This article was published in the daily newspaper El Tribuno, of Salta, Argentina, on July 10, 2004.
Cachi, at 07:30 P.M., on Thursday
"It was perfectly plate-shaped", said the director of FM San Jose
Hundreds of people in Cachi's main square, among them artists participating in an art fair and were creating sculptures and paintings on site, saw a large unidentified flying object (UFO) that crossed the skies over Cachi on Thursday night.
"It was truly impressive. I'd heard people say that this phenomenon was recurrent in the region, but I never thought I'd have the privilege to see such a sharp, clear and disturbing sighting, since I'm unable to find a logical explanation for the phenomenon I've just seen with my own eyes," said Javier Rodriguez, the recently appointed director of FM San Jose.
Holding a degree in communication arts and national broadcasting, Rodriguez, 29, stated that "the time was approximately 19:30 hours and we were chatting in the town square with the host of one of the station's programs, Antonio Zuleta, who has become internationally famous due to his UFO films in the area."
"And we just happened to be discussing the subject when an artisan standing under the shelter of the local museum, some meters away from us, told us he'd seen something, raising his index finger skyward," he says.
"It was a fantastic vision: a perfect disk of bright luminous intensity, moving as it issued forth red flashes from North to Southeast at a prodigious speed, changing directions in a startling manner, gyrating at impossible angles for any vehicle known to us," explained the expert.
"From our position," Rodriguez added, "we can say that it had the size of a dessert plate. In other words, some 50 cm across, which makes me dismiss the possibility that it was a satellite, which are as small as a star and follow a fixed trajectory and constant spped. I cannot say, obviously, that it was a spacecraft from another world or from our own, but I can tell you that it was a phenomenon as inexplicable as it was interesting."
On the other hand, Antonio Zuleta, consulted by El Tribuno, said: "there were so many witnesses to the event that the debate about alien civilizations was a subject of lengthy discussions at coffeehouses, restaurants and other establishments in town, which is now filled with tourists, many hoping to have their own sighting."
Fortunately, it occurred at peak hours on an afternoon with a clear sky, as is customary [in Cachi]," he emphasized.
Translation from Spanish to English Scott Corrales, Institute of Spanish Ufology. Thanks to Gloria Colucci.
