Bizarre Police UFO/USO Case from Tocopilla, Chile, 1971.

This is a pretty bizarre incident described at WaterUFO.net where police officers witnessed (and shot at) an unidentified flying object near the port of Tocopilla in the Antofagasta region of Chile on September 23rd/24th, 1971.

Witnesses report the UFO changing directions at 'great speed' and the police report about the case describes the object as having 'an approximate diameter of 20 meters, with a helicopter-like cabin totally lit and with sections like windows' - other reports from separately located witnesses also sound quite similar and describe 'a sort of rectangular building with many windows' and 'an artificially constructed object with intermittent lights and round windows like a ship’s porthole'.

After being witnessed by over a dozen people and exhibiting EM effects on a police patrol car, several officers pursued the object to the coast where one shot at it with his rifle - apparently the UFO then moved 'extremely fast' in the direction of the officers and 'illuminated the area like daytime' - it was last seen by the entire crew of the fishing vessel “Martín Pescador" where it circled around the ship before submerging into the ocean.

Remarkable UFO sighting in Northern Chile

"This case is well documented, as it was reported to and investigated by the Chilean police (Carabineros) and seen by dozens of witnesses. It is virtually unknown in the English UFO literature—the only source in English that I know of was an outline of the case I wrote for the paper, “A Historical Survey of UFO Cases in Chile,” published in the MUFON 1987 International UFO Symposium Proceedings. Besides press accounts, I obtained long ago—courtesy of investigator Luis Riquelme of the Chilean UFO group Orion—a copy of a May 12, 1979 handwritten report signed by a retired police colonel, who was in active service at the time of the incident in 1971".

J. Antonio Huneeus

Incident:

Beginning around 10 p.m. on the night of September 23, a stationary light over the ocean was seen by numerous witnesses in Tocopilla. One of them, who saw the object with binoculars, described it as artificially constructed, with intermittent lights and round windows like a ship’s porthole.

One of the witnesses quoted in the press at the time was the reporter Daniel Cavieres from the Tocopilla newspaper La Prensa. In an interview with the Santiago newspaper Las Ultimas Noticias, Cavieres said that, “around 22 hours [10 p.m.] on Thursday, I was surprised to see off the coast of Tocopilla something that seemed to be a stationary ship with lots of lights. Normally, when ships navigate on the high seas they only use the officially required lights, which are not many. But in this case there was an abundance of lights, which triggered my curiosity. Moreover, I noticed green and red lights which blinked intermittently.” The reporter looked at the object with binoculars and noticed what seemed like portholes and a cabin..

At 1:30 a.m. on September 24, two different truck drivers traveling from Antofagasta to Tocopilla came across a brightly lit object hovering on the coast. The truck drivers rushed to the nearest police station in Tocopilla. Though skeptical at first, a police van with a sergeant and two corporals was dispatched to “KM 33,” the site where the trucks had stopped to look at the UFO. The carabineros confirmed the UFO immediately and kept it under constant watch until 5:30 a.m.; they reported by radio its maneuvers to the Tocopilla “comisería” (police station). A report of the event was filed later with the Carabineros Northern Headquarters in Antofagasta and a copy of it was obtained by Las Ultimas Noticias..

Police Report:

“It was possible to confirm that at more or less 2 km. [1.24 miles] from the coast, such artifact remained totally lit, changing places at great speed…later on it came close to the beach of Caleta Buena…. At a distance of 150 meters [492 feet], it could be seen that the object had an approximate diameter of 20 meters [66 feet], with a helicopter-like cabin totally lit and with sections like windows. It was approximately 30 meters [98 feet] above the sea level, being impossible to identify its origin.”

link

Police shoot at UFO/Submerges into ocean:

Colonel's Report:

The colonel's handwritten report to Orion, dated May 12, 1979, goes into still further details. The colonel reveals, for instance, that the sergeant walked towards the cliff armed with a rifle. "When he arrived to the place where he couldn't advance further (the edge of the cliff), the sergeant yelled toward the sea; not obtaining a response he made a series of shots towards the luminous object, states the second report. "Suddenly, this object moved extremely fast in the direction of the rocky cliff, arriving at a distance no more than 50 meters from the place where the police were." At that point continues the report, "the whole area became illuminated like at daytime." The document quoted also the description of one of the corporals, according to which the UFO was "a sort of rectangular building with many windows that could be seen clearly but with no one inside." The UFO then passed over the van and continued toward the mountains, where it "remained suspended in the air, throwing a light beam once in a while which would illuminate the area."

Eventually, the UFO returned to the coast where, around 6:10 a.m., it was seen and reported by radio from the sea by Manuel Malatesta, captain of the fishing vessel "Martin Pescador." The ship was some 20 miles from the coast between Antofagasta and Iquique, when "a red ball" flew around it for several minutes. The ship's owners, Guanaye Fishing Co., issued a press release about the sighting. After the revolutions over the ship, stated the communiqué, "the unidentified body sank in the sea at a distance of more or less three miles from the ship. The phenomenon was observed by the entire crew."

"I have taken extra space to analyze this CE-1 because I think it is one of the catalog's best TRUFO candidates. The object was observed continuously by many geographically-independent witnesses for a period of about 8 hours. The close observations were made by three policemen. The colonel added also in his report to Orion that neither of the policemen had consumed a drop of alcohol. The case remained unsolved. It was appropriately titled by the newspaper La Tercera, "The OVNI with a 'Birth Certificate’ in the North."

Carl Feindt

link

..

More info/sources about the case:

Several witnesses during the night, including policemen. Shortly after 20 hours, the UFO, a red ball of about 20 m in diameter and equipped with a cockpit as the cabin of a helicopter, was observed by the crew of a fishing boat. It illuminated the sea surface as in the day. The ball circled the boat within 50 meters, for a few minutes before sinking into the water 3 miles from their position.

(Janet and Colin EDGE: "Mysteries of the Modern World" - Guild Publishing London 1989, p. 170

Night Two truck drivers have reported sighting a UFO to the local police. Three officers went back to the stage with the drivers. They reviewed the subject, which was oval with a dome and quite bright. The object came from over the ocean near the beach, and a policeman reported that the engine and two-way radio in the police car failed when near the object.

(APRO Bulletin, March-April 1972)

link

APRO Bulletin Article - March-April 1972

The following reports from Chile are

summaries of data provided over the last

months by Chilean Representative Pablo

Petrowitsch. The first incident occured at

10:00 p.m. , local time, on September

23rd., 1971, at the coastal town of

Tocopilla, almost 800 miles north of

Santiago. Many witnesses observed a

bright light on the ocean, blinking smaller

red and green lights at irregular intervals.

Most persons presumed it to be a ship,

although the lights were not conforming

to marine regulations. After remaining

stationary for about 20 minutes, the light

moved slowly towards the south and

disappeared. The next day, the port

authority stated that ships pass Tocopilla

8 miles out, but no ship was registered to

pass that night.

Later that night (at 1:30 a.m. of

September 24th.) two truck drivers,

Manuel Contreras Santander from To­

copilla and Orlando Torres Ardiles from

Antofagasta, observed a UFO at a very

close range, at the 33rd kilometer on the

road from Tocopilla to Antofagasta between

Caleta Buena and Fraguita. The

road runs between 20 and 1 00 meters

from the water's edge. They claimed that

a very bright "object" appeared which

frightened them enough to go to the

police station in Tocopilla, where they

reported their observation to the "carabineros."

They described an object 20

meters in diameter which lighted up parts

of the beach over which it hovered.


It then flew back over the ocean and disappeared.

The truck drivers returned to the

scene of the observation with three po·

licemen, Sergeant Diogario Cont.reras La·

bran, Corporal Manuel Guillen Munoz

and carabinero Darwin Antunez Albornoz.

The policemen Ia ter reported that they

first observed the UFO about I mile out

over the ocean. "It appeared to be a

totally illuminated vehicle" they reported

"which moved about at high speed. Later,

it approached the Caleta Buena beach. It

stopped at 1 5 0 meters. It was 20 meters

above the water." The policemen, who

stayed in the area u"ntil 5:30 a.m., described

it as an oval object with a "high

part" in the middle.

In an interview with reporters, which

was approved by Captain Hernando Silva

Soto, Sergeant Contreras claimed that

both the engine and the police radio of

the patrol car ceased to function when

the UFO approached.

The Carabinero station at Tocopilla

later radioed the North Zone Sector

headquarters at Antofagasta the following

message: ". • . in order to verify the

existence of a luminous unidentified ob·

ject which had. been seen by drivers. It

was determined that said vehicle, completely

illuminated, was stationed more

or less two kilometers from the beach and

it moved about at very high speed. Later

on, it approached the beach at Caleta

Buena, located at about 4 1 st kilometer of

the same road, where it was noted, at a

distance of 1 SO meters, that it was an

object of an approximate diameter of 20

meters, with a helicopter-type cabin

which was completely lit and which had

sections in the form of windows. It was

approximately 30 meters above the sea,

its identification being impossible."

The object was also reportedly seen by

two other truck drivers, Fernando Labra

of Limache and Humberto Flores of

Valparaiso, and a carabinero station at

Fraguita. As far as APRO can determine,

no further official investigation was conducted

after the sighting.


APRO Bulletins (historical UFO journals) now online free

Hi Karl12!

Thanks for posting about this interesting case! Don't know that much about it....

Do you know if there's any "official" explanation for the sightings?

reply to post by karl 12


cool not heard of the this before!

all of a sudden i want to go diving nice find! thx
have a nice day!

Excellent post!
Thanks for the report which is new to me also....
It is plain we in North America pay little heed to the reports from the south......not because we wouldnt if we were aware of them...but because the MSM doesnt even report such things....

Great post!

The whole subject of USOs makes me wonder if UFOs really belong to some advanced civilization native to earth that has been here long before us. Maybe they live underwater and for some reason don't want contact with us yet. Just a theory of course.

Thanks for the post Karl12!

Thanks for the replies and this certainly is a strange case, I'm not aware of any prosaic explanation for the object but there's more info below from the May/June edition of the APRO bulletin concerning the sightings aboard the 'Martin Pescador':

Another UFO was observed for several
minutes the next day, September 25,
1971, by the entire crew of a schooner
which was en route from Antofagasta to
lqulque. Mr. Dietrich Barz, manager of
the Guanaye Fishing Co. received a radio
message from Manuel Malatesta, the cap
tain of the Martir Pescador, describing the
event. At 10:00 a.m., local time, the
Guanaye Fishing Co. released the following
press statement: "Our schooner
Martir Pescador, sailing from Antofagasta
to Iquique observed today at 6:10 hours
a red ball of light which hovered over
them for several minutes. At that time,
they were 20 miles south of the mouth of
the river Loa, 5 miles from the coast.
Afterwards, the unidentified body sunk
in the water about 3 miles from the ship.
The phenomenon was observed by the
entire crew which sails under the command
of Captain Manuel Malatesta."..

There is also this remarakably similar report from the same area two weeks later involving an unidentified object being seen out at sea and flying towards witnesses at a high rate of speed - like the police officers in the first case, they also report the object emitting a 'light beam':

On October 10th, another UFO was reported near Tocopilla. The witnesses were salesman Hernan Cuevas Hormonechea who was returning to Antofagasta from Tocopilla in his car. His fnend Eduardo Fuentes and a third unidentified person. They left Tocopilla about I :30 a.m local time. About one hour later, they observed a bright light out at sea, which they presumed to be a ship, As they watched, the light reportedly flew towards them at high speed and stopped at a distance of about one kilometer (it was previously about 5 kilometers out at sea). The witnesses clam that a light beam shot out from the "saucer" as they later called it - and began circling "as If looking for something." They also claim that the beam was curved "like water falling from a hose or something like that."

As they watched they stopped a car which was heading for Tocopilla. The car contained five women and a man but the women were too frightened to leave their vehicle so the driver continued toward Tocopilla. The witnesses also claim that a passing truck driver had trouble negotiating the road due to the intense light being given off by the UFO. The light beam from the UFO reportedly covered a larger radius on every sweep and was now also lluminating the hills behind the witnesses. After a while, according to the witnesses, the UFO departed at great speed and was then visible at a distance of about 30 miles out at sea. The departure took 'seconds'. The rotating light beam was also reportedly visible at that distance.

No structural details or windows were seen on the object because of the intense light. the witnesses claim, and the UFO was completely silent as far as they could determine.

link

Cheers.

Wow!! How this never got any serious publicity is mind-boggling. This is one of the more detailed/documented sighting i've ever read, and then it has the duality of flying and submerging.

Thanks for sharing.

Just goes to show you that many mind-bending UFO stories are from the more developed nations but there are tons and tons of stories yet to be told to we folks happening in places like Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa, etc.

Great post.

Originally posted by imherejusttoread
Wow!! How this never got any serious publicity is mind-boggling. This is one of the more detailed/documented sighting i've ever read, and then it has the duality of flying and submerging.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the replies and the flying/submerging aspect of the object realy is a compelling one -if anyone hasn't seen it, there are some other similar cases over on SkyFloating's excellent USO thread (all 36 pages of it ).

USO Research

Cheers.

Scene of incident with further information:

UFO Warns Police

link

Anoter strange UFO report from Antofagasta a few years later:

Retired General Hernan Gabrielli Rojas had squared off against a gigantic UFO while engaging in a training flight in the skies of northern Chile. According to the military man, the object was the size of 10 or 15 aircraft carriers, and its presence was picked up by the radars aboard two F-5 jet fighters as well as the Cerro Moreno airport in Antofagasta.

Retired Chilean General in air encounter with large 'banana-shaped' UFO

Originally posted by thesearchfortruth

The whole subject of USOs makes me wonder if UFOs really belong to some advanced civilization native to earth that has been here long before us. Maybe they live underwater and for some reason don't want contact with us yet.

Just a theory of course.

TSFT, after looking through the many reports from WATERUFO.net and Skyfloating's USO research thread I have to admit that theory has crossed my mind as well and there's a good article here about Ivan Sanderson's 'underwater parallel civilization' theory if you've not seen it already.
Cheers.

reply to post by elevenaugust


Elevenaugust, thanks for posting about the case on the French UFO Sceptic boards, did anyone ever come up with a possible prosaic explanation for the reported events?

Tocopilla UFO/USO incident mentioned in article about retired Chilean Air Force General Ricardo Bermúdez who gave a presentation at the annual conference of the International UFO Congress:

TEMPE, ARIZONA, USA- It has been announced that Retired Chilean Air Force General (Ret.) Ricardo Bermúdez will speak at the annual conference of the International UFO Congress. The aim of the organization is the “dissemination of information related to many areas in ufology”. Ufology being the study of Unidentified Flying Objects.

Retired General Ricardo Bermúdez became head of CEFFA, Committee for the Study of Aerial Anomalous Phenomena in 1997. He also offered a course at Universidad de Santiago offering skills in scientific research and critical thinking in regards to unidentified objects in the sky..

There have been many claims of UFO sightings or unexplained noises throughout Chile, with a high concentration in the north of the country. A famous case was recorded in 1971 with witnesses including three police officers, a truck driver, a fishing boat and a journalist between Antogagasta, Tocopilla and Iquique.

link

Televised lecture:

UFO Lecture: 25 February 2012.

The Director of CEFAA made ​​a presentation about an hour on the work done in our country by the academia and the armed forces, in addition to publishing the major aviation cases occurred in the country.

CEFAA Link

Originally posted by karl 12

There is also this remarakably similar report from the same area two weeks later involving an unidentified object being seen out at sea and flying towards witnesses at a high rate of speed - like the police officers in the first case, they also report the object emitting a 'light beam'

Newspaper report from Chile describing how more than 2000 people witnessed UFO hovering over the town of Caleta Chome giving off a bright light 'similar to that produced by an arc welder' - like the Tocopilla case the object then sped out over the ocean and 'appeared to settle on the waves':

Newspaper Report

Originally posted by imherejusttoread
Wow!! How this never got any serious publicity is mind-boggling. This is one of the more detailed/documented sighting i've ever read, and then it has the duality of flying and submerging.

Thanks for sharing.

if you think this is mind-boggling , you should check out other south american UFO phenomena sighting / encounters.. you will see how mind boggling and scary these south american encounters compare to pretty tame / lame US / Western encounters.. imagine UFO flap the size of Colared Flap terrorizing US for months..

Example :
Brazil case : car occupants driving on sea side road at midnight got terrorized by unknown objects that came from the Sea and from the mountain side, alleged abduction happened, the stretch of that road is known for phenomena terrorizing drivers particulary at night/early morning time.

I never heard of these incidents. Thanks for posting!

Originally posted by milomilo

imagine UFO flap the size of Colared Flap terrorizing US for months..

Milomilo, if Americans were being attacked by unknown flying objects emitting light beams which caused puncture marks, blackened skin, anaemia and low arterial pressure then I'd imagine they'd be pretty concerned about it - perhaps that's what's needed to wake some of the populace up to the reality of the UFO subject.

Speculation from Jacque Vallee's book Confrontations

Researcher Dr Jacques Vallee went to South America to investigate the numerous reports of UFO close encounters that have resulted in the death or injury of witnesses. The results of his extensive field investigations are detailed in his book Confrontations: A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact, which is recommended to anyone interested in pursuing this matter. For example, in Parnarama in central Brazil, Vallee reports that at least five people are reported to have died "following close encounters with what were described as boxlike UFOs equipped with powerful light beams.."

After asking various forensic pathologists to review his findings, Vallee claims that "what UFO witnesses describe as 'light' may, in fact, be a complex combination of ionising and non-ionising radiation. Many of the injuries described in Brazil, however, are consistent with the effects of high-power pulsed microwaves." (p.124) Later he points out that pulsed microwaves may "interfere with the central nervous system. Such a beam could cause the dizziness, headaches, paralysis, pricklings, and numbness reported to us by so many witnesses." (p.202)

UFO Light beams

Hostile UFO Encounters: Colares, 1977

Cheers.

Originally posted by karl 12

Originally posted by milomilo

imagine UFO flap the size of Colared Flap terrorizing US for months..

Milomilo, if Americans were being attacked by unknown flying objects emitting light beams which caused puncture marks, blackened skin, anaemia and low arterial pressure then I'd imagine they'd be pretty concerned about it - perhaps that's what's needed to wake some of the populace up to the reality of the UFO subject.

i got the feeling that somehow the entity behind these phenomena knows the limit for each culture when they do mischiefs.. in colares they do nasty things to isolated settlements , heck even UFO CE3 encounters in South Americas are scaried than other area.. i mean nastier and meaner (based on case investigations)

seems like they do this 'just enough' to provoke isolated witness(es) but generally avoid public backlash toward them. no overt problem to escape their usual victims so the general public can still believe that UFO phenomena are not a problem and those who have problems are crazies..