UFO. Mexico

Perhaps no other case of this time period was as sensational as the Puebla UFO Crash – an incident that occurred on July 29, 1977 – involving the acrobatics of a trio of ‘fireballs’ seen over different parts of Mexico and even recorded by a professional film crew. One of these objects reportedly exploded in mid- air, scattering debris all over the Sierra de Puebla, the forbidding mountainous region that makes up a considerable part of that state.



The initial witnesses to the events were students in Mexico City standing in line to take admissions test in the National Education School at six o'clock in the morning on July 29. Shortly after, the Hoy Mismo television broadcast told viewers that reports were coming in from about 'three lights in the sky flying from south to north in the vicinity of the Estadio Azteca toward Ciudad Satélite'. The control tower of the UFO-prone Mexico City International Airport, however, poured cold water on the sighting, saying their radars weren't picking up a single thing.



A more detailed report, however, was provided by Mr. Carlos Tejeda, who said that "one of the UFOs consisted of two stages - the first was a metallic spearhead, the second was a mass of light that couldn't be clearly made out, and left something like white smoke in its wake." This initial telephone report would soon be followed by others, including a mass sighting by employees of an air cargo company, and this was just the start - the next three days would bring a tidal wave of new sightings from one part of the country to another.



As fate would have it, a film crew taping an exterior shot for the motion picture Picardía Mexicana in southern Mexico City would capture the objects in flight.  The crew had been assigned with a 'darkness into dawn' shot and their cameras were properly set up for the occasion. Their cameras managed to pick up the three objects which appeared to be engaged in acrobatics. The unit director, Abel Salazar, told his cameraman not to lose the object from sight. On the exterior set were some major figures of Mexican cinema at the time, such as Vicente Fernández and Jacqueline Andere, who also witnessed the even. Salazar would later observe that while unsure if the objects were 'UFOs or not', they did leave behind them a 'wake of stars'.

As if proof of the event on film stock wasn't enough, the airline Aeroméxico's operations center in the city of Zihuatanejo, issued a precisely-worded wire: "Radio operator Hernández Moncada 11552 (5 o'clock local time) saw three UFOs flying from north to south at approximately 16,000 feet. A shining round mass was flying in a straight line with two smaller masses behind it 'as thought trying to stop it'. These two lights made a 180 degree turn and returned at prodigious speed. Stop. Large mass exploded into four parts without losing its size, continuing its trajectory while leaving a luminous wake like a comet's tail for five minutes. Stop. These events were confirmed by TWR (tower) Dispatcher in ATOINTL (Zihuatanejo International Airport), Mister Daniel Alvarez." - a startling official admission of UFO activity if there ever was.



Mexico City’s “El Diario de la Tarde” informed its readers that Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 371 reported seeing a UFO some five hundred kilometers away from Mexico City, from where it had taken off earlier. Over the rainforest-draped mountains of Oaxaca, the airliner’s crew said the UFO ‘was starting to disintegrate’. Further confirmation was received from other civilian aircraft aloft at the time.



Efforts at finding the debris in the vegetation-covered mountains proved fruitless until researchers received a letter in August 1977 letter from schoolteachers in the state of Veracruz, advising them that a strange piece of metal had fallen in the town of Jopala, Puebla. "One of these sparks [referring to the sparks emitted by the disintegrating UFO] was recovered after it touched the ground. It is a piece of sheeting whose material is unknown to us. It is being kept by the authorities of the municipality of Jopala, who told us the fragment was still hot when they collected it." The schoolteachers also noted the belief that more fragments could be found in the general area.



So far the story has all the makings of an X-Files episode. Researchers ventured into the inhospitable, canyon-ridden region of Puebla only to find that the residents of Jopala were not inclined to part with their piece of unusual debris. The authorities yielded to a request to see the fragment, which proved to be a very heavy piece of metallic sheet. In the end, the municipal president agreed to part with a small fragment which was later submitted to analysis, revealing it was high-purity steel of some sort…such purity that it was not employed anywhere on the planet.



Skeptical sources suggest the fragment of enigmatic metal belonged to a Soviet satellite - Cosmos 929 - but fail to account for the sightings taking place throughout the country. Unless Soviet satellites were in the habit of chasing each other in the skies over Latin America?