
foreman of a large manufacturing facility two
miles south of Ronan, "brought his entire night
shift outside for a look to observe the craft during
break."
Johnson reportedly said, "This is not a vehicle
of human origin. Its balance, its ability to hover as
it does, its soundless(ness)...all make for something
that does not match our standard of human air
vehicles."
The same night, witnesses near Polson, nine
miles to the north, "there were two UFOs at
roughly the same altitude about 9 miles apart."
(Many thanks to Robert A.M. Stephens for
forwarding this news story.)
(Editor's Note: Polson, Montana is at the south
end of Flathead Lake and is best known as the
"home port" of the Flathead Lake Monster,
a.k.a. Flathead Lake Nessie. The creature was
seen dozens of times during the summers of
1993 and 1996. See the Lake County Leader
of Polson, Montana for October 23, 1996)
MAN AND MOTHER SEE A
UFO IN KETTERING, OHIO
On Monday, October 26, 1998, at 7:30 p.m.,
a man and his elderly mother spotted a UFO
over Kettering, Ohio (population 60,659), a
city southeast of the Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base.
"It was just 7:30 p.m., and I had just finished
my dinner and went outside for a cigarette," the
witness reported, "I was on the porch looking
north. I decided to walk around the yard, and I
looked up at the stars and saw a large, bright
disc moving slowly across the sky. I watched
it for a second and called my mom out. By the
time she got there, it was flying south extremely
fast, faster than any airplane I know of...The
object just took off, extremely fast." (Many thanks
to Kenneth Young of Tri-States Advocates for
Scientific Knowledge, T.A.S.K., for forwarding
this report.)
RADIO SHOW TRIGGERS
PANIC IN PORTUGAL
On Friday, October 30, 1998, radio station
Antena 3, a subsidiary of Radio Nacionao
Portugueses (RNP) in Lisbon, decided to
celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Orson
Welles radio drama, War of the Worlds,
by broadcasting it during the morning show.
The original Welles script was used and
was translated into Portuguese. Instead of
having the Martians touch down in Grover's Mill,
New Jersey, Antena 3 had the aliens land in
Palmela, a town 35 kilometers (21 miles)
south of Lisbon.
The station issued a warning at 7 a.m.,
announcing their intention to broadcast the
radio play. But when the play began an hour
later at 8 a.m., panic erupted.
The station "broadcasted the landing of a UFO
at Palmela" and "the bulletins said that the
Martians had set off in the direction of the capital
(Lisbon) and that military forces sent to stop
them had proved powerless."
"The program's producer said the radio station
was inundated with calls from hundreds of
panicking people demanding to know what was
going on."
The 7 a.m. warning proved worthless "because
not everyone is listening to the radio that early."
Some callers said they had fled their workplaces.
Others with health problems complained that "the
health had deteriorated on news of the Martian
invasion."
"One of the organizers of the broadcast said,
'One hundred years after the invention of the
radio, there are still people who will believe
anything." (Merci beaucoup a Robert Fischer
pour l'histoire de l'Agence France Presse.)
BALDIM CAVE SEARCH
ENDS IN FIASCO
Efforts to search a cave in Brazil's Serra do
Espinhaco mountains for a Chupacabra have
ended for the time being.
The cave, located on a mountaintop near
Baldim, Minas Gerais, a small city on the Rio
das Velhas 110 kilometers (66 miles) north
of Belo Horizonte, was the site of the reported
encounter between three spelunkers and a
"weird animal, the size of a large dog."
Having made a tentative descent into the
cave earlier in October, ufologist Vittorio
Paccacini, author of INCIDENTE EM VARGINHA,
returned to the cave on Saturday, October 17,
1998. But his planned party of ten explorers
was not willing to make the descent.
"When I got there, I found that this group
was not ready to go," Paccacini reported,
"No adequate equipment (helmets, lights, etc.)
Most of the people there didn't feel comfortable
with the idea of returning to the halls of that cave."
So the cave expedition was canceled.
Three days earlier, Pacaccini had met with
his lawyer, who, he said, "alerted me to the
complications/responsibilities I'd have if somebody
got hurt on this expedition."
In addition to possible legal liabilities,
Paccacini reported that he was contacted by
Manuel Uchoa and the other two spelunkers
who reportedly saw the cave creature.
"They didn't like the fact that the pictures
had already circulated in many UFO webpages
and in many Internet UFO news services, as well."
"I'll have to wait a little longer to see what
can be done, to be sure about the picture,"
Paccacini added. "I also know where to find it
(the cave), of course, but I can only do something
in accordance with the witnesses...For me,
unfortunately, I'll have to hold my horses.
Needless to tell how frustrating this is."
(Muito obrigado a Vittorio Paccacini por
eso caso.)
from the UFO Files...
1940: LAST CRUISE OF THE
WILLIAM B. DAVOCK
Of all the stories associated with the Lake
Michigan Triangle, the case of the oreboat
William B. Davock is certainly one of the
strangest.
On November 7, 1940, the Davock sailed
out of Erie, Pennsylvania, westbound for
Chicago with a load of coal. The ship had
a crew of 31 aboard, with a surprising number
of the men hailing from Ashtabula, Ohio,
another port on Lake Erie.
The Davock had a routine trip to Detroit,
then headed north across Lake Huron and
sailed through the Straits of Mackinac into
Lake Michigan.
At 12 noon on November 10, 1940, the
Davock was seen entering Lake Michigan
by observers onshore at Mackinac City,
Mich. At 12:15 p.m., her skipper, Captain
Charles W. Allen, sent out a routine radio
message.
That was the Davock's last contact
with the outside world. Shore radio stations
attempting to contact her during that afternoon
and evening reached nothing but static.
The following afternoon, November 11, 1940,
Lake Michigan was swept by a ferocious
blizzard. This "Armistice Day storm" killed
hundreds of people in the USA's Midwest, and
a few ships foundered on the Great Lakes.
By the time the blizzard began, the Davock
should have been safe in her berth in South
Chicago. But there had been no word from
the vessel for 24 hours.
Then the bodies began washing ashore.
"From a point a mile or two above Pentwater
to the beach north of Ludington, they wandered in
amidst a clutter of life rings, broken lifeboats,
oars, cabin doors, fragments of furniture...
young deckhands James Saunders and his
buddy Sterling Wood, second mate John
Wiesen, first mate Charles Price, wheelmen
Andy Stiffler and Walter Kiewece, and watchmen
James Bowman, Lawrence Bleshoy and Martin
Chambers."
"Walking for miles, they (searchers) found
both of the Davock's lifeboats, one damaged, the
other intact but full of water. Tarpaulins, parts of
what had once been an icebox, a section of the
captain's desk" and Capt. Allen's prize possession,
his brand-new wicker chair.
The dead men of the Davock were laid to
rest at Ludington's Lakeview Cemetery.
The Coast Guard assumed that the Davock
and another steamer, the Anna C. Minch, had
been thrown together by the mountainous seas
of the blizzard. They theorized that the Davock
had cleaved the Minch's hull in half and had
then limped away, to sink elsewhere on Lake
Michigan.
But then, in May 1972, divers discovered
"the Davock's hull, upside down in 304 feet of
water, off Little Sable Point" near Ludington.
Working from a former fishing tug equipped with
sonar and other sophisticated gear, divers
Kent Bellrichard, John Steele and William Cohen
explored the hull briefly but could find no evidence
of collision...The divers found the Davock's
rudder cramped hard to port, as though she too
were trying to fighter her way out of a valley
between monstrous seas."
Or perhaps trying to get away from something.
The mystery persists. Where was the Davock
during the twenty-four hours prior to the arrival of
the Armistice Day storm? Why didn't Capt. Allen
erect an emergency radio mast? Or simply send
a gig ashore to Ludington? What was the vessel
doing just off Little Sable Point, east of its
intended route to Chicago?
Ludington, of course, has long been rumored
to be the nexus of the Lake Michigan Triangle.
The Davock is just one of the many large ships
that have sunk under mysterious circumstances
within earshot of Ludington's automated lighthouse.
(See STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE GREAT
LAKES by Dwight Boyer, Freshwater Press Inc.,
Cleveland, Ohio, 1974, pages 100 to 104, and
THE GREAT LAKES TRIANGLE by Jay Gourley,
Fawcett Crest Books, Greenwich, Conn., 1977,
page 86.)
FUN UFO WEBSITES:
The video of the three Cleveland UFOs is now a
Quicktime movie, Rev. John Tenney of Michigan
Anumalous Information Network informs me. You
need 5 megabytes to view it. See the movie at
http://members.tripod.com/~main.org
Ignatius Graffeo managed to download much
of the material on the EQ Pegasi website before
it was replaced with the NSA seal. He invites
people to view it at his mirror site at this URL:
http://members.aol.com/ufoseek/Cape
CanaveralHall7193/
Malaysian UFO Network now has its own site.
Check them out at http://www.malayians.com/
myufonet
Don't miss our parent site, UFO INFO, with
its wide array of saucer source material. Drop
in at http://ufoinfo.com
Back issues of UFO Roundup can be
accessed, read and downloaded at our webpage.
Feel free to browse anytime at this URL:
http://ufoinfo.com/roundup
Some week, eh? We'll be back in seven days
with the latest in saucer news from around the
globe, plus continuing coverage of the growing
EQ Pegasi contact controversy, brought to you
as always by "the paper that goes home--
UFO Roundup." See you then.
UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 1998 by Masinaigan
Productions, all rights reserved. Readers may
post news items from UFO Roundup on their
websites or in newsgroups provided that they
credit the newsletter and its editor by name
and list the date of issue in which the item
first appeared.
Tim Regan
> UFO ROUNDUP
>Volume 3, Number 45
>November 9, 1998
>Editor: Joseph Trainor
>
>CHINESE JET FIGHTER
>PURSUES A UFO
>
> On Monday, October 19, 1998, four military
>radar stations in Hebei province, China, reported
>the presence of an unidentified blip hovering above
>a military flight training school in Changzhou.
satellites and intelligence reports and just phone the Chinese military
and ask what they can see on their radar screens. It's nice to know that
the cold war is really over and communist governments are willing to share
military information with anyone that asks.
- Tim.
(ti...@desres.demon.co.uk)
Russo
don't have any spy satellites pointed on us. Wake up bro, the Chinese hate us
as much as ever, and the feeling governmentally (this doesn't hold true for
trade) is mutual. Don't trust everyone brother.
Russo