User:Jean-François Gille/sandbox

To the memory of Officer Gabriel Valdez

UF0 SIGHTING OVER MOUNT ARCHULETA New Mexico (USA)

OCTOBER 23, 1988 by John F. Gille (Version reviewed by Norio Hayakawa – February 28, 2012)

I. LOCATION/TIME: (See ANNEXES) Southern slopes of Mount Archuleta, 5 miles North-West of Dulce, New Mexico. Dulce is about 27 miles west of Chama, on US 64, in Northwestern New Mexico, Rio Arriba County, and on the Jicarilla Apache Indian Reservation, only 4.5 miles south of the Colorado State Line. - Location of witnesses: 400 meters (435 yards) south-east of Mount Archuleta Summit (elevation: 8136 feet = 2480 meters; Longitude = 107°03’17” W, latitude = 36°59’19” N – Only 1.27 km = 0.79 miles = 1390 yd south of the Colorado State Line). Witnesses’ spot height: 7900 ft = 2408 m - Location of the phenomenon:  South to North trajectory for about 2 miles (3 km), stopping very close to Mount Archuleta summit, seen from a 25°-35° angle (‘altitude’ in astronomy lingo) to the horizon (which makes for a height above sea level of 2600-2700 m, or 8500’-8800’). ∙ Estimated closest observers-trajectory distance: 	440 m (480 yd) ∙ Distance observers-spot where the UFO stopped: 470 m (510 yd) - Time: 7:51 pm (1951 Hours) local (Mountain) time. Duration: a few seconds (Ms. A. [see further, II.] a registered nurse, i.e. a well-trained observer of brief periods of time, measured in seconds, estimated the duration of the whole observation as 5 to 6 seconds).

II. WITNESSES: ∙ Elaine A., 44, RN, Albuquerque Veterans Hospital ∙ Gabriel Valdez, New Mexico State Police, residing in Dulce. ∙ Edmund Gomez, rancher, a friend of Mr. Valdez, and a local resident ∙ “Jack” (not his real name), PhD, a research scientist for a major lab in the US ∙ Manuel, local kid [according to Edmund Gomez, it was Manuel, Jr., younger brother of Edmund] ∙ Greg, son of Mr. Valdez ∙ Jeff, younger son of Mr. Valdez ∙ John Gille, PhD, 46 and residing in Albuquerque, NM III. CIRCUMSTANCES OF SIGHTING: 1. I was interested in the Dulce area because of rumors related to: a) an allegedly ‘jointly (i.e. CIA-Alien!) occupied’ underground facility, situated, said the rumor, under Mount Archuleta; b) numerous associated UFO sightings, as it has been persistently reported by local residents through the grapevine. A night of observation, in the mountains west of the town of Dulce, had been planned for some time (and not later than September 1988) under the leadership of Mr. Valdez.

2. Since about 7:30 pm, we had been playing a game (called ‘Ouija’ by some) at the instigation of Mr. Valdez. Five players are required: one of them (called the ‘subject’), in turn, is sat on a chair. The other four place their hands on the head of the ‘subject’ and have a moment of quiet. Then, at a signal, they lift him [or her], using only the tips of their forefingers, jabbing them under the subject’s armpits and knees. In most cases, the subject is lifted very fast and easily one foot or two up. When the same stunt is attempted without ‘meditation time’, it is usually impossible to move the subject, even when the combined efforts result in much strain applied on the joints of the forefinger. Indeed, I know not of any conventional explanation – in term of our Western Science – of this innocent game, played as it is around the world (I had played it in France when I was in my twenties). Just as we were processing the last person (Jack), one of Mr. Valdez’ sons shouted: “Look! Here it comes!”

3. LOOK OF THE PHENOMENON: The “object” (hereby designated as such – I personally was not able to make out any structure in it) came from the south at great speed, on a flat, straight, rectilinear and horizontal trajectory resulting, for the retina in our eyes, in a perfectly straight luminous line (yellowish, and of some thickness, like one who would have resulted from a plane’s landing light.

It was, definitely, not a plane. I use this comparison to give an idea of the luminosity of the trajectory. We had seen already a number of shooting stars that night. The path of the trajectory of our phenomenon was maybe hundreds or thousands of times more luminous than theirs).	There was not any sound coming from the phenomenon.	The ‘object’ stopped dead on its tracks. Its trajectory’s final spot was very close to the top of Mount Archuleta, as we saw it from where we were.	At the same time, it became extremely luminous, lighting at least half the sky up. It looked literally like the blossoming of a flower of light. There was a “display of gorgeous lights of pure color” : yellow, pink, green – enhanced by the center of that luminous phenomenon, giving out a shower of sparks (not unlike portable fireworks mounted on a stick, seen on the 4th of July). There was kind of a mist, too, around the object’s center, at this same moment.	It then sort of “folded on itself”, and disappeared, vanished. There was not anymore anything to be seen. Ms. A.’s expression to describe the end of the phenomenon was “it slipped away into another dimension”.

IV. ANNEXES: A. Maps: 	1. United States (with several alleged points of interest spotted) 2. Part of the South-West, including New Mexico (the curve drawn with a felt pen inside New Mexico borders is the Continental Divide) 3. Northwestern part of New Mexico 4. Jicarilla Apache Reservation 5. Part of the “Wirt Canyon” map sheet, to the 1:24,000 scale, published by the US Geological Survey. B. Photos:	1. Our party ready to leave (from left to right: Mrs. Valdez – she did not join the trip –, Mr. Gabriel Valdez, Manuel, John Gille, Edmund, “Jack”, Greg, Jeff. The photo was taken by Ms. A.) 2. Our campsite, seen from front of Mount Archuleta summit, the next morning 3. Mount Archuleta, seen from the campsite, the next morning.

C. Sketch of relative positions of observers versus phenomenon:

The trajectory was about 2000 feet above the lowest point under the estimated path of the ‘object’, which is the Navajo River, elevation about 6600 feet. NOTE: I usually have a rather impatient attitude toward UFO observations who exhibit a lower strangeness level than CE-iv’s (the so-called abductions). Now, the above described case is not even a Close Encounter (with the object less than 200 yd from the witness). Actually, for several months, I did not overdramatize the importance of the October 23 observation. However, it is not its strangeness level, undoubtedly low on an absolute reference scale, which gives its interests to that humble LITS (Light In The Sky); it is the place where it happened. The exact location where the phenomenon did happen had been described, prior to our Oct. 23 observation, in at least two published documents. Namely, the John Lear Statement, and UFO Crash At Aztec, by W.S. Steinman [see footnote 5]. The John Lear Statement has been called a hoax and/or a piece of disinformation by some. We are, obviously, unable to check presently the genuineness of all claims stated in so rich a text. It may be worthy of note, nevertheless, that our observation on the slopes of Mt. Archuleta was kind of a ‘Road to Damascus’ for one member of our party, a well-bred, experimented, hardnosed physicist. This fact alone, we believe, could well be a justification not to discard the observation, and, above all, to give a second look to Mr. Paul Bennewitz statements, according to which there is an underground base operated by aliens under Mount Archuleta. That hypothesis earned Mr. Bennewitz a lot of rejection and jeers from the ufologic community, and very likely also, unfortunately, persecutions of an altogether much more serious nature. We’d like, someday, to dwell deeper into that mysterious affair. Let’s now be content not to deprive the ufologic community of the details of this simple observation.

Albuquerque, February 20 – April 13, 1989 Aix-en-Provence, December 2011