At approximately 4 p.m. - Sighting reported by Mrs Marie F.:
“Mrs. F.” was managing a guest house in Jalhay. At 4 p.m., she went outside to pick up the laundry she had dried in the sun in her garden.
She is then suddenly dazzled by a reflection in her glasses.
She looks up and sees that the sunlight is reflecting from an object that is in the air in the direction of Jehanster, shining “like a mirror.”
She thus thinks it is a plane.
The object is indeed elongated like a plane, but it has no wings, and makes no noise.
The object looks like a huge cigar, with clearl visible edges, and at least part of its body seems to be structured as with an underlying grid.
So she thinks it must be a blimp, but there is no car below, and no external structure.
SOBEPS publihed a sketch showing the object, it looked like this:
Mrs F. is particularly puzzled that there is also in the otherwise perfectly clear sky as a small lonely cloud, and it seems to her that the object came out of that cloud.
She thought that the cigar-shaped object is 400 or 500 meters away from her, at a height of 200 meters above the ground, slowly descending in a diagonal path and becoming increasingly dark.
She expects it to crash, but it stops some dozens meters above the ground.
Soon, the object goes to the wooded hill in the north-east, goes upslope, at almost the height of the top of the trees on the hill, and disappears from view in the basin of the Gileppe lake.
It is said the length of the object was like that of a bus.
Source:
SOBEPS indicates that on November 29, 1989, at about 4 p.m., Marie F. , a 65 years old retired farmer who thereafter operated a cottage in Jalhay, picked up the laundry in the garden at the rear of her house with views to the west.
Suddenly she was blinded by a bright light reflection in her glasses.
Looking up, she saw “something like coming out of nothing or out of a condensation cloud”, about 500 meters from her, in the direction of Jehanster in the south-west. The phenomenon descended slowly tilted towards the ground.
When leaving the “cloud”, the structure was silver in color, but it was getting darker and darker as it approached the ground. A few dozen meters before crashing, this object still perfectly silent, levelled, as if following the contours of the ground. It then stayed motionless a few moments, then went back up towards the wooded slopes of the valley, where it went away skimming the treetops.
It thus went away towards the Gileppe lake, towards the northeast, traveling about 1 km in 2 or 3 minutes.
During the investigation , Mrs. F. found that the size of the object was similar to that of a bus or 3.5 cm at arm's length .
The shape was that of a cigar with pointed ends, with on a large portion of the fuselage a “grid” or like “made of small panels or faceted mirrors.” The object seemed totally material, with sharp edges, no visible superstructure and no lighs.
Ms. F. used an interesting comparison to describe what she saw: “It looked like a birth, as if a animal was given birth to.” Mrs. F. was a retired farmer.
At first she thought it was a plane that was falling, but she immediately noticed the lack of wings, and then she thought of a balloon, but found that there was no cabin. Her only hesitation is about the beginning of the observation, that is to say, the physical reality of the “condensation cloud” that was believed to have spotted.
The author finds it difficult to draw definitive conclusions from the case file, and wonders whether it is even possible in ufology to draw definitive conclusions.
He noted that comments can still be made. For example, this testimony and those of the same series refers to a dark ovoid object whose surface seemed covered of assembled plates, a structure that was visible in Hainaut, but especially in the area Jalhay where it flew in a north-east/south-west axis in both directions.
The author states that this case has been investigated only three weeks after the observation.
He noted that the diurnal nature of this observation and others in the region so far has provided little new information on the observed objects, the structural details are difficult to extract from the testimonies. He commented that this difficulty is in itself an interesting feature, since several witnesses said they were puzzled by the absence of external details.
Source:
There is a summary for this observation, published on the web by the Belgian ufologist Godelieve Van Overmeire in her catalog circa 1999, now gone, but much copied by UFO websites and forums. This summary is as follows:
1989, November 29
BELGIUM, Jalhay
At 4 p.m. in Jalhay a lady sees a shining object, wingless, making no noise, and a cloud in a very clear sky. The witness believed that the cigar-shaped object came out of the cloud. The edges of the cigar are very clear and a part of the fuselage seems structured as if there was an underlying grid. A few tens of meters above the ground the object stops and then flies almost touching the treetops.
Source example:
Map showing the location of Jalhay relative to Verviers and Eupen, with the woods and the Gileppe lake in the north-east of Jalhay:
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| Version: | Created/changed by: | Date: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | September 3, 2013 | Creation. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | September 3, 2013 | First publication. |
| 1.1 | Patrick Gross | September 18, 2013 | Addition of the information by G. van Overmeire. |
