The next speaker was Lt. Robert Salas, USAF ret. He spoke of two cases (from the 1970s?) where UAPs had caused missiles (up to ten of them) in silos to become non-functional. This, of course, was taken very seriously by the Department of Defense. He also mentioned cases known to him from 1967, '68, and '70 where unknown objects had posed a threat to our aircraft or ships, citing these cases as a reason to take the phenomenon seriously and investigate it.
Next, Capt. Julio Darwish spoke on behalf of pilots and air traffic controllers of Mexico about the need to investigate the phenomenon and render the skies safer.
Enrique Kolbeck, an air traffic controller, spoke of several cases that he witnessed in the course of his duties, including: 1) Mazatlán Case, 1975; 2) Aeronaves de México Case, 1994; 3) Morelia, 2002 (in which 15-20 large metallic objects delayed the takeoff of a plane for 15 minutes and caused a near-collision); and 4) Campeche, in which a Mexican plane involved in an operation against drug traffickers, said plane being equipped with special heat-sensing IR devices, encountered and recorded an unidentified flying object.
Andrea Pérez Simondini, a member of the ALAS pilots' organization and Director of the Commission for the Study of the Ovni (UFO) Phenomenon of the Republic of Argentina, gave an account of a couple of UFO/UAP encounters, including one in Bariloche, in the mountains near the Chilean border. She reiterated the need for the phenomenon to be taken seriously and studied in depth.
The Hon. Yoshiharu Asakawa, a member of the Chamber of Deputies of the Japanese Congress, was the next to speak. He began speaking in Japanese, to a roomful of people who had no idea what he was saying, two minutes and twenty-five seconds before the arrival of the interpreter. This was awkward, indeed. He told how a black UFO, which separated into four parts and did not reflect the setting sun, had aroused his interest in 1986, when he was a school student. He said that, although Japan is one of the countries with the highest number of UFO/UAP sightings, he has several times been separated from his Congressional group for speaking about it. He thanked the organizers of this hearing for giving him the opportunity to speak freely about the phenomenon, which he cannot do in Japan.
The next speaker was Roni Tadeu Vernet Braga, of the Brazilian Center for Physical Investigations. He gave some history of sightings in Brazil, and said that the first one had taken place in the seventeenth century. (This, of course, begs the question as to whether there had previously been sightings by the indigenous peoples.) He said that the first photo of a UFO had been taken in Brazil in 1952. There were also prominent sightings in 1957-58, and they have been continuing, in increasing numbers, up to the present.
The next speaker was Michael Vaillant, one of the experts of the GEIPAN unit of the National Center for Space Studies (France). Mr. Vaillant spoke in French, which I was not able to hear because of the simultaneous translation into Spanish (done, evidently, by a French person). Mr. Vaillant proposed the formation of a new international body to investigate the UFO/UAP/OVNI phenomenon, saying that it could use the GEIPAN database.
At this point, I am again interrupting my report on this hearing.
(to be continued)
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Text Copyright © 2023 by Donald C. Traxler. I do not own the images.
