This article was published in the daily newspaper The Saudi Arabia Gazette, Saudi Arabia, on April 8, 1994.
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By Elmer Cato
Gazette Correspondent
MANILA, April 7.
RESIDENTS over several towns in Laguna province outside Manila remain perplexed over the dazzling display of lights they saw on Sunday and Monday and which many of them said could have come from no less than an unidentified flying object (UFO).
The strange lights, according to a newspaper report, appeared over the sky at Los Banos and Laguna de Bay and several other towns in the province and were seen by thousands of town residents.
"The lights are coming from the sky and bouncing off the trees in our yard so it could not have come from the ground," Los Banos resident Silvano Maningas said in describing what he insists was a UFO.
"The UFO was so huge that the light of a passing aeroplane heading for Manila was a dot in comparison," he said. The "object" was described as a big white circle that had smaller circles that also emitted bright lights.
Others said the lights were visible for at least 40 minutes. Residents say they heard no sounds and that the light often shifts from one direction to the other.
Aviation officials who urged residents to report new sightings said the lights could be from earthly objects that may pose danger to aircraft.
"Unless we get reports from trained people, we might mistake weather phenomena of celestial interferences as UFOs," Director Panfilo Villaruel of the Air Transportation Office said.
"Sometimes circular cloud formation can be mistaken for aeroplanes," he explained.
