UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record
Page 11
I attempted to fire, and looked at the panel to confirm my selection of the missile. Suddenly, nothing was working. The weapons control panel was out, and I lost all the instruments, and the radio. The indicator dials were spinning around randomly, and the instruments were fluctuating. At this point, I was even more frightened. I couldn’t communicate with the tower, and had to scream to talk to my backseater. I thought, if it gets closer to me than four miles, I will have to eject before impact to avoid being in the area of the explosion. To prevent this, I had to turn.
So I made a shallow turn to the left to avoid being impacted by the object heading toward us, which was in sight at my four-o’clock position. It came about four or five miles from our aircraft, and then it stopped there at the four-o’clock position. I looked out on my left side briefly to find out where I was over the ground. A second later, when I looked back, the object wasn’t there! I said, “Oh my God,” and Lieutenant Damirian replied, “Sir, it’s at seven o’clock.” I looked back at seven o’clock and there it was. I once again saw the main thing up there, too, and then the smaller object flew gently underneath it and rejoined the primary one.
This all happened quickly, and I didn’t know what to think. But in a few seconds, another one came out! It started circling around us. Once again, all the instruments went out and the radio was garbled. Then, when it moved away, everything became operational again, and all the equipment worked fine. This one, too, looked sort of like the moon—a round, bright light.
I reported to the tower. General Yousefi was listening on the line, and the operator said, “The order is to come back.” We started to head toward the military air base, and then I noticed that one of these objects was following us on our left side during the descent. I reported this to the base. As I made a turn for the final approach, I saw another object right ahead of me. I called the tower and asked, “I have traffic ahead of me, what is it?” He said, “We have no traffic.” I said, “I am looking at it right now; it’s at my twelve-o’clock position at a low altitude.” He still insisted that I didn’t have any traffic, but there it was, looking like a thin rectangle with a light at each end and one in the middle. It was coming toward me, but when I started turning left for the landing, I lost sight of it. My backseater kept watching and said, “As you were turning, I could see a round dome over it with a dim light inside of it.”
I put the ears down and was focused on making my approach to the base, distracted and worried by all these things happening around me. But it still wasn’t over. I looked to my left side and I saw the primary, diamond-shaped thing up there, and another bright object came out of it and headed directly toward the ground. I thought I would see a huge explosion any moment when it hit, but that did not happen. It seemed to slow down and land gently on the ground, radiating a high bright light, so bright that I could see the sands on the ground from that far, about fifteen miles.
I reported it to the tower and they said that they saw it, too. Now the general, still listening in, ordered me to approach and take a look. So I retracted the gear and the flaps and turned the aircraft. They told me to go above it to see if I could see what it was. As soon as I got about four or five miles from it, once again the radio was garbled and the panel went out; it was the same exact thing all over again. I tried to get out of that area because they couldn’t hear me on the radio, and I told them, “This happens every time I get close to these things.” I thought I really shouldn’t have gone there, but since it was an order, I did it. Finally the general said, “Okay, come back and land.”
We could hear emergency squawk coming from the location where the object had landed on the ground. A squawk sounds like the beeping from an ambulance or a police car, and its purpose is to help find people when they have ejected from an airplane, or if there is a crash landing. It’s a locator tone that says “I’m here.” In this case, the squawking from the UFO was reported by some civil airliners nearby.
After landing, I went to the command post, and then we went to check in with the tower. They said the main thing in the sky had just disappeared, suddenly, in an instant.
First thing that morning, I gave a report at headquarters, and everybody was in the room, all the generals. During this, an American colonel, Olin Mooy, a U.S. Air Force officer with the U.S. Military Advisory and Assistance Group posted in Tehran, sat to my left, and he was turning pages over on his clipboard and taking notes. When I explained how I couldn’t fire the missile because my panel went out, even though I tried, he said, “You’re lucky you couldn’t fire.” Afterward, I wanted to talk to him, and ask if this kind of thing had been seen before, and I had other questions. I looked for him, but he was nowhere to be found.
Next they then took me and Lieutenant Damirian to the hospital. We had a round of tests, especially blood tests. When I was about to leave, a doctor came running after me and said, “Don’t worry about this, but your blood is not coagulating.” So they took another blood sample, and then said, “Okay, you can go.” They ordered us to return to the hospital every month for four months for an examination and more blood tests.2
I then flew in a helicopter with a pilot and toured the exact area where the bright object had landed. The emergency squawk came from this area, and we flew right over the spot, but there was nothing. Nothing. We landed there, and I walked around to see if there was any sign of heating or burning, or splashing. Still nothing. Everything was smooth and untouched. Yet despite all that, the beeping was sounding. This was very confusing to us.
There were some small houses and gardens nearby and we asked the residents if they had seen anything. People said they had heard a sound the previous night after midnight, but that was it. The emergency squawk continued for days, and it was heard by the commercial airlines in the area, too. That really bothered me.
A group of scientists questioned us over a period of time, but it was all on paper, in letters sent to headquarters, and not in person. They called me in repeatedly from the base and I would go to headquarters and read the papers and answer more questions, again and again. Iranian officials examined and tested the two F-4s for radioactivity, and found none.
Later, a once-classified memo from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), written by Lieutenant Colonel Mooy, whom I had tried to find after the briefing, was released in America through the Freedom of Information Act. It documented the event in great detail, for over three pages, and it was sent to the NSA, the White House, and the CIA. Another document, dated October 12, 1976, by Major Colonel Roland Evans, provided an assessment of the case for the DIA. It said that “This case is a classic which meets all the criteria necessary for a valid study of the UFO phenomenon.”
To make that point, Evans listed some important facts in his DIA document: There were multiple highly credible witnesses to the objects from different locations; the objects were confirmed on radar; the loss of all instruments happened on three separate aircraft—a commercial jet as well as our two F-4s; and “an inordinate amount of maneuverability was displayed by the UFOs.” The evaluation form said that the reliability of the information was “confirmed by other sources” and the value of the information was “high.” It said the information would be potentially useful. This shows the U.S. government took this information very seriously, and it was clear to me at the time that this information was being kept secret there. But within a relatively short time these documents were released. There is likely additional material sitting in U.S. government files, but no one has told me anything more.
In my country, even the Shah of Iran took an interest. I met with the shah when he visited my squadron at Shahrokhi air base in Hamadan and asked about the UFO. He called a meeting attended by a number of generals along with the pilots involved in the encounter. When the base commander told the shah that I was the pilot who had chased the UFO, the shah asked me, “What do you think about it?” I answered, “In my opinion they can not be from our planet, because if anyone on this planet had such power, he would br
ing the whole planet under his own command.” He simply said, “Yes,” and told us this was not the first report he had received.
To this day I don’t know what I saw. But for sure it was not an aircraft; it was not a flying object that human beings on Earth can make. It moved way too fast. Imagine: I was looking at it about seventy miles out and it jumped all of a sudden 10 degrees to my right. This 10 degrees represented about 6.7 miles per moment, and I don’t say per second because it was much less than a second. Now you can try to calculate the speed it would take for it to move from a stationary position to this second point. This needed very, very high-level technology. Also, it was able to shut down my missile and instruments somehow. Where it came from, I don’t know.
And I can’t doubt what happened. It wasn’t only me. The pilot in my backseat, the two pilots in the first aircraft, the men in the tower, people from headquarters, General Yousefi who was on duty in the Air Force command post—they all saw it. Many people were concerned about us on the ground. And we also captured it on radar from our cockpit. Nobody can say I imagined it. The radar was locked on the object and could determine its size, because we practice refueling 707 tankers, and the return of the UFO on radar indicated they were about the same size.
I have two regrets: One is that we did not have a camera in the plane to get a picture of the UFO; second, that because I was excited and sometimes frightened, I didn’t think to try and call them on the radio, and ask, “Who are you? Please communicate with us!” Later on I wished I had done this. In any case, I hope someday we develop that technology here so we can travel easily to other planets and poke around, too.
CHAPTER 10
Close Combat with a UFO
by Comandante Oscar Santa María Huertas (Ret.), Peruvian Air Force
On April 11, 1980,1 at 7:15 a.m., a Friday morning, I was stationed at the La Joya Air Force Base in the Arequipa region of Peru. It was like any other day. There were approximately 1,800 military personnel and civilians at the base, and we were beginning to get ready for our daily exercises.
Even though I was only a twenty-three-year-old lieutenant, I already had eight years of military flying experience. I was quite precocious as a military pilot. By nineteen I was flying combat missions, and at twenty I was selected to test-fly Peru’s newest supersonic Sukhoi jet. Having won quite a few trophies as a pilot, I was also known as a top aerial marksman with great skill at shooting from the air.
Little did I know that this expertise would lead to my being selected for a highly unusual and unexpected mission on that routine morning. Along with my air squadron, I was ready at that moment for instant takeoff, as we always are. A chief of service arrived in a van and got out to tell us there was an object that looked like some kind of balloon suspended in the air toward the end of the runway. We stepped outside to see it, and then we knew what we had to do. Four of us pilots stood outside observing the object. The second commander of the unit, Commander FAP Carlos Vasquez Zegarra, ordered that one of the members of the air squad take off and bring the object down. Our chief turned to me and said, “Oscar, you be the one to go.”
The round object was about three miles (five kilometers) away from us, hanging at an altitude of about 2,000 feet (600 meters) above the ground. Since the sky was absolutely clear, the object shone due to the reflection of the sun.
This “balloon” was in restricted air space without authorization, representing a grave challenge to national sovereignty. All civilian and military pilots use aerial charts on which highly protected airspace, such as that over our base, is clearly marked. They all know where these restricted areas are located, and no one ever flies in them, under any circumstances. This thing had not only appeared in such an area, but it was not replying to communications sent on universally recognized frequencies, and it was moving toward the base. It had to come down. La Joya was one of the few bases in South America that possessed Soviet-made warfare equipment, and we were concerned about espionage.
Back in 1980, Peru did not have any aerostatic balloons of any type, such as weather balloons, or passenger balloons. We knew that this was therefore something strange, and it wasn’t from our country. We were familiar with meteorological balloons, but they had antennae and cables and flew only above 45,000 feet. This was lower. We had no idea where it was from, and it was coming closer. We had no option but to destroy it.
The squad commander, Captain Oscar Alegre Valdez, ordered me to take off in my Sukhoi-22 fighter jet to intercept the balloon before it got any closer to our base. I immediately headed over to my jet, without taking my eyes off the thing in the sky, and went over in my mind each step I had to take for this mission. Since the object was within the perimeter of the base and my plane was armed with 30 mm shells, I decided to attack from the northeast to the southeast. This way, the sun would be to my left and I could avoid impacting the base with my weapons.
After takeoff, I made a turn to the right and reached an altitude of 8,000 feet (2,500 meters). I then positioned myself for the attack. Zeroing in on the balloon, I reached the necessary distance and shot a burst of sixty-four 30 mm shells, which created a cone-shaped “wall of fire” that would normally obliterate anything in its path. Some of the projectiles deviated from the target, falling to the ground, and others hit it with precision. I thought that the balloon would then be torn open and gases would start pouring out of it. But nothing happened. It seemed as if the huge bullets were absorbed by the balloon, and it wasn’t damaged at all. Then suddenly the object began to ascend very rapidly and head away from the base.
“What is going on here?” I thought to myself. “I have to get closer to it.”
So I headed up. I initiated a chase by activating the afterburner of my plane, and reported to the control tower that I intended to follow procedures and continue the task of bringing down the object. Since I knew that this was an extremely unusual mission, I asked that they make sure the tape recorders were working so that anything taking place from that moment on would be on record. Then, an amazing series of events unfolded.
My jet flew at a speed of 600 mph (950 km/hr) and the “balloon” remained about 1,600 feet (500 meters) in front of me. As we got farther from the base, I reported to the control tower information such as “I am at three thousand meters of altitude and twenty kilometers from the base … I am at six thousand meters of altitude and forty kilometers from the base …” and so on. By this time I was over the city of Camana, which was about fifty-two miles (eighty-four kilometers) from the base, flying at 36,000 feet (11,000 meters).
I was in full pursuit of the object, when it came to a sudden stop and forced me to veer to the side. I made a turn upward to the right and tried to position myself for another shot. Once I obtained the desired position to fire, which was approximately 3,000 feet (1,000 meters) from the object, I began closing in on it until I had it in perfect sight. I locked on the target and was ready to shoot. But just at that moment, the object made another fast climb, evading the attack. I was left underneath it; it “broke the attack.”
I attempted this same attack maneuver two more times. Each time, I had the object on target when it was stationary. And each time, the object escaped by ascending vertically seconds before I started to fire. It eluded my attack three times, each time at the very last moment.
Throughout this time I was very focused on trying to achieve my window of about 1,300 to 2,300 feet (400 to 700 meters) distance, which was where I had to position my plane in order to shoot. As this became less possible, I was very surprised and kept asking myself what was going on. Then it became a personal thing for me. I had to get it. But I couldn’t because it would always ascend. I was committed to this mission, and felt I must succeed. This was all that mattered, and I felt confident knowing I had an outstanding airplane.
Eventually, as a result of this series of rapid movements upward, the object ended up at an altitude of 46,000 feet (14,000 meters). I had to think of something else to do! I decided to make a bo
ld ascent with my plane so that this time I would be above the object, and then I would come down on it vertically and initiate an attack from above. This way, if the object began to ascend as in the previous three attempts, it would not leave my target range and it would be easier for me to fire. I was not concerned about any collision because of the agility and maneuverability of my plane.
So I accelerated my plane at supersonic speed and went back to where the “balloon” was, by this time traveling at a speed of Mach 1.6, which is approximately 1,150 mph (1,850 km/hr). I calculated the distance between the object and myself as I began to make the ascent. As I went higher, I saw that the object was in fact under me and I thought I would be able to gain the necessary altitude to pull off the maneuver as planned, and succeed in the attack. But to my surprise, the object ascended once again at a high speed and placed itself next to me in parallel formation! This left me without any possibility of attack.
Flying at Mach 1.2, I continued with my ascent, still hoping to pass above it in order to initiate the attack I had planned. But I couldn’t. We reached an altitude of 63,000 feet (19,200 meters or 19 kilometers), and suddenly the thing completely stopped and remained stationary. I adjusted the wings of my plane to 30 degrees and extended its slats so that the plane would be able to maneuver at that height, and I thought I could still attempt to target the object in order to fire. But it was impossible. I could not remain as still as this “balloon.”
At that moment the warning light for low fuel went off, indicating that I had just enough to get back to the base. Under those conditions, I could not continue the attack, so I flew closer to the hovering object to observe it and try to determine what it was. The Su-22s had no on-board radar, but the sighting equipment had well-marked gradations that communicated the distance from a target and its diameter. This technology was based on the use of laser beams.