[CNI News thanks editor Joseph Trainor of UFO Roundup for permission to reprint this article from the Roundup, vol. 3 no. 6 of February 8, 1998. The eyewitness report of Alex Cavallari was quoted with permission in UFO Roundup. Additional details from Cavallari have been inserted by CNI News. For more information on UFO Roundup, email Masinaigan@aol.com]
On Sunday, February 1, 1998, at 4:20 p.m., Alex Cavallari (XELAUFO@aol.com), New York state director of Skywatch International, was at his home in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, N.Y. when he spied a luminous red-orange sphere in the sky.
"It was a nice day, and I had to go outside on the roof of my house to adjust my radio antenna because some high winds had shifted its position," reported Cavallari, who is a ham radio enthusiast with the call letters KB2NYV.
Cavallari saw "a small orange/red colored light dot in the eastern sky" near Nostrand Avenue. Thinking it was a smudge on his glasses, he immediately cleaned the lenses and looked again. "I scanned the sky for a couple of seconds and, all of a sudden, the UFO appeared. It just appeared from nowhere."
"This time it was much bigger and clearer," he added, "about the size or diameter of a cigarette (1/4 inch) at arm's length. I went inside and got my camera," a Minolta 35mm with 12X maximum zoom.
Returning outside, Cavallari looked for the UFO again and "it just appeared and swooped down in front of me and then it stopped for about three seconds and then it disappeared."
At its point of closest approach, the UFO "was bigger than the moon." Setting the camera on maximum zoom, he scanned the sky through the viewfinder, hoping for another glimpse of the UFO.
About five to six minutes went by. Then, "I hear a loud rushing noise in my ear, only my left ear, like the rush of the ocean or electrical 'static' noise, ...It lasted about 10 seconds." Alex said the noise was fading out slowly when all of a sudden he turned around and saw the UFO high in the sky to the north, looking like a small colored dot.
"I aimed the camera, and it turned to the left, west, and it [was] right in front of me. I take one picture. The UFO started to move forward and down towards me and then stopped. It was the size of a basketball when viewed at arm's length -- a bright red, orange, yellow and white orb. It appeared to be a solid mass of light."
Keeping the camera on it, Cavallari shot two more photos. "Then it flew from the right, north, stopped for about a second and headed to the southwest. It appeared as if it flew into the sun and was no longer visible. The total time of the event was about 12 minutes."
At 4:40 p.m., Cavallari was in the house washing up "when I heard the sound of a helicopter over the house. I went and got the camera and walked out onto the back porch. There was what looked like a black helicopter hovering directly over my house at about 1,500 to 2,000 feet."
Aiming the camera, Cavallari shot one photo of the black helicopter before running out of film.
"The helicopter did not appear to have any numbers or identification on it," he reported. "It did make a 'typical' sound a helicopter makes. It hovered for about two minutes. During that time, it appeared as if it was spraying a liquid substance from the bottom of the helicopter onto the ground and houses below."
While watching the helicopter, Cavallari's glasses became covered with some of the misty liquid. Carefully he wiped them off and retrieved a sample of the mist.
Then "the helicopter turned and dipped its front end as if it was looking at me. It hovered in this position for about thirty seconds and then turned as it hovered and headed towards the (same) direction as the UFO sphere/orb. It headed for the southwest," towards Neptune Avenue and Brighton Beach.
"Was it just coincidence that the black helicopter appears a few minutes after I saw and took some pictures of a UFO, and that the helicopter leaves heading in the same direction as the UFO? I do not think so!" Cavallari said.
Original file name: CNI - UFO, Chopper.NYC
This file was converted with TextToHTML - (c) Logic n.v.