UFO ROUNDUP Volume 5 Number 10 March 10, 2000 Editor: Joseph Trainor
UFO LANDS NEAR A VILLAGE IN MALAYSIA
A UFO landed in a marsh close to a village of 1,000 people in the Southeast Asian country of Malaysia and left physical evidence of its arrival.
“A large object emitting rays of light was reported to have landed on a piece of marshland here three days ago (Thursday, March 2, 2000) holding some 1,000 people in Kampung Gobek (village) in a state of high suspense.”
Kampung Gobek is located near the city of Tanah Merah in Malaysia’s Kelantan province.
“The residents said yesterday they saw the shining object at 3 a.m.”
“‘The lights from the object came in intervals, similar to lightning, but there was no sign of rain,’ Mohamad Mat Diah, 51, said.”
“‘The light from the object was very bright, and the rays bathed the inside of my house.'”
“‘I suspected something was happening outside and ducked out and saw the object hovering over the marshland for several minutes,’ he added.”
“Mohamad said at daybreak he went over to the area some 100 metres (330 feet) from his house and saw a Y-shaped depression measuring 15 metres by 5 metres (50 feet by 17 feet) which could have been caused by the unidentified flying object (UFO).”
“Near the depression was another crescent-shaped three-metre (10-foot) deep hollow and three holes one metre (3.3 feet) apart and each one metre in diameter.”
“‘I was accompanied to the area by two others who initially were afraid to come with me,’ he said.”
“Another resident, Saupi Salleh, 28, said he was awakened by the bright light.”
“‘I clearly saw the light from the object,’ he said.”
“‘I thought it was lightning, but when it prevailed, I realized it was something else.'”
“He went to see the depression and concluded that it must have been a heavy object.” (See the Malaysian newspaper The Star of Kuala Lumpur for March 5, 2000. Many thanks to Muzzafar Zabidin and Errol Bruce-Knapp for forwarding the newspaper article.)
THREE SPHERICAL GREY UFOs SEEN OVER MIDDLESEX, UK
On Thursday, February 17, 2000, at 11:45 a.m., Elaine W. was in her neighbourhood at the Dormers Wells section of Southall, Middlesex, UK when she saw an unusual sight in the western sky.
“I saw three non-reflecting grey globes crossing the sky,” Elaine reported. “They approached from the west, flew to the east. I saw them as I was facing north. The third (UFO) was travelling some 200 yards behind at an angle of 70 degrees and under 2,000 feet (in altitude–J.T.) They had a structured and defined outline and appeared to be rotating anti-clockwise (In the USA, we say counter-clockwise–J.T.) Despite the wind present that day, they did not veer or bob around in the breeze. They were about the size of a dried pea held at arm’s length.”
Elaine added that Dormers Wells “is on a direct ley line from Silbury Hill” in North Wiltshire, the site of the recent UFO landing in UK. (See UFO Roundup, Volume 5, Number 9 for March 2, 2000.) (Email Form Report
DISC-SHAPED UFOs SIGHTED IN NORTHERN ITALY AND SICILY
On Saturday, February 12, 2000, at 4 a.m., residents of Novellara, a town in Italy’s Reggio Emiliar province about 300 kilometers (180 miles) north of Rome, sighted “two luminous discs flying at an extremely high rate of speed. The discs were kept in view by several dozen witnesses for several minutes.” (See the Italian newspaper Gazzetta di Reggio for February 13, 2000.)
On Wednesday, February 2, 2000, at 10:15 p.m., in the Catania region of Sicily, a large island in the Mediterranean Sea owned by Italy, “two men leaving the factory at the end of their work shift saw in a northerly direction an unusually strong white light in the form of a diamond. The object remained immobile in the dark sky for just over one minute, then it zipped away to the horizon at blinding speed.”
Earlier that same day, at 8 a.m., “several people in the Priolo section of Siracusa,” a large seaport city in Sicily, “saw what looked like a humanoid figure suspended very high in the air, over the sea.” But other witnesses claimed that “the object resembled a silver bullet.” (Grazie a Edoardo Russo, Roberto Labantil e Davide Ferrarra di Centro Italiano dis Studi Ufologici per questi rapporti.)
PHOTOG CAPTURES UFOs ON FILM SOUTH OF CHICAGO
A photographer in Palos Hills, Illinois (population 17,803) captured three UFOs on film last week and has posted them on his website.
“I was photographing contrails/chemtrails over Palos Hills, Illinois” on Wednesday, March 1, 2000 when he accidentally captured the images.
“I took a series of 34 photos,” he reported, “And when I viewed them I saw objects in two photos that I did not see when I took the film.”
He was using a Model 2700 Vivitar Digital Camera when he shot the 34 photos of the sky near Roberts Road and 103rd Street in Palos Hills, just south of Chicago.
Photo No. 27 shows one UFO in the sky.
Photo No. 29 shows three unidentified objects, with two of the objects “turned” or pitched at the same angle.
This is the first time that UFOs in the USA’s Upper Midwest have been photographed in connection with the mysterious and controversial “chemtrails.”
The photos may be viewed at the following sites: UFO Roundup readers should set their browsers for http://www.palos-hills.com/contrails/022900/27.jpg and
http://www.palos-hills.com/contrails/022900/29.jpg.
(Many thanks to “the Public Eye” for this story.)
V-SHAPED UFOs SEEN HIGH OVER BAY CITY, MICHIGAN
On Sunday, March 5, 2000, at 8:37 p.m., Richard Ogden decided to take a break from taking a school exam and stepped outside of his home in Bay City, Michigan (population 38,700). He then spotted something very strange in the southeastern sky, over Lake Huron.
“I went outside to take a break from taking a test for class,” Richard reported, “Standing between the house and the garage, facing due west, I was looking up at about 60 degrees above the horizon when I spotted two distinct but faint groups of lights moving to the northwest at a very high rate of speed. The objects were similar to faint stars.”
“I could only observe the objects for approximately four seconds. They appeared to be grouped together in a semi-circular or possibly V-shaped formation. The number of separate lights was estimated at between 12 and 18.”
Although the exact speed and altitude “were hard to gauge because of the limited time I was able to observe them,” Richard estimated that the two UFOs were traveling at an altitude of `12,000 feet (3,600 meters) at an average speed of 3,000 miles per hour (4,800 kilometers per hour). (Email Form Report)
(Editor’s Comment: When in Bay City, be sure to visit the Museum of the Great Lakes. A good place to stay is the Euclid Motel. I stayed there during my first visit in June 1982 and in April 1999 during the “Millennium Bugout.”)
GIANT ROCK SPLITS, CAUSING MUCH SPECULATION IN THE NEW AGE COMMUNITY
Giant Rock, a gathering place for UFO enthusiasts and contactees for nearly fifty years, broke apart unexpectedly on Monday, February 21, 2000, fueling speculation that the event might be “a sign of the end of the age.”
“Before Monday morning (February 21), Giant Rock was considered by many the largest boulder in the world. It is now two boulders.”
“A slice of the rock fell off from the boulder at 8:20 a.m. Monday, exposing a gleaming white granite interior.”
“In ancient times, the Giant Rock was held sacred by the Native (indigenous) peoples of the Joshua Tree, California area. So sacred in fact that only the chief was allowed to go near it. Everyone else had to wait nearly a mile away while the chief communed with the spirits of the ‘Rock People’ who had predicted the day when the Mother would split open, and a new era would be revealed.”
(Editor’s Note: Geologists consider Giant Rock to be an “erratic” deposited during the last Ice Age. The indigenous Chemehueve people, however, believe that their ancestors witnessed the rock’s arrival. They say it drifted down from a clear blue sky as slowly and as lightly as a soap bubble.)
“Many other traditions have pointed to this time in our history as the surfacing of the Divine Feminine, to a world based upon consciousness and peace. Now that Giant Rock has split, many people feel that the prophecy has been fulfilled.” (See the newspaper High Desert Star for February 23, 2000, “Giant Rock Splits–Ancient Prophecy Fulfilled,” page Many thanks to Errol Bruce Knapp for forwarding this newspaper article.)
Giant Rock has had a long association with the UFO community. According to The Encyclopedia of UFOs, “Between 1954 and 1970, the biggest annual event in the world of UFO contactees and their followers was the Giant Rock Space Convention,” which was organized by George W. Van Tassell (1910-1978), affectionately known as “Van.”
Van Tassell, “a well-known contactee, was the operator of the Giant Rock airport, located 17 miles (27 kilometers) north of Yucca Valley,” near the town of Landers (population 1,500). Giant Rock is just off California Highway 247 about 85 miles (137 kilometers) east of Los Angeles.
According to author Jim Brandon, “‘Van,’ as he is called by his worldwide circle of admirers, is (was) perhaps the last of the post-World War Two flying saucer contactees. His book, I Rode A Flying Saucer, achieved less of a following than did the writings of his late friends and namesakes, George Adamski and George Hunt Williamson,” but Van did inspire a number of UFO-related projects, including his College of Universal Wisdom (CUW) in Yucca Valley, the annual Giant Rock Space Convention, and the construction of the Integatron.
Claiming to have been instructed by space aliens, Van Tassell designed the Integatron, “a 40-foot domed structure” which Van described “as a high-powered generator of ‘biolelectrical energies.'”
Long before “Pyramid Power” and pyramid hats became the rage in 1975, George W. Van Tassell was printing articles in Proceedings, his monthly magazine, on pyramids and their occult energies.
Van Tassell claimed that the Integatron when “finally completed, it will be used to complete rejuvenation, anti-gravity and time-travel experiments.” (See The Encyclopedia of UFOs, edited by Ronald D. Story, Dolphin Books, Doubleday and Co., Inc., Garden City, N.Y., 1980, page 149. See also Weird America by Jim Brandon, E.P. Dutton Books, New York, N.Y., 1978, pages 30 and 31.)
1910: UNFORGETTABLE JACINTA MARTO
Our Reader’s Digest-style biography actually begins in 1897, the year of the “Great Airship Mystery” or UFO flap here in the USA. That was the year Manuel Pedro Marto, 24, a cabo (corporal) in the Portuguese Army returned home after a tour of duty in Mozambique. Settling in the village of Aljustrel, in the Serra da Aire mountains of central Portugal, he met and married Olimpia de Jesus dos Santos de Rosa, 28, a widow with two children.
They soon added to Olimpia’s two kids, and by 1909, the total number of kids in the household had climbed to ten. Number Eleven, a baby girl, was born on March 11, 1910. They called her Jacinta (Portuguese for Hyacinth– J.T.)
Jacinta “was as quick and blithe as a bird, always running or jumping or dancing. For Jacinta had been spoiled a little, too, as the baby of a large family, and she could pout or sulk on slight provocation.”
Yes, Jacinta was the family brat. Like most pre- schoolers, she went through a possessive phase. “That’s mine!” she would say, swiping an item from a sibling. “That’s mine, too!”
In exasperation, her older brother Joao asked, “Does everything in this house belong to you?”
Jacinta replied, “Well…yes!”
She seemed drawn to religious symbols. In 1913, at the home of her cousin and playmate, Lucia Abobora dos Santos, Jacinta took the crucifix “from the wall and was looking at it affectionately” when her aunt, Maria Rosa dos Santos de Abobora (Lucia’s mother–J.T.) “came in and, thinking Lucia was to blame, began to scold.”
“Tia Maria, don’t spank her!” Jacinta pleaded, “It was all my fault. I won’t do it again.”
Jacinta was very close to her immediate older brother, Francisco, who was born on June 11, 1908, and her cousin Lucia, also born that year.
Anton Chekhov once remarked, “Happy families are all the same. But each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The Abobora household presented a sharp contrast to the joyful chaos at the Marto place. Lucia, the daughter of an alcoholic father and a hot-tempered, physically-abusive mother, found solace in religion. She was also a precocious child and made her First Communion at the age of six, surprising Father Pena, their parish priest, with her understanding of Roman Catholic doctrine.
In May 1914, seeing her cousin in her white First Communion dress, Jacinta wanted to be part of the ceremony, too. So she prevailed upon Lucia to coach her in Catholic doctrine.
Jacinta’s First Communion test, however, was a theological disaster.
Father Pena: “Now then, Jacinta, how many gods are there?”
Jacinta: “Three! The Father, the Son and What’s-his-name.”
Father Pena: “Why do we go to Mass?”
Jacinta: “To sing and be happy.”
“Poor Jacinta! How she grieved! Yet it was not her nature to brood over past defeats when there were still victories to be gained.”
In June 1914, Maria Rosa, strapped for cash, put her daughter Lucia to work as a shepherdess. Manuel Marto thought his son Francisco should become one, as well, siort of introducing the boy to the world of work. And with her two playmates heading up into the serra with their flock of sheep, Jacinta just had to go along, too.
One day in July 1914, the trio was tending a flock of sheep on the Cabeco (Portuguese for head–J.T.) a promontory overlooking the heavily-wooded extinct volcano known as Cova da Iria, when sharp-eyed Jacinta spotted something unusual in the clear blue summer sky.
In her 1937 memoir, Lucia described it as “a figure like a statue made of snow which the rays of the sun had turned somewhat transparent.”
(Editor’s Comment: Sounds like a UFO to me.)
In September 1914, Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia saw the object again.
It returned for the third time in July 1915.
By now everyone in Aljustrel had heard about these incidents and joked about them. An irate Maria Rosa confronted Lucia. “Now let us see. What was it you say you saw over there?”
“I don’t know, Mama,” Lucia replied, “I don’t know what it was.”
Well, first it was the UFO. Then it was an angel. Then the Archangel Michael and the Angel of Peace, and finally, on May 13, 1917, a visit from the Virgin Mary, who swore the children to secrecy.
Jacinta meant to keep the promise. But, after all, she was only seven years old, and this was the biggest thing that had ever happened to her. She just had to share it with the most important person in her life–her mother.
“The child ran to clasp her about the knees. And out it came…’Mother, I saw Our Lady today at Cova da Iria!'”
Olimpia merely laughed. “I believe you, child. Oh, yes, you are such a good saint that you see Our Lady!”
“But I saw her!” Jacinta insisted.
Something in Jacinta’s tone of voice convinced Olimpia. She told the children’s father. Manuel, the hard-headed ex-soldier, carefully cross-examined both Jacinta and Francisco. He, too, was convinced. The children used words and phrases far beyond their youthful levels of comprehension.
From there the news spread all over Portugal, and the crowds descended on Cova da Iria, both the faithful and the curiosity-seekers.
Through July and August 1917, Jacinta began to see strange visions of the future. Scenes of the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II. And another featuring a Pope of the future.
One day, Francisco and Lucia found the little girl sitting beside the well, staring off into space. Presently she asked them, “Don’t you see the Holy Father?””
No,” they replied.
“I don’t know how it is,” Jacinta said, “But I see the Holy Father in a very large building, on his knees before a table, with his hands over his face, crying. In front of the building there are many people and some are throwing stones at him, others are cursing him and saying very foul words to him.
Poor little Holy Father! We must pray a lot for him!”
Word of the pint-sized seers finally reached the ears of Magahaes Lima, the Illuminatus of Leiria. He ordered his subordinate, Arturo de Oliveira Santos, district administrator of Ourem and a fellow member of the Grand Orient Masonic lodge in Leiria, to “do something” about these kids.
On August 11, 1917, Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia were arrested by the police and tossed into the district prison at Ourem.
As Jacinta herself might have put it, the kids were “in deep poo-poo,” locked up with thieves, pimps, alcoholics, dope dealers and armed robbers. The two girls began weeping. “I want to see my mother!” Jacinta moaned, “I want my mother!”
(Editor’s Note: At the same time the Fatima kids were in prison, another mystic, Mrs. Annie Wood Besant, was under house arrest in India for protesting the insane carnage of World War One.)
At Francisco’s suggestion, the trio knelt on the floor and began to pray.
Maybe it was seeing the three innocents in prayer. Or maybe the convicts were too smart to do the Illuminati’s dirty work for them. In any event, they didn’t harm the children, who spent many hours looking out the barred window.
“We’ll be all right,” Lucia said, “Our Lady will never abandon us.”
“I know,” Jacinta sighed. “But I can’t stop thinking about my mother.”
Hoping to cheer them up, one convict produced a harmonica and offered to play a few tunes.
(Editor’s Comment: I wonder if he did Red River Valley? That’s what they played for Tom Horn the night before he was hanged in Wyoming.)
Hearing the music, Jacinta immediately brightened. “I can dance the fandango,” she said, “And the vira.”
“Prove it!” a convict challenged.
So Jacinta and her partner danced around the cell, although, as Lucia reported, “she was so small he had to carry her while she had her arms around his neck.” They sang many Portuguese ballads, including Jacinta’s favorite, A Serrana (Mountain Girl).
Following their release, the kids returned to Cova da iria for the tumultuous events of October 13, 1917, in which thousands of onlookers witnessed what they called “a solar miracle.”
That was the end of the Marian apparitions but Jacinta’s strange visions continued. The Martos could not get over the change in their youngest daughter. She seemed more thoughtful, more mature, less impulsive and given to curious insights into people.
In May 1918, Jacinta took the First Communion exam again. This time she stunned the parish priest with her flawless answers. “She speaks with the voice of a saint,” he remarked.
But tragedy was on the horizon. The Spanish influenza epidemic that ravaged Europe in 1919 arrived in Aljustrel in January. Francisco succumbed quickly. Jacinta came down with pleurisy and lingered for months.
In April 1919, she told Lucia, “Our Lady says my mother will take me to a hospital in a dark building, and that I would not get well.”
In July 1919, Manuel took his dying daughter to the hospital in Ourem. It was a white, well-lit building, and the family thought that, for once, a Jacinta prediction had not come true.
On December 29, 1919, Jacinta had a second vision of what she called “the dark hospital,” telling cousin Lucia, “Our Lady told me I am going to Lisboa, to another hospital. I will die there, but someday I will return to Cova da Iria.”
On February 2, 1920, Jacinta was taken to the Hospital of Dona Stefania in Lisboa. It was, just as she predicted, a dark, dreary old building. Upon admission, she was assigned to Bed #38 in the children’s ward on the first floor.
Two weeks later, on February 16, 1920, at 10:30 p.m.,Jacinta Marto passed away. She was twenty- four days shy of her tenth birthday.
The miracles, however, did not end with Jacinta’s death. In 1935, her grave was opened, and the little girl’s body was found to be perfectly preserved. There was no trace of deterioration. A witness commented, “She looked as if she were sleeping.”
In 1972, one of the people in attendance at a Marian apparition in Bayside, New York, USA took Polaroid photographs of strange lights in the night sky over the old Vatican pavilion at the former site of the 1964 New York World’s Fair. When the Polaroid photo developed, it showed a name written in light, Jacinta, in the girl’s own handwriting.
Such was the life of Jacinta Marto, the little girl who never became a teenager but who is well on her way to becoming the Nostradamus of Portugal. (See the book Our Lady of Fatima by William Thomas Walsh, Macmillan Co., New York, N.Y., 1947, pages 16, 17, 22, 23, 54, 55, 112, 174 and 175. See also Jacinta–Episodos Mweditos das Aparicoes da Nossa Senhora by Jose Galamba de Oliveira.)
FUN UFO WEBSITES:
Circulo Ovniologico Riocuartense (COR) is a UFO study group based in the city of Rio Cuarto, Cordoba province, Argentina. They banded together back in 1978 and have compiled an impressive array of UFO material at their site. Webmaster Mario Luis Bracamonte invites everyone to visit their site at http://www.angelfire.com/co/ovnicorJoin us next week for more UFO and paranormal news from around the Earth, brought to you by “the paper that goes home–UFO Roundup.” Have a great week!
UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 2000 by Masinaigan Productions, all rights reserved. Readers may post news items from UFO Roundup on their websites or in newsgroups provided that they credit the newsletter and its editor by name and list the date of issue in which the item first appeared..