Ethiopian UFO: Trace Evidence Incident

On the 7th of August 1970, the small village of Sela'i Da'iro had an unusual experience. By the time it was over, houses and a road were ruined and a young girl had been killed...

It happened during the morning in broad daylight with witnesses. At 11:30am villagers were disturbed by a loud noise from the forest. The noise grew louder and louder before what was described as a red glowing ball screamed towards the village. It impacted and destroyed several houses as it flew past.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a8e880baf253.jpg[/atsimg]

It traveled a further 150 yards before turning around and almost doubling back itself along the road. The asphalt on the road was melted and cracked by the heat...

1970 - At 11:30 a.m. in Saladare, Ethiopia a red glowing ball of fire swept through the village, destroying houses, uprooting trees, and melting asphalt. It seemed to hover in place and then back-tracked. It caused eight serious injuries and the death of a little girl. (Source: J. Allen Hynek & Jacque Vallee, The Edge of Reality: A Progress Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, p. 160)

UFO Info

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/3f8f3a006379.jpg[/atsimg]

The object left the village and then doubled back. This time, it crashed through dry stone walls and briefly came to a halt just outside of the village. It then disappeared from sight behind a nearby tree-line. Below is a melted pot allegedly from the incident...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c113cfcac091.jpg[/atsimg]

The images are from a website called ufophysical.com. It was an interesting site, but has gone 'offline' and now only shows this message. Unusual, huh? It was focused on 'trace evidence cases' and had a lot of great pictures and cases. I'm glad I saved them to an old photobucket account last year.

Dr Hynek classed the incident as a close encounter of the second kind. Vallee classed it as a close encounter of the fourth kind due to the destruction of property and death of a girl.

Eight villagers injured, one child killed. ball of light moved parallel and close to ground. Extensive damage, uprooted trees, burned grass, demolished 50 stone houses and melted asphalt.

At 11:30 a.m. in Saladare, Ethiopia a red glowing ball of fire swept through the village, destroying houses, uprooting trees, and melting asphalt. It seemed to hover in place and then back-tracked. It caused eight serious injuries and the death of a little girl. Ground traces were found. A witness later died.

One red ball was observed in clear weather by a male witness in a city for ten minutes. A buzzing sound was heard.

Link


EDIT to add: I first posted about this account in February 09. It was on Internos' superb thread The Height 611 UFO Crash. Armap found the correct place name. Internos' thread is currently on 99 Flags....it'd be appreciated if someone would nip over there and make it 100+

[edit on 30-1-2010 by Kandinsky]

reply to post by Kandinsky


Wow!

This is an amazing case.
New to me. S&F.

What interests me the most is your second photograph.

It certainly appears that *something* flew right along the edge of the highway in that photograph.
Note the ditch on the right side of the road (right side if you are travelling like we do here in America... on the right hand side). Not only is the edge of the asphalt chewed up, but the ditch seems to have been removed of any sort of debris along the way.
And possibly that debris has been pushed up to the asphalt just left of where the asphalt has been displaced?

Amazing.

Good thread. I am very intersted in seeing what some of the "subject matter experts" have to say on this one.

[edit on 30-1-2010 by JayinAR]

What is also pretty strange about this particular case is the message you get when trying to go to that website...

"Site closed down due to confidentiality."

Pretty strange for a "physical trace" site.

To give a little more information on why I find that pic along the highway so interesting, I have done a survey on an airport runway once where just this sort of thing happened with a jet that was too large for the runway's specs.
It chewed up the asphalt in a very similar manner.

I'm wondering if it was ball-lightning...and if there were any earthquakes about that time...the earth often has some kind of "light show" prior or during earth quakes.

Ball lightning is rare but i expect it would be a powerful force.

The asphalt paving does not appear "melted" it looks like asphalt paving which has broken up due to degradation of the base course (commonly called a pothole). The "melted" section seems to be directly over a culvert running under the road, a very likely place for such degradation to occur.



Is there any reason the melted pot could not have come out of a fire?

The "trace evidence" is not convincing and, as in all such cases, there is no way to directly connect it to the sighting.

Very curious case. What exactly was it that flew over the houses and road? What strikes me odd is that from what we've heard and seem to know of ufo's and their propulsion systems is that they usually aren't so destructive to their surroundings, unless perhaps a malfunction or an attack. A little radiation residue or scorched ground but this seems colossal

I can hear the skeptics saying meteorite or fireball of some kind. If it was a cosmic visitor seems irresponsible of them to cause physical harm and destroy the environment. Not very discrete eh?

Cool case that definitely needs to be gotten to the bottom of.

sparrow

Originally posted by Phage
The asphalt paving does not appear "melted" it looks like asphalt paving which has broken up due to degradation of the base course (commonly called a pothole).

Is there any reason the melted pot could not have come out of a fire?

The "trace evidence" is not convincing and, as in all such cases, there is no way to directly connect it to the sighting.

I can't argue to heavily what you're saying however I could point out that there are no signs of wear and tear around the pot hole, the surrounding pavement is in excellent condition, there are no immediate signs of erosion, plus the bits of pavement are scattered quite a distance from the road as if thrown or blasted out of the way and the amount of debris doesn't seem to correlate with the amount of empty space, indicating, but I know not proving perhaps some melting.

Aboutn the pot? If it was melted from a fire you would see signs of blackening or ash stains. It appears to be quite clean.

I know none of this is conclusive but just in the spirit of offering some counter arguments loosely based on my observations.

reply to post by sparrowstail

A bit of history about the region could be enlightening.

During the 1960s, the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) led the Eritrean independence struggle. In 1970, some members of the group broke away to form the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). By the late 1970s, the EPLF had become the dominant armed Eritrean group fighting against the Ethiopian Government, with Isaias Afwerki as its leader. The EPLF used material captured from the Ethiopian Army to fight against the government.

www.state.gov...

Rebel infighting? Government response?


[edit on 1/30/2010 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage


So why the ufo story?

reply to post by sparrowstail

Because the "UFOlogists" got a hold of it?

It sounds to me a lot like a rocket or mortar attack.

reply to post by Phage


Care to highlight where you see a culvert?
Not only do I not see a culvert, but looking at the general topography of the landscape, I cannot tell that there would even need to be a culvert in that stretch of road.

Of course, I do this every day at work, and if you show me wrong, I would consider it a great learning experience indeed.

Thanks in advance.

And now it isn't a pothole, but a mortar attack?

reply to post by JayinAR


Like I said, there is nothing to link the "trace evidence" to the sighting.

re: the culvert. Note the concrete edging the ditch on the left side of the frame. Note the concrete post. Ditch + concrete = reasonable assumption of a culvert under the road but the culvert isn't even necessary to form a pothole. Does that look like a "melted edge" of the asphalt paving to you?

[edit on 1/30/2010 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage


I agree the "legs" of this case are shaky. I would have liked to seen multiple witness testimonials from villagers who saw the incident. What did the injured victims have to say? Did all their stories correlate?

The puzzling thing is how the glowing ball stopped and doubled back over the highway.

Definitely the "gray" basket at best.

reply to post by Phage


I'd like to see the culvert you are speaking of.
2nd line.

reply to post by JayinAR


See edit above.

Oh, okay.
You are assuming that is a culvert.
I can see what you are getting at with that.
I personally don't see a culvert, nor the need for one (admittedly, I can't see 180 out of phase).

However, the asphalt is clearly "chewed up" beyond the edge of what appears to be a concrete structure...

You could very well be correct on the culvert.
Thanks for the clarification.
But no matter, the asphalt is torn up well beyond that in the frame.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Thank you for your interesting report, Kandinsky.

Whilst being interesting, it is also very frustrating.

But then again, so much of this "ufology" is exactly that.

To take the critical side:

- The incoming object could have been some sort of military attack.

- The "doubling back" could have been return fire.

- The road does not look "melted".....it's edges look eroded & broken.

- The saucepan may or may not be melted & may or may not be linked to this event.

- The website could simply have run out of $ or staff interest.

However, I would much prefer to have these "terrestrial" causes explained away & be left with a "UFO" mystery.

I will be interested to watch your thread unfold.

Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not

If whatever the object was that "tore up" the asphalt was moving quickly and trying to stop suddenly, it could ver well tear up the road in just a manner.

I have seen this with my own eyes.

Of course, I didn't see evidence of a UFO. I saw evidence of a jet that was too large trying to land on a runway too small.

Phage, I used to enjoy reading your comments, but the longer I am here, and the more I read, I see that you just do everything you can to break apart posts, and for some reason people respect you. Not sure why.

We could not have been there in the 70s to view this, this case will remain unsolved forever.. like most UFO cases.. There just is no way to say either way.. But you seem to know everything.

OP, thanks for sharing this UFO case.. I have not heard of this one. Certainly a strange one.