Witness reports seeing two disc shaped craft near Los Banos

In late December of 2002, two witnesses (a mother and her son) were traveling north on Interstate 5 and were near the town of Los Banos. It was late afternoon, about 4:30, and the sun was begining to set. The car was traveling about 40 mph when the mother (who was the driver) noticed two disc shaped craft in the air several miles ahead of her on the east side of the highway.

The witness estimated them to be between 500 and 600 feet off the ground. The witness describes them as fading in and out as she drove closer to them. She sped up to about 60 mph as she got nearer to them, but by this time they were in the early shade of the foot hills as she describes it. As the witness describes it one disc would slowly get brighter and brighter and then they would fade back to the metalic look while the other would would start to get brighter, only to repeat the pattern over and over.

At that point the witness woke her son up who had been sleeping at the time to see if he could see the craft. He replied he did and she asked him to look closer to see if they were somehow tethered to the ground or something. He said they weren't and then went back to sleep, apparently uninterested in what was going on.

As they passed the craft, the witness soon forgot about them and continued driving. It was only until later she remembered about them as she heard someone else's story about a similiar sighting the following day. Unfortunately her son has never remembered the event.

Below is the original report and is unedited and is presented as it was reported to with MUFON. I am not saying that I have any knowledge of what the witness reported seeing and most UFO reports can usually be explained as something natural or manmade. If there is any findings to this case then I will update this report to reflect those.

2 discs hovering next to Highway 5

Close to Christmas in 2002 I and my 21 year old son (who was sleeping in the passenger seat) were traveling north on Highway 5 in California, coming up upon the turn off to Los Banos going west, still @ 40 miles from it. About 4:30 pm, still daylight. The sun was close to setting at that time and we were behind a set of low foot hills about 100-400 feet high on the west of the freeway. When I first spotted the discs a couple of miles ahead of me they were in the sunshine. My mind tried to match what I was seeing with any other known outlines of flying vehicles and they did not match anything I could come up with. I was amazed and curious as to why no one was stopping to look at them.

I spotted 2 discs hovering above the highway on the east side, very close to the road, between 500-600 ft above. After about a minute of viewing them, I realized they were flying discs,as they did not look like any other thing I could recognize. For several miles I watched them taking turns fading in and out, continuing until I was going to drive right under them. By the time I reached them at 65 miles an hour both the roadway and the discs were in the early shade of the foot hills. Higher than that, it was still in sunlight. There was plenty of bright daylight left to see the whole scene. When I say brightening I mean that the whole disc got slowly brighter - not a single light fixture - and then the whole disc faded to the metalic look and the other one then lit up- they did not get too bright to look at - it was like they were on a reostat and it was slowly being turned on to about halfway. They were never really bright as if the sun was hitting them as when I first spotted them but more faded than that. I could not see that they were fading and lighting up until the shadow of the hills covered them. I awakened my son and asked if he saw them - which he did - and told him to look closely as we drove by and see if they were in any way teathered. He had good eyesight and unequivically said no, they were not teathered. He immediately went back to sleep and as soon as we had passed the spot I also completely forgot about them, until much later. The only reason I remembered is because I heard someone elses story about a similar happening to her the next day after I got to my destination. All of a sudden I realized that we had also seen that type of sighting only with 2 discs, one above the other and the lower one was slightly ahead of the other towards the road (but not directly over the road. The two were pretty much strattling each other) My son has never remembered the event.

I don 't know if you want suppositions but I believe the fading in and out was sending out magnetic waves of forgetfulness so people kept right on driving instead of actually stopping along the freeway to gawk.

The early shadow of the foothills just highlighted the brightening and fading of the discs. Not one other car on the freeway even slowed down to look at them.

A case of misidentification

On early Saturday morning, this past weekend, I was driving home from a kareoke birthday party at Tokyo Garden. It was about 2:30 am and I was heading north on Hwy. 99 and took the Ave. 7 off ramp as I always do when I saw a strange light darting about to the north of me. Curious I drove in the direction of the lights. What I saw was three bright lights flying low over a bunch of grapes. The object(s) would swoop down and then dart back up and then disappear only to reappear several minutes later and repeat the process all over again. At this point I had an idea of what was going on, but I wanted to get closer to be sure. As I got within a mile of the craft, I saw it swoop back up and turn off it's lights and at that point I saw the familiar green and red marker lights. I rolled down my windows and heard the engine. Yep, it was a cropduster. I was a bit disappointed and then headed home.

Later that day (i.e. when I woke up), I had recieved an e-mail from a Peter saying he had a very strange encounter last night 2.25am on Highway 99 around the Ave. 9 junction. Realizing he had seen the very same thing I did, I shot him back an e-mail describing what I had seen and asked him if this is what he had seen and then described how it was just a crop duster. He replied back that he thought it was a crop duster but wasn't really sure. This started me wondering how many other people that night might have confused the crop duster for some sort of alien craft or top secret military project buzzing a Madera County farmland at 2:30 in the morning. It reminded me of all the Interstate 5 sightings between Coalinga and Kettleman City that I had reported on in the past. Same type of object seen, three bright lights flying low over the highway then swooping up only to go through the motions again. Most sightings were also during the same time of night (late night or early morning) and most occur during early summer, as was the case of this sighting.

When I had first started investigating these lights I had discounted the crop duster theory. My reasoning was that June was too late to dust for crops and my evidence for this was that we never dusted that late on my family's vineyard. Only by researching on this did I realize that crops were sprayed this late into the year and also spraying for the West Nile virus was done this way. The reasoning for spraying at night as that the chemicals wouldn't evaporate as quickly during the day and therefor less needed to be applied to have the same effect.

Now I'm not saying that all UFO nighttime sightings are crop dusters, but I am wondering how many people who aren't familiar with crop dusting and their night flying techniques may mistake them for UFO's. I'm pretty certain now that most of the sightings over the years on Interstate 5 were crop dusters (well except for that one incident with the strobing red lights) that passerbys mistaken either for an alien space craft with nothing better to do than buzzing cows in the middle of the night or some super secret military aircraft that is making itself not so super secret by revealing itself to the public. Hopefully this opinion piece will help those that may have misidentified plane lights as a UFO, realizing that even the pro's sometimes get it wrong.

The rash of supposed Chupacabra sightings continue

The rash of supposed Chupacabra sightings continue, this time with a farmer in Texas claiming to have caught the mythological beast after setting a trap when he found several of his livestock dead from some sort of animal attack. The next day he found the strange hairless creature, describing it as a mix between a hairless dog, a rat, and a kangaroo. Now I'm no animal expert, but to me this appears to be just another animal (most likely a dog or some other canine) suffering from mange.

In my opinion the reports of Chupacabras in the States has nothing to do with the original ones seen in Puerto Rico. The ones seen here are nothing more than animals suffering from mange, whereas the creature seen in Puerto Rico stood up on two legs, had a row of spines down it's back, and glowing red eyes. Also most, if not all, sightings of Chupacabras were accompanied by UFO sightings several nights before. Unfortunately those sightings have died off and the legend of the Chupacabra has been regaled to stories of hairless dogs being chased in the desert.

Pilgrims besiege church to see 'blood' run from image of Christ

Thousands of pilgrims have overwhelmed a small church in Argentina after blood was said to be oozing down the face of an image of Jesus Christ.

A red substance was photographed running from the forehead of Jesus and down his cheek in a church depiction of the Last Supper.

Local priest Father Jorge Gandur said the 'ooze comes from one of the wounds on the left side of the forehead of Christ produced by the crown of thorns'.

The stains were first noticed on Friday by two men who had entered the Oratory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Yerba Buena, Tucuman province.

The pair reported the substance to Father Gandur, who took samples of the substance to be scientifically tested to see if it was human blood.

After local media were tipped off that the men had seen Christ weeping 'tears of blood' the streets surrounding the church became jammed pilgrims wanting to see the phenomenon for themselves.

Hundreds of people were reported to be crying and praying fervently in at least two streets leading up to the church.

The area has become so congested and the church so crowded that on Sunday priests celebrated Mass in the street outside.

As more people arrived from surrounding provinces, officials of the Archdiocese of Tucuman yesterday urged worshippers to exercise prudence and caution and not to jump to conclusions about the alleged authenticity of the image.

'If this is something wrought by God, it will have continuity, and if it is of men, it will disappear,' Father Gandur said.

'As a priest, at no time have I wished to create false expectations,' he said.

'I am not going to support deceit. Something happened here that divine wisdom will explain in time.'

The Roman Catholic Church is cautious in dealing with claims of so-called 'private revelations' because so many later turn out to be false.

Hundreds have been reported in the last century but only a few are considered to be authentic.

The Vatican has admitted that it believes most are the fruits of the imaginations of the alleged visionaries or the elaborate hoaxes of people seeking to gain financially.

Five years ago, for instance, a statue of St Pìo of Pietrelcina, a 20th century priest commonly known as 'Padre Pio', was said to have wept blood in a church in Marsicovetere, Italy, but tests later showed that the blood belonged to a woman.

Last week Church officials in France rejected the claims of a visionary who said the Virgin Mary was using her as a mouthpiece to speak to the world.

In 2007 the Vatican also aggressively dismissed as 'hysterical' the claims that the Mother of Christ was appearing to a woman in the back garden of her home in Surbiton, Surrey

Link to the original story can be found here.

Man tosses puppy at Hells Angels then escapes on bulldozer

A young man in Bavaria who reportedly forgot to take his medication taunted a group of Hells Angels at their clubhouse over the weekend by dropping his pants, throwing a puppy at the bikers, and then making his getaway in a stolen front loader.

The 26-year-old drove onto the biker clubhouse grounds on Sunday afternoon in Allershausen, a town just north of Munich, daily tz reported on Monday.

There the Munich student pulled down his Bermuda shorts, mooning a group of bikers before throwing a puppy at them, the paper said.

Then the man fled the scene, stopping at an autobahn construction site to steal a front loader, which he attempted to drive to Munich.

But his slow pace caused a 5-kilometre traffic jam, the paper reported.

After making it just one kilometre along the highway, the 26-year-old hitched a ride with a truck, which let him off in Eching, not far from Munich.

Police lost track of him for a while there, but they quickly located him again, finding out that he had neglected to take his medication for depression.

He was checked into a psychiatric clinic for treatment. Meanwhile the puppy he tossed at the bikers is being cared for by a Freising animal shelter.

Link to the original story can be found here.

More UFO's filmed in Northern California

I had reported last week that several UFO's had been filmed flying over Oakland, CA late one night. More footage of a different craft (or crafts) was shot over the weekend once again in Oakland. This one is different than the one I previously posted as there are only four objects in this footage, whereas the one from last week had five.

It's hard to say what these objects are. Could be just a squadron of planes in a rather tight formation, a (small) flock of geese reflecting light from the city, causing them to show up on a night vision camera, the usual top secret government project conspiracy theory, or could it be a fleet of craft from some other planet? It's hard to say, but one thing is for sure. There's something strange flying around in the California night skies.

El Duende reportedly seen in Uruguay

It seems that El Duende has been seen again. For those who don't know, El Duende is a mythological creature in Spanish folklore (think a troll or gnome) that tends to cause mischief to those that happen across it. There was a rash of sightings in South America during 2008 and I had reported on it and the possible relationship to any sightings in Fresno. Well after a near two year hiatus, the creepy little bastard is back and was seen in Uruguay recently.

According to the reports, a duende had been spotted perched on top of some powerlines late at night in the small city of Nueva Palmira. Local shopkeepers and several other witnesses notice the strange creature sitting on top of the powerlines for several minutes. Upon closer inspection, they notice that it would change colors. Attempts to photograph it using cellphones failed, as the image was not clear or usable at all.

According to the eyewitness reports collected by repoter Roberto Tatto, “It was on Saturday night, out comes a business shop owner and he sees a bright light. He noticed that it was at a noticeable height. It was on top of a powerline. He called his wife and a few of his cusotmers, who got closer and stood underneath the figure and noticed that it was changing colors. It had the shape of a doll. With a flash light they illuminated it and it started to move, as if bothered by the light. It looked like a doll of 25 centimeters that would move on the cable. Later on that morning, the local police with spotlights and that’s when it really started to move more. Like it was nervous. It would move its head and get bothered.“

It wasn’t until around 4 am that the creature started to slowly shrink, so much that it had completely vanished. More witnesses were on sight by that time. According to them, after the creature had completely vanished, it left a ‘pearl-colored ooze’ dripping from the cable.

The residents of Nueva Palmira believed that what they had witnessed was either a duende or an alien being.

Personally I just blame this on World Cup hysteria (and those damn horns), but that's just me.

Link to the original article (in Spanish) can be found here.

UFOs filmed over Vatican by guards

Was Rome visited by Unidentified Flying Objects? Definitely, and once again the sightings in the skies over Vatican City stirred newspaper headlines and numerous TV news reports in Italy. According to recent reports, it seems that a UFO flap is taking place in Rome and that strange objects were also recorded on camera several times. The most important one is the footage of an odd luminous formation taken by three security guards stationed in front of the residence of the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican (Holy See). These were qualified witnesses since they are artillerymen, trained experts in air surveillance.

It was at 4 am in the night of June 7th when three men belonging to the 17° antiaircraft Regiment at the “Santa Barbara” station in Sabaudia (Latina province), spotted three spherical bright objects hovering in the sky above St. Peter’s dome in the Vatican, right in the center of Rome. They promptly filmed the unexpected nocturnal air show with a cell phone.

From their point of observation in the Roman Monteverde area (overlooked by the Gianicolo hill), they immediately stopped a police patrol. Well trained in spotting aircraft, the artillerymen excluded the possibility of a commercial plane, a jet fighter or a balloon. They described the object’s swift maneuvers, mentioning a “darting move toward the sky,” a “delta formation,” and “luminous dots suspended at about three hundred feet above the ground.” They added that there is “no way a conventional airplane can do such things.” The UFO disappeared and reappeared for brief moments, with sudden changes of altitude before it darted westbound at a 40 degree angle. The police patrol took the report very seriously and the central police station in Rome was immediately alerted. The footage, more than a minute in length, was acquired by the Italian police, pending further investigations.

Thanks to the technical background of the witnesses, many TV networks took the news seriously. “Studio Aperto” (Mediaset, Italia Uno newscast) anchorwoman Elena Guarnieri introduced the segment saying: “We will show ? you now an exclusive video footage of a UFO sighting in Rome, this video was filmed by three soldiers, take a look.” Staff journalist Paolo Capresi then describes the images: “They are three flying objects and they are floating in the air, they were filmed last night in the sky above Rome. The images were taken with a cell phone by three soldiers who were in service in front of the U.S. ambassador’s residence in the Vatican City (Holy See), Monteverde district, two steps from St.? Peter’s Square, and were immediately handed over to the Carabinieri [police]. As you can see there are no objects around to use as reference points that can give us the exact distance and size of the UFOs. It seems that they are spherical in shape and they hover above the Vatican. They appear and disappear often changing altitude.”

The journalist concluded, almost ironically: “The soldiers who have filmed these objects are based in the antiaircraft division and are specialized in recognizing the flight path of aircraft. Since 1978 it’s the Air Force that is in charge of registering sightings (over Italy)”. Colonel Marco Picciau of the Italian Air Force specifies that “statistics of sightings reported before 2001 were 300, after 2001 we have a more precise statistic on 50, 55, sightings [every year]”.

Original story can be found here.