Never Mind the Saucers: UFOs Identified!
by Manuel Carballal

Spanish defense minister Eduardo Serra will find himself having to reply before Congress to a question placed by deputy Willy Meier, a member of the Defense Committee: what was the true nature and purpose of the device that crashed in Barbate (Cádiz) a few years ago, and whose existence has been denied by the Defense Ministry?

In 1997, the residents of Barbate (Cádiz) were startled by the collision of a strange object. One of the witnesses did not delay in taking photographs showing the debris of what has been identified as a U.S. spyplane, along with two helicopters from the military base at Rota and U.S. troops collecting the remains. Meyer suspects that the Rota base is employed to store sensitive espionage devices, such as a sophisticated telephone detection system and small unmanned drone spyplanes.

The first time that Meyer addressed the government in regard to the artifact that collided in Andalucía and was later collected by the Americans, Defense thoroughly denied it. But now the deputy has photographic proof of what he believes to be a violation of national airspace.

Strange incidents have occured over the past years in other parts of the country, but have otherwise been relegated to the shadowy borderlands of the saucer mythos. Mysterious lights in the sky, unknown radar traces, enigmatic objects that crash and are retrieved by military men...it seems like a storyline for the X-Files, but the source behind these events is much more solid than that: there is no need to invoke little green men from space.

Meyer's questions in Parliament coincide with a political storm that has been brewing in Italy as the consequence of an aviation accident which took place almost 20 years ago: at 10:00 pm on the night of July 27, 1980, a DC-9 flying between Bologna and Palemo crashed and killed 81 passengers aboard it what would become known as the Ustica Tragedy. At the time, some Italian publications attributed the collision to the DC-9's proximity to a UFO prior to crashing, and even that the airliner exploded in mid air. The Italian military denied everything, insisting that it had merely been an accident.

But special judge Rosario Priore has recently brought generals Lambarto Bartolucci, the former Air Force Chief of Staff; Franco Ferri, the former Assistant Chief of Staff of the Defense Ministry; Corrado Mellillo, former Section Chief of the Air Force, and Zeno Tascio, former head of Intelligence for the Italian Air Force on the grounds of bearing false witness--all of them stand accused of lying about the Ustica Tragedy.

Only a few weeks ago, several German publications printed the hitherto most solid theory about the accident: the UFO sighted by the witnesses to the event was in fact a missile. As shown in the hearings initiated by Priore, the remains of a Libyan MIG fighter were discovered a few weeks following the accident. For 20 years, UFO stories successfully distracted the public over the real cause of the accident: a military mistake.

Martians in Galicia

In 1994, hundreds of Galicians witnessed an object flying over Porriño, Vigo and Bueu until it impacted against the island of Ons (Pontevedra). "It looked like a giant suppository", "an iron cylinder spitting fire from behind", claimed the eyewitnesses. Portuguese civil aviation reports now clarify the mistery--the object was a missile launched from Portugal which penetrated Spanish airspace. This has not been the only instance. On a number of occasions, Galician sailors have seen bizarre objects in the sky and have collected the remains of metallic artificats in their fishing nets. From the diplomatic and political perspective, it would have been much more serious for the press to publish that a Portuguese missile had flown over several Spanish towns only scant miles from the Galician shore, rather than stating that Galician fishermen are seeing Martians.

This has been the screen behind which the Defense Ministry has concealed numerous military experiments in our country. That same year, also in Galicia, a more serious incident took place. A luminous object seen by hundreds on the morning of January 18th collided Mt. Cando (La Coruña) leaving a spectacular creater measuring over 100 meters in diameter.

Astrophysicists from the University of Santiago de Compostela headed to the site in search of what they thought was a meteorite, but when they reached the location could not find any traces of the object that had caused the crater. Residents of nearby towns claimed having seen policemen, members of the Guardia Civil and soldiers in the area. Jose Antonio Tormé, the owner of the property on which the UFO had collided, was located and confirmed that there had indeed been soldiers and policemen in the vicinity. And with good reason: the object had crashed not far from the Spanish military radar facility for the northwestern region. Santiago University astrophysicists have suggested in the prestigious journal Nature that the object was a secret military artifact.

Incredible thought it may seem, this is hardly an isolated event. On other occasions, as occured that same year in La Coruña and previously in Seville, strange aeronautical devices fell to earth, unleashing a UFO psychosis: the one in Seville crossed the skies over Cádiz and Huelva before striking the ground near El Coronil. According to eyewitnesses interviewed in the area, U.S. soldiers from Rota quickly appeared in helicopters and all-terrain vehicles to collect the remains of a weather balloon, it would seem. Deputy Willy Meyer also has recent evidence of this incident.

Psychological Warfare

This is hardly the first time that matters relating to airspace violations reach Congress. In 1979, Socialist parliamentarian Enrique Múgica asked questions pursuant to the unidentified flying object seen in Manises (Valencia). With the PSOE [Spain's socialist party--Ed.] in power at the time, Popular part deputies like Gabriel Elorriagia queried the Government three times on the matter of UFOs in the national airspace. But a deathly silence envelops the most serious cases.

A few months ago, the chiefs of the La Virgen del Camino (León) air base accepted responsability for the fire that devastated hundreds of acres in the mountains of León. Apparently, an error in calculation had been made during the trials of a new flying device and it crashed to the ground, setting the wilderness on fire. These accidents, while serious, are not as disquieting as the use made of the extraterrestrial myth by the secret services.

Many people confess to believing that we are being visited by alien spacecraft. Movies and television have familiarized us with the concept of alien visitations. In fact many cults hold the ET mythos as central to their beliefs. These beliefs represent excellent tools to be used by the Intelligence establishment.

Spain's CESID, according to Defense Ministry sources, may have been involved in the creation of a psychosocial experiment involving alien contact in Spain's most important case: the UMMO affair. Hundreds of people were lead to believe, both domestically and abroad, that an alien civilization had infiltrated our world.

In the U.S. and France, the secret services have conducted similar psychological experiments since the 1960's, not only covering their aeronautical experiments behind the UFO smokescreen, but promoting the belief in extraterrestrials among small groups in order to study their reactions. This summer, France has unveiled the COMETA Report, prepared by a team of scientists and military men for prime minister Jospin. The report features accusations by the French against the U.S. for deliberately concealing UFO information to camouflage its developments in military technology.