OVNI. España

Date:  December 7 1968
Location:  Tierra de Campos
Time:  19:15
Summary:  The phones at the Villanubla air force base were ringing off the hook that Saturday in 1968. I’ve seen something strange, there’s something weird, it’s not an airplane, the lights are orange, it looks like it’s rising into the sky, it vanished suddenly…it was over in three minutes. There were several witnesses to the phenomenon that disturbed the habitual calm of the heavens over Tierra de Campos at 19:15 hours. The first one to call was a truck driver from Mazariegos. Then four more drivers. Also resident from the vicinity of Villalón and even from Palencia. They claimed having seen something in the sky. That very same evening, at 0:50 hours and due to the persistent phone calls, the base commandant submitted a telegram to the Minister of Air Defense, advising him of the phenomenon that transpired in that corner of Castile. “Nothing to report in the rest of the area,” ended the communiqué. All these phone calls from residents of Villalón gave rise to an investigation that ended up in an official report: Document Number 681207 on the sighting of strange objects. UFO files, as the High Command dubbed such documents, and they are called such many years later. The Ministry of Defense has just declassified and published 80 official documents making reference to unidentified flying objects over Spain. The one over Villalón is among them, and like most, the case was closed without ever determining exactly what it was that so many people had seen in the sky. There was something in the sky over Villalón on December 7, 1968. But, what was it? “We lack information that allows us to hazard a guess as to a likely explanation of the phenomenon,” concluded the official report, and that was that. In any event, none of the phone calls had exactly described “the shape or size of the light.” They only stressed that it was “something orange” with a clear ascending movement. A genuine UFO fever raged in the year 1968. The government investigated up to 21 cases. What is more, the Air Defense Ministry was forced to issue a report that was a front-page item in El Norte de Castilla. “Regarding statements published with certain frequency in the press about sightings of unidentified flying objects in Spanish air space, the Air Defense Ministry asks any witnesses who believe they might be seeing the so-called UFOs, to make it known to the nearest air force authorities or the local authorities. This way, the news can reach the airspace authorities having jurisdiction.” It was December 6, 1968. The flood of calls from Tierra de Campos occurred the next day. The public notice went on to say: “The Air Defense Ministry has a radar network that is able to detect any object capable of causing echoes in the air space. It has been hitherto attested that the objects believed to be unidentified by the public were weather balloons or airplanes in flight.” This was a way of curtailing the rise in sightings reported from Soria, Cádiz, Almería, Bilbao or Valencia. The most famous of these took place in Madrid on September 5. The next day’s newspaper proclaimed: “UFO seen over Madrid was not picked up by radar.” The story included eyewitness accounts from dozens of people who claimed having seen a bright spot in the sky “about the size of a 25 peseta coin.” It seems that the strange object was, in fact, a French research balloon (launched from Aire-sur-L’adour), which after being dragged off course, landed between Aspe and Santa Pola (Alicante) on Saturday, December 7. 
Source:  Planeta UFO and El Norte de Castilla
http://www.elnortedecastilla.es/valladolid/201701/07/esto-dice-expedient...