Analysis of 1990 UFO Sighting and Other Reports

 

Just yesterday, Fran Ridge alerted us to a story about a UFO that had emerged from the ocean near a ship, causing damage to that ship. There was a discussion of electromagnetic effects, and while the witnesses seemed to be unavailable to us, the source, newspapers from Sri Lanca, were alleged to have reported it. The date was late March and the story appeared in 1990. As Brad Sparks pointed out, late March is not a date.

It was a spectacular story and following is additional information for those who wish to read it. However, a note at the beginning of the story showed the original source as the Weekly World News and was used in a 1992 book about UFOs. One of red flags here is the source. I have a friend who worked at the Weekly World News for something like a month, doing a story about them. They made up much of the content, and since no one has been able to find the original information in any Sri Lankan newspapers, or find the witnesses, it doesn’t seem that the story is credible. That should be the end of the story, which now can be removed from any archive, database or research material that has used it.

When chasing footnotes, one of the things that I watch for, is the credibility of the original source. When we reach a place where the source is less than credible and there are no other first-hand accounts, then the story should be rejected.

For those interested in the whole, untrue tale, and I stress that this story is not true, here it is:

 UFO FLIES OUT OF OCEAN

A saucer-shaped UFO stunned the crew of a tanker when it blasted out of the ocean and circled their ship for fifteen terrifying minutes before vanishing without a trace back into the sea!

According to Sri Lankan newspaper reports, the incident took place in broad daylight in late March, 210 miles south of Matara, Sri Lanka, in the Indian Ocean.

No one was injured, but the 175-ft tanker Kim Seng suffered severe structural damage from the towering waves that were kicked up when the UFO rose out of and later returned to the water, the press said.

"It was enormous - at least five times the size of our ship," Rasika Mawatha, the 47-year-old captain of the Kim Seng, told reporters.

"I'd just come up on deck when the huge silver orb flew out of the sea and hovered just off the starboard bow of the ship. We almost sank from the waves it made as it left the water.

"At first, I was so shocked I nearly fainted from fright. My crew was terrified, too. They fell to the deck - covering their eyes and cowering like small children.

"All the ship's instruments went haywire and the needle on the compass kept spinning around and around. I couldn't even use the radio to call for help," he said.

"The spacecraft glowed and pulsated with a silvery light and another eerie beam of light shone from the bottom of the ship. It seemed as if whoever was in the craft was scanning our ship, but for what purpose, I don't know."

After about fifteen minutes, the UFO disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.

"One minute it was there and the next it had vanished back into the sea in a blinding flash of light," said Mawatha. "It kicked up such huge waves it almost capsized the ship again."

Immediately after the UFO disappeared, the ship's instruments began working again as if nothing had happened.

"I radioed authorities about what had happened and they sent planes and ships to scan the area but they came up with nothing," said Capt. Mawatha.

Officials searched for days but not a trace of the UFO could be found.

"We spent days searching for signs of the alleged spaceship but couldn't find anything," said Adi Chandrakar, a spokesman for the coastal authority.

"Even though we couldn't find any concrete evidence of the UFO, we know that something highly unusual did happen out there because of the damage to the ship.

"Only extremely rough water like you'd experience in a severe storm could cause that kind of damage and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

"We're calling this incident an official UFO sighting because there's no other explanation for what happened."

But, even with that, there are good sources of data. On March 5 of this year, the witness in Mooresville, North Carolina, said that he was in the neighbor’s backyard watching the commercial aircraft fly over. He mentioned that one was lower than normal. At that point he noticed a glowing ball of turquoise light traveling at a high rate of speed, moving from south to north.

The witness said that he was pointing out the Venus and Jupiter conjunction when he spotted the light. He thought that it was at the same altitude as the commercial planes but was traveling much faster than them. The witness said that it made a few sudden, directional changes that he described as impossible for any aircraft, and he was sure that it wasn’t a drone. He said it was silent and they lost sight of it in the distance as it flew behind a neighbor’s house.

The object wasn’t in sight long enough for him to get a picture, but did take one of the Venus/Jupiter conjunction. You can see the picture here:

Make no mistake. The objects in the picture are Venus and Jupiter.

And that leads to something that I normally wouldn’t bother with, but there have been many reports of two UFOs in the night sky recently. I’ll post one of the better pictures, which is to say, one of the more interesting pictures, but it is clear to me that these pictures are of Jupiter and Venus. In fact, I took similar pictures of those two planets a number of years ago, which I’ll also post. This is the picture I took of the Venus/Jupiter conjunction.

Yes, this is a picture I took of Venus and Jupiter.

Just one final observation about this. The smaller of the objects is Jupiter and the larger if Venus. It has nothing to do with the size of the planet, but their distances from Earth. Venus is much closer though Jupiter is much bigger.