The fax machine groaned as a ragged-edged piece of thermal paper emerged from it. In spite of having originated many thousands of miles away. the message felt as real and immediate as a tap on the shoulder.
"CONFIRMED," it began. "There was a UFO crash in Salta [Argentina] around the 17th or the 18th of August 1995, and it was all covered up. The incident occurred in the vicinity of Mt. El Crest'on near Met'an, Salta. Thousands of people witnessed the UFO's maneuvers...it was apparently struck by air-to-air missiles by an unknown type of aircraft (triangular?) and knocked out of the sky. Hours later a small private plane flew over the crash site and it too fell to the ground. The pilot later said that source of electromagnetic energy caused his plane to crash. Subsequently, the area was cordoned off by Argentinean and foreign military personnel (NASA/Delta?), giving rise to the cover-up. We were unable to visit the site ourselves due to the great distance involved, but we learned through our contacts that strange corpses were found amid the wreckage...the craft was saucer-shaped, measuring some six hundred fifty feet across. Some rumors spoke of two hundred dead occupants, and still other rumors suggested that the vast number of corpses was sent to Mendoza and then to the U.S. by plane."
UFO researcher Guillermo Aldunati, one of Argentina's finest investigators and the author of the fax, never managed to conduct an investigation himself due to a number of circumstances (the five-hundred mile distance one of them, as the fax indicates), but the implications were enough to make anyone dizzy. Irresistible images of a thundering battle over the Pampas between improbable aircraft were soon replaced by a sinking sensation. The whole episode seemed like something out of a movie, and not even the most powerful governments in the world, nor the greatest conspiracy, could ever hide two hundred alien corpses from the public.
Nevertheless, something did in fact occur in Argentina's remote northern reaches, as evidenced by the mute testimony of the tortured landscape -- whatever it was that struck the ground tore vegetation from the ground and left deep scars on the surrounding hillsides. The impact was of such magnitude that seismometers ninety miles away from the region were set in motion.
According to information published in the press, a team of rescuers from the town of Rosario de Lerma, almost 150 miles from the crash site, set off to the area to initiate operations. "We had no idea it could be, but we went there thinking we'd find injured people," stated Pedro Olivera, the leader of the rescue team. Olivera went on to state that officials later told his group that "an object had exploded in mid-air" but would add nothing further. The rescue team visited Cerrillo, La Merced, Carril and other towns, and in each stop, found excited witnesses telling them about the uncanny celestial event, the subsequent explosion, and the rumbling of the earth beneath their feet.
Olivera's team struck pay dirt when they reached the foothills of Mt. Crest'on, a nine thousand-foot peak. They found themselves staring at an alien vista of charred vegetation and scorched rocks, and in the middle of this devastation, sat a metallic object which reflected the feeble rays of the sun. The rescuers radioed their superiors, advising them that the object had been located. Without any further explanation, the authorities ordered the rescuers to advance no further and to return to their base.
But the incident does not end there: on August 18, 1995, villagers and townspeople reported seeing four wheel drive vehicles manned by English-speaking personnel speeding toward the crash site. The testimony of an anonymous technician of the National University at Salta is particularly interesting: apparently, the foreign personnel was accompanied by university staffers and technicians from the local nuclear power plant. The foreigners, according to this account, took with them chunks of a thin, metallic material resembling aluminum. The fragments allegedly "assumed a concave shape when joined" and had an unusual consistency. The anonymous university informer claims that all present were instructed to say that fragments of a meteorite had been found, and that pieces of rock should be shown to the press.
Ra'ul C'ordoba, a Saltan journalist interviewed by Buenos Aires' Cr'onica newspaper on September 1, 1995 stated that "there is no doubt that we have NASA personnel here trying to conceal the truth, assisted by members of the National University at Salta, since it is already involved in the matter but refuses to publicize its involvement."
And what of the pilot mentioned in Sr. Aldunati's fax? His name was Antonio Galvagno, an experienced crop duster, conducted repeated fly-overs and landed at a number of farmsteads to interview their owners about the event. All witnesses agreed in their descriptions of the object: a very large, silvery, tubular object which exploded in the air before crashing.
As he flew his small crop duster between two hills, he noticed a long strip of burned vegetation, "as if someone had poured gasoline in a straight line and set fire to it." Galvagno landed and camped for the night, intending to visit the intriguing area the following morning. As the small plane took off the next day, something inexplicable occurred: the small twin engine craft plummeted from the sky as if it had flown into an airless vacuum. Galvagno put his six thousand hours of flight time to the test and managed to make a successful crash landing on a nearby hill.
However, this was hardly the first time that UFOs had crashed in the Salta region.
One evening in May 1978, the population of Villa Mercedes swamped its local radio station with phone calls concerning an unearthly procession of fifty UFOs across the night skies. Otto Gall, the broadcaster on duty, was able to run outside and verify the events for himself: the wedge-shaped formation of greenish-blue UFOs grew from fifty to a hundred between 10:15 p.m. and midnight.
Ra'ul P'erez, a sergeant at the nearby Villa Reynolds air base, reported that the objects were flying at an estimated 15,000 feet, and appeared to be soundless, oval-shaped vehicles lacking any portholes or windows. Local shortwave operators were able to pick up Chilean broadcasts from across the border which announced that an enormous fleet of "flying saucers" had just entered the area.
Further reports indicated that the aerial display was followed by an enormous detonation allegedly caused by a UFO which plummeted to the ground. The National Gendarmerie sent out its 210th Squadron to comb a vast area of wilderness comprising the localities of Barit'u, Las Pavas and Los Toldos in an effort to find the crashed saucer.
One newspaper, El Tribuno, reported that the object had gone down in a gully ominously known as "Bols'on de los Fantasmas" ("The Ghostly Depths") near Sante Victoria. However, General V'ictor Gonz'alez of the Argentinean High Command reported that the object had fallen near the town of Or'an. Argentinean commandos continued the search right up to the Bolivian border, where they learned that their neighbors were also engaged in locating another downed UFO. The Bolivian government, however, refused to discuss its search.
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