UFO Philippine Visit March April May 1979

http://www.bobpratt.org - 4/25/1979

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Detailed encounter corroborated by town officials. UFO transmitted monotone voice signals. The witness thought the UFO occupants looks like Americans.

The farmer, Mamerto Demetillo, later told me that he woke up about four o'clock one morning to go to the toilet and was surprised to see a bright light reflecting inside his house.

"I went outside and saw three objects shaped like saucers following each other through the sky about twenty meters above the ground" Demetillo said. Then forty seven, he lived on a small sugar cane farm five kilometers southeast of Talisay in Negros Occidental Province.

The objects were moving slowly and were descending. Demetillo followed them, running down a path behind bamboo trees. About two hundred meters from his house, he crept across a dirt road and hid in a ditch behind sugar cane stalks.

"Two of the crafts had already landed in the road while the third one was hovering and coming in to land" he said. "It just gradually came straight down near the other two and it was the one nearest to me"

BEINGS TWO METERS TALL

The objects were silent and stirred up no dust as they set down in a curve in the road (at left, Demetillo shows Police Captain Alberto Olario where the UFOs landed.). "They were about twenty meters from me. It was very bright in the area because of these objects and I was only two meters or so from the lighted area"

The objects appeared to be about two and a half meters in diameter and two meters thick. Each was sitting on four short legs.

"All around the objects were very small holes where flames came out when they were flying, but after they landed only bright light came out of them, spreading out like beams of headlights on a car" Demetillo said.

He could see six holes on the sides of each object facing him, with each hole being about three centimeters, or a little over an inch, in diameter.

"I was lying on my belly watching and then I saw doors open and two beings got out of each ship"

Demetillo had seen nothing to indicate there were any doors until they opened, sliding back inside the walls. As they did, a short ladder with only one step came down below the doors.

"The people had to stoop coming out and they stepped down the ladders. They didn't all come out all at once but gradually, the two from the first vehicle first, then two from the second and then the third.

"They were more than two meters tall. One was a little shorter. They looked like human beings but taller and bigger. They walked very slowly. I thought they were Americans"

The six wore what looked like shiny, gray rubberized plastic suits with brown belts and black gloves and boots. Each held something that looked like guns"I can't be sure they were guns. They were white and rectangular. What seemed to be the barrel was rectangular, like a ruler, and the handle was rounded.

"I couldn't see their faces. They wore helmets that covered their heads except for their eyes, and a visor covered them. There was some kind of wire mesh where the ears would've been"

OCCUPANTS MOVED SLOWLY

There were also protrusions in the neck area where the helmets were attached. The pants were tight fitting and the knee-high boots had zippers on the outsides. The shirts were somewhat loose and had bulges in the shoulders. Belts crossed over the shoulders and held what looked like thin, white haversacks on the backs.

"The six of them huddled together in a circle and appeared to be talking" Demetillo said. "They were gesturing or pointing in different directions and kept nodding their heads as if they were conversing but I never heard any sound, not from them or their crafts, not even when they were taking off.

"Everything they did was slow. All their movements, even their gesturing, was much slower than humans would do it. They had to lift their feet slowly and they walked very slowly. It seemed they had to exert more effort. When they got back in their crafts, they went through the same slow motions and had to stoop again.

"I couldn't see anything inside the crafts through the doors, only a brilliant light. I was very worried all the time because I was afraid they'd see me. I was afraid they'd kill me or take me with them"

After about fifteen minutes, the six beings climbed back into their vehicles and took off, one by one. They rose about twenty meters and then moved off horizontally, with flames again coming out of the small holes. They moved slowly but suddenly gained speed and about three minutes later Demetillo lost sight of them.

"When they flew off I could hardly stand up because I was shaking all over I was so afraid. I ran back home"

Demetillo and his wife had ten children, one of them a sailor in the U.S. Navy. Besides growing sugar cane, he made and sold ice candy and sometimes worked as a faith healer, something he'd done all his life. He was also a member of the barangay court, an arbitration group that tries to peacefully settle neighborhood disputes before they go to a court of law.

MARKS LEFT ON GROUND

He told me his story in the mayor's office in Talisay, with Rolando Espina, then chief of the Philippine News Agency's bureau in Bacolod City, acting as interpreter.

"When it got light that morning" Demetillo said, "I went back and found marks of the landing gear, maybe five centimeters deep, along the edge of the road. They were like the webbed feet of a duck. I also saw footprints of shoes twenty five to thirty centimeters long"

That happened on the morning of April 25, 1979, but it was two weeks before Demetillo told anyone. “I'd heard about other UFO sightings and I wanted to tell someone but I was afraid nobody'd believe me. I was afraid they'd think I was insane.

"Then, on the night of May 5, there was a dance honoring a saint of the barangay. Some barrio officials and Police Corporal Máncio Abrera started telling stories about their UFO sightings, so I told them I had personally witnessed this landing. Corporal Abrera convinced me I should tell Sergeant Felix De Asis, station commander of the Integrated National Police in Talisay"

Demetillo's story was reported up through police channels and he was interrogated by several officers, including Colonel Paterno Lomongo, at that time commander of the Philippine Constabulary and superintendent of the Integrated National Police in the province. Lomongo had Demetillo brought to his headquarters in nearby Bacolod City.

"I'm not saying that what he said is really true, but considering the circumstances it is just possible that this fellow may really have seen something" the colonel (below) told me. "There's no history of this fellow's making up stories like that. While he's an ordinary farmer and not very literate, he is known in his community. I found no reason for thinking he was lying to me in any way.

"I thought he was sincere in telling his story. When I cross-examined him, I couldn't help but feel he was telling the truth"

THOUSANDS SEE UFO FLEET

Demetillo's sighting was just one of many that Colonel Lomongo and his men investigated in March, April and May of 1979. During this period, thousands of people witnessed what amounted to a virtual UFO invasion of the seven thousand-island nation, and Lomongo was just one of a number of military commanders who were concerned.

"The first time I had a report officially was in March, but I'm sure that even before then there were those who saw UFOs" Lomongo said. "There've been sightings in other provinces, including Bohol, Masbate, Zamboanga and Negros Oriental"

Lomongo, then forty eight, didn't become personally interested until April 19, the day of probably the heaviest sightings.

"On the 19th and 20th, we started receiving reports again, and this time a number of people claimed they saw these flying objects. On the morning of the 19th, I received a call from my station commander at Talisay, Sergeant Felix De Assis, who reported that his policemen had sighted UFOs earlier in the morning along with a number of other people"

The colonel personally questioned the policemen and concluded that something strange really had happened. "I have no reason to doubt what they declared they saw" he said.

Shortly after dawn on April 19, masses of UFOs were seen in the province of Negros Occidental, which is three hundred miles southeast of Manila, and in the major islands of Zamboanga del Sur (two hundred miles farther south), Cebu (seventy miles east), and Bohol (a hundred miles east).

In Talisay, hundreds of people reported seeing many small disc-shaped objects come out of a big one and line up in a V formation behind it. When I talked to Sergeant Assis, he said: "There were so many, many people who witnessed that incident. In the whole municipality of Talisay. More than three hundred people saw it. I found out during interviews, which we conducted separately, that the statements of one another were corroborative"

MILITARY IS COOPERATIVE

Colonel Lomongo, Sergeant Assis and many others gave me their statements during a two-week visit to the Philippines in June 1979, during which I stopped in Manila, Bacolod City, Cebu and Davao City. The colonel and his men went out of their way to help me, answering my questions, giving me copies of their own investigation reports and helping me locate people.

They had even requested witnesses to the April 19 sighting to meet with me in the Talisay City Hall. That was embarrassing because I arrived from Manila a day later than planned and the people had waited for me all the previous day. About twenty came back the next day.

One of the most vivid descriptions came from Rufino S. Tolentino (below left), a guard at the Talisay-Silay Milling Company compound.

"I saw a wonderful flying object going north" he said. "It was very big, maybe as big as a Jeep. About two minutes later, many small objects spread out from the big one, coming from the sides. There were more than thirty of them"

His reference to a Jeep meant the apparent size of the object in the sky.

"The small ones were all disc-shaped and different colors" Tolentino said. "They were the same shape as the big one, which was red. The small ones were green, some were yellow, some orange and some blue"

Leonora Malves, twenty nine, who owned a coffee shop inside the milling company compound, said: "Around four in the morning I saw something flying above and suddenly I saw a light scattering down. Then I noticed there were so many lights and so many colors going out side by side, divide into two groups and then follow the mother ship. (In the photo at right, she sketches what she saw as Connie Deniega looks on.)

"I told my friend Connie that these were UFOs. I got scared. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The mother ship looked like a round flying saucer and the smaller round objects followed it in a V formation"

TOO MANY OBJECTS TO COUNT

Her friend, Connie Deniega, said: "There were many people around who saw it. It was beautiful. I'm very happy that for the first time in my life I have seen a UFO"

Pedro Alvarez, a foreman at the mill, told me: "Flames of rainbow colors started streaming from the sides of the big object. I didn't hear any sound. I watched it for more than three minutes and there were smaller objects coming from the sides, trailing along on the right and left flank.

“I didn't count them because there were so many. I concentrated on the bigger craft, which was shaped like the UFOs you see on TV, disc-shaped. When they were quite a distance to the north, they just suddenly disappeared"

Sixto Planto Jr., another foreman, said he “was so awed by such a beautiful sight that I began to feel apprehensive"

Police Patrolman Edgardo R. Glaraga (right), twenty eight, was in the public market in Talisay when the objects went over. "I saw small objects following the big object" he said. "It hovered in the sky for about two minutes and I kept wondering what it was.

“I was standing in front of the Mini-Mart and it so happened that the cadets from the College of Arts and Trades were making their early road run with Sergeant Paterno Olarte. They all stopped and saw the flying objects. A minute or so later, the objects disappeared"

THE DREADED ‘BULALAKAW’

Jorge Donesa, one of several joggers running around the plaza at that early hour, said: "I had rounded the plaza four times when I heard children shouting, 'Don't let the bulalakaw hurt us.' (The bulalakaw is a legendary fiery bird; in the Tagalog language, it also means a shooting star or meteor.)

“I looked up and saw the object and told the children, 'It doesn't seem to be the bulalakaw and it doesn't look like an airplane because there are so many colors.'

"I watched them fly towards the north and while I was watching, the children fled back into their homes. About three minutes later, the objects disappeared. I never heard a single sound"

Similar sightings were reported in other provinces, I learned later in Manila. At the Office of Information at the Philippine Constabulary's national headquarters, Master Sergeant M. E. Diaz showed me summaries of other reports received from military commanders on the April 19 sightings. Among them:

April 19, 4 A.M., UFO with flames passed over Midsalip in Zamboango del Sur, from Mount Sugarloaf going toward Mount Bulony. A few minutes later an explosion was heard as the UFO disappeared…

April 19, 4 A.M., UFOs seen in a number of barangays, in the Capipian municipality of Bohol Province… At 4:30, UFOs were reported seen in townships of Ubay and Batuan 200 feet more or less above in the form of mercury lights with particles following a big light the size of a ball.

The Philippine News Agency also carried a story about sightings the same morning on the island of Cebu.

"Residents of Barangay Lourdes of Bogo, Cebu, reported seeing about thirty unidentified flying objects about 4:30 A.M" the Ministry of Information said"The UFOs were described as 'egg shaped' and emitting rainbow colors"

SIGHTINGS AT MILL AND IN FIELDS

Colonel Lomongo's cooperation was unusual, but no more so than that given by officials at a huge sugar mill just east of Talisay, where numerous sightings had occurred.

At the mill, owned by the First Farmers Milling and Marketing Association, resident manager Fernando Cuenca had all available witnesses come to the board of directors room for me to interview around a long, polished conference table.

Cuenca took the sightings seriously. "At a quarter to four one morning" he said, "somebody phoned and woke me up and I went over to the radio control tower (see photo below) and saw these strange lights myself"

At that time, eight hundred people worked for First Farmers. In addition to the mill, the company owned a vast acreage of sugar cane fields adjoining the mill.

The company produced eighty five thousand tons of sugar a year and had a fleet of thirty cane-hauling trucks that operated around the clock. Operators who dispatched trucks and maintained contact with the drivers manned a three-story radio control tower.

At three o'clock in the morning on May 3, something still unexplained happened. Rodolfo Espinosa, forty two, one of the radio operators, was on duty at the time.

"The regular operator is Perfecto Diaz, but he got up and walked away from the unit, so I sat down in case somebody called" Espinosa said. "At that instant, a voice came over the radio, a small voice but something different.

“I felt it wasn't human. It said, ‘Hey, Joe, we need help. Please get the trailer in the woods.’ I thought it was a joke. I said, 'Who's trying to be funny?' And the same voice said, ‘Hey, Joe, we need help. Please get the trailer in the woods.’

"Before this happened, Diaz and I and Wilfredo De La Vega, a mechanical engineer who is the shift supervisor, had been watching strange lights some distance away. When I heard this voice, I was shocked. I was in a stupor for some time until De La Vega touched me and told me to answer.

VOICE DOESN’T SOUND HUMAN

"When I said, 'Pardon, please?' the same voice answered with the same message in the same tone of voice: 'Hey, Joe, we need help. Please get the trailer in the woods.'

“After that, we sat for a while and then I radioed an inquiry asking if anybody else had heard the messages. Several drivers said they had. One of them, Elias Llamo, even said, 'It doesn't sound human.'

"You see, when we operate our units, each time you depress or release the button of your microphone, you hear a clicking sound. But there was no clicking sound any of the three times we heard this message. It was something we wondered about. It seemed that something just came in without a microphone being used, because we didn't hear a clicking sound"

Two drivers were instructed to see if a trailer was in the woods. "We could see a light in that area from the tower" Espinosa said. "It was bright and round"

Before long, a dozen people had crowded into the radio tower. Among them were Serafin Villasor, fifty four, the assistant transportation superintendent, his wife and young son.

"When we got to the tower" Villasor said, "eight people were already there looking toward the mountains to the east of us. We saw one big stationary light just above the skyline of the mountains and two smaller lights but also very intense. They would shine and move a little, then disappear and appear again in another place"

Elias Llamo, forty two, one of the truck drivers, said: "Benito Oscianas and I were instructed to pull a trailer from Hacienda Paraiso and while I was driving there I saw very clearly three round, bright lights. When I got near them, they moved to another place.

"What surprised me was that while I was approaching them and was about half a kilometer away, I saw one round light glowing like an ember, and at frequent intervals another bright light kept penetrating the glowing circle like a piston, moving back and forth inside and outside that glowing red light.

INTERCHANGES OF LIGHTS AND COLORS

"When I reached Paraiso, I noticed two bright lights following me but eventually the lights went out. I thought it was a truck but no truck came. The lights just went out.

“A little while later, after hitching the trailer to my truck and starting back to the mill, I got a closer look at the lights. The closest was about fifty meters. It was in front of me with the beams directed towards me.

“I switched my engine off and told the tower I couldn't see because the lights were directly on me, very glaring. For about two minutes I couldn't see anything, then the lights went out"

Mill employees also saw a number of UFOs between May 1 and May 6. Truck driver Aurelio Animas, thirty seven, saw them on May 1 and May 2, both times about two in the morning.

"On May 1, I was five kilometers from the mill when I saw four bright lights" Animas said. "They were all about the same height and it looked like there was about three meters between each light. They were green, white and red. There were intermittent interchanges of lights and color and they were triangular in shape.

"The leftmost light would rise at times about a meter and a half and when it did the right light, which was red and triangular, would move downward about the same distance.

“I called the tower and asked if they could see what I was seeing. They told me they could see only one light and it was triangular with a red colored base with different lights along the sides of the triangle.

"I called other trucks in my area and four drivers told me they'd seen what I was seeing. I watched these lights for about two hours. The only movements were the tilting downwards or upwards of the two outer lights. There were two smaller lights in between.

"I thought the lights were over the hill but the people in the tower said they were east of them near the mountains, so they must have been fifteen or sixteen kilometers east of me"

DRIVER HIDES UNDER TRUCK

Animas’s other sighting came the next night east of the mill. Wilfredo De La Vega, the shift supervisor, was with him.

"The night before he'd asked me to let him know if I had other sightings, so I called him at the tower" Animas said. "With De La Vega in my truck, I drove to Hacienda Carmen, where the lights were already bright. When we were almost to the light, we stopped because we were afraid.

"The light gradually turned away from us and grew dim in the distance. We were about a half a kilometer from it. It was triangular too and had lights at the base at intervals and multi-colored lights at the sides"

Another driver, Jesus Polvoroso Sion, didn't believe any of the UFO stories he'd been hearing but at one forty in the morning on May 6 he became a believer. He had unhitched a trailer and was heading back to the mill when he saw bright lights on the left side of the road half a kilometer away.

"Suddenly on my right side, close to the bamboo groves, I saw a bright light, brighter than the first one, and it seemed to have reached me already" Sion said. "I got down from my truck and hid under it. I was afraid that this was what we call the bulalakaw"

Rene De Assis Jr., a sugar industry association official who was interpreting, explained that the legendary bulalakaw is a fiery bird or object that comes from the skies. It is considered a bad omen for anyone who sees it because death may come to a loved one if it is seen without saying prayers.

"I was afraid" Sion continued, "because by this time I was quite close to the object, about fifteen meters from it, and I could see some kind of fire or lights surrounding it. It was shaped somewhat like a disc. I was so afraid I climbed into the truck and drove as fast as I could back to the mill"

COMMON ELEMENTS IN SIGHTINGS

The extent of the sightings in the Philippines during this period will never be known.

"Literally thousands of people in the Philippines saw these objects in dozens of areas" Rolando Espina, the news agency's bureau chief in Bacolod City, told me. He had investigated many sightings in Negros Occidental Province.

"Why this rash of sightings? I don't think thousands of people could all be that gullible. Many of them are professionals, sober leaders in their communities, engineers and lawyers. These are not the kind of people who can easily be convinced that suddenly you see something up there.

"In all these sightings there is the common element of very bright and multi-colored lights. Many of them are triangular or circular objects that can speed up very, very fast or they can just hover for a very long time.

"In the case of the First Farmers, the sighting was for almost two hours. One of our leading science writers in the Philippines came out with the conclusion that these may have been fireballs, but how can a fireball hover for thirty minutes and then suddenly speed up?

"I hope the government would adopt a sensible policy of not just shrugging these things off but rather studying them for all they are worth. Something definitely is there"

Most governments show no official interest in UFOs, but Colonel Lomongo did ask his government for help.

"I put in a request for some specialists to come and see what this is all about because it is beyond our competence to determine what these flying objects are" the colonel said. "The Air Force sent some people here in May, but I don't know what they found out"

He said he believed UFOs pose a threat of some kind. "We don't know what they are, and anything we don't know, I worry about. We have to take the necessary steps to assure the safety of the people here. That's our business"