On February 8, 1997, right over my house [in Jerusalem], in broad daylight, was a cylindrical aerial object flying very slowly south to north. Eventually a smaller object that appeared like a star was emitted from it and headed eastward in the direction of the Judean Desert (Jerusalem is just west of the desert).
Despite the many books and articles I've read, I must admit it shook me up.
I didn't have much chance to recover from that sighting: the very next day, twenty-three hours later to be precise, I am quite certain I saw what appeared to be a saucer-shaped object, silver in color like the one I saw the day before, flying west to east. When [the thought] that it might be weather balloon entered my mind, it made a few large zig-zags.
For the sake of accuracy, I am sending you a translated version of my report to the Israel Society for UFO Research, dated February 9, 1997:
[On] February 8, 1997, at around 3:45 pm, I sat down on my roof in the Ramat Eshkol neighborhood [of Jerusalem]. A light plane passed south of my house flying in an east-west direction. I looked up and saw it traversing the path of an aerial object flying slowly over the house in a northerly direction. I went to fetch my binoculars. The object began rising in altitude in a northerly direction, but at a certain stage appeared to halt.
Suddenly I saw a second, much smaller, object moving from it toward the east, that is toward the direction of [the] French Hill [neighborhood] and the Judean Desert. I did not see whether it had come out of the large object and I did not manage to see it [the small object] through my binoculars before it disappeared from view.
The large object's color was bright silver. The second looked like a star, and was yellow. At a certain point I saw the colors green and red on the western side of the large object, but it could have been the result of the play of sunlight on its side.
My wife saw both objects.
The larger object gained more and more altitude, until to the naked eye it looked like a star. I observed it until it disappeared from view at about 4:10. My binoculars [are] 12X.
Shape of object: cylindrical [in my original report I wrote 'elongated'] and without wings. Its back part, it seemed to me, was composed of two elongated parts like two thick "tails." I cannot estimate its size.
Today [Feb 9] (to my great surprise), at about 2:45 pm I again saw an aerial object. This time the object moved from west to east, and again there was a light plane in the sky at an angle that, one could assume like in yesterday's case, the pilot could have seen it. I fetched my binoculars but was able to gather only few details. It moved toward the east, and at a certain point flew zig-zags. I cannot say with certainty, and part of the problem is the weight of the binoculars, but it seemed to me that it was flat. Its color, too, was bright silver. [This] object was only in view a few minutes.
These are the only times I have ever seen unidentified aerial objects.
[In answer to a number of questions from CNI News, this writer later sent the following comments.]
Last summer there were spectacular sightings in different parts of the country -- many of them, to which the press referred because of their shape, "the bitten-into apple," [were] witnessed by apparently thousands. Photographs also appeared in the papers.
On the other hand, what my wife and I saw, and what I alone saw the next day, were not enormous and "spectacular." You had to look up into the sky at that exact time and angle in order to see it. At a certain point you could only see them with binoculars. I did not inform the press, nor did I consider informing them. I thought the appropriate step was to inform the UFO center, which I did.
I once worked on the desk of a local newspaper, and I really did not want to encounter someone who might cover the phone and tell his colleagues, "I got a kook on the line."
As to the academicians, not long ago the Learning Channel had a number of them discussing the UFO phenomenon. With the exceptions of Doron Rotem and David Ronen, ufologists, I doubt whether any of the others has ever read a book on the subject -- but it doesn't stop them from pontificating all over the place.
One professor, a communications expert, said: "If these UFO people had any faith, they wouldn't have to look for it in this nonesense."
I found that remark particularly amusing, since the person with whom I often discuss ufology, and who has lent me many of his books, sits next to me in synagogue on Sabbath morning! Moreover, my friend is a published scientist, a chemistry Ph.D., with an important senior position. We are both in our mid-fifties. I have a Ph.D. in modern Jewish history.
Original file name: CNI - Israel sightings
This file was converted with TextToHTML - (c) Logic n.v.