Filename: Omni-5.Art Type : Article Author : Jerome Clark Date : 00/00/00 Desc. : Sightings ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The following article was originally published in the science magazine OMNI. It is reproduced here exactly as it appeared in its original form, without so much as a misplaced comma, period, or question mark. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From "OMNI"--December 1990 UNSOLVED MYSTERIES: FROM FRANCE TO NEW YORK, THE FIVE THORNIEST SIGHTINGS OF THE EIGHTIES by Jerome Clark 1. PHYSICAL TRACES AT TRANS-EN-PROVENCE, FRANCE. On January 8, 1981, Renato Nicolai, an elderly, near-illiterate Italian immigrant, saw a saucer-shaped "ship" land briefly on his property. When the Groupe d'Etude des Phenomenes Aerospatiaux Non-Identifies (GEPAN), the French government's official UFO-study project, investigated, it found two large concentric circles, one inside the other. Soil and vegetation samples were brought to plant traumalogist Michael Bounias, whose analysis, conducted over a two-year period at the Intsitut National de la Recherche Agronomique, determined that the leaves had inexplicably lost 30 to 50 percent of their chlorophyll pigment and aged in a way that neither expected natural processes nor laboratory experiments could duplicate. Later GEPAN head Jean- Jaques Velasco said, "The effects on plants in the area can be compared with that produced on the leaves of other plant species after exposing the seeds to [a considerable amount of] gamma radiation." Yet strangely, there was no evidence of radioactivity in the Trans-en-Provence plant samples. To all appearances, GEPAN concluded, "something similar to what the eyewitness has described actually did take place." 2. INTRUDER IN THE UPPER ATMOSPHERE. In December 1986 U.S. Naval Space Surveillance System radar screens in the southern and western United States tracked a mysterious flying object as it entered the upper- atmosphere, performing complex maneuvers at dazzling speed. The object later entered orbit in a bizarrely random way. A flash alert- -the kind of warning that could signal the start of World War III-- was sounded at the Pentagon and throughout the North American Air Defense Command, but the object disappeared as abruptly as it had arrived. A report of the incident put on President Reagan's daily brief is said to have led to the creation of a classified UFO working group within the Defense Intelligence Agency. 3. GIANT UFO OVER ALASKA. Flying over northeastern Alaska on November 17, 1986, at 5:10 P.M., the crew of a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 observed fast-moving rectangular lights. The lights were soon joined by a larger object, which was picked up on both the plane's radar and ground radar. Minutes later the "mother ship," as the JAL observers described it, vanished temporarily from the screens, then reappeared behind the 747. Now the crew got a good look at it: It was Saturn-shaped (a disc with a rim extending from and around its midsection) and the size of "two aircraft carriers." Pilot Kenju Terauchi took frantic evasive maneuvers, but the UFO kept its position directly behind the airliner. At 5:39 P.M. the object vanished from sight and radar screens. 4. TEXAS SCORCHER. On December 29,1980, near Huffman, Texas, two women and a seven-year-old boy in a car observed a brilliant, diamond- shaped UFO floating above nearby trees and emitting scorching heat. The witnesses suffered severe and lasting illnesses from the encounter, and a radiologist said the cause appeared to be radiation sickness. Seeking answers and compensation, the witnesses sued the government without success. 5. WESTCHESTER BOOMERANG. In 1983 and 1984 thousands of people in seven suburban counties of New York and Connecticut saw weird flying objects that resembled flying wings. One witness compared a UFO to a "boomerang with lights running up and down it's wings." Another said it was "so huge it filled up the entire sky." Sometimes the boomerangs, said to travel at everything from lightning speed to 5 mph, passed no more than a dozen feet above witnesses' heads. Reports of the Westchester boomerang have been complicated by the discovery of pranksters flying ultralight aircraft in tight V formation. Despite this possible cause for the sightings, some researchers say, the best reports remain unexplained. And identical boomerangs have been observed elsewhere in the United States.