- WEIRD DOUBLE HOMICIDE REPORTED IN
PERU
-
- On April 8, 1998, the police in Pisac,
a small town in the Andes of Peru, received a phone call from an anonymous
informant, claiming that he had stumbled across the bodies of two dead
men. As he hung up, the agitated caller shouted, "Pishtacos!"
The pishtaco is a legendary creature of Andean folklore, whose image appears
on the ceramics of the ancient Nazca and Sipan cultures. It is reputed
to be a demon in the form of a human, which strips the victim's body of
all adipose tissue. Investigating police searched the town and found two
dead men, both unidentified, "with all of their muscles exposed and
not a single gram of fat on them." On April 9, 1998, the Policia Nacional
del Peru (PNP) moved the two bodies to the nearest large city, Cuzco, approximately
47 kilometers (24 miles) to the southwest. The autopsies were performed
by Dr. Oscar Gallegos of the PNP's Forensic Medical Department. According
to the autopsy report, "The victims showed characteristics compatible
to death from bleeding. There were no signs of torture, beating nor of
having been struck by a knife or a bullet. Cause of death was cardiac arrest
due to excessive bleeding. No skin or subcutaneous cellular tissue was
found. The rate of decomposition was slight." Pisac is in the Andes
approximately 665 kilometers (425 miles) east of Lima, the capital of Peru.
(Muchas gracias a Raul Rios y Scott Corrales para esas noticias.)
-
- MYSTERY BOOMS PUZZLE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIANS
-
- Mysterious booms or "skyquakes"
rattled thousands of homes within a large area 30 miles (50 kilometers)
southeast of Los Angeles. According to Ryan H. Turner, a communications
dispatcher for Orange County, police and fire departments began receiving
phone calls around 10 p.m. The calls ranged from Norco and Corona in Riverside
County to Pomona in eastern Los Angeles County, 25 miles (40 kilometers)
to the northwest. Turner reported that residents "were startled by
two large noises that rattled" walls and windows. "In one case
reported directly to me, around the door in an 8,000-square foot home began
to vibrate rapidly." Callers described the two sounds as "explosions,
earthquake noises, window-rattling noises and thuds." The sounds occurred
about "five minutes apart." Turner reported that KNBC-TV in Los
Angeles attributed the sounds to "military exercises at Camp Pendleton
and El Toro," both bases of the U.S. Marine Corps. "I personally
called these two bases and was told that there was absolutely nothing on
this end that had caused those noises," he added. The following day,
Turner was told that the booms had been caused by the space shuttle Columbia
landing at Vandenburg Air Force Base. But Michael Lindemann, editor of
CNI News, pointed out that the shuttle had landed earlier at Cape Canaveral,
Florida. The cause of the "sky booms" remains unexplained. (Email
Interview)
-
- MYSTERIOUS GREEN LIGHTS SEEN OVER
HALF MOON BAY
-
- On Monday, May 4, 1998, around 11:30
p.m., residents of Half Moon Bay and El Granada, California spotted three
mysterious green lights hovering just offshore. Half Moon Bay (population
8,886) and El Granada (population 4,426) are on Highway 1 about 60 miles
(96 kilometers) south of San Francisco. Reports were also received from
two or three residents living on Skyline Boulevard, north of Redwood City.
According to Larry Hatch, "observers" on a tugboat in Half Moon
Bay "also saw the lights for 30 minutes. The tugboat operator described
them as green 'stoplights' (traffic lights--J.T.) He also said they were
arranged in a straight vertical row. (Many thanks to Larry Hatch and Errol
Bruce-Knapp for this news story.)
-
- DUTCH UFOLOGISTS DISPUTE STORY OF
NORTH SEA CHASE
-
- Ufologists in the Netherlands disputed
last week's reports in the London Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph of a UFO
chase over the North Sea. According to the reports published in both British
newspapers, the phased-array radar station at RAF Fylingdales in North
Yorkshire picked up a UFO 900 feet (273 meters) long flying over the North
Sea. RAF jet interceptors were sent after it. At the same time, two F-16
jet fighters of the Nederlandse Luchtmacht (Netherlands Air Force) took
off in pursuit. The F-16s reportedly encountered the UFO over the North
Sea. The mammoth triangular object then increased its speed to 24,000
miles per hour and headed northeast towards the Atlantic Ocean. Andy Denne
of the Netherlands UFO group A.U.R.A. reported, "We have checked our
source in the Dutch air force, and we can be rather sure by now that the
F-16s sent to intercept never even took off." "We also double-checked
with the Dutch military defense radar station at Nieuw-Millingen. They
also assured us nothing was visible on radar." A.U.R.A. members and
other Dutch ufologists telephoned the Air Traffic Control center at Schipol
International Airport in Amsterdam. Radar operators there "saw nothing
on their radars during the past couple of months." "So our conclusion
is that there was no North Sea UFO, at least as described by the British
press," Denne reported. "Especially since the Dutch air force
is not as tight-lipped as their British and American colleagues."
(Many thanks to Andy Denne of A.U.R.A. and Errol Bruce-Knapp for this
story.)
-
- V-SHAPED UFO SIGHTED IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL
-
- On Friday, May 1, 1998, at 8:30 p.m.,
residents of Guarulhos, a cidade satelite (suburb) of Sao Paulo in southern
Brazil, spotted a large V-shaped UFO hovering and flying overhead. The
OVNI (Portuguese acronym for UFO) was described as "a single object
with bright lights arranged in a V-formation." Eyewitness Humberto
L., age 58, said, "I was at my home in Parque Renato Maia, a barrio
near O Centro (the city's center--J.T.) when I looked up and saw the strange
lights." "The object flew slowly to the north, very high, in
the direction of the Serra da Cantareira," he added, "The lights
were bright, opaque and evenly spaced." Several witnesses at Aeroporto
de Combica reported seeing "a rotating OVNI moving from east to west
across the sky." Alberto L., age 23, saw the V-shaped UFO, which he
described as "a bright object. The object had lights and gave off
a trail of mist or smoke. I perceived clearly that it was a single object."
The V-shaped UFO "disappeared in the distance after several minutes."
(Muito obrigado a Roberto S. Ferreira por eso caso.)
-
-
- CROP CIRCLES APPEAR IN GERMANY
-
- On Thursday, April 30, 1998, a kornkreise
(crop circle) appeared in a field of oilseed rape in Angeln, in northern
Germany. The circle was discovered by Wolfgang Schoppe, who said it appeared
"on a foggy and rainy night." The site was investigated by German
cerealogist Eckard Weber of Forsungs- Gesellschaft Kornkreise e.V. (FGK)
At the site, Weber "did not find any footprints in and around the
field, although the ground was muddy. He reported that the circle appeared
to be 'genuine.'" The following day, Friday, May 1, 1998, Clemens
Richter spotted a crop circle in a field outside Burghasungen, a suburb
of Kassel, about 280 kilometers (175 miles) southwest of Berlin. At 3 p.m.,
Richter returned to the field with Jan Schwochow for a more detailed examination.
They found "no tracks of any off-road vehicles" in the field.
They described the circle as "a formation of a large circle 7 meters
(23 feet) in diameter, with a striking circle in the middle with a diameter
of 1.2 meters (4 feet)." FGK's investigation is continuing. (Danke
schoen zum FGK)
-
- UFOs REMAIN ACTIVE ALL AROUND AUSTRALIA
-
- On April 23, 1998, at 7 p.m., Bob Waterman
was at his home in Melbourne's northern suburbs when he spotted a UFO.
"I was looking in the direction of the southeast when I saw what
I thought were planes. In particular, two were in a longitudinal position
and were about a foot (25 centimeters) apart, one at 3 oclock (position),
the other at 9 o'clock. While in the sky, the light at the 3 o'clock position
moved in a clockwise circle and stopped at 9 o'clock, and the one at 9
o'clock moved and stopped at 3 o'clock, both in parallel time. They stayed
there for about two minutes. And then the one at 3 o'clock moved in a
straight line to the right and the one at 9 o'clock moved in a straight
line to the left. Having thought back on it, the lights were too perfect
and too round to be stars, so I am at a complete loss to explain what they
are." (Many thanks to John Hayes for this story.) On April 22, 1998,
at 6:40 p.m., a retired Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) captain in Queensland
"was walking his dog, accompanied by his grandson, when a huge light
appeared in the north flying at phenomenal speed. When it passed overhead,
he claimed that light from underneath lit up the surrounding area and would
have been 20 feet across. It appeared to pass under an airliner coming
in to Maroochydore Airport. As it passed over the Glass House Mountains,
it then became a ball of light emitting red, green and blue lights. It
seemed to have left a long white trail behind it. This person reports
that it was a clear night with no clouds in the sky." (Many thanks
to Glennys Mackay of Queensland UFO Network, QUFON, for this report. See
Filer's Files #17 for 1998. Thanks also to George A. Filer, Eastern Director
of MUFON.) On Saturday, May 2, 1998, at 5:40 p.m., "a silver gray
disc was observed hovering 100 meters (330 feet)" above a family hiking
in the remote Terra-Blugga National Park in Victoria state. "The
UFO hovered 100 meters overhead for about four minutes before taking off.
The UFO had a large dome on top and three oval-shaped bulbuls, or ball-like
protrusions, underneath. The object emitted a low-frequency hum or buzz
that could only be heard while directly underneath." (Many thanks
to Ross Dowe of Australia/New Zealand 24-Hour UFO Hotline for this report.)
-
- SPHERICAL UFO SIGHTED IN EASTERN OREGON
-
- On Friday, May 1, 1998, at 4:21 p.m.,
Wayne R. of Harper, Oregon sighted "a 4-to-8 foot round UFO moving
through the sky" southeast of Vale, Ore. (population 1,491), a town
at the junction of Highways 20 and 26, located about 50 miles (80 kilometers)
west of Boise, Idaho. Wayne described the UFO as "light tan with spots
or markings, no lights." He added that what caught his attention
was its unusual movement. "It flew at about a 30-degree angle from
behind a ridge 80 feet above the ground, stopped, moved up and down rapidly,
and then flew away at a very high rate of speed." "No smoke or
trail was visible" during Wayne's four-second sighting. (Many thanks
to Tim Hagemeister of NACOMM for this report.)
-
- SAN LUIS VALLEY REPORTS NEW CATTLE
MUTILATIONS
-
- Two new cattle mutilations were reported
this week, one in Colorado and the other in New Mexico. According to Christopher
O'Brien, investigator and author of THE MYSTERIOUS VALLEY, a couple, "June
and Virgil Walkley were returning home from a friend's house when they
happened upon a 'mutilated bull' which 'appeared to be dropped on a fence
line.'" about 12 miles (19 kilometers) east of Alamosa, Colorado.
"The animal, which turned out to be a cow, had apparently been dead
for three or four days," O'Brien reported. "It was lying on
its back directly over an old fence line that extends north to south on
the western edge of the San Luis Valley Estates, 12 miles east of Alamosa."
Alamosa (population 13,617) is on Colorado Highways 180 and 265 about 140
miles (224 kilometers) southwest of Denver. (Many thanks to Chris O'Brien
for this report.) On Sunday, May 3, 1998, a cow was found dead and mutilated
in a remote mountain pasture 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of Questa,
New Mexico (population 1,707). The cow, "which had been dead for
about a day...was missing its eye and its tongue and suffered massive hemorraghing,
investigators say." John Paternoster, district attorney for Taos,
N.M., said authorities would investigate the case as a cattle mutilation--"one
of a series of unexplained animal deaths in New Mexico in the past 25 years."
"Samples of the cow's tissue, blood and organs will be analyzed at
an Albuquerque laboratory, he said." "'No apparent cause of death
was immediately visible,' Paternoster said, 'I'm not certain what we're
looking for (but) we have since the beginning been taking these deaths
seriously.'" "A team of law enforcement officers" visited
the crime scene in the Moreno Valley, "along with Gabe Valdez, an
agent for the National Institute of Discovery Science, a privately-funded
Las Vegas, Nev. organization that investigates paranormal phenomena."
Valdez is a former New Mexico state trooper who has studied many cattle
mutilation cases over the years. (See the Albuquerque, N.M. Journal for
May 4, 1998. Many thanks to Errol Bruce-Knapp for this story.)
-
- STUDENTS AND TEACHERS SEE A UFO IN
SRI LANKA
-
- A UFO flap has broken out in Sri Lanka,
an island nation in the Indian Ocean. According to the London Sunday Times
of May 3, 1998, a saucer-shaped UFO was seen in Bandarawela and Diyatawala.
"According to the principal of Adikaram Primary School in Bandarawela,
several schoolboys and teachers told her they had seen the UFO." "Grade
5 student Harsha Ellawellagadera said he did see the object at around 6:30
a.m. Thursday, April 30, while several others reported that they had seen
it at different times." "If schoolboys may be prone to some imagination,
then the district medical officer of Diyatawala, (Dr.) Kemani Pushpakumara,
will contradict the skeptics. She said she had seen the UFO flying over
her garden a few days ago. Frightened by it, she ran into the house and
told her husband to close the door." "A driver in the area also
reported he had seen the UFO." (See the Sunday Times for May 3, 1998,
story by Chris Kamalendran, and Filer's Files #18 for 1998. Many thanks
to Asoka Livanage and George A. Filer of MUFON for this story.)
-
- 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
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