Mexican Air Force pilots film unidentified objects
Wednesday, May 12, 2004 Posted: 8:10 AM EDT (1210 GMT)Wednesday, May 12, 2004 Posted: 1210 GMT (2010 HKT)
MEXICO
CITY, Mexico (AP) -- Mexican Air Force pilots filmed 11 unidentified
objects in the skies over southern Campeche state, a Defense Department
spokesman confirmed Tuesday.
A videotape made widely
available to the news media on Tuesday shows the bright objects, some
sharp points of light and others like large headlights, moving rapidly
in what appears to be a late-evening sky.
The lights were filmed
on March 5 by pilots using infrared equipment. They appeared to be
flying at an altitude of about 3,500 meters (11,480 feet), and
allegedly surrounded the Air Force jet as it conducted routine
anti-drug trafficking vigilance in Campeche. Only three of the objects
showed up on the plane's radar.
"Was I afraid? Yes. A little
afraid because we were facing something that had never happened
before," said radar operator Lt. German Marin in a taped interview made
public Tuesday.
"I couldn't say what it was ... but I think
they're completely real," added Lt. Mario Adrian Vazquez, the infrared
equipment operator. Vazquez insisted that there was no way to alter the
recorded images.
The plane's captain, Maj. Magdaleno Castanon,
said the military jets chased the lights "and I believe they could feel
we were pursuing them."
When the jets stopped following the objects, they disappeared, he said.
A
Mexican Defense Department spokesman confirmed Tuesday that the
videotape was filmed by members of the Mexican Air Force. The spokesman
declined to comment further and spoke on customary condition of
anonymity.
The video was first aired on national television
Monday night then again at a news conference Tuesday by Jaime Maussan,
a Mexican investigator who has dedicated the past 10 years to studying
UFOs.
"This is historic news," Maussan told reporters. "Hundreds
of videos (of UFOs) exist, but none had the backing of the armed forces
of any country. ... The armed forces don't perpetuate frauds."
Maussan said Secretary of Defense Gen. Ricardo Vega Garcia gave him the video on April 22.
Copyright 2004 The
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